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October 30, 2004
Home Buying Info
http://www.startribune.com/stories/417/5053164.html
http://www.hud.gov/buying/index.cfm
http://www.in.gov/ihfa/home/programs/firstplus.htm
http://www.in.gov/ihfa/county/home/carroll.htm
Posted by mikel at 11:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 29, 2004
Get nothing wrong
People are afraid to make mistakes -- to leave something out, or to put something in that shouldn't be there -- and so they consult detailed processes guidelines, check every decision with their peers, etc.http://www.nat.org/2004/october/#29-October-2004Which means that they get nothing wrong: they don't introduce a bug, and so they won't be fired. But you'd never want to go to a party planned by someone like that. Sure, there are enough cups for everyone, but that's just about the only thing you can say.
Or to say it another way, "don't get fired today"
Posted by mikel at 01:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 28, 2004
Getting started with XML web services
A decent article on basic web services
Posted by mikel at 10:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Software Craftsman
Such difficulties are typically faced by just a few thousand people with specific and unusual requirements-too few to merit the attention of the big computer firms, but enough to provide opportunities for a growing band of homebrew coders who set out to develop niche products.
"I like being able to design and implement software and have the final say," says Mr Simmons. "It's a higher level of creativity than working on someone else's software. I get to refine and market my own ideas." At $40 each, Mr Simmons needs to sell 2,000 copies of his program each year to earn what he would be paid as an employee elsewhere.Except, I bet he needs to sell way more than 2,000 copies since that would be $80,000 gross. Let's estimate that he can keep half of that and $40,000 isn't that great for a Seattle based software developer. But that's why you should rural source to something like DelMar Information Technologies :)
For homebrew coders, the fact that their fortunes depend directly on the quality of their products is both the risk and the reward.I wouldn't have it any other way. It just seems to easy and I see to many people that take the attitude when they go into their "regular" jobs of "don't get fired today" instead of "do your absolute best".
Posted by mikel at 01:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Decline in PDA market
For general consumer devices convernangce will probably win out (PDA, phone, game boy, etc all in one device) and I think that is what this survey points towards. But there will still be markets where a handheld computer (not strictly a PDA) is an ideal device. Note that sales of HP's non-phone devices were up.
http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/handhelds/story/0,10801,96994,00.html?nas=AM-96994
Posted by mikel at 12:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 27, 2004
RE: Giving a Mapped Network Drive "FullTrust" with .NET Code Access Security
From Scott Hanselman...
I'm saving this so I can find it easily later. Chris Sells has a
post that describes how to give a Mapped Network Drive "FullTrust." Thanks
Chris!
[When loading a Project from a Network Drive (like Z:\, perhaps within a VPC)
you may receive:]
The project location is not trusted.
Running the application may result in security exceptions when it
attempts to perform actions which require full trust.
What's happening is that VS is detecting that the project on the network drive
is getting Intranet permissions according to the good and true workings of .NET Code
Access Security (CAS). However, since I'm just trying to pretend that Z is on my PC
(and, in fact, it is), I want it to have FullTrust permissions.
To accomplish this, you need to add a new Code Group with an URL membership permission
specifying the folder (in URL form) to which you'd like to grant full trust. You can
do with the .NET Framework Configuration tool or you can do it from the command line
like so:
c:\>caspol -q -machine -addgroup 1 -url file://z:/*
FullTrust -name "Z Drive"
Once this new code group is in place, any new .NET processes you start will give any
assemblies on the Z drive full trust.
Since awarding new permissions, full trust or not, to any chunk of code is something
that can cause a security hole, be careful.
[Via ComputerZen.com - Scott Hanselman's Weblog]
Posted by mikel at 08:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 26, 2004
SQL Server Express
A good simple overview of SQL Server Express and also some new info that you can use it from non-.NET applications.
http://ea.3leaf.com/2004/10/sql_express_the.html
Posted by mikel at 07:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
.NET framework bootstrapper sample
A sample application for deploying the .NET framework along with your .NET application.
Posted by mikel at 07:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
XML documentation
Something to read later
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/06/xmlc/default.aspx
Posted by mikel at 01:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 25, 2004
RE: The myth and truth of computer book publishing
I have a very small part in a new C# textbook coming up so I thought this was interesting.
Book publishing is one of the industries that the distribution and marketing of the goods (65% of the revenue) is much more expensive than the production of the goods (20% of the revenue). Even within the production part, the payment to the author's creative work is only 1/4 of "value" of the book. Bad news for authors. The upside is that means the production is not about to be outsourced anytime soon. :)
[Via Michael Yuan Java blog]
Posted by mikel at 11:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 22, 2004
Indiana Health Care IT links
No news, just some links for later.
Indiana Health Information Exchange
The Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering at Purdue University
Posted by mikel at 01:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 21, 2004
Purdue people change your passwords
Computer security experts at Purdue University are asking all students, staff and faculty to change their Purdue passwords as a preventative measure following the discovery of unauthorized access of the university's computer systems.http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html3month/2004/041021.Bottum.itap.html
Posted by mikel at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2004
Edit and Continue for C#
Edit and continue for C# will be in Visual Studio 2005.
[Via Bill Wagner: C# Development Blog] which has lots of other links.
Posted by mikel at 04:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 14, 2004
Google Desktop
More cool stuff that David can't use on his Mac :)
Posted by mikel at 05:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2004
My Christian Testimony and Baptism
I was baptized and become a member at Kossuth Street Baptist Church Sunday, October 3. As part of that, Pastor Whipple had me write up a testimony and share parts of it before I was baptized. Since part of baptism is a public acknowledgement of my faith, I thought it made sense to also post it here on my personal blog. If anyone has any questions just email me.
Overall, I would describe my testimony and walk with Christ as slow and steady growth. There have definitely been times of difficulty but I can look back now and see how the Lord has protected me or used those times to teach me certain lessons.
I was raised in a Christian home and God provided a lot of good examples for me growing up. As a child, I enjoyed going to church but it was mostly because I enjoyed playing with my church friends. When I was in third grade, I received a Bible from my church. I remember reading it some and a few years later I understood that Jesus' death had paid the price for my sins. Without him, I wouldn't be allowed into heaven. There was more to being a Christian than just going to church, there was a purpose behind it all. Soon after that I asked to be baptized. I grew up in a United Methodist Church, but I asked to be baptized by my grandfather, a pastor in the Missionary church.
After my baptism, I remember reading my Bible more but I read it in the same way that I would read my social studies textbook. Some of the stories were interesting, some of it made sense, and some of it didn't. When I was in 8th grade I attended a youth rally. After listening to the speakers and talking with my youth pastor, I realized that Christ wanted to have a personal relationship with me. There was so much more to being a Christian than just learning some stories. After the youth rally, there was a big change in my life. I really began to seek after God, wanting to learn more, wanting to be more involved in this growing relationship I had with Him.
One of the more confusing times in my life was half way through my freshman year at Purdue. I was at a different school than Jessica, I was in a world that was totally different than the small town I grew up in, and for the first time in my life I not only wasn't one of the smartest students, I was on the verge of failing a couple classes. I was really confused why God had led me to Purdue. Then I realized that I hadn't truly consulted God when I made the decision to come to Purdue. From that point on, my life changed and prayer become a priority. Something that was to be done at all times, not just during times of trial. For the first time in my life, I turned my entire life over to God.
Deciding to be baptized and become a member of Kossuth has been another very confusing time. This time the confusion hasn't been because of me disobeying God but I really felt God placing specific obstacles in my path. Jessica and I have attended Kossuth for quite some time; first attending services, then becoming involved in an ABF, and finally in a small group. We both felt God calling us to become more involved in the church and to do that we really should become members. As I described previously, I feel I had a believer's baptism but it was by sprinkling and not immersion. As I also mentioned previously, I was baptized by my grandfather. Not only was I worried that being baptized again might offend my Grandpa, I was concerned it would be wrong by God's standards. If baptism is a symbol of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, I shouldn't need to be baptized twice. Christ's one death on the cross was sufficient for everyone's sins and so is one baptism. Also, my Grandpa was a pastor in a Mormon area of the country and had told me stories of people being baptized dozens of times in place of their unbelieving family members. Those stories threw up all sorts of flags to me when I realized I would need to be baptized again. Pastor Scott guided me to scripture that helped to answer my questions about the purpose, meaning, and mode of baptism. God also put me in a small group with Brandon Paschal. Brandon and I had been accountability partners for a few months and one week I shared with him what I had been learning. He said he had also been baptized by sprinkling and gone through some of the same issues. Overall, this experience has been really neat to see how God has taken me from a place where he was leading me in two seemingly opposite directions (join Kossuth but don't accept immersion without further study) but has provided the resources I needed just when I needed them.
I now believe that there is no place in the Bible that strictly mandates how a baptism must be performed, but that baptism by immersion is the much clearer and more explicit mode. Baptism by sprinkling symbolizes the cleansing of Christ's blood, but baptism by immersion symbolizes the cleansing and also the death, burial, and resurrection more fully. Not being baptized would not prevent my salvation, but is being done as a public act of obedience to God and to this local church.
As my relationship with God has grown over the years he has continued to reveal different facets of himself. God is creator of all things, God is a friend that desires a personal relationship, God is a dependable father, and God has a plan for me. I can't say exactly at what point I was saved or when I became a Christian. At every milestone, my previous faith has seemed so inadequate. I pray that there are many more milestones in my life and that my current faith seems equally inadequate.
Posted by mikel at 06:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My new mug
I got a pretty cool gift last week. The kids at Caston were having a fund raiser by selling custom made mugs. So Jessica gave them one of my business cards and now I have a Swoosh mug.
Posted by mikel at 05:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
System.NotImplemented
Rory Blyth "the compact framework is basically a wrapper around System.NotImplemented exception".
He's kidding but I thought that was hilarous.
.NET rocks w/ Chris Sells starts discussing the compact framework at about an hour and 24 minutes in for a few minutes.
Posted by mikel at 11:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
ESPN Game Day coming to Purdue
http://purduesports.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/101004aab.html
This should be pretty cool. I'll have to see if I can get to campus on Saturday.
Posted by mikel at 08:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 07, 2004
Eric Sink's Micro-ISV
Eric looks back at the first month of his micro-ISV
In business, the way to win is to not lose.By the way: Lots of developers are reading about my micro-ISV experiment, but nobody is learning as much from it as I am. There is no substitute for actually doing something.
Posted by mikel at 12:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 01, 2004
icons
Another good icon resource.
http://www.iconexperience.com/collections.php
Posted by mikel at 09:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack