Categories
Ramblings

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Learned a lesson this week. Measure Twice, Cut Once. I guess I’m not really measuring, or cutting, but it relates. Reminds me of a story. Back in high school, when I was around 17, I had a 55 Plymouth Savoy I was restoring. My Grandpa said I could use the lean-to on his garage as my place to fix it up. It was cool in the summer/fall, but once it started getting colder, we were freezing. A buddy of mine was working on it with me every day, so we decidied to put some insulation in the lean-to and some plywood up on the walls. We insulated everything, and then we needed to put the plywood up. Thing is, we needed to cut the plywood down a little. We measured, and it was something like 73 and 1/4 inches. We went and my grandpa was ready to cut, and said 71 and 3/4 – and we were like – no no, 73 and 1/4. We argued but didnt want to push the issue, so we cut it at 71 and 3/4. We goto put up the plywood, and there is a big gap at the top. All hell breaks loose, and we are scrambling to get something shim it up, etc, etc.

We should have measured twice.

Now, the example above isn’t a huge deal, we lost a few sheets of plywood. But just think if we needed to put up thousands of sheets, and we cut them all before checking – we would have been big time screwed. Moral of the story – before doing something that you might have second doubts on – double check it, then double check it again – otherwise would could be wasting alot of time later. Measure Twice, Cut Once 🙂

Categories
Life

More Guitar Playing

Well, I have been playing some more guitar, nothing 100% great that I feel like posting, but some cool stuff anyways. Been playing some Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and others…Jammed on Friday night, which was cool, I need a new electric guitar though, since mine really is starting to not sound to good. I think Nickelback’s Rockstar was played about 300 times – good song on acoustic.

Categories
Life

Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

Well, after a long time coming, I sat down and got all my recording stuff set up on my computer, and recorded a song. Its been a while – 10 months to be exact.

Its a cover of Credence Clearwater Revival. I heard it on the radio a couple weeks back and it just sounded great. Just for kicks I looked up what the meaning of the song really is. Most people say it is about Tom Fogarty leaving CCR right when they were hitting their peak. Some say Vietnam, some say drugs. I guess I really don’t know what it is about, but you can just take away your own meaning.

On the recording side, I decided to try out Audacity, the open source recording tool – pretty sweet. And I used my M-Audio Fast Track USB recording device, which works slick once I got it working.

I did record about 5+ other songs, but I didnt think they were good enough to “release” 🙂 yet…I will have to go back and re-record or do them better anyways. My fingers are hurting right now from actually playing guitar for like 3 hours, the first real time I have sat down in months and played.

Anyways, here is the link.

Have You Ever Seen The Rain (Take 1) [mp3]

it probably could be better, this was just the second take I did (I always start at take 0 – goofy computer scientists and their zero based arrays). Well let me know if it sucks or not, maybe Ill release my other recordings I don’t like, but Ill password protect them so only

Categories
Life

Oblivion: My First 1000 Point Achievement Game!

So, finally, after like 7 months of playing on and off, I finally have at least one game on Xbox360 with 1000 achievement points completed. Oblivion! Im only on level 25 – and there are some quests I havent completed yet, but still feels good. After I got 1000, I went and bought all the add-ons as well, there are like 3-4 add ons that give you some new quests. I think I was at about 101 hours into the game, dang. I’d have to say, it is a very addicting game. Also started Star Wars Legos II last night a little bit – which is another good game. I see myself at least getting my moneys worth out of my 360, so that is good 🙂

Categories
Life Product Reviews

River City Grill – Richmond, MN

I live right across the street from the River City Grill. It by far is the best bar in Richmond. They have good food and allow you even create a tab 🙂

I try to get over there at least once a week for the Twins game, couple beers and burger. They are having Scott Hansen Comdedy night on Oct 7th so that should be good, I saw Scott Hansen at the Red Carpet on the opening comedy night there a while ago.

You could say that the River City Grill is my “Moe’s” 🙂

Categories
Geeky/Programming

SQL Server 2005 – DDL Triggers – Setting Up Auditing

New with SQL Server 2005, is the ability to set up triggers on DDL statements. This has got to be a DBA’s dream come true. You can set up audit logs on creates/alters, etc. Here is how you do it (this is just a trigger, you will need to create the table, you should be able to get the table definitiion from looking at the trigger)

CREATE TRIGGER [DDL_Auditing] ON DATABASE FOR DDL_DATABASE_LEVEL_EVENTS AS DECLARE @raisedEventData XML /* type date-time spid name name name name name name type command */ -- Capture the event data that is created SET @raisedEventData = eventdata() INSERT INTO dbo.AuditDDL (EventTime,EventType,ServerName,CommandText,LoginName,UserName,ObjectType,ObjectName) SELECT @raisedEventData.value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/PostTime)[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') AS 'EventTime', @raisedEventData.value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/EventType)[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') AS 'EventType', @raisedEventData.value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/ServerName)[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') AS 'ServerName', @raisedEventData.value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/TSQLCommand/CommandText)[1]', 'nvarchar(MAX)') AS 'CommandText', @raisedEventData.value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/LoginName)[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') AS 'LoginName', @raisedEventData.value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/UserName)[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') AS 'UserName', @raisedEventData.value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/ObjectType)[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') AS 'ObjectType', @raisedEventData.value('(/EVENT_INSTANCE/ObjectName)[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') AS 'ObjectName'

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Static Code Analysis in C/C++

If you ever need to run static code analysis on C/C++ files, you can use Vs2005, but if you are in Vs2003, here is what you can do:

c:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual Studio 8VC>cl /analyze “C:MyCodeFile.c” > c:MyCodeFileAnalysis.txt

Found this on MSDN

Categories
Geeky/Programming

VS2005 – Browser Helper Object (BHO) Tutorial

I have been dabbling with BHO’s for some time, way back with VB6, then tried in .NET, and with C++ as well. There are so many cool things you can do with them. Anyways, most of the documentation out there is sparse and old. I told myself the next time I have to make one, I am going to document it. Well, here it is in all its glory. Sorry if the code formatting is wacked, but you get the picture. I don’t claim to be an expert, but this should work 🙂
just in case, I uploaded it in txt format for better reading here

How to Create a Browser Helper Object in Visual Studio 2005 with C++
———————————————————————
1) Open Visual Studio 2005
2) File->New->Project
3) Visual C++
4) ATL
5) ATL Project
6) Name is whatever you want for this example I use “Company.Browser.Helper” without the quotes

7) The ATL Project Wizard Screen will appear, Hit Finish
8) Visual Studio will load up your project.
9) Right Click on The Company.Browser.Helper project, Add->Class
10) select ATL Simple Object, and click the Add button
11) fill in the ShortName – “BrowserHelper” without the quotes, the rest of the fields should fill in, hit next
12) IMPORTANT: Under Support: Check all boxes (ISupportErrorInfo, Connection points, IObjectWithSite (IE object Support)
13) Click Finish

Now on to the better stuff,

————————————————————–

In visual studio, Solution Explorer, Resource Files, you will see BrowserHelper.rgs, open it and add this to the bottom
(replace the GUID with the GUID that you see at the top of the file like CLSID = s ‘{GUID}’) in the other script code
This will register the BHO with IE when the DLL gets registered


HKLM
{
SOFTWARE
{
Microsoft
{
Windows
{
CurrentVersion
{
Explorer
{
'Browser Helper Objects'
{
{GUID}
}
}
}
}
}
}
}

above where it says ‘Browser Helper’ – you can change those names to be more descriptive, that will show in IE add on manager

————————————————————–

————————————————————–

Categories
Life

More than just a geek – new grill


New Grill II

Originally uploaded by ScaleOvenStove.

Yes thats right folks, even I can do more than geek 🙂

Check out the new grill I got from my dad for my housewarming party. I just put it together today. Fun stuff. Thing is, I have a LP tank, just don’t have it filled it. I will probably fill it this week and let the grilling begin!!

Categories
Life

Lately

wow, busy lately. Went and saw Nickelback at the Xcel Center on the 14th, that was pretty sweet. Had a house warming on the 16th, that was even sweeter. Now I just need to put my grill together 🙂 I put up some pictures I took right before the party here so check it out. Hopefully things will semi-calm down and I will have more time to post/geek around with projects.