Poll outcome

For anyone hanging on the edge of their seat for the outcome of my poll, dear reader I slew it. The symptoms had worsened and a mercy killing was the only option.

A fairly exhaustive memory test, run overnight, confirmed that at least my memory was OK, so the most likely candidate for a hardware fault was eliminated. Reinstalling (in my spare time, and hindered by a 24-hour broadband outage) is going slowly, but steadily, and the system appears stable, even with the updates that might have caused the problem re-applied.

Fingers crossed!

Visual Studio 2005 Launch

Edinburgh must be about the last place on the planet that the Visual Studio 2005 (and SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk Server 2005) Launch came to, but it made it into Scotland on Wednesday.

Three of us went along from work; myself, qidane and our recently recruited graduate.

I wasn't sure that qidane and I would get much out of it, as we've been involved with Visual Studio 2005 for over a year now, but it just goes to show you shouldn't make rash assumptions. Both of us picked up new information about SQL Server - which we haven't been following so closely - and also about Team System. There's only so much you can keep an eye on, and these are huge products.

There was a small satisfaction for us in seeing the Insights Learning and Development Ltd. entry on page 41 of the UK Readiness Guide, with a quote from me on how useful the tools are for improving code quality. For such a small piece of content, it's been through several marketing revisions both at our end and Microsoft's (all with mutual approval of course) but it still mostly makes sense!

I wasn't sure whether the giveaways trumpetted as part of the US launch would extend to the UK - quite often they don't - but we each came away with a voucher for free (not for resale) copies of Visual Studio 2005 Professional, SQL Server 2005 Standard and BizTalk Server 2006. I haven't a clue what I'll do with BizTalk - an undoubtedly useful application, but not one I have a need for - but I'm looking forward to the arrival of the others.

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

I remember lying in bed at the age of six or (more probably) seven, reading The Last Battle, then turning the page to come across Pauline Baynes' first illustration of Tash. I was terrified, and burst out crying.

( Push through the coats )