http://www.lenholgate.com/ Len Holgate's thoughts on this and that... Mainly test driven software development in C++ on Windows platforms... - General en-us Len.Holgate@JetByte.com 2008-04-21T08:14:10+00:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000777.html This morning a spammer somewhere seems to have used my main email address as the return address on a whole bunch of random spam that has been sent out from all over the place. As such I have around 3000... Posted by Len at 08:14 AM | Comments (3) | Categories: General ]]> 777@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2008-04-21T08:14:10+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000776.html I've turned the blacklist back on. I turned it off yesterday and have had a couple of spam comments get through. The blacklist itself doesn't always catch the spam comments but it does give me a one click method of... Posted by Len at 05:40 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 776@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2008-04-17T17:40:51+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000720.html What with holidays and having my head down doing x64 and CLR hosting stuff for a client it seems that the last month and a half has rushed by... The good news is that the x64 port is slowly slipping... Posted by Len at 05:51 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 720@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2007-09-17T17:51:33+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000670.html Normal service is about to resume... I arrived back in the UK yesterday evening after lots of good skiing in France and Switzerland. Conditions in France could have been better (it's still best to hire skis or use your rock... Posted by Len at 02:25 PM | Comments (1) | Categories: General ]]> 670@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2007-01-31T14:25:49+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000669.html I've adjusted how I deal with comment spam and the comment system should now be active again...... Posted by Len at 05:59 PM | Comments (1) | Categories: General ]]> 669@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2006-12-28T17:59:08+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000660.html It's been a difficult few months for me recently. One of the things that has helped a lot was something that, thankfully, I discovered relatively quickly and have since refined somewhat. The refined version sounds very simple; "appreciate every moment"... Posted by Len at 09:55 AM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 660@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2006-07-12T09:55:54+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000658.html I just realised that I hadn't posted to here in two months. As I said a while back, my head is not really in the right space for me to be as effective, or interested, in my technical stuff at... Posted by Len at 09:06 AM | Comments (2) | Categories: General ]]> 658@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2006-07-12T09:06:29+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000646.html Given all the publicity that this blog has received recently over my relationship break-up I thought it might be a good idea to give any new visitors a jumping off point into some of the more popular technical pieces. Believe... Posted by Len at 11:01 AM | Comments (5) | Categories: General ]]> 646@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2006-04-03T11:01:55+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000645.html I've fixed the MT-Blacklist problem and so comments and trackbacks are now working again.... Posted by Len at 10:38 AM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 645@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2006-04-03T10:38:24+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000644.html My hosting provider has changed something in their perl instalation which means that MT-Blacklist (the thing that protects this blog from comment and trackback spam) is broken and not doing its job properly. I've located a fix but need my... Posted by Len at 10:45 AM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 644@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2006-04-02T10:45:38+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000582.html As you may have noticed I'm having some hosting problems at present. The server that hosts www.lenholgate.com was hacked and it's taking my hosting provider longer to fix than they expected... Right now comments and trackbacks don't work because... Posted by Len at 12:55 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 582@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2005-11-22T12:55:14+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000567.html This is quite nice, a whole list of finely targetted RSS feeds for Knowledge Base articles for various products.... Posted by Len at 08:31 PM | Comments (4) | Categories: General ]]> 567@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2005-11-02T20:31:09+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000548.html Jacob Nielsen has a list of Top Ten Blog Design Mistakes. Number 5 is "Classic hits are buried" where he suggests that it is useful for readers if you list your most 'important' entries prominently as well as regularly back... Posted by Len at 06:13 AM | Comments (2) | Categories: General ]]> 548@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2005-10-22T06:13:44+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000535.html "Desire to know why, and how, curiosity; such as is in no living creature but man: so that man is distinguished, not only by his reason, but also by this singular passion from other animals; in whom the appetite of... Posted by Len at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 535@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2005-10-08T14:06:17+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000533.html I find it quite interesting to have so much information about my past available on the web. I often use my own blog like a database that I can search for past solutions to problems, or for locating some text... Posted by Len at 11:27 AM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 533@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2005-10-08T11:27:22+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000413.html My ski trip is over and I'm back in the UK for a while so I expect my technical writing will resume real soon now.... Posted by Len at 04:04 AM | Comments (2) | Categories: General ]]> 413@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2005-05-04T04:04:23+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000366.html [Updated:15th October - Original domain name hidden with a simple caesar cipher to stop them getting bad press via search engines...] [Updated: 6th September - It seems "NFOFY JT" were possibly the victim of a vindictive ex employee and that they didn't originate or approve of any of the recent comment spam in their name.] See comment on this entry from Jacob Jones. NFOFY JTDPN is a professional web design and consulting company for businesses, schools, churches, non-profits, and individuals. We provide full internet services to clients who are serious about having a successful online presence. Our services includes but are not limited to: graphic design, logo and corporate identity, internet marketing/SEO, 3D animation , illustration, consultation, web hosting, album cover, prints, interactive CDs and DVDs, flash, database programming, posters, flyers and much more. Strategic thinking, and aesthetic presentation is what we are about--welcome to NFOFY JTDPN. Looks to me like NFOFY JTDPN are a bunch of morons who think it's good idea to spam other people's blogs and think they might get business from doing so; like D'oh! ... Posted by Len at 11:59 PM | Comments (5) | Categories: General ]]> 366@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-09-04T23:59:51+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000354.html You are water. You're not really organic; you'reneither acidic nor basic, yet you're an acidand a base at the same time. You're strongwilled and opinionated, but relaxed and readyto flow. So while you often seem worthless,without you, everything would just not work.People should definitely drink more of youevery day. Which Biological Molecule Are You? brought to you by Quizilla Posted by Len at 10:20 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 354@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-08-11T22:20:04+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000339.html I've been really busy these last few weeks. Too much to do, too little time. This week is looking better, so hopefully I'll find time to finish the next couple of installments of the Practical Testing story, post a few updates on some of the code I've been writing and repost a few more google grabbing reprints... Posted by Len at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 339@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-07-19T22:54:51+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000323.html Sorry for the recent outages. My hosting provider upgraded a server and it took longer than expected to find all the things that were installed on the old server but were not on the new server. It seems that I'm the only one that uses them... Blog was down for a few hours, comments and trackbacks have been hosed for a day or so. All seems fine now. Posted by Len at 06:13 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 323@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-06-11T18:13:31+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000322.html 20 year's ago I traveled with my dad and the remaining members of my grandfather's unit to Normandy for the 40th anniversary celebrations. I was 17, around the same age that some of them were on the day. My grandfather, Frank Holgate (also 'my F.'), survived the war but died from heart disease when I was far too young. I've found the news reports of the 60th anniversary to be far more moving than I expected; possibly because I spent some time with these amazing people. Posted by Len at 10:47 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 322@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-06-06T22:47:39+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000321.html The one problem with building a dream flat from scratch (well, a shell) is that once you're done, you're done. There just isn't anything that needs doing for a very long time. If you're someone who enjoys the doing (to a point) then, although it's nice to sit back and relax and appreciate what you've created for a while; the time eventually comes when you start getting itchy feet and want to be able to start crafting the next masterpiece... So, after some soul searching, we've decided that it's time to look for another space to work with. We love what we achieved at The Canal Building but it's time to start again. We've already seen a couple of lovely large spaces that have lots and lots of potential and the creative juices are flowing... So, we're looking to sell. If you're looking for a contemporary apartment with approx 1324 sq ft of space that's been done in a two bed/two bath, large living area and open-plan kitchen style. If you want somewhere with lots of storage. If you want outside space (we have a shared terrace that's 3m x 4m (big enough for a BBQ) and only shared between 4 other apartments. If you want cat5 everywhere, a central 'machine cupboard' for firewalls, servers, switches and broadband connections. If you want a very high quality finish. If you want to be able to walk to work in the City of London in 25 mins or wander the bars and restaurants of Upper Street and Essex Road after a 10 min walk and be able to leave your car parked in a secure underground parking space. If you want 24 hr security/porter. If you want air conditioning. If you want a building where a group of the residents take an active interest in keeping service charges under control and take a very close interest in the behavior of their managing agent. If you want a high quality fish monger, butcher and green grocer within 5 minutes walk and a wonderful Italian deli just 3 minutes away. If you want the Regents Canal just a stone's throw from your bedroom window... Then I suggest that you get in touch, and soon... It's early days, but there's only one flat quite like this in the whole building, so buy early ;) So, in summary; 1324sq ft flat for sale in Canal Building N1. Floor plan is here. Photo diary of the conversion from shell to apartment is here. Details of the 25 Beautiful Homes photo shoot (March 2003 edition) is here. Includes all appliances, lights, blinds, etc. If you like the furniture then that might be available too, make us an offer. By the way, I reserve the right to get all 'estate agenty' in the near future and start using phrases like 'benefits from', etc. Asking price: £599,000. Posted by Len at 09:40 PM | Categories: General ]]> 321@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-06-06T21:40:26+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000317.html OK, so who was the bright spark that decided that when I click on a folder at the root level of a drive Explorer goes off and scans the entire folder tree from that point down before expanding the one folder I'm interested in? More importantly, can I turn it off? Surely the most you really need to do when I click on I:\Blah is list the files and directories in Blah and do a lazy directory content check in the background to see if you need to put a + next to any of the directories in Blah... At present, on XP SP1 it seems that the directory check isn't a background thing, so I have to wait for it to complete, and when the sub dirs contain many many files this can take too long... Posted by Len at 08:08 AM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 317@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-05-26T08:08:38+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000309.html Tell me about it. This morning I was shaving and thinking how I was actually early enough to be able to walk to Bank Tube station rather than jumping on the tube at Old Street. It looked like a nice morning and I had lots of plans for the code I was going to write today. It's a busy week, and I had spent an hour or so late on Sunday making sure I was in a position to hit the ground running. Posted by Len at 08:56 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 309@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-05-17T20:56:06+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000301.html Been a busy week, I meant to post this on The Day. I've been writing this stuff for just over a year now. I didn't really know what to expect when I started, I just wanted a place to ramble on about this and that. During the year I've learned a few things about blogging.... Posted by Len at 11:33 PM | Comments (1) | Categories: General ]]> 301@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-05-07T23:33:32+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000291.html As Gavin pointed out in a comment yesterday, if you type "cure for rsi" into Google right now my hair-brained babblings about how drinking lots of water helps is top of the pile... If only I could do that with technical posts that would bring in work ;) Posted by Len at 08:01 PM | Comments (3) | Categories: General ]]> 291@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-03-26T20:01:30+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000262.html 37 today.... Posted by Len at 08:11 AM | Comments (2) | Categories: General ]]> 262@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-02-25T08:11:46+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000260.html Er, I blame him, him and hiiim, oh and that little voice inside my head... Posted by Len at 10:11 PM | Comments (0) | Categories: General ]]> 260@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-02-23T22:11:26+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000255.html I've noticed that quite a few blogs I read have turned off comments and trackbacks and removed all trace of any previous comments/trackbacks. I realise that the comment spam problem is a pain but I find that I treat blogs without comments/trackbacks as "less reliable sources"... Posted by Len at 12:36 PM | Comments (4) | Categories: General ]]> 255@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-02-20T12:36:36+00:00 http://www.lenholgate.com/archives/000244.html I want some new and interesting blogs to read, so leave a comment if you have any suggestions. I subscribe to quite a few (opml file here) but I'm a bit tired of the Microsoft Employee Bleading Edge Blog stuff... Ideally I'm looking for technical blogs with a "working programmer" slant. It would be nice if they were biased towards C++ but I don't really care. I think these guys are good, so more like this would be nice: Stan Lipman, Eric Lippert, Raymond Chen, Wesner Moise, etc. Posted by Len at 05:16 PM | Comments (2) | Categories: General ]]> 244@http://www.lenholgate.com/ General 2004-02-05T17:16:49+00:00