A new printer for home

I've just had a very interesting weekend purchasing printers.

My requirements were

1. Cheap to run
2. Capable of printing photos
3. Worked remotely (bluetooth or WiFi)
   
4. Would work with Apple Mac and Windows (XP and Vista)
   

I personally didn't think these requirements were too demanding.

My first mistake was to go out and buy something without researching (I was in a bit of a hurry, which is my excuse), normally I would research quite a bit before buying computer hardware.

I'd previously read several articles in photography magazines about all in one photo printers, and felt that was a good option as it would save desk space (scanner, printer, copier all rolled in one). So I bought a Kodak 5300 , my reasoning for this was that it was advertised as being 50% cheaper than all its competitors, great the kids can print and print without me breaking out in a cold sweat. I would need a bluetooth dongle to go wire free but I had one lying around somewhere so that shouldn't be a problem.

So I get home and begin the installation on my Apple Mac and the problems begin:

1. Says compatible with OSX 10.4.8 and above - well I'm on 10.4.11 and the installation software flatly refused to accept that 10.4.11 is newer than 10.4.8. So off I go to the Kodak web site and download a newer installer, problem resolved. The software installs fine, and I can print using the USB port.
2. Next problem, as with all new things I like to test them. So I try the scanner and it actually locks up my Apple Mac ( and I mean really locks it up, I had to turn the Mac off). Back to the Kodak site and download and install firmware. At this stage I'm wondering if I have made a mistake here.
3. Third problem. I plug the bluetooth adapter in thinking surely no more problems. Oh how wrong I am. Nothing can see the printer, I even tried my mobile phone. So I go back to google to see what I can find out, and guess what the only bluetooth dongle supported is the Kodak one, which you can't buy from the shops and have to order (I wish it had been more specific on the box).

At this stage I gave up and go back the PCWorld to request an alternative printer, expecting to have a fight on my hands I make sure I have my list of reasons why they should exchange. I was gob smacked the tech support guy just turned around and said no problems the printer doesn't do what is says on the box so all I can do is recommend a HP printer, that will work. Wow and big thumbs up to PCWorld for a hassle free exchange.

So I get a recommendation of a HP C4380 and I start the process all over again.

Install the software on a Mac using the USB port, prints and scans fine.

Disconnect the USB port and connect the printer to the Wirless Router, and try to print from the Apple Mac that worked but also I can scan images remotely as well (bit daft because I have to walk from one room to another to do it, but it's still a neat trick to impress the kids). I'm well impressed so far, well done HP for a superb product. Not so well done Kodak, I think you need to sort out you design specs. I can live with slightly more expensive ink cartridges if everything else works.

By the way my next blog will be about getting a HP C4380 working with an Orange Livebox

Last FM Altio graph demo

Tom Martin one of the Altio development team put together a LastFM demo using the Altio Graph control, you can see Tom's blog entry here Altio Last FM demo

February Roundup

Better late than never..... one day I will have time to do the summary of the month when the month ends.

IDE's Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 vs Eclipse
So I'm now well into .Net web services, although I have to say I do think Eclipse wins the best IDE competition. My distant past when using Visual Studio was my staple diet for cutting code must of blurred into happy memories.... reality has hit home - the autocompletion doesn't quite cut it when compared to Eclipse.

Other things that have come on the IDE scene is a new AJAX designer if there are anymore AJAX tools out there I can't see how people will decide where to look, why not try AltioLive it's not AJAX, it's not silverlight it's a full on Enterprise RIA, the IDE is written in Altio "so we live by what we preach" :-)

Visual Studio 2005 and Webservices
While I may not be impressed with the VS 2005 IDE I have to say getting a new web service up and running was impressive. I'm pushing the idea of Web Service Contract First (WSCF) and came across WSCF by Thinktecture. It does just what it says on the box, point at a XSD create the code and the WSDL. Although I didn't use the WSDL generator and depended upon the code generated by VS.

Enterprise RIA
Talking of Enterprise RIA Curl have a good article on the power of Applet based technology over AJAX and Macromedia Flash, just replace Curl with Altio and you get the same thing plus a lot more (IMHO our IDE and user interfaces are better - that's my view and not my employers, just in case there's legal issues here)


Google social graph
http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/
http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/terms.html
I'd like to see what AltioLive can achieve with the new graph control to display social networks.

Into March
March is ramping up to be manic..... the developers on Altio 5.2 are pushing hard to have a Beta release in March, it's that 95% complete syndrome.... the odd horrible bug that just doesn't want to go away.

Oh and by the way if anyone does read my rants come visit me at JavaOne in San Franciso this year.... a few of us from Altio have decided to setup a stall and shout about how great Altio is.

End of January beginning of February

Boy, how time flies, I can't believe it's the middle of February already and the year is moving fast. The team working on Altio have released Altio 5.1.4 which is probably the last release of Altio 5.1 before we release Altio 5.2. Just to make me even busier I spent the first week of February in Boston initiating our latest project for Paragon using PRINCE project management and building a system using Altio with a SOA architecture.

The project kick off in Boston went really well with the documentation being received extremely well so now all involved in the project know about:

• the vision
• the objectives
• delivery gateways
• quality plans
• project tolerances
• staff involved

All because we have a Project Initiation Document (PID), which while it was hard work to produce I hope will provide value through the project lifecycle by ensuring the project is delivered on budget and on time.

Some in the teams are horrified at the amount of documentation we are producing to start our new projects, while we're all keen to do PRINCE project management now it is understood I feel I have a lot of pressure for it to succedd as it's my idea.

Why is the organization adopting a formal project management technique? Well it's because we want to provide effective communication to all stockholders in projects and to remove as much ambiguity and as many assumptions as possible that are typically made at the beginning of the project.

For the people doing the clever work of writing code and delivery functionality there will be little change, we will continue to use Agile methodologies.

In the end it means people in the company can continue laugh about my Burndown charts as well as now laughing about delivery Gateways. Ultimately the quality of our software is improving along with the ability to better predict the delivery dates of our projects and if testers and developers morale is kept high by laughing at me I can't complain :-) .

While the project will be a major challenge everyone is keen to see it succeed as it brings together everything Altio is about, a graphically rich and interactive front end with a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) at the back-end. When Altio 5.2 is released (due May) users will have the ability to make use of Altio's data mashups as well as screen mashups - we aim to really challenge the idea of what makes a RIA and set the benchmark high.

So Altio 5.2 is well on it's way to being delivered in May and will bring a whole new designer and set of controls... I will add more on this in a later entry.

What happened to my free range chicken!

For the first time in my life I can say a TV chef has had a direct influence over my life - and it was to do with chickens.

The cause? Well I blame Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (see Humane Hugh wants you to give up cheap chicken ) and I also blame Jamie Olivers TV shows about improving our diet. 

The effect on me? Well I couldn't buy my free range chicken or bacon from my local farm. For the past year I've had the bi-weekly pleasure of visiting Woodford Farm at Rochford Essex and get what is probably the best produced meats in my area - this week they were sold out.

OK so it is probably a good thing that people are looking to buy from local producers, who treat their animals humanely - well let's face it you drive past the pigs you will be eating in a few months time so you get to see them in a paddock wallowing in mud. But I can't help it if I feel a little hard done by as it has been my secret for almost a year.

By the way for those of you who decide to buy local from a farmer DON'T let your kids name the pigs. It can come as a bit of a shock to them when you tell them who's coming for Sunday lunch :-) , but why shouldn't they know where their food comes from.

Commuting into London - getting home, or not as the case was

OK, this is a gripe about travelling on the Fenchurch Street line run by C2C.

I spent over 4 hours trying to get home last night, maybe those of us who use C2C rail are spoilt, as c2c leads London commuter punctuality league by a mile. OK I can accept the poor weather caused problems, but to then be so disorganised to leave people stranded at a station for over 2 hours is pretty poor (well my time was 2 hours, others were still there when I left).

Rumour was that coaches would be at the station I was deposited at, well yes one turned up after 1 hour and with a train full of people trying to get onto one coach I didn't fancy getting into a fight to board the coach - so being an English gentleman I retired to the back of the crowd. So after waiting another hour a further coach arrives, along with another train full of people. This coach decides to park in a different location to the earlier one, so some of the new arrivals managed to get that coach, not me though and at this point people were getting angry.

The final solution for me was a Taxi and a £50 bill from Laindon to Westcliff.

Anyway why am I griping about this, well I heard this morning that the coaches went to Pitsea and not Laindon where me and approximately a thousand other people were stranded. What happened to contingency plans and managed recovery.

I work in IT and there always seems to be bad press about how IT planning and disaster recovery fails, well after last night I think it proves that IT are not the only areas that suffer from poor communication and bad planning.

I'd love to know who was in charge of the disaster recovery for C2C last night and see what the plan was, don't think it will happen though.

A roundup of Altio 2007

Wow, what a year 2007 was. It's been a hard year trying to achieve major things, and 2008 has been busy hence late delivery of this message.


I've been in charge of a lot of projects this year including

• deliverying a Graph tool and associated application for displaying relationships in data. The application is used by Compliance officers in big banks to assist in tracking suspicious transactions and relationships.
  


• the next version of Altio using Java Swing for the main infrastructure. Altio as a product has been around for a while and we are now re-positioning ourselves to challange Adobe Flex as a tool for creating rich web applications.
  

As well as the projects I've been in charge of the profesional services including recruitment and working with partners to design new system architecture (SOA etc) as well as talks about Altio. I'm really looking forward to 2008 when Altio 5.2 is released which will have the new designer and new controls, plus a simpler way of adding your own Java controls.