I got around to installing the latest CodeRush and Refactor Pro this morning and was pleasantly surprised… the install recognizes that I had both VS.NET 2003 and VS.NET 2005 installed and offers to register the add-ins with both IDEs. I was expecting to need two installs, each specific to a different version of the IDE (seems most control libraries are going this route right now).

Even cooler was that the settings and preferences I set in 2005 were used for the 2003 install as well. Given the ton of options CR and R! make available, it was nice not to have to wade through all the preferences twice! Well done, DevExpress!

As a hobbyist musician, I don’t write many music/composition related posts here, but this incident is worth noting. A couple of years ago, I purchased a sample CD called “Fat Boy Slim – Skip To My Loops”, distributed by AMG UK. I purchased it from an online retailer and it came in a shrinkwrap package. When it arrived, I opened it up and listened through its contents. It wasn’t right for the project I had in mind (I thought the MP3 demo files provided by the site I bought it from were pretty much the best the CD had to offer)… so it went on the shelf.

Last week, I was organizing and planned to list a bunch of stuff I no longer use on Ebay, including this sample CD. I listed it and then had an email from Ebay this morning informing me that the listing had been removed for “copyrights violation”. I was thrown by this because I made it clear in my listing that this disc was an original disc, with the original case, and documentation. I know that sample libraries are pirated all the time and wanted to make clear that this was not a copy. In any case, the email from Ebay had an email address in it for the copyright holder and suggested that I use that address if I have questions on why my listing was pulled.

So I sent email to designerbaby@mac.com to see what rights had been violated. This is when the fun started.

“Matt”, apparently the guy in charge at AMG UK, wrote to explain that the license couldn’t be transferred and that if someone bought it, they could “innocently get in trouble” and would have “bought nothing in effect”. It didn’t make sense to me, so I asked him to clarify how it was different from plain old music audio CDs – which are bought and sold second-hand all the time. Or from software applications that are legitimately sold by one party to another (provided the seller no longer uses it and didn’t use what they sold for an upgraded version that they are still using). My question was, if I’m not keeping a copy for myself and I haven’t used it in any projects, how is it different from selling a used music CD if I didn’t copy it or leave it on my MP3 player? I also explained that as a software developer, I’m sensitive to piracy of software and developers are, of course, free to license their work however they like… but that this type of approach wasn’t making sense to me.

For someone in charge of a consumer-oriented business, his follow-up was unbelievably condescending and rude. Some choice quotes:

• That's shareware basically, are you really saying you thought sample CDs were shareware or something. Get back on some kind of sensible track... [this was after I asked about the license PDF on their web site, which speaks specifically to commercial use of the samples.]
• If you're looking for a consumer example that's better you could use going to the movies. You can't give your ticket to someone else if you didn't like the film, etc. [Of course not, but I can’t un-watch a movie. I couldn’t un-use the samples either if I’d ever used them in any work]
• Or what about taking samples from the music CD? Is that OK? No? Hmmm, maybe there's your difference? [in response to my question about how music CDs are re-sold all the time… since when is sampling a music CD for your own work acceptable, and how did we make this leap?]
• If a demo song exclusively uses samples from the CD too I can't see how you can have any complaint about that either, you can make that exact track using the CD, how can it be 'nothing like'? That's plain daft. [”Daft”? Nice… now I’m an idiot for thinking that the demo files for the CD weren’t representative of the discs overall content. Matt apparently never bought a CD he didn’t like based on one radio hit that he heard.]
• The FACT of the matter is few people will say they 'never used' the samples and even less will not have kept some if not all of them and have the opportunity to use them in the future. [Ah, here’s the crux of it. My statements that I haven’t used it and didn’t make a copy are clearly not to be trusted. Few people are NOT pirates.]
• You should avoid all sample libraries probably if you didn't like this one anyway, many think it's still one of the best ever released. [In addition to being daft, I also seem to have poor musical taste… my not being happy with this particular disc likely means I won’t like any commercial sample libraries. Don’t tell Sony, with whom I’ve spent thousands.]
• All you really need to do is understand a few simple ideas and know what you're buying, then there's no problem. Not only didn't you understand the basic concept, you seem to think the samples you heard in advance and are on the CD somehow misrepresent it although they're all there too - the whole thing seems to have been one big haze. [Yes, I’m in a big haze.]
• If you're really a software developer this is like page one stuff and should be easy to understand. You're not a software developer right? I claim my £10 prize! [Of course, I’m not. I’m actually a guy who re-sells sub-par sample CDs on Ebay for a living.]

Nice, huh? This is how the guy in charge at AMG UK treats a paying customer who’s not clear on how the licensing of their sample CDs is different from other copyrights. Ask some questions and get treated like both a criminal and an idiot. But I suppose when your customers are stuck with a product they don’t want and don’t have any options for giving it to someone who might actually use it, you can treat people this way.

My suggestion would be to avoid AMG UK’s products altogether. I’ll be passing that suggestion on to friends and colleagues, as well as various music discussion groups I frequent.

UPDATE: Just as I finished writing the above, I received Matt’s latest email to me, which is included in its entirety below. Anyone coming across this post can make their own decisions on doing business with AMG UK or not. My response to this was simply “I’ve said all I need to say on the matter. Thanks for clarifying the license terms.” and a link to this blog post.

> With nearly any consumer software package, I *can* resell my license
> to someone else if I'm no longer using it (provided I didn't use the
> license I'm selling to upgrade to a newer version that I *am* using).

That's rubbish.

So audio CDs
> can be legally re-sold and most software licenses can as well...

Ditto.

The buyer
> just takes the rights that the seller had (and no longer has). It's
> apparently your sample CDs that are licensed differently. So now I know.
>
Pretty much all software is like this. Whether you realise it or not, ask someone and they'll tell you. Then you'll know about that as well as sample software.
 
> In any case, your condescending and inappropriate response to my
> questions,

Whatever. That's your problem rather than mine I think. Read the mails again and if there's anything that can even be interpreted as rude I'll be amazed. It's an easy out if you've got no answer that makes any sense.

> as well as your rush to treat me as though I'm pirating the disc,

This is plain wrong. It's never been suggested. My objection to eBay wasn't on that basis and I never said anything of the such. Although I've never suggested it the idea that would wouldn't keep a copy of the data on the 'off chance' you might need it one day is as fanciful as your other ideas.
In your World where people are legitimately transferring software licenses I imagine you're suggesting that they all delete it too I suppose? Anyone with half an idea knows that over 90% will not of course.

simply
> confirms my decision about your business. Thanks.
>
Given your track record of:

A) Knowing nothing about software licensing - your business?
B) Not believing the demo made with samples from a CD is a valid representation of it.
C) Believing I have been rude (prior to this mail) or accused you of pirating our work.

I think it's fair to assume your 'decision' is equally ill-informed as most of your factually unsupportable decisions have been so far. The fact you can get the founder of a successful and long-established business to 'waste' so much time with someone on a Saturday (the facts) is what actually says more about AMG than whatever 'decision' you've come to. You actually wouldn't get that degree of *respect* from anyone else in my business I doubt although I'm sure you will be incapable of appreciating that fact along with the others that should have been equally obvious.

Cheers - Matt 8)

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, it's time to make a change to the blog. It’s running on an older .Text build, but starting to show some age… mostly in being able to prevent comment spam.

Part of the reason I want to blog regularly (and am still trying to “make it a habit”) is for the comment feedback. Many of the entries I’ve made have lead to people contacting me directly to respond or give feedback and advice. It’s great to get that feedback, but not if I have to delete a bunch of spam links each day.

So now I have to decide if I want to go with Community Server or DasBlog. Community Server has the advantage of including a photo gallery and seeming to be more flexible. I also like that it stores all content and settings in SQL Server. On the other hand, DasBlog seems to be faster to get up and running and has some cool features of its own. That simplicity extends to its storage mechansim, which is XML files for content and .config for settings and security.

I’ve read up on both, but it’s time to get hands on. I’m gonna just get both up and running locally, convert my existing .Text entries, and see what I think of each. I’m happy to hear from anyone who’s made the switch from .Text to either CS or DasBlog. Since I’ve turned off comments, you can just use the Contact page.

I got a bunch of “Comment: [entry]” emails this morning from .Text, indicating that there’d been comments posted on a some of the old posts (over a year old). Sure enough, lots of comment spam. Thanks, idiots. ‘preciate that.

The CAPTCHA thing seemed to be working well for a while, but ways around that are fairly common now… so I’ve turned off the Comments capability. It’s lame and I didn’t want to, but I’m not about to spend time each day going through the admin interface to delete some moron’s list of porn links.

If nothing else, this will probably hasten my move to Community Server or dasBlog, both of which are sure to have much better comment handling and anti-spam capabilities than this older version of .Text. I like the idea of having a file/picture gallery to go with the blog software, so CS is probably the first one I’ll look at.

Looks like the RTM bits for Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 (Dev Edition) are up on MSDN now… time to fire up the downloaders.

We’ve got a number of MSDN Universal subscriptions and its now going to be “decision” time. In some cases, the Developer edition of Team System is fine… in others, Architect make sense. For still others, Test could be useful. I’m inclined to go the “Suite” route so we don’t have to decide at all, but it’s not clear yet to me what that’ll run us and what the process for making that upgrade looks like. We shall see.

But we’ve got a new ASP.NET project starting up so, in the meantime, we can run that version in “Trial Mode”… I’m not sure how it’s limited other than expiring at some point (180 days, I think) and the MSDN download page doesn’t seem to indicate what other constraints there may be.

As long as this new version runs painlessly side by side with VS 2003 for our existing stuff, it should be pretty easy to get this transition started.

My wife and I were out shopping one day and found a few books we were interested in… I surfed around on my phone and found that Overstock.com (not linked, intentionally) had them at a substantial discount. We didn’t need them immediately, Overstock takes PayPal, so we figured ‘what the heck’… we went home and ordered the books from Overstock.

Once again, you get what you pay for.

In this case, the fact that we paid less for the books entitled us to:

• Two of the three books showing up damaged (ripped, fouled with what looked like copier toner, and shabbily re-packaged). No packing slip, invoice, or other order details. Just two destroyed books wrapped in a sheet of cardboard (not to be confused with a box).
• The third book didn’t show up at all.
• We’ve had the runaround from Overstock.com for nearly three weeks.

You’d think that in a business as competitive as online book sales, that a company trying to make a name for itself would want to differentiate themselves on the customer service front. Apparently, not Overstock.com.

On the first phone call, we were told that return labels would be sent for the two damaged books, we were given RMA numbers, and the third book was being re-shipped. Sounds good, so we wait a week.

On the second phone call, we were told that nothing had happened and that apparently the first phone call was “handled incorrectly”. They would now send out return labels, no RMA was needed, and they had to refund us for the third book. Wait a week.

On the third (most recent phone call), we’re told that both of the previous phone calls were handled incorrectly. This time, we were sent printable return labels immediately for the two damaged books. On the third book, we’re now told that we have to wait for a “tracer” so they can see if the book is in a warehouse somewhere.

Asked for a supervisor… “none are available”. Asked for an address for customer service issues “I don’t have that, check our website”.

Later, we get seven (7!) more email messages with return labels… including a label for the book that never arrived.

It’s been three phone calls, handled by three people, so let’s check our math… two out of three customer service reps at Overstock.com are apparently unqualified for their jobs, while the third is merely ineffective. At this point, I’m not holding my breath that the refund will be processed correctly when the damaged books arrive at their warehouse, nor that anything will come of this “tracer” without us having to follow-up yet again.

I wish I could say that there’s a happy ending to this story… but for now, we’re out over $50 with Overstock.com and there’s no sign of this being resolved soon. That’ll teach us not to use Amazon, huh?

So with Overstock.com, not only do you get to “pay up to 80% less every day” (their slogan), you also get roughly 80% less satisfaction and customer service. Actually, back on the math front, it's more like 100% less satisfaction or customer service -- we have neither our money nor a single usable book. Avoid this place at all costs.

Update: Disappointing that it took a public web log posting to make it happen, but Overstock.com came through for us today. This post made its way to the right people and they processed our refund right away. Thanks go out to Dawn, from Overstock’s Office of the CEO, for handling the issue so quickly and and completely once it came to her. Whew!

As mentioned, I figured I’d start a category for Poker on the blog. It’s become more of a hobby lately and the craze seems to show no sign of slowing. Like lots of people, I got sucked in a year or so ago with the ESPN coverage of the World Series of Poker. Since then, I’ve hooked up season passes for both the WSOP and the World Poker Tour… and while I like Phil Gordon, I don’t need to see celebrities play like idiots on television.

Over the last year, I’ve started playing with co-workers and friends and also tried my hand at some (cheap) online games (try finding a $.15–$.25 game in a casino)… but I’ve yet to play in a live casino card room.

That all changes next month.

In any case, I figured I’d point out some of the resources I’ve been using to learn the game… The obligatory book list includes Harrington on Hold’Em, Small Stakes Hold’Em, Winning Low Limit Hold’Em. The first book I read was Phil Gordon’s Real Deal, which is a nice gentle introduction to the game, the history, the concept of pot odds, and so on.

I’ve also been a huge fan of the Lord Admiral Card Club podcast since the beginning of this year. Cincinnati Sean does an awesome job of putting it together and it’s the first podcast I play when I start my commute on Monday mornings. There are others out there, and some are really bad, but for my money this one is the top dog for poker podcasts. The only other one I’ve been listening to with any regularity is the Ante Up Podcast, which started up a few months back. It’s a little more focused on beginners and live games than it is on the “world of poker,” but they do a good job.

That about covers the basics… if we end up at the same table, be gentle.

Like a lot of people these days, I’ve been hooked into the poker craze. Watching it on television, reading books about it, and playing occasionally with friends and co-workers. I’m too cheap to play for any “real” sums of money, but that makes online poker more attractive… lots of cheap tables, making it very inexpensive to learn the game’s finer points.

In reading some poker blogs, I learned from Las Vegas Vegas about the PokerStars free tournament for bloggers. I hadn’t played there previously, so this will be a nice introduction. The section below identifies my registration and eligibility. 

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 1375512

 That gets me thinking… might be time for a new category on the blog.

Just in time… my current keyboard in the office (an MS Natural Keyboard Pro ergonomic ) is just starting to get flakey. I think it’s time to move up to the new Natural Ergonomic 4000. I really like the idea of a zoom slider, especially if it works well with Photoshop.

What I can’t tell is if it’s possible to reconfigure that slider to be used for scrolling in certain applications. That would be a killer feature… I sent a suggestion in to the old “mswish@microsoft.com” alias years ago when mouse wheels first started appearing… the empty space between the two keyboard halves on the Natural series is ideal for a scroll wheel/slider. I saw it appear on the side of a Logitech keyboard a couple years ago, but couldn’t bring myself to switch. Anyway, for apps like Visual Studio and Word, scrolling functionality would be great.

I first tried the Natural keyboard (the one prior to the Elite with its goofy layout) in 1995 and, after a week of use, I was hooked. I also use the Trackball Explorer and (knock wood) have never had any type of wrist pain or discomfort. Using both products deters the casual office visitor from driving your machine, but it also makes it frustrating to use someone else’s machine with a standard keyboard/mouse.

Jeff Atwood put together a VS.NET macro that spills out all your VS.NET keyboard shortcuts as an HTML document. Very slick and the rendered “key caps” are a nice touch.

I put a shortcut to the doc it produced on my Firefox toolbar… combined with Firefox’s “Find As You Type” feature, it’s a very fast way to look up that one keyboard shortcut you can never seem to remember (Run To Cursor for me). Jeff also has a great (older) post on the whole “speed == keyboard” view that many developers (myself included) share.

The more shortcuts, the better!