I have moved my blog to http://markiehill.blogspot.com

Oh my god, my server is alive !!

Windows Server 2003 has found the ability to reason with itself giving us real reason to be scared.

I got this error message while attempting to set a property of a user using ADSI ...

Now i am not being funny , but when you are trying to debug code and you get an error message like this, what use is that ?

I can almost see the MS developer sniggering when he wrote that code.

Yesterday I cleared out the garage of all the crap that had built up over the last few years. There were things that I loved but would never use, and it just had to go.

Today we took it to all to a boot-sale in two cars and made hundreds of pounds, not a bad way to spend a Sunday.

In two weeks, I am going back to Scotland on holiday to spend some time with my family, it’s great that we will be able to go and see everybody and the kids will be able to play with their cousins, heck even the dog is coming. Speaking of dogs we are looking after the neighbour’s puppy for two weeks, today he has eaten my Basil plant, grrrr.

What else, yesterday I bought Doom 3, thought I had grown out of first person shooters, but there is something great about Doom, and I wasn’t disappointed, the ability to deliver mass carnage is still there … HALO, eat your heart out.

I spent today toiling over getting C# to talk to an AD Server through ADSI. What should be easy seems to be complicated; perhaps it is my inherent hatred of Active Directory showing.

When you are trying to solve a problem, you need information. The first place you tend to look at is msdn.microsoft.com (when you are working with the MS technology stack). I spent three hours today going backwards and forwards because of a mistake in the example code on MSDN, and not just one mistake, three of them which led me a merry circular dance.

I read something at the weekend which bugged me enough to post it here. In the UK we have a national lottery, from which the proceeds collected are used to fund “good causes”.

I had always assumed that Camelot (the operator) took a huge cut of this, because only 28p in the pound is being donated to good causes.

The split is here http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/p/goodcauses/whereTheMoneyGoes.jsp

Turns out the UK government is taking 12p in the pound for a lottery tax, I find this incredible, in fact I find in repugnant.

Where does this 12p go? Where is it spent ? I want to know.

Do yourself a favour and try this, i scored 181, i think i am in deep deep trouble.

http://www.bordergatewayprotocol.net/jon/humor/web_animations/HellTest.swf

Sometimes I think back to when I was younger, I have lost touch with a lot of the people I used to know. Moving out of the country does that for you, kind of leaves you devoid of the foundation on which you built your life.

Sure you meet new friends along the way, some of them even moved down here and we see them fairly often, but for me the lads I grew up with, drank with, fought with and caused mayhem with are but a past memory.

Some friends I regret losing contact with, some I never made the effort to stay in touch when they moved on. I won’t make that mistake again, somebody I know is probably moving on and they are very much my friend I think, so I will be sure to go that extra mile and make sure they know it.

Funny though also the other week I heard an old friend of mine is trying to get in touch with me(which probably prompted this post), this was one of the guys who I shared a lot of laughs with, though my most vivid memory of him was knocking him flat by accident when we were drunk. I doubt he will be reading this, but in honour all I can say is “Global video”, “Karate Man”, “Big Mo”, “Bettie”, “Julia” you know who you are !!!!!!

I watch my father in law getting older and it’s upsetting, to see layer after layer slowly stripped away as the years advance. And then I stop and think and place myself in that scenario, not being able to trust the two things that have seen you through the many years, your mind and your body.

Like a trusty old car your body, tries it’s best to compete with the younger, sleeker model’s and fails. All of a sudden your best is not good enough anymore. Unlike a car you can’t part exchange up to a newer model you are stuck with it.

As if to help soften the blow, the mind starts to lose its focus, you drift and become confused, you talk about stuff that you know nothing about, and you become a shell of the person you used to be.

I cannot imagine myself at that age, but twenty years ago I could not imagine myself being this age. I was going to live my life and die young ), unique like every teenager before me.

Seems these day’s people are either decorating a room, stripping a room, building a house, destroying a house, making a meal, eating a meal, digging up a garden, planting a new garden, finding a house or selling a house.

It’s okay though, if you want to escape the endless procession of DIY or cooking programs you can flip the channel over to watch people going on holiday, coming back from holiday or swapping holidays.

And then there is kids TV , my children are bombarded with adverts for finance, probably more directed at the parents, but what effect is this having on their little minds, when the answer to all their needs is credit (at least according to the adverts).

Back in the 80’s I grew up with a television diet that consisted of little Welsh men flying around on wheels, a mad tortoise that flew up and down between floors on a dumb waiter. A boy with a torch, that allowed him to travel between worlds and adverts for Brut and Spangles. Oh and don’t forget the witch who lived in the upside down teapot and held her nose and vanished. Life seemed so much simpler then.

I have thought a lot about why blog writing is so popular and I have come to the conclusion that it is cheaper than paying a shrink. Let’s think about it for a second, you get to talk about what ever is on your mind at the time without fear of response (unless you are stupid enough to have the bulletin board switched on).

Think about this for a second, you can say what you want into an empty void, and providing you don’t slander anybody by name then you are home free (almost).

I love music, and most kinds of it as well, my musical taste is vary varied from the cheesy to the meaningful. I have tried to underline what makes a band stand out for me and I have come to the conclusion it is the lyrics, beautiful lyrics can make you relive an experience or place you inside another persons.

One of my fav albums of all time is Graceland by Paul Simon, I have always admitted the complex interplay of lyrics and melody, so you can imagine my complete and utter disgust when I saw an interview with him recently and his song writing consists of him making up sentences and putting them in because they fit and not because they mean anything, this is what I call very cynical song writing. So Boo Hiss to Paul Simon, still love Graceland though.

Despite myself I have been watching Bo Selecta, there is something about this comedy show that treads very close to what I can cope with in terms of content, however no matter how outrageous he is, I take my hat off to him , as he is a comic genius. My favourite characters are Craig David & Kes, the Slater girl with her bingo wings and the bear (you little shit), how so much pure hatred comes out of one little bear I will never know.

One of my other favourite bands , who never left the 90’s are www.beautifulsouth.co.uk, news that they have a new album coming out and have recently changed labels to Sony , make me hope that they may get some publicity shortly, I think Paul Heaton is under-rated as a song writer. (As long as the chap who was in charge of memory stick development , does not get promoted to managing bands , I reckon they will be safe enough !).

I hate that expression, like we have some kind of sofware which our life is governed by. I guess you know the scene , when your partner looks at you with the knowing eye , saying "i have just sussed out what makes you tick".
Well shit me , you have just figured out something that i aint been able to figure out in 31 years, what gives you the sudden burst of golden insight.

People are random to an extent, different things make people tick at different times.

Take today for instance, something that made me really tick was seeing my daughter take her first steps across the garden .... next time i see it , it will probably barely register.

Speaking about ticking, i think blogging gives other people a chance to see what may make you tick on any given day and thats cool, and i think thats why i like it.

Just don't look for an overall strategy cause you won't find it here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3938591.stm

Something that really gets on my nerves is the price of ebooks, why do we have to pay just as much when in fact the cost of production and distribution should be so much less.

Its about time authors threw off the shackles of their publishers and publised direct to their audience.

Of course that would require that most people would be comfortable reading ebooks rather than printed hard copy.

Its all a question of price and control, if i have an ebook i want to read it on all my capable devices and i want it to be cheap enough for me to forgo the benefit of having the paper copy.

Speaking of books i have run out of good authors to read, two of my last favs were china meville and phillip pullman.

if anybody who reads this has some suggestions as to good authors drop me a line at books@mark-hill.com

Its been a while since i updated, mostly due to the fact i have been running backwards and forwards and have not had a minutes peace.

Last weekend i visited the retro fair in croyden along with my long suffering son in tow.

Excellent was an understatement, being able to actually see versions of machines i used to waste my childhood on and also versions of some of those machines which did not make it into the mainstream was cool.

My son has the bug , its a worry , first it was elite , then repton closely followed by Mr Do and then the icing on the cake Outrun..... Now i have competition for time on MAME.

Currently i am working on porting a 6809 emulator into dot net, good news there, it actually compiles and appears to work.

At my real work, a recent annoucement on the outsourcing of IT has made me feel very bitter, not for me, i am unaffected, however for the hard working people who work with me this is nothing short of an insult

For me it marks a worrying trend in the future of IT as a skillset in this country. The jobs that are now being outsourced are very skilled tecnical positions.

Where do we go from here, without the industry attracting new talent, talent will not be fostered , the UK is already a poor global player in IT. Very short sighted of the UK government to allow these types of deals to be struck.

I am in Geneva today , its not a city that has had made much impact on me. A day of work beckons so there will not be much to report from here.

Took my son to see Shrek 2 at the weekend, its not often that the second in a series is better than the first however it made me laugh (puss in boots could have his own mini series).

Also watched the final matrix film on sunday , left me feeling a little confused and wishing they had stopped at the first.

Short one today, read this article.

http://programming.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/07/07/1640244&tid=25&tid=26&tid=2&tid=31

This is one of the first sensible arguments to come out of the open source community .... long may it continue.

We went to the regents street event the other day , it was a disaster. My son has his heart set on seeing the racing cars, however so did half a million other people it would appear.

The tube stations were all shut and the crush was dangerous for young kids. Much safter watching it on the televison. Oh well perhaps one day we will have a london Grand Prix.

Sometimes i find a site that makes me laugh , hits that nerve , if you are easily offended or have no sense of humour then do not whatever you do , click this link.

http://bunnysnoog.cyborgcow.net/index.html

I am considering adopting one, however will need time to mentally adjust to the concept LOL.