Okay, I've been meaning to run an "MSPaint.exe" master class for a while now.

Here's the first lesson.... This could save you a lot of paper, and a lot of sticky tape.

MSPaint, (or "Ms Paint" as she prefers to be known) doesn't have much, but she does have a "Page Setup" dialog.

The clever thing about this is that it contains the option:

Hence, when printing, there is no need for your screenshot to span over two portrait pages. (And screenshots, of course, are what Ms Paint is best at.)

This is bad news for companies that sell sticky tape.

Did you realise that Mozilla firefox is just a 4.6 meg download? That's like... less than the runtime for Notepad! (nearly)

Thanks to a shove from Mike Leung, I finally installed Firefox... not as default browser... (for that we have Crazy Browser! [which runs on top of ie]) -- but it's there on the quicklaunch... just waiting for me to see how broken all my markup is...

C#... FireFox... What's next? Linux??

I've started at Advantech Software -- (Brisbane software development specialists)

This has involved a transition from VB.net to C#, and boy oh mighty, i've been shocked and alarmed at how easy it is to move.

They really are just the same food with different food colouring. The most helpful things to have when transitioning from VB.net to C# are:

0. This document (VB.NET and C# Comparison, side by side)
1. Great Mentors

The extra-fussiness of the type system is excellent, and helps you keep your code tight (much as option strict does in VB.net). The warnings you get, the more descriptive messages, and the XML commenting make for a nice improvement. I miss the code reformatting (pretty-listing) feature of VB, which did turn me into a lazier coder than i once was.

The most overwhelming change has been learning to use the existing (and very impressive) code base that Advantech have developed, learning to play well with some way cool 3rd party controls, and of course, the necessary existentialist angst that comes with any career change.

How many fake workplaces are there on the internet?

Look at this image:

Does anyone actually give their beautiful colleague a backrub while pair-programming the day away?

Or is this just made up nonsense?

Frame 2: he gets hauled in to court on charges of sexual harassment, I betcha.

And how many damn bogus handshakes exist on the internet?

Why is it always a 'white' hand and a 'black' hand, you patronizing racist bastards?!? (Or a man's hand and a woman's hand? Or a baby's cute little fingers and an old man's papery hand??)

Why not a robot's hand and a hand in a boxing glove?? That's the kind of message that would make me buy your stupid, stupid product.

If you see any more of these atrocious images, do send them to me, along with the offending URL.

Let's name and shame the perpetrators of these heinous lies.

Fred Has Just Signed In!

Ginger Has Just Signed Out!

Mary Has Just Gone To Lunch!

Barry Has Just Picked His Nose!

If you are sick of MSN Messenger bugging you...

You can go into the options (Tools| Options...| Alerts and Sounds) of MSN Messenger (or Windows messenger[Tools| Options| Preferences Tab|Alerts area]) and choose:

(Okay, maybe you already knew that -- but my research bunnies tell me that a lot of very clever people didn't realise.)

And in the category of "Ooo! Ooo! I wish I'd said that!!"

'James Bach argues that the whole notion of "best practices" is intellectually bankrupt.'

My only complaint with this damn fine piece of work (found via that daily grind) is the use of the phrase, "Oompa Loompa moralizing" which I find to be heightest. Heightism is definitely not best practice.

How often I have wanted to quietly strangle someone for using a phrase such as:

Really, if you are ever tempted to argue with someone (or belittle them) or sell to them, or buy from them, on behalf of the phrase 'best practice' then keep the good sense of this fella James Bach in mind.

A lot of people are having fun using 'The World's Simplest Code Generator' -- so i've updated it and improved it.

Meet "The World's 2nd Simplest Code Generator".

Like the original, it's online, takes one minute to learn, and has a million uses.

This tool is my constant companion on all my coding adventures.

Like those miraculous kitchen devices you see advertised on TV, this baby can cut, slice, dice, julianne, froth, beat, whip...

It's extremely violent, really. Use it for all your "Micro-Code Generation" needs.

The W2SCG has built-in patterns to use for some simple things (like C# properties and VB.net properties). If you invent any useful new patterns, leave a comment and I'll embed them in the tool. I'm particularly keen to see some Java, Php, C++ and SQL patterns.

The difficult thing when developing this was keeping it **simple**. The temptation to pile in a lot of features was huge! (I cut over thirty features out!) The best of these deferred features will be released in subsequent versions.

Expect to see "The World's 3rd Simplest Code Generator" soon.

Rather than use 'google' as my "homepage" I always create my own html file to use as a webpage, and store it on my hard drive.

Advantage are:

1. It loads damn quick, even loads when you're not online.
2. You can customise it easily.

Here's an example:

This is my gift to you.

My "real" homepage also has links to the banks I use, and so on. I only ommited that stuff because you are a pack of prying thieves.

I assumed spolsky was playing some cruel carrie-style prank when he told me he would include me in a book he was compiling.

If it is just a hoax designed to make me look like an idiot, then they appear to have taken the hoax very far indeed. They've had this so-called book printed and listed at Amazon. He's even roped Rory Blyth into the deception.

Meanwhile go out and buy 'the best software writing', edited by joel spolsky, then get back to me and tell me if I'm really in there.