June 2004 Entries
Holy crap! Microsoft has put out public beta's of the Whidbey IDE in the form of several smaller packages called Express Editions. This could be great for those of us who don't have MSDN accounts (yet) and haven't been exposed to Whidbey directly.
You have to jump through a few hoops to get them (Passport account and a survey), but they are otherwise free for now.
I'm downloading them now, I'll post my impressions later.
My fiancée has decided to try contracting for a while. So if you need a kick-ass copywriter or a proofreader for a job, send me an email via the contact form on the left.
I didn't have a chance to blog this last week, but I had a chance to run into Rupert from Survivor. He paid a visit to the local Gateway Grizzlies game to throw out a first pitch and do some other fun stuff. I didn't have a chance to actually meet him, as there were about 400 people in line. But I was able to get within about 10 feet and snap some pictures like a dork. So here they are:
Thanks go to Emily's friend Dana, who was kind enough to provide us with tickets.
Cory Doctorow from the EFF has put up a transcription from a talk on DRM he recently presented at Microsoft. It is a very eloquent explanation of exactly why DRM (Digital Rights Management) is bad for artists, publishers, software makers, society as a whole, and why it plain won't work.
I have a asp.net page that allows a user to upload a file. In order to guarantee a user can't overwrite another user's file that happens to be named the same I rename the files as I upload them to be unique (for instance SessionId + DateTime.Ticks). On another page, users get a link to the file for download. Having a unqiqeuly named file may be conveinent for the server, but it's not very good for the user so I had to come up with a way to return the file to the browser with the original file name. I...
Kudzu (Chad Z.) has some really thoughtful things to say regarding software and piracy. He says what I have felt for a long time, but does it much better than I could.
As software developers, piracy is something that affects us all. If you are a software developer that works for a big company, you do not see it directly but you still have an interest in who is using your company's software. If you are in small company or a developer who sells software, piracy hits a bit closer to home.
However the conventional wisdom, which often equates to the "knee jerk" reaction, is not...
Wired is running an interview with a personal hero of mine Alton Brown (blog). If you have the Food Network and aren't watching his show Good Eats you should be ashamed of yourself. It's one of my favorite shows on all of tv. The interview is pretty basic and if you are already a fan of the man won't do much for you, but if you haven't kept up it's a good introduction to the man himself. Read the article and then buy the book (probably the best “cooking“ book I've ever read and perfect for nerds).