Philosopher? Technologist? Programmer.

I have moved.

2005-11-05T10:31:00.000-06:00

My blog has moved from here to http://buddylindsey.com.

I have RSS feeds for the other too in several formats. I also have plenty of other things on my site to. So please change your aggregators to http://buddylindsey.com

Mono and Crux

2005-10-08T19:48:00.000-05:00

I am working on creating ports for everything mono. I have several things done so far, but have a few scripts to write to finish it.

I finally got ASP.NET running in linux using mod_mono. It didn't really take as long as I thought it would. Once I figured out a few basic things about installing applications from scratch in crux things are flying. I am really picking up a lot, and really likeing this distro more and more.

Also, you something I find quite funny is that as a computer person when you see something different at a kiosk that is very limiting you tend to try to do as much as you can to see what all is possible on the computer. For example I am at a coffe shop called Kaffe Bona. They have a highly customized version of IE with a lot of limitaions, mostly done in active directory i am sure. Anyway the first thing I do when I see it is start to see what all is closed off in it. Like i can't control click to finish urls. I can't minimize it in anyway ctrl+d doesn't work. It is very interesting indeed.

But it just says something. When restircited one of the first things people do is see what they can do to get around it. Usually, like in my case, so they can do something incase they need to fix a problem. Like if I the browser crashed most people would just give up, but a computer person would do what they can to reopen the browser.

Anyway enough of my rambling.

Buddy Lindsey

I can weild linux.

2005-09-21T09:45:00.000-05:00

Well almost.
I am getting to the point in my Crux install that I can actually use it for day to day operations like I want to. Eventually I would like to get Monodoc and Mono develop on there so I can start doing linux application development using .NET.

.NET is a wonderful technology IMO. It make it easier to program again IMO.

Here is a screen shot for you of my current desktop.

Click for larger view.

I am having lot of fun with it. Still have a few things to work out though.

Buddy Lindsey

Programming Weekend

2005-09-18T11:21:00.000-05:00

Hey all. I have spent the weekend in the programming mode.

I was following some tutorials, because I am still a newb, from 3dbuzz.com over C++. I was doing the basic project that they walk you through in the 4th CD. It is a simple little app that you insert an either into the top of the listbox or the end of the list box. We were using wxWidgets to do it and it wasn't to terribly complicated.

Then I tried to expand on it. Here is were I felt so dumb because I couldn't seem to figure it out at all. Come to find out it was one of the combinations of strings that I didn't try because I didn't think it would actually work.

How I found out the answer was by posting a question on 3dbuzz about it and they helped me out. However while I was waiting I was so furios that I couldn't get the thing to work that I did the whole project in C#, including my feature, in under an hour.

This really showed me how much faster it can be to use C# over C++. I must say that I really like C# even more now. Though I will continue to use C# because it is a lovely language and fun to use. Now I just need to figure out a product that I can make in C# to get more practice.

After going through the tutorials I feel much more confident, sort of, than I did before. So we will see. I still have a lot to learn, but I am on the right track.

Buddy Lindsey

Open Source doesn't have a chance.

2005-09-14T14:21:00.000-05:00

Right now open source has no chance of winning this big battle against proprietary software. may the flames begin.

Here are my thoughts on this.

Yes, open source is good and has a lot of potential, but when the average american person does not know what in the world it is then we have a problem. I bring this to you from a recent experience that I had in my computer concepts and applications class (don't ask). Anyway they were talking about types of software. The teacher mentioned 5 types of software.

1) Business software that you buy premade
2) Custom software that is built specifically for an organization or company's needs
3) Shareware
4) Freeware
5) Free domain software

She proceeded to explain each step, but when she talked about free domain software she said that it is completely free you can take the code and edit it free of charge, but I wouldn't suggest using it because most of it isn't that great. Immediatly bells went off in my head. I asked her if by Free Domain Software she meant Open Source. I swear at the words open source I got one of the blankest "what are you talking about?" faces.

I explained that open source was software that was built in a collaborative environment among people all over the internet and the code was completely free to everyone in accordance to the gnu general public lisence. After about a 5 minute explanation she said yes that is what I am refereing to.

Now I see a problem with this. If a teacher does not know what Open Source is and doesn't teach it then how is the Open Source world going to live.

Absolutly no one in my class uses Firefox. Most have heard of it, but don't see the need to use it. They are content with IE, I must say I am too especially since I use IE7. Anyway, I mentioned that openoffice was an option instead of word, powerpoint, and excel. I told them they can get it for free and it was comparable, for the basic day to day use, as Microsofts suite. I got a response back from all the people in my class that they would rather buy Microsoft Office then use something free because they feel that if it is free then it won't be as good, or close, to something they buy, in most cases MS does make better software. But, on the big programs OSS is getting there.

I have also asked several people that use firefox who made it and most said something along the lines of. "Some company, I think mozilla." Most people think that it comes from a company that makes it, yes mozilla has a corporation, but it is OSS and not many people realize that. This is a barrier that needs to be broken through before OSS can become even more mainstream.

Also, a while back I asked a business executive what they say to people that call up and preach OSS and linux etc... There response to them is "we are not interested". When I aked why they said "because money doesn't really matter. we have a lot better reliabilty with Windows since the software that we use was built for windows and everything operates on windows. There is no reason to even consider anything else. " Needless to say i was blown away at this response because a lot of companies that switch say they do it for money reasons. My question is how many more are out there that don't care about money. Windows works for them so they don't care to switch.

Just some thoughts and observations to think about.

Buddy Lindsey

Apparantly I don't need GTK#

2005-08-30T22:56:00.000-05:00

I AM SO CONFUSED!!!!! Ok, I have been trying to do mono development and it seems like anything I read for doing a winforms type project required that I use GTK#. Well I post an question to the winforms mail-list, thinking that is where i should. Come to find out winforms and GTK# undermono are completely different. So now i need to go back and start looking at winforms again. Hope that I can get a little further now. We will see.

On a side note I can't wait till the next beta is released for openSUSE I have a partition set up just for it. :)

Buddy Lindsey

Mono Project.

2005-08-29T17:35:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have been messing with the Mono project for a bit now and I must say I find it a bit difficult. To say the least. I am hopeing to get into some gnome development with it. I think that would be fun. My biggest problem is understanding this whole widgets concepts it boggles my mind.

If any Microsoft .NET people have messed with Mono at all please leave a comment on it here and if you have a blog please leave the address so I can subscribe to it.

Now some of you maybe wondering why I went from being so Hardcore MS to using Linux. I want to answer that right now. I still am Hardcore MS. I love the company and still want to work there, but I also like to mess with stuff that is challengeing and right now linux is really kicking my but so it intrigues the crap out of me.

I really need to get back to my ASP.NET programming. I just need to find my VS.NET demo cd's so I can install it and use it again, man I wish i had the money for the full version. Anyway back to being abused by Linux.

Peace out.
Buddy Lindsey

p.s. Still need help finding good XSLT tutorials let me know if you know of any.

I can mount my USB in command line

2005-08-29T09:48:00.000-05:00

Haha. One of the coolest things in the world is I can now mount my USB key to my crux install with a little command

mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb

I don't, at the moment, have a window manager on my linux partition so I am using command line quite a bit. It is a lot of fun though. I hope that in the next couple of days that all the gnome stuff on the ports system is corrected so I can install it. I just really wish that I could find the Gnome Install Guide, or at least a working link to it.

I do like the ports system that Crux is set up with very nice. It pretty much downloads all the files you need compiles them and installs them.

Also I am trying to learn XSLT right now and am haveing one heck of a time with it. I just can't seem to find any good tutorials so if you know of any let me know thanks.

Buddy Lindsey

Unusual linux decision

2005-08-27T23:07:00.000-05:00

Well today I was at the local LUG (linux user group) meeting and I was just so annoyed with openSUSE Beta 3 because of how long it took to boot, and the no mp3 support. These are 2 pretty trivial things when you consider that it does a lot of other stuff for you that you don't have to worry about.

Well guess what I did. I got rid of and started install probably one of the most difficult distros around. That distro is Crux. Wow was talk about a leap. I basically went from everything is done to ok lets compile the kernel now and manually set up internet connections script. Literally.

Don't get me wrong I rather enjoy it but wow what a shock to the system. One good things is that it helped me to relearn a few things for the Linux VTM's.

anyway till next time.

Buddy Lindsey

Linux VTM's announced

2005-08-03T15:52:00.000-05:00

Well for those of you over at 3dBuzz that listened to last nights radio show I suppose you heard about the Linux VTM's. Yes, I am going to be preparing them, and recording them for the community. I am hoping that I can make it out to Dickson, TN to record it them with Buzz and crew.

So here is a little bit of information about what is going to be on them. Basically the first several will deal with nothing but command line. Yes, command line. Why might you ask. Well most users that want to switch to linux are power users and will end up spending quite a bit of time in command line at some point. I want to get people prepared for this experience before they move into the GUI. From my experience in command line it was fairly easy to move over to KDE, Gnome, or Fluxbox, really any Windows Manager. The reason for this is because everything is still the same just graphical. The problem is in my research and planning, so far, it looks like about 6 command line based VTM's will be created. Well that, to me is a lot, I am also afraid there might need to be more. I will keep you updated though.

Until next time have fun. Oh, just because I am doing linux stuff does not mean I am giving up .NET. On the contrary I want to learn both MS .NET implementation and Mono's *nix implementation.

Keep on the look out for another ADO.NET update within the next few days.

Buddy Lindsey

Scoble: Awnser to Comment.

2005-08-02T18:04:00.000-05:00

I think the big thing is what is the monitoring services acutally monitoring?

What assurances can Microsoft give that it truely is only monitoring what they say?

I think those 2 questions are good and would answer quite a few things, in my opinion. I think they are braod enough yet specific enough.

On a side note I am new to blogging and how I am using it conversation wise and other things. Am I using it correctly?

Regards and Keep up the good work on Channel 9 it is one of my favorite sites espeically since I am wanting to work for Microsoft someday.

Buddy Lindsey.

Linux in VPC

2005-08-02T17:59:00.000-05:00

I am going to do some linux tutorials and didn't want to dual boot or anything like that so I got the idea how about I just use Microsoft Virtual PC. So I installed it and I must say wow it is awesome. Linux works very nice in it. Most people I guess would think that because it is non-microsoft then there would be something in there preventing it from being used, but there isn't. I can't wait to get home to use it some more. I really enjoy it.

Oh yeah. I loaded Slackware for the distro. I wanted a cleaner distro for these tutorials.

Buddy Lindsey

Scoble: FUD regarding Vista

2005-08-01T15:42:00.000-05:00

This is meant as a question/statement to Robert Scoble at Microsoft.

Here lately there has been a lot of FUD regarding Windows Vista's monitoring services.

The problem is quite a few people have posted blog posts saying that Microsoft will be monitoring all activity that you do. What people then perceive from that information is that Microsoft will be stealing your information and acting like "Big Brother."

My question to you is. Is this true? Is there anyway you can shed some light on this subject? This uncertainty is pushing a lot of people away from Vista. I have done searches on the internet for a while now and most searches turn up FUD regarding the monitoring.

To me it is there to prevent piracy and that is all, but there is nothing confiming most people suspicions or denying it.

If you read this thanks for any response.

Thank you
Buddy Lindsey.

ADO.NET Basics: Connection String and Web.Config

2005-08-01T12:47:00.000-05:00

Ok, on our continueing quest for world domination... oh wait wrong blog for that.

No we want to talk about connection strings. Fun stuff isn't it. Well in the last bit we showed you how to make the connection string in C#. Well you know after a while that can get annoying making that for every page so there is a solution. You can put it into one file, and use it across your whole application. You can put it into your Web.Config file. Then when you want to connect just use the string that you declared it as for the connection. So lets see how to do it.

First open your web config file and type:
< appsettings >
< / appsettings >

Inside this is where you will set the string so you can make the connection. Now type in:
< key="ConnectionString" value="server=myServer; database=Northwind; uid=User; pwd=Password;">

Now the connections string is ConnectionString and you can use it on any page you need to. The final result in your web.config file should look like

< appsettings >
< key="ConnectionString" value="server=myServer; database=Northwind; uid=User; pwd=Password;">
< / appsettings >

See that was painless, mostly.

Buddy Lindsey

p.s. I had to put a space between the wickets and slashes because the blog has a hard time posting them. You will need to be sure to add this if you decide to copy and paste the code.

ADO.NET Basics: Connecting to a DataBase

2005-07-27T17:15:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have a big problem with ADO.NET. I don't seem to understand it very well. So in order to do so I am going to write little mini how-to's for ADO.NET. The first one is going to be connecting to a database. All my code will be in C#.

We are going to assume you have a SQL Server database and all commands will be against SQL Server. So be sure you impor the right namespace just so you can know it is:

using System.Data.SqlClient;

First we need to come up with the information that we are going to use to connect to the database. We are going to connect to the NorthWind database with User and the username and Password as the password.

So here is a generic connection string.

string ConnectionString = "server=myServer;uid=myUser;pwd=myPassword;database=DataBase"

Here is how we are going to customize it.

string ConnectionString = "server=myServer;uid=User;pwd=Password;database=NorthWind"

Next is constructing the connection.

SqlConnection Connection = new SqlConnection(ConnectionString);

You need to be sure that you take the string that you have the database information inside the parenthesis of the the SqlConnection command

Next is a very important step. Opening and closeing the connection.

Connection.Open();
Connection.Close();

See basically you take the name that you constructed it with and extend it use Open and Close.

So lets put all this together in one with a try catch block for error testing.

string ConnectionString = "server=myServer;uid=User;pwd=Password;database=NorthWind"

SqlConnection Connection = new SqlConnection(ConnectionString);

Try
{
Connection.Open();
Hello
Connection.Close();
}
catch()
{
}

If you run that with against your databse inside of your web application you should have a blank page that says Hello. If not you will probably be looking at an error of some sort. Just use that screen to debug. This should also work in a windows forms application.

A revelation at last

2005-07-19T23:52:00.000-05:00

I seem to be running into some trouble. Basically, I consider myself a newb at programming. Yes a newb. Not because I don't know anything, but because I have never actually made anything. I understand a lot of programming concepts of how to do certain things, but I have yet to actually sit down and make an application of my own. Yes, I made that notepad program, but that was mostly goofing around with one feature then it turned into something else.

No no my problem lies in the fact I don't believe in myself. Have you all ever run into that problem?

I think one thing that holds me up is I understand how to do a, b, and c, but when it comes to putting a and c together. I freak out because it requires that I know how to do d and e too. Well first off I have no frelling idea that I need to know d and e in the first place. Then when I do figure that out I just play with D and E seperately, but am afraid to venture out and put them together with A and C.

I guess the saying "nothing ventured, nothing gained" falls into this. I think my biggest fear is failure not from an aspect of a project, but in life. I feel that if I do fail at programming then nothing will matter after that, and since I have spent my last several years working for this goal I will feel it a waste.

I offered to help do the blockengine because I figured hey something I can work on that will be fun and that I can actually figure out because others will be there to help, but as before I find that I have run into the problem that I need D and E, but I don't know what they are or where to look.

This is a tormenting problem that has been going through my head for the last couple of weeks. I think it is time for me to stand up to myself. I realize I am a coward, and I need to change.

Has anyone else gone through this at all or am I alone once more out on that dreadful limb?

Buddy Lindsey

DataReader w00t

2005-07-12T18:49:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone.

I finally figured out how to use the DataReader. For those of you that still don't realize that I am a newb, well I am. By me figureing out this one thing it has made a lot of concepts "click" for me. I can actually do some things that I honestly had no idea how to do before. For example I can use a querystring with the ID of something lets say a post. Throw that querystring into a SQL Statement and get out the information just for that post. The biggest problem with my code right now is that it is open for a SQL injection attack, but now that I understand what in the world I am doing with the datareader I can easily fix that problem.

I am so excited. This is why I love to code. It is such an adreneline rush when you figure out something that has been tormenting you for a long time, and you absolutly know that you should fundamentaly understand and be able to use it in anyway.

So in closing I did it, I did it. WooHoo

Can you tell I am excited.

Thank you,
Buddy Lindsey

p.s. I will post a minihow-to within the next couple of days on using the DataReader.

Newbs can come here.

2005-07-11T23:27:00.000-05:00

I have recently talkd to a guy in the DotNetRocks chatroom during the latest DNR live show, and he told me that he learns to do certain tasks by writing an article over it.

So I have decided to do the same thing. I will post little explanations of basic things here on my blog such as how to use query strings, session state variables etc. These are things that took me reading several sites to understand so I will attemt to explain it once so new developers will get it the first time.

Leave your feedback on any ideas.

Buddy Lindsey

Too many options?

2005-07-10T23:29:00.000-05:00

I was just reading some RSS feeds that I am subscripbed too and this caught my eye.

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=86601#86601

This is very true in ASP.NET there are so many options that you can have a hard time decideing what you want to do. In the case of the post do you use several user controls on a single page or several pages?

Another question is do you use a DataGrid, DataList, or a repeater?
While the answer would be easy to see by a developer that is use to ASP.NET it is not to a newb like me.

Take something I want to do for example, which I still can't seem to figure out how to do. I want to make a category table in a database, and a links table in a database where each link is categorized by the category table. In my code I want it to be completely dynamic. Basically it grabs all the categories out of the categories table, and all the links out of the links table. Once they are retrieved they are displayed under each categories title like:

ASP.NET
http://asp.net
http://beta.asp.net

Search Engines
http://www.msn.com
http://www.google.com
http://www.hotbot.com

That is how I want it displayed, but I don't want to hard code anything. In a way like a CMS (Content Managment System).

This is definatly a problem that I see with ASP.NET. Once I learn more in ASP.NET I am going to try to write up articles on how to decide between these many features. This is definatly where the power is in ASP.NET. When you can use the all these features in your development process then you can create awesome websites.

Again this is a good reason for a grok site for ASP.NET.

Any Ideas?

Buddy Lindsey

Blockengine.net

2005-07-05T19:40:00.000-05:00

Hello, this isn't really .NET related, but it is a project that I am currently working on with some people at 3dbuzz.com. You see a while back Buzz from 3dbuzz.com released some C++ VTM's(Video Training Modules). I must say they were awesome video tutorials. Well I watched some of them and learned a lot about C++ so now I am joining this project which is to be based on all the knowledge that you get mainly from 3dbuzz.com. We are hoping that it is a success. So far we are in the planning stages and haveing a lot of fun.

It is going to be a 2d based graphics engine. We are doing this purely for educational purposes. We do not intend to put any other engines to shame, though that would be cool if we did. It will be an Open Source project so anyone can get the code for it and play. Any way check it out.

Blockengine.net

Also, once we get this done. I amg oing to see how long it takes to port it to the .NET framework just for jollies.

Buddy Lindsey

Specializing

2005-06-30T16:19:00.000-05:00

You know I was talking to Rob Howard after my interview with him and he gave me some good advice, which is the same as he said in the interview. I need to specialize in 3 main areas and become proficient in them. Once I am specialized in 3 areas, mainly, just add on something more, and it won’t be that much harder.

I find this reasoning to be superb, but I have one problem with it. I don’t know what to specialize in. I love to do all of it almost equally. I have determined however in order to be successful at data driven apps then I need to know how to access a database very well. So I do know I need to specialize in at least data access.

So from there where do I go? I need to know at least a little bit about everything, but I am lost at where to start. This is something I guess I need to figure out.

Buddy Lindsey

GrokDoc for ASP.NET?

2005-06-23T13:46:00.000-05:00

In the Linux world there is a site for newbs to understand some of the technical things in Linux. They call it GrokDoc What this is a site that you can go to for a basic manual on how to do common Linux tasks. The biggest problem with learning Linux is understanding the new terms that are thrown at you. That has been solved by GrokDoc..

Well, what does that have to do with ASP.NET? Glad you asked. Like every good technology a lot of new terms and concepts are introduced which can overwhelm the new user. I know when I started I had no idea what this .NET thing was, and no matter how much I read I never really understood it because of all the .NET specific terms were being used. I was lost. I currently know several people that want to learn ASP.NET, but they are lost because they don't know how the framework works to even start ASP.NET.

There are plenty of tutorials out there, but they are usually written by experienced competent programmers who know ASP.NET. This results in using hard to understand terms, which easily loses a beginner.

Because of all the problems beginners can run into the ASP.NET community needs a GrokDoc site for ASP.NET. If someone is willing to start it up and administer it I would be happy to write articles. I think as a person that has recently gone, and still going, through a huge learning curve I think I could help.

Buddy Lindsey

Rob Howard

2005-06-22T08:50:00.000-05:00

Ok, it is official I have an interview with Rob Howard for next Monday after our .NET User Group meeting. I can't wait. That means you should be on the look out within the next couple of weeks for a show with him in it. I am hopeing to discuss telligent systems with him some, and also what his opinions and thoughts are regarding ASP.NET 2.0. Stay Tuned.

Buddy Lindsey

aspnetpodcast.com Is up

2005-06-20T19:46:00.000-05:00

Ok, http://www.aspnetpodcast.com is up and working now. Sorry, it looks like crap, but at least there is something there to take up the space. It looks like there is a slight possiblity of the most minuteness I should probably not even mention it, is that I might be able to get and interveiw with Rob Howard. So keep your fingers crossed that I get the interview because it would be a great addition to the show. I mean we started out with Scott Guthrie the to follow soon after with Rob Howard would be awesome.

Ok, I am also working on an update for the podcast site to get it past the horrid looks that it currently has. I must warn you that, since I am a beginner, it might be a little while before something actually good gets put up. So please stay tuned and keep listening.

Again the address is:
http://www.aspnetpodcast.com

Thank You!
Buddy Lindsey

ASP.NET Podcast #3 Show Notes

2005-06-12T21:14:00.000-05:00

Download Podcast
Subscibe to Podcast

Items in the podcast.

- The full interview with Scott Guthrie.
- Several interviews from the Atlanta Code Camp.

Tammi Petway.
Chris Williams.
Brendon Schwartz.
Matt Ranlett.
Mark Dunn.

- Craig Shoemaker.

This is a fun little show plenty of interviews and information hope you enjoy and please leave any comments and suggestions here in the comments of this post.

Online Communities

2005-06-06T14:03:00.000-05:00

I am part of some online forum based communities, and I must say that I find them very interesting. Not for the fact that they are communities I be long to and enjoy, but the fact that they are communities. A place where active members learn who are most active and start to see personalities, make friends, and develop enemies.

The online aspect is no longer a hurdle in understanding other people. 3dbuzz.com and BodyBuilding.com, the sites I am a member of, have enough active users that you can clearly see the number of people help to shape the usefulness of the site. You can tell who is knowledgeable and who isn't.

This is a very interesting phenomenon because people are no longer limited by where they live. People join forums from all over the world. 3dbuzz.com, for example, has members from every hemisphere and time zone, and I am friends with most of them. Just from reading some of the posts I am able to distinguish who they are.

I am still a new member to BodyBuilding.com, but I can already tell who the experienced and most active members are by the types of information they give. I am already starting to see some of their personalities.

One of the best parts about online communities is the willingness to help. On 3dbuzz.com if I ever have a question I know where to go to ask it. I know some people well enough I know who to give the question to.

The communities that are forming on the internet I believe are a social extension of our world today. It shows how people act across the world, and it shows the reliance the world is starting to show on computers.

Now don't get me wrong there are plenty of communities like xanga, ASP.NET, and linuxquestions.com. There is almost a community for everything that exists, and I see this as a wonderful thing to have because of the expansion of knowledge to the world.

It was said that our knowledge has doubled in the last 2 or so years. I must say that I can definitely see this because the Internet is a new medium for giving and sharing information with everyone. I don't see them going away soon, and I hope they don't because I love them and believe that there is a lot of good that comes from them.

So go find a community to be active in and let the world know what you think.

Buddy Lindsey

Ponderings

2005-05-30T11:09:00.000-05:00

Well sorry I haven't posted here in a while. I have been on vacation the last week. While I was on vacation I was thinking. If the linux community really wants to go mainstream they need to unify linux. What makes windows so easy to use is that everything can be done under it and all of it is universal among every windows box in the world. They need to stop playing the best distrobution game and actually choose one.

Also, I was thinking. With as much as I like Microsoft there is one thing they need to give up on. That is their searching technology. The problem is they honestly can't compete with google. So, why try? Instead help google. Give them funding computers people to help with projects. That will do two things, hopefully. It will show the world that Microsoft does not have to own technology, and that they truely want to help the best if they can't be the best.

These are just a couple of thoughts I had. Maybe the right person will see it and someone will act on it.

IE vs. FireFox

2005-05-16T22:54:00.000-05:00

One thing that I have noticed is that a lot of people complain that Internet Explorer has a lot of updates for security holes. People tend to complain about them a lot, but what I don’t understand is that Fire Fox has had quite a few security holes so they have released updates to patch them, but people sing and dance when they have a new release.

Is this not what Microsoft does? Why is it because a program is open source it is automatically better and can exist without updates, but if there is one who cares. We live in a world of stupid double standards in the fact that Microsoft is persecuted by people because of security updates that because they care they fix. Yet people celebrate when open source releases an update.

Also that leads me to another point. I hear a lot of people say that you should use open source software because it is better. There are less problems, and bugs. Things of that nature. What I find truly interesting is that the most popular open source product on the market today has had some of the worst security problems in the browser market. Hmm lets think about that. It does go to show that the more popular something becomes the more it is targeted so maybe Microsoft isn’t that bad after all. Hmmm.

Buddy Lindsey.

Microsoft Student Amassador

2005-05-07T19:49:00.000-05:00

I was looking through some Microsoft sites pertainting to education, and I must say that Microsoft has extensive websites ranging from how-to's to free stuff, it is amazing.

Anyway, I fount this site. Microsoft Student Ambassador program. After reading all the features of the site I qualify almost perfectly for it except three things. At the moment I am not at a 4 year university, and I don't know any current or previous Student Amassadors or MS Employees.

The two most minor things are the knowing the right people, but the four year university might be a little hard to managed sometime soon. I would however like it if I could somehow join this program when I do go to Tulsa University, the college I would like to go to. The benefits of this program are amazing. Check out the site for a better list of benefits.

http://www.studentambassador.net/

Buddy Lindsey

ASP.NET podcast

2005-05-07T11:33:00.000-05:00

Over the last couple of weeks i have been speaking with several people via e-mail about doing an ASP.NET podcast. Last night was our first meeting, I guess. We had some problems doing some testing on recording in skype, but I think I have a way around that so no worries. We talked about some really interesting things too. Mainly we discussed some of the future of it, things that we would like to see happen on the show. Scott Cate also joined us for a little while, that was awesome too. I wish I had recorded that just to recall later becuase he told some awesome stories. The best part about the whole experience is I felt like I was actually in a podcast similar to DNR. It was a lot of fun.

I think the coolest thing that we might be doing is a panel discussion over ASP.NET that should be some fun. Anyway keep on the lookout for our podcast comeing out. I would say within the next two to three weeks we can expect a pilot episode. I just want to thank Jason Salas and Wally McClure for including me on this project. it should be a lot of fun.

Buddy Lindsey.

I feal dumb now.

2005-05-02T23:13:00.000-05:00

On my aggregator I am subscribed to MS press releases, and today they had a story of a girl in pakistan that is 9 years old who passed her MCP certification.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/may05/05-02YoungMCP.asp

Very interesting read. Wow I wish I could have been introduced to programming when I was that young. I didn't learn that I could actually do programming till my senior year in high school.

introducing iPodder.NET

2005-05-01T16:51:00.000-05:00

Come one. Come all. I introduce to you iPodder.NET.

Ok, basically there is a podcast aggregator that is being built off the .NET Framework. It is called iPodder.NET. You can find the site and the alpha download at http://ipodder.net

I recently took over this project on SourceForge after it had been dead for about 4 months. I am learning to program in ASP.NET and Windows Forms. I thought that this would be a good project to sink my teeth into so that I can learn Windows Forms programming. Another reason I thought it would be a good idea is because I am a podcasting fanatic. I love podcasting so when I saw the opportunity to join this project I jumped on it.

Please head over to http://ipodder.net to learn more about it and get the alpha. Also since it is and open source program you are free to connect to the CVS repository and download the source and contribute. Have fun.

Buddy Lindsey.

Very inspiring

2005-04-27T13:08:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to let you know about an awesome site. It is very inspiring reading the papers and listening to the speeches. You can tell that this guy really know technology. If you ever find yourself down and just don't want to do something such as programming or reading a blog over technology. This guy will with his speeches and papers. After reading a couple of papers I am ready to jump into programming right now, even though I am working on an essay. This persons site is Bill Gates' home page. I found his site when I was looking for speeches to listen to, and I must say I was extatic when I found it. I like to listen to technology speeches so that can get inspired and learn. A lot of people will give a philosocal view on technology, and since I enjoy that I love speeches.

So Bill Gates' site is:
http://www.microsoft.com/billgates

I just got done with his "Real Time Collaboration 2005 Keynote" and I must say I am now inspired by their innovation to start programming things to help with communication. Mainly the way I can see that this can happen is podcasting. I am strong supporter of podcasting so I will get hopping on iPodder.NET.

Thank you for reading
Buddy Lindsey

Only the Strong Survive

2005-04-23T23:28:00.000-05:00

Recently I read an article on CNET news about the lack of interest in the Computer Science degree. As I read this I was filled with mixed emotions because it shows the waning interest in the IT department, but it also shows allowed me to realize that only committed dedicated individuals that care about technology for what is will truly get a CS degree.

After reading the article and reviewing the comments I am inclined to agree with one of the comments that only the truly dedicated individuals will get the degrees. I also want to take that a step further and say that those individuals, in my opinion, will be the next innovators of our future technological endeavors.

Basically, the article was saying that in the last 4 years that interest in the IT field for degrees has dropped 80% due to people either not as interested in the field or because they are afraid of outsourcing to India and other developing countries.

Personally, I am glad that the number of people have dropped because there is going to be a shortage of people filling Tech related jobs in 4 to 5 years, and since I will be finishing up college in that time I will be on the front lines able to snatch one up.

The best news is that the market right now is saturated with potential people wanting jobs. In 4 years the market is going to be in demand again for employees, and that is where the new innovators are going to be. There will always be jobs available to people, but I think that in 4 to 5 years there will be quite a few.

Podcasts to Listen to.

2005-04-21T22:27:00.000-05:00

Ok, it has been a tireing day for me today soI am going to make this short. There are 2 main podcasts that i listen to that pertain to .NET development that I want to share with you.

DotNetRocks
Polymorphic Podcast

I suggest you check them out. They are both very informative and fun to listen to. have a good day or night.

Buddy Lindsey

Podcasting Revealed

2005-04-20T23:53:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have been asked lately by many sources what podcasting is so I have decided to explain it now, and some of the general concepts of producing and delivering a podcast to your audience or potential audience.

First, what is a podcast?

A podcast is a new technology for syndicating audio broadcasts to masses of people. Now that you are confused. Basically, you make a radio show, usually talk radio, and give it to the world. Cool, isn’t it. Now just because it is called a podcast doesn’t mean that you can only listen to it on a podcast. Because of how you are getting the file you can listen to it on anything your computer, any mp3 player, or you can burn it to a cd.

For further reading on technically what podcasting is go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcast

Second, what steps do you have to take to podcast?

Well first we need to break down podcasting into some essential parts that makes everything possible.

Requirements by the Content Producer:
1. Server and plenty of bandwidth
2. Site
3. Audio File
4. RSS Feed

Requirements for the Listener:
1. Podcast aggregator
2. Get feed

Content Producer:

Server and plenty of bandwidth:
Ok, this is probably one of the single most important things, next to the audio file, that makes a good podcast. First, you need a place to store the file, which is on the server, then you need a lot bandwidth incase you have a popular podcast. Bandwidth is important thing to consider when doing a podcast because it could end up costing you a lot of money.

Lets explain bandwidth and how it relates to podcasting. Bandwidth is the amount of data that is allowed to be transferred from a server or website to a user. So lets say you have a site you rent space and bandwidth on, and you have a cap of 100 meg (the meg is almost irrelevant in the explanation the numbers and math are important.) Ok, this is fine for a web site that people view pictures and text data on because they may only use up .02 meg per visit. And after 10 visits they have used up .20 meg of bandwidth. So for a website only this is fine not much to worry about. Now if you have a normal podcast that is 25 meg and you post that on your server and 4 people download the podcast you have just used 100 meg of bandwidth. So the problem is you just used up all your bandwidth allotment. Now at this point most hosting companies will let people keep downloading then they will charge you outrageous amounts of money for going over your allotted bandwidth consumption. So if you go over and you are charged you can use a lot of money fast.

Now if you have a server that hosts your files with unlimited bandwidth things will go a lot easier and you will not have to worry about losing money. Luckily with the innovation of podcasting there are now services available to podcasters that provide unlimited bandwidth, but you have a limit of how much you can put on the server for users to listen to. The company that is doing this is called Liberated Syndication at http://www.libsyn.com . They have plans for you starting at 5 dollars to 35 dollars depending on the number of shows you do. This is an excellent deal for a lot of people. The best part about Liberated Syndication is they archive all your podcasts, as long you stay a paying customer, and they never lose their address to listen to them. This is a phenomenal move because of how easy it makes things for non-technical people.

So basically if you have unlimited bandwidth you save money and can have a very successful show because you don’t need to worry about how many people download it.

Site:
The second thing that you need for your podcast is a site to advertise it on. Usually people have a blog that they use as their front end to get their show out, or they have a regular website they add it to.

Now if you don’t have a website and you use Liberated Syndication then you are covered because as part of your subscription you get website for the podcast so that you don’t need to worry about making one up yourself.

Audio File:
Now comes another important part the file itself the whole reason you are starting down the path of podcasting. This is self explanatory with this you just upload it to the server that is going to host the file so other can download it.

RSS Feed:
Ahh, this is the powerhouse of the whole podcasting experience. This is what allows all your loyal fans to get you file from now on with little effort at all. This feed is a file that you put on your site for others to get and put in a program called an aggregator (will explain in a little bit) so that they can automatically download the audio file without having to take the time to go to the site and find the show and listen to it. This saves the listener time which people are always happy about so you can have more listeners. I personally listen to about 25 podcasts because of this there is no way I would go to each site and check everyday if there was a post of a new show. This feed allows me to get them with almost not effort.

The Listener:

This is much easier than making a podcast because you only have two simple steps to get a podcast. So lets look at them.

Podcast aggregator:
Now I will explain what in the world this is, what it does, and why you need it.

To understand what a podcast aggregator is lets look at the word aggregator. Its root word is aggregate which means “to gather something in mass” (shortened slightly). So from these we can deduce that the aggregator is going to get something. Well the aggregator can get multiple things from audio files to text to programs. In the case of a podcast aggregator it will get the Audio file that is a podcast. The aggregator itself is a program that you download, the post popular being iPodder, and install on your computer to run in the background. At set intervals it will go to the internet and check to see if there is a new podcast if so it will automatically download it for you. Why is this important, well because it saves the user time from having to check every day or every couple of days for a new podcast. Again this is what makes podcasting so great the ability to get these shows with almost no effort.

Get Feed:
The second part of getting a podcast is finding the feed to the podcast that you want to listen to. This is easy because on most sites that are a database of podcasts they give you the link to the feed that you simply copy and past into your aggregator and click ok and you are done. It is literally that simple go to a site like PodCastAlley and search around their site for a podcast you like, click on get feed the load a new page for you with a link. What you do is copy that, go over to your aggregator and paste that link into a text box that is labeled feed. That is it.

Summary:

So as you can see there are many advantages to doing a podcast over just a regular radio show that people download off of your site. The main basis for this is you want people, naturally, to listen to you show. So if you do it in a podcasting format you can get a wide variety of people to listen to it regularly. You can spread you ideas thoughts or whatever else around to people all over the world. There are over 5000 people that have embraced this and are now successful at it.

Just to recap about Liberated Syndication it is an all inclusive service. They offer unlimited bandwidth, room for your site, and automatically make your feed for you so that you don’t have to learn all the technical things behind it. Also with the site you are able to do show notes to kind of cover in text what you covered in the show.

If money is a concern for you then you have the potential for your podcast to pay for itself. How can this be you may ask. Well on your site you just add a link to a tip jar that people can deposit money into, and just tell them in the show that you would like it if people would donate money to help with the cost of bandwidth. There are many avenues that you can explore with podcasting. It can help you grow as a person to learn more about something and to spread your ideas, similar to what blogs do, or it can help your business or organization grow because you are informing them as to what is going on. People love to be a part of something when its leaders are in contact with them. So are you ready to podcast?

If you have any questions, concerns, or ideas about podcasting you can e-mail me at percent20@gmail.com and I will get back to you as soon as possible. I hope this post has helped you today. I have defiantly enjoyed making it.

Buddy Lindsey

A future post, and clarification

2005-04-19T18:08:00.000-05:00

I have a nice post comeing hopefully tommrow of the origins of how people think about whether they prefer Microsoft or Open Source. It is an opinion that I have formed through asking others questions about whaty they prefer and why. I hope you all find it interesting.

Also I fell I must clarify something. The reason I refer to Microsoft vs. OpenSource is because they are generalizations. The OpenSource community generally doesn't like Microsoft; that doesn't mean microsoft can't have open source things, because they do. I just make the distiction based no a general acceptance of what people are thinking.

Buddy Lindsey.

3 Basic Complaints Revealed

2005-04-18T18:31:00.000-05:00

One thing that you may have noticed if you have read much of my blog is I find the Microsoft vs. Open Source debate fascinating. I must say I really don’t know why I do, I just do. So to continue on this trend I want to add another post on that theme.

Here lately I have been putting thought into the fundamental reasons that have contributed to people not liking Microsoft or their products. I then thought how true are these opinion.

The three opinions are:
1. I don’t like their business practices
2. I don’t like that windows crashes so often
3. They don’t have a feature that I want, and I don’t have the option to add it.

These are the three main reasons that I have been able to break it down to. On the surface they seem superficial and not worth discussing, but if that were so I wouldn’t be writing this would I?

So lets take a look at them shall we.

“I don’t like Microsoft’s business practices”

Well I can understand this who would like a company that goes to court everyday for some legal reason or another. With a the biggest reason that Microsoft doesn’t want to run the java runtime on their OS that is licensed to people.

Now when I say licensing this means that you are purchasing the right to use this software. You are not purchasing the software for what ever you want to use. Therefore, Microsoft has the ability to restrict what every they want, in my opinion.

Now if you have such a problem with business practices then you might want to take look at the corporate world. There are scandals happening almost every week of someone that has done something shady in a corporate position. Now the reason that most of them are not so disrespected and flamed is because they are not top of the food chain of their market. I can see why Microsoft can be an easy target because of this it is not fair that you should single them out and call them a bad company, and the people bad people for this reason alone.

“I don’t like that windows crashes so much”

Ok, honestly this problem is an old one that is almost gone in windows XP. I crash my Linux partition far more than my windows partition. Microsoft spent a longtime to make XP run more efficient so that it did not crash as often. Friends, and I have run windows on our pc’s for several weeks straight doing everything from 3d modeling and gaming to programming and word processing, and not one time did it crash. Now it did slow down really slow at points, but it would pick back up to most of the same speed.

Now one of the biggest problems with speed and stability is how big that the kernel is for windows. The reason I say this is because of what windows is, a easy to use for many users operating system, it has to be able to run on almost any pc hardware configuration that exists, and has to look good doing it. This leads to a huge kernel so that it can support so much, which ultimately gives way to conflicts of devices when loading something, to me this is common sense like the difference between a router and switch. Because, windows has to work for everything it has to stay big, now the down side to windows being closed source is you can’t customize the kernel like you can in Linux for optimal performance. If you read a recent eWeek article the Linux community recognizes the problem of bloated kernel, and are starting to complain about it. So in a sense Linux is heading toward this problem. So ultimately Linux is heading toward crashes on its own, but the one thing it does have for it the customizable kernel.

So in conclusion to this point, crashes are inevitable it is usually a user error, in my experience, and it is something that will continue to happen as long as people are able to install their own software and hardware, because it seems that is were the problem is having to create software that works on several hardware configurations. I mean look at apple computers. They have an OS that is written for a specific hardware configuration and programs that are written for a specific hardware configuration leading less possibilities of crashing, but they are not impervious because I have crashed one at CompUSA. (The hardware stuff I am not sure of I was told that my a Mac person so I am taking him at his word because he seemed like he knew what he was talking about. Please, let me know if I am wrong and I will gladly write a retraction.)

“They don’t have a feature that I want, and I don’t have the option to add it.”

This is one that is the biggest complaint basically leading to “Open Source” dun dun duuuun. Anyway, one thing I hear a lot, not necessarily as an argument, but as a complaint is “Why don’t the include blah feature in their office software, windows OS, or other software.” I hear this mainly when it takes a while to do something, and they want a button to do it all right then.

Now, this leads to more geeky people complaining about not having the option to edit the software because it isn’t open source. To me Open Source is awesome, but as far as I have seen nothing compares to some of closed source software that Microsoft has such as office, Visual Studio, and windows. All these are easy to use and helpful for users to move around and get things done. Now OpenOffice.org is a good Open Source comparison that has a lot of potential, but does not have a lot of the things that Office does. I have not yet seen a IDE that even compares to VS. As for windows, to me Linux has a while before they are going to be as easy to use for everyone.

Another thing about being able to edit the software even with the option, how often have you actually taken that opportunity and added that feature. If you are like me you like to have the option, but have never actually done it. So for all those people that complain about it if this is the case it is a moot point because you haven’t taken the opportunity so it doesn’t really matter.

Basically these are all points that arise, but in a major since is honestly ridiculous in many cases. Now everybody has their right to an opinion and I respect that, but these are some insights into my thoughts on the three basic complaints that I mainly see coming from people about Microsoft. I don’t like these complaints because personally I like how innovative Microsoft has been and will continue to be, and want to try to work for them one day. Now please don’t think that I don’t like Linux or Open Source because that is just not true, because I am currently and admin on an Open Source project iPodder.NET and am a frequent attendee of my local LUG (Linux User Group) because I see the potential in Linux and love the challenge of using it.

Thank You for reading my blog,
Buddy Lindsey

ASP.NET is More Efficient than Java (Here’s why)

2005-04-12T17:50:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer:
This is only one example of how ASP.NET is better than Java. There might be several reasons that Java is better than ASP.NET. These are just my views of a particular situation. I do believe though that ASP.NET for web applications is better source than Java on a Windows machine.

Ok, where I work we are about to switch over to clocking in at our desk instead of going to a designated spot and clocking in and out. This is a good thing to have happen because it will help on productivity because people can work right up to closing time then clock out without having to walk somewhere. This will save money because people won’t be as likely to idle around waiting for time to finish they can keep working. This is a plus to this system, but that is not what I am going to talk about.

This little application that we use is a web based application. It is hosted on a server in our intranet so that all you have to do is go to a web address anywhere in the company and you can clock out. However the problem is, in my opinion, that it is running a Java applet. While this may not be bad to the general user that doesn’t care; It annoys the heck out of me because it takes so long to load and I know of a more efficient way of doing it.

You see what happens is the computer calls the server and the server loads up the web application and the clients browser sees that there is a java applet. So it then calls on the runtime to interpret and run this applet. This takes quite a bit of time, I have clocked it at 5 seconds. While this may not seem like a lot on a large scale this can is a lot of wasted time, and waste of resources because the applet has to run on the clients machine.

Another problem with running the java applet is that the IT department must now spend quite a bit of time going to every computer and installing the java runtime. With a company at well over 100 computers this is an all day project. Not to mention you have to make sure that no one is at the computer, or you have to waste a Saturday coming in and installing it. This will cost a the company money because not only does the company have to pay for the time to get it installed on a computer, but they have to worry about headaches that may arise if he misses a computer or something happens to the runtime, though rare can happen.

Now if the company were to use ASP.NET then it would save time in many ways. Not only would the development life cycle be shorter, but the IT department would not have to go around to the computers and install the java runtime, saving a significant amount of time. What does this mean. Well the application can be cheaper, and you don’t have to pay people to waste time installing a runtime.

With ASP.NET it will display the same thing to you that the java applet will, but run it completely off of the server so that the users browser only has to read the HTML. This is a significant performance advantage because only one program is doing something. Also with the way that IIS 6.0 processes ASP.NET pages there is almost no strain, if any, on the server when running the application.

With significant performance gains lower Total Cost of Ownership of a intranet based web application you can tell that ASP.NET is a better way to go in this case. I hope that maybe I helped you learn something today. Again these are my views enjoy.

Mac (My Opinion)

2005-04-08T08:19:00.000-05:00

You know I will admit I use to hate Macs because they were so hard to use, and I did not understand how-to navigate the OS. Well recently, within the last year, I have been playing with Linux. Once I started using Linux I realized you know I use to be turned of to Linux too how about I give the Mac a shot. So I went to CompUSA, and played with one for a while and was amazed how easy it was to use. I do accredit my ease of use to learning Linux. It allowed me to be open minded and figure things out which paid off because they are awesome for editing. I have a friend that has a power book, and I played with it making videos, music, and 3d modeling. I was amazed at how only 256 megs of ram could run all these programs for hours and not slow anything down on the system, and the whole computer ran smoothly the whole time. You can attribute this to the *nix base, but it was cool all the same. I think it was much easier to use than Linux because a lot more time as been dedicated to the UI. Overall it was a great experience using the Mac.

I definitely want to get a Mac to do my development things such as, podcasts, music mixing, graphic design, and post production work on videos. I think I would defiantly benefit if one day I am able to get one. I have to give kudos to Apple for making a great product. It was definitely a humbling experience.

Microsoft Launches Forums

2005-04-07T23:41:00.000-05:00

Microsoft finally launches some forums here you go this is the link. I have to tell you this place is awesome it has a lot of potential for offering help. I can't wait for more people to find out about them. The more people there the more help people can get.

Here is the link.
http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn

Windows (My Opinion)

2005-04-06T23:17:00.000-05:00

Windows is an excellent OS to use. It is one of the easiest out to understand, and get started with. People from the age of 2 to 70 can figure out how to use it fairly quickly. It has awesome configuration tools that are easy to understand and use. In windows I can usually figure out how to configure something with 15 to 20 minutes just by clicking stuff. For example I need to set up SMTP on Windows Server 2003 so I could receive e-mails, and I just started clicking a few things here adding what I “thought” goes there and bam it worked. I knew absolutely nothing about setting it up, but with easy to understand configuration tools I figured it out. With other OS’s I basically had to learn how to configure things from scratch, which when you are in a hurry is not good. Programming for Windows is much nicer with the .NET Framework you can easily program applications for windows, or the web. Windows also has the best IDE of any OS nothing can beat Visual Studio.NET with its intellisence and dynamic coding allow for coding to get done quick.

Windows is excellent for getting stuff done quickly and efficiently. I enjoy using it for all of my development.

Proof that Windows can be better than linux.

2005-04-04T20:07:00.000-05:00

http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=27764&category=main

This proves that Linux, just because of opensource, is not necessarily better than windows. I have beleived this for a long time, and now i have the proof. Granted Linux does offer some advantages over linux, but as of right now Windows is better.

Linux (My Opinion)

2005-04-01T22:24:00.000-06:00

This OS is good for geeks who know what they are doing and like to learn new things, and have the time to sit there and figure out all the little problems that may arise. Since most people grew up with windows the switch to Linux is relatively hard because people generally want to look at Linux as Windows and they generally fail.

Linux is also a good OS to learn how to use because I do see it becoming bigger and giving windows major competition, even more then apple. Linux does offer some benefits over Windows. Some of these are stability, security, and fun to learn. Linux is generally more stable then windows. I have run a Linux server for about 100 days, and it ran as good on the 100^th day as it did on the 1^st day. Windows however started to bog down after 20 to 25 days; at this point I could see a difference in performance. Linux is also more secure than windows because there are not as many viruses that are written for Linux. My opinion of why this is basically comes down to numbers and feelings towards Microsoft. (IMO)There are quite a few people that run Linux that do not like windows so they spend time learning how to exploit it. Linux, I think, is fun to learn. It takes a long time to learn to run it well, so to me I feel like I am never good at it so I keep trying to learn more, and I find it fascinating.

These are just a few of the bonuses about Linux

iTunes for Movies

2005-03-31T22:56:00.000-06:00

Finally, someone has suggested one of the best ideas for the movie industry; Setting up download system for movies much like Apples iTunes.

Personally I think this is an excellent idea. If they get this going the movie industry will finally be embracing technology. I would honestly much rather buy a movie and download it for a couple of dollars then pay 20 dollars for dvd, that I am just going to store on my hard drive so I don’t have to worry about screwing up the disk.

All in all this is a good step forward for the movie industry if sony’s proposal goes through.

For more information:
http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=27717&category=main

Microsoft Server 2003 SP1 released today

2005-03-30T22:40:00.000-06:00

Windows server 2003 SP1 released today.
This service pack is going to offer more security options and more reliability for Server 2003 users.

You can download SP1 here

Buddy Lindsey

WebCasts Archive

2005-03-30T11:41:00.000-06:00

I was reviewing some blogs that I subscribe to with my newsgator, and found a post on Cameron McBride’s blog, MS Inbox.com. I found the coolest thing he linked to the complete archive database of webcasts on Microsofts site. I can’t wait to start watching them head on over there and check them out.

ADO.NET's DataSet is cool

2005-03-29T23:50:00.000-06:00

Since I am still learning how to do .NET development things that advance programmers know about I tend to find really cool.

Let’s take ADO.NET’s DataSet, to me this is awesome. What I understand is basically it pulls all the information out of a database, and in a sense creates a new one in memory. This allows faster access time of the data when inputting, deleting, or rolling back transactions. This helps the user out tremendously because all they care about is speed and now you are providing it for them.

With ADO and PHP, from what I used of PHP, database access you basically open the connection, run a query, close the connection, display the information. They do this over and over. With the DataSet you don’t need to open and close a connection all that is needed is going straight to memory, fetching the information, and displaying it.

The problem with how ADO and PHP get data is you have to take time to spin the hard drive, find the information, and get it. This takes time, granted not a whole heck of a lot, and when you are running an enterprise level application time is very critical.

So to me using ADO.NET allows for greater speed because the database information that you are using is cached into memory until you commit the changes to the database. This is just one more thing that is better over PHP on an enterprise level.

Shared Source Initiative?

2005-03-28T23:33:00.000-06:00

I first heard about Microsoft’s Shared Source Initiative on a couple of blogs a while back. Sorry, I can’t remember for sure which ones. Anyway I did some reading on the Shared Source home page, and I was mainly confused by what I was reading. Well tonight I was at my local DNUG (Dot Net User Group) meeting, and I asked the Microsoft speaker what it was. Basically here is how he put it:

The Shared Source Initiative is Microsoft’s version of Open Source because with Open Source you have the community contribute back to the original product and make changes. Microsoft will give out the code and let you modify it, but will not let you contribute it back to the main product.

This makes sense because Microsoft is a business, and even if someone can make a good improvement to software that Microsoft has; it is still possible that someone will go in and mess things up. This is to protect Microsoft, and to allow people to expand off of Microsoft’s ideas.

Take iBuySpy for example. This project didn’t turn out to be such a hot item, but it led to DotNetNuke which is a huge project about to go into its third release. Basically iBuySpy is something Microsoft put out (I think) and the community made something better out of it; basically using Microsoft’s innovations.

There are several tiers to Microsoft’s Shared Source Initiative to understand and agree to. I plan to read through them and get an understanding of what they require. Then I plan on posting a general synopsis of it.

Voice Recorders

2005-03-28T00:14:00.000-06:00

Voice recorders have got to be one of the coolest things in the world. Honestly I use to look at people that used them and think “Man that is weird I hope I never do that.” Now I don’t know what I would do without mine.

I tend to have a memory problem when it comes to remembering what I need to do. With my voice recorder I can record ideas and thoughts that I am having. It allows me to review them later for more contemplation or just to think “that was dumb.”

The biggest asset I see to my voice recorder is I can copy it all to my PC, or laptop. This is awesome because I can record lectures in class and put them on my pc for an audio archive of lectures for later review. This is going to help me take better notes and do better overall in class.

The best part about my voice recorder is it comes with 3 folders and can hold up to 300 files. So with each of the folders I can assign one thing to them. For example my first folder is for lectures, Second folder is for things to blog about, and the third folder is for misc. thoughts.

I am so excited about this thing. It is going to improve my productivity and let me have fun doing it. I would suggest that everyone get a voice recorder. They are handy, fun, and it looks cool.

My voice recorder (the only place I can seem to find it is on a UK site. I would suggest a upgraded version like the 240 instead of the 120 that I have.)

Buddy Lindsey

Why does Microsoft suck?

2005-03-26T22:45:00.000-06:00

This is a question that I have for a lot of people here lately. When I hear someone complain about Microsoft and they say that Microsoft sucks I ask why. Almost invariably the answer is, because they make crappy products. To me this answer is totally unfounded. Think about it if Microsoft made crappy products then they would not, at all, be the top software vendor in the world. Yes I will admit there are bugs and some compatibility issues that arise that should be worked out. I mean Windows is not perfect and neither is Linux or OSX. All OS’ have their own respective problems; this is a fact of life in the computer age.

I think the thing that annoys me the most is that when I dig deep enough to find the root of the problem I find out most people are annoyed because word or excel or windows does not have one specific feature. Honestly this is a dumb reason to get mad at Microsoft.

Once I find out all this information I ask two questions. These are the general questions and the general answers.

Q. If you don’t like windows so much why aren’t you using Linux or OSX.

A. I don’t understand Linux, it doesn’t make sense to me and Mac’s are so expensive that I can’t afford them.

- Response (that I wish I could say):
Let me guess you downloaded Linux tried to install it couldn’t get it installed so you stopped there and claimed defeat. Or you got it installed figured out it wasn’t as easy as windows and claimed defeat.

Q. What have you done about alerting Microsoft to the problem to get it fixed?

A. Nothing it is not like they read e-mails or anything like that, and that send report thing I read some were that it does nothing so I just click no.

- Response (that I wish I could say):
Ok um you have a problem that you want fixed, but you don’t do anything about it. That is completely illogical I mean if there is a problem do something about fixing it then you can honestly have earned the right to complain. Oh and you click no on the report error if it doesn’t do anything then what is the harm in clicking it anyway?

Bottom line is that most people that I hear complain about Microsoft do so with no conclusive evidence why. Microsoft yes they have done some bad business deals in the past most big companies do, but most people don’t complain about them as much as Microsoft. Microsoft has done many things for the computer industry that most people overlook. They create standards for people to follow in development that helps not only the developer, but the end-user too. They have revolutionized the UI for a desktop which in turn makes the other OS’ need to be similar so people can use them. Microsoft has also taken the pc, which is honestly a low grade computer from what it could be, and they have made it work. They have made installers that are easy to follow, and hardware compatibility a breeze with Plug & Play. Microsoft has set a standard of ease that other OS’, in order to compete, need to meet. This is not at all a bad thing because in the end the end-user is what is important. If the end-user has a flawless time, or as close as possible, using the computer then there is no need to create new things. We are far from an easy to use computer that works perfect, and does exactly what you need easily.

As for me one of my goals is to work for Microsoft to help fix problems that I see. I want to help innovate new ideas and set new standards. I want be at the forefront of technology, and right now that is Microsoft.

Who knows in 10 years it might be Linux or Apple might come back we don’t know so until then lets cut Microsoft some slack and help them out a little. Every a program crashes click the little send report button. Send an e-mail regarding a feature or a problem. Read a blog that someone at Microsoft posts in and comment on it leaving feedback. Little things here and there can really help what do you say?

To Contact Microsoft follow the links:
Microsoft Usability Research
Microsoft Wish
Get Assisted Support for a Product

http://shrinkster.com/4et

For people that Blog at Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,933657,00.asp

Buddy Lindsey

Excellent aggregator

2005-03-25T21:04:00.000-06:00

For those of you that like to use aggregators to get your blogs. Then there is a tool out there called NewsGator, which I am sure most of you know about, it pulls feeds into Outlook for you to read. Anyway I heard about it on an episode of dotnetrocks when they were interviewing Robert Scoble. I downloaded the demo and I really enjoy using it and I suggest it to everyone. So go download it.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/EM010774871033.aspx

SSID Advertising

2005-03-23T23:44:00.000-06:00

Ok today I went over to a friends house an pulled out my trusty Dell Inspirion 9100, this thing is a beast of a laptop. Anyway I turned it on booted into windows and bam I pick up 6 wireless connections. Being that I was in an upscale neighborhood this didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was that one of the SSID was "Vote John Kerry" This gave me 2 thoughts

1) who in the world is this guy voting for Kerry? :)
2) hey that is a good idea SSID advertising.

Think about it you own a business or you support an organization why not advertise that in the SSID that you are broadcasting. I often times see something like Joes wireless or something equally bland. Rarely do I see company names. Granted by advertising the name it increases some of the possibility of getting "cracked,"I say cracked for a reason because of what a hacker truly is. I also see positives though to advertising the company name or organization. Mainly for people like me wow someone took the time make that the ssid they might be worth checking out. Or something like that.

These are just my thoughts on it.
Buddy Lindsey