Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Preview copies of "Programming the .Net Compact Framework"

The authors of "Programming the .Net Compact Framework" have put the draft copies of their books (C# and VB.NET flavors) up for review as PDF downloads. You can get to them right here. I would grab them now, once the book is released, these files will probably get pulled.

Courtesy of Ohad Israeli, by way of The Daily Grind.

MooreIsLess’s Law

MooreIsLess’s Law. Which, given Moore’s Law, holds that the time taken to boot a Microsoft Operating System is constant.

That little gem comes from "What do Grumpy Old Programmers believe?". I came across a reference to Grumpy Old Programmer in Don Box's blog and it's pretty funny. Lot's of rants with more than just a kernal of truth in them.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Event Log RSS Feed Generator

This looks like a cool project. It's an ASP.NET 1.1 project that allows you to access the event logs from a system as a RSS feed. I usually make good use of the event log when I work on server apps, this could be handy.

More fun with threading

Here's an interesting post from benwu.
After executing Thread1 and Thread2, what are the possible values for "i"?

bool b1 = false;
bool b2 = false;
int i = 0;
private void Thread1()
{
    b1 = true;
    if (b2)
    {
        i = 1;
    }
}
private void Thread2()
{
    b2 = true;
    if (b1)
    {
        i = 1;
    }
}


On multi-processor machines, sometimes it will be zero. Check here for his explanation.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

In New York, no one can hear you scream

Alien Loves Predator by Bernie Hou just kills me. It takes a sureal pup to take two of cinema's biggest Sci-Fi villians and and have them share a NYC appartment like Felix and Oscar. After 100+ episodes, it's still funny. The most amazing part is that 20th Fox didn't sue Hou into the ground, someone there must get it. Check it out.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Geek Joke

Geek Joke

Q: Why do computer geeks celebrate Halloween on Christmas?
A: Because Oct 31 is equal to Dec 25.

courtesy of Sahil Malik

Hosted source control

Hosted source control

Here's a list of sites that can host open source projects. It's cool to see a site that supports Vault.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

The Human Journey

The National Geographic Society has running a project called the "Genographic Project" that is traces the geographic roots of our ancestors. By tracing DNA markers, it is believed that all living humans are descended from a group of about 2000 that lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago. The web site has an interactive timeline that lets you follow the various routes our ancestors took across the globe. They also have a pitch for you to submit your own DNS samples from a kit to contribute to the process.

Monday, May 16, 2005

The Poor Man's Steadicam

Here's a cool article on how to build your own SteadyCam for about $14 in common objects. I would build one, but I think I would feel a little wierd using one in public.

Friday, May 13, 2005

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

15 things you can do with RSS (it was supposed to be 10, but I got carried away) - Tim Yang's Geek Blog

15 things you can do with RSS (it was supposed to be 10, but I got carried away) - Tim Yang's Geek Blog

This is cool article describing the many things you can do via RSS feeds. I like the idea of using mailbucket.org to collect all of my new email into my RSS Reader. I need to add that one to my "To Do" list.

Monday, May 09, 2005

IT cheat sheets for all

IT cheat sheets for all

Here's a handy collection of tricks and work arounds for a wide selection of IT topics.

Sunday, May 08, 2005


One the Albany Aqua Ducks entering into the Hudson river. Anne's 3rd grade class got to go on a free field trip on one of the Albany Aqua Ducks. I tagged along and took pictures. Eventually every 3rd grade class in Albany will get to go, but Anne's class was the first.

It was pretty cool. The Aqua Duck came to Anne's school to pick up the kids. We then drove through downtown Albany to Quakenbush Square, and the kids were able to participate in some nature activities. We then got back on the vehicle and made the short trip down to the Corning Preserve. As we pulled up, another Aqua Duck was getting ready to launch into the river. That's the vehicle in the picture above. It was pretty cool driving into the river, it was a very comfortable ride.

Posted by Hello

Saturday, May 07, 2005

A letter to Doctor Laura... (plasticbag.org)

Tom Coates’s letter to Doctor Laura is the best response that I have seen to people who declare that homosexual behavior is described as an abomination in the Bible.


Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's law. I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22
clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this
day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

Of course these people are using King James Version of the Bible, where this text is pretty clear. The part they tend to skip is that the KJV isn't a word for word translation of the original Hebrew text. Over at ReligiousTolerance.org, they have a nice page on this topic.

Friday, May 06, 2005

"How Lightsabers Work"

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

If you ever wanted to know how a lightsaber works, read this article at HowStuffWorks.com. This site has popup ads, set your popup-blocker to stun.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

The world's funniest joke?

Scotsman.com News - Funniest jokes - The world's funniest joke?

This was deemed to be the world's funniest joke:

"Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed.

"The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: ‘My friend is dead! What can I do?’ The operator says: ‘Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.’

"There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: ‘OK, now what?’"

UNLOCKER 1.5 - Freeware app that allows you to delete files that are in use.

UNLOCKER 1.5

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks useful.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Mom, you can take that box of baking soda out of the fridge

Baking Soda and Odors

I grew up thinking that you should always have a box of baking soda in the fridge. It would soak up all of the odors. It turns out to be a myth. Activated charcoal would work much better.

courtesy of Kitchen Myths