Crouching tiger, coding monkey

Yeah. Words, having trouble coming up with them. I mean, hmm.

Kudos to you if you make it to the end.

So when running the current version (5.0.4 at time of writing) of Surround SCM on Windows Vista there is a little problem. Instead of seeing this:

you end up getting this:

with a demeaning warning that looks like this:

And, well, that just stinks. If you take away the Aero shininess from Vista all you have left is Windows XP with a lot of Allow or Deny popup boxes. Fear not though, here’s how to fix it.

First, let me explain what is going on. Surround SCM uses a product called Guiffy to do its Diff/Merge functionality and Guiffy is written in Java. (Surround SCM is in C++ for the curious.) When the Surround client starts up it creates a JVM so that when you ask for a diff or a merge Guiffy can launch and do all the crunching. Unfortunately, the current version of Surround ships with JRE 1.4 which apparently gets along with Aero as well as Paris gets along with Nicole.

Essentially, when the JRE 1.4 starts Vista throws up its hands in exasperation, says “This is NOT hot” and switches to basic mode.

To fix this, follow this link to Sun’s Java download page and download the JRE 6u1 for Windows.

Once the magic gnomes of the internet have delivered it to your computer install it and stare at this progress screen for a while. (Or maybe go get a drink or a bagel or a bacon sandwich or something.)

Once it is done installing go the Tools menu of the Surround client and select User Options.

From here you are going to need to change the JRE setting from what it currently is:

to what we want it to be, the new Sun JRE. Your install path may vary, but you get the idea. Then just quit the Surround client, start it up again and ta-da you’re set.

In addition to the Macbook Pro where I do all my daily work I have a Dell workstation that for the last couple of years has been running Window 2003 Server. Over the course of the last few months he’s started flaking out on me, to the point where I was never really sure what I was going to get when I used it.

To be fair, it really isn’t the right hardware for Windows 2003. (For instance the hard drive has always run like a pig because it really isn’t a server machine.) But I kept having this feeling that whenever I would turn my back the screensaver would switch over to a giant middle finger pointing at me.

I could never catch him in the act though. Each time I spun around and yelled “Ah ha! Now I’ve got you!” all I would see would a picture of some forest or a planet or something. I’ve gotta admit, while his performance was barely better than some of those losers on American Idol he was a wily one.

Anyhow, the time had come to start anew so I nuked Windows 2003 and put on, yep you guessed, Windows Vista.

A blog wouldn’t be a blog without moaning and complaining so here, I’ll get this out of my system fast:

1. When an install sits on 27% for about a half hour, that’s not good. Luckily I had some outside confirmation that this kind of thing would happen. I think the exact words were “Yeah, it takes freaking forever to install.”

2. Those little security dialog warning popup do-dad’s are pretty annoying, but not because they happen all the time. What’s crazy is the whole screen going black except for this little dialog. As someone who remembers the old Linux days of “Don’t mess with the refresh rate lest your monitor will burst into flames” having a screen go instantly black is a jarring experience.

3. The thing talks to you like HAL from 2001. No seriously, I came into work and noticed this little icon on the login screen:

My first thought was, “What does that do? Let’s click it without thinking through my actions to find out.” Why is it software tends to turn off the higher level reasoning in your brain? I mean, if someone walked up to me and asked, “Does this look infected?” you can take it to the bank that I’m not going to go in for a closer look. Yet an unknown button that could do anything from making me a bacon sandwich to ending all life as we know it gets clicked with nary a thought.

Turns out if you click it Vista starts talking to you in the name of accessibility. To bad they didn’t spring for James Earl Jones to do the voice over instead of some psycho killer computer voice.

But, all that being said, here’s the thing…

I find that I actually LIKE Windows Vista.

Now, before everyone falls all to pieces on me let me explain. My biggest beef with XP was that whenever I would switch back and forth from the Mac to Windows it felt like I was taking a step backwards. The XP interface wasn’t as nice, things seemed to be kind of dull in comparison to shininess of OS X. With Vista’s Aero Glass interface that feeling that I’m taking a step back to something more primitive kind of goes away. (But not completely, I mean it is still Windows right? Snark. Woo hoo! I’ve still got it baby!)

Now, I’m not saying that I prefer Vista over OS X, let’s not start talking crazy here. But, the new eye candy certainly helps. Of course all this could really mean is that I have brain of a chimpanzee and that I would be enamored by anything reflective.

*Eyes reader suspiciously*

First monkey comment and I swear I’ll fling poop at you. Wait, oh crap. (Ha! Ba dum ching!)

So I’m typing away on a design document today when I see the following story crawl through the RSS reader:

Bribing Bloggers by Joel Spolsky

It was basically a post bashing another one at Robert Scoble’s blog.

Which lead to another post at Marshall Kirkpatrick’s blog.

All this revolves around the question of whether it is ethical to give bloggers free laptops with Windows Vista installed on them. I suppose Microsoft was looking for some good grassroots reviews or something, but the blogging community wasn’t going to stand for it. Because, you know, free stuff is bad. I guess. The poor guys just can’t win.

Now if they were offering free ovens, that’s something different entirely.

*Waits for audience to catch up from that tangent from left field.*

*Shuffles feet*

*Looks out window*

See, last night I was trying to make a pizza. I even had the kid (2 years old) helping me by putting the pepperoni on. This means I’m either a great Dad by being involved with my child or I’m using cheap child labor. Looks like I can’t win either.

When I went to put the pie in the oven I couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t getting hot as quickly as it should have. A quick examination showed the top heating coil working great, but the bottom one was ice cold. Of course the big burned out gap/hole in the coil might have had something to do with that.

We’d been waiting on this thing to die for years and thus I find myself in the market for a new oven.

Now what I need Microsoft to do is to install Vista on a new oven and send it to me for review. It doesn’t even need to be Ultimate Edition or have a good usability score or whatever that stuff means. As far as I’m concerned if it gets hot on the inside we pretty much have a winner. I’ll even change the name of the blog to something catchy like:

“I proclaim that I’ll disclaim that Microsoft sent me an oven because of my blogging fame.”

And since Vista supports IPv6 that means that the old Toshiba vision of the “every appliance should have an IP address” would work smoothly. Actually, that would have been an awesome feature for my dead oven. Could you imagine the messages it would have sent to me as it was dying?

“Warning: Oven heating non-optimal”
“Warning: Oven heating non-optimal”
“Warning: Ventral heating coil not functioning correctly.”
“Critical: Oh sweet Kenmore, I’m dying.”
“Critical: I can’t feel my lower coil.”
“Critical: It’s getting dark in here. I’m so sleepy.”
“Critical: Is anyone there?”
“Fatal: Dammit”

Anyhow, I’ll be waiting for the package in the mail.