January 2006 Entries

  • Free movies

    Admit it -- it's been a while since you saw "Plan 9 from Outer Space" and you'd really like to see it again. Well, now you can, courtesy of Public Domain Torrents. They've got a number of older, public domain movies available, including many in formats for Pocket PC, PSP and iPod for travelling enjoyment. Oooo! Metropolis! The Brain That Wouldn't Die! I may not post for a while...

  • OK, I *was* valid

    But Sam moved the goal post. Fortunately, I managed to find a computer that I had the current source on, and made a quick change, and I'm back to being valid again! Wheee! For those curious, the change (this time) in CommunityServerComponents\Components\Syndication\BaseAtomWriter.cs was:protected virtual void WriteEntry(Post p){  this.WriteElementString("title",p.Subject);          this.WriteStartElement("link");  this.WriteAttributeString("rel", "alternate"); //changed this from "self" to "alternate"  this.WriteAttributeString("type", "text/html");  this.WriteAttributeString("href", BuildLink(p));  this.WriteEndElement();  this.WriteElementString("id", BuildLink(p));  DateElements(p);  this.WriteStartElement("content");  this.WriteAttributeString("type","html");  //this.WriteAttributeString("mode","escaped");  this.WriteString(PostBody(p));  this.WriteEndElement();  this.WriteElementString("slash:comments", p.Replies.ToString());  ExtendendElements(p);}

  • New Horizons News

    While everyone is covering the Pluto launch, I haven't seen many cover the name registry that is going up with it. Nasa allowed people to submit their names to be added to a CD on the New Horizons spacecraft. Over 430,000 names were submitted including: Amanda Huggenkiss I.P. Freely Al Coholic (9 of them) Mike Rotch Hugh Jass (11 of them) Just about every other "Moe phone call name". Find more with their search engine I'm a little worried about what happens when aliens find that CD. Remember what will happen when Voyager comes back.

  • The (ever so slight) joy of dynamic icons

    I was updating the copy of World of Warcraft on M's Mac and noticed that the icon for the downloader actually displays the current download progress by sweeping a wash off of the image (just as the spells do to indicate cool down). Neat little touch.

  • Seeing new content on 'that' old site

    I've now been gone for a while, but I'm still seeing familiar looking articles flowing through the MSDN beast. Here are a few that seem to have been posted that I haven't seen elsewhere: File Uploading with ASP.NET 2.0. Bill Evjen updated his file uploading article to show what's changed with 2.0. Virtualizing Access to Content: Serving Your Web Site from a ZIP File. One of the neatest (IMO) new features in 2.0 is the Virtual Path Provider functionality that enables your site to exist in places other than just the file system (think of Sharepoint as one example, where much...

  • .NET and 'real' development

    This should help next time you get into a discussion of managed vs. unmanaged development. For the other side, that is... /sigh

  • Amazing/frightening example of data mining...

    Just imagine all of the information that is out there about you that you might not want people to know, and how easy (for a mondo-techie guy like Tom Owad) it is to extract all of it, and use it. Oh, and imagine how surprised you'd be if you got a signed copy of a book from the author without prior contact... "It is possible for users to associate a shipping address with their wishlists, so that others can order them gifts. Though the full address is hidden, city and state remain visible. I already have first and last name. With this...

  • Obligatory end of year post

    As you all know, I'm a fan of transitions, and more than willing to sacrifice a goat to Janus. So, here's my look back at last year, and a few hopes for next year. Big Posts Most of my significantly hit posts were while I was still at MSDN, but they're still worth looking at again, IMO. Numbers are sorted by total of Page and Aggregator views. Post Page Views AggregatorViews Soon == Now(); 26518 201 Is it safe? 20903 494 Know an absolute beginner at programming? 7109 1044 Interactive ASP.NET 2.0 tutorial 7262 291 101 Samples (well, 50) for Visual Studio 2005 6321 440 Programming for kids 5827 344 Security best practices, read and participate... 5147 507 Update 1 for today 5128 519 Know about Coding4Fun? Let others know you...