Opera Ctrl-Click to open in new page / tab - updated

Well, it has been a while now since I originally posted about wanting to use Ctrl Click as my shortcut for opening pages in a new tab (or a new page as Opera calls it!).

I had a couple of comments from people who said they had managed it, but no matter what I tried, I had no luck (perhaps it works differently on different operating systems). I even posted about it in the Opera Dev forums (not sure whether that was the right place!), but no joy there.

However, while searching for more information, I stumbled across a piece of Opera User JavaScript in the My Opera community forums - from shoust here.

If you want to implement it, you'll need to set up your User JavaScript folder, as described on this page. Then follow the link to shoust's post and save "allinbackground.js" to the folder you set up (you can ignore the bit about the "button"). Restart Opera (not sure if you have to, but I did) and you're all set up!
[Edit: You don't even need to restart! Opera gets better and better]

One further change might be to enable User JavaScript on HTTPS sites - but do so only at your own risk!

I hadn't realised that Opera had a flexible JavaScript engine out of the box; I'd only recently started using the Firefox Greasemonkey extension and enjoying it, so I should be able to port my scripts straight over!

Google - why so shy?! allintext rules

Ah, finally! While searching for a link to information about the "allinanchor" page, I found this wonderful list of hidden (not documented by Google) features!
Now -
allintext:ie 8 "beta 2"
- works as I want it to! I think now I'll edit all of my Firefox keyword searches and Internet Explorer searches to include that directive by default. Happy days!
There are a couple of other options I might play with on that page too. I'm intrigued by phonebook and rphonebook and the intitle image search could be useful too...

Google - please search for what I ask for

I do a fair few Google searches over the course of my day, and I've begun to notice a worrying trend. Google is beginning to give me less control over what I search for. Instead of returning pages that contain all of the items in my search query, it will return pages that contain some of the items, and that are linked to with text that contains the rest. This is annoying.
An example is this search:
ie 8 "beta 2"
Currently, the top result for this page is a link to the Internet Explorer page for Beta 1 ... but that's not what I want! If I go through to Google's cache of the page, I see this. Note the text in the Google frame that says "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: beta 2".

OK ... so I can understand that for many users, this feature could be useful and could give more meaningful results on some queries - but as a sophisticated user, I would expect that I could turn it off and search purely for pages that contain my terms! Google's advanced pages do not (currently) have this option (which would be something like inpage: and allinpage:).
There is however, a semi-hidden "allinanchor:" directive!

That was the second query I had trouble with today (the first was this one). Yahoo was giving me better results earlier, but seems to be following Google's behaviour now.

I don't know whether this has changed recently. I have noticed searches coming up with similar issues in the past, but not for a while. It could be that Google are tweaking the weighting of keywords-in-page to keywords-in-inbound-links, and this is an unfortunate side-effect.
It may also cause (or be the result of?) link-spammers - I think I've seen cases where link-spammers have taken advantage or weighting based upon keywords-in-inbound-links already...

The phenomenon appears to have been noted on other pages like this one, this one... I also read earlier someone suggesting surrounding each term with quotes, but that clearly doesn't work in some cases ("beta 2" above is already in quotes), and is a pain-in-the-behind to have to do for every search!

Please Google, smarten up and realise that some of your users are smarter than you think :o)

Testing .asmx Web Services in Visual Studio 2008

I was trying to test an asmx-style web-service with Visual Studio 2008. Using the "wizard way" created me a TestMethod that looks like this:-

       [TestMethod()]
       [HostType("ASP.NET")]
       [UrlToTest("http://localhost/Website/Services/")]
       public void GetMainArticlesTest()
       {
           Articles target = new Articles();
           XmlDocument actual;
           actual = target.GetMainArticles();
           //Test goes here
           Assert.IsNotNull(actual);
       }

This looks fine, but when I try to run it, I get 403 Forbidden errors. I spent some time trying to rectify this, but didn't get anywhere. There are hints on the web that this method of running tests does not work with some methods of authentication...
(We also had problems debugging tests like the above - I think it runs in a brand new process each time which is not connected to automatically.)

I then tried removing the HostType and UrlToTest attributes. This appears to work, but in fact the Test Runner is just creating a copy of the Articles service class directly, without going through the .asmx page, and things like HttpServer do not exist, which causes problems (in my case, the necessary XSLT files are not available).

So going back to first principles, I added a Web Reference for the Articles.asmx to my Test Project (tried Web Service Reference - doesn't seem to want to work), and then created a new TestMethod like so...

       [TestMethod()]
       public void GetMainArticlesTest()
       {
           ArticlesService.Articles service = new ArticlesService.Articles();
           XmlNode results = service.GetMainArticles();
           //Test goes here
           Assert.IsNotNull(results);
       }

This is much happier now. It works and I can debug the test directly (debugging the web service itself requires attaching to w3wp).

How long does it take to get a replacement "Super Paper Mario"?

This blog is now turning into a list of my bug-bears, which is a shame, but it's a way to get things off my chest!

There is a bug with the European (PAL) version of Super Paper Mario for the Wii. At a certain point in the game, if you fail to perform steps in a certain way, the game crashes and you lose any unsaved progress.

Nintendo announced a disk replacement scheme.
I emailed the address given, and received a reply from "Mike Rawlings" asking for me to send my copy back and "we will attempt to replace your copy as soon as possible and within 15 working days if stock levels allow". I queried that I would be out of pocket for the postage costs and they sent me a postage-paid label.

I sent my disc off on December 18th. It was received and signed for on December 19th. I was concerned I hadn't heard anything a month later, so emailed them again on January 18th. They said they had received my disk and were awaiting stock.

I have since emailed twice, asking for an update, but have had no reply. So far, I've been without my copy of the game for about 9 weeks - 45 working days. I would be happy with a refund at this stage.

Poor show, Nintendo, poor show.

Update: Super Paper Mario turned up about 3 days after this blog post. No note of apology, no free gift, nothing. I'm still not pleased with Nintendo.
Guitar Hero 3 (PAL) owners were treated to better customer service when they had to return buggy discs and were given free faceplates!

Noir Consulting - a review of my experience

Hi,

I've been telephoned by the Managing Director of Noir Consulting/Wigs3 and asked to take this blog post down. With legal action being mentioned, and because I have no firm evidence to back up some of the claims made here, I'm taking the content of the post down for the time being. I'll revisit this decision in the next 6 months, when more information should be available.

In the mean-time, if you have had problems with Noir Consulting, please contact them via the email addresses on their web-site; the Managing Director has said that they will respond to complaints.
(To be removed from their databases, use the email address on their privacy page. For other issues, please use the details on their contact page).

I have also been asked to take down all of the comments posted here, which I have done. I apologise to everyone who taken the time to post them. I still have copies, and can re-post them if appropriate in the future.

This was not an easy decision, but Noir consulting have all of my personal details, including my current employer (who do not use Noir).

Thank you all for your time,

Marv

How long is Varekai (from Cirque du Soleil)?

I'm going to see a Cirque du Soleil production, Varekai, at the Royal Albert Hall next week. I wanted to find out how long it was, but Google was being particularly unhelpful. Searching for Varekai "Cirque du Soleil" length led me to pages which Google informed me (via the Google Cache frame) only contained some of my search terms in pages linking to the page it showed me.
I can see how that can sometimes be useful, but please, Google, allow me to turn the behaviour off! If I ask for a page containing the word "length", show me pages containing that word!

By the way, I eventually found a rough answer in a review from when the show was staged in the United States - it is about 2 and a half hours without intermission.

Edit: OK, I went along and it was about 2-and-a-half hours, but there was a 20 minute interval. We were very glad for the 20 minute break, as we were in standing seats and our feet were killing us!
It was good, but if you've seen similar circus-type-shows, then you might find that the most impressive things are the costumes and special effects.