I'm busy maintaining a system which I didn't write, and keep hitting stored procedures which produce lists from drop down selections where it is a simple SELECT of two or three columns, with NO ORDER BY clause (or default sort in the database) to sort the list appropriately. I don't want to count the number of tickets in Trac I've dealt with on this one. So what punishment do you think is justified for this heinous crime? Probably not the death penalty. In the UK maybe sitting through ten episodes ......

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Top chap from blighty, Guy Smith-Ferrier, has started a free user group based in Bristol for IT professionals in the South West; The .NET Developer Network. They've got a cracking kick off session with Mr MSDN UK, Mike Taulty, delving into LINQ, the hottest feature coming with the next release of the .NET framework. It follows a similar format to the London .NET user group which is not a bad idea at all - presentations followed by some friendly socialising over a beer or two. Guy has his own blog ......

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Sometimes I wish I could bill crap software companies for the time I waste testing their latest releases. I just wasted 60 minutes of my life I will never get back because they have known bugs in their software that they encouraged me to download and install without any warnings. ZoneAlarm now proudly announces it is a CheckPoint company. However, clearly a company that doesn't check their releases properly. I upgraded to 7.0 due to a notification from my 6.5 suite encouraging me to do so. I've never ......

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I'm currently enjoying the final break of the day at the Microsoft Technical Roadshow 2007, at London in the UK. At lunch Ian Cooper, who heads up the London .NET Users Group invited me to create a team to join in a lunchtime competition at the user group stand to win some Microsoft swag. So the team, We Don't Want To Be Here, was born; So our team title summed up the feelings at the start of the competition but well done to James, Helen, Andy and John who won the competition and went home with heavier ......

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The IT volunteer organisation is holding a seminar in Reading providing free IT and Web Accessibility training. Details at http://www.it4communities.org.uk

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When I upgraded the ROM some time ago on my MDA Vario (Windows Mobile 5.0, Phone) it became a lot more stable, but suddenly any contact with additional notes disappeared from the synchronisation process. It's a known issue (see http://hardware.mcse.ms/mes... I had thought of buying third party synchronisation software, but I installed the latest ActiveSync 4.5 two days ago, and it now all works again, just like before. What a relief. Now to get rid of those duplicate entries I created, ......

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