Categories
Geeky/Programming

Agile 2006

I attended the Agile 2006 conference this year, and it was a good conference. Information overload, as usual. I still need to go through all my notes and powerpoint slides and make heads or tails of alot of things. Two of the most intriguing speakers were Scott Ambler who talked about Database Refactorying and Agile Database Design, and Michael Feathers, who talked about Agile in general, Coaching, and Dealing with Legacy Code. Other good talks from Ward Cunningham, Ron Jeffries, and the like. A few of the sessions I started out in, I ducked out as they werent what I expected, but overall the sessions were good and gave good info. Ill look to post up more info on Agile and things I find useful in the future.

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Databinding methods such as Eval(), XPath(), and Bind() can only be used in the context of a databound control.

Blah – I hate stupid error messages. Basically everywhere you look to see what causes this, it has something to do with cacading drop downs. I have ran into this error twice and the fix is – change a “=” to a “#”

if you have in your aspx page

it will throw that error if it is in a repeater or data control. Change it to

and viola! it works 🙂

Categories
Life

Oblivion – Beat the Main Quest

Well, last night I beat the main quest on Oblivion – The Elder Scrolls. I’m a dark elf, level 21. Im about 80 hours dumped into the game, and I am sure there is a ton more I can do, I still have to finish off the fighters and theives guilds, and some other quests. I would have to say, it is one of the best games I have ever played, if not the best. It is like a suped up LORD – that I used to play like 15 years ago on my 2400 baud modem on BBS’s. The thing is, I could beat all the quests, and start over as a different player, and choose a totally different route, which kind of reminds me of the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books I used to read as kid (Indiana Jones mostly). I can’t wait for the next incarnation of the game to come out (if it even is, I am not sure). Where is everyone else who plays it? Seems that everyone I talk to either hates it, doesn’t play it, or is totally in love with it.

Categories
Life

New House

I am a homeowner as of today. Purchased a house in Richmond, MN (huge town of like 1200 people). Anyways, I think I will post pictures up on flickr as I make improvements – some pics I will just share with family and friends, so signup and add me as a contact if you want to see them :). River Lake Days is coming up in Richmond, so I will have to see how that plays out, as I am 1 block from Main Street (and the 4 bars).

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Google Search History

What does your Google search history tell about you? (if you have it turned on). Over the last year, here are my top sites. Pretty intresting.

Top sites
1. msdn.microsoft.com
2. http://www.codeproject.com
3. http://www.microsoft.com
4. blogs.msdn.com
5. http://www.codeguru.com
6. en.wikipedia.org
7. http://www.experts-exchange.com
8. weblogs.asp.net
9. support.microsoft.com
10. http://www.dotnet247.com

Categories
Geeky/Programming

WMIC in Windows

This is why I love computing, you learn something new all the time. WMIC (Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line tool) is something I have never even heard of until yesterday. It always seems when I am looking for a solution I find something in the blogosphere around the same time, but this is crazy. With this tool, you can query WMI info straight from the command line, this pretty much makes getting info on your machine 1000% times easier, especially from batch files, or programming interfaces. As an example, to go along with my “NumLock Debacle Fixer” in my previous posts, I used this

wmic SystemEnclosure get ChassisTypes

on the command line, and it throws me back a number. With a little research, I found what that means

10 = Laptop
12 = Docked
5 = Pizza Box (wtf??)

Anyways, I tested it and yeah, it gives me the correct info, so in my program, I shell out, get the output back, parse it out, and I have what I need, but the cool thing is, you can query any WMI info from the command line, which opens up a ton of options, especially for sysadmins and network guys. Along with utils in XP like reg.exe, you pretty much can write some powerful scripts/programs without using anything but windows utils. Of course there are API’s for programmers to do these things in code, but sometimes its more headache then it is worth, especially when you want to just write a quick batch file to do something.

What other tools or tricks have you found in xp? (shutdown -i, tasklist /s, etc)

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Revenge on Numlock!

Well, since I didnt want to page the IT Department, instead, I just wrote a program to handle my problem. Code around IT I always say. .NET 2.0, created a small program to watch keyboard strokes, and if NumLock is on, put a systray icon down there, lime green with a big N. Set it up to run when I login, so I should be good to go. The code is not pretty at all, so I’m not going to post it, but if someone wants to see, let me know and I will share, maybe you can even improve it 🙂

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Numlock on a Laptop

I use a laptop day to day, and when I have it docked, I use a keyboard, that I turn numlock on. When I undock and start using my laptop again, numlock is on, and its hard to tell it is, about the only way I can is by typing and seeing that letters are turning into numbers. I think there almost needs to be an on-screen notification that numlock is on, or something, because I have been foiled by the numlock gods too many times, I couldnt login to VPN tonight for a while because it wouldnt take my password, well, it would, but I had numlock on. I guess I could make my passwords to be out of the range of the laptop numlock keys, right 🙂

Categories
Life

Firewall

I watched the dvd, Firewall, and I thought it was totally cool when he took his fax apart, hooked it up to his Ipod and then used it to steal the bank account #’s. Mad hack, not sure if it would work though, I guess if you had some software to power it. – Pretty cool!

Categories
Life

Packing and Moving

Oh how I love packing. I am moving soon, so it’s time to pack everything up, junk tons of stuff, organize. Hopefully when I unpack, things will be better organized, with more room, etc. Boxes are either too big, or too small, or not sturdy enough 🙂 – in a few weeks though, it will be over and I’ll be happy. Crazy month this month, move, we are moving to a new office at work, I think I might get a new vehicle, and overall just tons of things going on. I am thinking I might get a couple TiVo’s too, since where I am moving, I dont think there are DVR’s. My computer desk is getting junked as it is almost tipping over, I really need to get something more permanent. Maybe I will try to find some better cable management solution as well, between PSP, GPS, Ipod, Phone, Digital Camera, other stuff – it just becomes a rats nest of cables. I will put all my computer stuff in the basement where it is cool, but I will need a de-humidifer. I can’t wait to start using my Dell desktop again (with Vista Beta2) – since right now at my apt, the room is just too hot to use it, even with the AC on. My 360 doesnt like the heat either, locks up every once in a while. I will be glad to just get moved 🙂