Disqus - Latest Comments for Andrew Tobin

Re: My Chumby is here (Scripting News)

Andrew Tobin — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 18:59:41 -0000

I'm in the same situation - just waiting for international release so I can buy one!!

Re: An open source Twitter client? (Scripting News)

Andrew Tobin — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:40:32 -0000

Witty (WIndows-based, .NET) is open source and on Google Code.

Re: More than meets the eye (Scripting News)

Andrew Tobin — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 20:05:00 -0000

A bit off topic - don't know enough about the situation to comment.

But how dare the Guardian steal Googles icon! Tsk to them.

Re: Internet fallout from the crashing market (Scripting News)

Andrew Tobin — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:33:02 -0000

You gotta wonder how many Facebook / Yahoo! / etc companies are looking at rising hosting costs, lower share values, less interest in advertising and lower revenues, and no end in sight and are regretting not taking offers while they were around.

Hopefully they can last the long haul through this - but I can't imagine many toga parties on the company dime.

Re: How To Irritate The Free Software Foundation

Andrew Tobin — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 03:11:24 -0000

"Obviously, what FSF is trying to do is force Apple into either licensing a large chunk of its software under GPL."

Or?

Re: How To Transform The PS3

Andrew Tobin — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 23:06:05 -0000

Of course it will never happen because they're publishing titles on Bluray discs for the games side.

And have made many mentions of how their games will no longer fit to DVD.

So they're sticking by it.

Of course they said Rumble is last-gen and that it messed with the SIXAXIS motion, but they're backpedalling that one.

Re: How To Review Mahalo

Andrew Tobin — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:12:22 -0000

And yet, all I can do is look at the most popular pages and go "ew."

Really it sounds like a mix of search and digg.

Re: In the land of Continuous Integration : Grr, Argh!

Andrew Tobin — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:04:15 -0000

Hey Justin,

Yeah, I actually have 2008 unit tests running on mine, although I did have to install a copy of VS on the build server, which I dont quite like.

Then I executed the tests using the command line and an exec task.

There are xsl style-sheets for 2008 out now in the latest build - actually confirmed today: http://groups.google.com.ag/group/ccnet-user/br...

Hope that helps.

Re: Tough Questions about unit testing - Your comments required - ISerializable - Roy Osherove's Blog

Andrew Tobin — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:55:14 -0000

1) To be honest, it could add signifcant time to a current process. However, it allows you to approach each piece of code written with a more formalised plan and goal, allowing you to actively plan your methods before writing them, it reduces the cost of maintainability and increases efficiency in assuring your codebase is cohesive and correct as you refactor and add methods around it.

2) I still think that testing and Quality Assurance is required. After all, all a Unit Test can do is test that the intent of what the developer was hoping to achieve for a particular method, does what it should. Quality Assurance should therefore be a review of the tests in place, of the project as a cohesive whole, user experience and acceptance and at the integration level.

3) Empirical evidence of the developers own experience that they are not travelling the same ground over and over, refactoring the same methods, but instead are writing tests that help them at smaller levels put together the building blocks for the program as a whole and are adding more tests and methods more than the time they are spending going back over existing code.

Also having someone revising the code can easily understand and follow the intent of what is being developed.

4) Same as 1.

5) Not sure of any studies, but I think the most important thing is giving it a shot and seeing if it helps the individual developer. It's sure helped me.

Re: Way Too Much Attention Is Being Paid to Katie’s Jeans

Andrew Tobin — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:04:43 -0000

I really hate to say this, but if Katie is 5'9" and Cruise is 5'7" wouldn't that make her taller, her legs longer, and therefore Tom's pants would be short on her, not require her rolling them up.

Unless she's rolling them halfway up her calves so they fit him comfortably :\

Re: Will You Miss “The Rock”?

Andrew Tobin — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:08:50 -0000

But, but... "you can't stop The Rock!" - shame that I know his wrestling catchphrases, and it's a bit of a stupid move since it's so distinguishing... but he probably has to pay Vince McMahon and the WwE some points everytime he uses it.

Re: YouTube’s new revenue model: affiliate links?

Andrew Tobin — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:04:42 -0000

What I find interesting is that they can place affiliate links to purchase music in content, but there's too much content for copyrighted material to be policed for removal, etc?

Re: ASP.NET MVC Storefront Part 23: WebForms and Dynamic Data : Rob Conery

Andrew Tobin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:30:44 -0000

Hey Rob,

Just looking through your code there, and I noticed you call something like this.GetFriendlyName(); from your view to get a nicer name for the logged in user.

Any reason for doing that rather than doing a Html.RenderAction<PersonalizationController>( c => c.ShowLoginControl(Page.User.Identity.Name)); in your Site.Master, and in that action in the controller maybe doing something like this:

public ActionResult ShowLoginControl(string username)
{
ViewData["NickName"] = GetFriendlyName(username);
return View("_summary");
}

It would achieve much the same and push the data rather than pull it from the view, wouldn't it?

Re: I miss Dare’s blog

Andrew Tobin — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 07:31:43 -0000

Hey Scoble, why don't you link to Jeff Atwood who wrote that post about Dare, rather than to someone who stole his post?

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/00107...

Re: Hollywood Forces New Ending on Lurhmann’s ‘Australia’

Andrew Tobin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:53:52 -0000

Well, since the ending was all about Nicole overcoming things, facing the harshness
of the Australian outback and independantly striving on at the death of her lover -
showing how much she's grown and making a really strong statement... and we're
turning that into what? She's on her own because her bloke ditched her?

I can really see the girls warming to that.

Re: TV Review: Season 3 Turns Into ‘Heroes: Smoke and Mirrors’

Andrew Tobin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:21:18 -0000

Yeah, exactly what I was thinking - that was some bullshit in the review!

I mean we found out ages ago she's Nathan's daughter, and the Petrelli's were after her for half the first season - there was tonnes of stuff about her searching for her real parents.

Jesus, did the reviewer only start watching this year?

Re: TV Review: Season 3 Turns Into ‘Heroes: Smoke and Mirrors’

Andrew Tobin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:05:51 -0000

I think that was obvious, they had something else they were retconning into that moment to weave into the history of that moment. I thought it was well done and had a bit more to it than the usual time jaunts going on.

Your point was that things we knew to be fact were a lie, for example Claire wasn't HRG daughter, from your own article - if you did know that, and it was a retread, then you didn't express yourself well in your review, because that meaning didn't come across at all - it really does seem like you think that is something we learnt last night.

So I didn't "prove your point" at all - re-read what you wrote.

And there isn't much that is a retread of the past - there have been a few minor ones of Hiro showing a history we haven't seen, and some other things we hadn't seen (like when he went back to discover who killed his father). I don't see much evidence of them covering the same historical ground over and over much at all.

Re: TV Review: Season 3 Turns Into ‘Heroes: Smoke and Mirrors’

Andrew Tobin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:52:07 -0000

Well, the solar eclipse wasn't pointless - I've read quite a few interviews or items about people wanting to know what the eclipse meant, and sure they could have maybe covered the same ground in another way. Instead I guess they decided to show another eclipse and that's a bit on the nose, but it got the point across, and is going to drive the science of the show a bit further - plus moved some of the character moments along.

I kind of wish it lasted a while longer - like they lost their powers and had Suresh come up with the reason why and have the bad guys repowered and the good guys having to figure it out/get to Suresh to fight back.

I'm sorry if my criticism wasn't well done either, but I think the way you worded that review took on a meaning you possibly didn't mean and coloured the perception that you weren't too up on the history of the show, and obviously I wasn't the only one who got that idea in my head (from the other comments).

In any case - thanks for responding and showing you were cool to have the discussion!

Re: Odette Yustman Goes Sexy Assassin in Rogue’s Gallery

Andrew Tobin — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:25:05 -0000

Woah! Sounds like a remake of The Assassination Bureau!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064045/

Re: Hot Contest: Win Burn Notice Season One

Andrew Tobin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:51:27 -0000

Argh, you guys and your "must be a resident of the united states".

I get why, but it's so annoying whenever I see something cool and want to enter ;)

Re: TV Review: Terminator: SCC – Ourselves Alone

Andrew Tobin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:12:57 -0000

Man, I disagree with you about Derek, I love the character - although I do think they really need to come up with a plot for him. I thought BAG would be horrible when he was announced, and yet, he's the one guy I actually do enjoy on the show (apart from Cameron).

I just wish they didn't go with this long, drawn out Riley narrative, when their weekly adventures aren't cutting it - especially when they had a longer weekly narrative of Sarah's issues lately.

I mean, couldn't they just be infiltrating government labs, or geek think tanks, or someone who provides a great hazard for them more than just having the separate Weaver and Connors stories? I want to start to see some awareness of each other - something that provides some danger between each group.

For some reason I think that the ep they find out about Weaver et al, is the ep that Weaver is done, and it's going to be wrapped up too tidy this season.

Re: TV Review: Terminator: SCC – Today Is the Day: Part 1

Andrew Tobin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:26:31 -0000

"although who doesn’t know the captain of the Jimmy Carter is a Terminator himself?"

I think you were just confused, bro - after all, several times there were comments about "making good time with metal at the wheel", Derek warning her not to trust the terminator leading them, and all sorts of things like that.

It was abundantly clear that the guy was a terminator, and rather than being an astute observation that you noticed and thought that the producers were trying to slip past us, you must have missed the several, open, hit you over the head times that people told us he was a terminator.

Re: TV Review: Heroes – An Invisible Thread

Andrew Tobin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:05:31 -0000

The offscreen fight actually reminded me of the future episode in season one where future Peter threw down with future Sylar, all offscreen and apparently awesome.

I really wish they'd have the budget to do an all-out fight like that, even if it was all fireballs in our eyes.

That said, I wish they hadn't depowered Peter either... it's okay having one awesomely powered character in Sylar and all, but I would have thought they'd be able to manage having Peter have several powers somehow, they just decided they were writing into a corner and all powerful characters had to go.

Except Sylar.

Although now he thinks he's Nathan, I guess he's only got one power too!

Re: Director’s Cut of ‘Watchmen’ Doesn’t Come With Intermission

Andrew Tobin — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:42:03 -0000

Wait, wait, wait - you said the directors cut is on dvd and bluray but the extra 25 minutes is listed on the features on the bluray that aren't on the dvd?

Is the directors cut on dvd a different cut to the bluray, that is identical to the theatrical?

Re: Bousman to Take Everyone to the Slaughterhouse

Andrew Tobin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 02:07:24 -0000

Strangely we also call them Abattoirs in Australia... oh and Europe, the UK, and the rest of the world that isn't America.

We're just goofy like that.