I've heard ducks trump before

Untitled

2011-01-11T00:23:00.001-08:00

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Spotify iPad review

2010-10-16T12:20:00.001-07:00

I posted a Tweet earlier, describing my surprise at the poor quality of the Spotify app on iPad.

http://twitter.com/#!/benlumley asked me to expand on these comments, so here I go.

It should be noted that these comments relate particularly to the iPad version (in comparison with the Android version); I haven't used the iPhone version, although I assume that they're the same.

Firstly, and this is no fault of Spotify, the app is unable to run in background mode, which means you have to keep it active otherwise it stops playing. Hopefully matters will improve if Apple releases an update to the iPad's iOS to allow background tasks. It seems to me that this is more of an issue on the iPad than the iPhone because the former is primarily a media consumption device. Its easy to imagine a scenario in which a user would like to listen to music on Spotify while reading an ebook for example.
Secondly, a specific iPad version is not available. Spotify could make excellent use of the larger screen real-estate of the iPad to create a much more involving experience (more like the desktop version).
In comparison with the Android version, the text seems rather large and cumbersome, giving the app a slightly childish feel - and reducing the amount of information on the screen.
On the iPhone version the designers have gone for a vertical scroll for all of the information (along with horizontal scrolling of individual sections). To my mind, the tabbed arrangement of the Android version makes for a more intuitive experience.
The settings on the Android version seem to be more comprehensive.

All in all, upon reflection, this hardly adds up to the tale of woe my tweet implied but I feel much happier with the Android experience. Perhaps I expected the Android version to be the poor cousin on the version for the Apple platform (as is so often the case) but I was left feeling that the boot is on the other foot. The iPad is crying out for a specific version of the Spotify client which makes use of its larger screen - any hopefully runs in the background (if Steve J lets them).

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Great picnic spot by river on Avon valley railway - but I wish there was less litter.

2010-05-23T06:18:00.001-07:00

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Lost en route to yorkshire?

2010-05-15T00:51:00.001-07:00

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#bathcamp on TV

2010-05-13T03:33:00.001-07:00

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The rise of unit testing in open source software

2010-01-01T08:26:00.001-08:00

I'm spotting a trend. A trend for unit testing.

We've always known we should unit test, but not many of us have done it wholeheartedly.

Only now are we starting to see the advantages.

With the rise of distributed version control, sites like github and improved merge tools, we're starting to see the real power of open-source software - but it comes at a price. We seem to have entered a phase of software development where, for some projects, the philosophy is "let 1000 branches bloom". The only way to allow this explosion of user generated functionality, while preserving quality, is via automated regression tests.

As a Python guy, I'm thinking of projects like Django and Twisted, but that could apply equally to projects in C, like redis, or any other language for that matter. Perhaps this means that languages with easy access to unit testing functionality will really start to prosper in this new era.

Within a large open-source project, no individual contributor can hope to be a master of all of the functionality - therefore the only way to ensure that people can contribute new functionality without having an adverse effect on the bulk of the legacy code is via automated regression tests. In this day and age, its not realistic to develop a system with a large number of contributors without having a means to allow those contributors to add to the codebase in confidence that they're not going to break a piece of critical functionality.

Unit testing is "a good thing", and we're starting to see the real benefits.

Open Source in Alice Park

2009-08-22T06:02:00.001-07:00

Open Source in Alice Park, Bath - the great taste of freedom.

Dell XPS M1330 delivery woes are over

2008-08-21T02:59:00.001-07:00

My new XPS M1330 finally arrived today - earlier than predicted, and I must admit it's lovely.

The only difference between the original order and the second order was the Bluetooth module, so it seems Dell has a problem with the Bluetooth module under Ubuntu.

Which leaves me with two questions:
1. Why does the Bluetooth module option exist on their website when I select Ubuntu?
2. Why couldn't they get in touch with me when they found they'd got a problem with the Bluetooth module on my original order, rather than just cancelling the order?

Posting twitter messages from Python

2008-08-13T02:41:00.001-07:00

I've been doing a quick test, trying to post twitter messages using Python, with the Twyt library.

Suppose you've got a piece of equipment, that you want to get a Twitter message from if some event occurs....

Here's a small piece of sample code to show how its done, based on Tony Gambone's Twitmon code:

#!/usr/bin/python
import twyt.twitter as twitter

username = "your_username"
password = "your_password"
if __name__ == "__main__":
t = twitter.Twitter()
try:
t.setauth(username, password)
except AttributeError:
t.set_auth(username, password)

text = "this is a test message"

try:
t.status_update(text)
except twitter.TwitterException, e:
print "Error! " + e

Dell XPS M1330 delivery woes - an update

2008-08-11T15:11:00.000-07:00

I've decided to give Dell another chance, more out of interest than hope. I've re-ordered the XPS M1330 with the bluetooth option deselected (but with more RAM than I'd previously chosen).

My order has been confirmed, and the projected delivery date is 26th August.

Lets see what happens....

Dell XPS M1330 delivery woes

2008-08-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

I recently ordered a new Dell XPS M1330 laptop for my day-job, to replace my well-used Rock Pegasus TI, which has been a great servant and taken a hell of a beating.

I thought I'd plan ahead, and order my new workhorse before the old one died on me.

I also thought I'd take the plunge, to avoid Vista and go for Dell's Ubuntu Linux option (Hardy Heron 8.04) - which I'm already running on my old laptop (an aged Acer that lives under the sofa), and on my desktop machine.

I'm really keen to support Dell's efforts in the open-source arena, so I decided that I'd show my support and order it from them with Ubuntu pre-installed, rather than order it with Vista and then install Ubuntu myself.

Today was the projected delivery date, and I'm waiting patiently in the house, and I receive an email telling me the delivery has been cancelled (due to "a problem with the combination of components"). How cryptic is that? I'm really disappointed with Dell's customer service.

I suspect the problem may be due to the optional Bluetooth module that I'd specified. There seem to have been issues with Ubuntu's support for some Bluetooth hardware. If that was the issue, why couldn't they get in touch and ask me if I'd like to drop it?

Was I foolish to try to order the M1330? If I google around for "dell m1330 cancelled", there are loads of stories about tales of woe about terrible customer service and piss-poor communications from Dell.

I used to think that Dell were the easy choice for middle of the road equipment, but perhaps I'm wrong. Are they starting to get evil? Are they a company that hates its customers?

Getting the Three Huawei E169G 3g modem working under Ubuntu

2008-07-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

I've managed to get my new Huawei E169G 3g modem working fine under Ubuntu Hardy.

I cheated and downloaded the Vodafone 3g driver from
http://betavine.net/bvportal/web/linux_drivers.

The settings I used are as follows:
number: *99#
chap
username: three
password: three
APN: 3internet

Manual DNS settings (I always use openDNS - its safer and quicker):
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

I highly recommend the 3g stick - its working beautifully - if only the 3g coverage were better in the UK....

Scripting OpenOffice.org from Python - too hard

2008-07-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

How hard should it be? I wanted to drive the OpenOffice.org Calc app from an external copy of Python under windows, and I've given up trying.

I can do it very easily in Excel, using the COM interface, but OOo has me beaten.

I've got a Python script that I use in a test environment, to put the results directly into a spreadsheet report. I'm running Python 2.5.2 and OOo 2.4.

I start to read the documentation, and it says there's a Python module I can use (uno) - great, says I - where do I get it from? It seems that its included with the OOo installation, in the 'program' directory - excellent! So I add the program directory to my Python path:

import sys
sys.path.append(r"C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.4\program")

and import it,

import uno

and I immediately get the following excepion: 'ImportError: No module named pyuno'. It seems that pyuno is a DLL library that uno needs.

Where do I go from there? I get a vague hint from the documentation that I may need to re-build the DLL for my version of Python. Ouch! It shouldn't be this hard. I haven't got time to get the the bottom of this. Why is this a DLL? What's wrong with a good old .py file. Its not like there's some proprietary technology that needs to be protected within the DLL.

At this point, I've given up on OOo, for this project at least, and I'll be going back to Excel, with its good old COM interface. I'd rather be using Open-Source software, but on this occasion, its too difficult. A pity.