Archives

Archives / 2003 / June
  • A Bad Afternoon

    Unfortunately, I had to take my cat to the vet and have it put to sleep.  He had kidney failure and there was nothing that could be done.  He had lost a lot of weight and could hardly move around anymore.  His name was "Z."  He was a cool cat.  I got him in October of 1991 (along with a black cat that I named "Midnight" ) when I was at Georgia Tech finishing my Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering. 

  • Huntsville, Here I come (in October)

    Got an email from Dan "The Man" Wygant for the Huntsville .NET User Group.  He has asked me to come back to Huntsville and do another talk on .NET for them.  I went in the Fall of 2002 and did a talk on "ASP.NET Server Control Basics."  We haven't settled on a topic yet, but I need to come up with a basic talk for them.  I have done talks on Windows Services & Threading recently.  If you have a good idea for another talk, please give me a suggestion.

  • My buddy is back in the fold

    A friend of mine has just recently lost his job at an online training company.  He is the best developer, programmer, and architect I have ever seen (he also runs a little at the mouth, but I do to).  His name is Michael D. Long.  He is a Microsoft MVP.  He wrote some articles about Windows DNA a couple of years ago.  He is going to be doing some work for my company.  I am excited to be working with Mike again after several years.  If you can get by the rough edges, he is a great programmer!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Watching other processes

    Over a year ago, I wrote a Windows Service in .NET to watch the web server process of IIS (InetInfo.exe) and to stop that service and restart it under certain conditions.  I had set the app up to run under a timer and wake up every couple of minutes to check the state of IIS.  While it worked, I always wondered about how do I check for processes that are currently running and a few other things.

  • Helping the local community

    I recently have gotten involved with a local small business organization.  I have written an application that allows them to post information to a database about their business.  That part of the application is protected by a userid and password.  Another part of the application allows anyone to search the information in the database for a company with certain parameters.  I have written this at no cost to the local chamber of commerce (Knoxville Chamber Partnership) or to those in the small business organization.  I have written this with the hope of helping my community.  Obviously, it is a .NET application.  It is not pretty, because I am not a pretty pictures, flaming logos, twirling and spinning kind of guy.  The artsy fartsy stuff is for the graphic designers. 

  • Didn't make it to TechEd, but I did make it to the gym.

    Yesterday was my best workout in a LONG time.  I worked out on the eliptical trainer where not only do you work your legs, but you also work your arms (back and forth).  For a thitry minute session, I burn 630 calories according to the screen on the machine.  While it is hard to compare calories burned between machines because none of them are very accurate, i do know that I worked out harder than I ever have on that machine.  My legs were sensitive the rest of the night..................

  • Oracle being Netscaped?

    I read this article that some others have commented about.  I have worked with Oracle on several major projects.  In all of these projects, I have found 1 thing that Oracle does very well that Sql Server does not.  If I want to do a genealogy, it is very easy with Oracle to do a genealogy and find the parents / children of an entry.  It is not as easy to do this with Sql Server.  This is very helpful in a manufacturing environment when you might want to find out all of the input materials for an output product that is defective.  Given the fact that using Oracle within a MS environment has not been something that has caused headaches in the past, it is no wonder that MS is gaining marketshare.  Add to this the problem of knowing how to properly tune Oracle and the pain that that intales, and Sql Server looks better and better.