Category: Microsoft

SharePoint, React, Laptops, and so on

I mentioned a while back that I’m trying to learn about the (relatively) new SharePoint Framework (SPFx), for a project at work. I’ve made some progress with that, but I still have a way to go. I’ve done 5 of the 8 modules in this course from Microsoft. And I’ve watched a couple of Pluralsight videos, one from Sahil Malik and one from Danny Jessee. I’ve been doing that mostly on work time, since it’s specific to a work project.

SPFx relies on a number of related technologies, some of which I know and some of which I don’t. (And the ones I know, I don’t necessarily know that well.) So I decided to start digging into some related stuff, on my own time. I know pretty much nothing about React, and it looked interesting, so I decided to start learning that. I’ve watched one short Pluralsight video, that just gives an overview without getting into specifics. And now I’m working through a four-hour video course that goes into a little more detail. There’s a whole skill path for React on Pluralsight that would take about 40 hours to watch, if you went through it all. (And of course it would be much longer than that, if you actually followed along and worked through projects on your own.)

I got side-tracked off of React at one point when I was watching one of the Pluralsight videos on my old ThinkPad, and the battery suddenly died. I’ve had that laptop since 2011, and it’s starting to show its age. I’d only been watching the video for about 30 minutes, and the battery should have had a full charge when I started. So I started thinking about either replacing the battery on it, or just getting a new laptop. Replacing the battery on that particular model is really easy. And there were a bunch of options for a replacement battery on Amazon (though most of them looked kind of sketchy). But I started thinking about how old the laptop was, and how iffy off-brand replacement batteries can be. And I also started wondering if that laptop was going to be able to handle some the stuff I’m going to want to try out soon, like WSL 2. I’ve been hearing about that for a while, and it’s now been released as part of the Windows 10 2004 update. The old ThinkPad, surprisingly, has been able to keep current with Windows 10 updates so far, up to version 1909. But I have my doubts about whether or not it’s going to be able to deal with 2004. So, reluctantly, I started shopping for a new laptop.

This is a pretty common thing with me: I start trying to learn a new technology, and I get side-tracked shopping for a new laptop, or some new piece of software, or something. Anyway, I spent way too much time on that yesterday. This morning, I finally settled on the Lenovo Flex from Costco, for $750. It’s a bit of a compromise, since I’ll need to upgrade it to Windows 10 Pro, but I can still do that for $40 with my Microsoft company store access, which should still be good for the next week or two. Also, it’s a 2-in-1, which I don’t really need or want, but most Windows laptops seem to be touchscreen 2-in-1 models now, so I’ll give it a try. On the positive side, it’s got 16 GB of RAM, a 512 GB SSD, and an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU. (I haven’t really been keeping up with CPU news lately, but it looks like the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U is pretty good.) So I think it should be able to handle my fairly modest needs. I always feel a little guilty when I spend money on new hardware, but I’m trying to remember that, this year, I’ve spent nothing at all on travel, and I’m not likely to. If I’d gone to WonderCon this year, that would have cost me well over $1000, for hotel and airfare alone.

I was going to remark that I’d made it through a whole post without referencing COVID-19, but the travel comment above kind of does reference our current situation, so I guess that’s not true. COVID-19 definitely did affect my laptop shopping. In normal times, I probably would have gone out to Costco yesterday to see what laptop models they had on display. And I might have taken a trip to Best Buy too. Costco is still open, but I don’t really want to go there unless I have to. And Best Buy of course is still closed. So I settled on a mail-order laptop from Costco. They have a good return policy, if I need it.

SharePoint, Somerville, and so on

A little follow-up on some subjects from yesterday’s post:

I complained a bit yesterday about the “hundreds of files” pulled in on a new “Hello World” SharePoint Framework project. I checked today, and it’s actually more than 50,000 files, totaling up to about 500 MB. Scary. I’ve also been a little worried about all the security warnings issued by npm when scaffolding a SPFx project. Apparently that’s all fine though and I should just ignore them, according to this blog post. I guess none of the stuff that npm is checking is actually ever deployed to SharePoint, so it’s fine.

NJTV News tonight had a segment on restaurant and retail reopenings that spent some time talking about Somerville. I guess we’re likely to go ahead with the plan to close down Main Street to car traffic a few nights a week that I mentioned yesterday. I’ve still got some reservations about that, but nobody asked my opinion. (Yeah, I know, I could start attending town meetings. They’re virtual now, so I don’t even need to leave my couch. I’m still probably not going to do it though.)

One other benefit of having “attended” Microsoft Build this year: They’re letting attendees buy some stuff from the Microsoft company store. They’re only allowing purchases of digital goods, so no discounts on Surface hardware or anything like that. But I did pick up a few things at bargain prices. I got a Windows 10 Pro license for $40, and used it to upgrade my desktop PC from Home to Pro. And I got a one-year extension on my Microsoft 365 Family account for only $20. (That’s usually $100/year. I get the Home Use Program discount, which makes it $70/year. So $20 is really low.) And I got a two-year Xbox Live Gold sub for $50. (That’s usually $10/month or $60/year.)

I don’t know if I’ll actually get much use out of the Xbox Live Gold account. As I mentioned recently, I’ve had the Xbox for a year now, and I barely use it, except as a DVD/Blu-ray player. I’ll have to keep an eye on the Games with Gold stuff and see if they have anything I’m interested in. I really want to start playing video games again, but there’s so much other stuff to do too.

Xbox follow-up

Now that I’ve had my Xbox for a few weeks, I thought I should post a follow-up. I’m mostly using it to play Bejeweled, to be honest. I played Mass Effect for about a half-hour, and haven’t gotten back to it. Ditto for Stardew Valley. I want to get back to both of those, but right now, War and Peace is more of a draw for me. It helps that I can read War and Peace outside, or at work, or on the train. It’s been nice out the last few weekends, so I’ve been sitting outside on Division Street and reading a lot. (Can’t do that with an Xbox.) I’m about 25% of the way through War and Peace.

It’s funny, if you look at a site like How Long To Beat, a lot of modern video games take about as long to complete as it takes to read War and Peace. (According to my Kindle, it’s maybe a 40-50 hour book.) I won’t look down on or argue with anyone who chooses to play the Mass Effect trilogy over reading War and Peace, but I think I’ve turned into more of a War and Peace kind of guy as I’ve gotten older.

And since E3 is done, maybe I should take a moment to review the Xbox news out of that show.

  • Everybody continues to push into subscriptions, including Microsoft, with the new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, for $15/month. I guess that’s great if you play a ton of games, but it’s definitely not for me.
  • The next gen Xbox looks interesting, and should be out near the end of 2020. Given that I seem to gravitate towards games like Bejeweled and Stardew Valley, that don’t exactly push the current gen hardware, I’m not likely to jump on the next gen bandwagon any time soon.
  • I’m glad to see that the next gen Xbox will continue to support backwards compatibility with older games, from the original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The headline in the linked article says “Microsoft ends Xbox backward compatibility,”  but that’s a little misleading. The article itself says that “Microsoft is winding down new additions to its Xbox backward compatibility catalog,” and “Microsoft is now committing to get every Xbox One game running on Scarlett, alongside games from all four generations of Xbox.” So that should be cool, and a good reason to (eventually) buy a next gen Xbox.

On a somewhat related topic, I enjoyed this article on the “slow death of the strategy guide”. It’s an excerpt from this book, which is currently just $3.82 for the Kindle version, so might be worth picking up. I’ve got strategy guides for a bunch of games, including several that I never got around to playing. Some of them are pretty cool, with lots of art and screenshots. Some people consider using strategy guides as cheating, but I always found that they added to my enjoyment of a game, making it easier for me to keep track of where I was, how the game worked, and whether or not I was on the right track. Generally, they helped me manage the more annoying stuff without getting in the way of the fun stuff. Since most games don’t even come with an instruction manual anymore, I wish more of them had good official (or unofficial) hard-copy strategy guides available. But I guess there’s not much of a market for that anymore.

Hardware in, hardware out

OK, here’s one more Xbox follow-up post (previous). The vertical stand was delivered on Memorial Day. I was kind of surprised about that, since (1) it’s a holiday, and (2) all the streets around my apartment are closed off on Memorial Day for the big bike race. But, somehow, the Amazon delivery guy found somewhere to park, then schlepped a box full of packages down Main Street. He hit my apartment building right as I was about to go out and wander around a little. If he’d shown up five minutes later, I would have missed him. (It’s possible someone would have let him into the building though, since one of my neighbors was hanging out right in front of the building watching the race.) So, again, it would have been more convenient for everyone if Amazon just used the USPS, but it’s fine.

I promised myself several years ago that I wouldn’t bring in any new tech without getting rid of an equivalent amount of old tech. So I took some time today to get rid of a bunch of stuff. There’s a monthly electronics recycling drop-off for my county, in Hillsborough, so I went over there today with a bunch of stuff. I got rid of:

  • an old HP desktop PC (with the drives removed),
  • an old Toshiba HD-DVD player,
  • a very old VCR,
  • my Dad’s old Sony CD changer,
  • my old MacBook (with the drive removed),
  • an old Apple TV,
  • an old Roku box,
  • an old Samsung tablet,
  • and my old Automatic adapter.

So I guess I’m officially giving up on a few things, like ever watching a VHS video tape or an HD-DVD again. I think I really need to purge my CD collection soon too. I have way too many CDs, and they’re not organized really well. Honestly, I have a lot of stuff to purge, but I’ll save that for another post.

Back to the Xbox: After saying that I wasn’t going to sign up for any subscription services, I went ahead and signed up for a year of EA Access. It’s only $30. I will probably go in and turn off recurring billing on it, to force myself to make a decision about it in a year, rather than letting it auto-renew. I downloaded Mass Effect and Bejeweled 3, but that’s it so far.

Honestly, I’ve been playing Bejeweled more than anything else. I think I first played Bejeweled on my Toshiba e310, which would have been in 2002 or thereabouts. (I could be wrong; it might have been on one of my Palm units. Either way, I remember it being grayscale, and playing with a stylus.) It seems kind of silly to use an Xbox One for something that ran fine on a handheld in 2002, but, hey, I like playing it.

I’ve also started playing Stardew Valley. That’s interesting so far, but I’m not convinced it’s as great as a bunch of people seem to think. I may need to give it some time to grow on me.

I’ve also committed myself to reading War and Peace this summer, so that may cut into my video gaming a bit. Either way, I should have more than enough stuff to keep me busy this summer.

More Xbox silliness

OK, here’s another post nobody needs, in my continuing series about unnecessarily buying an Xbox One.

First, on the subject of Amazon’s hapless delivery system: I still don’t have the vertical stand for my Xbox, but Amazon made one more delivery attempt last night. Around 9:15pm, I got a call from a number that Verizon’s Call Filter identified as “possible spam,” so I dismissed it. But a few seconds later, I got a text message from somebody identifying himself as an Amazon delivery driver named Luigi, asking how to get into my building. So I’m guessing the call I rejected was also from him. I texted back, saying that I could let him in, if he was here, but then I got nothing further back, other than a presumably automated message saying that my order couldn’t be delivered. Now I see at least three things wrong with this: (1) having people out delivering packages at 9:15pm on a Saturday night, (2) sharing my cell phone # with random delivery drivers, and (3) said delivery drivers calling and texting me, and then not bothering to wait around for an answer. It’s possible that item 2 isn’t really an issue; they may route the calls/texts through an app that doesn’t actually expose my number to the driver. Still, I don’t recall agreeing to be contacted on my cell # at all for this stuff. (But I’m sure I did at some point. Nobody reads the terms and conditions anymore…)

On to the Xbox itself: I’ve got the thing set up, and I’ve mostly figured out how to use it. (As I’ve sometimes joked in the past, this means that my job is now done, and I can stop using it. This tends to happen to me with consumer electronics. Figuring out the user interface is more fun for me than actually playing games.) I’ve bought just one game: Lumines Live, which is one of the old “backwards compatibility” games, and cost $5. This is definitely not a game that shows off the Xbox One at all, but I was a big fan of the original Lumines game on PSP.  It’s still a fun game, and it was worth $5, I guess.

There are multiple subscription services available on the Xbox that you can sign up for, including XBox Live Gold,  Game Pass, and EA Access. I don’t really want to sign up for any of them, but I’m starting to waver. In looking around for some cheap games to buy, I thought about maybe buying the original Mass Effect trilogy. Mass Effect 2 and 3 are currently on sale for $6 each via the current Xbox backwards compatibility sale. But Mass Effect 1 isn’t. I think that’s because it’s included with Game Pass, so they don’t sell it separately, maybe? Anyway, only ME 1 is included with Game Pass, but all three are included with EA Access. Also, I can pick up dodgy-looking used copies of ME 1, 2, and 3 from my local GameStop, or from a used game store that’s about a block away from my apartment. That would cost about $5 per game. So I don’t know. This is one of those things where I have too many options and I never manage to make a decision. The backwards compatibility sale ends tomorrow, so if I’m going to buy ME 2 and 3 that way, I should go ahead and do it. I don’t want to sign up for Game Pass or EA Access, because I’ll probably either lose interest in the games or get too busy to do any gaming about a week after I sign up. The smart thing to do would be to sign up for a month of Game Pass, play ME 1 for however long it takes me to get tired of it, then cancel it.

I’m going to start reading War and Peace next week, as part of a Goodreads group read, so I should really just give up on the idea of playing video games. I think that will keep me busy enough. (And the Kindle version was free!)

I bought an Xbox

Sigh. I’m going to call this post the third part of my “Xbox denial trilogy”. (First part here and second part here.) I gave up and ordered an Xbox from Amazon today, along with a vertical stand and an HDMI switch. It should all arrive tomorrow, because Amazon is now using some kind of magic shipping method that can get pretty much anything to my door in one day. I think they use the Floo Network or Portkeys or something. Anyway, the Xbox was marked down to $208, the stand was $10, and the HDMI switch was $33.

I could have gotten a cheaper HDMI switch, but Kinivo seems to have a good reputation, and I didn’t want to get an iffy one. I only have three HDMI ports on my TV, and I’m currently using them all (TiVo, Apple TV, and PS3). I’ll probably put the PS3 and Xbox on the switch. The Xbox has an HDMI IN port, so there’s probably some way I could have used it as a pass-thru, and avoided having to get a switch, but that didn’t seem like a good idea.

It’s possible that the Xbox One S is getting marked down so much because Microsoft is going to announce a new Xbox at E3 in June. I won’t be disappointed if they do. I’m not a big enough gamer to care that much about having the very latest console. (And it’ll probably cost $500, which I can’t really justify.)

So I’ll now have a console that can play current-generation games. Most of the really popular Xbox games don’t really appeal to me, but there are a bunch of oddball indie games that I’m kind of interested in. I guess I’ll need to figure out the deal with Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass. I don’t think I want to sign up for either of them, but I don’t know.

This Xbox may just wind up gathering dust, but hopefully I can get enough use out of it to justify having spent about $250 for it (including the accessories).

probably still not buying an Xbox

I’m probably still not buying an Xbox, but I’ve been paying more attention to Xbox-related news this week than usual.

  • The Microsoft/Sony deal is kind of interesting, though it might not mean much. I assume they’re still both working on their own next-gen consoles, and will continue to compete with each other.
  • This blog post from Microsoft’s “Head of Xbox” is also kind of interesting. He’s saying all the right things, though maybe it’s a little disheartening that some of them even need to be said.
  • And this article about the current pricing on the new all-digital Xbox vs the older version with the Blu-Ray drive has got me thinking again about picking up an Xbox One S with a Blu-Ray drive in it, while I can still get one for less than $250. Maybe I should keep an eye out and see if there are any really good Memorial Day sales.

As mentioned in my previous post, I did indeed pick up the Enhanced Edition of Neverwinter Nights from Steam for $4. It occurs to me that this means that I now own four copies of NWN. I have:

  1. the original PC version on CD (inherited from my brother a long time ago),
  2. a Mac version, also on CD, from the pre-OSX days,
  3. the GOG “Diamond” edition, which came out a few years ago,
  4. and now the Beamdog “Enhanced Edition” from Steam.

I didn’t pay much money for any of these. The GOG Diamond one was $10, The new one was $4, and the PC version was a hand-me-down. The Mac one was actually bought new, in a box, from an actual brick-and-mortar computer store (probably J&R), so that might have been $20 or $30. Anyway, I should install that new enhanced version and see about moving my saved game over from the old GOG Diamond edition. Maybe NWN can keep me busy and out of trouble for a bit.