From www.theDailyWTF.com.
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MSDN Virtual Labs
Microsoft has these “virtual labs” where you are supposed to be able to get hands on with some of their products w/o all the pain of downloading and installing them.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/virtuallabs/
Right now I can’t the site to respond, but I am guessing it is a temp problem, not that they have removed this service.
Some of the labs they have are:
Internet Information Services (IIS)
Thanks to Somasegar for the links.
Paging in DasBlog
Scott Hanselman has a little post about how to setup paging in DasBlog.
This is something I will implement when I upgrade to DasBlog 2.0, but I won’t be doing that until they get off of asp.net 1.1 and onto 2.0.
They were supposed to be releasing a 2.0 version a few weeks ago, but hopefully it will be out soon.
Haacks 19 Laws Of Programming
Haacked blogs about the 19 laws of programming.
My favorite, and one that I personally know to be very true, is Brooks law:
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Which can also be stated as:
The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.
Code Comment Checking Policy
I have all but given up on Code Checkin Policy in TFS.
For me, running the policy checker against one of my solutions takes about 30 minutes.
That is unacceptable.
But, there is still some hope of running the static analysis on the back end, so I am still looking around at the goings on in this area.
A new Code Comment Checking Policy has been released, which would be really nice way to force the people to comment their code.
Outlook Task List. Not Keeping Up
The “flag for later” feature in Outlook is really nice, but the down side of it is that you can easily put stuff off for later, and end up with a task list like this:
These red items are ones that are overdue.
I guess I need to put an entry in my task list to go through my task list.
Why the hell is ITunes Crashing Outlook?
The other day I got some notification that updates were available for some apple products. Like an idiot I didn’t read it over very carefully. It looked like it was going to update Quicktime, but I had installed the Safari beta also, so maybe it was going to do something with that as well.
Well it now looks like it also decided to download and install iTunes, a TERRIBLE product that I avoid like the plague so much that I bought some other software to connect my new iPod to I wouldn’t have to install that garbage product.
Not only did it appear to intall iTunes, but it also installed an outlook add in ‘outlook itunes sync addin’ , which crashes outlook when you try to run it.
Here are some more people like me who are pissed off by this.
Crafting Amazon.com URLs To Find Deals
This is pretty cool. Simply alter the search parameters for some Amazon.com URLs and you can filter the results to only show things that are 90% off!
Nice!
Hollywood Boulevard – Movie Going Innovation
I love seeing new things; innovations in existing markets.
In other words, things that make you say “Wow”, and compel you to tell your friends about your experience.
This is exactly what Hollywood Boulevard is doing for the movie going experience.
Forget the fact that the place is decorated really cool. That’s a nicety, but nothing to write home about.
The innovation comes in the theater experience. Forget cramped seating, this place has individual executive leather chairs that recline. There is a table that runs in front of each seat so you can sit your drinks on it, AND they have a full restaurant and staff that takes food / drink orders during the movie.
We had chicken fingers and fries with a diet coke for 12 bucks.
And the movie prices are cheap too: $8 for an adult ticket.
Click here for more images of the place.
I will be going back for sure.
3 things I learned in (and out of) college
Dare Obasanjo has a post on the “Three Things I Learned About Software in College,” to which Scott Hanselman followed up with Three Things I Learned About Software WHILE NOT in College.
So here are my 3 from each category:
Learned in college:
1) A lot of people getting a CS degree will never be able to write a real program (as I was getting my degree in structural engineering (CE)).
2) New features and scope creep can cause projects to be never ending, and end up not being released at all.
3) How to really work hard, really study hard, and really focus on a task with a fast approaching deadline.
Learned OUT of college:
1) Just because someone has “Sr.” in their title doesn’t MEAN they know anything, but they might. If their logic sounds flawed, don’t assume it is because they are “Sr” and you are “Entry”: you are probably right.
2) “Expert” can mean different things to different people. You can be in the top 2% of one company, but a middle of the pack guy in another. Avoid calling yourself an “expert” (or acting like one) unless you know who you are talking to, and you actually are the expert.
3) There is no “Best” way to do most things. I had thought that if I looked hard enough and studied enough examples, I would know the “best” way to do things when I arrived at them. But one groups “best practice” is something another group will not touch. See the current OR/M arguments for a perfect example, or if you prefer just look at divide over using Datasets.
That being said, there are definitely some agreed upon “Worst Practices”, so avoid these at all costs.
Chris May 