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Jason's Random Thoughts of Interest |
Jim Holmes has posted that his book (Windows Developer Power Tools, co-authored with James Avery), is now out!
http://frazzleddad.blogspot.com/2006/12/book-is-ou...
I've read an early version of the book, and I can say that it is definitely a must-have. Get your copy today (and then bring it to CodeMash in January to have it signed).
Doh! I've been called out:
http://westcoastgrid.blogspot.com/2006/12/your-new...
Dan Ciruli (that grid computing beast on the west coast) took on a New Year's resolution last January to do one pushup (and one sit-up/crunch) for each the day of the year. For example, on Jan. 1, 2006, he did one pushup. January 2, he did two pushups. Today, being the 355th day of the year, he did 355 pushups!
What an animal.
And then, he had to go off and name a bunch of internet personalities (myself included) to take on this same crazy challenge for 2007.
Hmmmm. Perhaps I will, my friend.... Perhaps I will....
CodeMash: January 18-19, 2007 at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH
www.codemash.org
The Early Bird rate of $99 has expired (fellow procrastinators: I'm sorry!). The new registration fee is $149.
However, the Kalahari Resort has allowed us to continue the great deal on the hotel rooms ($88/night + tax for a "Hut" room) until 12/28, unless the hotel sells out before then.
So, for $325 + tax, you get to stay two nights at an indoor waterpark resort in the middle of January, plus attend CodeMash, which is looking to be THE EVENT of 2007 that you don't want to miss!
In fact, two people from London, England (that's like this whole other country that's an ocean away from us) thought the same thing, and they are flying over just to attend! Why? One primary reason cited was because there is nothing like this event in Europe.
Jim Holmes, fellow conference organizer, user group leader, and friend of mine, summed the event up quite nicely in the following (which I have permission to plagerize):
I’m making one last pitch to you in the hopes of convincing you to register and attend this terrific event.
Why is CodeMash something you should consider attending? You should strongly consider attending because you’ll have the opportunity to attend sessions and keynotes from some of the software development industry’s finest minds. We’ve three keynote addresses from luminaries who have been motivating forces behind some of the most significant products, methodologies, and changes in the development industry:
- Bruce Eckel – Internationally Recognized Speaker and Author of “Thinking in Java”
- Neal Ford – Application Architect at ThoughtWorks, Recognized Speaker on Languages and Compilers.
- Scott Guthrie – General Manager, Microsoft Developer Division.
Other internationally-recognized speakers include:
- Scott Ambler – Internationally Recognized Speaker and Author on Agile Development and Database Refactoring.
- Marry Poppendieck – Recognized Expert on Lean Development Methodologies.
- Jay Pipes – North American Community Relations Manager at MySQL.
- Bill Wagner – Expert on all things C# and author of “Effective C#”
If that’s not enough then consider that we’ve 40 sessions covering an immense range of technologies including .NET, PHP, Java, Ruby, and other platforms. We’re holding sessions on design, architecture, testing, agile methodologies, and deep dives into areas of the technologies I just mentioned. Some of the session topics include:
- Curry Favor with Closures: An Introduction to Functional Programming in C# and VB.NET (Bill Wagner, Microsoft Regional Director, Microsoft MVP and author of “Effective C#”)
- SOA as a Conversation (Ken Faw, Regional Practice Director, Perficient, Inc.)
- The Productive Programmer (Neal Ford, editor “No Fluff, Just Stuff”)
- Let NHibernate Be Your Data Access Layer (Dave Donaldson, Microsoft MVP)
- Lean Software Development (Mary Poppendeick, internationally recognized expert on agile/lean development and author of “Lean Software Development”)
- Maximum Velocity MySQL (Jay Pipes, North American Community Relations Manager, MySQL)
- EJB3 – What’s New? (Joseph Faisal Nusairat, author of “Beginning JBoss Seam”)
- Ruby on Rails for Java Developers (Rob Stevenson, Quick Solutions, Inc.)
CodeMash is a terrific opportunity for developers of all ilk in this region. I encourage you to register and attend. It’s a conference that should not be missed!
Also see Jim's post on the value proposition for management to send developers to events like this:
http://frazzleddad.blogspot.com/2006/11/why-conferences-matter-and-how-to.html
I'm starting to get comment spam like the following:
I see you put a lot of work into this one A. I respect it!! Good luck and keep up the good work. bruxelles hotel de previsioni tempo estate distillation de l alcool
(The underlined parts in spanish link to *.es websites)
I just thought it was an interesting tactic that they used....
Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) is a key component of the .NET Framework 3.0, and comes from the collection of API’s that were previously known as WinFX. It provides a robust framework that can be incorporated directly into a .NET application in order to provide workflow capabilities that would otherwise be complex and time consuming to develop.
On more than one occasion in the past, I have had to build custom workflow capabilities for my applications to use. So, when it was announced that WF was to become part of the .NET Framework, I became very interested in figuring out how to use it instead of always reinventing the wheel.
Foundations of WF: An Introduction to Windows Workflow Foundation
One good thing about this book is that there are examples in both VB.NET and C#, so you do not need to translate syntax in your mind if you know only one of these languages. But, this also becomes a bad thing when trying to use this book as a reference.
I personally prefer a single language version of books because I find it distracting to repeat sections of content for the sole purpose of displaying a different language’s syntax. In addition, I recall a couple of places in this book where the C# section refers you to something that was described in detail in the VB.NET section. If you tend to read a technical book sequentially from front to back, then this might be acceptable. I, on the other hand, tended to skip over the VB.NET sections of each chapter since the C# sections were found immediately after.
Aside from the dual code issue, and some minor stylistic/creative decisions that he made in creating the demo source code (i.e., his method of padding a purchase order number with leading zeros makes me cringe every time that I see that snippet of code), I found this book to be a great companion to step me through the “Hello World” and beyond of WF.
You will not only learn what is required to use WF in your application, but you will also become exposed to the different types of workflow provided by WF, the various out-of-the-box Activities, how to create your own custom Activities, and how to deploy your workflow-enabled application. As a bonus, Brian also includes a chapter on using WF with Office 2007 and SharePoint (chiefly by means of a single example scenario using an InfoPath form).
Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by Apress.
We're currently at the Solar Minimum, or the point in the 11-year solar cycle where the Sun doesn't really do too much. However, there has been some strong activity over the past few days that have caused geomagnetic storming here on Earth.
A Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) passed by Earth yesterday, which started a strong GM storm. This resulted in the Northern Lights being seen in lower Michigan and Ohio, and possibly even further away.
Another CME that resulted from a X1 solar flare on Dec 14 will reach our planet some time in the next day. This will most likely enhance the storm levels again to the Strong, Severe, or possibly even Extreme levels.
For those of us not worried about keeping satellites in orbit, or maintaining a working electric power grid, this usually means that we can go somewhere dark (away from city lights) and look to the North for an absolutely beautiful display of nature. Be advised that during particularly strong storms, you may need to look up, or even to the South (depending on your latitude) because the Auroras would have been pushed that far away from the magnetic poles.
Disclaimer: I have seen instances where an incoming CME completely halts all GM activity, so don't be surprised if nothing at all happens. It's important to be patient when hunting the Aurora. It's well worth the wait if you find an active display in session.
http://www.codemash.org/Blog4ZuneContest.aspx
Help us spread the word about CodeMash using your blog, and you could win a Zune!
There's about two weeks left to register and take advantage of the early bird pricing. $99 for the conference, and $88/night (+ tax) for the rooms. That's just an awesome price for an event like this, so don't miss out.
Besides the conference, you also get admission to the indoor waterpark at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH. In fact, many people are planning to take advantage of this by bringing their families for a little vacation in the middle of January!
Don't know what CodeMash is? Check out the site for information and a list of keynote speakers and sessions:
UPDATE: Note that CodeMash is not just a conference for people in Ohio and Michigan. Sandusky is located between Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio, and both of these cities have airports serviced by major carriers. CodeMash is a full-blown, multi-day conference with nationally-known speakers, and is not to be confused with a Code Camp or other similar event.
Hope to see you there!
tags: CodeMash
Need an easy way to truncate a SQL Server DateTime to just the date part (i.e., midnight of the day that is represented)?
You can cast a DateTime as a float, take the floor value of that in order to get an unrounded integer, and then cast that back to a DateTime.
cast(floor(cast(@fromDate as float)) as datetime)
This works because almost any modern platform's datetime value is a floating point value that represents a number of days since an epoch date (with the fractional part representing the time of day). Negative numbers are days prior to the epoch, etc. So, trim off the fraction, and you have just days.
This is much cleaner than another way that I found in some stored procedure code which essentially subtracts the hours, minutes, seconds, and fractions of a second from a given DateTime...
I found the following link to my blog today while checking out my referrer stats:
http://www.toledofreepress.com/?id=4326
Lisa Renee Ward, a prolific blogger about Toledo topics, picked up on AVIMH's 2-year anniversary announcement and included that fact in her "Blog It! Toledo" online column in the Toledo Free Press.
This is the week! The annual rivalry between Ohio State and the University of Michigan will be played out on Saturday November 18. It should be a very interesting game this year, with OSU being #1 in the standings, and Michigan #2 (both teams are undefeated this season).
But, I have to be honest: that's about all of the sports facts that I know.
For me, this game represents bragging rights for the next year. Not only among most of my co-workers, who actually live in Michigan by choice (yeah, what are they thinking?), but also between me and my wife, who has always been a Wolverine fan, despite living in the glorious land of scarlet and gray all of her life.
I have one particularly fond memory of OSU-Michigan week. Back when I had a local office that was 7 miles from my house (instead of the current 80 miles), I also had control over the office infrastructure. We had one particularly obnoxious U of M alumnus who was brave enough to drive down to Toledo on the Friday before the game. We'll call this individual Erik, because that's his name.
Erik always makes it his mission to stir the pot, and this Friday was no exception.
We used ISA Server for the office firewall, which allowed me to set up all kinds of little rules. One thing that I did was create a rule so that every so often, the firewall would refuse to load whatever internet web page that he was trying to get to, and instead take him to a locally hosted "error" page. The particular page that I created was adorned with OSU-related stuff, and even played the OSU fight song. Yes, my friend, we Buckeyes pwned him on that day. DFWN
I've been lucky enough to have bragging rights for the past 2 years. Let's make it 3 in a row!
There's been a few hiccups in getting the registration site live for CodeMash, but today, you are now able to register through the website!
CodeMash (www.codemash.org) is a fairly unique conference that will be held on January 18-19, 2007 at the Kalahari Lodge in Sandusky, OH. It stands out from other conferences that I've attended because it is will be a cross-pollenation event, bringing together developers from many different technologies (Java, .NET, Ruby, PHP, etc) into one common forum.
It is also completely organized by the developer community, acting as a non-profit entity. This means that your registration fees (which are extremely low for a conference like this) are being spent on the conference (i.e., your meals, etc), and not as a means of turning a profit.
We toured the venue last week, and I was totally blown away. I had no idea that we had this high of quality of a conference facility in Northern Ohio outside of major metro areas. Sandusky is halfway between Cleveland and Toledo, and is probably better known as the location of Cedar Point, one of the best amusement parks in the entire world. Kalahari is also an indoor waterpark resort, so it will be an attractive destination in the middle of January.
If you're interested in attending this conference, then you will want to register soon. Not only do you have to worry about being shut out (registration is capped at 500 attendees), but also there is a time limit for making room reservations at a great price ($88 a night, which includes admission to the waterpark).
https://www.codemash.org/register.aspx
(If this conference sounds interesting to you, even if you can't attend, then please help to spread the word through your blog, or by telling a friend, etc).
Dustin Campbell and I were chatting the other day about the whole confusion behind the .NET Framework v3.0, and why they decided on that version number despite the fact that the core (i.e., the CLR) is remaining at v2.0. He filled me in on a little nugget of information that I think, if entirely accurate [not that I doubt Dustin, but I doubt my ability to correctly remember everything that he said], should have been articulated by Microsoft in the first place to stop whiners like me from making such a big deal about the versioning.
It seems that all of the upcoming Orcas features that we've been calling "3.0" (LINQ, extension methods, yada yada yada) do not require anything new in the CLR. The languages will have new compilers, but the new compiler will still generate v2.0 MSIL and metadata (i.e., they will generate CLR 2.0 assemblies).
So, from that perspective, I can start to see why it's no longer important to tie the framework version number to the CLR version number. It seems that the CLR is stable, and could effectively remain at the current version indefinitely without hindering the ability to add additional functionality to the languages (like LINQ and extension methods).
Never been a fan of Apple's new series of ads. I mean, they're very well done (kudos to the agency that thought those up), it's just that I'm on the opposing team.
Apparently, Rory doesn't like them either.
tags: mac, pc, rory blyth
The CodeMash website is live!
You can now submit abstracts if you want to present and you can pre-register to hold your spot in line. Official registration should be open soon and will cost only $99 for a two-day event!
Bruce Eckel, Neal Ford and Scott Guthrie are all keynoting the event.
You can also download information about the event if you are interested in sponsoring.
Upcoming Webcast: November 6, 2006 at Noon EST
Heartland User Group Webcasts
Functional Programming and LINQ - Shifting your object paradigm.
Bill Wagner – Ann Arbor .NET Developers
Join us for technical presentations by experts from around our the user groups in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. In this webcast, Bill Wagner will demonstrate the new language extensions in C# and VB.NET called LINQ.
The language features added for the Orcas release of C# and VB.NET start moving those languages out of their Object Oriented roots into the realm of functional programming. It’s a different way of programming. Rather than designing classes with behaviors and data, you create functions that take data as inputs and produce different data as outputs. That radical shift can lead to much simpler ways to express your designs.
In this session, you’ll see the new syntax in these languages, and how you can leverage those additions to create more concise programs in less time.
Registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032314537&Culture=en-US
Event ID: 1032314537
Upcoming Topics:
11/20 – Intro to Workflow. What’s all the Noise About? – Brian Prince, Central Ohio .NET Developers Group
1/8 – Web Services Software Factory – Mike Wood, Cincinnati .NET Users Group
Just a FYI to anybody keeping stats at home: This blog turned 2 years old on October 22.
Thanks go out to everybody who actually subscribe to and read my posts. I don't think I'd be writing if I didn't have my 4 regular readers.... Well, 2 readers if you don't count my parents....
I've been using Internet Explorer 7 as my primary browser for about 6 months now (various beta versions). I've always been an IE fan, dating back to version 4--, actually preferring it over the various Mozilla flavors. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that most of my clients standardized on IE, so any web application that I developed was targeted for that single platform.
I only had a few minor problems with the beta versions of IE7, so my experience has been excellent thusfar. Yesterday, I downloaded and installed the RTM version.
Perhaps it is simply a coincidence, but I've been noticing some weird problems now with my laptop. For instance, it goes into sleep mode when I close the display. More than once now in the past 24 hours, upon waking up, the laptop does not show the login dialog--just the wallpaper and mouse pointer. The only thing that I seem to be able to do is power down and reboot.
Also, more than once, the browser has just seemed to stop responding for 1-2 minutes. It doesn't allow me to switch tabs, or scroll.
I don't want to just blindly blame the RTM version of IE7 for these problems, but I find it strangely coincidental that they started after I installed this most recent update.
The Microsoft MVP program is a recognition award for leadership in the Microsoft-platform user community. I'm not a Microsoft MVP, but many of my friends are. Some things happened during the last round of awards (beginning of October) that make me question the intention and/or value of the program.
First, they awarded, and then rescinded the MVP status for Cyril Paciullo, the maker of Messenger Plus, a free addon for MSN Messenger that is also a distribution vehicle for LOP (nasty adware program).
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/100606-micro...
Next, they didn't renew the award for Jamie Cansdale. Jamie wrote TestDriven.NET, which is probably one of the most widely used addins for Visual Studio by unit testing advocates everywhere. The reason cited: Jamie violated the "MVP Code of Conduct" because he happened to make his program work with the Express SKUs (Visual C# Express, Visual Basic.NET Express, etc). Or, at least this is the speculation of what the violation was.
This is not severe, but still annoys me every time that it comes up. Look at this screenshot:
Here I have the project set up so that ClickOnce will automatically increment the revision number after each publish. Well, something apparently is not working, because it seems that at least once a day, I get "Version already exists on the server" errors.
Blah! Is it me, or VS2005 that's at fault? I'm going to blame the latter, since I never make mistakes.
A good friend of mine in the Microsoft community, Josh Holmes, has made the jump and became a blue badge himself. Congratulations!
Details from Josh himself: http://www.srtsolutions.com/public/item/143418
