Wed, 04 May 2005 21:21:01 GMT
Are you sick of on-line petitions asking for new things in .net 2.0? Sign the new 'no more petitions' petition. If enough people sign up then I will print out all of the names, in triplicate and forward them to the fbi the cia and the w3c. Cheers.
Read On...
Tue, 03 May 2005 05:01:10 GMT
It's backup day -- the 3rd of the month.
Have you got your life in order?
Are your relatives all patched up?
Are you all set up for firewalls, virus protection, spam filters and pop up blockers?
If not, answer these two questions for yourself.
What is your goal? What is the next action?
And if, along the way, you need to clear space off a chock-full hard drive, you might want to look at one of these two apps:
SpaceMonger (my favourite)
or
SequoiaView
I'm a sucker for a squarified tree map.
Best of luck.
Read On...
Thu, 28 Apr 2005 21:08:28 GMT
Are you a programmer? Meet your new best friend.
Read On...
Wed, 27 Apr 2005 22:49:50 GMT
Every N seconds, a windows service takes a screen shot of your desktop and saves it as a thumbnail. At the end of a week you can use this to determine what you were doing at any point in time. You can then quickly allocate periods of time to certain projects/project tasks in your timesheeting software.
Note that this is *not* a big brother style application where the screen shots are sent off to some managerial person who can then fire you for playing winnable solitaire Whack Your Boss too much.
Gus points out that you could also watch a high-speed animation of your week, particularly if N is small enough.
Timesheeting, by the way, is the most unenjoyable activity in the world. Its very existence is proof that a powerful and malevolent force, just beyond the flimsy barriers of reality continually warps the universal fibril.
Read On...
Wed, 27 Apr 2005 03:59:20 GMT
If you are a recent IT graduate, and you want to work with .Net or Java at a cool company in Sydney, then contact my friend Andrew Green and he will give you the low down.
Disclosure: I ain't gettin paid //nuffin// for this ad. Just liked the sound of the roles.
Read On...
Wed, 20 Apr 2005 22:03:29 GMT
Brisbane has a sophisticated and superfast wireless peer-to-peer network, BrisMesh.Org
BrisMesh is a way of sharing files and communicating in an unlimited way, at speeds that p*ss all over commercial wireline technologies, like modem, ADSL and broadband.
The procedure for joining Brismesh is as follows:
- Add yourself to the Brismesh node database and check out what nodes are around that you can connect to. Make a note of your node entry number - you need this on the membership form.
- Fill in the membership form. If you don't have a proposer and seconder, leave them blank and the management committee will fill them in.
- Post or email a scan of the signed, completed form to the secretary, as described at the bottom of the form.
- Upon receipt of the application an acknowledgment and details of how to pay the membership fee will be sent to you ASAP.
- Pay the membership fee (via direct deposit or in person at a meeting).
- Your details will be added to the membership database.
Some of you may be relieved to know that the 'Bris' in the title is a common abbreviation for the city of Brisbane, Australia -- and not a reference to the Jewish circumcision ceremony of the same name.
[Disclosure: The 'president' of this organisation is my cousin, Paul James. Top bloke he is too. Their website is hosted by my old Alma Mater.]
Read On...
Wed, 20 Apr 2005 21:59:11 GMT
Using XMLHttpRequest is so hot right now, that the nifty acronym 'AJAX' has been coined (Asynchronous Javascript And XML).
Personally I take exception to the 'Javascript' term, and prefer the acronym 'EARWAX':
- ECMAScript
- Asynchronously
- Reading &
- Writing
- Agile
- XML
Also checkout EARWAX.Net, I mean Ajax.Net.
Read On...
Wed, 13 Apr 2005 00:08:00 GMT
Here's a product webpage that doesn't include screen shots. It doesn't event tell you where to find them.
When you dig deeper there are some thumbnail screen shots, but even they don't lead to full size images. The thumbnails are all you get.
This is a basic mistake, and I think it lets the product down badly. The product, TopDesk, is a leader in its field. (link courtesy of the Daily Grind)
Every software advertisement should include screenshots.
** Even 'Windows Services' that don't have a GUI **. Tattoo that on the back of your eyeballs (as William Goldman would say).
Read On...
Mon, 04 Apr 2005 23:27:05 GMT
Apparently, this slide is not shown until after lunch on day 1 of Management 101.
And most of the would-be managers got so drunk at lunch that they delegated the afternoon sessions to their Personal Assistant instead.
Read On...
Sun, 03 Apr 2005 23:48:24 GMT
Here are six points in favour of the MCAD certification.
- It teaches you tonnnnnnnnes about .net, so you really get to know the platform
- It's a good thing for the resume
- It won't be out of date for a couple of years.
- The process of ongoing study really wakes up your brain and helps you engage more fully with your environment.
- You don't need to attend any courses, just buy the relevant books, written by Mike Gunderloy (70-305 book, 70-306 book and 70-310 book). Then do whatever practice exams you can scavenge off the net.
- Total outgoing cost (not including time) should therefore be: 3 books (total, US$100, AU$270), plus the exam (300 bucks or so??). Tax deductible and good for the health.
So go and do it, kiddo.
Read On...
Sun, 03 Apr 2005 03:11:23 GMT
This week, at secretGeek, we are experiencing:
Spolsky Madness
That's right, Spolsky Madness, with an IE Only CSS wave filter applied.
Upcoming book reviews include:
Read On...
Fri, 01 Apr 2005 00:25:55 GMT
First we write a .Net function library called:
It contains "Public Class BodilyFunctions ...", and:
'BodilyFunctions' includes a Function called "Pick_Your_Nose_And_Eat_It"
Now let's get our Reporting Services Report to use the 'Pick_Your_Nose_And_Eat_It' function!
Read On...
Thu, 31 Mar 2005 23:53:34 GMT
Right-click on the Start button and it brings up a handy little menu:
Thank you Vikki!
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Wed, 23 Mar 2005 02:21:21 GMT
Next time your random manager asks how far through that (indefinite) task she (sort of) assigned you, just answer:
I'm 13 percent of the way there, boss.
This is the perfect answer. No one ever knows what response to give to thirteen percent. Clearly you're underway, but clearly there's a lot of work to be done. Better leave you alone...
Read On...
Tue, 22 Mar 2005 23:45:57 GMT
I got an email in which some non-geek mentions 'an Asian stirfry/soup/noodle place'
and I can't help but go all Xpath, thinkin:
<stirfry>
<soup>
<noodle>
</noodle>
</soup>
</stirfry>
And wondering: why is noodle a child of soup? why is soup a child of stirfry?
Oh, food, right....
Read On...
Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:42:49 GMT
Riaan van Schoor from InsideC has released a new Instant-Messenger based application, this one is for querying Amazon. To use it, just add 'amazon@insidec.com' to your list of messenger buddies (or if you use AOL, add 'InsideAmazon' to your list).
Read On...
Mon, 21 Mar 2005 23:49:12 GMT
I rolled on the floor laughing at a technical blunder on Law and Order Criminal Intent (epsiode 42, Blink), last night.
My wife loves it when I roll on the floor laughing at technical blunders in TV shows.
Read On...
Mon, 21 Mar 2005 21:33:48 GMT
You too can smack your head in wonder, at the simple features you have missed.
Read On...
Thu, 03 Mar 2005 21:17:18 GMT
In the future, everyone will be infamous for two minutes. And they'll spend the rest of their time writing hate-mail to everyone else.
Okay, so imagine there's two people who work at a viagra company. If they attempt to discuss their work via email, does the spam blocker stop it?
Read On...
Mon, 28 Feb 2005 02:35:33 GMT
The very, very short answer is: "Yes."
The fairly short answer is "Yes, Oracle and reporting services can talk to each other in two ways, both of which are efficient and robust."
The longer answer is as follows:
Read On...
Fri, 25 Feb 2005 02:26:25 GMT
On the front of this site i've put up a little ad for my brother's Oscar Tipping competition
The deal with the competition is that you nominate who you think will win each category. If you win, you get money, fame and 3.5 Jacuzzis full of sexy nude readers NOTHIN, just a mention on a website.
I'll kill off that scrolling text in a few days... I was just amused to see that IE6 still renders the marquee tag. (ymmv).
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Sun, 20 Feb 2005 23:51:19 GMT
Okay, here's another little suggestion i've got for Microsoft Visual Studio.
Looking at the start page in VS 2003...
At startup, focus goes to the first item in the list of recently used projects, as shown here.
You might assume that clicking the 'Open Project' button would open the highlighted project ('VbNetSmartTag' in this case).
Not so.
Rather, the 'Open Project' button allows you to Browse for a project to open.
To open the selected project, you click on the name of the project.
To avoid confusion here I recommend the 'Open Project' button be renamed to 'Browse for Project' or simply 'Browse...'.
That is all. Thank you.
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Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:10:08 GMT
Mike Gunderloy's Daily Grind today:
...If that's what IE7 amounts to, I expect that people will be very much disappointed. They need to leapfrog Firefox in areas like plugin extensibility, standards support, and tabbed browsing to avoid becoming a laughingstock at this point.
Read On...
Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:04:18 GMT
"One dog barks at something. And a hundred dogs bark at the sound."
Read On...
Fri, 11 Feb 2005 02:19:37 GMT
You get this dreaded message:
An aggregate may not appear in the WHERE clause unless it is in a subquery contained in a HAVING clause or a select list, and the column being aggregated is an outer reference.
I love how they SHOUT it at you.
Read On...
Wed, 09 Feb 2005 03:26:49 GMT
When a marathon coding session leads to tiredness, I always reach for a refreshing cup of Nescafe Granulated FoodService Blend.
Nescafe Granulated FoodService Blend is the market leader in consistency and value.
And what is more important in a drink than consistency and value?
It's little wonder that the people who replenish the stocks in office kitchens all over the world turn to Nescafe Granulated FoodService Blend again and again.
Ahhhhhhh. Taste that value! Mmmmmm. Above averge consistency, right down to the last drop!
With Nescafe Granulated FoodService Blend, your code will almost write itself!
Read On...
Mon, 07 Feb 2005 04:33:44 GMT
Here's two very small usability suggestions for Visual Studio .Net
Read On...
Mon, 07 Feb 2005 02:36:46 GMT
This is one of those simple tips you could overlook for years, as have I.
Read On...
Sun, 06 Feb 2005 07:32:46 GMT
These google ads really aren't worth the pixels their printed on. In the ten minutes since selling out and putting them on my site, I'm still not looking at millions of dollars in revenue.
This sucks. I'm moving the ad further up the page. I want it to stand out a damn mile away. I may even just substitute ads in place of real content, from now on. The so called 'real content' wasn't much chop anyhow.
Read On...
Sun, 06 Feb 2005 07:26:39 GMT
Here's an ironic little book advertisment I found at Amazon:
The en-dash is plain wrong (I'm certain the author would've used an em-dash), and a comma (or em-dash) is missing after the first 'or two' and I'd favour a hyphen in 'closely-related' (just personal preference there). But ouch! that elipsis sure saps the sentence of any residual Stun.
And even then, the sentence is particularly UN-STUNNING.
Here is the original:
MOST sentences should convey one idea-or two or two closely related ideas..."
While here is a far more STUNNING version:
Most sentences convey one idea, you poop-face.
Stunned? I know I am. Here's how I'd continue:
Some sentences convey two ideas, damn I like ice-cream.
See that? I'm telling a story and demonstrating it all at once. Then I'd finish like this:
And some sentences convey two closely-related ideas, like a snug pair of breasts or a sweaty set of testicles.
Pow! Whammo! Stun Plus Plus!
I've really gotta write a book on grammmer, one o' these days.
Read On...
Sun, 06 Feb 2005 07:22:41 GMT
Yeh, so I'm a sell out. Google Ads now appear on the lower right of the page.
One of the conditions is that I shouldn't 'artificially' inflate my click-through rates, by doing things like clicking on the ads...
But what if I am genuinely interested in the product being advertised? The very first ad I saw on my page was for WayPath which is an interesting blog-related product. Of course I clicked it, waypath is just the sort of thing I like. But now i'm terrified that big brother at Google will withdraw the service from me and burn down my gmail account...
Read On...
Fri, 21 Jan 2005 11:06:17 GMT
Mac interfaces are pretty damn cool.
Check out this mp3 playa called 'moodLogic'
i don't know how it works, but i think the mood bar in the middle must be pivotal to its operation.
Aggressive | Upbeat | Happy | Romantic | Mellow | Sad
While this is a, um... nice summary of the full emotional spectrum it is certainly missing a few of my own favourite moods including:
- lustful
- embarrassed
- wallowing in regret
- wistful
- sobbing hysterically
- terrified
- silly
- bemused
- shocked
- insulted
- jaunty
- bored into a stupor
- gassy
- drunk
- deep in thought
- busting to pee
And of course, real people (like you and I) are not simple creatures. We often experience combinations of the above moods. Perhaps:
- frightened, lustful and sobbing hysterically.
or
- drunk, jaunty and busting to pee.
and the all too common:
- happy yet, at the same time, sad. And just busting to pee.
I guess the Emotional Sciences still have a lot of work to do in the realm of classifying MP3's.
Read On...
Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:27:55 GMT
I really really like the social bookmarking (linking) tool: Del.Icio.us. Del.icio.us is... very... y'know, delicious. But the more I visit it, the more I see certain Biases of the del.icio.us crowd.
They love to procrastinate. (Actually, they probably HATE to procrastinate, but they do it any way.) Articles about procrastination occur again and again.
They love CSS and Javascript. (Call it DHTML if you must, u old-skool phool). Delicious itself relies on a nifty CSS trick (commonly linked items show up a brighter shade of pink) hence, the site acts as a magnet for CSS and javascipt fans (myself included).
Fans of a computing system known as, I think, the Apple Macintosh (?) or 'Mac' seem to have a large representation there. And they seem to also attract people interested in graphic design.
Del.icio.us users like talking about (other) systems for social bookmarking and (of course) blogging. And they loving finding new information.
But putting their biases aside, they are a very loosely connected group of people, really, who continually bring a variety of fascinating stories to the fore.
You find all kinds of things there. When you want to find something new and interesting I recommend del.icio.us. A handy tool for finding news, storing links and working out what sort of CSS is being spat out from javascript written by Mac designers busy procrastinating over their blogs about social bookmarking.
Get Del.Icio.us today.
Read On...
Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:42:25 GMT
(Thanks to Craig Box.)
This kind of situation happens all too often.
Some starry-eyed foolish biz-freak staggers, dazed, into your cubicle and, on some kind of naive, mindless, phantasmagorical whim, poses an outlandish technignorant question.
The sort of question you'd slap your mother for asking...
But before you have a chance to crush their ridiculous fantasy, before you politely smack them out of their stupidity... Suddenly! Some tiny voice inside your geeky head pipes up and finds a way to try and fulfill their impish, pathetic, dream.
"SOooo... you're wondering if I can use XSL to turn the EDI from your CRM into a DDL for your CMS, this afternoon?"
Is it possible?
Maybe.
Is it wise?
Maybe not.
Is it crazy?
Definitely.
Am I interested?
Show me the code.
Read On...
Thu, 13 Jan 2005 22:10:27 GMT
This year I have only one goal: I intend to take up smoking.
I've tried to take up smoking in other years, but I've always failed. I keep it up for a month or two, but then during a stressful time I stop buying for a day or two. Next thing I've given up entirely.
Well this time things will be different. I'll start with a few of those nicotine patches. Then I'll chew some nicotine gum. How hard can that be? If there's some kind of nicotine-milkshake on the market, then I'll quaff down one or two of those each morning. The target: cigars in June.
This is gonna be so good for me. Nicotine reduces stress, does wonders for your weight and gives you a sexier, more gravelly voice. Should've done it years ago.
Read On...
Sat, 01 Jan 2005 09:13:50 GMT
Even if you are the cheapest, nastiest geek in town, please consider donating some of your hoarded gold to the people affected by the Tsunami in the Indian ocean. 
Two good places to donate are OxFam and the Red Cross (Australia) (or Red Cross United States). I expect that you could also walk into pretty much any bank and pledge some money.
You know you want to.
Read On...
Fri, 24 Dec 2004 10:27:04 GMT
Precious subscribers -- promise me you'll never be fool enough to try podcasting!
i've just been woken, on Christmas Eve, one hour before the fat man is due to stuff his sack down my chimney, by a phonecall from a concerned subscriber, informing me that the podcast is not downloadable.
i'm utterly exhausted.
the day started with an 8am champagne breakfast and bloody marys. it ended with nog of the egg, an innumerable succession of celebratory stella artois, a walk around the block to admire the christmas lights, a clutch of carlton extra dry, a brace of tooheys new and a dash of baileys.
But apparently podcasting, that incredible new technology which will be changing our world next year (much like beta video cassettes in 1980) is of such importance that all hangovers must be cast off. So i've roused myself back to perpendicularity, shaken sleep from the eyes, cranked up the thinband internet connection and sent my precious podcast mp3 off to a remote (and generous) hosting server who promises to look after it for me.
Thanks to Gus for looking after it.
It can be safely downloaded from here. Apparently. No need to rename the file or anything.
Merry ******* christmas. I'm off to bed.
Read On...
Fri, 24 Dec 2004 04:33:24 GMT
I have this hyperactive colleague. He's a problem to everyone around him, me in particular. This week he's inflicted us all with too much podcast hype. So I've recorded a podcast just now and called it 'the used pizza podcast'.
You want to hear this podcast. Because PODCASTING IS THE FUTURE.
Used Pizza is an idea for a restaurant i came up with, just yesterday. The fact that the name of the podcast has nothng to do with the actual podcast is, perhaps, the point.
You have to rename the file to have a .MP3 extension. (My host doesn't let me upload mp3's, so i had to rename the file. If you name it right it *will* work.)[i'm using a different host for this file]
podcast.Podcasting, in case you are not familiar with the term, is a way of combining the pointlessness of a blog with the hassle of a large audio file. You may know of it from g'day world, dawnanddrew or the daily source code.
This podcast includes samples from a song known only to me as 'Hexstatic -- Ninja Tunes'. I like that song. Ninja Tunes are good. Kid Koala good too.
I've included an 'enclosure' in the rss feed -- but if this causes breakage, then i'll remove it.
Read On...
Thu, 23 Dec 2004 04:24:36 GMT
(* I don't know for a fact that Robert has two fat little twins. But let's assume that he does. And thanks to Rory on whom i've modelled my cartooning skill.)
Cartoon Inside...
Wed, 15 Dec 2004 04:26:45 GMT
You (or your coworkers) might like to try this quiz:
In other news...
You know you're having a bad day when
The code you submitted to CodeProject turns up on The Daily WTF.
Read On...
Sun, 05 Dec 2004 21:17:20 GMT
 | Why is a dog asking me questions? Who's been putting the mescaline in the Microsoft kool aid?What if google used this approach? Would google still be number one? |
So you'd like to search for something!
©2004 Google - Searching 8,058,044,651 web pages |
Read On...
Thu, 02 Dec 2004 20:57:33 GMT
Well, it's sounds like something you'd read about.
And as Blog grows up, people could always guess her age. "Oh, you must have been born prior to 2006, when the international court enacted the universal ban on blogging."
Read On...
Sun, 28 Nov 2004 23:58:13 GMT
On the right hand side of this site (if you are viewing this through a browser) i've framed in a version of the feed for my link-blog, available via rss or html from http://del.icio.us/secretGeek
It's rendered from XML to HTML using the BigBold Rss Digest. Sorry about the mis-colouring of the background. It's on my list of fixes.
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Fri, 26 Nov 2004 10:36:58 GMT
Proprietary software is often so sucky. (CD writer software in particular. But let's talk about scanners for a moment.) Here's a snapshot of the software that came bundled with my scanner.
Oooh! Isn't it smooth.
What sucks is that the design deliberately mimics a piece of *HARD*ware.
Does software usually have an OFF button in the middle!? My crappy $36 stereo has that. It's the last place you look when you need to escape. But I expect my crappy stereo to lack usability, because it is hard to fix.
But software should be far more useable that hardware, you gimps!
Software can be improved very rapidly. It is **SOFT**
Hardware is a village idiot compared with software. Hardware should be based on software. Software is where the lessons are learnt!
Ahhh. I don't really mind. I just wanted to share it with you guys and ladies. You seem nice. And kind of cute, too. Keep up the hard work you industious sons and daughter of this electric age.
Read On...
Mon, 22 Nov 2004 20:12:40 GMT
Much like Bilbo's little sword that glows when orcs are near, i'd like it if keys would glow when near their lock.
That way, you'd be able to quickly pick out the right key on the bulky key ring. Even in the dark. When drunk.
The other problem with keys is that they frequently misplace themselves. What if you could dial a number on your mobile phone and the keys would start rattlin. Perhaps the keys could SMS you back and say "I'm under the sofa!" or "I'm in a strange dark place i've never been before. I can hear a chuirch bell ringing."
Better still: why not dial a number on your mobile phone to unlock the door. Who needs extra hardware like keys? Would open up a tinful of worms around the security issues though.
Read On...
Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:58:29 GMT
i bought my first *EVER* dvd player on the weekend.
it was really intimidating -- the guy in the shop treated me like i had leprosy and was all like, 'ha ha ha welcome to the twenty first century, loser!'
he tried to sell me the most expensive model in the store and was all like, 'this one's got multi-zone, multi-format ZPX 1.3 and various multi-plex decoding emulators that a luddite with leprosy wouldn't understand,' and so on.
and i was all like, 'but what about THAT one, over THERE -- it's retro and groovy looking and only forty dollars and it takes TWO dvd's at once!'
and he was all like 'dude. that's a toaster.'
so i settled on a mid-range DVD unit that plays most formats and only does one piece of toast at a time.
now i just got to wait for Lano and Woodley's DVD to come out (in one week!).
Read On...
Fri, 05 Nov 2004 00:19:45 GMT
Someone mentioned this concept: 'Save Search as Virtual Folder'.
There's a big conceptual leap in there that I like. A certain, 'Save Dog as Virtual Chicken' concept that is quite powerful.
It sounds like polymorphism, but is really very different. Polymorphism is like this: 'Treat Dog as Mammal' -- where a specific thing is treated in a less specific way. And numerous specific (and different things: a dog, a bat, a dolphin) can be treated identically, provided they are only treated in a more general way (as mammals). You still with me? Good.
Read On...
Thu, 04 Nov 2004 23:11:17 GMT
As always, this excellent book just keeps proving useful.
Here's a quick graphic to illustrate its power
Before:
After:
Read On...
Thu, 04 Nov 2004 04:39:26 GMT
Something I wrote a few years ago called 'List your way out of stuckness' has sprung from the wiki wilderness to receive 100 recommendations at 'Del.icio.us. I'm surprised and enthused.
I've described a revised/simplified version of the technique here: Writer's Block, Geek-Block, and Procrastination. Also, there are fourteen good techniques for overcoming procrastination, in the book 'Feeling Good' (I'm going to summarize these some time soon and write about it -- they apply to varying circumstances and should be in the behavioural repertoir of anyone who suffers from this horrible affliction.)
The word 'stuckness' comes from a very clever guy I went to uni with, named Martin (surname forgetten!), and sprang from a conversation about that uber-selfhelp for nerds book, 'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance'. The technique may be similar to those described in 'Gettings Things Done' or the book 'Feeling Good' -- but it's my own independent invention, and I'm claimin' full credit/blame. When you are really stuck, this technique does indeed work.
Merlin Mann said on 43 Folders: "It gets amorphous anxieties out of your brain's echo chamber, and that’s always a good thing." He also created a pdf version of the template. Thanks Merlin!
(and thanks to Brandon "solarce" Bowman for his version of the template)
Read On...
secretGeek .:dotnuts about dotnet:.
Coding Koan: the power of one
The Best Software Writing I
The Business Of Software (Eric Sink)
bookmark at Del.icio.us!
reddit this