It was nice while it lasted, but SharePoint's blog support was basic at best. I now have another blogging arrangement hosted by my IT consulting company, TiGra Networks.

 

I will leave this site here for posterity byt SharePoint will probably garbage-collect it after a few months of inactivity.

 

I run a discussion group that has about 750 members. The list uses GFI MailEssentials list server in conjunction with my exchange server. The GFI software is basic but functional and allows postings in both plain text and HTML and allows a footer to be added to each outgoing message.

 

I regularly get complaints from users that there is no "digest" version available. I really can't understand the fascination with digested mailing lists. All you gain is a reduced number of emails, which I could argue is not really an advantage either. In gaining that tiny advantage, you also give up all control over how your view, filter, sort, group your email. You give up the ability to block senders you aren't interested in reading. You give up the ability the view message threading and you are more or less forced to read everything in plain text (the lowest common denominator). Why on earth were digests ever popular? Apparently, some users find them "easier". I suspect what they really mean is that they don't have to bother learning how to use their email software.

 

There is a hard core of computer users out there who seem to think we should all be dragged down to the lowest common denominator. In the case of email, that is plain text. But it must be understood that the notion of "plain text" is an illusion anyway, since what they probably mean is text encoded in US ASCII. Another system that codes text in iso-8859 might well display that text differently. So plain text is itself an over-simplification.

 

What's wrong with HTML email? Some people object on the grounds that to encode something in HTML takes more bytes and that wastes valuable bandwidth. COME ON! Get a faster connection! Others object on the grounds that everything should be compatible with whatever worked 20 years ago, i.e. plain text. Again, understand that the world moves on and software needs to be upgraded if you expect it to still work tomorrow.

 

I will have no truck with this lowest common denominator attitude. Evolve or die.

The blurring of the distinction between beta software and released code is something that is becoming more and more common in the software industry. Beta versions are widely available and easy to obtain and I think the purpose of a beta release has been slowly perverted over the last few years. Whereas beta software used to be all about getting the bugs out of the software, I think nowadays it is much more about sending a "wakeup call" to users to start their planning process. A segment of the user base hasn't really understood this. That segment never installs anything with a version number ending in ".0" and doesn't even think about planning their upgrade until ".1" is released. Then they are upset when a week after they roll out ".1" their deployment is obsolete.

Well guess what? It doesn’t work like that any more. The beta version is the new ".0" version.

 

I have no sympathy for organizations that ignore beta programmes for months and months then cry "foul!" when the product is released. Why do these people think Microsoft makes pre-release versions available to the industry, if not for evaluation and planning? If they are rolling out a product which they KNOW is about to become obsolete, I think they need to look at their decision making process. Early adoption is the only option. For the users who don’t understand that, I guess it looks like Microsoft is being draconian.

 

This issue resulted in me changing my ISP. I could not change the establishment so I gave up and changed my service provider. I found a new provider, Demon Internet, who offered me the same (in fact better) service with a static IP address for the same price. Exit British Telescom.

Winter is coming. The temperature last night was the lowest for a long time. My SBIG ST-8 was able to easily cool down to -20C. The sky was clear, though seeing was poor. This was the first clear night for over a month that I have had a chance to open up the dome and capture photons. Most people dread the onset of winter, but as an amateur astronomer, I welcome it with open arms. The long, crips, clear nights and the jewels in the winter constellations.

 

As the seeing was poor and the moon was full, I spent the evening working gremlins out of the system. The optical system was characterized with FocusMax for easy focusing in future. The faulty ribbon cable on the AO-7 was replaced with a new one. The Telrad finder was calibrated. Operation of the filter wheel and camera was verified. Finally, the polar alignment accuracy was measured using PoleAlignMax. This last procedure was not conclusive because of problems with image linking in TheSky/CCDSoft. This needs further work. I also noted that my collimation is off and needs adjusting.

Yes, I do use a dynamic IP and no, I'm not a spammer. Why do some people reject my email simply because my IP address is dynamic?

 

The assumption is that most spammers use dynamic IP addresses (to cover their tracks) therefore all email from dynamic IPs must be bad.

 

Hang on a minute, isn't that a tad like discrimination by skin colour? How is that different from saying something like "Most spammers live in Elbonia so we'll block all email from that country"? Blocking an email based in the flavour of its IP address is at best totally arbitrary and at worst, discriminatory and downright offensive.

 

I personally object to being filtered based on my IP address. This is a practice that ISPs seem keen to promote, presumably because it benefits them when users have to pay extra for a static IP. The final irony is that it's meaningless to filter by type of IP address  anyway, since there are many open relays and free SMPT services that anyone can sign up to with fake details. Any competent spammer will know about these.

 

Another problem with dynamic IP blocking is that the user of the IP address has no right of reply. The censorship is summarily imposed and there is no right of appeal. I have no way to prove I'm a legitimate sender of email.

 

Dynamic DNS is a growing market arising from ISP's reluctance to permanently assign ever-scarcer IPv4 addresses. A static IP usually costs extra and in some cases is not even available at all. Any why should it be? Dynamic DNS is a perfectly good solution. Dynamic DNS providers are becoming more common as more and more broadband users rebel against the limitations of their DSL provider. Home users and even small businesses are using Dynamic IP addresses. Perhaps this will change once IPv6 becomes the norm, but that is way off.

 

So before we go around filtering people based on arbitrary criteria which are guaranteed to be wrong a good percentage of the time, what else can be done?

 

 

This is my personal philosophy about new technology. I think you have to make a decision as to whether you’re an early adopter or whether you’re the kind of person who never loads anything with a version string ending in ".0". There are pros and cons to both approaches and I would not dream of telling anyone they are wrong for not agreeing with me, but here's my take on it. Note that when I say "early adopter" I am talking about released products, not betas. There are whole arguments for why certain vendors should be adopting beta technology but I'm not going to go into that here. Also, I am going to be making sweeping generalizations here. As I always say, "to generalize is to be foolish" and I'm sure everyone can find specific cases that break my reasoning.

 

Things evolve so quickly in computing that, in my opinion, you can’t afford not to be an early adopter. If you wait until version 1.1, then version 2.0 is already in development and by the time you've got used to 1.1, 2.0 will already be released. In short, its really easy to be in a position where you’re always obsolete or you never do anything because the next version is always imminent. The version numbers I've picked were no accident, of course, and they refer to the .net Framework - 2.0 is already in public beta and a lot of people are only now starting to adopt 1.1.

 

People dream up strange justifications for not adopting new technology. A lot of people are put off from installing the .net framework because it is a sizeable download (not a large download by any means but nevertheless sizeable, at over 20Mb). I had to smile when one person contacted me to tell me he wasn't going to use a piece of my software, because of the large download, when my piece of software was 'so small' in comparison. He felt the requirements were disproportionate. "Why do I have to do a 20Mb download just to use your tiny piece of software?" Of course, he totally missed the point that my software was so compact because a lot of it was contained in the .net framework. He missed the point that every piece of my software is compact because of all the useful, reusable components in the framework and that the framework only has to be downloaded once and every piece of software benefits thereafter. You have to take a little bit of pain up front to reap benefits forever. By not adopting a technology, you merely deny yourself the benefits of it. If you wait until a technology is "mature" then you have to take the same pain but you denied yourself the benefit of that technology while you were procrastinating. This is why I think it is always best to take the pain of new technology as early as possible and why I am an early adopter.

 

There is another important aspect to this. Every software engineer knows that the sooner you fix a bug or problem, the less it costs and the easier it is to do. The best kind of bug (and the cheapest) is one that gets fixed during development before anyone else knows about it. A bug that is discovered in a shipping product can cost orders of magnitude more time and money to put right. Well, I think this idea can be extended to developing software in what I shall refer to as "legacy" technologies. The .net languages and runtime are here to stay. Microsoft bet the company on it so you better believe we are all going to have to use it sooner or later. Windows Server 2003 has it built in 'out-of-the-box' and so will whistler, the next version of windows for the desktop. So, sooner or later, most developers will have to use .net languages if they want to be at all productive and have a chance of being compatible with the OS du jour. The .net technologies are now several years old, yet a lot of people are busy developing in legacy technologies. This is understandable. If the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. However, the more code that is developed, the larger the codebase you have that uses the legacy technology and the harder it will be to justify upgrading. So, in a sense, the longer you leave it to upgrade, the harder it will be in the long run and the more it will cost you. You spend all your time developing in the wrong direction and you will have to re-do it all when you upgrade. As John Covey would say, you need to take time out to "sharpen the saw". If you don’t sharpen the saw, you spend all your time sawing and not getting very far. Adopting new technology is like sharpening the saw. With the pace of change in the computing industry, a lot of saw sharpening is required. I believe it is better to adopt new technology as early as possible so that you minimize the amount of re-development and maximize the benefit of the new technology for both yourself (the developer) and the end user.

 

Oh, and new technology is fun.

 

I don’t expect everyone to agree with this view, as I said it is just my personal philosophy. Please feel free to click on the discuss button and air your views!

I've been working on building an observatory since about April this year. My parents have been a big help with some of the hard work like laying the concrete and building the timber frame, for which I am very grateful. I probably wouldn't have finished it on my own.

 

The top part is made of fibreglass and is a prefab kit, made by Tecnical Innovations of Maryland, USA. I have an arrangment with T.I. to create some software for their dome automation products, which runs on a Windows PC. You can see some of my astro-software projects elsewhere on this site. The top section is motorised and can be rotated to match the position of the telescope. The telescope itself is a 12" schmidt cassegrain design with a computer controlled mount, which sits on top of a concrete pillar in the center of the observatory. I have a wireless network link to the observatory and the whole thing can be remote-controlled.

 

The lower half is a timber frame structure built from 4x2s using American construction techniques.

 

Yesterday was pretty wet and windy, with sustained 35mph winds and plenty of rain. Today is still pretty blustery. The whole thing seems to be weatherproof, which is very pleasing. There is a little bit of water ingress around the door but that isn't finished yet, so it is only to be expected.

 

There are a lot of professional traders trading on eBay who are trying to avoid their obligations under British law, citing the fact that eBay is an auction site so Distance Selling Regulations do not apply to them. I'm in the middle of a dispute with an eBay trader and I've discussed this with my local trading standards office and I've discovered a few home truths...

Well here we are. My Blog. I'm new to blogging so I expect it will take a little while for me to develop the right style. Maybe it will be interesting, maybe not. Darwinism applies to the Internet, too.

 

I anticipate that I'll use this site to publish my thoughts on the various things I'm interested in, which at the moment encompasses astronomy, caving and software development. Who knows where this could end up?