John Liu .NET Automate - Code - Share

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Tag: rant

101 posts.

  • Our Legacy

    This blog post is quite personal and doesn’t have much to do with tech. So if that’s not what you are here for, wait for the next blog post. This is...

  • Tiny forward steps for me and Flow Studio

    I’ve been taking little tiny steps forward, this is a good time to share what I’ve been up to. Flow Studio There are several Flow Studio updates in the...

  • 2021 - break and thrive

    Hello, you. This is a very personal post. 2020 was tough on everybody, and it looks like 2021 may eventually bring a little bit of reprieve. I only have a...

  • Creating Multiple Custom Email-Alias Addresses with one Outlook account

    Update thank you to Johannes in the comments. This is called Email Sub-Addressing . I was catching up with my brother, and he showed me a pretty cool trick...

  • A Hybrid Future for On-Premises

    As Microsoft wrapped up #MSIgnite 2015, reveals SharePoint 2016, we can now safely say that the future is coming, and it is completely Hybrid. Say it with...

  • [Meta] Updating johnliu.net from Squarespace v5 to v7

    This is actually something really, really long overdue. v5 is from the year 2008. That is SEVEN years ago. You will notice: Responsive Design Comments are...

  • taskeng.exe command prompt - get out of my face

    So I was minding my own business working, and suddenly, a command prompt popped up, blocking my work for a few seconds and then disappeared. ...

  • Living with the Surface RT for 4 weeks

    Across the new years holiday, I took a long four week holiday off in Indonesia with my family and in-laws. Previously I have always taken my...

  • Introduce your drastic UI changes... slowly

    We are in the middle of a somewhat sudden rebranding exercise. One of the main colours that was used prominently in the previous theme of the...

  • Chrome, the Trojan Horse we didn't know about

    I do not like where Chrome browser is going, and I'm typing this on Chrome. Let me explain, there are a few pieces in this puzzle. Language and API...

  • Windows 8 - Export Google Reader OPML for Bing News

    Let the hacks begin! Windows 8's Bing News app was updated in the last few days and with this new version, an ability was added to allow us to add our own...

  • Retrospective - Australian SharePoint Conference Sydney 2013

    I had planned to post this as soon as I finish my session - but you know, conference. Lots of friends come visit during these events and the evenings...

  • How to create your Windows 8 Start Button with PowerShell

    Before I go on, I have to say I find the Start Menu unnecessary. There are already many ways to get to your Start Screen: Throw mouse to lower-left...

  • Windows 8

    Windows 8 is coming, and I wanted to say something to set people's expectations right. I think it'll help people align their views and appreciate this...

  • Test your C#: Generic overloaded constructors

    I love languages. Here's one for a language nut. public class Response<T> { private T result; private string...

  • Re: Sorry dad, you'll understand, someday

    This is a quick blog post, in response to Zac Gorman's excellent Magical Game Time comic. http://magicalgametime.com/post/19718347285/ill-stop-when-ive-saved...

  • AUSPC 2012 quick update

    I'm in the strange and calm interlude between day 1 and day 2 of awesomeness in the annual Australian SharePoint Conference (AUSPC) 2012. Day 1 has been a...

  • Dummy guide to install Win 8 on VHD for Boot to VHD

    Summarized from: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/GuideToInstallingAndBootingWindows8DeveloperPreviewOffAVHDVirtualHardDisk.aspx...

  • Curiosity drives creativity. The only limit for your kid are there because you put them there.

    I watched this YouTube recently, Neil DeGrasse Tyson was being interviewed and was asked a question: what would you do as a nation to increase scientific...

  • The blogger's eternal struggle for blog reader comments

    Sometimes, a rant (and warning, this particular blog post can only be classified as a rant) is just too long to be said in a 140 character tweet. A...

  • IANAL but I understand CC

    I understand CC, I think, I am not a lawyer. I was encouraged by @aeoth's rant on twitter to add a license clarification to my blog, since I've always held...

  • WindowsPhone 7.5 Mango and Office 365

    Adding an account Go to settings | email + accounts | add an account | Outlook Provide Office 365 login email and password Once setup, the account...

  • WindowsPhone 7.5 Mango is so GOOD

    Now that a confirmation of the NDA situation seems to be in place, let me shout from the top of the rooftop....

  • Silverlight + SharePoint 2010 - did you just deploy customizations to SharePoint via the document upload?

    Just finished my presentation earlier tonight in SDDN regarding Silverlight and SharePoint. I had some initial reservations whether true Silverlight...

  • Windows Live Messenger wave 4 - redir.us freaks me out

    Colleagues send me links via MSN to a web page, and I see Immediately started freaking out - what is rdir.us? Not many people have written about this - the...

  • Develop and deploy Silverlight + SharePoint 2010 Solutions (part 2)

    A quick summary of part 1 : Environment (tools) Creating Silverlight project Creating XAML Hooking up Silverlight databinding to mock data Implement real...

  • Silverlight + SharePoint: helper classes

    While composing my earlier blog about Silverlight + SharePoint +CAML best practices , it dawns on me that it would be quite possible to build a helper...

  • Outlook (and blogs) are for code

    After being annoyed with Outlook... well, forever... for always autocorrecting my code in my emails, it suddenly strikes me to find the auto correct...

  • Windows 7 Troubleshooting Wizard is not a myth

    I know this sounds crazy. The network troubleshooting wizard actually works. So I was on a designer’s machine and she was really having trouble...

  • Apple iPhone drivers are pos

    Exhibit A: Windows Explorer looking at the pictures in my iPhone. Notice that almost ALL of them are upside down, this happens very often when...

  • ATI x64 driver fail - Catalyst Install Manager has stopped working

    This could possibly be the last ATI product that I'd purchase. For almost as long as I could remember I can not get the ATI drivers to install. Download...

  • Google hates Bing and is evil? Surely not!

    So Microsoft has an outage in their data centre for Bing travel. I've heard great amazing stories over the grapevine about this one, but...

  • Facebook – tattoo ad and privacy?

    So I was looking at my wife Lina using her Facebook and saw this ad on the right: I exclaimed oh wow – Facebook told the advertiser what her husband’s name...

  • A lot of regrets for one evening

    Interrupting the usual tech blog to talk about an awful thing that happened tonight. I got home around 8pm – we got ready to head out for a quick dinner out...

  • serverfault.com hasn't launched and I hate it already

    http://serverfault.com/ launched , and I hate it already. edit : SF.com is Open to Public, so this should have read: serverfault.com hasn't launched yet and...

  • SharePoint – InfoPath /cache clearall

    So continuing my InfoPath self education. I publish a new version of the InfoPath form to the Forms Library I then create a new form based on this template...

  • SharePoint – how do you stay on top of all this stuff?

    SharePoint is a big product – and getting bigger. People have wondered – how do you stay on top of all the new developments? This is one trick...

  • SharePoint – thoughts on sharepoint.microsoft.com

    http://sharepoint.microsoft.com had a face lift. I decided to go have a quick look and make some comments. Nice bits The site looks cleaner It is running on...

  • SharePoint – Microsoft Certified Masters, and why I should care

    A couple of weeks ago, the first batch of MCM: SharePoint were announced. Curiously, I went to see what it takes to be a SharePoint master. Initially, I had...

  • SharePoint - On the verge of launching a new release of a SharePoint site

    On the verge of launching a new release of a public SharePoint website and I came across this list (from shanselman's twitter actually). 15 Essential...

  • SharePoint – thoughts on MSDN “Configuring and Deploying Anonymous Publishing Sites for SharePoint Server 2007”

    Andrew Connell 's white paper on Configuring and Deploying Anonymous Publishing Sites for SharePoint Server 2007 just went up on MSDN. The following...

  • SharePoint – Name ActiveX Control error.

    This error pops up on SharePoint MOSS publishing websites that are in the Internet security zone for IE browsers. This is because the core.js file wants to...

  • re: Dell Newsletter

    After reading yet another Dell monthly newsletter, I decided to reply to it. I figure it’s rant-worthy. Hi Mr Dell, When I purchased my laptop, I was after...

  • SharePoint – for those times when you really got to kill a list

    This is a simple tip. The list template stuffed up a list and you cannot get to it in site library and lists. The backdoor way to remove...

  • The new flood of stuff coming out of Windows Live are really nice

    I do have FriendFeed, but I think too little people know about FriendFeed ( http://friendfeed.com/johnnliu ) - but it's a very techy solution. I think...

  • Windows Live configuration sync

    I had this idea that popped up when I was listening to the current .NET Rocks - The Future of Web Development Panel. I was listening to the panel lamenting...

  • I twit now (oh and I still blog)

    I'm sorry I'm probably very very late to the bandwagon, but there's a few reasons for this: Just ain't very keen to login to Facebook all the time to just...

  • Late blog (as in, not a live blog) Australia Power To Developers event

    So there I was, sitting in the front row of the Power to Developers event in Sydney Convention Center. A really great place by the way - it's like 5 minutes...

  • Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) has a nice new look

    Most people probably have a Hotmail account, but like me, probably haven't visited it for quite a while. Anyway, they unleashed a new version recently that...

  • Seriously thinking to split this blog

    I like blogging about what I'm doing, but in some aspect, there are different areas that I would like to blog about: Software Development Some really...

  • iPhone special: No contacts in the contact list when I couldn't talk to my Microsoft Exchange server

    I interrupt my usual rant about .NET (and Dell laptops) to bring you a rant about my iPhone. Story begins like this... So we had a bit of a DNS hiccup with...

  • An injustice

    I went out and met a bunch of people over the farewell of a good friend and past colleague over a really fun project I was on. Over drinks I heard a really...

  • New MacBook to have glass trackpad (End of September)

    Source http://blogs.computerworld.com/rumor_macbook_updates_to_include_glass_trackpad_other_goodies I've got to say the multi-touch glass screen on the...

  • Starting another journey, again

    I've finished one leg of my journey at Oakton www.oakton.com.au and have decided to return to my old company www.ssw.com.au to continue my consultant dream....

  • this.consulting.life

    Being a consultant is: Walking on a tight rope Crazy business requirements people on one side Poor internal dev teams (the maintenance guys) on the other...

  • A camera of the future

    In the future, when you take a picture of something, the camera generates a 3D scene of it and stores it in memory. Camera will need 2 lens to work out the...

  • Modelling the system

    Here's a nice pretty diagram of the various components of modelling a (any) world. In my case here, the world is a virtual world. You would noticed quickly:...

  • Lack of statistics for Windows spaces.live.com

    The statistics capabilities for Windows Live wetted my appetite for better statistics reporting. Why on earth: Record only up to the last 3 days No user...

  • Silverlight 2 Beta 2 coming really soon

    All signs points to Silverlight 2 beta 2 coming within the week: http://blogs.msdn.com/swiss_dpe_team/archive/2008/06/03/silverlight-2-beta-2-available-later...

  • Polaroid Picture Add-On for Windows Live Writer

    Ha ha look at this: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=6a125986-6550-4ce9-9c71-9a0fbbc3443f&bt=9&pl=8

  • GMail getting slower and sloowweerr

    There could literally be thousands of reasons for why GMail seems to be running slower and slower for me: FireFox Extensions? I use FireBug (which Google...

  • Laptop has three vertical lines now

    Looks like my Dell Inspiron is really heading for the trash can. Dell customer care has got back to me with some model numbers that the out of warranty...

  • Debugging a baby

    Ok, baby won't sleep, keeps waking up every 15 minutes when we put him to bed. He screams so we do the usual checks: Is he comfortable? Diapers ok The cot...

  • Dell Support Australia called me back but sounded suspicious

    I was talking initially to Murali - the first person that I chatted with regarding my defective Dell Inspiron laptop. When he could not authorize someone to...

  • Avoiding my Dell laptop like the plague

    I've had my Dell Inspiron laptop for over 2 years now. And I've always thought it was a pretty good machine and I'm pleased to have used Dell. I've pretty...

  • Oh noes! Dell Dead Line

    Call you what you will, dead line pixels, LCD defect/failure. I woke up last night to use my laptop to do some emails, and behold, what's this wierd blue...

  • Car insurance is a joke?

    This is an old story. About a year ago, I had someone who smash through my car's right side-mirror. I called up NRMA and asked about their policy "if it's...

  • Keith's birthday

    Keith, my firstborn son, eh has been born. Lina had some issues over the entire weekend leading up to the birth, but finally contractions started just past...

  • This is what I would do if I ever quit IT

    Hire out accessible office building balconies in Sydney, or park space Get a bunch of beach chairs Put up lots of beach umbrellas (for the sun and rain?)...

  • The workplace Wiki

    I'm a pretty strong believer that anything related to the development should go on the project Wiki. Most people will agree on a few obvious topics: Rules &...

  • Enterprise security policy

    I received an email reminder from the client recently. "Please don't plug external/personal laptops into the corporate network, this is against the...

  • Cool bits about Office Communicator

    Our regular morning project scrum was cancelled for today, as I went back to my desk, I noticed that my Office Communicator has updated my status to "In a...

  • Trying to perfect my Zoolander grin

    But without hair it's pretty difficult.

  • An interesting quit smoking help

    A colleague mentioned a site quitext.com which is a quit smoking support website. They send you daily SMS' to help encourage you to quit smoking. You can...

  • MIX08

    Everybody is blogging about it. I'm not there, but still the amount of betas rolling out from Microsoft is making me very happy. ASP.NET MVP beta 2 IE8 beta...

  • Watching news

    Giving up caring about the US Election. Being following the US Election, and sadly I stopped caring when Ohio and Taxes voted for Hillary Clinton. With the...

  • Good by fish :-(

    I went home last night and Wifey told me we've lost another fish. This is our second fish that we've lost since we've taken custody of the fish tank of a...

  • Foosball championships

    We'll be needing a small web app to track office foosball championships. Currently it seems Ben and Roman are on the top. Zhilla is incredibly good too, but...

  • My wish for 2008

    Is that I'd get a project where I don't need to touch ASP.NET or JavaScript or fiddle (something people use the less polite word f*ck) with AJAX for a whole...

  • My register lost johnliu.net domain and didn't even tell me

    I don't know if I had blogged this before, anyway, I've owned johnliu.net for a couple of years. In 2006, It expired into redemption period (because I've...

  • December 2007

    Is gone. Lina and I went to New Zealand for a visit, with our unborn child (the little guy is probably sleeping through the whole trip). I don't know if I...

  • Using Windows Live Writer now

    After a bit of hiccups with installing windows live (the live version) as opposed to the beta I was using. I'm glad to report that it is now working...

  • What is hakia and why should I care

    I was reading my web ad's again (because I turned adblock off - I'll talk about that some other time). There's this ad that hits me again and again. "Can't...

  • A really nice background picture

    http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/1438/earth_lights_lrg.jpg This is a NASA image of the world at night, I'm guessing since you can't take the picture in one go,...

  • Transformers

    I realized what I need. A transformers desktop. When you double click a folder, it does a massive transformation sequence to open up! :-D The movie broke...

  • Few bits of update

    Quit WoW (raiding too stressful, RL work taking up too much time) Started playing LOTRO (no more raids this time) Workload is heavy but I'm having fun...

  • 2 April 2007

    Determination. I'm determined to get my unit of work completely finished by today and hand it in for review. It is a very big unit and I don't know when the...

  • Revenge of the developer!

    How do you get even with the BA's for giving you a 14 page functional requirements specification? You give them back a 15 page testing script! ;-) Ah...

  • 30 March 2007

    Getting to work early has a very different feeling. Feels more relaxed, not rushed. And I could take time to enjoy the surroundings. I think I like it quite...

  • Infinite loop in a survey questionaire for acupuncture.

    This is a true story that happened a few years ago. A church friend asked me to fill out a survey regarding acupuncture. The questions were like this. Have...

  • 29 March 2007

    Rules to better code Unit Test everything! Refactor mercilessly. Go home early and get a good night's sleep. Use coffee but only if necessary (ie, writing...

  • MSN Javascript errors.

    I hate javascript errors. I don't understand why MSN spaces has so many of them. It reflects really poorly on people reading your blog if it keeps throwing...

  • 27 March 2007

    It has been a very hectic few days. A lot of changes from staging that had to be merged in. Didn't have much to blog - got lots of little notes here and...

  • 22 March 2007

    Commit early, Commit often. We're nearly the end of one build phase. And a lot of people are committing their changes into version control. For each person...

  • 21 March 2007

    Strange happenings. SVN died pretty bad for me last night. The issue? I wasn't using the latest version 1.4.3 (I was still on 1.4.2). Honestly, I was not...

  • Surely my car is towed away again.

    I parked it on the main street outside my home. I didn't take it to work this morning. I'm sure I have to go look for it again tonight, must be towed away...

  • 19 March 2007

    No blog for the weekend. Having a quiet morning to prepare my tasks. Got back a review - I think there was a lot of miscommunication between the parties...

  • 16 March 2007

    Bad start to a day sucks a lot. Every morning I have to make a choice of which bus stop to go to, to catch my bus. Let's ID them as bus stop A and bus stop...

  • 15 March 2007

    New day, new croissant. I'm really thinking whether to go out and buy a USB drive, I wonder how much they cost now per Mb. Blend being unusable for WPF/E...

  • 14 March 2007

    New day, new craziness. Dinner overnight was pretty good, it was great to catch up with a new couple. Having lunch with wife rocks, I'm really looking...

  • 13 March 2007

    I think I'm in love. It came across to me that I would benefit from having a private wiki (I often use one of the free .NET wiki packages anyway)....