Else...

Does this exist?

Kyle — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:54:33 GMT

I have a firewire device that I want to be able to share between two computers (without having to unplug it every single time). The firewire device is an audio interface that's physically mounted to my desk in a rack. Is there a switch of some kind that would allow me to hook up one device to two host computers?

Anyone seen anything like this?

Thanks,

GOT IT!!!

Kyle — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:54:46 GMT

Merry Christmas To Me...

We finally took the plunge and bought a MacPro. It's the slimmed down model, but I plan to add a bunch of memory.

I'll be installing Server 2003 on Boot Camp tomorrow. See how that goes. I've been hearing that Boot Camp is running Windows much faster than any PC...

We'll see...

Leading Spaces in SQL Reporting Services

Kyle — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:29:12 GMT

SQL Reporting Services has a really annoying "feature" that essentially removes all leading spaces from a field, when rendering a report to the ReportViewer control. You cannot use  , You cannot use space(5), etc.

But, if you need to do leading spaces, you can set a formula in the padding field of the cell.

Fantastic!

Forced to IE7

Kyle — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 08:49:08 GMT

I have been recently (and unfortunately) forced to go to IE7 by my computer. The details behind it are not important to this post, as I can do most of the things I need to in FF anyway (and much prefer it). I prefer IE6 to IE7.

After having been in IE7 for a week now, there is one incredibly irritating "feature." Links that open in new windows don't open in new tabs (which would be the expected behavior of a tabbed browser. It works in FF, Safari, etc. Why didn't MS get this right the first time? I suppose Mozilla didn't either, since that feature only appeared in v2 of FF, but MS, get with it...

OK. Rant over. I've searched through the settings like a madman, and haven't been able to find anything about changing this behavior. Am I missing something, or am I doomed to 35 IE windows open when I need 1?

Reseeding a table in SQL Server... (Reset the identity column)

Kyle — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 08:39:05 GMT

DBCC CHECKIDENT('tablename', RESEED, 1)

Hierarchies in SQL Databases...

Kyle — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:54:56 GMT

Good stuff.

http://vyaskn.tripod.com/hierarchies_in_sql_server_databases.htm

Deja Vu...

Kyle — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 10:07:23 GMT

Does this ever happen to you?

I was just a few minutes ago, working through a problem with sorting custom classes. I know that I did this before, but couldn't remember what I did. So, I popped a few search terms into Google, and came across a potential solution. Then I looked a little more carefully at the blog, and realized that the solution I found was mine... A year and a half ago...

http://geekswithblogs.net/kyle/archive/2006/01/12/65680.aspx

Oh Well.

Kyle — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:26:00 GMT

I had Tennessee going all the way, but losing to KU in the finals.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/recap?gid=200703220443&prov=ap

Oh Well.

Duh?

Kyle — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:29:00 GMT

For more than 5 years now, Apple has used buzzwords like "stylish", "sleek", "elegant" to stress the design of their products. I think that in the early 00's they realized that not only are people looking for functional stuff, they're looking for sexy stuff. And, for the average user of their stuff, being sexy was much more important than being functional.

Oh, yeah, and they were ahead of the game with their technology. “The competition hasn’t even caught up with our first generation iPod, and we’re introducing our third generation,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/apr/28ipod.html). This was way back in '03. Apple has certainly pioneered the way in design-first technology, and by all accounts, they're doing it well.

It's hard not to wonder if the explosion of Agile or TDD programming isn't a direct result of this design-first philosophy. As a developer, I know I get caught up in the details and so often forget about what it's supposed to look like. From what I read of TDD and Agile is that it takes the user requirements (design) and makes it functional. Quickly.

But, I digress. Here's the original purpose for my post.

http://www.microsoft.com/design/

Microsoft thinks they have figured out Design-First.

Part of me thinks there were some people sitting somewhere in a board room saying "Crap, we're 10 years behind the curve on this one. How do we catch up." And someone else said "Let's package something free, like Visual Web Developer with some new colors, name it something sexy like "Expression" and then sell it. Maybe they'll think we're cool like Apple. Hopefully they'll think we're cool like Apple."

"Good user experience is now common in the user space (Apple) and is the next domain of differentiation in the enterprise."

Yeah. Chicks dig stuff like that. Way to go Microsoft!

Is AJAX really worth it?

Kyle — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:22:00 GMT

I was one of the ones who jumped on the AJAX bandwagon pretty quickly. I've built several private apps using AJAX, and really like it. I like the fact that the web becomes more "rich," and more closely resembles forms in functionality. The gains are enormous.

That having been said, I found myself asking the question: Is it worth it? I've found (so far) that doing things with AJAX takes at least three times longer, there's much more room for error, and cross-browser issues are brought to the forefront. I have played around with the AJAX.NET framework a little, and have had mixed results. What I got working was pretty cool, but do I really need rounded corners on divs? It seems to me that a lot of their controls are gimmick-ey, and don't really have all that much to do with AJAX.

I think my biggest disappointment with the MS AJAX.NET framework is it's complete failure when adding the framework to an existing project. I could not for the life of me get it to work. I spent three days fiddling with it, and nothing seemed to want to work. I really have little desire to re-write the projects that I do have for the benefit of AJAX.

So, is it all worth it? Are post-backs really that evil? I'm starting to think "No." AJAX is cool. I probably won't use it if I'm in a hurry. It has its place, but is it ready to take over the web? Should it?

Those are my questions...