In the last [many] months, I generally work until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. We don’t have kids, but do have a few dependents – a wonderfully funny cat, G.B. and my beloved 10 year old Newfie, Tasha. These two have bed times, too. I know it’s 10pm because the cat suddenly appears, meowing, twirling around my ankles and wants to curl up in my lap. That’s because he likes to snuggle up next to me under the covers when I’m in bed, so this is the best he can do when I’m at my computer. (No wierd interpretations of this please). But the funniest thing is the Pavlovian reaction to the sound of me pushing the power button of my monitor to turn it off. Both the cat and the dog jump up. They know. “Finally, it’s time!!! She’s finished with that DAMNED thing and we can all go to bed.” Silly kids.
Monthly Archives: January 2004
Whidbey and my favorite Method…GetDateTimeFormats
I have written in the past about my favorite little method in the BCL – GetDateTimeFormats. There is only one thing that bugs me about it. You have to return an array and then get the element out of the array. For example
dim strArray() as string=now.getDateTimeFormats
dim myFavoriteFormat as string=strArray(1) (1 happens to be like this 1/20/03 in the en-US culture setting)
But I always want to type it like this:
dim datewithMyFavoriteFormat as string=now.getDateTimeFormats(1)
I finally got around to seeing if Whidbey does this but it doesn’t.
add: And then I wrote this post and learned that I still have a LOT to learn about arrays – after only 20+ years of programming!! Many are happy to show me the way!!
Dim datewithMyFavoriteFormat As String = (DateTime.Now.GetDateTimeFormats())(1)
Paying real money for software components!
I have been VERY spoiled in the last few years as a user group leader, INETA volunteer, MVP and babbling blogger because people like to push software my way. Here! use it, write about it, tell the world, give it to your user group. No problemo, dude! Now that I found a product I really want and need (XCeed) I am about to pay for software for the first time in a really really long time! Here’s why. And happily of course – to contribute to the independent software economy!
BTW – Eric if you are reading this, I am still waiting to rebuild my server so I can add more software, including YOURS!
Kate Gregory and Scott Mitchell Interviews
By way of Amy Sorokas , I find this interview about the wonderful, Toronto-based, Kate Gregory (also an MSDN R.D.) that is titled so:
and here’s one of Scott Mitchell (4 Guys from Rolla), too:
Renowned International Development Expert on ASP.NET and Microsoft Technologies…
These are coming from Stephen Ibaraki who has interviews with a lot of well-known geeks. He also presented at Comdex in November on Building Business Models for Web Services. So if you don’t know the name, he’s one experienced, smart and well-connected guy.
Dave Winer is in Burlington
Dave’s in Burlington today (seem’s that Dean blogging thing really attracts the bloggerati). I’m trying to figure out how to track him down for a possible blogger dinner. So I thought I’d try the old “referral” trick (and a comment and an e-mail, too!)
Everybody’s Blogging about Mary Jo!
It just struck me that I have noticed mentions of and pointers to Mary Jo Foley and Microsoft Watch a lot lately from a variety of the blogs that I read (ooh now I can show you my real blog roll, btw). It’s interesting to me. I imagine there are people who just always see someone in her position as someone to “watch out for”, but it’s looking to me like she is being embraced by this blogging community.
Website security and Emailing Passwords
As I was sitting in Pat Hynds phenomenal presentation on ASP.NET Security at VTdotNET last Monday, I started thinking about how people work SO hard to secure websites with password protection but then almost every website will email you your login and password. If we spend so much time worrying about people “hopping on” to authenticated HTTP transports, don’t those same people have the ability to read/grab/reroute our emails? Maybe the answer is “no” and everything is still right with the world, but it sure did make me wonder.
Microsoft Events – integrate with Outlook??
Hey – I just had an idea (probably not the least bit novel). When I register for a Microsoft event, and I get an email confirmation, it would be nice if it could attach one of those little Outlook calendar do-hicky things that when I click on it automatically pops the event into my calendar.
Doesn’t Microsoft use Passport?
I just registered for the Reporting Services launch webcast (which is on Jan 27th). I had to fill out a form to register. Last week, I registered for one of the webcasts that is part of this week’s ASP.NET Webcast Week. It knew who I was, because it popped my email in there, but I still ahd to fill out the form. Whassup with that? What happened to Passport?
Visualizers in Whidbey
In a few posts about debugging in Whidbey, I have asked questions that were responded to in my comments with one magic word “Visualizers”. Watch for an upcoming MSDN article by the Program Manager for the debugging team, Scott Nonnenberg. Apparently bits and pieces of it are in the PDC release but undocumented.
Also, you should be able to see some of this magic in the Advanced Debugging Techniques session from PDC which I have to invent some extra time to watch myself.