Peter Bromberg's UnBlog

I'm trying to pare this down to just the absolute streamlined minimum, here's what I have so far. If you have comments, feel free to contribute: Minimal rules for Team Development: 1) Learn how to add a solution / project to VSS and make sure you don't screw up. Everybody needs to be able to be working from the same solution tree, and a new developer should be able to get latest on a solution and successfully build it within 10 to 20 minutes. Shared library references should be in the solution as Solution Items, and they should be able to be checked out with the Solution. If a shared library needs to be changed, it should be checked out and the new library saved over it, then checked back in so everybody can have the same versions. 2) All references should be PROJECT references if the project is available, and the project should be retrieved from VSS and included in your solution. 3) All build output from EVERY project should go ONLY into it's respective /bin folder...

Yesterday it took me an hour to get to work, a trip that normally takes about 35 minutes. I say "normally" but it turns out there's probably almost never a "normal" day, as I drive a stretch of Interstate 4, a six lane highway that runs from Daytona Beach in the east, all the way to Tampa on the west coast of Florida. I grew up in New York City, but I gotta tell ya -- Florida drivers are the absolute worst on the fyookin' planet! The reason for the delay? Tailgating accident. There is something about getting into 3,500 pounds of metal that has a decided effect on many people's personalities. Normally docile human beings become overly aggressive. The automobile becomes an extension of our "personal space" and anyone who invades this space is to be defended against. Tailgating 10 feet behind the rear bumper of the car in front of you at 80, sometimes as high as 90 miles per hour won't get you there any faster, in fact, as about six drivers fo...

We Americans live in a society that is based largely on the ideals of our forefathers - ideals that have survived the test of time. Those ideals include life, liberty, individualism, and the right to privacy, among others. We all know that during times of national threat or war that sometimes these privacy rights must be partially abrogated. With the attacks of 9/11/2001, the rules had to be changed and this has caused significant controversy among Americans. I for one, am glad that I am not an ATT customer - but I'm also fearful that other providers may follow. Essentially "Ma" just said "All your phone records are belong to us". It's not that they suddenly decided to change their policies about customer data - they haven't changed a thing! All they've done is put it in writing to help prevent themselves from being successfully sued. I realize that information about me that I do not wish to have disseminated without my consent is distributed anyw...

North Korea said Wednesday it wants direct talks with the United States over its apparent plans to test-fire a long-range missile, a day after the country issued a bristling statement in which it declared its right to carry out the launch. North Korea said in comments published Wednesday that its self-imposed moratorium on testing long-range missiles from 1999 no longer applies because it's not in direct dialogue with Washington, suggesting it would hold off on any launch if Washington agreed to new talks. Of course, we all know that North Korea, which has deliberately boycotted the six-nation diplomatic talks channel for the last six months, could easily return to these talks at any time with any concerns it may have. This is classic bullying at its worst -- on an international scale, and with nuclear weapons! The bully taunts and attempts to gain the upper hand through threats and intimidation. And where I grew up, in New York City, where there are plenty of bullies, I learned ...

Recently I saw a post on one of the MS newsgroups looking for a place to store a "File" so that you would be able to read so you'd know if the user of your Trial software was using it beyond the specified trial expiration date. There were a number of answers, but none of them used the approach that seemed so obvious to me: Why do you need to worry about a file, when you can embed the expiration date directly into the assembly! Now this is by no means secure, and is certainly not immune from decompilation - not by a long shot. However, it should give those who have any kind of imagination some food for thought. Bear in mind, I'm keeping it very simple, and I haven't even encrypted the expiration date: using System; using System.Collections; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Web; using System.Web.SessionState; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls; using Sys...

Yep, Jesse James Garrett, that cowboy of marketing hype, said it very clearly (according to Brent Ashley ). The Decree has been Handed Down: Ajax is no longer an acronym to be limited to its original initials. According to Jesse, as long as these two basic ingredients are involved, what you have is an Ajax application. (Hallelluja! Praised be the AJAX Gods! Lordy, Lordy!) : asynchronous interaction model browser-native technologies Hopefully, organizations like the new OpenAjax Alliance will be able to reach consensus on what needs to be done and how in order to take us to the next level in Rich Internet Application evolution. Open Ajax Alliance? What the hell is that! Why don't we have an Open Javascript Alliance? How about an Open HTML one? What's the purpose? Anyway, the message is that now we can call it "AB" - definitely a step in the right direction! You see how very adaptible it all is? Even if it ain't really "AJAX", you can still call it -- AJA...

I noticed Digg was down this morning ("metropolitan network problems") so I missed my morning DiggFix. But when I stopped back during lunch to check out some post about a new NanoCrystal Display technology, I got a laff from one comment: " HOLY CRAP GUYS THIS IS IT. THIS IS THE REVOLUTION. IT STARTS NOW WTFOMGWTF!!!!!!!!WE COULD BEND THE TV WTFOMGWTF!!!!!!!! BEND IT BABY!! BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM!!!!!!!!OOOOOHHH YEAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! MY BENDY LAPTOP IS GONNA RUN FOOOOREVER!!!!!!!FUEL CELL BATTERY PLUS NANOCRYSTAL DISPLAY 4 LYFE MOTHER****** CRADLE 2 DA GRAVE BABYWTFOMGWTF!!!!!!! This, folks is what happens to otherwise perfectly normal geeks who spend too much time on Digg. Their minds get DiggF*cked! Sadly, there is no known cure. ClientID Unmangler: In other news, I've noticed that the concept of "not being able to get the eventual correct ClientId" of an element when using MasterPages is showing up on forums and newsgroup postings in ever - increasing numbers...