Monday, March 20, 2006
Shave your back you hairy monster...
Yes friends, how many times have you heard this? Well now your problem is solved. Check out this little toy from Razorba:
http://www.razorba.com/default.asp
Yes, you too can have a fresh smooth back without causing your significant other to blow chucks from looking at you.
And hey, now that you are all smooth it's time for a party! And no party would be complete without a voodoo doll toothpick holder! Check this little party item from perpetual kid:
http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1328
Also check out the magnets from www.unitednuclear.com. I wanna buy something from them just so I can have a credit card receipt from 'em.
Power went out at the house this evening due to some wicked storms. Fortunately I have a bank of batteries out in my garage that would make the energizer bunny jealous. Hook up my 12 volt power converter and I can run my laptop all night, into tomorrow and probably next week. My power came back on about an hour ago and I still haven't bothered to switch back over.
I've been sitting here working and listening to a Monday's episode, which frankly is far better entertainment than most of the CRAP on tv lately. I've got like six hundred freakin' channels on my satellite, and almost nothing worth my time. I think there's about 3 or 4 shows I really like to watch anymore.
Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs tie for favorite. Survivorman runs a close second, but only because I've seen and recorded all the episodes so far, so now it's all reruns. Whose Line reruns on occasion, when I'm in the mood for mindless humor and my wife's not around.
OOOOOh I'm gonna get it for that! My backspace key doesn't seem to work either. It's just that my wife is so freakin' perfect! Drives me insane, lately she seems to have it all together. She's lost 49 pounds so far on her diet, has tons of energy and I can't keep up with her. So when she does something funny, I have to share....
Chinese at Gettysburg? Yes, my long suffering wife was helping me out. In addition to the few shows I mentioned, the only other thing I try to catch is the occasional show about the Civil War on the history channel. Unfortunately I have been rather swamped and haven't been cleaning off the TIVO like I should, so she's been helping me out by saving the episodes off to DVD. Anyway, there was an episode called "The Irish at Gettysburg".
Well, for whatever reason when my wife was recording it she gave the title as "The Chinese at Gettysburg". She claims it was a mental abberation brought on by the children. Can't wait to watch the episode, and see Robert E Lee do some Kung Fu Fighting.
Holy Crap! I've been sitting here rambling on when I should be getting ready for bed. Got an early morning meeting. Sheesh people, have you no shame? Let a poor programmer get some rest will ya!
73!
http://www.razorba.com/default.asp
Yes, you too can have a fresh smooth back without causing your significant other to blow chucks from looking at you.
And hey, now that you are all smooth it's time for a party! And no party would be complete without a voodoo doll toothpick holder! Check this little party item from perpetual kid:
http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1328
Also check out the magnets from www.unitednuclear.com. I wanna buy something from them just so I can have a credit card receipt from 'em.
Power went out at the house this evening due to some wicked storms. Fortunately I have a bank of batteries out in my garage that would make the energizer bunny jealous. Hook up my 12 volt power converter and I can run my laptop all night, into tomorrow and probably next week. My power came back on about an hour ago and I still haven't bothered to switch back over.
I've been sitting here working and listening to a Monday's episode, which frankly is far better entertainment than most of the CRAP on tv lately. I've got like six hundred freakin' channels on my satellite, and almost nothing worth my time. I think there's about 3 or 4 shows I really like to watch anymore.
Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs tie for favorite. Survivorman runs a close second, but only because I've seen and recorded all the episodes so far, so now it's all reruns. Whose Line reruns on occasion, when I'm in the mood for mindless humor and my wife's not around.
OOOOOh I'm gonna get it for that! My backspace key doesn't seem to work either. It's just that my wife is so freakin' perfect! Drives me insane, lately she seems to have it all together. She's lost 49 pounds so far on her diet, has tons of energy and I can't keep up with her. So when she does something funny, I have to share....
Chinese at Gettysburg? Yes, my long suffering wife was helping me out. In addition to the few shows I mentioned, the only other thing I try to catch is the occasional show about the Civil War on the history channel. Unfortunately I have been rather swamped and haven't been cleaning off the TIVO like I should, so she's been helping me out by saving the episodes off to DVD. Anyway, there was an episode called "The Irish at Gettysburg".
Well, for whatever reason when my wife was recording it she gave the title as "The Chinese at Gettysburg". She claims it was a mental abberation brought on by the children. Can't wait to watch the episode, and see Robert E Lee do some Kung Fu Fighting.
Holy Crap! I've been sitting here rambling on when I should be getting ready for bed. Got an early morning meeting. Sheesh people, have you no shame? Let a poor programmer get some rest will ya!
73!
Saturday, March 18, 2006
What a week...
This has been one heck of a week. Lot's of stuff, so I'll break it into sections...
Some great training...
Spent 3 days this week in Wintellect training on the new features of ASP.NET 2.0. Pretty slick stuff. Jeff Prosise was our instructor, he did an awesome job. I highly recommend the company if you are thinking about having on site training at your place.
Anyway the new features were really cool. I especially like Master Pages. It's going to make putting together a site so much easier. Jeff also showed us how to make menus maintain state between postbacks. I have an itch to wrap it up into an inherited control. Speaking of new things...
ATLAS...
...is Microsoft's new answer to AJAX. Jeff spent some time showing us the new features and some code samples. I also did some digging the night before and saw some really cool demo's online. It's really going to make it easier to do Smart Client looking apps in the browser.
Spheres...
Speaking of Atlas, I found a new Desktop interface for XP called SphereXP. Makes for a very different way to use your PC. Go check it out. And it's written in .Net!
A Tragic Death...
My beloved iPaq 3900 died after four years. I loved it, used the heck out of it. So, as much as I didn't want to spend any more money, I found a good deal on a new iPaq 2495. Smaller but still has both a SD and Compact Flash slots inside, which means I can use the ones I had with my old iPaq. And, I scored a spare battery and charger on clearance at Staples for 9 bucks! I figured it must have been karma or something.
Coding fun...
I did finally get to do a little real coding this week. Used generics for the first time, sweet. It's just a type safe List to handle my record classes in my parent collection class, but still cool. Also worked a little more with the Infragistics stuff, figured out how to use a drop down combo with multi colums. Minor victory but fun.
Doodles...
My kids have been going nuts for these doodle bears. Stuffed teddy bears that you can draw on, wash, and then draw again. They each got one for Christmas last year. Well now they have all sorts of models, including one you can draw on with glow in the dark marker. We can't go to the store without them going "doodle bear doodle bear doodle bear".
What the don't know (I hope my oldest doesn't read this, she's gotten pretty good on the web. She's a freakin' genius, but I'm careful not to tell her this too often otherwise she'll get a big head) is that we have a couple of these bear things hidden in the trunk of my Subaru that I drive to work.
Speaking of the drive...
Since I got the new iPaq I have been download podcasts from DotNetRocks and Mondays and listening on the drive to / from work. Drive is a bit of a misnomer, I spend about half the time driving, the other half the time waiting on the traffic on Hwy 280, burning way over priced gas. What's the deal on the friggin' gas! Spring break is next week, and in one week's time gas jumped from 2.09 to 2.44. Crap! I didn't even get a kiss afterward.
I've found the only way to releive the stress over the gas prices is to distract myself with the afore mentioned shows. I've decided that one of the Monday cohosts, Mark Miller, is not only a coding genius but a comic genius. Listen to "The Grapefruit Show" for his rant right in the middle of his naked old man sighting. (Note that Monday's is a bit raw, make sure the kiddies are out of earshot. If any politically sensitive easily offended types are around, tell them some trees are getting mugged out in the parking lot so they'll be gone too.)
Is anybody out there...
If anyone is actually reading these humble ranting post a comment will ya! I'm not doing all this just for my ego gratification. Well, actually yes I am. But leave a comment anyway, before I'm forced to do something drastic like post another entry.
73!
Some great training...
Spent 3 days this week in Wintellect training on the new features of ASP.NET 2.0. Pretty slick stuff. Jeff Prosise was our instructor, he did an awesome job. I highly recommend the company if you are thinking about having on site training at your place.
Anyway the new features were really cool. I especially like Master Pages. It's going to make putting together a site so much easier. Jeff also showed us how to make menus maintain state between postbacks. I have an itch to wrap it up into an inherited control. Speaking of new things...
ATLAS...
...is Microsoft's new answer to AJAX. Jeff spent some time showing us the new features and some code samples. I also did some digging the night before and saw some really cool demo's online. It's really going to make it easier to do Smart Client looking apps in the browser.
Spheres...
Speaking of Atlas, I found a new Desktop interface for XP called SphereXP. Makes for a very different way to use your PC. Go check it out. And it's written in .Net!
A Tragic Death...
My beloved iPaq 3900 died after four years.
Coding fun...
I did finally get to do a little real coding this week. Used generics for the first time, sweet. It's just a type safe List
Doodles...
My kids have been going nuts for these doodle bears. Stuffed teddy bears that you can draw on, wash, and then draw again. They each got one for Christmas last year. Well now they have all sorts of models, including one you can draw on with glow in the dark marker. We can't go to the store without them going "doodle bear doodle bear doodle bear".
What the don't know (I hope my oldest doesn't read this, she's gotten pretty good on the web. She's a freakin' genius, but I'm careful not to tell her this too often otherwise she'll get a big head) is that we have a couple of these bear things hidden in the trunk of my Subaru that I drive to work.
Speaking of the drive...
Since I got the new iPaq I have been download podcasts from DotNetRocks and Mondays and listening on the drive to / from work. Drive is a bit of a misnomer, I spend about half the time driving, the other half the time waiting on the traffic on Hwy 280, burning way over priced gas. What's the deal on the friggin' gas! Spring break is next week, and in one week's time gas jumped from 2.09 to 2.44. Crap! I didn't even get a kiss afterward.
I've found the only way to releive the stress over the gas prices is to distract myself with the afore mentioned shows. I've decided that one of the Monday cohosts, Mark Miller, is not only a coding genius but a comic genius. Listen to "The Grapefruit Show" for his rant right in the middle of his naked old man sighting. (Note that Monday's is a bit raw, make sure the kiddies are out of earshot. If any politically sensitive easily offended types are around, tell them some trees are getting mugged out in the parking lot so they'll be gone too.)
Is anybody out there...
If anyone is actually reading these humble ranting post a comment will ya! I'm not doing all this just for my ego gratification. Well, actually yes I am. But leave a comment anyway, before I'm forced to do something drastic like post another entry.
73!
Friday, March 10, 2006
When it rains it pours...
Geez, the fun never ends with computers. My Sony Vaio has been having some hard drive problems, so I've been in the process of backing it up so I could reformat. In the process we decided my wife really needs a laptop to use in her home school endeavors. For the prices of an average laptop though, we decided to put a few extra bucks with it and get me a new killer machine, and let her keep the Vaio. It also solved several other headaches.
I wound up with a HP DV8135. Sweet little machine, has Windows Media Center on it, has two remote controls! A 17 inch widescreen, full size keyboard (including numberpad), 64 bit processor, gig of ram, and two 100 gig hard disks.
I got my Visual Studio 2005 loaded on it that I got as part of my VSLive package from Orlando last fall, and the new Oracle XE. Sweet, I loaded up some data and began development of a new WinForms project to produce interactive Gantt charts for work order scheduling. I was in Atlanta for a two day staff meeting and got to work on it all the way home, battery held out for the entire drive and still had 20% left.
Oh, speaking of the multimedia feature, I used the remote to lie in bed in the motel last night and watch a couple of Mythbusters episodes I had recorded onto DVD.
I've also been running around upgrading my Satellite equipment. I live out in the middle of nowhere, it's nice and quiet, but no Cable or DSL. So I have to use a satellite (Direcway) to do my internet. I upgraded my equipment, and actually have my VPN working now over the dish, which will make it much easier to work from home. On the down side it's pricy, and Direcway has no newsgroups. :-( But it's a heck of a lot better than dial up. Ugh.
Anyway, looks like this weekend will be spent reformatting the Vaio and working on my project. Next week I have three days of Wintellect training on ASP.Net. I hear it's good training, will let you know. Down side is in order to keep my project schedule going, I have to work extra. Ahh the perils of programmers.
Will the fun never end?
73
I wound up with a HP DV8135. Sweet little machine, has Windows Media Center on it, has two remote controls! A 17 inch widescreen, full size keyboard (including numberpad), 64 bit processor, gig of ram, and two 100 gig hard disks.
I got my Visual Studio 2005 loaded on it that I got as part of my VSLive package from Orlando last fall, and the new Oracle XE. Sweet, I loaded up some data and began development of a new WinForms project to produce interactive Gantt charts for work order scheduling. I was in Atlanta for a two day staff meeting and got to work on it all the way home, battery held out for the entire drive and still had 20% left.
Oh, speaking of the multimedia feature, I used the remote to lie in bed in the motel last night and watch a couple of Mythbusters episodes I had recorded onto DVD.
I've also been running around upgrading my Satellite equipment. I live out in the middle of nowhere, it's nice and quiet, but no Cable or DSL. So I have to use a satellite (Direcway) to do my internet. I upgraded my equipment, and actually have my VPN working now over the dish, which will make it much easier to work from home. On the down side it's pricy, and Direcway has no newsgroups. :-( But it's a heck of a lot better than dial up. Ugh.
Anyway, looks like this weekend will be spent reformatting the Vaio and working on my project. Next week I have three days of Wintellect training on ASP.Net. I hear it's good training, will let you know. Down side is in order to keep my project schedule going, I have to work extra. Ahh the perils of programmers.
Will the fun never end?
73
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Cool! My own Blog!
Hey, cool, my own blog! Always wanted one. Not quite sure why, just seems like fun.
In case you are not a family member, N4IXT is my amateur radio callsign. Yup, I'm a ham, talk to folks around the world on my radio. QTH is hamspeak for home, by the way. I am a member of both the Shelby County Amateur Radio Club and the Birmingham Amateur Radio Club, as well as the national organization the ARRL.
I'm 40, have been married since 96 to the most wonderful woman in the world, my beautiful wife Ammie. She has blessed me with two darling daughters, Raven and Anna. I'm a lucky dude to have such great gals in my life. I would definately put my wife in the "long suffering" category, putting up with all my radios and gadgets, plus stacks of computer books and magazines.
I work as a software developer / project manager for the power company, writing applications for the fleet of nuclear power plants. Most of my work is in C#, both WinForms and ASP.Net. My current programming hero is Mark Miller of DevExpress. They have an awesome tool called CodeRush that I just love.
I'm currently listening to Mark being interviewed by Carl Franklin on the dotnetrocks internet radio show. I got the Mark episodes to start with, but am really enjoying them and will definatly be going back to get the rest of the episodes. They have also started a 'tv' version. I've seen the episode where Mark uses the free DXCore that CodeRush is based on to create an addin for Visual Studio. Can't wait to get in and dig.
OK, enough for now, just thought I'd post something about myself to get started. I'll work on some links, pics, etc over the next few days.
73! (Ham for Have a Great Day)
Robert / N4IXT
In case you are not a family member, N4IXT is my amateur radio callsign. Yup, I'm a ham, talk to folks around the world on my radio. QTH is hamspeak for home, by the way. I am a member of both the Shelby County Amateur Radio Club and the Birmingham Amateur Radio Club, as well as the national organization the ARRL.
I'm 40, have been married since 96 to the most wonderful woman in the world, my beautiful wife Ammie. She has blessed me with two darling daughters, Raven and Anna. I'm a lucky dude to have such great gals in my life. I would definately put my wife in the "long suffering" category, putting up with all my radios and gadgets, plus stacks of computer books and magazines.
I work as a software developer / project manager for the power company, writing applications for the fleet of nuclear power plants. Most of my work is in C#, both WinForms and ASP.Net. My current programming hero is Mark Miller of DevExpress. They have an awesome tool called CodeRush that I just love.
I'm currently listening to Mark being interviewed by Carl Franklin on the dotnetrocks internet radio show. I got the Mark episodes to start with, but am really enjoying them and will definatly be going back to get the rest of the episodes. They have also started a 'tv' version. I've seen the episode where Mark uses the free DXCore that CodeRush is based on to create an addin for Visual Studio. Can't wait to get in and dig.
OK, enough for now, just thought I'd post something about myself to get started. I'll work on some links, pics, etc over the next few days.
73! (Ham for Have a Great Day)
Robert / N4IXT
