Work:

This is my second attempt at writing this short note as I have just tried to plug a USB lead into the reset switch on the pooter again.  Why they put them next to each other I will never fathom as it’s not the first time I’ve done it and probably not the last.

So what have I been doing,  well grab yourself a nice warm blanket, a mug of cocoa and I’ll tell you.  I’ve been doing some more VSTO stuff,  hang on a minute I can’t tell you about that as I’d have to kill you, or at the very least cover you In golden syrup, roll you in bird seed and lock you in the chicken house.

So what can I ramble about?

I know, I’ve had the opportunity to leverage some of the new C# generics functionality into what I am doing and I must say it’s pretty cool.  Normally when I want a collection of something I’ll create an ArrayList and throw my items into it.  Then when I want to do something with them I have to cast them back into the objects types that they are.

Well with the new Dictionary class I can create a collection with keys and values of whatever I want.  For example to decare a new collection holder I declare:

private Dictionary<string, myObject> myObjects.

This declares a collection of myObjects with string values as the key.

I can now do

myObjects.Add(“FRED”,myNewObject);

and when I want to get it back

myObject obj = myObjects[“FRED”];

Looking back over this now It appears no big deal but when you actually use the Dictionary class it just feels right, clean and pure.  A bit like me really a match made in heaven.

Rest:

Well what’s the verdict then?  do we think summer is over?  we had a few days of sunshine.  In fact we must have had quite a spell because Suzanne opened the tumble drier tonight and found some mouldy clothes that have been sitting there since the last lot of rain we had.  It’s a good job my normal choice of shirt has a pattern where you probably wouldn’t notice it. 

Play:

I’ve managed to cadge myself a Bluetooth GPS unit for my M2000 PDA phone so with a quick install of Tom Tom I’ll never get lost again.  It’s great you drive along and there is a womans voice telling you where to go.  If you make a wrong turn she starts telling you to turn around and she doesn’t give up.  In fact if only it told me how and where to park then it would be just like having the wife in the car.  I’d love to know what the female version of this software does.  Is it a mans voice that says “at the next roundabout turn left” “yes left is the hand you don’t write with”.  “At the next roundabout go straight over but listen very carefully, I DON’T MEAN DRIVE OVER IT! drive around it, no dear you don’t look fat in this car.”  

Well I suppose I better sign off, I am officially on holiday now and I did promise myself half an hour of Half-Life 2 before I went to bed although I’ve been listening to James Blunt while I’ve been blogging and now I feel more like loving up the aliens rather than blasting the entrails out of them.  Slaterzzz