Jay Harris is Cpt. LoadTest

If you haven’t bought an Xbox 360, yet, stop reading this and go buy one. Even if you do not play video games–I certainly don’t have much time to play them–then you still need one.

I finally convinced the wife a week ago. We picked one up from Best Buy with a copy of Need For Speed: Most Wanted. It is a great game, and I am quite addicted to it, but I’m more impressed with the non-game features.

Windows Media Connect 2.0. (Sell your CD player)

I have already disconnected my CD player. It is going in a box, and I will probably sell it at the neighborhood garage sale next weekend. All of my CDs were long ripped to MP3, so that they can be played on the computer or on the iPods. The only bad thing is the home stereo system has always been the best in the house, expectedly better than iPod headphones or the computer speakers. However, now all that has changed. The Xbox 360 will stream all of my music from my computer. I no longer have to pick 5 CDs and toss them into the player. I can just turn on the 360 (wirelessly, via the remote or controller) and play whatever music I want to play. I’m not even sure if I will ever even buy a CD, anymore, instead opting from some sort of digital media, like iTunes.

One of my favorite “Cool Features” with this is that you can play your MP3s while playing a game. You can replace the in-game music with tunes to fit your current mood, yet it does affect the other sound effects in the game (like the sound of the police car behind you in NFS: Most Wanted). Through the 360, you can also control the volume of the MP3s independently of the other game sounds.

iPod Friendly

I plugged in my iPod. They had a chat for a few seconds, and I was instantly able to play anything off my iPod, just as if I was playing through the iPod UI. There was no setup, no drivers, and (my favorite) no iTunes installation. The 360 just knew what it was, and that was that. It even uses the iPod name that you gave your unit for iTunes. So, in the 360 Dashboard, I have “Jay’s iPod” or “Amy’s iPod.” This was the system I used in the 2 or three days before I got my 360 on the network. Though it is really cool, I no longer needed it thanks to WMC2.0 and streaming MP3s from the computer, since all of my MP3s are on the computer.

It’s all Wireless!

This may seem small, but it is the feature to beat all other features: the unit is totally wireless. The controllers are wireless, and the controllers can turn on the unit. I no longer have wires running across my livingroom (well, I do when I play GameCube or PS2). And if I’m going to be playing the same game I just played, or if I want to play some tunes while I’m sitting on the couch reading a book, the controller can turn on the unit, so I can be lazy and never have to get off the couch.

Xbox Live Arcade

There are over a dozen (and growing) small, downloadable games you can buy from Xbox Live Arcade. My wife loves Hexic, a small Bejeweled-like game that came with the unit (I got the fully-loaded package), though it can be purchased on the Arcade. She is addicted to it. Soon I will also buy Bejeweled 2, Gauntlet (”Warrior needs food badly.”) and Joust. This feature was available on the original Xbox, though not as fluid. There are a bunch of cool Xbox-only games that I hope come over to the 360, soon, like Pacman.

As for the games:

Need For Speed: Most Wanted
I love this game. It is a mix of NFS: Hot Pursuit and NFS: Underground. I like this much better than either one. It has the city-based racing of NFS:U, without some of the street-racing types that I didn’t like, such as URL or street-X, and above all, drifting. The pursuit is much better than NFS:HP, as the cops are much smarter, and will tag-team you to box you in using 4 or 5 cars.

I did download the demo of Project Gotham Racing 3, and I liked NFS much better. PGR3 was too touchy for me.

The next games on the list to buy are Fight Night and Oblivion.

I’m finally catching up on some of the blogs that I haven’t checked out in a while. I came across an intriguing post (on 04 March 2006) by Daniel Grunwald on the #develop teamblog. It seems that he created a tool to analyze Subversion’s ‘Blame’ output to check the ‘Blame’ data from #develop repository and tell what percentage of the code was committed by each contributor. (Incidentally, he has contributed 27% of the application, according to the post’s screenshot.)

My analyzer program gets the person who committed each line of code. Additionally, it searches log messages for the term “patch by” and uses that name instead.

He admits that the tool may need some love, and that some of his parameters are hard-coded, but it may be worth a look. I’m curious to see the contribution stats on our LMS.

Additionally, it is coded in Boo. I’ve been meaning to check out Boo, and getting Daniel’s app working against our configuration might serve as a great introductory Boo task for me.

Most of our Visual Studio solutions contain hundreds of files (classes) organized neatly into dozens of folders (namespaces), but despite all of this organization the vertical content size of the Solution Explorer can get quite large. Finding a particular file when the majority of the tree is expanded is tedious and time-consuming, considering it should be a simple effort of less than five seconds. Fortunately, all of this is solved by the click of a button (assigned to handy macro).

The most useful macro for Visual Studio that I have ever encountered (and in the running for most useful VS tool, period) is the CollapseAll macro authored by one current and one former colleague, Dennis Burton and Mike Shields. In a quick XP effort, Dennis and Mike created a handy macro that recursively collapses the entire Solution Explorer tree down to just the solution and its projects.

With the tree collapsed, it is easy to find that desired file.

The macro is functional in all versions of Visual Studio for the Microsoft.Net framework, including Visual Studio 2003, Visual Studio 2005, and Visual Studio 2008.

CollapseAll Macro for Microsoft Visual Studio
Dennis Burton & Mike Shields | Published with Permission

Imports System
Imports EnvDTE
Imports System.Diagnostics

Public Module CollapseAll
    Sub CollapseAll()
        ' Get the the Solution Explorer tree
        Dim UIHSolutionExplorer As UIHierarchy
        UIHSolutionExplorer = DTE.Windows.Item(Constants.vsext_wk_SProjectWindow).Object()
        ' Check if there is any open solution
        If (UIHSolutionExplorer.UIHierarchyItems.Count = 0) Then
            ' MsgBox("Nothing to collapse. You must have an open solution.")
            Return
        End If
        ' Get the top node (the name of the solution)
        Dim UIHSolutionRootNode As UIHierarchyItem
        UIHSolutionRootNode = UIHSolutionExplorer.UIHierarchyItems.Item(1)
        UIHSolutionExplorer = Nothing
        UIHSolutionRootNode.DTE.SuppressUI = True
        ' Collapse each project node
        Dim UIHItem As UIHierarchyItem
        For Each UIHItem In UIHSolutionRootNode.UIHierarchyItems
            'UIHItem.UIHierarchyItems.Expanded = False
            If UIHItem.UIHierarchyItems.Expanded Then
                Collapse(UIHItem)
            End If
        Next
        ' Select the solution node, or else when you click
        ' on the solution window
        ' scrollbar, it will synchronize the open document
        ' with the tree and pop
        ' out the corresponding node which is probably not what you want.
        UIHSolutionRootNode.Select(vsUISelectionType.vsUISelectionTypeSelect)
        UIHSolutionRootNode.DTE.SuppressUI = False
        UIHSolutionRootNode = Nothing
    End Sub

    Private Sub Collapse(ByVal item As UIHierarchyItem)
        For Each eitem As UIHierarchyItem In item.UIHierarchyItems
            If eitem.UIHierarchyItems.Expanded AndAlso eitem.UIHierarchyItems.Count > 0 Then
                Collapse(eitem)
            End If
        Next
        item.UIHierarchyItems.Expanded = False
    End Sub
End Module

Based on code from Edwin Evans

Here, the macro is so popular that it is a part of our default developer’s build for every new machine, and is conveniently assigned to a toolbar button. The default button icon list contains an Up Arrow (in the Change Button Image menu when customizing the toolbar) that seems quite appropriate. That little button has saved us all from a lot of pain, five seconds at a time.

Steve Yegge blogged an interesting article, yesterday, on (Not) Managing Software Developers. I feel that it is a very interesting article, and definitely worth a read. I agree with most of it, though I do warn you that it should be read with an open mind to prevent feeling “slighted” if you are the managing type.

As the title proclaims, he covers how to (not) manage your developers, advising managing types to be open to new processes and practices, be reflective in a quest for constant self-improvement, and above all to be empathetic–developers are people, too. As his posts often are, his pessimism starts at “We are all bad managers!” to aid in his self-improvement quest, forcing an ego-driven drive to improvement. Again, this is not for everyone, as he already has a few flames in his comments, though perhaps if you are on the flaming side, you may most benefit from his words; everyone should pursue self-improvement if for only to improve their craft.

One modification that I would make is that this is not just for managers. It applies to everyone on the quality assurance team, too. (I am sure it applies to everyone, everywhere, but I only speak of what I know.) We all-to-often attack our developers–even if unintentionally, and if only from their point of view–over bug-ridden code and underperforming applications. Steve’s advice will help everyone have a better understanding of everyone else. Empathy is all too uncommon in our world.

Recently, here at the ranch, we have been experiencing a few issues with Internet Explorer’s javascript functionality. It’s not that IE is doing anything wrong, but rather that it performs unexpectedly. When opening a new window in javascript [window.open()], the height and width dimensions are relative to the size of the canvas / stage / content area (depending on what discipline you are from), all commonly referred to as innerHeight and innerWidth. However, when you execute a resize function in javascript [window.resizeTo()], the height and width dimensions are relative to the size of the entire window, including any chrome, commonly referred to as outerHeight and outerWidth.

Thus, if you create a window (500px x 300px), then resize it to (505px x 305px), the window will actually get smaller, since the chrome adds more than 5 pixels to height and width.

The problem: SCOs (Courseware) can be of any size, depending on the specifications, requirements, and whims of the original clients and developers. To keep courses in their most visual-appealing state, we need to size the content window to precise innerHeight and innerWidth pixel dimensions. Due to our site’s design, the link that launches the Course Shell window has no idea what the size of the SCO is. The Course Shell (LMS) knows how big the SCO is, but it is loaded into the Course Shell window, which is obviously done after the window is created and initially sized. We need a way to size the window to content-dimensions after the window is created.

The catch: Internet Explorer has no native support for innerHeight and innerWidth, let alone a way to resize to those dimensions. Furthermore, the difference between the inner- and outer-dimensions due to window chrome can change from OS to OS and from theme to theme. For example, in Windows XP’s default “bubbly” themes, the title and status bars are much taller than in Windows “Classic” themes. Internet Explorer has no native way to identify the difference in inner- and outer-dimensions, making it difficult to resize to an inner size using an outer size command.

I hacked together some (perhaps mediocre, but still effective) javascript to resize a window to its inner dimensions rather than the outer dimensions, regardless of the amount of chrome that the OS adds.

HTML

<div id="resizeReference"
    style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%; z-index: -1;">
    &nbsp;
</div>

Javascript

function resizeWindow(iWidth, iHeight){
    var resizeRef = document.getElementById('resizeReference');
    var iOuterWidth = iWidth + 10;
    var iOuterHeight = iHeight + 29;
 
    if (resizeRef) {
        var iPreWidth = resizeRef.offsetWidth;
        var iPreHeight = resizeRef.offsetHeight;
        window.resizeTo(iPreWidth,iPreHeight);
        var iPostWidth = resizeRef.offsetWidth;
        var iPostHeight = resizeRef.offsetHeight;
        iOuterWidth = iWidth + (iPreWidth-iPostWidth);
        iOuterHeight = iHeight + (iPreHeight-iPostHeight);
    }
    window.resizeTo(iOuterWidth, iOuterHeight);
}

The HTML tag creates a hidden DIV whose height and width match the window. This provides innerHeight and innerWidth. The JS takes the dimensions of that DIV and resizes the window to those measured dimensions. Since this transfers the inner-dimensions to the outer-dimensions, this provides the exact size of the window chrome. We can now resize to the input parameter height and width, plus the height and width of window chrome, to give us a resize to inner-dimensions.

Execute resizeWindow no sooner than below the closing Body tag, so that the DIV is rendered.

It is a bit of a hack, but it works for now.

“He’s a big pig. You can be a big pig, too.” ~Timon

Turns out that Flash isn’t the murderous killer with the 9-inch chef’s knife. It’s just a big pig. Flash, within this Scorm course, was passing Scorm data to an external JavaScript function. JS was opening an ActiveX XmlHttpRequest object to send the Scorm data to the service via a WebService call (think AJAX). However, Flash was requiring that this be a synchronous call (so much for AJAX). W3C regulates [Hypertext Transfer Protocol — HTTP/1.1 RFC 2616 Section 8.1.4] that “a single-user client should not maintain more than 2 connections with any server or proxy.” Flash is busy downloading external assets, so both connections were taken, and it then says “go and make a synchronous XML call.” XmlHttpRequest object doesn’t like making a synchronous call when there are no available connections to the server; it bugs out and the browser freezes.

Hopefully things will be better with Internet Explorer 7. It is slated to no longer use the ActiveX version of XmlHttpRequest object, but rather the XmlRequest object that Mozilla uses. Perhaps this one will handle itself a little better.

Flash movies with multiple external assets can cause the browser to lock up if external Flash assets (videos, images, voice-overs, etc, that are not stored within the SWF) are unmanaged or managed improperly. I’ll use a Scorm-compliant course as an example; the example course navigates from screen using inline Back and Next buttons, and each screen loads unique external animation and voice-over to deliver the lesson topic.

The browser freezes when:
• The user skips lesson information by clicking “Next” in rapid succession (assets are not downloaded to local cache before progressing to next screen)
• The user re-enters a course for which they have a previously saved Scorm-bookmark, and quickly navigate to where they left off, either by menu navigation or by rapidly clicking “Next” (assets are not downloaded to local cache before progressing to next screen)
• The user rapidly clicks “Back” through screens that they did not experience in their entirety (assets were not fully downloaded and stored in local cache)
• The user navigates to other areas of the course through menu navigation before they have experienced the current screen in its entirety (assets are not downloaded to local cache before proceeding)
  The recurrence is exacerbated by:
  • Slower connection speeds (it takes longer to download a single asset)
  • Larger file sizes on external Flash assets (it takes longer to download a single asset)
  • Having multiple external Flash assets on a single screen (it takes longer to download a single asset)

The course does not freeze when:
• The user linearly navigates through the course, experiencing each screen in its entirety before progressing to the next screen or area. (assets are allowed to fully download and store in local cache before proceeding to next screen)
• The user skips lesson information by clicking “Next” in rapid succession through courses that they have previously visited in this session and experienced in their entirety (assets are already in local cache)
• The user rapidly clicks “Back” through screens that they did experience in their entirety in this session (assets are already in local cache)
• The user navigates to other areas of the course through menu navigation after they have experienced the current screen in its entirety (assets are allowed to fully download and store in local cache before proceeding to next screen)

When a user navigates from Screen #1 to Screen #2, any outstanding, incomplete asset downloads from Screen #1 should be stopped before beginning Screen #2 asset downloads. Failure to do so may cause the browser’s request queue to overflow, and freeze the browser window.

Such is the case when assets are not properly managed: when a user navigates from Screen #1 to Screen #2, the Screen #1 assets continue to download with the #2 assets. Likewise, when the user navigates from Screen #2 to Screen #3, assets from Screens #1, #2, and #3 are all downloading. When Flash is downloading enough concurrent assets, a request queue overflows, freezing the browser.

IMPORTANT: Users clicking Next rapidly is not the only cause of this issue. Rapid Next is just the easiest way to recreate it. The important point is that users are clicking next faster than Flash can download the other assets. In other words, navigation is adding assets to the download queue faster than Flash can download them, and the queue is filling up.

A sample browser-freezing scenario:
(Ex: Unmanaged external assets. User rapidly clicks next.)
1. User launches course. Flash switches to Screen #1 and begins downloading Screen #1 voice-over and Screen #1 animation. If applicable: HTML, Non-flash images, stylesheets, etc all download.
   (2 assets downloading)
2. User quickly hits Next. Flash switches to Screen #2. Does not sever Screen #1 asset connections. Begins downloading Screen #2 VO and Animation. If applicable: HTML, Non-flash images, stylesheets, etc all download, but do so slower.
   (4 assets downloading)
3. User quickly hits Next. Flash switches to Screen #3. Does not sever Screen #2 asset connections. Begins downloading Screen #3 VO and Animation. If applicable: HTML, Non-flash images, stylesheets, etc all download, but do so slower.
   (6 assets downloading)
4. …
5. User repeatedly hits Next. Flash navigates through appropriate screens, downloading new assets but never severing previous asset connections.
   (Many assets downloading)
• Browser request queue overflow.
• If applicable: HTML, non-flash images, stylesheets, etc, DO NOT download.
• Browser freezes.

Under a non-freezing scenario:
(Ex: Managed external assets and/or User proceeds slowly through course)
1. User launches course. Flash switches to Screen #1 and begins downloading Screen #1 voice-over and Screen #1 animation. If applicable: HTML, Non-flash images, stylesheets, etc all download with no degradation.
   (2 assets downloading)
2. User hits Next. Flash switches to Screen #2. Severs Screen #1 asset connections. Begins downloading Screen #2 VO and Animation. If applicable: HTML, Non-flash images, stylesheets, etc all download with no degradation.
   (2 assets downloading)
3. User hits Next. Flash switches to Screen #3. Severs Screen #2 asset connections. Begins downloading Screen #3 VO and Animation. If applicable: HTML, Non-flash images, stylesheets, etc all download with no degradation.
   (2 assets downloading)
4. …
5. User hits Next. Flash navigates through appropriate screens, downloading new assets. Previous asset connections are severed.
   (2 assets downloading)
• No Browser request queue overflow occurs

Example Code that causes the problem:
narrator = createClassObject(MediaDisplay, “My_VoiceOver”);
narrator.setMedia(”/Assets/MyVoiceOver.mp3″, “MP3″);

// … code omitted …
// … do some stuff …
// … do some stuff …
// … code omitted …

// commented out code
// destroyObject(”My_VoiceOver”);

The code above creates a new object that loads and plays an MP3. However, (because the line of code is commented out) the object is never destroyed and continues to download. If this function is called repeatedly, each time against a different voice-over file, the queue will overflow and the browser will freeze. The same will occur wherever destroyObject (or similar command) is not called.
To fix the code in the above scenario, destroyObject must be uncommented, allowing the object to be destroyed, thus stopping the MP3 download.

Note: This is not the only code scenario that would create this browser-freezing problem. There are many possible commands and variations.

Yesterday I finally got one: A Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. During a lunch run with Dennis to BestBuy, I broke down and bought one for work. You can buy it from Amazon for US$49.99.

First thoughts:

• The extra keys are where they are supposed to be! Finally, a keyboard that is not mangled. The arrow keys are in an inverted T. The Insert/Delete keys are in a 3×2 configuration. You can finally sell that old Natural Pro that is turning green or yellow on your desk.
• It is quiet. The keys do not click like many of the old Dell keyboards that we have lying around work.
• It feels good. The shape and dimensions fit me nicely. However, it has been a while since I used a natural keyboard, so it will take a bit to get back in to the groove. In addition, the palm rest is padded!
• I like the “Favorites” keys. There are 5 reprogrammable “Favorites” keys along the top. I set them do our different VS solutions.
• Some of the buttons are stiff. They spacebar, particularly, is stiff. I am hoping that I just have to break it in.
• No way to reprogram the “nipple.” The Zoom-slider, or “nipple” as we have come to call it, isn’t reprogrammable, yet. Right now, it zooms in apps like IE of Office. It would be much nicer if I could remap it to be a scroller. Someone needs to find a way!
• The keyboard riser had to go. A riser that comes built on raises the front of they keyboard by an inch or so. I’m the guy who pops out the legs on the back of the keyboard to tilt it toward me, so this riser had to go right away. Luckily, it pops right off.

This is a nice keyboard. If my computer at home did not have a keyboard built in to it (or if I actually used my desktop), I would buy one for there, too. I hope that a future version of IntelliType Pro allows the nipple to be reprogrammed. Then this would be the perfect keyboard.

NAnt hates .Net’s resource files, or .resx. Don’t get me wrong–it handles them just fine–but large quantities of resx will really bog it down.

Visual Studio loves resx. The IDE will automatically create a resource file for you when you open pages and controls in the ‘designer’ view. Back when we still used Visual SourceSafe as our SCM, Visual Studio happily checked the file in and forgot about it. Now, our 500+ page application has 500+ resource files. Most of these 500+ resource files contain zero resources, making them useless, pointless, and a detriment to the build.

This morning I went through the build log, noting every resx that contained zero resources, and deleted all of these useless files.

The compile time dropped by 5 minutes.

Moral of the story: Be weary of Visual Studio. With regards to resx, VS is a malware program that’s just filling your hard drive with junk. If you use resx, great, but if you don’t, delete them all. NAnt will love you for it.

An old lady calls the power company, and tells them that the power is out. The tech on the other end says “The power is on here. It must be your fault.”

I’m experiencing some very severe technical problems with my site. Please bear with me.

The site was down most of yesterday. WordPress was having trouble accessing my database server. I could access the database from remote administration tools, as well as through the control panel from my host. My site could access the database some of the time, but not reliably and not consistantly.

One of the technical support personnel, “Doug,” was convinced that the problem lay in my code. However, if the problem was with my connection strings, why would it connect even some of the time? Shouldn’t it not connect at all. Doug was very assanine; I think I was inturrupting his afternoon break and he was a bit put off.

The second tech I spoke with, whose name I don’t remember, was convinced I had used up my 20 available database connections. He said that the problem lay with my pconnect commands. 1) PHP’s pconnect is designed to reuse opened connections, so if that was the case, then WordPress should have been able to reuse one of those existing connections. 2) WordPress is the only code on my site right now, and it doesn’t use pconnect. Again, another case of “it’s your code.” Furthermore, genious tech #2, when he was trying to drop the non-existant connections to the database, instead dropped the database. Everything was gone.

The third tech I spoke with, “Dennis,” was actually helpful. He did the extra work to restore my database from the previous night’s backup, so I only lost a day of data. He also put a Brinkster (my host) approved database test page on my site, and tried to access it. Lo-and-behold, he couldn’t access the database. Imagine that. And, since this was a Brinkster-approved page, he couldn’t blame the code. So, Dennis did a little research. It turns out that the routing tables for one of the web servers in the farm I am on had an incorrect IP address for the database server in question.

Huh. I guess it wasn’t my code. Not that I thought that it was, considering the site has worked fine for 8 months now on the present code, and the code hasn’t changed.

Update: Everything should be working now. The database was restored last night. The IP address issue has been resolved. I’ve corrected the header problem (caused by a space in one of the php files). Everything seems to be wworking correctly again.