Month: September 2007 (Page 2 of 3)

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Windows Vista ships with a technology called ReadyBoost that is intended to increase the performance on systems that arenâÂ?Â?t equipped with an adequate amount of RAM. The idea is good, the user simply plugs in a USB key and lets Vista use a part of the keyâÂ?Â?s capacity as a sort of âÂ?Â?extra RAMâÂ?Â?. No need to run out and buy expensive (which they really arenâÂ?Â?t anymore) RAM modules; all you need is a fairly fast USB key. The setup is really easy; if Vista recognizes the USB key as being ReadyBoost capable when the key is plugged in, Vista asks the user if he or she wants to increase the system’s performance with ReadyBoost. If the user clicks yes, Vista will ask how much of the USB keyâÂ?Â?s capacity should be used for this and after the user has specified the amount and clicked OK, the setup is done.

Now it�s time for a history recap. Does anybody remember some 12 years ago when software like RAM Doubler and others were quite popular? They claimed that through various ingenious techniques they could make the system manage the memory so much more efficiently that installing the software would create a performance increase equal to doubling the amount of physical RAM in the system. This, of course, is also a good idea.

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I admit that my tests weren�t conducted in a very scientific manner. I booted into Vista, performed a couple of operations, such as resizing a hundred images in Photoshop, and I used my watch to measure how long it took to complete the operation. Afterwards I plugged in a fairly fast 4GB Sandisk Cruzer key, assigned the recommended portion of it to ReadyBoost and re-ran my tests. My test system was a regular Lenovo desktop system and I ran the tests with 1GB, 512MB and 256 MB of RAM installed. In addition to this, I also tested on a Lenovo ThinkPad T60 with 1GB RAM. I couldn�t see any improved performance in either of my tests. For instance, in my desktop test with 512 MB RAM installed the resize operation took 79 seconds without ReadyBoost and 77 with; obviously I would never have noticed the difference without a watch in my hand. I did the 256 MB test just for fun and it was a long time since I�ve seen a hard drive swap like that. Again though, I saw no difference in the test with ReadyBoost, it swapped just as much as without and the operations took just as long to complete.

To conclude, my tests were pretty basic and if anybody has an idea how to make ReadyBoost work better, I�d be happy to listen. Meanwhile, I�m not going to use ReadyBoost on any of my systems, because the minute it takes to set it up has proven to be too difficult to get back. For Vista users looking for a true performance boost, I recommend installing XP. Some would call that a down grade, but I�m not too sure.

We’re thinking about writing a new application in .NET. I tend to believe that there’s not much difference between any of the languages that Microsoft has created for .NET. VB is essentially C# with different keywords and punctuation, for example. You’re certainly not going to change the design of your code because you had to write end instead of }, so, for a long time, it seemed irrelevant to discuss anything but C#.

Then Microsoft fixed their C++ implementation with C++/CLI. This is actually a different language from C#. It tries pretty hard to be C++ with access to the .NET runtime and some extra pointer syntax. In particular, you can still have deterministic destructors, free functions, and generic programming. You’ll write a different program with C++/CLI than you would with C#, so it’s worth thinking about which language you’d choose.

Deterministic Destructors

Actually, you just have destructors. There is a way to create the whole IDispose mess in a C++/CLI class, but it’s largely irrelevant since the destructor actually works. This blog explains how to do it, if you’re curious.

With real destructors, you can use the resource acquisition is initialization (RAII) idiom to make your code exception safe and easy to read at the same time. C# supports exceptions, but it relies on some quirky syntax to make them safe to use. If the programmer forgets to use the quirky syntax in a few places, then the code can do some really weird things. (No, there aren’t any memory leaks. People like to claim that that’s a serious problem with C++. Releasing resources is a more general problem that garbage collection does not solve. RAII solves the whole problem rather than a corner case.)

Anyway, I’ve gotten lazy as a C++ programmer, and I’m not sure I’m willing to go back to a world where exception safety is something you have to work hard to achieve, and releasing resources correctly is not something that the compiler does automatically for you.

To me, this is enough to make me not want to touch a complex application in C#, but let’s keep going.

Free functions

C# does not have free functions. Every function is a member of a class. This sort of restriction really irritates programmers like me. Why does the compiler writer get to decide what the right solution to a problem is? Why can’t I use the tool that’s right for my problem?

In C#’s defense, I think they’re using theory that it’s harder to kill yourself with a blunt knife. There are a lot of bad programmers out there in the world. Some of them don’t know when to use a free function and when to use a static member function. The designers of C# decided that in a fully OO application, there shouldn’t be much need for free functions. In the majority of the cases, free functions are, therefore, a bad idea. If you don’t let programmers use them at all, then programmers who don’t want to worry about getting things right have one less decision to make. C#’s solution is, therefore, ideal for them.

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For some reason, I picked on free functions. I’m a fan of them, but there are other things missing from C#: multiple inheritance, a preprocessor, etc. It’s all the same story.

Generic Programming

Some people are violently against this stuff, so I won’t try to argue that it’s got its place. I’d certainly miss it, but I doubt I’d use much of it here at PC-Doctor.

Refactoring Tools

C++ is a frighteningly complex language. Creating a C++ complier is an enormous amount of work. Generally, by the time companies are done with the C++ compiler, they’ve run out of time and budget.

Refactoring tools never seems to get put in the budget. Of course, changing the name of a type and having to figure out where all the instances that need to be changed are can be both difficult and occasionally impossible in C++.

C#, on the other hand, has some great refactoring tools. This makes some things a heck of a lot easier.

Conclusion

C++ and, by extension, C++/CLI has a lot of features. There are a lot of things in there that are dangerous to use in the wrong circumstances. However, if you spend all your time doing something, you want to have all the tools available to you. You’re willing to learn the extra parts that aren’t useful every day. I want to have enough tools to hurt myself.

The refactoring tools will be missed, and I hope that someone will get around to making some good ones for C++ eventually.

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This series will discuss the use (or lack thereof) of technology by the leading candidates for the 2008 race for the White House. I’ll spend time on each of the leading candidates and analyze what technologies they’re using and their implementation of each. The final part in this series will be an attempt to grade each candidate, ranking them one against the other.

The 2008 Candidates – in order of recent rankings within each party by RealClearPolitics (data collected on September 7, 2007)

Republicans

1. Rudy Giuliani – 28.0%
2. Fred Thompson – 17.0%
3. Mitt Romney – 13.8%
4. John McCain – 10.4%

Democrats

1. Hillary Clinton – 38.3%
2. Barack Obama – 21.5%
3. Al Gore – 13.3%
4. John Edwards – 10.3%

Let’s get started, shall we?

Rudy Giuliani – Republican

The first, and most obvious segment of any modern campaign is the candidate’s official website. Giuliani’s website design is clean and all things important are available from the home page and easily found. There is a live feed accessible from the home page and appears to be updated regularly each day. The site also offers blog widgets that integrate Giuliani content into your blog. The widgets include a Contribution Form, Live Feed, and Badgets (support banners & images). The site effectively integrates videos in a YouTube style focusing on the latest Giuliani speeches and also incorporates Podcasts directly into the home page called the Rudy Media Center.

After browsing the site for some time I expected to find an “official” blog link. Much to my disappointment I did not find one. I did stumble upon a talk radio show locater which is a novel idea. You choose a state, city, and then a local radio show and it presents you with the contact number for the show. Since conservatives tend to dominate talk radio, this is probably a useful function for Giuliani’s site users.

The site also provides The Buzz which appears to be a feed of news stories related to Rudy and the campaign including a badge that displays the number of views for the particular article showing popularity. There are many other typical functions that you’d expect to find including a Donate Now button, Get Involved, and the Rudy Store. Most pages present the common social bookmarking buttons for Digg, Del.icio.us, RSS, Facebook, etc. near the bottom.
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From what I can tell, the official Giuliani MySpace page is located here: http://www.myspace.com/joinrudy2008. Strangely, the MySpace page is set to private. I’ve added Giuliani to my Friends list but have yet to hear a response. The design of this page is also the default MySpace design. It is questionable whether this is the official MySpace page for the Giuliani campaign. If it is, it’s a huge disappointment. If it isn’t, where the heck is it? Does one exist?

The Good:

1. Social bookmarking links available
2. YouTube style videos
3. Podcasts
4. Live Feeds
5. Radio talk show locator
6. Nifty blog widgets
7. Effective use of AJAX
8. The Buzz feed
9. Clean site

The Bad:

1. No official blog
2. Lack of participation in other blogs
3. Questionable MySpace presence at best
4. No text messaging updates

Rudy Giuliani’s website is effective and has some pretty novel functionality, but is lacking in a few areas. There are two glaring issues with his campaign’s web presence, the lack of an official blog and the oddly private MySpace page. Let’s see how he stacks up against the other candidates.

Stay tuned…

Update

Since writing this article it appears that Rudy has addressed the MySpace issues. His MySpace page is no longer private, has a custom design and provides a few videos. We’ll see how his MySpace page stacks up against the competition, as next week we’ll review Hillary Clinton.

In August, CompTIA (the Computing Technology Industry Association) released an updated set of standard error codes. The announcement was followed by PC-Doctor’s release of the free Error Code Wizard. “What’s the big deal?” you might ask. Well, let me tell you.

Alright, I’ll be the first one to admit it. The phrase “standard error codes” just doesn’t generate the same level of buzz as “Apple lowers the price on the iPhone.” But, how does it sound when I link it to a statement like, “save millions of dollars per year?” Has a nice ring doesn’t it? Use the error codes with accurate diagnostics (like PC-Doctor, for example) and you will be able to perform quantitative root cause analysis and that should save the industry millions in reduced No Fault Found/No Trouble Found rates. Now that is something I can relate to!

If you haven’t seen the set of codes yet, you can download the list from the CompTIA Web site (http://www.comptia.org/sections/services/error_codes.aspx). A complete error code is six characters long, for example, DOLM32. The first character represents the user’s operating system. The second character is the mode of failure (such as continuous, intermittent, LED fault, etc.). The third shows the action taken by the service provider. The fourth through sixth characters represent the failing device type (one of ten categories) and finally, the actual symptom or failure. In the example above, DOLM32 means:

A Vista system (D) with a Pre-failure Diagnostic result (O) had its hard drive returned defective (L). The hard drive (M) had given a prefailure notice that a threshold was exceeded (32).

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While I cannot guarantee that you will be able to save huge piles of money just by implementing the revised CompTIA error codes or by using the Error Code Wizard, I know you will be better positioned to dramatically improve your bottom line. Why? In a word: information. The more information you have about what is happening in the field, the better you can predict and maintain your component inventory, respond to your customer’s needs, have whiter teeth, fresher breath, and more free time.

What do you think about the new error codes or the Error Code Wizard? Will you use them or will you avoid the whole subject because of JKMG02?

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News of Apple’s 33% price cut on iPhones caused quite the stir at PC-Doctor yesterday. At least one person dashed to the local Apple store to pick up a discontinued 4GB for $299.

Meanwhile, poor me seethed over a $200 price cut on the 8GB. I bought mine on Aug. 19. Yesterday was Sept. 5. That’s 17 days after the purchase. The Apple policy only covers 14 days. If only.

Not one to let stupid stuff stand:

1) I wrote Jobs. OK, that’s total vanity, but it feels good. And based
on past experience, he sometimes responds. My rant ended with a simple
request: Be good to your customers.
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2) I called my credit card company and put a hold on the purchase.
Reason stated: Overpayment. Perhaps another meaningless gesture, but maybe enough credit card execs can question Apple’s wisdom.

3) I called the local Apple store and parried briefly with the store clerk who wisely turned me over to John the store manager. That’s when I heard something that ranks among the dumber statements made in customer service history: “You know, sir, that technology prices drop over time. “No kidding”, I responded, but in my 30 years in the tech industry, rarely have I seen a cut this big, this soon, on such an expensive product without having a program in place to protect customers – ESPECIALLY from a blue chip name like Apple.

I don’t know if it was the logic or the volume, but John the store manager did the right thing in the end: He offered me a $200 store credit for use at the Apple store or at Apple.com.

Now, if only Apple does the right thing like John the Store Manager without forcing other customers to ask. Thank you, John.