But, when I came to formatting the partition, Windows 7 wouldn’t let me! It said it was the System Partition, where it boots from and has all the boot entries. Dang, how to get around this one?

Well….

1. Find your Windows 7 DVD and set up your BIOS to boot from it on start up.
2. Shut down your computer.
3. Open it up! Now, you’ll have to remove that Hard Drive (just unplug it from the SATA/IDE cable).
4. Turn on your computer, making sure to boot from the DVD.
5. Wait for Windows 7 setup to start, when it asks you for your language and locales, set the values.
6. At the bottom of the next dialog, click on Repair your computer.
7. Windows Recovery will tell you there are missing boot entries, and if you would like to add them and restart. Don’t, as that isn’t the only problem we have.
8. Select Windows 7 from the list, and click Next.
9. Click Startup Repair, and let Windows Recovery fix it all.

It should now reinstall the boot loader, and repair missing boot entries. Click the Restart button after it has completed to test it.

If it is all working, now you can add your hard drive back in, and safely format it!

I first came across this when I purchased Elbow — Leaders of the Free World where track 2, entitled Picky Bugger was replaced with Picky B****r.

I first thought that it would replace that with the uncensored version… nup…

What the hell? I paid for the thing, I’m over the age of 18 and I think I can take the word Bugger (despite it’s disapproval on New Zealand TV for a wee while).

But it gets worse. iTunes thinks the word Kiwi is some sort of swear word.

Well done Apple for taking our national bird, and the term used to describe many New Zealanders, and censoring it as if it’ll offend some people, somewhere.

If iTunes has a “I’m a big boy now,” option somewhere, then please let me know. Otherwise, I think us Kiwi’s should hammer into Apple that “kiwi” isn’t worthy of censorship. Try contacting Apple here, at least, I think that is the right form. Thanks for making that process difficult too.

Now, previously I had been really scathing of the iPhone… the first generation iPhone was an overpriced device that only had a touchscreen going for it. Now, it has applications, cut-copy-paste, I can buy stuff directly… pretty much everything on my “Why I hate the iPhone” list was crossed off as the years went by so I finally bought one as it is a significant upgrade to my dying Sony Ericsson W850i.

The cost was one PSP. But I hardly used it anymore.

Fantail 0.2 is about bringing in different views, and that’s exactly what it has got. In the original release, you could only view your Timeline, Replies and Direct Messages from other people (as well as the Catch Up window).

The biggest request I heard from people is to allow for groups, so yes, they’ll be in there.

Plus, search is quite important now, so Fantail 0.2 will support Twitter Search as well, including saved searches.

That’s not all though, but over the coming weeks I’ll let you know more as it comes along. Just believe me when I say, it’s being worked on.

Fantail 0.1.1 has just been uploaded. Sorry about the lateness, unfortunately a back-up went awry causing me to rewrite the minimal install script.

This actually fixes two problems:

• Will no longer suffer from the Twitpocalypse. A database conversion needs to take place, so it may take a minute or two to get going at first.
• Has the sending bug fix that affected a number of people at random instances.

Download it now

Fantail won’t update, and may crash from time to time. You can still send Tweets, but you won’t get any notification that it was sent successfully. The only way to fix this is to release a new version. 0.1.1 will be released later tonight.

I had enough, the number of quizzes was getting out of hand, and instead of turning up on Facebook to see how my friends are doing, I’ll just get a barrage of quiz results, from the type of smile someone has, when they would get married… stuff I don’t really care about. I discovered a Facebook Purity Greasemonkey extension… I think on Twitter… and it worked wonders, but it was overzealous and blocked some genuine applications. So I modded it, and here’s the link. First, you must install Greasemonkey for it to do anything.

It will only block quizzes and trivia, and has a handy block in the upper right to show them again. Choice! Now I found out useful happenings about my friends.

Credit goes out to Steeev for the original script.

Update I have been asked by the author of the original script to take my version down. You can get the original script from Steeev’s website.

But how do you deal with different user interface fonts in .Net? Especially when the default for Windows Forms is the horrible MS Sans Serif (why?). Well, one method is to use the Environment class to detect which version of Windows the user is using and set the font,

if (Environment.OSVersion.Platform == PlatformID.Win32NT &&
  Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major >= 6) {
    // Vista+
    this.Font = new Font("Segoe UI", 8.0f);
} else if (Environment.OSVersion.Platform == PlatformID.Win32NT &&
  Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major < 6) {
    // XP and below
    this.Font = new Font("Tahoma", 8.0f);
} else ... (Unix/Mac code if you want to go that far)

But what if the user has custom fonts selected, or is using the Mono framework, or Microsoft decide to change the default font again in the future? The fonts are probably going to be messed up.

Fortunately, .Net has the SystemFonts class, which is a small collection of the default fonts used by the system. But, the names aren’t actually what is advertised. DefaultFont is not actually the Windows default font, but the .Net default font… MS Sans Serif, ahhh!

The only one that seems to return the real system default font is MessageBoxFont. So, we can turn that whole if statement into…

this.Font = SystemFonts.MessageBoxFont;

You can also use this font when dealing with larger sizes…

HeadingLabel.Font = new Font(SystemFonts.MessageBoxFont.FontFamily, 15f, FontStyle.Regular);

Pretty fonts for all occasion, that even follow the users preferences. Yay!

Recently it has come to my attention of a problematic bug however that I can’t seem to get rid of. It doesn’t affect everyone, from what I can tell, most users can use Fantail without trouble.

When you go to post an update, Fantail will just sit there with the busy indicator spinning indefinately. This is due to a problem in the communication between Fantail and Twitter, specifically, Twitter has returned a 417: Expectation Failed exception. I’m busy trying to work out the cause of this and why it affects only a few people.

I am curious about one fix though, and I’ve attached it over the break. If your version of Fantail isn’t sending tweets, then please try it. It does require your hands getting slightly dirty. Otherwise, it’s onwards to version 0.2!

This temporary fix should only be applied if your version of Fantail isn’t working. You also need administrator priviledges.

1. Open Notepad as an Administrator (hold down Shift and right-click the shortcut in the Start Menu, and click Run as Administrator) not necessary if you are using Windows XP
2. Open the file C:Program FilesFantailFantail.exe.config
3. After the line </applicationSettings> but before the line </configuration>, copy the following block, and save the file.

<system.net>
<settings>
<servicePointManager expect100Continue="false" />
</settings>
</system.net>

If it does, or does not, work for you, then please comment below!

Thanks.

I started Fantail purely because I didn’t think the other solutions were adequate enough, they required AIR which didn’t work on my computer, and I thought there were better ways to show tweets.

This first release, admittedly, doesn’t have a bajillion features just yet. It is just the beginning. I have many ideas and I hope to realise them through Fantail. A special thanks goes out to all those who helped test out the release candidate versions and gave feedback and support.

You can download version 0.1 now by clicking the link. Go over the break to read a quick start guide, and any changes made since the release candidates.

Before you begin, please make sure you have the Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 installed. If you have Windows Vista, you already have this. If you have Windows XP, visit Windows Update to make sure it is installed.

Download now!
For Windows XP, Vista and 7 (32-bit only) – .Net Framework required

After you have installed it, you’ll find it under Start -> All Programs -> Fantail (it isn’t in a folder). Log in using your Twitter username and password. The main window will now open.

Unique to Fantail is the Catch Up window. This window breaks down the latest tweets you have by user, lists the tweets from oldest to newest, and shows replies in the timeline! There are several ways to access it:

• Click on to Cog -> Catch Up.
• Right-click on the Fantail icon in the Notification Area (next to the clock), and click Catch Up. If Fantail is minimised, the Catch Up window will show tweets from the time since you minimised Fantail (or last looked at the Catch Up window, whatever is soonest).
• When you get more than 10 new tweets, you will get a button to catch up on all those tweets (does not apply to @replies or direct messages).
• When you minimise Fantail, next time you show it and there were a number of tweets since you last checked, the Catch Up button will automatically appear next to the Cog Menu and will default to the time you minimised it.

Note, you cannot reply directly to tweets from the catch up window – sorry!

Changelog
0.1
* [FIXED] If the last communication with Twitter was successful, then any error messages shown will be hidden.
* [FIXED] When an update is finished, it will no longer take over the text while you are sending a new tweet.
* [FIXED] If you leave a tweet half written, it will no longer get taken out on the next update.
* [FIXED] Replies in the catch up window now appear in the correct order.
* [FIXED] Drop markers now only appear on objects you can click.

0.1 RC3
* [FIXED] The Update method has been completely rewritten to help with 417 Expectation Failed errors.
* [FIXED] SQLite errors when updating.
* [ENHANCED] Avatars now have drop down arrows when hovered to indicate they are clickable.
* [ENHANCED] The drop marker next to the View button now appears on the left to better represent its use.

0.1 RC2
* [FIXED] Tweets should now update without problems.
* [FIXED] New avatars shouldn’t take over old avatars in the main contacts window.
* [FIXED] 404 errors when downloading Avatars are now handled gracefully, and are instead logged. There is increased logging here.
* [ENHANCED] Fantail will now install to Program Files, instead of Local Application Data.

0.1 RC1
* Initial release