April 2005 Entries

I don't have any idea who it was that wrote this, but she (it reads like a she anyways) should be commended. Scotland -- 15 yr old Single Malt Glenfiddich Scotch -- 49.00 -- A good smooth finish and it keeps you warm when it's cold.

Optimism is an occupational hazard of programming: feedback is the treament. - Kent Beck

I think that I was the person in every one of these frames at one time or another. Once you have accomplished that your perspective on the whole software development world does change somewhat.

I will admit to the fact that I have been known to try and succeed at intimidating co-workers before, but I've moved on from that place in my life.  With my new job I get to ride the commuter bus for about 40 minutes each direction.  I've only been doing this for the last 5 days, but only on the first day did anyone sit next to me.  Now the busses aren't standing room only, but I'm starting to think that it may be that I just look pissy first thing in the morning.  I know I feel pissy at that time of the day.  It's odd,...

I just had to do it.....odd for a Canadian to be so southern wouldn't you say? Your Linguistic Profile: 55% General American English 20% Yankee 15% Dixie 5% Midwestern 5% Upper Midwestern

So, I've started my new job at Fujitsu and things are going well. The people are exceptionally nice and I'm looking forward to working with what seems to be a group of nimble and knowledgable minds. I say I'm looking forward to it because, as of right now, I'm "On the Bench". The contract that I'm supposed to be assigned to hasn't be singed yet, so I get to try to find ways to fill my time. The first couple of days weren't so bad as I had a plethora of company propaganda to wade through....

Primary my job is as a software developer, but in the past I have spent a large number or never-to-be-recovered hours installing and configuring network systems. Even when developing I have built, from the ground up, at least 3 different security modules. So I can safely say that I have seen a wide variance of different security needs, implementations and, ultimately, uses. I may be versed in the intricacies of User-Group-Permission philosophy and a cassonova I certainly am not, but this takes the cake. Obviously this system was built by junior female developer. How can...

Today at work was told that the IsNumeric Function in VB.NET wasn't returning the results that the developer expected. When I got home I created a sample program that goes through some permutations and all return what I would expect. Here are the permutations String ValueReturn Value "."False ".0"True ","False ",0"False "$"False "$0"True "0$"True "%"False "0%"False "%0"False I was led to believe, by the other developer, that these would all return True values. Now I must investigate at work. Perhaps the IsReallyNumeric fuction that was built is completely unnecessary. Victoria, Australia -- 2002 angus, The Bull (Cabernet Sauvignon) -- 24.94 -- Nice wine for a blend. Doesn't have any deep richness that I usually...

Maybe it's a guy thing, but as a kid I loved my toys. I had a great all metal 6 wheel grader that I used to landscape with. Since I lived on a thirty thousand acre farm, I had all the sandbox any child ever wanted. Now I've grown up. OK, quit laughing. I'll restate that. Now I'm older. I'm no longer in possession of my grader and I live in an apartment. With that in mind I need a release. Somewhere I can create and destroy at will. A...

I can't remember if it was when the company I worked for got a shipment of SQL Server or MSDN, but we did get a poster that detailed all the SQL Server 2000 System Tables. Since my office mate and I were working on an auditing system that was driven by the data in these tables, we thought this was the sweetest thing and hung it in prime real estate. To this day the poster was one of the great resources that I've used when developing. Today I found a post by Ashvil that displays a great...

Finally I have gotten around to installing the latest CTP of SQL 2005. I've had it sitting here for almost a month now and haven't had the time to get around to it. I installed it into a Windows XP SP2 instance on my Virtual PC and I now realize that I should increase the RAM on my PC. I've got 512MB and the 4 hours to install SQL Server says that just isn't enough in this configuration. Tonight or tomorrow I will start to dig deep into it. I was pleasantly surprised to see...

I saw this idea on a blog which I can no longer find. Instead of the ubiquitous "What I'm Listening To" foot note on posts, this blogger had a foot note on "What I'm Drinking". Being that I, like him, am a avid wine drinking (although an expert by no stretch) I figured I would do this too. So this post will be the first, and being that it is 9:26 in the AM, I don't have a glass of wine on the go. So I will use last nights adventure to start. Okanagan Valley, BC, Canada -- 2002 Wild Horse...

I can now blog about this. During the past couple weeks I've been in the process of pursuing a new programming opportunity. As of April 15th I will be leaving my current position and joining the Fujitsu Consulting team. This will be a big step forward for my career as I get involved in larger projects with larger teams using "newer" technologies. I qualify newer because of the relative nature between what I am using now vs. future. Currently my team (all two of us) are using VB.NET with a SQL 2000 backend. Not all that bad one thinks when they...