Monthly Archives: October 2004

wow – programmers with boobs

I’m sorry – is it just me? This is on the windows forms home page. “Just in case you didn’t know that there are chicks that write code, we wanted to bring your attention to this gorgeous woman’s chest.”

Then there’s that other picture we’ve seen a lot of that really cool looking chick in the green shirt. Something about that picture is all about her chest also. I double checked with a number of people when we first saw that photo over and over again during the MVP Summit and they all conferred that it was hard to see the rest of the photo. Something about her boobs – like she wasn’t wearing a bra or something – just totally drew your eyes (and mine – totally heterosexual woman, here) right to her chest.

I dunno – I just figure there’s got to be a happy medium here somewhere.

Posted from BLInk!

VB6 and SQL Server Express

Cool!! This might finally enable me to rip that Access database out of one last of my old VB6 projects.

It also made me wonder why I haven’t even played with this stuff yet and then I realized I’ve kept myself busy with WSE2, ADO.NET2 and a host of other new things. Oh, to be able to just spend all of my time playing with the new toys and call it a job. Yeah I know some people actually have that as their job definition.

Posted from BLInk!

latest Whidbey bits

I need to see something that is in the latest ctp of the beta. However, I don’t have a good setup on any of my machines for VPC, and therefore I can’t download and install the VB.NET Express AND C# Express and wipe out my current full beta bits. I need to see both language implementations of this function which I know has changed.

My other option is to download the full app CTP from MSDN which then also requires the latest SQL 2005 Beta. Sam Gentile said it took him two days to install this. I don’t have that kind of time to mess around.

I have about 5 minutes of research I need to do in the ctp right now so I’m kind of bummed. I was excited to see my MSDN universal disks arrive today but alas – the bits weren’t in there.

Posted from BLInk!

.net misunderstanding

I was sad to hear today someone say that they did not switch their applications to .NET because of the poor U.I. They were actually talking about an ASP.NET application, but just kept saying  “.NET application“. And seemed to be unaware of the smart client with a web back end option.

In the long run they ended up keeping with their current app (a fantastically architected VB6 application) and distributing it via Citrix ($$$) but are happy not to have to tax their thousands of non-technical end users with the requirements of a machine to run a desktop app. I never really knew very much about Citrix. The capablities that he was describing blew me away.

Posted from BLInk!

new presentation toy

when I spoke in Montreal, I got to use a remote control (had used on at DevDays also). I love the freedom it gave me to wander around. So I ordered one after some recommendations and am looking forward to using it. This one is by Atek.

I know it looks like it might double as some kind of sex toy…but I’ll never tell.



Posted from BLInk!

Web Services – not just how? but when and why?

Dare Obasanjo asks for prescriptive guidance for developers on when web services and ws-* should be used. This goes past the “web services or remoting?” question that we have all seen that chart for. (sorry , can’t link to an example – but surely you’ve seen it). I am using web services in a non-interop solution where I own both ends of the pipe (over the internet) and have even implemented wse2 …because I saw this as an “easy” way to solve my problems. In some situations, this could be a very bad choice. I would absolutely like to see what Dare is asking for. Including myself, we sometimes get so caught up in how to do something, that we don’t stop to think whether or not it’s what we need. I just spent weeks shoving wse2 down the throat of a production app that worked perfectly fine. Admittedly, I did this mostly due to a bit of an ego problem (and that I wanted to get past my “in theory“ only understanding of WSE2).

Posted from BLInk!