Cable Modem blues...

I've been pulling my hair out. Seems my cable modem has been flake'n. For about the last week or two when ever I access any thing large, such as a large image, my cable modem would just crap out.

It got so bad that I couldn't even pull up google's homepage.

Right now is the longest I've had a stable connection for: 5 minutes. The only thing I did was replace the cable...hmmmmm

Comcast is suppose to bring out a new cable modem Tuesday. We'll see what happens...

Blogs popular with Microsoft

Wow...seems like Microsoft is sure starting to do more with blogs.

I still remember a few years back when I was waiting in line for food at a local Mexican resturant with Rob. I remember asking him, "What's that blogger thingy you have on your web site?". At that time he was one of the first bloggers that I knew about.

Things have sure come a long way =)

Designer/Macro Code - For learning or starting?

Today I had lunch with a group of good friends. Rob Fahrni was there and we got to talking about code.

I was telling him how I was using VS.NET's designer to build my data access components. Since he's working on the macro recorder for Visio (I hope it's okay for me to say that) we got to talking about how designer code should be used.

He noted to uses: Code to start building on and Code used to learn by.

I approached most of the System.Data.* namespace by learning the classes first then coming back and using the designer to automate creating the code for me. I've saved a ton of time on my projects by doing so.

Rob was saying with Visio they see the macro recorder as a common learning tool. Start the recorder, do stuff, stop the recorder and then look at the code and hack around. I think most of us have learned a thing or two by doing this.

I wonder how those two perspectives shape a product. If I'm going to use a designer to build production code optimization is my primary concern. If I'm learning or hacking around explicitness should be emphasized.

I need to take another look at my designer code to see what side it leans to.

INFO: DataBinding

I found a pretty good explaination on how databinding works in .NET: INFO: How databinding really works v0.1

If you're doing any kind of data manipulation with .NET do yourself a favor and dig into this stuff. It will save you lots of time.

Geeks like the cold...

"Personally, I wouldn't do well in the Central Valley. Too freaking hot. Great for growing things, but geeks need cold weather. Ever wonder why Microsoft writes more code than other places? It's all in the weather. I'm looking out at the pool right now, and boy is that hot tub inviting. Nice sunset. Nice weather. Dang, only 19 days of this left!" [scoble]

For some reason programming while it's raining gives me that nice and warm fuzzy feeling. I remember being a kid one winter when I started to learn how to code. It was a winter that brought a lot of rain. Since there's not much to do outside I sayed inside programming. Somehow it stuck with me. In the Central Valley, where I live [close to Fahrni], we don't get much rain but when it comes I'm sure appreciative.

We have a few good opportunities for geeks here but not much. I remember one time during the boom I heard of talk that Sun was thinking of building an extension in Fresno. Although it never really came through it was exciting to hear. Clovis (a suburb of Fresno) was working hard to make something happen. I'd imagine with the way things are it would be pretty hard to jumpstart.

Databinding and Currency Managers

I posted a question to the microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.windowsforms.databinding newsgroup asking how to EndCurrencyEdit() on all the Currency Managers:

Remember that BindingContext manages both CurrencyManagers and

PropertyManagers. These both derive from BindingManagerBase.



> I'd like to call .EndCurrentEdit() on all the available BindingManagers.

> But I am an unable to make the following piece of code work:

>

> foreach (object o in this.BindingContext)

> {

>     CurrencyManager cm = (CurrencyManager)o;

>     cm.EndCurrencyEdit();

> }

>

> I get an invalid cast error.

>

> Any ideas?

>

> Richard

>

>

Bing! Just thought I might share that.