I am on Twitter

For anyone interested, I am now on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rich_allen.

Subtle changes to Tortoise SVN increase machine performance

For the last I don't know how long, I've been complaining about the speed of my work desktop machine. It's a dual-core with 2GB RAM running XP but it runs like an absolute pig. A colleague of mine recently did some digging and found that unless you make some subtle changes to Tortoise SVN it does quite a bit of unnecessary work in the background.

Quote from colleague:

"I think a significant factor in our machines being slow is Tortoise performance as it is monitoring and caching all file modifications (it is the biggest user of CPU time on my box).

This article makes some recommendations - http://tortoisesvn.net/node/267.

I’ve followed a couple and it seems to have made some difference:

1. Right Click->Tortoise->Settings – Icon Overlays Tab

Add excludes to all drives.

Add an include to your working directory only.

2. Remove all currently unused source directories - > I have removed the branches etc and only have MF and MIS trunk checked out for instance."

Also, doing the following can help if you don't mind losing the pretty overlay icons on some of your files:

Select status cache = none.

This means you lose having meaningful icons on the your source folders, but the rest of tortoise works – commit/update/get modifications etc.

I can live without the icons….

Since making these changes I have seen a marked difference in how my machine responds...hooray!

BHF - Bournemouth Bay 10K Run 2009

Now I am a little confused as to how I have actually got myself into this but in the whirl wind return to work after a great Christmas and New Year, a colleague at Fitness First decided to send a link around and say that he was taking part in the Bournemouth Bay 10K Run for the British Heart Foundation.

Before I knew it a couple of other colleagues had signed up to it and I compulsively found myself stating something like "...yeah sounds good to me, where to I sign...". So I am firmly signed up to this huge challenge (I am a software developer not a road runner by any means) and so the training has started and the plea for aid and donations has begun.

I've not really done anything like this before but if anybody is interested in helping me raise money for the British Heart Foundation or simply wants to be bet that I cannot do it (should encourage me some more), then please feel free to pop along to My Fundraising Page or use the widget in the side bar and donate as much as you can afford.

Many thanks

The Tricky Design Experience with Dr. Neil Roodyn

Next week on Thursday January 15th we've got Tricky Basset coming to show us the 'Tricky Design Experience' at NxtGenUG Southampton. After seeing Bill Buxton's key note at Remix '08 it became clear that Microsoft is really moving into this design space with some considerable vigour, the concept of people not buying products but buying experiences is something that Microsoft seem to have missed over the years whereas companies like Apple have seemed to excel.

Tricky will talking us through his team's iterative approach to design including Branding, Ideation, Research, Sketching and Conceptualisation and showing off some great WPF and Silverlight projects.

As a special treat Tricky has invited Dr. Neil Roodyn (MVP) to travel all the way from the land of Oz to join him for this exclusive session at NxtGenUG Southampton, together they shall be providing an interactive session with lots of audience interaction.

Design is something that I've always wanted to get a grip on (in that I have no design skills whatsoever) and I personally can't wait for this session it is stacking up to be an awesome experience and one not to be missed.

See you there!

Awesome WPF Data Binding Session

Last night saw a great session at NxtGenUG Southampton with Josh Twist showing us his WPF data binding and Expression Blend skills. It was the second time I've seen him do this session and its still great.

For anyone interested Josh's blog is: http://www.thejoyofcode.com

Lets Twist Again

If anybody attended Fest '08 this year and you managed to see Josh Twist perform his WPF and data binding magic then you will know that this guy is an excellent speaker who delivers a fun packed informative session that certainly left me thinking "wow...so that is how you are supposed to use all of this Expression Blend stuff".

Well tomorrow sees the return of the Twist to NxtGenUG but this time we have the pleasure of his company down on the south coast in the Southampton region, Josh will be giving us a WPF and data binding refresher with some new stuff for those that managed to catch the Fest 08 session.

Of course there will be the usual pizza and swag and hey as it's the festive may be there will some merriment of some kind.

Hope to see you there

SQL Server 2008 with Eric Nelson

It feels like it's been forever since the last NxtGenUG meeting but as luck would have it this Thursday sees November's instalment. We've got Microsoft Evangelist Eric Nelson coming down to pay us a visit and give a detailed discussion on the new features of SQL Server 2008 that we all might find a little useful.

There will be the usual pizza and of course swag (which may include some SQL Server Standard licenses) if you are lucky.

For more information check it out here and don't forget to register.