I saw a building maintenance guy in the building next door changing lightbulbs.
He had a long metal expanding pole with an attachment on the end for grabbing lightbulbs from high overhead fixtures.
At first I thought, there is a clever contraption.
Upon further reflection I realized that he was sticking a metal pole into light fixtures. Sure, 99.9% of the time the lightbulb doesn't break, but…
I think there is a reason electricians use fiberglass ladders after all.
I just received an e-mail from a business publication we subscribe to in paper selling their online versions.
"Enjoy … across platforms and devices like iPad, iPhone, PC and Mac".
Umm… three of these platforms and devices are owned by one company. The other represents an entire industry but only got one mention.
Now personally I think it is premature to write off all of the other smart-phone players this early. Similarly the PC is not dead as a platform and there are other electronic book reading devices that are easier on the eyes than the iPad when reading hundreds of books.
But it doesn't really […]
Well it started out as a bold enterprise. Start looking for a new car. Visit a few dealerships and see what the cars actually look and feel like, while avoiding deadly contact with the Klingons (err car sales people).
Really missed having phasers and photon torpedoes. Shields would have been useful. Cloaking device, essential. Expendable security officers, check. As it was, unarmed and in hostile territory.
Our current starship is getting a little old. If we don't get it replaced, we may not make it home to our distant planet. The question is:
Buy new or used? Dealer or private? Friend or foe?
Online […]
Yup, our kids just left the nest. The pressure is off but we are also sad.
It seems like just a while ago when it all started. The expecting parents were busy and ignoring all their friends. I think it is called nesting. They were building nests like crazy. Five or six that we know about. Yellows, greys and some baby blue highlights from an old tarp.
Then mom laid the eggs. She sat on them to keep them warm during snow storms and cool nights. Two eggs didn't make it. One we found smashed on the ground (all the king's horses and all the kings […]
We are in the process of refreshing some server hardware for a client. We have servers ranging from 6 plus years old to fairly current in use.
In that relatively short time frame, we have gone:
One 2 processor (4 cores with hyper-threading) server now has enough horsepower to replace at least eight servers from 5-6 years ago or […]
Once upon a time, you could do something silly or downright dumb. A few people might notice and someone might talk about it. Video cameras were huge and no one carried one in their pocket. Cameras had film and required having the pictures developed. Usually, only the major news companies could broadcast either to millions, let alone the entire planet. Fortunately, not enough people cared about the exploits of Bongo the town idiot to make it worth their while. So unless you were famous or important, you could be almost anonymous.
Today, everything you do in public can be caught on camera. Cameras […]
Further to my previous post, we decided to purchase Axosoft’s OnTime Enterprise Edition. The software will allow us to track:
The cool part is the support for scrum/agile processes including a planning board, burn-down charts, reporting, release and sprint planning, etc.
It includes:
To be honest, when evaluating products like these (it lists at $3995 US for a 10 […]
I recently saw a fido ad on TV. They usually have dogs in their ads and because of that they seem to catch my attention.
In the most recent one one guy is talking to another guy and hucks a big water bottle into the distance and a dog brings back a cell phone. Then the guy says something like, this cell phone contains parts made from a recycled water bottle. Apparently fido sells several that do.
Ok, nice.
But fido doesn't make cell phones. They resell cell phones made by other companies.
They provide voice and data services.
How much recycled plastic is in […]
Troubleshooting a single applications is an art. Troubleshooting a single application with a database requires yet more skill.
When you get in a multi-tiered service oriented architecture you may have:
You need a very broad set of skills for this (or a team), access to a search engine and some luck.
If you are finding that your web application is calling external web services and seems to be under-performing, be sure to check your Machine.config default settings. Out of the box, IIS and .NET have […]
If you are in the software development world, you've pretty much got to like or eat pizza once in a while.
I used to be a big fan of Panago pizza. The toppings and flavours were pretty darn good.
But Pizza isn't just about the toppings, it is about the part that holds the toppings as well. Would it be a pizza if the toppings were served on focaccia bread? How about un-cooked dough? Mastering the pizza dough is an important part of the great pizza equation.
The last few years, quality has been suffering. I think the pizza places are running the ovens […]