http://thecaseagainst.net Mike Dillamore on software development and the herd mentality Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:16:20 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Dell's website has had an overhaul. Initial impressions are of a much crisper, less cluttered design - good.However, it simply does not work! At least not for me. The main graphical element of the page is a Flash movie which shows different products in turn. Above ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/07/18/new-dell-web-design-broken/ The first taste of a new beer is usually a special moment, particularly when the beer in question is (soon to be) brewed in your home town.When I read on the Adur Brewery Blog that the final bottles from the prototype batch of Merry Andrew had been delivered to the ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/07/18/merry-andrew-at-last/ This hedgehog was found in a black bin liner (garbage sack) in our garage yesterday morning. We're not too sure how/when it got in there, though it probably climbed in sometime during the previous couple of days. My wife was alerted by a rustling from inside the bag, ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/06/10/garbage-hedgehog/ thecaseagainst.net has, at last, been upgraded to WordPress 2.5, having previously languished on the 2.0 branch for far too long. Thanks to a great short guide from Word Press this was a quick and easy process. Let me know if you spot any problems.Now I need to find ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/06/10/wordpress-upgraded-on-this-blog/ I'm sure this has been blogged numerous times already (and I didn't notice), but the biggest problem with Google, for me, has been that searching for product reviews has never worked. The top 20 or so results would always include one or two real reviews, and a pile of ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/06/05/google-search-for-peoduct-reviews-it-now-works/ Tim Anderson has been blogging from Tech.Ed. In a useful post about convergence between Silverlight and WPF, he makes the commentin many ways Silverlight is .NET done right, from a client perspective; it delivers just what is necessary for a rich clientThis echoes my previous remark that Silverlight 2 ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/06/05/silverlight-net-done-right/ I can understand why people sometimes get the impression that I'm a .NET hater. Most recently, this includes my former colleague David Arno. So, time for me to clarify my position (again).Firstly, what really concerns me is when people can't be bothered to think for themselves. They ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/05/22/what-i-love-about-net/ As someone who works in Worthing (and a former resident) it's exciting to see the town take a lead in innovative use of the web for presenting its portfolio of services - and promoting the area. Worthing Borough Council has a great new web site, complete with draggable gadgets, ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/05/22/new-web-for-worthing/ I understand that Microsoft's new WorldWide Telescope is an impressive piece of software.However, Nick Bradbury has highlighted the horrendous installation procedure, which apparently involves up to 12 steps. Nick has this to say: -Those of us who believe that desktop software is still relevant in abrowser-based world should be ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/05/21/scary-software-installs/ Via Jeff Duntemann: -Several people online, in an almost offhand fashion, have indicated that Vista's knucklehead UAC feature is training people to click "Allow" automatically, no matter what it's asking about. That may be the single greatest design error in Vista, and could over time render Vista as insecure as ... http://thecaseagainst.net/2008/05/21/the-single-greatest-design-error-in-vista-2/