Paul Watson wrote:

I'm not sure what the best solution is. Asking the user during installation is complex but not asking them can result in bad defaults.

I think a good solution to this one is to post pone the question until the user double clicks on a PNG or PSD. Instead of associating the file with our application, associate it with a tiny application that just asks the user if they want to use the new app you just installed, or the association it had recently, e.g. Photoshop That way the user never get's pestered about things they don't care about, and only get asked when it is neceassary. Whatchya think?

.jpg wrote:

Afterall, the code is much easier to maintain if it is going to be written for a targetted platform.

I don't entirely agree with this point enitely. Some times it is, sometimes it isn't. If the life of the product is relatively short, say a year or two, then yes I entirely agree with you, it is much easier to maintain. However, if it is much longer, the techniques that you apply to achieve a cross-platform product are thee axct same ones you have to apply to use a cross-technology product. For example, if someone wrote some software that used one of GTK, Win32, WinForms as GUI's, then there is more than a fair chance that it was written in such a way that adding WPF would not be that much of a nightmare. On the other hand if none of that discipline was taken, and it was written with only MFC or WinForms in mind, then porting to WPF is a potential NightMare So in the end, adopting a discipline and strategy that allows you to minimise the cost of shifting technologies or platforms, that is usually a good thing. Unless of course the code in doing that is less than the cost of a rewrite, which it almost always is :) - Phil

Not that clear. Oim not a scurvey Poirate, and Oi use WinRar (Sorry, feeble attempt at a text pirate accent :) ) - Phil

I'm not actively planning on using it, but I have a 'big picture' plan in that I hope it makes it's way into many PHP systems. With PHP, many CMS, Forum, and other available system all introduce their own authentication system, with a simpler username and logon. That is fair enuogh, but as soon as you start trying to make these systems work together, authentication becomes an utter nightmare. If they could all agree on a single method, that would make me a happy man. - Phil

I thought the same thing, and then I was chatting to a guy at a local Design and Drafting business. They are buying half the office all new computers, all with Vista, and buying vista for the rest of computers as well. About 25 PC's all up. I think that is a pretty substantial investment for a local company, so I was quite surprised. Good on them really for being early adopters. Takes a lot of guts to embrace change. So at least we know of one now! :) - Phil

Marc Clifton wrote:

Throwing an exception is expensive

I'm not familiar enough with the CLR to know, but just how expensive is an exception? My background is C++ (where exceptions are potentially very expensive) and Java (where exceptions are very cheap) I'm going to go out on alimb and guess the CLR is somewhere in the middle? - Phil

I just use the good ol' task bar docked vertically. I just plonk any useful things on there via the Toolbars and http://, and I also get to see at least twice as many processes on my task bar. Way better! Thought when I do get Vista, I will most likely use it's funky side bar, so long as I can put a window list on there. - Phil

Also, if you haven't tried it, try using solid compression on the RAR file. It makes the archive all one stream, instead of individual files, and puts files of same type next to each other to help out the compressor. You can get quite significant savings (an extra 30% sometimes), especially if there are a large number of files.

And so does WinRar[^] (my favourite), and 7Zip[^] and many others.

Rar has always been way way cooler than zip. Better compression, solid archives, better spanning, zip just isn't in the same league. I never ever understood why zip files beat out both Rar and Arj archives. Winzip was the massive nail in the coffin for me. Horrid user interface, block whenever you click on a window to move it. Blechy! Rar Rar, Hes our man! If he can't do it, No one ... will. - Phil

The best east coast there is, Australia of course! And better yet, in Queensland! (We just had Australia day, so I'm all hyped up on patriotism) - Phil

Yep, it is only inching towards 1 pm on this east coast :) - Phil

About time. It is inevitable. It is a limited resource, and whatever other factors that are at play at are reducing the amount of precipiation, we have no direct control over. If one of the constraints is being able to sustain a growing population, or even sustain the current population, then recycling has got to be part of future water management plans. I don't look forward to the idea of drinking recycled water, but chaces are it'll be of better quality than what we get at the moment. At the end of the day I think it is just a psychological and emotional barrier we have to get over. - Phil

Australia, and yep I use it all the time. I'm helping construct an automated build and test farm, and I'm using WinRar to do all the compression of files when moving things around. Solid RAR self extracting archives are great when trying to get reliable test kits to testers. Changed our zip files from 100 meg to 60. - Phil

I hate tracking down things like this. Not a good way to spend the day! This (among many others) is one of the reasons we use PCLint[^] to help check our code. It's awsome. The output by itself is not that friendly, but there are a number of tools that help present and filter the information for you in a much more useful manner.We use our own in house one. So much time can be wasted on small problems like these ones, so anything that helps us identify them, that has gotta be good. - Phil

I'm not a travelling guru, and definitely not widely travelled, so take all this with the suitably large mound of salt :) Personally I would skip the walk of fame. It was drab, and I found it boring (I'm not much of a tv or movie person). But one thing I loved, and would consider mandatory for anyone visting was the Getty centre (http://www.getty.edu/museum/. It was amazing. Beautiful architecture. I got to se the sprawling grey concrete mass that is LA from a distance, and the art. Illuminated manuscripts, scrulpture, it was stunning. But the most amazing experience was seeing original Rembrandts. It still makes my skin go all goose pimply thinking about it. I also really enjoyed just walking around the fashion district. It was an great experience for me because: - Where I live there is 60000 people. - Everyone here speaks english - Our city isn't organise into districts. I got to talk and meet some interesting people, and seeing the accets and wide variety of people was very cool. So in summary - skip the stuff you see on TV, and go for the things you don't. - Phil

Thanks Jon. They also look very affordable, and they are the only provider so far that have gone to great lengths to say what versions of share point they use, what their plan is with newer versions. It is very good to see. - Phil

They look really affordable, which is great for an Australian company. Do you know if Quadra support Shrepoint hosting in some way? - Phil

Jeremy Falcon wrote:

(because I'm a Unix and proud of it)

You're a type of unix?? Wow. :) Thanks to Elaine, Nicholas and yourself, it looks like 1and1 might be the way to go. Thanks a bunch!

Thanks Elaine, 1on1 seems to be the consensus at the moment.