Chris On the World Around Him

Random

2011-11-08T15:11:00.002-06:00

So I haven't blogged lately mostly because I haven't done anything really cool lately to discuss.That said here are some random things....Some good sites.StackOverflow is a site I love. I really don't ask or answer a lot of questions but I do read many. It is very informative. It is odd when you interview people and ask them where they go on the internet to look for help and very few people

We Are Hiring

2011-10-14T15:12:00.002-05:00

Take a look at the StackOverflow ad for more details. We're hiring 2 Senior developers and 2 Junior developers (and more: QA, BA, and a GUI developer). It's a fun environment with a strong technical team, so we're looking to keep the team strong. If you're around the Milwaukee area and are interested in more details, let me know.

Scrum Master

2011-07-27T17:14:00.004-05:00

Monday July 18th and Tuesday July 19th I attended Srum Master Training. Going in I was excited at the opportunity to learn more about Scrum and to become a better Scrum Master which is on of three roles in the Scrum process. I just recently took on this role part time. Although I have been doing scrum for for 5 years, I have always been part of the team role.At the training I learned a lot. I

Subversion Setup for c# Developers

2011-05-19T15:39:00.014-05:00

At work we use TFS for everything and I hate it. I like Subversion and find it very easy to use. I often hear that Subversion doesn't integrate well with visual studio, and that it is hard to setup and run. Well both these assumptions are wrong.If you are running any of the windows OSes all you have to do is install SvnServer, configure it, install TortoiseSVN so you can work with svn

BDD and Specflow

2011-05-06T12:22:00.002-05:00

So recently I did a talk on BDD and showed off Specflow. Below are some of my notes from the talk, and I will try to find a place to host the code from the talk.BDD Technique that encourages collaboration between developers, QA and non-technical or business participants in a software project. It was originally named in 2003 by Dan North[1] as a response to Test Driven Development, including

Walter Peterson

2011-03-28T13:09:00.003-05:00

My Grandpa passed away last week and I wanted to write some things in memory of him.The Joker.My Grandpa had a great sense of humor. He was witty and always had a joke ready. The great thing though he wasn't funny to be the center of attention, he just wanted to make you laugh. My favorite joke of his was when he told me "he dropped out of school in the 5th grade." I was ready to hear

jQuery UI and MVC

2011-01-27T15:19:00.004-06:00

So I have been working on an ASP.Net MVC app in my spare time and have found at times that the UI is a little stale and clicky. What do I mean by clicky, well I mean the user has to do a lot of clicks to do certain tasks. All these clicks require full post back to the server. I like how I broke up the tasks into steps, but wanted a jazzier way to for the UI to work with the user, so low and

WiZdl Tool for Testing Services

2011-01-11T14:24:00.003-06:00

This is a blog post I should have done months ago, but finally I am getting around to it.Where I work we have many web services to support. Every new release it seems we are adding to the services or making changes to them. From the development standpoint we can create unit tests to test parts of the service, but when the QA folks need to do their testing it was a challenge. See we created an MVC

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T12:20:00.003-06:00

Happy New Year to you all. Hopefully you will have a healthy and fruitful 2011. This time of year really gives me time to reflect on the things I did in the last year and where I really want to grow my skills in the coming year. In the last year I really focused on MVC.Net for the most part. I also took some time to look into Entity Framework, Silverlight, StructureMap, NCommon, among some

Badgers Rock

2010-10-17T21:39:00.000-05:00

I have a Right Vs. Right Thing to Do

2010-09-08T15:59:00.004-05:00

I try to not get political in my blog. As many of my friends know I will speak my mind about many political issues, but I decided I didn't want my blog to really be political. I wanted it to be more a place to go to learn about technology or see my views on sports and movies. That said I am taking a little detour today.This is a post I have been wanting to write about since the 4Th of July but

This and That

2010-08-13T15:41:00.003-05:00

I know I haven't posted anything in a long time. It is not for lack of topics but really the things I wanted to post really didn't have much depth, so this post will have three mini posts in it.1) lucene.net2) My new Zune HD3) Airline travelSo first....I love lucene.net. In today's world of ever changing technology, it is great when a product like lucene can stand the test of time. Lucene is a

Jim Henson

2010-05-17T12:24:00.002-05:00

So the twentieth anniversary of Jim Henson's passing was just recently. I wouldn't have know except I stumbled across another blog post. I started thinking about how Jim Henson and his characters impacted my life. I remember watching the Muppet show reruns with my Dad, Sister and Grandma Walber. Dad would stop to pick us up from work and we would beg him to let stay longer so we could finish

NCommon Repository, and Unit of Work

2010-04-28T12:11:00.007-05:00

This will continue my talks on NCommon.One reason I like NCommon is it implements some patterns I like. One of my favorite patterns is Unit of Work.From Martin Fowler: A Unit of Work keeps track of everything you do during a business transaction that can affect the database. When you're done, it figures out everything that needs to be done to alter the database as a result of your work.So lets

NCommon Setup

2010-04-09T13:00:00.002-05:00

Today I finally get to a post my friend Dan has been riding me to do for some time. How to setup NCommon and StructureMap with Asp.Net MVC.Before I get started I want to talk a little about what NCommon is. Simply put, NCommon is a library of commonly used design patterns when developing applications. I took that right from the project website. It was developed by Ritesh Rao. The code can be

Rackspace Cloud Sites

2010-03-12T15:49:00.003-06:00

So in a previous post I talked about cloud computing and what is offered by Rackspace. This post will talk more about their Cloud Sites Product.Before I do I again want to point out, that I am not being payed by rackspace for this post, and I do not currently use any of these products personally although I have had clients who have used rackspace in the past. I do plan to use this product in

Floating on a Cloud

2010-03-05T13:37:00.005-06:00

In a previous post I discussed some topics I would like to explore and share. Today I am going to share my thoughts about The Rack Space Cloud Products. I want to point out, that I am not being payed by rackspace for this post, and I do not currently use any of these products personally although I have had clients who have used rackspace in the past. I also plan on using every product I am

Bad Blogger

2010-02-25T13:32:00.003-06:00

I have been a bad blogger. I have not updated or posted anything in a long time. Well I am going to change all that. Hopefully. In the coming blog posts I am going to discuss what I have been doing in the world of computers. Below is a list of some of the things I want to blog about int the next few blog posts. Some of the items might be multiple posts. So in no particular order here

New Year

2010-01-06T11:34:00.003-06:00

I first would like to wish everyone a happy new year. I have not blogged in a while so this post will be somewhat of a catch up.Last week my good friends Josh and Jess got married. Their wedding was so much fun. One of the best weddings I have been too and part of. I know they will have a long and happy life together. Last month we lost to dear people. One was Evelyn Simono. She lived a

Badgers Schedule to Easy

2009-11-10T17:08:00.003-06:00

For those who think the badgers schedule is to easy please see the quote from Coach B down below.Brian (Lucas) pointed out, everybody wants to talk strength of schedule. Everybody wants, Coach B doesn’t play these teams … Well, we have the, we have by the NCAA, and I love that Web site, because it computes your strength of schedule as it’s real. It computes what teams have played, what their

Badgers and Packers

2009-09-28T13:55:00.003-05:00

So the college and pro football seasons have been going on now for a few weeks. Here are my observations of the Badgers and Packers.Badger Observations.Going into their 5th game of the season they are 4 - 0. Their next game is at the new stadium in Minnesota. The two teams play each other for Paul Bunyan's Axe. The Badgers have won the last five meetings.First the offense. The Badgers have

phone blogging

2009-09-23T15:52:00.000-05:00

a quick post today. I just learned how to post from my phone. now when I am out with buddies I will be able to post about our interesting nights.

Code Readability vs. Number Lines of Code

2009-08-21T11:38:00.004-05:00

Last night I read a blog post by Phil Hack. In the post he talks about why do I have to write a commit inside an using statement when working with transaction. He then wrote some nice code to abstract the commit into a reusable function. It was a nice solution and reduced the total number of lines of code.I was reading through the comments and someone said that by doing this he makes the code

He's Back

2009-08-18T15:25:00.003-05:00

So Brett Favre is out of retirement. Again. No for sure this time. I saw the pictures of him in the Viking helmet.I really don't know what to say about this. I guess for me the Brett Favre ship passed a year ago when he left my beloved Pack. Do I care he is a Viking? Not really. Do I think he makes them better? Maybe marginally. Will I watch him play? Yes twice when he face the Packers.

Random Thoughts

2009-08-11T11:21:00.003-05:00

My Dad was giving me a hard time about not updating my blog enough so I guess I need to do a better job of postig things.The Brewers are in trouble. I know there are still a lot of games left, but I don't think they have enough pitching right now to make the playoffs. That said I dont thing the sky is falling in Milwaukee, just that some key injuries have hurt them this year. They will

New computer

2009-08-07T13:48:00.003-05:00

My new computer was just delivered!!I cant wait to put it through it's paces. It is a HP laptop, with an 18.4 inch screen. It apparently does full 1080p. I loaded it up with 6gb of ram and a 1gb graphics card. It came with 64 bit versio of vista home premium. I might upgrade that to ultimate though. I also get a free upgrade to windows 7 when released.What do I need all that power for?

IOC Containers

2009-08-07T13:16:00.003-05:00

I know I haven't blogged lately. I have been well busy with other things but now have some time. I am at a new client and was brought on the project mid stream. I was talking with the "Boss" about unit testing and how some of the application is tightly coupled and how that makes testing a little tough. He mentioned to me that he as planning on introducing some decoupling in the back ends and

MVC.Net, Structure Map, and TDD

2009-04-08T17:59:00.000-05:00

So I started to watch some webcasts on mvc.net. One of the series really interested me because the guy was going to create an entire app from the ground up following TDD, using Linq to SQL, Structure Map for Dependency Injection, and MVC.Net for his UI.Why did this interest me? Well I have been using NHibernate and Spring.Net and I was curious what these other technologies could do. I really

Chris Trainning Days 3 and 4 (Guidance Package Framework)

2009-04-01T23:01:00.005-05:00

So After finally getting a feel for the guidance package framework I really understand all the great things that can be accomplished. I started thinking of having it create my solution and projects, adding the needed reference (both MS and third party) to the projects, having the proper directory structers under projects. Creating SVN repository on our svn server. Creating the build

Chris Trainning Days 1 and 2 (Guidance Package Framework)

2009-03-24T17:16:00.006-05:00

So one of the tasks of software development I hate is setting up new projects. This task is tedious and repetative. When setting up a multi-tiered application, that includes, an AOP Framework, an ORM framework, a ioc framwework, and then some type of web or forms package, not to mention build scripts and maybe a data migrations package, you could kill a whole day or more. Throw on top of this

March Madness is here

2009-03-21T17:17:00.001-05:00

Leona Walber

2009-03-03T15:18:00.005-06:00

Leona Walber peacefully passed away last Saturday.She was my grandma. Maybe not by blood but definitely by love.Leona helped babysit my sister and I while my parents worked. She was only going to babysit us for a little while until my parents could find a full time daycare or sitter. Well that little while turned out to be 35+ years.Over the years she became a friend and family member.I

Big Debate

2008-10-14T13:48:00.003-05:00

Tonight is the night that the world will change. Because tonight is the night the Party Party 08 has been given the opportunity yo participate in a public debate.unfortunately the big guys, McCain and Obama will not debate us, however some conservative bloggers took up the challenge.the debate starts at 9:30 and will be held at Papa's Social club. It will be entertaining to say the least. So

Success

2008-08-19T14:43:00.002-05:00

What a great party. Papa Palozza was a huge success. They raised 1300 for The Penfield Children Center. Countless raffles and even a chance at a Harley was all won by the spectators.As for the music all four bands did a really great job. It was a really good mix of music.What more can I say than if you were not there you missed a great time.

Papapalooza is Here

2008-08-14T11:20:00.003-05:00

That is right! This Saturday from 7:00 pm to close, four bands all playing for charity. Who are these bands you ask. Single BarrelBlack FrogUpside Groove CoalitionRadio DoctorsWhat Charity are they playing for you ask.Penfield Children CenterPlus on top of all that some lucky person will win a 1 in 80 chance for a Harley Davidson Motorcycle, or maybe some brewers, bucks, or packers swag as part

Toga! Toga! Toga!

2008-07-11T16:04:00.002-05:00

So one of my favorite Bars in Milwaukee and one of my favorite Bands in Milwaukee are getting together to throw a toga party Saturday. Papa's Social Club and Single Barrel are getting together along with yours truly working the door and making a guest appearance to play cow bell to bring you this party all for a small $5.00 fee at the door. If you come in a toga you will also receive drink

Midwest Flooding

2008-06-19T10:34:00.002-05:00

As many of you know the Midwest has been hit hard by rain and floods the last couple of weeks. In fact an entire lake was drained when the lake bed gave way. Many people have been displaced and have lost homes. some pics and video of the disaster are here. Please support the red cross and other charities to help the victims.

Website update

2008-06-09T14:30:00.002-05:00

So I started doing some things with the new software factory and like it, but decided I wanted to actually check out MVC and Unity. So going forward that is what I am going to be doing.

Home Page Re-Write

2008-06-05T16:35:00.002-05:00

So I was looking at my home page and I decided it was time for an update. My home site served me well, but it has become outdated and needs a fresh look and feel along with some updated functionality.So I have decided to Re-Write the whole thing, but I am going to use it as a learning experience. I am going to use ASP.Net and C# as the base technology, but will be trying some new stuff out as

AJAX.Net

2008-05-19T10:42:00.004-05:00

In the past I have talked about some of the frameworks being used on the current website I am working on uses. I have mostly talked about NHibernate. Well this post will be different since I am going to talk about a UI Framework called AJAX.Net and the AJAX Tool Kit. These frameworks come from Microsoft.On our website we use the UpdatePanel quite a bit. It provides a simple async call back

NHibernate Odds and Ends

2008-05-15T17:49:00.003-05:00

I have blogged about NHibernate in the past, and am going to talk about some odds and ends I have learned while using the tool on my current project. First for the most part I love working with Nhibernate. Every time I have needed to add data access support it has been super simple to add. Everything is based off your Object Model so getting the data needed is a snap. Just open a session

Trip to Philly

2008-04-10T10:43:00.011-05:00

So last weekend I went to Philadelphia. My girlfriend and I spent the weekend there together and we had a blast. I really enjoy seeing the history of the city and country for that matter. We stayed in a hotel a block from Independence Hall.This is a picture of the front of Independence Hall. In the clock tower is where the Liberty Bell used to hang before they took it down and put it in its

Party Party 08 (Update)

2008-02-22T12:42:00.002-06:00

My friend Mike Anderson and I have been working hard on our political party. Our membership has been growing and so we begun looking into what it takes to get on to the Wisconsin presidential ballot. It turns out that u need 10,000 signatures from people in the state. Along with that at least 1,000 of them needs to come from 3 separate voting districts. That doesn't seem so tough so we are

Party Party 08

2008-01-18T13:49:00.000-06:00

About a month ago I was havening a few beers with my friend Mike Anderson and we were talking about the state of politics. After deciding that both main parties are stupid and don't get anything done we decided to start our own.We called it the Party Party. Mike won our parties nomination for President, and he chose me to run for Vice President. In the next few days I will be outlining our

Mix 08

2008-01-17T14:40:00.000-06:00

Yes I am going to Mix 08. The conference is hosted by Microsoft and held at the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The dates of the conference are March 5th, 6th and 7th.Last year I went to Mix 07 and had a lot of fun. There they released SilverLight, and had many sessions on the coming release of VS2008. I also met some PM's from microsoft, had drinks at Pure with some of the MySpace

Web Graphing

2007-12-27T13:13:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago Google released a graphing api. I thought I'd take a look at it since I am working on a personal project that requires statistical displays.First, I want to say that the documentation of the api is really good. Every time I was not sure how to do something I could easily find out the answer in the documentation. Second, the graphs produced look nice. Three, pie charts were very

What I learned on my recent trip to Los Angeles

2007-12-21T13:21:00.000-06:00

Here is a list of things I learned on my trip to and from Los Angeles.It is not always warm. I left the cold snowy state of Wisconsin expecting to get to L.A. and having sun and warm weather. Instead I found rain and mid to high 50s.I have been in many cities where I thought traffic was bad (New York, Toronto, Washington D.C., Las Vegas) None of those cities can touch L.A. We are talking 8

Code Duplication Woes

2007-12-06T11:54:00.000-06:00

Code duplication is EVIL! We all know this right? First let's define duplicate code. I will take the definition right off of wiki....Duplicate code is a computer programming term for a sequence of source code that occurs more than once, either within a program or across different programs owned or maintained by the same entity. Duplicate code is generally considered undesirable for a number of

Writers Block

2007-11-30T18:01:00.000-06:00

Wikipedia says the following about writers block...Writer's block is a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to begin or continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity.I am not sure that exactly fits me though. I have a lot of topics I would love to blog about, yet I haven't had the time to research them though.Some of things I want to review...VS 2008 new features

Thanksgiving Thoughts

2007-11-23T14:17:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving.Some quick notes.My Grandma was interviewed by the paper back home. She gives some great advice.I ate way to much yesterday. I heard a news report say that the average person eats 7200 calories on Thanksgiving. And you thought McDonalds was bad for you.The Packers are 10 and 1. So is Dallas. It should be a great game next week. I been thinking of dumping Time Warner Cable

Nhibernate and Composite Keys

2007-11-15T14:26:00.000-06:00

I like using Nhibernate to do my object relational mapping. Although there is a large learning curve to the tool, once you use it a few times, mapping your objects become second nature, or that is what I thought until I had to map a database heavily using composite keys.See for some reason when using composite keys NHibernate has trouble telling if objects are new or if they are updates. This

Las Vegas Shows

2007-11-12T16:23:00.000-06:00

So when I was in Vegas I saw the shows Spamalot and Penn & Teller. I had really good seats for each show in fact we were within the first ten rows.I saw Spamalot first. Spamalot was shown at the Wynn Casino. I like Monty Python and have seen their movies. Spamalot is basically an adaption of the movie Search for the Holy Grail. In fact they turned it into a musical and even added a little

Las Vegas and other Stuff

2007-11-04T18:39:00.000-06:00

I love Las Vegas. This town is ever changing and always getting better. I just wish I could win some money.Anyways, some thoughts while I am here. It is amazing how the casinos are using technology. From the time you check in to the time you leave you see computers and gadgets helping make your stay better. From being able to check out from your room, to watching the cleaning service use hand

Wow

2007-10-30T13:26:00.000-05:00

All I can say is wow!!!

MNF cont

2007-10-18T16:53:00.001-05:00

So Jimmy Kimmel will not be allowed on MNF anymore. The sad thing is that I thought is appearance was the best part of the broadcast on Monday. He did comment on some touchy subjects but it was funny. Just because tom Brady looks really good throwing the ball right now does not mean that someone can not make fun of the fact that he has impregnated his two model girlfriends. His comments about Joe

Monday Night Football

2007-10-16T09:23:00.000-05:00

Am I the only one who has a hard time listening to the announcers on Monday Night Football? The crew of Tirico, Jaworski and Kornheiser has to be one of the worst.Don't get me wrong I think Mike Titico does a really good job. His play by play call of the game is the only saving grace of the entire broadcast. The problems come any time Kornheiser opens his mouth. His commentary is usually

Why is Microsoft One Step Behind

2007-10-09T11:32:00.000-05:00

It seems whenever Microsoft's Patterns and Practices (PnP) team releases a new product there is always a feeling of that finally they have caught up to the open source world of products. The problem is the releases seem to be one step behind. Enterprise Library along with the software factories, don't quite add up to products like Spring.net, NHibernbate, and Log4Net. The Validation block is

Repository Factory

2007-10-05T11:11:00.000-05:00

I just got done watching the two screencasts on the Repository Factory by David Hayden.The Repository Factory is a lightweight O/R Mapper created by the Patterns and Practices team. It was part of the Web Service Factory but the team decided to pull it out and make it separate and usable by all.Before I go much further I want to say I have never used an O/R Mapper on any application. Even

I Am Back

2007-09-24T10:04:00.000-05:00

So Saturday night a friend of mine pointed out that my blog has not been updated for awhile and that I should post something. Since I don't have set topic to talk about this will probably a hodge podge of information.Badger football is off to a 4-0 start. Although the Badgers haven't really played well and the Big Ten looks to be week they are still 4-0. Better than Michigan, Penn St. and

Sheepshead for 2007

2007-08-27T13:59:00.001-05:00

I have had a series of post on the card game Sheepshead. As you now know we play the game at work because of the interesting play of power vs. points.So we were trying to come up with a way to make the game easier for begginners to understand, and allow advanced players a way to keep the game fresh.So here is the SpiderLogic take on Sheepshead 2007.Specialized Sheepshead CardsWe want a way to

Papapalooza

2007-08-20T17:21:00.000-05:00

Yes it is almost here, the second annual Papapalooza party is this Saturday August 25th. Alright, I know what you are saying, what is Papapalooza. Well it is three local bands playing for free at Papas Social Club to benefit charity. There is no cover charge to get in. How it works is all money raised from raffles and a percentage of the bar goes to Penfield Children's Center. The bands

Odds and Ends

2007-08-15T11:29:00.000-05:00

Note 1So you might have noticed that at the end of my last couple posts there was an inserted footnote of the music I was listening to when I posted the blog update. Well I use Foxy Tunes plugin for Firefox, and the latest update give the user the ability to attach that info in emails or blog posts or what not. I really don't use it in my email, however I thought it would be interesting to

Dotnet 2.0 Generic Lists

2007-08-08T16:32:00.000-05:00

So I am working in .Net 2.0 and have to deal with a lot of generic List types. I have been using anonymous delegates to find items in them since I am not in .Net 3.5 and can’t use lambda expressions. So for example if I need to get one item out of the list I simply use the following code... = List.Find(predicate) or for some code String dogName = "Max";List dogs = some list

Brewers Slump

2007-08-03T16:34:00.000-05:00

For the last three weeks I have seen the Milwaukee Brewers drop a 7 game lead on the cubs in the NL Central division race. Yesterday it got even worse with manager Ned Yost and some Players getting into a heated argument in the dugout during the game. I knew the Cubs were playing well, but I thought the Brewers would be able to hold on to the lead. Don't get me wrong, I think the Brewers will

RadioButtonList and the UpdatePanel

2007-07-31T14:38:00.000-05:00

I have been working on a couple ASP.NET applications. I have been using AJAX.NET with the applications. AJAX.Net offers an easy way to include ajax into you web pages.One thing Dan and I came across as we were using the UpdatePanel of the AJAX.NET framework was for some reason it would not work with with RadioButtonList (RBL) control. We had no problems getting async post backs to work on control

Smallville

2007-07-30T17:29:00.000-05:00

So over the 4th of July weekend my Dad sort of got me hooked on Smallville. Smallville is the TV show about how Superman became Superman, along with how Lex Luther became evil. I have only seen seasons 1 through 4 and I have to say that for the most part I really like the show. What pulls me to the show is really the concept. I like the idea of seeing Clark Kent learn about his new abilities

Subversion Repository

2007-07-23T13:45:00.000-05:00

When developing software you need to store your code in a repository that will maintain versions, and also allow for merging and branching of the code base. At work we use Subversion. When we set up a project for a client we try to use a standard directory structure. We do this so that no matter what project we are working on we can easily move to another project to do work if the need arises.

Reporting Services

2007-07-17T16:18:00.001-05:00

As a technical lead there are some advantages and draw backs to the position. The advantages are you get to always learn new things, and if they interest you, you can really explore the topic. A draw back is there is so much to know, you can't know it all and with topics that don't excite you, in my case things like databases, and reporting, you tend to only skim the the talking points.So,

But it Worked in QA

2007-07-16T13:30:00.000-05:00

As a developer how many time have you heard "But it works in QA.", after a bug was found in production. When a bug can't be reproduced in QA usually there a few reasons why. The first reason could be that the version of application running in QA is different than in production. This is an easy test and if it is the case then then then next time you do a production promotion the bug should go

Active Directory ASP.Net

2007-06-29T13:45:00.000-05:00

So over the last week I have been working with Active Directory(AD) and ASP.Net. Before this week my only experience with AD in the past has been with windows forms applications.I found that the using AD with either technology to be about the same, although with ASP.Net there were some additional steps needed to make it all work. The problem is these additional steps are not really obvious and

Are the DVD Wars Over

2007-06-25T13:38:00.000-05:00

So a couple weeks ago Blockbuster announced they would be only offering Blu-Ray DVDs at there stores. This is a big loss for HD-DVD. So now many are claiming that the format wars are over.I disagree.Sony struggling sales of it PlayStation3 along with the fact that stand alone Blu-Ray players still cost around $1000.00 and are not selling well shows that consumers are not ready to jump on the

MacBook Pro

2007-06-15T13:18:00.000-05:00

So for the last couple months I have been thinking about getting a MacBook Pro. Growing up I always had apples or macs for my home computer. It wasn't until I got to college that i bought a PC. It was easier for me to do development on it at school, and to be quite honest in the work place.Ever since Apple moved to the Intel platform, and Macs can now run anything either on OS X or with any

Random Thoughts

2007-06-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

So I realize I haven't posted in a while but I have been very busy. Between My Birthday and other birthdays in my family and traveling for work, I have not been left much time. That said here are some random thoughts from the last few weeks.Can it possibly rain anymore than it has. I think every other day we have had rain. I know it is my fault for buying a convertible, but lets be honest I

New Car

2007-05-29T14:53:00.000-05:00

So last week I bought a used 2005 Mustang GT Convertible from a friend. I have never had a car with a standard transmission so for the last week I have been learning how to drive stick. So first off I love the car. It is sonic blue, and has less than 5000 miles on it. The car has only been driven in summer so it has not seen snow or salt laden roads. I love the power the car has although I

Mix 07 SilverLight

2007-05-18T09:33:00.000-05:00

So Mix 07 main theme was Silverlight and how to use it.Silverlight is a new Web presentation technology that is created to run on a variety of platforms. It enables the creation of rich, visually stunning and interactive experiences that can run everywhere: within browsers and on multiple devices and desktop operating systems (such as the Apple Macintosh). In consistency with WPF (Windows

Project Euler

2007-05-10T15:31:00.000-05:00

At work we are always discussing programming languages. Grant Challenged James to write some Haskell code and somehow they got to talking about Project Euler problem one. You can see in James' post more information on how he solved the problem. I will add Dan's, Geoff's, and Grant's answers once they post them.Since his solution was one line, I decided that he is just like the old Perl hackers

Mix 07 Orcas

2007-05-10T14:46:00.000-05:00

So One of the better sessions I went while at Mix 07 was on Orcas. Orcas is the next version of visual studio. The tool takes a big jump from VS 2005. Here is a quick list of things I found interesting and exciting.multi compiler support.What this means is that it will compile 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 code. So you wont need to have multiple versions of Visual Studio installed. So if you have a client

Mix 07

2007-05-07T16:40:00.000-05:00

I am back from Mix 07 and boy was it fun. In this post I am just going to recap my trip and the conference. In following post I will talk about specific things form the conference.The conference was in Las Vegas and it was held at the Venetian. The Venetian is nice and they do a good job of taking care of you. The hotel rooms were very big and pricey. They were running $259 with the

Enterprise Library 3.0 Policy Injection

2007-04-24T10:32:00.001-05:00

A couple posts ago, I wrote about Enterprise Library 3.0. I blogged about the two new blocks, Validation and Policy injection, then I discussed the validation block. Today I am going to talk about the policy injection block a bit.The policy injection block is Patterns and Practices way of dealing with crosscutting concerns and aspect oriented programming (AOP). I want to make clear that the

Archos 604

2007-04-23T09:52:00.000-05:00

Last week I bought an Archos 604 personal video player. I really wanted a music and video player I could travel with. Many people told me I should look at the video IPod , but to be honest the screen on it was way to small.So I was narrowed my choices between the Archos 604, the 604 wifi, and the Cowon A2. There were a lot of features that all three of the players supported. They include the

Sheepshead

2007-04-13T15:03:00.000-05:00

At work during lunch we have been playing Sheepshead. It is an interesting card game that most of us learned while growing up playing with out parents and grandparents. Sheepshead is a trick taking game, played with a 32 card Deck. The cards are all suits 7 through Ace. Although there are many variations to the game the most common way to play is five handed with Jack of diamonds as the

Enterprise Library 3.0

2007-04-08T19:20:00.000-05:00

Enterprise Libary 3.0Last week Enterprise Library 3.0 was released. Enterprise library is a package of eight application blocks. The blocks include Caching, Cryptography, Data Access, Exception Handling, Logging, Security, Validation, and Policy Injection. These blocks are small frameworks that implement enterprise patterns that help make developing enterprise applications easier. The

Interview Questions

2007-04-06T12:39:00.000-05:00

At work, we have been discussing the role of FizzBuzz question during the interview process. We started the discussion in reference to the following blog posts.Post 1.Post 2.I thought I would add my two cents to the mix.While I think a candidate for a developer position should be able to solve FizzBuzz questions, I don't think FizzBuzz questions are fare during an interview.I think what is more

Brewers Rock the House

2007-04-03T11:10:00.000-05:00

Opening DayYesterday was opening day and the Milwaukee Brewers won 7-1.Ben Sheets threw a two hit nine inning gem. Rickie Weeks got the first hit of the year and also scored the first run. Bill Hall collected the first RBI and HR of the season. He also had a web gem in center field robbing a sure hit in the gap on a diving catch.Some thoughts about the Brewers.1. I think they will win 87

Why MaskedTextBox is Bad

2007-03-21T14:32:00.000-05:00

In Visual Studio 2005 Microsoft included a Mask control called MaskedTextBox. This control acted like a text box control, but allowed at design time or runtime the ability to add a mask to help the user input proper data.This conception this is a great idea. The implementation however is not very good. There are a few problems.The control does not know how to shift characters. An example

Jury Duty

2007-03-19T10:35:00.000-05:00

Last week I served jury duty. I never have been called for jury duty before and I really didn't want to go. So how it works is all the people chosen for duty show up at a predefined time and are checked into the system. I think there were about 150 people or so. Then we are shown a video that talks about the importance of jury duty and some rules of being on a jury.After that you sit in a room

Random Thoughts.

2007-02-27T12:27:00.000-06:00

Fun websiteI know I have already blogged about http://www.upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbabastart.com/ before, but it has just undergone a re-design and format change. Please check it out. It really made me laugh and the web host says content would be updated frequently.Wisconsin BadgersMy Badgers have hit a small little road bump here the last week. Two tough losses, one at Michigan State and

Bars going High Tech? Sooner Than You Think.

2007-02-22T13:25:00.000-06:00

I went to visit some friends and we went out to a bar/pub in their area.It was a new place. The bar had lots of flat screen TVs on the wall along with a nice internet jukebox, and some gaming machines. Behind the bar were fancy touch screen registers and some top shelf alcohol. I noticed on the bottles there were some weird pour caps, nothing I had seen before.When I asked the bartender about

Google Analytics

2007-02-19T15:42:00.000-06:00

I have been using Google Analytics to monitor web traffic to my blog and website. Google Analytics anomalously tracks the number of visitors to your site along with where they are from and how many pages are viewed. It tracks what words on your site draws interest to the world outside, what browsers users use to access your site along with how they entered your site (from Google, direct or

Patterns and Practice Software Factories

2007-02-08T13:05:00.000-06:00

The consulting company I work for only does projects and we do all the work in our office. sometimes, people need to work on multiple projects at one time. A problem that arises is that from one project to the next, the solution infrastructure varies, sometime a lot and there is a cost to get the developer comfortable with the project. The cost is mainly in productivity hours. We have been

Can It Get Any Colder?

2007-02-05T10:04:00.000-06:00

So let me start and say that it is cold outside. As I write this post it is -8 F and -26 F with wind chill. Even though I live in Wisconsin and we do get cold weather, this is beyond cold. Let me try and give you a feel for this.First, if outside for a few minutes, coats freeze. By freeze I mean coats get stiff and while trying to move around there is fear you might crack your coat. If you

Liam Dawson

2007-02-01T09:29:00.000-06:00

Yesterday around 11:00 am my second nephew Liam Dawson was born. He was 8lbs 2 ounces. Twenty-one inches long.I went to see him yesterday and he has curly blond hair. Bright blue eyes. I will add some pictures once I get some.

Sheepshead

2007-01-30T13:36:00.001-06:00

At works some of us have started playing Sheepshead for fun. We have a good mix of new players and old players. The new players have caught on to the game and really are playing pretty well. I have been playing off and on with my family for about 10 years.So the real reason I am posting this is I have been asked to run a series of Sheepshead games at place called Papas Social Club. It is a

Who Is the Best Bond

2007-01-23T13:05:00.000-06:00

My friends and I have spent countless hours arguing about who is the best James Bond. We all agree that Sean Connery was the best hands down. We also agree that George Lazenby was the worst. But for the other four how do they rank. I never really had a formula for ranking, and just went off my gut when I would argue this question. Now however; I have come up for a formula that seems to work

Five Things You Didn't Know About Me

2007-01-22T09:46:00.000-06:00

So Dan Miser tagged me to carry on the 5 things you didn't know about me. So here goes.1) The first computer I had was an Apple IIe and the first program I wrote on it was a game called lemon catch. The idea was to move along the bottom of the screen catching falling lemons. It really wasn't that hard of a game, but I was only 8 or 9.2) When I went away to college, I wanted to be a physical

Compact Framework Woes

2007-01-19T12:56:00.000-06:00

So as I discussed in previous blogs, at work I have been doing mobile development using .Net 2.0 and the Compact Framework (CF). For the most part I have found the compact framework fulfills about 90% of our needs. However the remaining 10% of our needs causes a lot of headaches for our team.I understand the need for the CF to remain compact but it is surprising some of the things that were

Microsoft Team System(cont)

2007-01-16T12:40:00.000-06:00

So this is the next post in my team system posts.I have been working with Team System at work. Although right now we only use it learning. We are not currently running any projects with it. That said, here are some of my experiences with it so far. In this post I will discus working with work items.A work item is nothing more than a description of work. Some one on the team will enter a

Apple iPhone

2007-01-11T12:45:00.000-06:00

So Apple had their big keynote address. Steve Jobs got in front of all the fanboys, and fangirls and announced a bunch of new products. The product getting the most press right now is the iPhone.The iPhone has been rumored in the works for the last year. It basically is the morphing of a video iPod and a cell phone. For $499 + a 2 year Cingular wireless contract you can get a 4gb version.

Badgers Dis-Respected

2007-01-09T13:28:00.000-06:00

So the final rankings came out for the NCAA Football season. In the AP poll the UW Badger dropped to 7th. I don't understand how this is possible. The Badgers, who finished the season 12-1, won their bowl game against a very good Arkansas team who played in the SEC championship game. Some will argue, that USC and LSU played tougher schedules, so there extra loss should not place them below

Video Games

2007-01-02T15:47:00.000-06:00

For Christmas I received two new games for my XBox 360. Both the games were released by EA. One of the games I really love. It is one of those games that is truly amazing. The other game well it is a major disappointment.I am going to start talking about NCAA Football 2007. This game is a huge disappointment to me. I have NCAA 2006 for the regular xbox, and I really like the game. It had a