Guilty Pleasures

Dustin Marx has an excellent blog entry about Software Developers' Guilty Pleasures . It's a good read but I think he missed one :

Automating Chores That You Don't Need To
The old case of having a boring chore that will take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours and spending four times that writing a piece of code or a script to do it for you.
Of course, if you ever need to do it again you'll be ready - if you can find the code, if the use case is close enough. if the data is alike enough, etc, etc......

Face it - coding was fun , the chore wasn't

XBox Update

Well, the old broken XBox didn't work and so far has resisted all my repair attempts. It was not as described on eBay ("3 red rings, never been opened") - it had marks around the latches indicating prior openings and the cpu heatsink clamps had rust on them (!) . Fortunately the sale of my Wii bought enough money to purchase a new Xbox and I can use what I have for spare parts, perhaps even a nice funky case respray and I've contented myself with a very bad ebay feedback for the con-merchant.

So what do I think of my 360 so far ? Well, in terms of pros and cons :

• PRO You can use a USB keyboard for text entry ! I absolute hate using joypads and navigating around text entry controls so this really impresed me.
  
• CON XBox live seems very picky about signing in - and I know my internet connection is sound. Speaking of connectivity ....
• HUGE CON £60 for a wireless usb card ? Are you frakking kidding me ? Wireless USB doesn't cost that much you moneygrabbing little scrooges......
• PRO Graphics are lovely - I suppose this comes of have TV scale resolution. I suspect my PC could blow this thing away on 640x480 resolution with all details at max.
• PRO usb slots - 3 of them and works with standard USB hubs (and keyboards see above)- none of this special socket rubbish meaning you pay 300% for their own make of something. I'm really impressed by this.

All good so far although I'm really only playing rock band. At some point I'll play a Halo or a Gears of War game and try a mouse and keyboard for control. I've been told that will work - if it does then that will big a big win for the xbox in my book.

Turning Heretic

I want an Xbox. There , I've said it and it's out in the open. My friends already know, but its good to publicly declare it. I'm not going to turn into a MS fanboy - I still think their software sucks, but their hardware is surpising nice (especially the intellimice).

So , did I buy the arcade, the premium, or the elite ? No, I bought old banger that needed fixing. (Seriously, born 10 or 15 years earlier I would have spent my life as a garage mechanic fixing up old Ford Capris).

I picked up one for £30 on ebay that needed a 3 red light fix applied to it with the intent of fixing it and saving a few quid. These are harsh times after all, and the fact that buying one for a snap will give me some geek cred is of no importance to me at all.

Currently I'm waiting for it to arrive. I've got the fixing kit, a 20gb drive to go on it ( a steal itself, especially if I self upgrade that). I've even splashed out on a special tool to open it (£5, as opposed to £100 for a rockband instrument set , which is a necessity). Heck, I've even got a punch down tool to fix my home network wiring (because £50 for a USB wifi card is just too expensive).

All the bits are here except the box itself. I'll post back when it's arrived with my verdict on the fix.