Thu - July 28, 2005
Blog Status
I really haven't updated this Blog much recently.
I've been meaning to move it off of my Apple .Mac account and onto my personal
server at www.cshonline.com. I just have not had the time to try and convert the
content of this blog into the format of one of the other blog engines I want to
run it on.
Plus Jim and I have been busy at SpecialtyMatch getting ready to show off some cool new technology around social networking and conferences. We hope to have the public side of EventMingle.com running in the next few weeks.
Once we get that site live I think I will try and move this blog.
Plus Jim and I have been busy at SpecialtyMatch getting ready to show off some cool new technology around social networking and conferences. We hope to have the public side of EventMingle.com running in the next few weeks.
Once we get that site live I think I will try and move this blog.
Posted at 01:01 AM Read More
Mac OS X The Missing Manual Tiger Edition
I think one of the biggest disappointments with
Apple and OS X is the fact that it comes with such bad documentation. The Tiger
OS comes with a very small booklet with like 20 pages of fancy color pictures
showing off all of the cool new features and maybe 1-3 pages of real
documentation on how to upgrade from a previous version of the operating
system.
On top of that the online help in the operating system is even worse then the flimsy booklet. Documentation is obviously not at the top of Steve Jobs priority list. Which is a shame because there are all kinds of hidden features and tricks buried in OS X that most people probably never find out about.
When I got my first Mac back in 2001, I picked up a copy of Mac OS X The Missing Manual by David Pogue and found it to be a great resource into really learning how to use Jaguar. Recently I picked up a copy of the latest release of the book and I have to give it the greatest of reviews. David has updated the book so much that it seems fresh as I've re-read it. Plus he points out all the little differences from version to version and has tons of hidden little gems of information that I would probably never have figured out by myself. My only complain, and it is a very small complaint, is that in the book David comes off as sounding like anything Apple does is done right and the best way when in reality OS X has just as many weird flaws and flukes as any Windows or Linux installation has.
But that can't stop me from recommending very highly this book to any Mac user, including experienced computer users that think they have it all down. You will learn keystroke shortcuts and features you never knew existed no matter your experience level.
Get this book!
On top of that the online help in the operating system is even worse then the flimsy booklet. Documentation is obviously not at the top of Steve Jobs priority list. Which is a shame because there are all kinds of hidden features and tricks buried in OS X that most people probably never find out about.
When I got my first Mac back in 2001, I picked up a copy of Mac OS X The Missing Manual by David Pogue and found it to be a great resource into really learning how to use Jaguar. Recently I picked up a copy of the latest release of the book and I have to give it the greatest of reviews. David has updated the book so much that it seems fresh as I've re-read it. Plus he points out all the little differences from version to version and has tons of hidden little gems of information that I would probably never have figured out by myself. My only complain, and it is a very small complaint, is that in the book David comes off as sounding like anything Apple does is done right and the best way when in reality OS X has just as many weird flaws and flukes as any Windows or Linux installation has.
But that can't stop me from recommending very highly this book to any Mac user, including experienced computer users that think they have it all down. You will learn keystroke shortcuts and features you never knew existed no matter your experience level.
Get this book!
Posted at 12:52 AM Read More
Mono Live CD
I've basically lived in the .NET programming
world for the past two years with one small 2 week stink doing some C++ work.
I'm a very big fan of the technology. One of the cool aspects of .NET is the
Mono Project, which is a open source version of .NET that is now sponsored by
Novell. This project provides .NET for many platforms including Windows, Mac OSX
and Linux.
Last night I ran across a cool link to Mono Live , which is a bootable CD image that gives you a fully working Linux installation preloaded with Mono, MonoDevelop and many other Mono based tools and programs. The entire thing runs completely off the CD without requiring you to install anything on your hard drive.
I was stunned at how well it worked. On my Dell Inspiron 9200 it got the video right and after entering my WEP security code the wireless network came right up as well. If you want to play with .NET on a different platform with no hassle I really recommend trying this out.
Last night I ran across a cool link to Mono Live , which is a bootable CD image that gives you a fully working Linux installation preloaded with Mono, MonoDevelop and many other Mono based tools and programs. The entire thing runs completely off the CD without requiring you to install anything on your hard drive.
I was stunned at how well it worked. On my Dell Inspiron 9200 it got the video right and after entering my WEP security code the wireless network came right up as well. If you want to play with .NET on a different platform with no hassle I really recommend trying this out.
Posted at 12:31 AM Read More
Sun - January 16, 2005
SQL Issues
This past week we ran into a weird problem on the
SpecialtyMatch dating sites. Certain SQL
queries were taking so long to run that the web server would timeout the the
page before the query had completed. What made this even weirder was the fact
that I had set the timeout in the code to 1.5 minutes knowing the actual web
page would timeout in 2 minutes. So technically the pages should have crashed
and caught in my exception handling before the web server timed out the page.
What made this an even bigger mystery was the fact that if I ran the exact same
query that was timing out in Query Analyzer it would return in 14 seconds. Run
the same query on the website and it would
timeout.
At this point I started running lots of logging and performance monitoring on the SQL server trying to figure out this behavior. What I finally found out made total sense and at the same time shocked me. I had the SQL server configured to only allow 5 simultaneous user connections. The timeouts I was starting to see were not the queries timing out (which would have caused the exceptions I was expecting) but instead were the database connections timing out. This was masked a little bit because the connection pooling that .NET provides made the Open call to the database happen instantly even when there were no user connections left on the SQL server. The connection pool doesn't try and grab a connection from the pool until you actually run a query.
Now what is totally amazing to me is this meant that all we have been running two dating sites, forums, plus three other sites that are all database driven and they were executing perfectly for an entire year using only five connections to the database server. At some points we have had over 180 users on the dating sites. It just amazes me that all of that ran with everyone in a queue to use five connections. Just goes to show you that the connection pooling in .NET works very well .
At this point I started running lots of logging and performance monitoring on the SQL server trying to figure out this behavior. What I finally found out made total sense and at the same time shocked me. I had the SQL server configured to only allow 5 simultaneous user connections. The timeouts I was starting to see were not the queries timing out (which would have caused the exceptions I was expecting) but instead were the database connections timing out. This was masked a little bit because the connection pooling that .NET provides made the Open call to the database happen instantly even when there were no user connections left on the SQL server. The connection pool doesn't try and grab a connection from the pool until you actually run a query.
Now what is totally amazing to me is this meant that all we have been running two dating sites, forums, plus three other sites that are all database driven and they were executing perfectly for an entire year using only five connections to the database server. At some points we have had over 180 users on the dating sites. It just amazes me that all of that ran with everyone in a queue to use five connections. Just goes to show you that the connection pooling in .NET works very well .
Posted at 11:35 AM Read More
Mon - December 13, 2004
.NET
Last week I realized that almost all the
programming I've done for the past 2 years has been .NET based programming. This
occurred to me when I briefly had to fall back into the C++ based Win32 world
to comically enough wrap up some legacy code to be called from a .NET
application. My brief foray back into the Win32 world made me realize how much I
hate programming in that medium. Is it a unicode string? Or maybe a multibyte
string? Or just a normal string? Is it a C++ exception or a MFC exception? While
Win32 is a mess it is very easy to understand how it got to the point in is
today: Dos -> Win 3.1 -> Win32s -> Win32. Amazing Windows today will
run applications that written in each of those technologies. This means that all
the old and weird API's are carried forward into the next version. Which means
you end up with an ugly mess of different APIs. Where .NET shines is taking all
of that mess and wrapping it up in a very nice and clean and well organized
interface.
Posted at 12:58 AM Read More
Sun - November 21, 2004
Nintendo DS
The Nintendo DS was released today to the general
public. For those that don't know what it is, the Nintendo DS is the next
generation handheld gaming system from Nintendo. It has two screens, the bottom
also being a touch screen. It has wireless communications via 802.11b. Compared
to previous GameBoys this unit has more graphical power then the Nintendo 64
console unit. And it will play GameBoy Advance games as
well.
Compared to previous GameBoys what really stands out is the screen. This has a backlit color LCD that just rocks. It makes the GameBoy Advance SP look bad.
But my favorite part of this new unit is that one of the launch titles is Super Mario 64 DS. This is a re-make of my favorite console game of all time Super Mario 64 for the N64. What is amazing is this game looks even better then the N64 version did with better textures, brighter colors and more. Instead of the 120 stars you have to find there are now 150 stars. Plus instead of playing as Mario you now play as Mario, Yoshi, Wario and Luigi. The weirdest part is the DS does not have the analog stick that was introduced as with the N64. Instead you can play with the d-pad or you can play with the touch screen acting as a analog stick. That touch screen seems to be the way to go but takes a little getting used to.
Anyways, highly recommended if you can find one (listening Greg?).
Compared to previous GameBoys what really stands out is the screen. This has a backlit color LCD that just rocks. It makes the GameBoy Advance SP look bad.
But my favorite part of this new unit is that one of the launch titles is Super Mario 64 DS. This is a re-make of my favorite console game of all time Super Mario 64 for the N64. What is amazing is this game looks even better then the N64 version did with better textures, brighter colors and more. Instead of the 120 stars you have to find there are now 150 stars. Plus instead of playing as Mario you now play as Mario, Yoshi, Wario and Luigi. The weirdest part is the DS does not have the analog stick that was introduced as with the N64. Instead you can play with the d-pad or you can play with the touch screen acting as a analog stick. That touch screen seems to be the way to go but takes a little getting used to.
Anyways, highly recommended if you can find one (listening Greg?).
Posted at 04:38 PM Read More
Sun - October 31, 2004
Wrist Update
I went to the doctor on Wednesday and the x-ray
showed that my wrist was healing normally. The doctor was actually shocked
because the wrist injury I have normally doesn't heal very fast. So i begged and
pleaded and he decided to cut the cast off if I promised to be very careful
(already messed up twice). Even though I love having the cast off I actually
miss it most of the time. Now I have to actively avoid using my right hand while
before the cast was a crutch that allowed me to you my right hand (what of it
was visible) more then it was physically capable of at the
time.
Even after two months in total lockup the wrist is still very tender with the cast off. I have no idea how much of the tenderness is because it has been immobilized for so long, from ligament damage from the fall, or because things are still not right. I'm going to give it a couple of days and if it doesn't improve I may ask them to put the cast back on.
Even after two months in total lockup the wrist is still very tender with the cast off. I have no idea how much of the tenderness is because it has been immobilized for so long, from ligament damage from the fall, or because things are still not right. I'm going to give it a couple of days and if it doesn't improve I may ask them to put the cast back on.
Posted at 01:28 AM
Tue - October 5, 2004
Weekend in Little Rock
Alyssa, Kira, Kym and I spent the weekend in
Little Rock to visit my brothers new boys Conner and Riley. We also had a chance
to show Alyssa off to everyone as well. For whatever reason it seems Kym and I
can't travel with kids without some issue coming up. Last year Kira started
teething the day before we left. This year both Alyssa and Kira came down with
colds the night before we left. This made the flight to Little Rock painful as
both kids were not very happy to start with. We had lots of fun once in Little
Rock though, taking the kids to the zoo, taking the kids to a huge pumpkin patch
in the woods, seeing Brit and Erin's gorgeous new boys, seeing my dads new wife
Karen and my new step sister Jessie and having my grandfather (Pop) get to hold
Alyssa. With fun however comes pain. Out first night in town both girls slept
poorly because of being sick, traveling all day and just trying to adjust to the
change. The next night Alyssa screamed from 3:30am - 5am (actually longer but
mom took over at 5am). Kym and I have decided we will never go back for such a
short period of time again; by the time we had seen all of my family it was time
to go home again. You can see pictures from our visit HERE .
Posted at 01:34 AM Read More
Sun - September 26, 2004
Broken Wrist
In the middle of August I wanted to start getting
back into shape. So I called up some buddies that play basketball a couple times
a week and told them I wanted to play again. My first game was not too bad, I
think I played decent other then gasping for air after running for a couple of
minutes. The following week (Aug 31st) I was playing again and at the end of the
third game Kenton and I collided in mid-air as we were both going up for a
rebound. He came down hard on his hip and we could hear his head hit the
concrete. I fell down backwards and instinctively put my right hand out to stop
my fall with my fingers pointing towards my body was i was falling. When I hit
the ground my wrist them rolled up overextending and unknown to me snapped a
bone inside my wrist. Bob came over and offered his hand to help pull me up, I
grabbed his hand with the same right hand I had just injured. We played for 15
more minutes and then I went home to finish working for the
day.
About an hour later I noticed that my right hand was starting to stiffen up. After another two hours the pain started getting bad enough and I decided that I would go to the urgent care center and have my hand looked at. After forty-five minutes and an x-ray the doctor gave me the bad news I was expecting, that I had broken a bone in my wrist. I found out the pain wasn't from the broken bone but instead was from all the trauma from bending my wrist back that far.
The bad news is that the bones in the area that I broke my bone don't heal very well because there isn't a lot of blood-flow in the area. Which means if it doesn't heal they will either have to put a screw into it or just remove the bone fragment completely. Also injuries in this area can sometimes take up to ten months to heal. I go back to see the doctor this Tuesday to get a new cast and to have another x-ray to see how/if it is healing.
When I got home that night I had sort of a panic attack, my work requires me to type on a computer all day and the prospect of losing the use of my hand was down right scary. How was I going to work? Luckily my cast only covers my thumb and arm and not my fingers. After a couple of days I was pretty decent at typing on the keyboard without my thumb. Using a mouse is still awkward and I struggle with it but I can do it well enough to work. The worse part is it limits some of the things I can do at home with the kids. Since the cast can't get wet I can no longer give baths, fastening buttons and snaps is very difficult so I can't put clothes on the kids either and it makes changing the kids diapers almost impossible. Luckily Kym has been a trooper and is doing more. I'm going to ask for a waterproof cast on Tuesday to see if I can at least do baths again.
About an hour later I noticed that my right hand was starting to stiffen up. After another two hours the pain started getting bad enough and I decided that I would go to the urgent care center and have my hand looked at. After forty-five minutes and an x-ray the doctor gave me the bad news I was expecting, that I had broken a bone in my wrist. I found out the pain wasn't from the broken bone but instead was from all the trauma from bending my wrist back that far.
The bad news is that the bones in the area that I broke my bone don't heal very well because there isn't a lot of blood-flow in the area. Which means if it doesn't heal they will either have to put a screw into it or just remove the bone fragment completely. Also injuries in this area can sometimes take up to ten months to heal. I go back to see the doctor this Tuesday to get a new cast and to have another x-ray to see how/if it is healing.
When I got home that night I had sort of a panic attack, my work requires me to type on a computer all day and the prospect of losing the use of my hand was down right scary. How was I going to work? Luckily my cast only covers my thumb and arm and not my fingers. After a couple of days I was pretty decent at typing on the keyboard without my thumb. Using a mouse is still awkward and I struggle with it but I can do it well enough to work. The worse part is it limits some of the things I can do at home with the kids. Since the cast can't get wet I can no longer give baths, fastening buttons and snaps is very difficult so I can't put clothes on the kids either and it makes changing the kids diapers almost impossible. Luckily Kym has been a trooper and is doing more. I'm going to ask for a waterproof cast on Tuesday to see if I can at least do baths again.
Posted at 12:12 AM
Thu - September 16, 2004
Avoid ASP.NET Cookbook
I'm a big believer in reading programming books.
Even though I program everyday there are still large areas of programming that I
don't use or don't use very often. And in some cases I'm in such a hurry that
I'll use tunnel vision and not code something the best way because I don't have
time to learn the ins and outs of an API. By reading I can be better the next
time or can implement something differently in the
future.
For the past two years or so I've done alot of ASP.NET programming. First as a contractor and then as a developer working on the web sites for SpecialtyMatch Networks . A year ago I picked up the most excellent C# Cookbook which is full of all kinds of very useful tidbits. I think even an advanced C# developer will find the book useful.
So when I heard that ASP.NET Cookbook was coming I got all excited at the prospect of getting the equivalent book but focused on ASP.NET instead of C#. My book arrived last week and I finally got a chance to sit down and read some of it today. This book is so bad that I'm returning it tomorrow. There is not one bit of useful information in this whole book. First off this is one of those books you open and it has tons of pages of source code. Each item has source for a web page (which takes a whole page of the book even though the ASP.NET aspect of the page is 1-5 lines). The the code behind source is listed in both VB.NET and C#. Then normally the next item in the book talks about how to do the previous item a little differently. So what do they do? Reprint the entire listings and change 1-2 lines in them. So this book comes in near to 1000 pages but 75% of the book is boring source listings.
Secondly the topics in this book are so simple that in most cases the MSDN help topics explain the same thing better. The whole first chapter is full of how to use a DataGrid, Repeater and DataList. Any experienced ASP.NET programmer can throw out the chapter. One item shows how to bind an ArrayList, the next item shows how to bind a Hashtable. Wow. This chapter could have had hope if it had gone into real topics like how to nest repeaters in repeaters, how to bind boolean fields using checkboxes in datagrids, how to use a datagrid with viewstate disabled (something they claim can't be done). The next chapter starts off even worse showing how to make the enter key select the OK button in a form automatically. They use a bunch of gibberish javascript that doesn't work on browsers other then Internet Explorer (they admit as much) when there are plenty of real world solutions to this that don't even have to use JavaScript.
In other words I highly recommend you avoid this title. I have no idea what the authors do for a living but I know they don't use ASP.NET in the real world. Or if they do, they aren't very good programmers.
I bought this title online from Barnes and Noble because Amazon was going to have it in stock later. This ends up helping me, the return policy allows me to take it back to my local store so I don't even have to worry about shipping it back, I plan on posting this review on both Barnes and Noble and Amazon to hopefully prevent others from buying this turd.
For the past two years or so I've done alot of ASP.NET programming. First as a contractor and then as a developer working on the web sites for SpecialtyMatch Networks . A year ago I picked up the most excellent C# Cookbook which is full of all kinds of very useful tidbits. I think even an advanced C# developer will find the book useful.
So when I heard that ASP.NET Cookbook was coming I got all excited at the prospect of getting the equivalent book but focused on ASP.NET instead of C#. My book arrived last week and I finally got a chance to sit down and read some of it today. This book is so bad that I'm returning it tomorrow. There is not one bit of useful information in this whole book. First off this is one of those books you open and it has tons of pages of source code. Each item has source for a web page (which takes a whole page of the book even though the ASP.NET aspect of the page is 1-5 lines). The the code behind source is listed in both VB.NET and C#. Then normally the next item in the book talks about how to do the previous item a little differently. So what do they do? Reprint the entire listings and change 1-2 lines in them. So this book comes in near to 1000 pages but 75% of the book is boring source listings.
Secondly the topics in this book are so simple that in most cases the MSDN help topics explain the same thing better. The whole first chapter is full of how to use a DataGrid, Repeater and DataList. Any experienced ASP.NET programmer can throw out the chapter. One item shows how to bind an ArrayList, the next item shows how to bind a Hashtable. Wow. This chapter could have had hope if it had gone into real topics like how to nest repeaters in repeaters, how to bind boolean fields using checkboxes in datagrids, how to use a datagrid with viewstate disabled (something they claim can't be done). The next chapter starts off even worse showing how to make the enter key select the OK button in a form automatically. They use a bunch of gibberish javascript that doesn't work on browsers other then Internet Explorer (they admit as much) when there are plenty of real world solutions to this that don't even have to use JavaScript.
In other words I highly recommend you avoid this title. I have no idea what the authors do for a living but I know they don't use ASP.NET in the real world. Or if they do, they aren't very good programmers.
I bought this title online from Barnes and Noble because Amazon was going to have it in stock later. This ends up helping me, the return policy allows me to take it back to my local store so I don't even have to worry about shipping it back, I plan on posting this review on both Barnes and Noble and Amazon to hopefully prevent others from buying this turd.
Posted at 09:42 PM Read More
Tue - September 7, 2004
Replace PC with new iMac?
Last week Apple announced their new iMac
computer. The Mac wackos are divided on whether it is cooler then the old iMac
it replaces. Seeing it has got me considering getting rid of the PC that Kira
and Kym use and replacing it with one of these new iMacs. An iMac with Office
2004 (very awesome product) would allow us to do everything we do with the PC
today. While I'm not a believer that a Mac is anymore secure then a PC it is
less attacked. Plus it is damn attractive. Today a Mac can VPN to a Windows
network, remote desktop into a windows box, easily share files and printers with
windows and has a version of Office that loads and saves all standard office
formats. Maybe we will get a new computer for Christmas...
Posted at 12:48 AM Read More
Mon - August 30, 2004
Batteries
This is just a comical entry but a true entry.
Over the past 17 or so years my battery purchase rate has probably been a 4 pack
of AA batteries every year or so, mainly for remote controls for TVs and
Stereos. Now that I have two kids we need to purchase an 8 pack of AA, a 4 pack
of C and a 2 pack of D every month. This is to power the sing along Pooh, the
crib aquarium, the rocking horse, the take along swing, the pooh car, etc. Not
only that since I was a child things have changed, now all battery compartments
require a philips screwdriver to get into (no doubt due to some frivolous
lawsuit by some parents that doesn't know how to be a parents). Battery
companies are very aware of the fact that we only buy lots of batteries when we
have kids. That is why as we become adults and buy less batteries they must
charge us over $100 to replace the battery in our notebook computers, to make up
for not buying large quantities of the smaller cheaper
batteries.
Posted at 12:59 AM Read More
Sun - August 29, 2004
Has the World Lost It's Fucking Mind?
I'm shocked and dismayed by the fact that
suddenly the world thinks it is okay to negotiate or come to the demands of
terrorists. It seems each week that some companies workers or some countries
journalist are kidnapped and some demand is made for their freedom. It seems
recently that more and more of these companies and countries are succumbing to
whatever the demand is. This is setting a terrible precedent. Now it seems to be
acceptable to kidnap someone and demand something. Today some French journalists
were kidnapped and the kidnappers have ordered France to reverse a law making
Muslim headscarves illegal in school. This is going to continue and more peoples
lives are going to be put until companies and countries learn to say
NO.
Posted at 10:39 PM Read More
Sun - August 1, 2004
Riley and Conner
My brother Brit and his wife Erin are the proud
parents of Riley and Conner who were both born on July 30th. I welcome them both
into parenthood, which I think is the most rewarding aspect of life. They of
course will not be thinking this when they get home and do not sleep for 3
months. :-)
Posted at 12:25 AM Read More
Forums at SpecialtyMatch
We've recently added some cool new features to
the SpecialtyMatch Network. We now have discussion forums that are located at
TryInternetDating. So if you have any comments
or questions about online dating you should check out the link. We also have
forums attached to eOnlineDating.com and SpecialtyMatch.com
.
We've also recently added a feature to eOnlineDatingSites and TryInternetDating where people that run other online dating sites can post links to their sites on our portals.
Next we plan on starting a generic dating site probably called CoolIntros.com.
We've also recently added a feature to eOnlineDatingSites and TryInternetDating where people that run other online dating sites can post links to their sites on our portals.
Next we plan on starting a generic dating site probably called CoolIntros.com.
Posted at 12:16 AM Read More
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Published On: Jul 28, 2005 01:02 AM
Published On: Jul 28, 2005 01:02 AM