Martin Woodward

One of my friends recently gave me "Effective C#" by Bill Wagner. I just wanted to do a quick post to say what an excellent book this is.

I have recently moved from Java to C# and because the languages are so similar I can often do things in C# exactly the same way as I did them in Java but that isn't always the best way. This book explains what those better ways are.

Normally in a book such as this I would find myself disagreing with many of the recommendations, however Bill Wagner does a great job of explaining why he is recommending what he is (sometimes delving down into the IL to show you what he means). This means you can understand when that tip should and shouldn't apply.

I recommend that you get this book and skim through the tips one day when you have some time (I did it on a train). Then when you are next writing some C# you will remember the tip and can go look up exactly what he was talking about.

It has been ages since I have read any fiction. I am doing quite a few miles in the car at the moment and have little time to sit down with a book to relax. Last week, I was very kindly given "The Broker", the new book by John Grisham - but as an audio book.

Podcasts are good to help pass the time in the car (and have the advantage of being free) but following the story of Marco trying to survive in Italy has made a nice change. Some of John Grisham's observations on Europe have been painfully incorrect at times, and I obviously have to suspend my technical head when he talks about the latest Smart Phones or hacking a super secret satellite system. It follows the same Grisham formula and is un-challenging. I love it! - great fun to listen to. I would recommend you take a read or a listen if you have the time.

Fantastic news. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is set to be extended this year with new editions of the radio series and also (finally) the movie that Douglas Adams tried so long and hard to get made.

Update: 24/9/2004 Just listened to the first of the new radio series and it is superb. I was worried when I heard they were going to be doing a new one, but it seems to be working out brilliantly. I've listened to the old series so many times I'd forgotten how funny and fresh Hitchhiker is.

Doing a big peice of UI design again at the moment. While avoiding writing documentation, found a couple of books that are pretty good, however the titles will certainly not help improve my wife's opinion of my job.

First up with have Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman. This is rapidly becoming a standard text on the subject like Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity by Jakob Nielsen. However, unlike Nielsen's book Designing with Web Standards is well laid out, up to date and an interesting read.

Next up is Defensive Design for the Web or to give the book its full title; "Defensive Design for the Web: How to Improve Error Messages, Help, Forms, and Other Online Crisis Points" - proof positive that search engines are ruing the art of a good title. Despite the rather uninspiring title, this is a good read with helpful comparisons that really make you think about design. If I could only get as far as generating error messages from my current project... At least they will give me something to read on the train.

The first commercial E-Ink product is about to hit the market in Japan. According to the BBC the Sony LIBRIé 1000-EP will cost around £200 and be available in April.

While this is the first version of the technology, it looks like it may well take off. If the screen is as good as it sounds, the propect of weighing your holiday bags down with paper-backs may well be coming to an end...

The Register have the specs of the new device. They say that the display is 800x600 @ 170dpi - as apposed to the usual computer display resolutions of 72dpi. The unit weighs 190g and measures 12.6 x 19 x 1.3cm. with a USB 2.0 port, Qwerty keypad, speaker and earphone socket.

Electronic Ink only requires power to change the display. The early prototypes had a slow refresh rate but the advantage that once the display has been changed the power is switched off, meaning you can spend as long as you want actually reading the text. Indeed, the press release says that 4 AA batteries lasts for 10,000 page changes.

No news yet on the systems OS. My guess is a palm based system as it is in Sony's ----é range. It would also support the speaker and headphone allowing you to play MP3's on the device...

Ever wanted to connect your toaster to the internet, turn a skyscraper into a giant display, add a web server to your filter coffee machine or make a furby say things that will severely disturb the kids - then have a read of Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks by Scott Fullam.

The book is full of cool projects to try out and waste some of your spare money / time on. It has clear photos, circuit diagrams and schematics allowing you to do something useful with all that technology you may have lying around. If, like me, you don't have a lot of spare time or money at the moment then you should still read the book and dream of the things you could do... Hmm, satanic furby...

BBC Four recently broadcast an interesting documentary Tetris: From Russia With Love which was a very interesting account of the battles behind this simple but addictive game set against the backdrop of Cold War tensions. Rupert Murdoch's access into the Russian political system is also highlighted.

Anyway, an article on the Register has highlighted Thomas Reed's book At The Abyss which looks well worth a read.

As an insiders story of the cold war, It tells how the United States exported control software that included a Trojan Horse, and used the software to detonate the Trans Siberian gas pipeline in 1982. The Trojan ran a test on the pipeline that doubled the usual pressure, causing the explosion. Reed was Reagan's special assistant for National Security Policy at the time but the software subterfuge was so secret that Reed didn't know about it until he began researching the book, twenty years later. The scheme to plant bugs in Soviet software was masterminded by Gus Weiss, who at the time was on the National Security Council and who died last year. Soviet agents had been so keen to acquire US technology, they didn't question its provenance.

"[CIA Director] Bill Casey at Weiss at the NSC decided to help the Russians with their shopping. Every piece of sw would have an added ingredient," Reed to NPR's Terry Gross last week.

Russia originally developed it own home brewed IT industry under the inspirational leadership of Sergei Lebedev they built a computer that generated so much heat they knocked walls down and took the roof off to try and keep it cool. In a fasinatic account on Radio 4, you are told how they cannibalised cash registers and turned them into printers. It ran a sample program for the anniversary of the Revolution in 1950 and on Xmas Eve 1951 it started full-time operations. However, the political decision was made in 1967 to copy IBM computers instead of keep faith with their own designs If they had stuck with there designs things might have turned out different...

All this could explain why China are taking such an interest in the Open Source community and in a homebrewed IT industry. Much more difficult for anyone to hide trojan horses in open source code and in hardware that is designed in China...

Got given this fantastic book by my wife. It is a very interesting account of the trade in ice from America to rest of the world. This explains why the British are soo stingy when it comes to ice in drinks and why every fridge in America has an ice machine and why us brits like warm flat bitter instead of ice cold largers. Doesn't explain all you can drink soda's though. Well worth a read.