My Blog

Nine Things Developers Want More Than Money (via Digg)
Nine Things Developers Want More Than Money (via Digg)
November 3, 2006

Url: http://www.softwarebyrob.com/articles/Nine_Thin...

ADO.NET Team Blogs about LOB Access through SqlDataReaders...
ADO.NET Team Blogs about LOB Access through SqlDataReaders...
October 31, 2006

Url: http://blogs.msdn.com/adonet/archive/2006/10/30...

Adobe.com Is Slooooooow!  Is CFM to blame?
Adobe.com Is Slooooooow! Is CFM to blame?
October 29, 2006

Url: http://www.adobe.com

Bare Naked Ladies are Flouting DRM...And I Love Them for It...
Bare Naked Ladies are Flouting DRM...And I Love Them for It...
October 25, 2006

Url: https://www.werkshop.com/bnllive/details.jsp?pr...

Oracle 11g Announced
Oracle 11g Announced
October 23, 2006

Url: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?...

Soapbox (MS's YouTube Competitor) is nice!
Soapbox (MS's YouTube Competitor) is nice!
October 10, 2006

Url: http://ideas.live.com/signup.aspx?versionid=856...

Great Report on Aero and Battery Life
Great Report on Aero and Battery Life
October 6, 2006

Url: http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/10945

ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSERANK and NTILE
ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSERANK and NTILE
October 4, 2006

I had an interesting discussion with some members of a class I am teaching right now about how paging is done.  It looks like there are four Functions that allow for paging and using Common Table Expressions.  They all can optionally include a separate ORDER BY clause to specify how they are sorted (so your result set can be sorted differently than it is ranked).

Wierd: PacMan and Space Invaders for Excel!?!
Wierd: PacMan and Space Invaders for Excel!?!
October 3, 2006

Url: http://www.geocities.jp/nchikada/pac/

Am I just too Low Brow?
Am I just too Low Brow?
October 2, 2006

Url: http://www.crownplaza.com

iTunes 7.x Installs Outlook Addin - No one seems to know why!
iTunes 7.x Installs Outlook Addin - No one seems to know why!
September 30, 2006

Its official, once I installed iTunes 7.x (which I am uninstalling) it installs an addin into Outlook! I can't find any reason for this. I haven't determine exactly why it installs it and what it does (I disabled it). This is to go through a nasty bundling of stuff with iTunes (anyone understand why Apple gets away with this but Microsoft gets critisized for it?).  When I install iTunes I get:

Writing Windows Live Messenger Add-ins with .NET
Writing Windows Live Messenger Add-ins with .NET
September 29, 2006

Url: http://www.devsource.com/article2/0,1895,202254...

iTunes needs to update Outlook? WTF?
iTunes needs to update Outlook? WTF?
September 28, 2006

I am installing iTunes 7.0.1 because they still have the best selection of music (though admittedly, I burn them to CD and immediately rip everything in MP3 to strip them of DRM).  When I installed it today, I got this curious complaint from the installer:

Completely Off Topic: Kung Foo Baby
Completely Off Topic: Kung Foo Baby
September 26, 2006

Url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdFo8ajCsU8

Gaming Inspirational Posters
Gaming Inspirational Posters
September 26, 2006

Url: http://retroblast.com/gallery

Interesting web sites...
Interesting web sites...
September 26, 2006

Here are a collection of some new web sites I've ran into that I think everyone should visit (don't worry, no religion or politics here):

Thank you Atlanta...
Thank you Atlanta...
September 23, 2006

Url: http://wildermuth.com/Presentations/#WPF

Off Topic: Studio 60
Off Topic: Studio 60
September 21, 2006

Url: http://www.metacritic.com/tv/shows/studio60onth...

On the Road with my XBox 360
On the Road with my XBox 360
September 11, 2006

Url: http://xbox.com

.NET 3.0 Visual Studio Extensions ("Orcas") Compatible with Vista RC
.NET 3.0 Visual Studio Extensions ("Orcas") Compatible with Vista RC
September 7, 2006

Url: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx...

IE7 and Google Toolbar Aren't Playing Well Together
IE7 and Google Toolbar Aren't Playing Well Together
September 4, 2006

I am using the IE7 that is installed in Vista RC1 and while the new Google Toolbar does seem to work, it is causing problems with the context menu so I uninstalled it.  Interestingly I can't figure out how to tell Google its not working.  Does anyone know of a feedback mechanism (e.g. connect.microsoft.com) for Google?

Nice Vista RC1 Tweak Guide
Nice Vista RC1 Tweak Guide
September 4, 2006

Url: http://www.longhornblogs.com/chris123nt/article...

Vista and Windows Media Player 11 Visualizations
Vista and Windows Media Player 11 Visualizations
September 4, 2006

Interestingly Windows Media Player 11's visualizations in Vista don't seem to be Video Hardware accellerated.  While I understand that Windows Media Player 11 needs to be backwards compatible, it does make the visualizations looks ugly compared with the rest of the OS.  Hopefully they'll change that for Vista RTM, but for now that are just plain ugly (and CPU hogs).

Vista RC1 Doesn't work with SQL Server 2005
Vista RC1 Doesn't work with SQL Server 2005
September 3, 2006

If you upgrade to RC1 be aware that SQL Server 2005 requires SP2 before it will work with Vista RC1.  Yeah, I know there is no SP2...but that's the case.  It just doesn't work. I am trying to hack around the problem so I'll let you know if I find a solution...