Somehow, I've failed to add Jeff Atwood to my blogroll before today.  That seems odd to me, since I'm a huge Scott Hanselman fan, and Scott gives mad props to Jeff all the time, jokingly referring to him as his Nemesis.  (Side note:  I don't know that Nemesis is the mythological character I would choose, Scott.  I think him being Pollux to your Castor is more appropriate, but I digress...)

So I added Jeff to my blogroll today, and the very first post to come across my reader is a discussion on Alistair Cockburn's "Software Development as a Cooperative Game" presentation.  This is not light reading, but it is fascinating.

The basic premise is that software development can be viewed as an ongoing, cooperative game, not unlike rock climbing.  Other than the obvious implications of making your work more meaningful than "I do this to get paid," I think this model provides a lot of value, not just in making your own career more rewarding, but also in building a team that can trust each other and build on each others' strengths and weaknesses.

As we've worked to build our online banking development team at Commerce, we've struggled a bit with team dynamics.  Basically, what it comes down to is, as I assert my role as a technical lead, I sometimes have a tendency to be an impatient condescending jerk.  Having identified that as my weakness, and applying the "rock climbing" metaphor, it should be easier for me to understand and curb that behavior.  We can't all climb rock walls at the same speed, or using the same tools, or over the same paths.  Condescending to someone isn't going to help them traverse the wall any quicker;  It's just going to make them want to throw me off the cliff.

I decided to go ahead and purchase my own domain name.  Welcome to CamTheGeek.com!

I found an issue with the DVR that I find pretty irritating.  I STILL prefer Dish over Time Warner, contrary to the implications at the end of this letter.  Maybe 6.8/10 now...

The following is an email I sent Dish Network tonight:

I've been a Dish customer for a couple of weeks now, and while I'm very pleased with your signal and programming choices, I've got to express my dissatisfaction with your HD DVR, the ViP622.

I previously emailed Dish Tech Support regarding a scenario in which I would want to be able to record new episodes of a show with a high priority, and reruns of the same show with a lower priority. They replied that this was not possible with the current software. I decided that I liked the ViP 622 enough that I could live with this.

I've now discovered a larger, much more serious issue that really vexes me. Apparently, the DVR has a maximum number of 288 scheduled events. Between 20 event timers (most of which are set for "new episode") and 5 dish passes, I've currently got 80 events scheduled that result in a recording and 208 skipped events. This puts me at 288 events and I can add no more timers.

I've used a good DVR (DirecTV's old TiVo line), and I've used a downright awful DVR (Time Warner's SA 8300HD). Neither DVR imposed this kind of arbitrary limitation. How on earth have you guys been distributing this thing for over a year without having fixed this issue?

I'm very, very torn. On the one hand, I love your channel lineup, your customer service, your signal quality, and, for the most part, your DVR. On the other hand, these two issues with your DVR are such fundamental flaws, totally counterintuitive to the core benefits of even USING a DVR, that I am seriously wishing I had done more research before becoming a Dish subscriber. Had I known about these limitations, I would have preferred to stay with Time Warner's otherwise inferior product.

Please, please, PLEASE tell me you have plans to update the DVR software to address these limitations. I want to love Dish Network, but right now, I'm just frustrated and wishing I'd stayed with cable.

UPDATE - 3/3/2007

It looks like relief is on the way!  Here's Dish's response...

Thank you for your e-mail. We are aware of the issue with this receiver. Our engineers are working on the problem. It will be corrected in a software update which should increase the amount of events available. Unfortunately, there is not a way for us to know the status of their work. Please remember to turn off your receiver when you are not watching TV, so that it can receive the update when it becomes available.

So they promise that it will be corrected.  Better yet, the people in the know have confirmed that it's going to happen sooner rather than later!  This rocks!!!

We've had our Dish Network HD DVR for two days now, and overall, we're very happy with it.  It's very, very good, but it's not quite perfect.  Here are our observations so far.

The Good

I've got a whole list of good things to say.

• Dish has way more HD channels than Time Warner KC.  We've spent 80% of our time with National Geographic HD, which wasn't available on Time Warner.
• The DVR is reliable - Which is a huge advantage over Time Warner.
• No crappy analog channels.  Time Warner KC still has any channel below 99 on an analog signal, and it was very noticeable, and very sucky.
• The user interface is very friendly and very aesthetically pleasing.
• On-screen caller ID that works with any telephone service (we use Vonage).  Time Warner's caller ID only works with Time Warner's telephone service.
• The price is comparable to Time Warner.
• Built-in home distribution.  This is the slickest feature.  It actually has two output displays - The primary, which is high definition, and the secondary, which is a standard definition signal that it broadcasts to the rest of our house over the existing coax.  It comes with a second remote that operates via a UHF signal, so it doesn't have to be used line-of-sight.  This is great for our bedroom TV, a 32" standard TV that was our former living room TV.  It has all the channels and DVR stored programming available to it, and can watch any of it independently of what the primary TV is watching.  THIS. IS. AWESOME.  Connor can watch this morning's Blue's Clues in the bedroom while we watch last night's Heroes in the living room, or vice-versa.  And all of our high-def content is available either room, because it actually downscales HD programming for SD.  Wow.

The Bad

I found one issue worth complaining about.  I could do it on my old Series2 DirecTiVo, and I could do it on Time Warner's craptacular DVR, but I can't do it on Dish's DVR.  It's a little complicated, so bear with me...

Say I set up an Event Timer to record new episodes of a show, say, The Simpsons, on the local Fox affiliate and assign it a high priority, so I always pick up new episodes of The Simpsons.  Great.

Now say I set up a Dish Pass (equivalent to TiVo's wishlist, basically a way to tell the DVR to keep an eye out for something you like) for The Simpsons, any time, any channel.  I want to pick up Simpsons reruns on the local Fox affiliate as well as in syndication.  I assign this a low priority because I don't want to give reruns any priority over new programming.

At this point, the Dish DVR will accept the new Dish Pass, but it will not schedule any recordings based on that, and it will not allow me to add ANY additional Event Timers or Dish Passes, claiming that I have reached the maximum number of timers and that I need to delete some before I can add any more.  This error is wrong, though.  If I delete that additional "Simpsons" Dish Pass, I can add more Dish Passes and Event Timers to my heart's content. 

I'm aware I could just set a Dish Pass to record the Simpsons on any channel at any time, but the point is that I want to give new episodes the priority, as well as set them to "preserve" (not delete automatically).  I've tried several permutations of this with Dish Passes and Event Timers, and it's always the same result.  The best I can figure is that it has something to do with trying to have multiple event timers/Dish Passes with the same name - It's as if the name has to be unique.  I have a hypothesis that I can work around this with manual timers (e.g., telling the DVR to record a specific channel at a specific time), but that's a pain.

I emailed Dish Network about this, but I imagine they won't thoroughly read what I wrote and will just send me a canned response to delete some event timers.  We'll see.  It's certainly not a deal breaker.  I probably waste too much time on reruns anyway.

(Note:  The Simpsons is just one example of a show I want to do this with.  Others include South Park, Family Guy, and Battlestar Galactica.)

The Ugly

• The local NBC affiliate, KSHB 41, has some kind of an issue with their HD feed to Dish.  The audio sounds like it's in a tin can, like someone turned on "stadium" mode on their receiver.  And I've heard of the video stream having some artifact issues.
• I wish there was a clock on the front.  That's about the only thing I really miss about Time Warner's DVR.

Update - 2/25/2007

I got a reply from Dish Network's tech support:

Dear Mr. Soper,

Thank you for your e-mail. We are aware of the issue with this receiver. It will not set up two different types of timers for the same show. It will either setup a dish pass, or a normal timer. To record all episodes at two different priorities is not available at this time.

We are always looking for ways to improve our service, and we appreciate your input. We will forward your comments and concerns to the proper department; however, we can not promise this will be implemented. Thank you again for choosing Dish Network and please feel free to contact us again with any future concerns.

I'm very pleased that someone actually read and understood what I wrote, but it doesn't appear that there's a way to do what I'm asking.  I still give this DVR high marks...  Say, 8 out of 10.

My wife and I lost yet more shows when our Time Warner DVR (SA 8300HD) suddenly decided to stop recording without warning.  And considering that popular opinion is that Time Warner's new Navigator software sucks even more than the software we've got, it became clear to us that it was time to jump ship.

So I logged onto Amazon and ordered the TiVo Series3.  Then I did some browsing around the TiVo community to congratulate myself.  I'm glad I did...  It turns out that there is a pretty serious issue with the TiVo Series3 boxes on certain cable providers.  You see, the TiVo Series3 uses the CableCARD 1.0 spec.  A lot of big cable providers are moving parts of their channel lineup to a new technology called Switched Digital Video (SDV).  SDV is not compatible with CableCARD 1.0.  So as a given cable provider moves channels to SDV, a CableCARD customer would lose those channels.  There's no way of knowing when or what channels would be affected - It all hinges on how Time Warner decides to maintain their network.

Today, I doubt it would impact us.  In all fairness, I would probably be very happy with the Series3 at first.  But what about in a few months?  Years?  How long would it be before my $660 TiVo (Amazon's price) became a boat anchor?  I'm a geek, and I enjoy being an early adopter, but not in this case.  The technology is already partially obsolete with a good potential of becoming further obsolete in the very near future.  I love you TiVo, and you're doing some cool things, but I can't accept that.  Give me a call when you roll out the Series4.

So we started thinking outside the box, and we decided to drop our terrestrial cable (except for RoadRunner)  in favor of Dish Network and their very well received HD DVR.  The installer comes Thursday.

I've been running Vista on my home desktop and my wife's Dell XPS m140 laptop since it went RTM, and I've got nothing but nice things to say about it.  However, I can't run Aero on my wife's laptop.  Turns out that Intel has elected not to make the prerequisite WDDM video drivers for the 915GM chipset in the XPS m140 and half of all the other laptops manufactured in 2006.  They blame Microsoft, but honestly, I just don't care.  I bought a "Vista Ready" PC in 2006, and the damn thing isn't completely Vista ready.  Jerks.

That's an easy one - busting my ass on Commerce Bank's Online Banking.  We've built a great development team and we've done amazing work in a short period.  I've come up with a bunch of stuff to blog about, too.

But right now, let's talk about what's on my mind most at the moment:  Time Warner's HD DVR, the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD sucks balls.  I finally talked my wife into letting me get an HDTV (a super-sweet ViewSonic N3751W) for the living room, so we moved the HD DVR from the projector room downstairs to the living room and hooked it up with sweet, sweet HDMI (of which my rockin' sweet TV has three (!!!) ports).

Little did I realize, however, that this stupid DVR has far more problems than it's worth.  It starts recording shows that are half over, it cuts off recordings mid-program, and it reboots randomly.  It's just absolutely freakin terrible.

So my wife and I have decided that we're going to wait for Time Warner's forthcoming software upgrade.  If that doesn't improve matters, we're going to ditch the HD DVR altogether and get a TiVo Series3 with 2 cable cards.

Why the heck is it so hard for cable companies to get DVR software right???

I just read on DotNetKicks that apparently Visual Studio 2003 is not going to be officially supported in Vista.  Allow me to say: Double-ewe.  Tee.  Eff.

I'm floored by this.  Supposedly, though, it will only break debugging in VS2K3, since the security model has been reworked significantly.  Note to self:  Install VS2K3 on my Vista box and try to break it.

If this is true, I suppose one could develop in VS2K5 and compile the MSIL in .NET 1.1 with MSBee.

Anyone not reading this website from behind a content filter (I'm looking at you, Commerce employees) has probably noticed my Google AdSense ads.  I added them when I started this blog because I figured it's free and it surely couldn't hurt.  To date, I've made exactly $1.84.  And who says bloggers aren't real writers? (BTW, why don't you take this opportunity to click on some ads?  Go ahead, I'll wait.)

Today, I noticed this ad on my site.  Apparently, geeks who read my site would be likely to watch Superman Returns and buy virtualization products.  Or maybe watch a movie about Superman running a Virtal Machine farm.  Or something like that.

One of the first things I noticed about Vista was that they'd included thumbnails on the alt-tab dialog and on the taskbar buttons.  Thumbnails in alt-tab is nothing new.  I've been using TaskSwitchXP for a while now.  What is new is the thumbnails on the taskbar buttons. When you point at a program's button in your taskbar, you get a tooltip with an embedded thumnail.

As if that weren't cool enough, the thumbnail is actually updated in real time.  Observe here, I'm viewing Weird Al's White and Nerdy* and the thumbnail is updating at the same 30 fps as the actual video player (I added the red box for emphasis)!  Well, maybe not the same framerate, but it has to be pretty close.  How cool is that???

* Yes, I'm an unabashed fan of Weird Al.  He's like the patron saint of geeks.  If you don't like it, suck it.