Thursday, September 25, 2008
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I imagine a ton of people all over the planet are staring at the same thing right now...
Friday, September 19, 2008
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SQL Saturday is a free, one day conference organized mostly by local Information Technology Professionals. The conference sessions cover a wide range of Microsoft SQL Server technologies from beginner to advanced. Whether you are a DBA, software application developer, Business Intelligence architect, or IT Manager there are sessions scheduled to meet your needs. The conference has attracted some very experienced and knowledgeable presenters who have presented at some of the largest conferences in the industry. SQL Saturday #9 will be held, Saturday October 11th, at ECPI's Greenville Campus 1001 Keys Drive #100 Greenville, SC 29615. Doors open at 8:00 A.M. Door prizes will be given away at the conclusion of the conference. Space is limited, so please register now at www.sqlsaturday.com. For other technology events and news in Update South Carolina visit www.gsatc.org .
Monday, September 15, 2008
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SQL Saturday #9 scheduled for this year on October 11, in Greenville, SC is looking for speakers. If you are interested let me know and I'll get you plugged in.
For more information visit: http://www.sqlsaturday.com/eventhome.aspx?eventid=12
Thursday, September 11, 2008
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The GC.NUG meeting is OBE - I'll post information about the next meeting as soon as it's available.
If anyone's interested, Brian Hitney and I are meeting for lunch at Queen Anne's Revenge on Daniel Island at 11:30.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
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When: September 11, 2008 - starting at 6PM
Where: Benefit Focus, Daniel Island
Brian Hitney from Microsoft will be presenting on using ASP.NET Model-View-Controller Framework. In this talk, we'll look at the new Model-View-Controller (or MVC) framework coming in ASP.NET. We'll discuss some topics like REST, and we'll go over how MVC works (such as URL routing and controllers). We'll also talk about why and in what situations the MVC framework might be useful over traditional ASP.NET Webforms development.
The ASP.NET MVC framework enables easy implementation of the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern for web applications. This pattern allows separation of applications into loosely coupled, pluggable components for application design, processing logic, and display. This allows easy testing of web applications, allows components to be plugged and swapped, and greater code maintainability.
More info? http://www.gcnug.org
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Google hater. Google has come out with some pretty neat tools over the years and their search engine has been rock solid for years (I was an early convert to Google search), but their latest entry to the tools market hasn't quite got me sold on it yet despite hearing so many great things from so many of my friends and others on the web.
One of the things I took interest in was the built in task manager. As an experiment I fired up Chrome, IE 7 and FF3 and had all three of them hit the same site. Memory utilization was higher on Chrome than either Firefox or IE. Another thing I noticed is that although I only had one Chrome instance running (with two tabs open) there were four (4) separate Chrome.exe processes running in Windows Task Manager with only one IE and one FF instance running (same # of tabs open).
So out of the box it appears that Chrome uses more resources (ok just a little on today's resource rich machines) but is that so bad? Maybe not, but it is not something I'd expect from a product that's supposed to be so streamlined and efficient. More to come on Chrome as I experiment.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
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<rant>
AT&T Customer Service sucks. AT&T Customer Service is horrible. AT&T Customer Service is nearly the worst I've ever experienced. If you have AT&T consider dropping them before you run into the unfortunate event of having to deal with their horrible customer service. If you're shopping for a cell phone provider, wireless provider, etc., don't consider AT&T because it's just not worth it.
I'll explain more later. Right now just trust me on this. That is all.
</rant>
It's finally released for the Tilt. While AT&T as a company pretty much sucks IMHO, the Tilt is still a pretty cool phone and now you can update to Windows Mobile 6.1
I've downloaded the update and will probably apply it tonight or tomorrow.
Little did I realize when I posted a blog entry asking for help on August 12th asking for help that the response would be so awesome! There were so many folks both local and quite far away who one way or another found that entry and helped in some way shape or form whether it was a donation of cash, school supplies, or clothing, thank you so much for everything everyone donated.
One of the huge hurdles we faced with the kids is over for now. Getting them geared up for school with clothes, shoes, etc. The school district had donated supplies but we found out the day before school started they hadn't donated everything they needed and the backpacks they had donated literally fell apart dumping 2 of the boys stuff to the ground the first day they loaded up their books, etc. at school. So we ended up buying some better quality backpacks.
With a lot of the donated cash we were able to take them out to get the remainder of the school supplies they needed along with a couple other clothing items. We saved a chunk of it because both boys are taking music classes at school and tonight is the night they go (with us) to pick out which instrument they want to play so we can buy those too. One of the girls is taking a photography class and we'll end up buying her a camera for class (they're still using 35mm SLR). We literally would have been broke (i.e. no more money in any accounts) by the day after my last payday if it weren't for the donations, so again, thank you so much!
We're still trying to hunt down the child support money due to us, but also still getting the run-around by South Carolina DSS. One friend suggested we just contact the court in PA which awarded the child support, but without a docket number to give them we might end up getting the run around there too.
The 4 kids are doing ok for the time being with adjusting to the transition. They've expressed frustration that they don't want to be here and would rather be back home in PA, but they say they understand this is probably the best place to be for now while everything is being worked out and we're trying to make the transition as likeable as possible but of course we still need boundaries and they're having a hard time accepting some of the boundaries (i.e., "Why do I have a curfew?") I think some of the time I've spent trying to explain the enormity of support they have (between the whole geek/dev community that's given to us and the local church) has had a positive effect because they're starting to "get" that people out there do care about them.
Aside from the "assimilated" kids, my own two are doing good for now. Little Louie is still hospital free (except a follow up he had last week) and the doctors are pleased with his progress to date. My daughter is still trying to get used to the new school. She had gone to the private school before since she was 3 and wasn't too excited to leave her friends and teachers but with all that's gone on we just couldn't afford to keep sending her to private school so she's working to make the best of it.
Hopefully next month we'll find out if we've been accepted at the specialty center in NOLA, Ohio, or Boston (not sure which one we were put in for) and can start making preparations to get my wife and son out there for the specialized testing that the surgeons have said will provide a definitive treatment plan. They also say the longer he's out of the hospital the better his chances are that he won't have to go back in again. I'm looking forward to that. Here's to 2009 being his first year hospital free! Little Louie is also excited because he starts "school" in September. One of the local churches sponsors a "Mom's day out" where they'll take little children in for 3-4 hours during the day twice a week so moms can get a break. I know that will be a welcome break for my wife with the others already in school.
Thanks again!
Lou
Monday, August 25, 2008
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Friend and fellow SC UG leader Chris Eargle and I headed down to Jacksonville Code Camp on Friday night wondering what might be in store for us since Fay had dumped so much rain over the past few days. We were assured by the JAX CC folks that Fay wouldn't stop them. Even with a venue change, Fay didn't stop them so huge props to the folks in Jacksonville for pulling this together and managing it through the changes dictated by that storm blowing through.
Getting down there was a small adventure. Turns out *someone* (cough Chris!) was using an inferior mapping product which will remain nameless and it just so happened that it "auto-suggested" a fix for the destination address which unfortunately wasn't caught until we exited off I-95 towards a rather dark and more run-down area of Jacksonville. I remember saying to Chris there was no way there was a Hyatt hotel anywhere on that street we were turning down based on the faulty map address.
That whole experience with the map felt like this:
We mastered the Spectral Wolf and got back on track and finally arrived at the hotel...only we were too late for the hotel restaurant for dinner so we grabbed a quick meal in the sports bar and then I had to call it a night.
Waking up early the next morning we headed out to East Pointe Church (the site of the code camp after relocating due to Fay). The church actually was a pretty good facility. They had plenty of rooms available for the sessions.
Although I hadn't signed up to speak at this code camp (I only found out about it roughly a week or so before hand) I always travel to code camp with a slide deck. Figuring there would probably be a couple of last minute cancellations due to the weather I approached Jonathan Bates about speaking and he was glad to have me fill in. I ended up giving the Windows Mobile State & Notifications Broker talk where I build a call blocking application.
While I was there I got to re-connect with folks I haven't seen in a while (Joe Healy, Russ Fustino, fellow GWB'er Scott Dorman) as well as meet plenty of new folks. I also got to meet some in person for the first time that I had only previously knew online. All in all a great time.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
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For those who hadn't already heard, my good friend Chris Williams has put together an awesome event to raise money for Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. He calls it the "Charity Fragathon" and if you have the opportunity to attend I would totally recommend it. You can find out more at their website (clicking on the logos below) or if you *know* you're going to go, register now.
Murray Gordon (who recently left Charleston to join Microsoft in Atlanta!) told me about an MSDN and TechNet event going on next week in Columbia. See the links below for more info and to register!
Enjoy!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
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Be sure to join us tomorrow night when we host Page Brook's talking about Silverlight! Not registered yet? Register here: http://gcnug-august.eventbrite.com/
This month’s meeting will start off with Pizza and then break into "Creating Custom Templatable Controls in Silverlight".
Creating reusable controls is an important aspect of productive software development. When you can supplement this reusability with customizability, you have the power to rapidly deliver seamless and compelling user experiences in your products. Silverlight offers both of these through the use of custom templatable controls. In this presentation, we will take a short journey through the process of building a custom control using Silverlight.
Page Brooks
Page Brooks is a Senior Software Developer for ACS Technologies, the leading provider of information management solutions for churches, schools, and other faith-based organizations. With over 9 years experience in web development, Page enjoys delivering successful web products that make a difference. Page holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Francis Marion University and is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD). As an active member of the .NET community, Page is a co-founder of the Pee Dee Area .NET User Group in Florence, SC and can also be found at many of the regional developer events throughout the Carolinas.
The response to my plea for assistance yesterday has been pretty overwhelming so far...with inquiries and donations coming in from around the U.S. and even other countries, so thank you, all of you.
I had a number of inquiries about other ways people might help and I'll address them here so as to not have a ton of e-mails, phone calls, etc. to make :)
Q1) What ages are the kids and what clothing sizes are they?
A1) My nieces and nephews that we took in are a 16 year old girl, a 14 year old girl, a 12 year old boy and a 10 year old boy. My wife and I also have a 7 year old daughter and a 3 year old son. I don't have clothing sizes for them, but I'll get them and post that info.
Q2) Can I donate in other ways besides cash payments on PayPal?
A2) Yes, thank you. A couple of inquiries have come in about sending gift cards for common stores (Target, Wal-mart, etc.), or other items directly to our house via good ol' postal mail. If you're interested in that comment on the blog or direct message me via Twitter and I'll respond with my address.
Q3) Do the kids need school supplies? Can I donate that way?
A3) The school district where they will be attending is already familiar with our case and has donated all the initial school supplies for the kids which totally rocked because I had no idea how much it was going to be for 5 kids going to school. If you'd still like to donate in that way, comment on the blog or direct message me via Twitter and I can send you my address.
I think that pretty much covers the spectrum of questions I've had so far. If you have questions, let me know. And again thanks so much for everyone's help in every way so far.
-Lou