Paul Hammond
Agile, Software and Life
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- Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:09:42 GMT
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RSS FEED IDEMS: Paul Hammond
- iTunes Bloat - Update
Having purged over 1Gb of Temp Files after writing my last blog post about iTunes using lots of disk space, 5 days later I was back up to 1Gb again.
This time I noticed that the Temp Files were all timed at either 2 or 3 minutes past the hour, which made me suspect something specific was triggering the new file creation. I checked my PodCast update schedule, and found it was set to run hourly, at 2 minutes past the hour. Coincidence? I think not.
I set PodCast updates to be daily, and the Temp File creation has become more of a daily occurrence. Still annoying, but at least I won't have to purge the files so often.
Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:09:42 GMT - New Design For phammond.com
As you can probably tell (unless you are reading this in a feed reader) I have spent the last few evenings in my Shanghai hotel room creating a new layout for dasBlog. It has been a while since I coded any HTML or CSS, but it was great fun. I need to go back and clean up a few things (too many bad habits from wanting to rush to the finish line!) but I am pretty happy with the results. It is nicer than the very plain white at least.
Let me know if you like it. And let me know if you find any display bugs in your favourite browser...
Enjoy!
Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:18:14 GMT - iTunes Bloat - Check Your Own iTunes Folders
[4:53am, Shanghai - jet lag can be nasty sometimes]
I discovered an issue with iTunes a little while ago while performing a routine clean-up of my hard disks. Essentially, when iTunes tries to save your "iTunes Music Library.xml" file, it appears to create a temporary file first that it renames once it is successfully saved.
The issue is that iTunes doesn't clean up these temporary files, for some reason. When I didn't have many songs in iTunes, that didn't seem to matter so much, but now I have 65 Gigs of music (approximately 12,000 songs and counting) my Library XML file is 20Mb in size. Every temporary file it creates is the same size - 20Mb - and that soon adds up. iTunes is supposed to delete these files when you exit the software, but (a) it doesn't and (b) I never quit iTunes anyway as I leave it running to download PodCasts.
What is worse, is that it seems to be adding between 5 and 8 copies of this file every day. Here is a screen shot of my current iTunes folder. I cleaned it up 5 or 6 days ago. I am already back up to 1 Gig of used space in "Temp File X" files already.
I have had to set up a nightly job that emails me the size of this folder so that I know when to go and purge it. Ridiculous.
There is an Apple help file on this that you can find here: "iTunes: Multiple Temp Files in iTunes Folder". Incredibly, this has been happening since version 3 of iTunes. *Surely* iTunes knows when it isn't using a particular "Temp File X" and can just go and delete it for me? Oh well.
So, go and check your "My Music\iTunes" folder to see if you can reclaim any of your disk space!
Sun, 16 Dec 2007 20:54:28 GMT - Niamh's Christmas Wish For 2007
It is good to know that I have brought up my baby girl with a well-rounded approach to Christmas.
Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:52:35 GMT - My Novel Is Complete!
Well,
after 29 days of writing, I submitted a 50,025 word novel to the NaNoWriMo
website and their word-count bots verified my masterpiece. Then they let
me pick up my "Winner" award. That's right, I get a small graphic that I can
post to my blog and send to my mum and dad. Oh, and of course, I get the satisfaction
of having succeeded at something.
For those who are interested, I used an Agile approach to my writing. To prove it, here is my burn-up chart for the month. As you can see, I had a nerve-wracking few days around the 23rd due to sickness. The 28th was a word frenzy as I caught up!
Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:04:04 GMT - Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 Released
Visual Studio 2008 and .Net 3.5 were released to manufacturing (RTM) on Monday just gone. Here is a link to the main Visual Studio 2008 Developer Center.
Scott Guthrie has a blog posting about the VS2008 release here.
More importantly, he has a posting about uninstalling Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2008 here.
I think I will still probably rebuild my laptop instead of risking the uninstall process. In the past I have always ended up with random Beta bits hanging around and it just makes everything unstable. That is the price of early-adoption I guess.
Microsoft's development tools and technologies go from strength to strength and I am proud to be part of this company. Congratulations to all on the VS team!
Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:15:08 GMT - ClearContext v4 "Mark As Read" Feature
Little things can sometimes make me very very happy. I was just checking out the new options in v4 of ClearContext and stumbled across the "Mark message(s) as read when filing" option. I have been waiting for this simple feature forever!
Usually, I would have to select each message in a thread individually and mark it as read manually before filing it. Now I can just click "File Thread" on any message in that thread and know that it is cleanly filed away. That will save me a ton of time and keystrokes when managing my inbox.
Yey!
Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:18:20 GMT - Novel Update - Half Way There
Having temporarily turned this blog into the Ruby-blog when we bought our puppy, I am now turning it into the Novel-blog. Sorry...!
Midnight last night marked the halfway point of the month. 15 days gone, 15 days to go. To be on track I needed to be at 25,000 words by bedtime last night.
I am pleased to say I am at 25,911 words, just keeping the word count slightly ahead of the game. The better news is that I *think* I have the rest of the story planned out in my head now, and I *think* it will be enough to fill the remaining 24,000-odd words.
Now, who wants to read it when I'm done?
Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:37:19 GMT - An Update On My Novel
So, I am seven complete days in now, and I should be at 11,667 words. I am at 11,292, which is pretty close. I am finding it a little easier to write than I did on days 1 and 2, and the words are definitely flowing better. There is no guarantee that they are any good, of course, but at least I am getting them down "on paper".
In the process, I have found a nice editor that allows me to focus just on the novel - Dark Room. They describe the tool as follows:
"Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, Dark Room is just about you and your text."
By default, it runs full screen, and is completely black. The text is green. It allows you to focus on only your writing, without screen clutter or distractions. Give it a go.
My friend Casper is also working on a novel, and his word count currently stands at 1,859 according the the NaNoWriMo site. I hope he has written more than this and has just neglected his online count, otherwise he may struggle to hit the finish line!
Also, Drew Miller has started writing, after seeing tweets (either mine or Casper's I guess) about this on http://twitter.com. Scarily, he started on day 3, and then trashed his first effort yesterday on day 7 and started again. He now has to write 2,175 words a day to succeed. Doubly scary is the fact he is posting every chapter to a blog as he finishes it - I just don't have the guts for that! Check out Drew's work here.
Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:27:53 GMT - ClearContext v4 Released Today
An
update to my favourite Outlook add-in has been released today - check out the
ClearContext press release here, and then run (don't walk) to download
ClearContext here.
Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:48:13 GMT - Writing A Novel In 30 Days
November
is National
Novel Writing Month. I initially found out about this a couple of years
ago, but never felt that I had the time to spend writing 50,000 words in 30 days.
This year though, having just returned from a relaxing holiday in the Caribbean and believing I had just enough spare time to do it, I thought I would bite the bullet and have a go.
The idea is to write 50,000 words in November to "win". The only prize is your own sense of self-achievement. Think "running a marathon" for lazy types who prefer to exercise their fingers. You have to just let the words come, with minimal editing. It isn't even all that important to have the plot lined up in advance (at least I hope it isn't, since I don't have a clue where mine is going).
So here I am on day 5, with 4,593 words under my belt. 45,407 to go.
Makes you wonder what the heck I am doing wasting time and words writing to you folks reading my blog! Get back to the novel Paul, time is ticking...
Anyway, it isn't too late to catch up - you can still get 50,000 words in if you start in the next day or so. Go on, challenge yourself...
Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:49:26 GMT
