High memory usage and slow load times in .Net 2.0 apps

Stumbled across news of what was fixed in the .Net 2.0 SP1 update last week. Things of note:

• Memory usage may increase for .NET Framework Windows applications that call COM+ applications after you upgrade to the .NET Framework 2.0
• You may receive an OutOfMemoryException exception when you run a .NET Framework 2.0-based application
• Out of memory exceptions may occur when you run an application that is built by using the .NET Framework 2.0 in a high-load environment
• You may experience a significant delay when you make the first request to an ASP.NET Web application that is running on Windows Server 2003

And some more interesting ones that may be useful:

• Blocking problems may occur when you use SQL Server to store ASP.NET session state information for a Web site that experiences high loads
• The operation takes a long time to finish when you rename a control by using the Properties window in Visual Studio 2005
• Error message when you call the "System.Xml.Xsl.XslTransform.Transform" method two times in a .NET Framework 2.0-based application: "Circular reference in the definition of variable <variable name>"
• Error message when you try to marshal a distributed transaction across application domains by using the EnterpriseServices component in the .NET Framework 2.0: "Unhandled Exception: System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationException"
• A multipart/mixed MIME part is added unnecessarily when you use the System.Net.Mail namespace to send an e-mail message in the .NET Framework 2.0
• Server garbage collector threads may enter an endless loop condition in the .NET Framework 2.0

Make sure you check out the full list of fixes to see what might affect your systems.

More on goto in C#

Akidan's posted a comment back on my old "goto" post from October last year, and it's got me thinking about it again. The original post was prompted by seeing gotos in .Net Framework code using Reflector, but what we were actually seeing was an optimised version of the code.

The real question comes down to code readability. A high level language like C# has constructs that make a goto statement superfluous, and a compiler which is able to recognise when a goto can replace some branching code. So from the perspective of writing high performance code, we don't need to worry: we can let the compiler figure out how best to structure the internal workings for us.

And here is the crux of the matter. If we don't need to worry so much about execution speed, then surely we should write code with an eye towards maintainability?

Now, I'm not saying that gotos make code inherently unmaintainable or unreadable: I'm willing to accept that there could be situations where they can be used, but only then used with caution.

I still stand by my belief that gotos should be avoided in code that you write yourself. Using Akidan's two methods as an example: the non-goto one is certainly more readable. It's clear that the "if" is comprised of 2 checks that results in the same outcome, and having them together like that makes it difficult to separate them later on by mistake.

The customer isn't always right

Top 5 reasons why “The customer is Always Right” is wrong [mirror here]

Using the slogan “The customer is always right” abusive customers can demand just about anything - they’re right by definition, aren’t they? This makes the employees’ job that much harder, when trying to rein them in.

Also, it means that abusive people get better treatment and conditions than nice people. That always seemed wrong to me, and it makes much more sense to be nice to the nice customers to keep them coming back.

Enabling Java applets in Firefox on Ubuntu

First problem I've encountered with Ubuntu was trying to use Facebook's photo uploader from Firefox. It all started out well: I went to the the page and was told I needed to install Java, and Ubuntu presented me with a list.

Here is where I made my first mistake, I installed the first one on the list, which wasn't Sun's JRE. I can't remember the name of the one I installed, but after sitting through the installation I got back to Facebook and had a dialog pop up saying the GNU classpath had not been set, or something along those lines anyway.

So I went to verify my Java plugin, and got a message saying I wasn't running the latest version, and provided links to download the latest. Not really knowing what an RPM was, I chose the "Linux (self extracting file)" option, and consulted the instructions.

Second problem came now. The first instruction was to SU to root, which required a password, and I'm pretty sure I never set a root password when I installed.

But no problem, I just chose System - Administration - Users and Groups from the top menu in Ubuntu, selected the root user and assigned a password. I then carried on following Sun's instructions to install Java, which were simple enough.

Then came the section Enable and Configure, in which I had to tell Firefox to use this new JRE for applets.

Neat little tip that I didn't know about in Firefox is that if you type about:plugins in the address bar you're given a list of the installed plugins, which I was able to use to remove the old plugin that didn't work.

The plugins are just symbolic links in the firefox/plugins directory, so enabling one plugin means creating a new link in there, and removing the other effectively uninstalls the old one.

Job done, Facebook's photo uploader (and I assume other Java applets) now works properly.

XNA 3D Game - CaveIn

Stumbled across a game called CaveIn over at Mykres Space. It's a top down 3rd person game where you have to rescue people from a mine, and solve puzzles along the way.

Check out the video for it. Looks nice.

Well I find them funny anyway....

Click to enlarge.

Or go straight to the source.

Need 1 second of surprise? How about a stuffed toy?

Not entirely sure I'm convinced this is serious, but I've just seen an episode of Future Weapons which featured the Kitty Cornershot.

Check out the video and see for yourself.

Douglas Coupland's jPod

I've been a huge fan of Douglas Coupland's books since reading Microserfs and Generation X when I was at college, right up to his new one The Gum Thief which I'm currently reading at the moment.

His book before that one was called jPod, which was billed as "Microserfs for the Google generation", which I enjoyed as much as any of his other books.

I was surprised to stumble across news a few months ago that jPod was being made into a TV series, and checked out the trailer to see what they'd done. And I must admit that I wasn't too impressed. Maybe it was just the usual feeling you have when you find out that someone else's interpretation of a piece isn't the same as your own, but in this case it was something more as well.

I've always found his work utterly engrossing, and I don't agree with some reviewers who say Coupland isn't a master of characterisation. For me, as a 20 something member of the IT rat race, I see his characters all around me (and I'm friends with some of them).

So it was with some disappointment that I finished watching the trailer, and I can't say that I was terribly bothered if it ever made it across the pond. I'd probably watch it if it did though.

But now I guess that's less likely to happen, as the news breaks that CBC has cancelled the show, and it will not be returning for a second season.

But already the fans have staged a protest, urging people to contact CBC to register their disgust.

Will this work? I doubt it, but there is precedent though: Futurama and Family Guy were both cancelled by Fox, only to reappear as straight to DVD after a backlash from fans. So maybe there is hope for the people wishing to see it return.

Me? I'm still waiting for the second season for Heroes to restart...

Using Ubuntu

I must say I do like all the nice animations and flourishes that Ubuntu gives to all the windows. They seem to float, fade and snap to position a lot smoother than I've seen on Windows. I particularly like how they seem to stretch and flop into place when you maximise to full screen.

I've not had many problems either. Today I've been doing a lot of admin stuff setting myself up to start contracting in a couple of weeks: just the usual sstuff of writing letters, sending emails, copying files to my USB stick, editing images; and I've been fine.

Makes me think back to reading a comment on this Digg article, which said:

I'll use Open Office when it stops looking and running like Word 97

But he's being overly harsh. I've only used the word processor for a couple of letters and was quite pleased with the whole experience. It lets you write documents, checks spelling as you type, auto corrects typos, format text and the like: what more can you need?

How many features of Office do you actually use day-to-day? Do you really need to fork out 200+ quid to have those when you can do most things using free software?

Only thing I will say though, is that the title bar of windows I have maximised occasionally disappears when I hover over it. I'm not sure if this is a feature though, to stop you clicking the bar when you mean to click the menu along the top. But it's a minor annoyance at best, and I've enjoyed the experience so far.

Installing Ubuntu

So I've decided to take the plunge and dual boot my desktop PC with XP and Ubuntu. I've played around with the LiveCD version for about an hour, so I know what to expect.

I'm following these instructions, but I needn't have bothered as the setup wizard is pretty self explanatory. The only thing I needed to double (and triple check) was the disk drive I'm installing to.

I have 2 physical hard drives, one with Windows (C:) and one that I just used for data (D:). Preparing for installing Ubuntu I copied everything I needed from D: to an external drive. But knowing that the C: and D: names were Windows specific I checked in the LiveCD environment what names Ubuntu gives the drives.

The installer's currently at 70% as I write this on my laptop, so I hope that my D: drive really was called /media/sdb1, or else I've just buggered my machine...

It should be fine though... I think.... C: was the master drive, and D: the slave, so it made sense that I would have an sda1 and an sdb1. I hope anyway.

82% now, currently Configuring apt, whatever that means.

88%, Importing documents and settings... strange, as I told the wizard I didn't want to do that...

94%, Configuring hardware... I guess if it's all going to fall over in a heap then it'll probably do it now...

Done. Although I'm sure it said it was removing something before that window popped up. Not sure what. Restart now, I guess now I find out if I've screwed up...

Well I've got a boot menu at least, 3 different instances of Ubuntu (generic, recovery, and memtest86+) and Windows XP! Cool, I'll boot back to Windows to make sure I've not messed up. Yay! Still there, and I can no longer see my D: drive, which is as expected if the partition table has changed.

Now for the proper test, will it boot to Ubuntu?

Well it's asking for a username, and the display looks a hell of a lot better than in LiveCD mode. Very quick to get to this stage too.

Apparently I need to enable some "restricted drivers", as my graphics card needs a driver from Nvidia, which isn't "free software" as the Ubuntu people can't look at the source code. That driver's downloading now. And it installed itself too, that was easy enough. But I need to restart. Ok, restart.

That was very quick there, although I guess all operating systems are when they're first installed.

Right, so what're these software updates it's telling me about? Apparently there are 196 updates to apply, a total of 245.4MB. Might kick that off tomorrow. Oh, neat little window animation there when I closed it.

So, right: looks like that's installed then. Easy enough, if a bit nail biting at times. Only took about half an hour as well. Although I'm not sure about that brown swirl of a desktop background, have to get rid of that. I'll have a play and see how I get on.

Vista vs Linux

Neil's commented on seeing a Vista Vs Linux video on YouTube. Check it out:



Direct Link Here

Back to XNA - Programming Considerations

I've got 2 weeks until I start contracting for E.ON so thought I'd get back to playing with XNA. Well, actually that's a lie. I started out this morning on Call of Duty 4, but kept dying on All Ghillied Up so then I decided to start playing with XNA.

I've signed up for the XNA Creators Club and tried launching the Space Wars starter kit project on my Xbox. Took a while to deploy all the content, but then again I am going over a wireless connection. I was impressed though, and started to think about what kind of game I could try to make.

Whatever I choose, I thought, I need to understand how the GamePad class works. So I started with a simple game that just output the state of the pad as a string to the screen. And it's here where I found my first problem. The screen on a television is very different to the monitor I was using for the Windows games I've made previously.

Firstly, the TV's refresh rate is lower than my monitor's so you can see slight flickering when you have a bright screen. Pretty sure that will give me a headache if I look at it too much, so my Xbox games will need a darker background than on PC.

But probably more important is that TV screens can trim off part of the display, so you don't get the full screen to play with. Xbox 360 Programming Considerations explains this, and other things to be aware of when making games.

So I'll give it some thought, and figure out what type of game I want to make.

Ubuntu - First Impressions

I downloaded the latest ISO image of Ubuntu a few days ago, and tonight I finally got around to burning it to a CD so I could actually use it.

For those of you that don't know, Ubuntu is a Linux distribution focusing on usability. I guess the aim is to tempt people across from their Windows PCs by giving them something that's as simple to use but free and more secure.

Anyway, my limited Linux exposure was about 6 or 7 years ago with Red Hat and SUSE, and although they were relatively easy to get to grips with I didn't think they were ready for the masses.

Fast forward a few years to Ubuntu, and you get an OS that you don't even need to install if you only want to try it out. With LiveCD you just run the entire thing from CD so you can try before you commit to installing it. Old news to some people I know, but the whole "try before you buy" thing is certainly impressive when you're talking about something as complex as an operating system.

So that's what I've been doing tonight, playing with the LiveCD version to see what it's like. I'm impressed enough to want to install it put it that way. I've got a second hard drive and intend to dual boot Ubuntu and XP, the documentation looks pretty straightforward, but I'll write more when the time comes.

New Life, New Blog

Tomorrow marks my last day as an employee of Esendex, and as my previous blog was set up solely to demonstrate what work I was doing there I thought I should go back to this personal one and reinstate it.

So, as I continue with my life and career I'll be adding new posts here along the way. I shouldn't think I'll be maintaining my old one, although I'll leave it there for reference as I gather there are links to some posts that some people have found useful.