May have capped this one a bit too hard.
"Nothing reminds you of how terrible you are at everything like trying to do something."
— Me, after trying to write for an hour.
Computer Setup Checklist
Finally upgraded from my crummy blue-screen happy Raptor to a shiny new OZC Vertex 3 SSD. After finding out that the Vertex absolutely hates having AHCI mode in Windows, I’ve started doing my fresh-machine installation checklist. Of note, I had troubleshooting hardware problems in my off hours.
- Chrome
- Google Talk
- Zune
- Turning on MS Update
- MS Update (for drivers, etc)
- Git/GitHub/Clone Local Repos
- Crank console font size up to 20, change to consolas.
- Debugging Tools for Windows
- 7zip
- Visual Studio 2010
- Sysinternals Tools (
xcopy \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\*.* c:\tools) - Show Hidden Files and Folders, Unhide Extensions
- Web Platform Installer
- gVim Latest (
colorscheme torte, set gfn=Consolas:h12:cANSI) - Office 2010 (x64, for Excel, include OneNote)
(Addendum: Tumblr got a more lot more power-user friendly. Markdown, custom URLs, and better queuing support!)
Hooray, Hacked!
Hooray, my tumblr with a super-easy dictionary word password was hacked. I’ve actually put on weight in the past two weeks due to beer and wedding food!
2011 Chick-fil-A Statistics
There have been 118 days since 1/1/2011. In those 118 days, I’ve visited a Chik-fil-A 44 times, spending a total of $218.63. The average visit costs $4.97. Assuming I only went once a day (which isn’t true), 37% of my days alive in 2011 have included a stop to Chick-fil-A.
Now I’ve found out they’re testing sweet potato fries; this does not bode well. (via @_mason_)
Spring Cleaning - Useless Cables/Electronics
After working with computers for 15+ years, I’ve gotten a large collection of now-useless parts I’ve been hoarding. Today I’m cleansing my storage bins. These are the things I’ll no longer be saving.
- IDE Cables
- PCI Soundcards/Network Adapters
- Serial Cables
- Parallel Port/Printer Cables
- 1x CD-ROM Drives
- 4GB Tapes
- Cell-phones from 3+ years ago
- Phone Cable/RJ-11 connectors
- Fire-wire anything
- Non-optical mice
- USB Hubs
- Anything related to my TI-83+
- Drivers for a 10BaseT network adapters
Morning Playlist
Trying to get to work on time is a hassle. I stumble out of bed in a haze barely awake to the shower where I struggle not to fall asleep. I’ve tried multiple alarm clocks, cold showers, coffee and nothing has worked. Then I bought a alarm clock/dock for my Zune and put it in the restroom, so I can get amped up for the workday while getting ready. It is amazing. I’ve reduced my average time in from tardy 14 minutes to early 11 minutes in one moment. Though the numbers might change as the sample size grows larger. Morning playlists must contain music to get you moving. I also have the additional requirement of not being bass heavy (as I live in an apartment complex). This is my 2nd iteration of my morning playlist, which contains 30 minutes of music max. If the playlist runs out I know I’m about to be late, so the adrenaline kicks in.
- Raise Up (All Cities Remix) - Petey Pablo
- Bounce - MSTRKRFT
- Ante Up - M.O.P.
- Daddy Fat Sax - Big Boi
- Who Dat - Young Jeezy
- As I Come Back - Busta Rhymes
- In My Car - Wiz Khalifa (might get removed soon)
- Hell Of A Life - Kanye West (might get removed soon)
Performance Testing is Hard
Our customers started complaining that one of our sites was slow. We attempted to verify on our own QA setup, then again on their production setup, and we couldn’t replicate. It turned out to be a browser-dependent performance problem, and further that, the same browser would behave radically different if compatibility mode was enabled.
Since we were an intranet application, compatibility mode was automatically forced on by default. Two weeks of research, one setting flip, instantly happier customers. Magic happens.
Performance profiling used to be very hard: it could be hardware or software dependent, or possibly bandwidth; now it’s gotten just downright impossible due to the wide disparities of JavaScript execution speed in the different browsers. As if making it render the same wasn’t hard enough.
Making Things Faster Tips
- Any 3rd party framework generates a mass of JavaScript to do cool things. This JavaScript will run slow in IE7. It will continue to run slow in IE8 unless you enable standards mode, which is disabled by default for intranet applications.
- Chrome and IE use XmlHttpRequests differently; IE seems to load in parallel, Chrome does not. This impacts debugging performance.
- ViewState isn’t a huge bitch on intranet applications. But it kills mobile, especially on upload. Use the new ASP.NET 4.0 features to disable that crap if you don’t need it.
- Look up Cache Busting. It helps amazingly to test cold-startup of web applications.
- Cold starts can be very rare. Don’t optimize the initial startup time if the application restarts very infrequently.
- Always check your logs to see what the actual load is. Just because a customer says it’s slow doesn’t mean the sites being hammered. LogParser is the best tool for handling IIS logs, hands down.
