Tears are Falling

I have the unfortunate responsibility to inform you that late last night, my Xbox 360 passed away in the line of duty. While I was attempting an endzone celebration after scoring a touchdown in NCAA Football 10, it flatlined (green-screened). Attempts at revival only resulted in red rings of death.

Luckily, there is a 3 year warranty on this condition, so I'll have her back in just a couple weeks (yes, Microsoft is actually very quick with this sort of thing - I had to do it about a year and a half ago as well).

In other news, the kids must now play the Wii.

Woose Brayne

If you are not Woose Brayne and/or you do not play 1vs100 on Xbox Live, then move along. Otherwise, please indulge the posting of this photo of an Xbox “Friend” who make it to the Top 10 during a recent Live game.

Congrats, Woose. Enjoy the photo.

Google's Upcoming Nexus One: Just the (Rumored) Facts

 

All information in this post has been culled from various tech sites around the interwebs and should be considered unsubstantiated, until confirmed by Google and/or their partners.

What is the Nexus One?

The Nexus One is the name of Google’s own hardware smartphone device that will run the Android operating system.

When will it be available?

Google is holding a press conference on January 5, 2010, at which time it is expected they will announce details, including pricing and availability, of the Nexus One. The consensus is that the phone will be available shortly thereafter.

How much will it cost?

It appears the phone will be available unlocked for $530 and locked to T-Mobile for a subsidized $180 plus a 2-year contract with their Even More 500 plan.

What does “unlocked” mean?

An “unlocked” phone means that it is not bound to service from a single wireless provider. To change providers, you simply change SIM cards.

If I buy the subsidized phone, can I keep my existing T-Mobile rate plan?

It seems the only rate plan available for the subsidized version of the phone is the Even More 500 plan, which includes 500 Anytime minutes, unlimited text, and unlimited web for $79.99 per month. You must switch to this plan.

If you want to keep your existing plan – say your current one is less expensive or you are on a family plan – you must switch to Even More 500.

Where do I buy a Nexus One?

It will only be available from Google at http://www.google.com/phone. You must purchase it using Google Checkout and will be required to create a Checkout account if you do not already have one.

Can I buy more than one?

You may only purchase 5 phones per Google account.

What comes in the box?

The phone itself, a wall charger, a USB cable, and presumably some documentation.

What accessories will be available at launch?

• A desktop charging station – charge your phone while streaming music and backing up your phone: $40.
• A car docking station – Nexus One is dock-aware and will optimize its display for navigation and hands-free use: $50.

Can I personalize the phone itself?

You can have the phone engraved. You can do two lines of text on a metallic bar on the back of the device. Doing so, however, prevents you from being able to return the phone for any reason.

Will there be any exclusive apps?

The elusive Spotify is expected to be built into the 2.1 version of Android, which is the OS expected to be running on the Nexus One. Currently, Spotify is only available in Europe.

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So there you have it. All of the rumors to date. I’ll keep this post updated as its launch nears.

Update 1/4/10: Spotify is expected to be built into Android 2.1.

Update 1/5/10: And, here's the 320-page User Guide (22.6 MB PDF).

Branch/Tag quirk in Subversion

I wasted 15 minutes of my life today to find out that when creating a branch in Subversion, it will always create one and only one new directory.

I was attempting to help a colleague who was trying to create a branch from his working copy. Important note: the repository did not already have a branches folder, which we wanted to create.

I walked him through the steps, and when it came time to enter the new branch's URL, I had him enter something similar to //repositoryRoot/branches/myNewBranchName.

SVN returned a cryptic error message: Path not present. Well, yeah. You're supposed to create the path.

So, I tried creating the folders in the repository. Now, SVN says that the path already exists. ARGH! I know that. I just created them!

My colleague finally figured out that SVN needs to create exactly one directory when creating a branch. Going back to the repo, we kept only the branches folder, entered the path, and voila! It worked.

So, when creating a branch in Subversion, remember that it must create one and only one directory.

Store Server-specific Settings in External Config File

I just learned that the appSettings node in an ASP.NET web.config file can reference an external configuration file. This is extremely handy for managing values that change depending on whether the site’s on development, staging, or production servers.

Take this example: you have a simple contact form that sends an email. On the live, production site, you want that email to go to someone in customer service. However, in a development or testing environment, you probably want that email to go to a developer or QA tester.

Here’s how to set it up:

In the web.config:

   1: <appSettings>

   2:     <add key="CSEmail" value="customer.service@somecompany.com"/>

   3: </appSettings>

Then in the appSettings.config file:

   1: <appSettings>

   2:     <add key="CSEmail" value="developer@testdomain.com"/>

   3: </appSettings>

ASP.NET will attempt to load the appSettings.config, with any keys overriding those in the web.config. If appSettings.config exists on the development server, it will read developer@testdomain.com as the value. If the file doesn’t exist, it will use customer.service@somecompany.com as the value.

So, in our example, we would simply not upload our appSettings.config to the production server.

Easy. Peasy. Lemon squeezy.

Tightening the Wallet

Hello, friends and family. I've returned the blog to Blogger, since, well, the web hosting I needed to keep TheLuebbes up and running isn't free.

So, here's a first little post to get this one started. I'm looking into ways to import the archive-worthy posts here, but if that doesn't work, I'll simply post them anew. Please refrain from throwing tomatoes at the admin.

Anyhoo...

Sorry for the change. Hope you still find it worth your while to subscribe to the RSS feed.