Windows 7 and the Press

I was replacing Windows 7 beta with Windows 7 Release Candidate on my laptop a few months ago... And I was joking with colleagues about the future success of this new version. Having used Vista for two years
Windows 7 didn't strike me as an earth-shattering evolution. Yet we predicted that people would rush on Windows 7 like bees on cupcakes for two main reasons:

• the press was very positive about Windows 7 after it slaughtered Vista
  
• the Release Candidate was as good as the final thing and free to use until March 2010. In other words people could use a fully working OS for free for 10 months.
  

I don't think Vista deserved the bad press it received. I used it for two years: RC1 and RC2 on an old PC then the RTM 32-bit and eventually 64-bit on my main machine.
Driver issues? A bit at the beginning but nothing that couldn't be overcome.
Speed issues? Desktop: nothing that I could notice on a 4GB dual-processor Dell with raid-striped 15000rpm SAS drives. Laptop: browsing the web was fine, Visual studio was slow. After I moved to Windows 7 browsing the web was still fine and Visual Studio still slow.

When I removed Vista 32-bit from my Vaio and installed Windows 7 RC, it indeed felt a bit snappier. But again, ANY version of Windows feels snappier after a fresh install.

Whether you run XP, Vista or Windows 7 the OS you're running on a machine does not matter as much as the following factors:
- how fresh the install is: re-install your OS often, with a bit of organisation it can be quick.
- the amount of RAM: install more than you think you'll need.
- the hard drive speed: one 15000rpm drive is good, two are better.


I might oversimplify a bit, still I think there are mostly two reasons why you want to upgrade to a new OS:

• the untold one: it looks better than the previous version.
• the one you tell people to look clever: the OS is faster, contains bug fixes and new useful features.
  

Thanks to unbalanced press opinions Windows 7 at last gives people an excuse to cave in to the first reason while being covered by the second.

Books I currently flip through #7

Technology

• Effective REST Services via .NET: For .NET Framework 3.5
• Programming WCF Services, 2nd Edition

Methods

• Apprenticeship Patterns, 1st Edition
  

Finance

• The (Mis)behaviour of Markets (Benoit Mandelbrot)
  

 

Others

• Blink (Malcolm Gladwell)
  
• The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Thaleb)
  
  

Trying out TeamCity and CruiseControl

A few teams use Cruise Control at work. It seems to be a fairly standard choice when it comes to continuous integration. Roy Osherove recommends TeamCity over CruiseControl because he doesn't like getting his hands dirty with XML configuration (can't blame him).

I tried both to get a feel of what you can do with them. I ran TeamCity of my main machine and CruiseControl on a VM to avoid clashes.

I managed to get a build running in TeamCity without too much difficulty. I installed the tray notifier.

CruiseControl is a bit more tricky. After I edited the config files I kept getting exceptions when trying to startup ccnet.exe. Had to go through several install iterations before getting something running.

Installing TeamCity:

• Install Tortoise SVN
• Install VisualSVN Server
  
• Run the TeamCity installer
• Start the build agent manually (rather than through a Windows service).
  
• Install the TeamCity Windows tray notifier
  

Installing Cruise Control inside a virtual machine.

• Windows Virtual PC RC, wich is a new version of Virtual PC for Windows 7.
• Install Virtual Server 2008
• Install SVN command line  
  
• Edit the ccnet.config file
• Added a project block
• Added a source control block
• Added a tasks block. Good news: you can add task where you simply run devenv.exe against the solution file. 
• Get the Web Dashboard working:
  
• Install IIS: under Windows Server 2008, it's not a Windows feature any more, it's a server role. You have to go to Server Manager > Roles > Add Roles and follow the wizard to add IIS.
• Run the CruiseControl.Net installer
  
• Create a new application in IIS for the ccnet webdashboard. In Server Manager, go Roles > Web Server (IIS) > Internet Information Services, open Sites > Default Web Site. Right-click Default Web Site and choose Add Application. Set Application Pool to Classic .NET AppPool.