What! I missed the 1st round of the comp?
Posted by banger@epgstream in Random Thoughts on March 6th, 2009
I’ve been so busy lately that I totally forgot about the 1st round of Sport Climbing Australia‘s annual bouldering competition!
It goes without saying that I’m totally p*ssed that I didn’t keep an eye on the competition calendar but looking closer at the competition poster (right) I can see that my home gym, Climb Fit, isn’t participating this year… That would explain why I haven’t seen the usual collection of bouldering competition information plastered around the gym this year.
I’d better get back into some serious training … The 2nd round is in two weeks out at Brookvale!
- THE CLIMBING CENTRE, PENRITH 27 & 28 FEB
- NORTHERN BEACHES ROCKHOUSE, BROOKVALE 20 & 21 MAR
- HANGDOG CLIMBING GYM, WOLLONGONG 1 & 2 MAY
- THE SUMMIT, BLACKTOWN 22 & 23 MAY
- SYDNEY INDOOR CLIMBING GYM, ST PETERS 19 & 20 jUN
7/3/2009 Addendum
Looks like I was wrong … The “Tour De Corde” is actually a new competition for sports rope climbing! I should have realised but my French isn’t too good, I should have picked up on “De Corde”!
A closer look at the http://www.sportclimbingaustralia.org.au website reveals that the NSW bouldering series start in July! I’ll have to plan the wedding around the competition rounds… 
Poor Hosting Service for February/March
Posted by banger@epgstream in Announcements, Random Thoughts on March 1st, 2009
Just when I thought i was going to have a lazy weekend, sleeping in and catching up on UFC® 95 SANCHEZ vs STEVENSON with my new fiancé, my web hosting provider has to go and stuff it up …
Our current service provider, <name withheld for the moment>, has had shocking service levels since the beginning of this year. Mysterious outages, conflicting support staff reports, unexplained server configuration changes and slow responses are making me think long and hard about whether we should stay with our current service provider.
Is the current economic recession forcing service providers to replace their previously outsourced Indian support crew with trained monkeys who work for bananas rather than Rupees? Based on the past couple of weeks I wouldn’t be surprised …
All our website service up-times have dropped from an acceptable 99.9% down to a miserable 95.0% … I hear you saying a 5% drop doesn’t really sound all that bad, but it equates to roughly 438 hours (18 days) per year of down-time! Worst of all it seems to happen on the weekends …
What this means for most people is that they will experience a level of frustration when they try to connect to our website/services only to find them offline. Lately users have been faced with the following unfriendly message:
Server Error in ‘/’ Application
Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.
Apparently, all our .NET web application versions were reset to v1.1 by someone other than us … I’m pointing the finger at service provider staff, who naturally deny it. Oh and our IIS application pool keeps needing to be manually restarted due to recent “undetermined” reasons. 
What this means for epgStream.net is that we have to keep a constant eye on what our web hosting support are doing, which is in effect periodically double checking them to make sure they don’t make any mistakes.
After complaining quite a bit, I’ve been asked to upgrade our hosting service but to be quite honest the last plan upgrade we were told to upgrade to should have *more* than covered our requirements.
I am not convinced I should upgrade our service plan (again) based on the amount of support staff cloak & dagger I’m experiencing. I’m thinking quite seriously about moving everything offsite to another hosting provider such as GoDaddy.com.
Got Diamonds?
Posted by banger@epgstream in Random Thoughts on March 1st, 2009
For whatever reason I thought buying an engagement ring would be a piece of cake. I’d just wander into town, check out the local Angus & Coote and pick out a shiny new diamond ring! Right … ? WRONG!
Hopefully you’ll pick up a few helpful hints and tips so diamond ring shopping for your special girl won’t be too overwhelming! 
Angus & Coote
I felt a little uneasy when I walked into the Angus & Coote on Pitt street in Sydney city for the first time. It was lunch time and there were dozens of women standing around chatting and examining items of jewellery, all excited by the (suspiciously) massive 20-50% discounts that were being offered. The sales ladies all seemed to be in their late 40′s and bulging out of their uniforms, which did nothing to enhance the angelic euphoria I was feeling about buying a ring.
I slowly backed out of the store and decided to take a different approach to buying my engagement ring … Continue reading …
“Everybody’s working for the weekend …”
Posted by banger@epgstream in Windows 7, XMLTV on February 28th, 2009
Well, maybe not everybody works for the weekend, but I’ll definitely start working again tomorrow on the XMLTV to MXF compiler (wmcGuideCompiler7) again! The core functionality is all done so I’m just finalising some deployment and configuration components.
If you hadn’t already worked out from my previous QR Code entry, I proposed to my long-time-suffering girlfriend today so I’ve been busy this week getting a few things finalised for today! I won’t bore you with all the details but, needless to say, I did all the right things … “asked the dad”, “consulted the mum” and “got down on a knee”. Oh, and she said “Yes!”.
So without further delay (tomorrow) …
The third cut of our Windows 7 compiler!
Posted by banger@epgstream in Windows 7 on February 24th, 2009
I *finally* found a little bit of time yesterday to complete a 3rd revision of our wmcGuideCompiler7 (XMLTV to MXF) compiler with some very good, clean results being produced! My QR Code from the weekend will give you a little insight why things are a bit hectic right now.
I think it’s about time to call for a handful of alpha testers next week to start giving me some feedback on all the base product features, and then hopefully if all goes well I’ll add those nice pretty features that users crave for a beta release!
We don’t need that many alpha testers, but I am looking to rank which users this first cut is available for:
- You’ll need to be a current site sponsor and have an existing epgStream.net license.
- If you are from Australia, preference will be given to NSW users, preferably Sydney.
- Only a very limited number of overseas users (New Zealand included) are required!
Just flick me a private email to the address shown below and I’ll get back to you with some basic details as to when and how you’ll get your alpha.
Thanks a bunch!
A picture is worth ninety-one words …
Posted by banger@epgstream in Random Thoughts on February 22nd, 2009
“Instant DVD” or “Free, Free, Free DVD”?
Posted by banger@epgstream in Random Thoughts on February 20th, 2009
I’ve been a regular at my local Video EZY store for ages, happy to shell out a few bob for a couple of weekly movies … that it is until a few weeks ago.
An Instant DVD vending machine appeared out the front of my local Coles supermarket just after Christmas promising new release DVDs for only $2.99 per night! At first I walked past it thinking it was your standard Coke vending machine, but a second glace revealed a touch screen interface showing DVD titles and a place to swipe your credit card.
My “1st DVD Free” Rental …
To be honest my first impression was of distrust, but the lure of the 1st overnight DVD rental being free was enough for me to pull out my credit card and give it a go. I selected a DVD, entered the ‘DVD123′ free promo code and then swiped my credit card. Everything processed pretty quickly and I was asked for my email address at which I promptly entered one of my bogus spam-catching email addresses. A bit of internal whirring and a few seconds later the vending machine spat out my DVD!
Good News from Mike-rosoft*
Posted by banger@epgstream in Windows 7 on February 19th, 2009
I got a speedy response from Mike Hayton yesterday about the MXF data I had sent him and, bar one or two minor tweaks, it looks like everything is good to go! I’ve got a few more base-line features I want to build support for so you should be seeing a pre-release version of our wmcGuideCompiler7 coming soon!
The reason I’m keen for a wmcGuideCompiler7 beta/pre-release is because our current versions of Windows 7 are, obviously, still in beta. I’m sure that between now and the final Windows 7 release we’ll see some more Media Center features added, existing functionality break, and dozens of bugs fixed!
Gears of War ruined my life!
Posted by banger@epgstream in Random Thoughts on February 19th, 2009
Well … Not really, but it does severely chew into your free time!
I just happened to catch a peek at Matt Hamilton’s Xbox LIVE avatar (left-side picture) on his Mad Props! website this evening which got me thinking about my own Xbox LIVE avatar and how long it’s been since I’ve visited him (right-side picture). This led to me reviewing my gaming profile, which then lead to turning on my Xbox, and finally saying :
“Just one game of Gears of War 2 in Horde mode!“
Famous last words for many a reformed COG junkie addicted to the co-operative network game play of Gear of War! 3 hours later I think it’s time for bed but I know when I get up extra early in the morning I’ll just have one more game …
“Damn you Matt Hamilton! Damn you and your avatar …”
Errr anyway … If you’re interested in playing online the send me your gamer tag and we’ll do GOW2 some time.
Knuthing better than The Art of Computer Programming
Posted by banger@epgstream in Random Thoughts, Recommendations, Windows 7, XMLTV on February 18th, 2009
I don’t know about you guys, but I find I have to throw out books and whitepapers from my professional library every few years. I recently tossed out a few old Visual Basic 6, Microsoft C++ and Microsoft .NET 1.x books which were taking up valuable space and came across some old friends …
Aside from my Bruce Schneier books, I really love my well-read “The Art of Computer Programming” (TAOCP) volumes by Donald E. Knuth and was happily side-tracked for a hour as I thumbed through some familiar chapters. Keen to see if there were any new Knuth editions published, I temporarily abandoned the library cleanup and checked on Amazon to find:
The Art of Computer Programming (Vol. 1-3) – US$149.18
3 updated editions, a boxed set and all hard covered to boot! How could I not buy these computing classics in the hopes that one day I could pass them onto my computer-literate grand-kids? Needless to say I promptly purchased these tax deductible references and then returned to the purging of my professional library.
Two weeks later (i.e. yesterday) this heavy boxed set turned up on my doorstep, and much to my surprise, in pretty good condition after being shipped from the USA. Ahhhh… nice white pages with no notes in pencil or dead mosquitoes stuck between the pages. Now I can take my tattered old TAOCP paperback copies to work and not worry so much if any “light fingered” work colleages are going to borrow my books for months at a time!
If you haven’t heard of Donald Knuth before then take some time out of your day to find out about his work. This is especially important if you want a better understanding of the “hows and whys” of software development fundamentals, or maybe just need to write lean, mean, industrial strength code.
Oh… errr… I finally sent off the sample Windows 7 EPG MXF data to Mike Hayton this morning for critique. I would have sent it last night but I was too busy flicking through TAOCP, Volume 2. Hopefully Mike will give it the thumbs up and we can start looking at releasing a new wmcGuideCompiler7 version!
