Next time your random manager asks how far through that (indefinite) task she (sort of) assigned you, just answer:

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...

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....

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).

Here's a screenshot of the Amazon application in action:

One part of my brain says that this is just a toy, a gizmo, a gimmick, nothing more. But that's how a lot of great ideas look before they've really found their feet.

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.

Eames (Kathryn Erbe) is busy trying to guess the password to gain entry to a suspect's computer. She demonstrates her amazing knowledge of Defensive Programminhg Practices when she declares:

Once you've guessed wrong three times, these security programs usually give you a hint.

And yes, after three bad guesses, they are given a clue, in the form of a latin word, which Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) correctly recognises as the name of a variety of octopus. The password then, is 'octopus'. They are in.

I don't know who is more to blame for this security blunder -- the shell programmers who give out hints to attackers, or the user who used a common English word as a password. Have they never heard of dictionary attacks? Either way, I think criminals have to seriously upgrade their security protocols.

And don't get me started on 'the DaVinci Code' -- 'Apple?' 'Apple?!'

(p.s. here's an older complaint about technical flaws in Law & Order.)

You too can smack your head in wonder, at the simple features you have missed.

Mike Lansdaal did a very nice job of writing a 'Go Back' feature for Visual Studio.Net 2003 (thanks to the Daily Grind). It's nicely integrated into the IDE and so on, here's a little picture.

However, it's completely obsolete because the feature already exists up on the toolbar of Visual Studio.

Here's what Mike said when it was pointed out:

Well, what an embarrassment. I've been using VS2002 and 2003 for over three years now and I have to say that I never noticed those commands. I bet there are other features that I haven't used that are also waiting for discovery.

Mike's got no reason to be embarrassed. There's simply too many arrows on the toolbars of Visual Studio .Net.

How quickly can you name the purpose of all those arrows?

Apparently mainstream support for VB6 ends this month!!

Perhaps that explains why this email-rule has been turning up on Microsoft Employee's computers lately.

More discussion of the end of vb6 via Sahil Malik at Code Better comments

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?

Live life as if you only have four seconds to live. Cherish every wonderful moment, scream a lot and shout "Oh god! Help me! I'm about to die!"

Signs of a bad resume: Amongst the 'Work History' section they claim to have worked at 'Northwind Publishing' and 'AdventureWorks' bicycle wholesalers.

A Map of my blogging neighbourhood

Thanks to Chandu Thota

I've been forwarded information about an interesting looking role in an Aussie .Net company, namely 'Zap Technology'.

I hadn't heard of these guys before, but they seem quite interesting, even if their name does sound a bit 'dot-bomb'. They're Gold Certified MS Partners who do custom development and cosnultancy. They have some heavy "business intelligence" credibility.

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:

The first method is a fast "Native OLE" method that relies on a component in oracle and a component in reporting services. In particular, version 7.3.3 and later of Oracle include the "Oracle Client and Networking Components" Reporting Services installation is a database connectivity component named "Microsoft OLE DB for Oracle."

These two features talk together to provide very fast access to Oracle, from reporting services (or any Microsoft technology) via OLE DB.

A second method also exists, namely ODBC. In this scenario an ODBC data source is defined that connects to oracle. Reporting Services then connects to the ODBC data source. This is slightly less performant and requires more configuration effort, so it is not the preferred method. But it is a very stable fall back position.

I've previously provided a list of favourite reporting services links.