BlogCoward

Signs You Might Be Working For A Client That Isn't On The Cutting Edge #1 in a series

jdn — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:01:23 GMT

You ask if you can use JQuery for some important javascript work on a single isolated page and they tell you "We don't want to link to open source libraries for that because we would have to put in extra work to troubleshoot it if it didn't work."

Oh my.

Signs You Work For A Company That Hates You #1 in a series

jdn — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:00:59 GMT

This one is pretty obvious, but with the sneaky twist.

Suppose you are on a team that has uber-releases that require up to a year to plan, execute and deliver. They require multiple divisions/departments to sign off on every step, and everything is a matter of massive debate.

When do you schedule the release?

Now, everyone will leap to the obvious answer, "Christmas."

But that's obvious. That makes it too obvious that the management hates its employees. When would you schedule it to convey the same hatred, but be just a *little* less obvious about it?

There are multiple correct answers, but one is: Mother's Day.

I mean, who cares about that? None of the 70+ people required for supporting the uber-weekend-release care about that.

Digression: in either 1988 or 1989, I worked at a Houlihan's restaurant as a line cook. It was a corporate type restaurant, no better or worse than any other I guess. Anyway, the General Manager of the place was a Jehovah's Witness, and so, as such, he didn't believe in Christmas (that's probably inaccurate, but whatever), and so decided to open the restaurant for Christmas. We were located in a strip mall type place, which, among other things, included a movie theater. And, as it turns out, that Christmas Day was the opening day for The Godfather, Part 3.

I'm going to make up the numbers since I obviously don't remember exactly right now, but if the place did, say, 100 covers on a weekday night, 500 would be a pretty busy number of covers for a weeknight. We were the only restaurant open anywhere in the area, and so as the happy (or not so happy, since IIRC, the Godfather Part 3 sucked) movie-goers came out of the theater, they came to us.

Now, I don't know for sure, but I think we must have done at least 1000-1500 that day/night. We started running out of things, and so just started making up dishes to offer as alternatives (once the fried mozzarella strips ran out, we started breading and frying anything that was edible, for instance).

So, as it turns out, there are times when opening for business on Christmas can be profitable.

LINQ to SQL Hack Solution to Changing LoadOptions

jdn — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:16:54 GMT

I keep forgetting where this link is, so saving it.

http://nickandgrace.com/code/archive/2007/12/11/hack-solution-to-the-loadoptions-problem.aspx

Could not load type XXXX from custom assembly

jdn — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:36:00 GMT

There are many different things that can cause this, but here's one.

If you have an older version of a DLL in GAC, then any running code will apparently look there first, even if you have an updated version in the bin folder of your application (I could have sworn it was the other way around, but apparently not).

So, get rid of the old version from the GAC, make sure your reference copies the DLL local, and that should take care of it.

Again, just one solution out of many.

ADO.NET Entity Framework Vote of No Confidence

jdn — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:17:19 GMT

So, a number of people have written (and/or added their names to the list of signatures agreeing with it) to a petition/statement/WhatEverYouWantToCallIt calling out the (real and/or perceived) flaws with the forthcoming (when? Who knows, but since I believe SQL Server 2008 requires its final release, at that time) Entity Framework coming out of Redmond.

I first noticed it when Dave Laribee posted about its existence on the alt.net mailing list where he briefly mentioned its contents and added:

"I'd encourage you all to sign if (and only if) this is something you agree with and please spread the word."

I'm going to interpret the 'and' as 'and/or', and thus this post.

Quite some time ago, Danny Simmons from Microsoft posted about some 'great discussions' with the NHibernate Mafia (Bellware, Palermo, and Laribee are mentioned, I know there were others, but too tired/lazy to get a comprehensive list) about said Mafia's initial 'misgivings' (other words would probably work but let's go with that) about the direction of the Entity Framework. After a bit more time, he posted in greater detail about his understanding of the 'misgivings', of how he believed they could be addressed, and how the v1 release of EF wouldn't be able to address them.

The 'Vote of No Confidence' seems to be a restatement of the misgivings, and so initially, it seems a bit odd to make a show of it. Then again, it's been a hella long time from the 'great discussions' till now, and if you don't read every blog about everything, you wouldn't necessarily know about them.

Around the same time, Tim Mallalieu was posting about the new transparency the EF team was hoping to follow in developing v2 of EF.

As people became aware of the petition, more commentary came about.

Mary-Jo Foley gave it a shout. And it was nice to see the usual suspects with the expected response (it didn't explicitly demand an apology on behalf of the entire .NET community and wasn't as obnoxious or poorly spelled). Side note: when the petition list first came out, it listed Scott as first on the list (though didn't mark him as an MVP). It also, IIRC, listed Paul Wilson, originator of WORM as an MVP. Shortly thereafter, Scott's name moved to #23 and it listed Paul as (MVP ret.), though I don't think you retire an MVP, you just don't get renewed. Not sure if the re-ordering was deliberate or a technical thing, but if anyone felt strongly about adding their signature but opted out because Bellware's name was listed #1, they're an idiot.

Tim then posted a longer response that addressed the petition more directly.

Others have been slightly more vitriolic.

In any event, it looks like there will be more of a feedback loop for v2 of EF and that's probably a good thing. The petition itself is certainly more measured and productive than what's been seen in the past.

I wouldn't sign something like this myself (it's not like there is much to disagree with, it's just, well, weirdly misplaced), but if it is something you agree with, pony up.

Easy and Obvious Ways to Increase Customer Service

jdn — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:51:41 GMT

I was at a Borders store buying the new Coldplay CD that came out today. Digression: it sounds like Coldplay. Nothing majestic like 'Fix You' but it's okay.

Anyway, while I was in the store, a song played over the store intercom. It sounded pretty good, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention to it.

Once I decided to buy the Coldplay CD (which I was going to do anyway), I asked a very helpful employee if they could tell me the name and artist of the song they had been playing over the intercom.

They couldn't.

Later tonight, through use of Google, I was able to find the song (turns out it wasn't that good), but Borders should have been able to tell me that info. They lost an additional sale because of it.

From the Department of Redundancy Department....

jdn — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:01:25 GMT

Overheard conversation:

Person 1: "It's a matter of following DRY."

Person 2: "What's 'DRY'?"

Person 1: "Don't repeat yourself."

I thought it was funny.

Running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1 on Vista

jdn — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:39:11 GMT

I can vouch that this does in fact work, a solution from a company called Bamboo Solutions which built an installer that allows you to install WSS 3.0 SP1 on a Vista machine. I haven't tested every single aspect of MOSS 2007 or anything exhaustive, but the Admin tool does work, you can create sites normally, etc. so it seems to do the trick.

<Insert expected gratuitous shot at SharePoint here>.

If you are into this sort of thing, check it out.

Remote Desktop Connection Error : "you are already connected to the console of this computer"

jdn — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 21:01:05 GMT

I'm posting this just in case someone else is as much an idiot as I am.

I use RDC a lot in my home network. I have 4 or 5 systems, each dedicated to specific tasks. I know it is possible to use Virtual PC or VMWare to do a lot of what I'm doing, but what the hell. I have a lot of hardware lying around, so I use it.

I encountered this problem when trying to connect to one of my Vista laptops (which is dedicated to running all of the 'beta' development stuff for Visual Studio 2008). I've connected to it many times, without a problem. But now, it insisted that I couldn't connect because I was already on the console.

WTF? It's supposed to give me access to the console. I physically moved the machine, sure, but why would that change anything?

The answer? I switched the names, and was trying to RDC into the laptop I was launching RDC from, not into the remote laptop (if that isn't clear, I was trying to RCD into Laptop A FROM Laptop A. When I really wanted to RDC into Laptop B).

First rule of troubleshooting: idiocy check.

End of a nice little run

jdn — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:29:54 GMT

Read about it here.

Fitting that it ended with Mr. Rent a Player just missing. To be really fitting, he should have hit the post.

Here's a couple of things we learned:

1) While it sounds nice, hitting the post is no more effective than completely missing it.

2) If you don't clear the zone, and especially if you pass it to the other team in your defensive zone, they are more likely to score.

3) If you get multiple 5 on 3 power plays, and don't score on ANY of them, you aren't going to win a series.

Still, there will always be the triple overtime thriller.

Here's hoping it isn't another 16 years.