When creating a Windows application in Visual Studio 2008 using System.Speech, you might not be able to see all of the installed TTS voices if you are compiling to AnyCPU. Change your target to x86 in the Project Properties, Compile options, Advanced Options. You'll be glad you did.

Richard Campbell and I interviewed Daniel Crenna and Jason Diller on .NET Rocks! a couple weeks ago (http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=456) about Tweet #, their .NET library for writing twitter-enabled apps. I'm having a ball with it as I sit in the speaker's lounge at the Norweigian Developer's Conference in Oslo, Norway. I'll post the code I finally come up with, but it's basically a web and tweet comber.... and those things need to be combed...

More to come...

I’m focusing on squeezing performance for a highly scalable server application I’m working on. Just on a lark I decided to test the BinaryFormatter against manually serializing objects one field at a time using tools like BitConverter.

I created a class  with a few properties of each serializable type, and some code to generate 1000 objects populating each with random data. Then, I wrote a helper class to wrap up methods for serializing/deserializing each type, and then wrote a test harness to go through a cycle where I serialize, deserialize and compare the property values of each object to the original, all the while keeping track of how much time it took. For each run through I serialized using the BinaryFormatter and also using my code.

The result?  Here are the results from 5 iterations through the loop. I let it run for 15 minutes and the results were roughly the same.

serializing...
formatter serialize: 148ms, size: 11949508 bytes
manual serialize: 78ms, size: 11550558 bytes
serializer difference:
    70ms (190% faster)
    398950 bytes (4% smaller)
deserializing...
formatter deserialize: 110ms
manual deserialize: 54ms
deserializer difference:
    56ms (204% faster)
Results Match

serializing...
formatter serialize: 141ms, size: 11949508 bytes
manual serialize: 77ms, size: 11550558 bytes
serializer difference:
    64ms (183% faster)
    398950 bytes (4% smaller)
deserializing...
formatter deserialize: 112ms
manual deserialize: 43ms
deserializer difference:
    69ms (260% faster)
Results Match

serializing...
formatter serialize: 167ms, size: 11949508 bytes
manual serialize: 79ms, size: 11550558 bytes
serializer difference:
    88ms (211% faster)
    398950 bytes (4% smaller)
deserializing...
formatter deserialize: 118ms
manual deserialize: 41ms
deserializer difference:
    77ms (288% faster)
Results Match

serializing...
formatter serialize: 162ms, size: 11949508 bytes
manual serialize: 68ms, size: 11550558 bytes
serializer difference:
    94ms (238% faster)
    398950 bytes (4% smaller)
deserializing...
formatter deserialize: 111ms
manual deserialize: 56ms
deserializer difference:
    55ms (198% faster)
Results Match

serializing...
formatter serialize: 155ms, size: 11949508 bytes
manual serialize: 70ms, size: 11550558 bytes
serializer difference:
    85ms (221% faster)
    398950 bytes (4% smaller)
deserializing...
formatter deserialize: 105ms
manual deserialize: 36ms
deserializer difference:
    69ms (292% faster)
Results Match

I know what you’re thinking. It would be a real pain to implement your own serializer/deserializer in every class you want to shred. That’s true, if you code it by hand. This would be a great job for a code generator.

Even if you want to code it by hand. Look at the implementation for a class with properties of Integer, DateTime, String, and Byte Array:

            
              Public
              Shared
              Function Serialize(ByVal obj As testclass) AsByte() Dim memStream AsNew IO.MemoryStream With obj
ManualSerializer.Serialize(memStream, .Int1) ManualSerializer.Serialize(memStream,
.Date1) ManualSerializer.Serialize(memStream, .String1) ManualSerializer.Serialize(memStream,
.data) EndWithDim data() AsByte= memStream.ToArray
memStream.Dispose() Return data EndFunction
          

Pretty Easy. Here’s the DeSerialize Implementation for the same object:

          
            Public
            Shared
            Function Deserialize(ByVal data() AsByte, ByVal offset As Int32) As testclass Dim obj AsNew testclass With obj
ManualSerializer.DeSerialize(data, offset, .Int1) ManualSerializer.DeSerialize(data,
offset, .Date1) ManualSerializer.DeSerialize(data, offset, .String1) ManualSerializer.DeSerialize(data,
offset, .data) EndWithReturn obj EndFunction
        

In the Deserialize sub, the offset and the result variable are passed ByRef. That makes it easy for the deserialize code to keep track of the running offset in the byte array, and makes it darn easy to call from your code.

Download my test code at http://libra.franklins.net/ManualSerializeTest.zip

It all started innocently enough. My brother needed a 1TB hard drive for his NAS RAID array, when one of his died. I had a spare, which I had used as a backup drive, in my machine. So I copied everything off it to my NAS (we both now have big NAS drives) and removed the hard drive from my system. I left for TechEd 2009 in Los Angeles without restarting my machine.

Well, I get a call from the guys at the studio on Monday. My machine simply says "Bootmgr Missing. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart." Now, I run Windows Server 2008 which I have optimized for desktop use, which is really Vista 64-Bit at its core.

This has happened before, I thought. Every time you add or remove a hard drive on my system the BIOS takes all hard drives out of the boot order list. Curiously though, on this machine, you have to have a bootable CD or DVD in the CD-ROM drive in order for the system to boot.  You also have to make the CD-ROM drive the first device in the boot order list. When you get the "Press any Key to Boot from CD-ROM" message you just ignore it and it boot's up just fine. I never thought much of that.  So, I instructed Lawrence how to go into the BIOS and make the change. Interestingly, though, that didn't work. Not only that, but we weren't getting the "Press any key to boot from CD-ROM" message anymore. Hmmm...

We muddled through getting the shows published somehow, albeit late, and I attacked the problem when I got home from LA Friday night. Turns out the hard drive that has windows on it did NOT have the required boot files, and instead, when Windows was installed, it put the boot files on a different hard drive! Guess which one? Yep, the one I gave to my brother, which was now part of his NAS device... which it turns out didn't work for him. Crap.

The next several hours were painful. I went looking on the net for answers and found them, but my situation was just unique enough that there wasn't any complete solution out there.

I put the Windows DVD in the drive and booted it into the setup. You come to a screen where you can either install windows or repair an existing installation. Good. We're getting somewhere. It then shows you a list of existing Windows installations. Guess what? Nothing. Setup didn't recognize my existing installation. great.

There's an option to open a command window. I did. I started looking around at all the drives. The DVD had a boot directory and several files associated with it, and the system drive didn't. So, I copies those files over thinking that would at least give me a good start. Turned out I was right. I needed those files.

I figured out from web searches that I needed to run DISKPART and set the system partition as the active partition. First I needed to know the drive number and partition number. So, if you find yourself in this position, run DISKPART at the command prompt. You then enter in commands, which I've highlighted in red.

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status      Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  ----------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online       466 GB      0 B
  Disk 1    Online       140 GB      0 B
  Disk 2    Online       140 GB      0 B

Once you know the disk number you select the disk you want to work with this way:

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

Then, you select the partition, but you need to know which one it is. Do this:

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary            466 GB    32 KB

Now you can seelct the partition thusly:

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

Now just simply type

DISKPART> active

After you've made the system partition the active partition, then you need to fix and rebuild the BCD bootloader. type exit to get out of DISKPART, and from the command prompt enter:

bootrec /fixmbr

This worked. Great! Next step.

bootrec /fixboot

When I did this I got "Element not found." with no further explanation. Crap.

This one took me the hardest time to figure out. After hours and hours and hours, I somehow got the idea to remove all of the other hard drives in the system and try it again. That was the magic bullet. Once the other hard drives were removed, I found out I had to go back into DISKPART and set the active partition again.

After doing bootrec /fixbcd you have to do this:

bootrec /rebuildbcd

I was also getting Element not found on this one until I removed the other hard drives and set the correct partition as active.

So that was it. Everything worked and booted up just fine after that. I still can't help but wonder why this process is so difficult. If Windows Setup is going to possibly be writing boot records to drives other than the system drive, don't you think there should be an easier process for making that drive bootable.

I remember in the days of Windows 2000 and before, you could simply say "SYS C:" to make the C: drive bootable. I guess those days are gone.

I hope Windows 7 is easier to deal with.

Ok, so you want to know how that solo project session went? It was beyond words. The ideas filled the room and solidified quickly, the musicians played off each other like we'd been playing all our lives, and the soul was overwhelming. The entire album will be available once I'm done getting horn parts done, and one of the tunes still need lyrics.

This is the first cut, nearly done. It will have horns on the final, but I can't keep it to myself any longer. It's a funk cover of Drive My Car by the Beatles. I did the arrangement, and everyone did their own improv solos on the spot. Nothing was written out except for the form.

http://libra.franklins.net/DriveMyCarMix4.mp3

Of course, your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Photo by Serinol Lowman. Click to enlarge

Al Laporte, Carl Franklin, Matt Covey, Andy Chaney

There are more photos too, which will be available with the album.

I had a crazy impulsive idea a few months ago. My ex and kids are going on vacation for a week, and I wanted to do something in the studio. So I had the staff edit up next week's shows in advance, turned down a couple gigs, and hired three of the best musicians in the area to live in the studio with me for a week and crank out an album of original funk and blues music, with a couple covers.

Franklin Brothers' drummer and local skinbanger Matt Covey is playing drums, Amazing Al Laporte is on piano/keys, and the *ridiculously* talented Andy Chaney is on bass. I'm playing guitar and singing. We'll also have horns and backup singers on the final product. This week is all about getting the rhythm section down.

We'll be working Sunday through Friday 6pm to 2am.

I can't wait.

The Baby Show

Karen brings the baby to the show! Mark gets no sex for 8 weeks. Carl has rats. Baby gets motor oil for Christmas. Karen reviews a new connection film. You'll never guess who it's about. Mark gives the tards the respect they deserve, and Richard finds the coolest toy ever. Ever.

I know that we aren't announcing shows on my blog anymore, but this is a special occasion.

Change

All we're saying is that true Mondays fans will be shocked. And not by the language (although we no longer bleep - you've been warned).