Mike's Place - Blog

Christmas 2008 Photos

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:38:29 GMT

Christmas photos from our trip to Newfoundland are posted at Flikr

The Results of My Online Poll

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 03:25:32 GMT

Well, I find the results of my online poll very interesting. The two questions were: 1) "When counting drawers, do you count from the bottom or the top?" (In other words, if someone said "3rd drawer", does that mean 3rd drawer from the top or 3rd drawer from the bottom?) 2) "When buttoning your shirt, do you start from the bottom or the top?" Four people answered and the results are as follows: 1) I count drawers from the bottom and button shirts from the bottom. 2) My twin brother (aka Santa Claus) starts at the top for both. 3) My younger brother starts at the top for drawers but at the bottom for buttons. 4) My mother starts at the top for both. So, even a sample of one family has different ways of doing these two simple things.

The End of an ERa

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:08:42 GMT

This is the last season of what, in my opinion, is probably one of the best dramas ever. It has outlasted many great shows including dramas and other medical dramas. The show has been my "comfort food" for 14 years. ER made such a large impact on me for a few reasons, but one of the main reasons is that I could immediately relate to it. The show started just as I was starting my career in Software Development. Some of the stories of the show were similar to what I was experiencing in my life. The hectic schedules, the constant "firefighting", the complex problems that needed to be solved immediately even though they seemed unsolvable were all shared between the show and my life. You'd see an intern on the show that was expected to save a life despite the self-doubt. Similarly, in my life I was in an occupation that had insane schedules, constant challenges and expected much of young people that had just come out of school. We were not expected to "save lives", but at times it seemed like it because of the urgency and the expectations of the clients. At times we felt we were over our heads but just as often, we had the "punching the air" in celebration moments that Peter Benton (played by Eriq La Salle) experienced when he performed at his best. As well as the career similarities, I could relate to the characters; Like me, they were young, they were discovering themselves and they were doing their best to balance work with leisure. They were developing new relationships with co-workers, friends and lovers. They were often dealing with difficult personality types. Sometimes their lives seemed out of control because of all the chaos but at the end of the day, they loved what they did. They learned to deal with their frantic lives and grew to thrive on it. I could relate to all of it. Along with these similaities to my life, the show was impeccably written. The characters and stories were created by the best in the business. There was humor, drama, tension, pain, exultation and sometimes horror. It was like watching an academy award winning movie every week. In my opinion, the quality of the characters and stories never suffered after all these years. Despite many characters/actors coming and going, the cast always seemed exciting, deep and cohesive. Despite the myriad plots over the years, the story lines were always interesting and fresh. In the early years, they were showered with Emmy awards, but lately they were overlooked. That's a shame since the quality of the show deserved to be honored. Some of the new characters on the show like Pratt, Luka and Gates were as good as Ross, Carter, and Greene. Some of the guest stars such as Forest Whitaker deserved awards for their masterful performances. The plots always had new challenges and were never predictable. After all these years, it's sad to see such a great show come to an end. It's been a constant companion of mine for 14 years and saying goodbye is hard.

Hacked!

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:24:39 GMT

I've said it before, I'll say it again - I can't understand how someone will damage someone else's property or work. My website was hacked with a SQL injection attack today. It affected thousands of records and could have potentially infected visitors to my website with a virus. I immediately took my website down when I discovered this. So, the technical readers of this article are thinking "didn't you read all the advisories in the new lately?". Well, I guess I should have read them more closely; I thought I was safe since my forms all validated input to prevent potential attacks. Well, this one used the query string on the URL to add script tags to every text field in my database. Arrggh! The good news is that I restored my database from a previous day, so I didn't need to fix my database manually. More good news is that (I believe) this type of attack is now impossible on my site. The last bit of good news is that I will now go back and read all those advisories and run the tools to check to see that my site is, indeed, hacker-proof. Damn hackers!

Gluttony - My Favourite Sin

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:03:11 GMT

We just got back from our favourite restaurant and we are totally stuffed; I feel like I will never need to eat again. We've only been to Milestones three times, but it is now clearly our favourite restaurant. We can find no flaw in any part of their food or service. Their Calamari is absolutely, without doubt, the best I've ever had. If you don't like Calamari, you should go to Milestones and try it. If you've never tried Calamari, you should go to Milestones and try it. If you do like Calamari, you should go to Milestones and try it. In all cases, you will find it to be one of the best appetizers you've ever had. Along with their appetizers, their entrees are excellent. I usually get the New York Striploin with Peppercorn spices - it is amazing. My wife gets their ravioli which is also awesome. Their desserts (especially the White Chocolate Cheesecake) are to die for. Even their coffee is great. The service is impeccable. If you ever watch "Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares" or the American Version (simply "Kitchen Nightmares"), you can see that the things Gordon Ramsey criticizes are all the things Milestones gets right:

a simple menu
get the small things right
focus on service
good food without a lot of complexity
good value
quality food

Although Milestones is fairly expensive, it is definitely worth it. We strongly recommend it.

Scrabble Techniques

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 03:34:03 GMT

I've always liked Scrabble and I consider myself to be a very competitive player. I've been playing Scrabulous (the same as Scrabble) on Facebook. I read a short article in Wired magazine about an online Scrabble word finder that has had a dramatic increase in traffic since the addition of Scrabulous to Facebook. The point of the article (and I agree) is 'what is the point of playing if you are going to cheat?' When I play, I sometimes (if it is mutually agreed-upon) use a dictionary. Playing this way is fun because you can be creative and discover new words. It still requires you to place the words in the most beneficial spot on the board and to play defensively. It's not cheating because both players have the same advantage. What I have decided, though, is that I am not going to play this way anymore. I've discovered enough extremely useful words to pull out some high valued words (EX, QAT, QAID, QADI, OO, QI, etc.) and it's time to exercise my memory. My new way of playing is to keep a text document open while I play. This document is not to refer to during play, but to add any 'potential' words that I think of. I will then look up the word after the game and find out whether or not the word could've been played and mark it in the document. The list will grow and I will look through the list as it does. I will try to remember the real words to add to my arsenal. So, bring it on! I'm ready to play but no cheaters allowed!

"Must Have" Firefox Add-Ons

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:22:54 GMT

Well, again, I haven't blogged in quite a while. Is anyone out there still reading my posts? If so, sorry I haven't 'entertained' you in so long. I've wanted to post about my favourite Firefox add-ons for quite some time. If you know what a 'Firefox add-on' is, you've probably read a list similiar to what I'm about to provide. If you don't know what I'm talking about, have a look and you may get some good ideas. Without further ado, here's my list of Firefox add-ons that I can't live without:

Read It Later

This is great. If you've ever looked at an article or web page that you really want to review but are short of time, this add-on is for you. In the past, I would create a bookmark or tag an article on del.icio.us if it was something that I really wanted to read later. That method almost always resulted in an unorganized list of links that I almost never got around to reading. With "Read It Later", you have a button that stores the current page on a list that you can view easily and quickly. When you want to read the article, simply select it from the list and it will take you to the page. When you finish reading the article, simply click another button to mark it as "read" and it disappears from your list. You can also click the "list" button to get the next item in the list. This is a very handy tool!

Web Developer

This is awesome if you design or create websites. It has so many useful features that a simple paragraph will not do it justice. You can view or edit CSS or HTML on the fly for the page you are on. You can view/edit cookies. You can view form details which will show you the names, ids, types, etc. of all form elements. You can display image infomation such as 'ALT' info, dimensions, paths, etc. You can (I now, I know, I'm saying "You can" too often, but with this add-on "you can" is very appropriate) view hrefs of all anchor tags, display all IDs and CSS class names. It will display rulers and line guides to help you adjust dimensions and coordinates. It will send your page for speed reports and validation at www.websiteoptimization.com and validator.w3.org respectively. I can go on and on, but you get the point - this is a necessity for any web developer.

Firebug

This is another web development "must have". I am hesitant to hype this up as much as I should, since I just raved about the "Web Developer" add-on, but this one is just as good for its purposes. With this one, you can hover over element on the page to inspect it in an HTML tree. you can view/edit the HTML and CSS for the page. You can see and edit the styles very easily. You can set breakpoints in the Javascript and change it and/or values on the fly. You can see the layout of an element graphically showing padding, margin, offset, dimensions and border. You can easily see the CSS selectors that apply to any given element. Again, there are too many great features to cover in one paragraph.

NoScript

This is an add-on that will prevent all JavaScript, ActionScript, Flash and Java unless you mark the site as "trusted". This simple add-on makes viewing web sites much safer.

del.icio.us Bookmarks

I've tried other del.icio.us add-ons before but this one, by Yahoo! (the company that bought del.icio.us) is the best that I've seen. It, obviously, has the button on the browser to quickly add a bookmark to del.icio.us. It also has a button that will bring up a sidebar with all your tags alphabetically and by frequency. The sidebar also has a flat list of all the bookmarks sortable alphabetically, by date added, by most visited, last visited and by site. The list is also searchable right from the sidebar. It also puts buttons on your toolbar for each of the bookmarks and has a drop-list for the excess. It adds a menu section to your browser that lets you manage your tags, view the bookmarks in different ways and get to del.icio.us account info quickly. Very cool! Well, that's my list for now. If you have others, feel free to add them!

Good Programmers

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 05:19:28 GMT

I've read some great articles recently about what makes a good/great programmer. I agree with a lot of it and disagree with some of it. Viewing comments that are posted on these articles, I can see that there is quite a bit of disagreement from others too. Being in the Software Development industry myself for many years, I also have my own strong opinions about what makes a great programmer. Most of the things I disagree with are things that are fairly insignificant. Whether a person uses Hungarian Notation or not is an example of something that is just a matter of preference and overall it's not critical. Here is a brief list of the skills that I think most "good" programmers have:

1) Passion

Most lists of desirable traits have this as the number one item and I couldn't agree more. A strong passion for one's work will make up for many shortcomings. It will drive a person to do their best work and the pride will be noticeable in the end product.

2) Strong Desire To Learn

In a competitive industry, passion combined with a desire for constant learning is a necessity for any kind of success. No one knows everything and things change quickly, so what a person knew two years ago is almost irrelevant today.

3) Good Problem Solving Skills

A good developer will not be afraid to tackle difficult challenges. Much like an elite skier is not afraid to conquer the 'scariest' slopes, a good software developer thrives on a challenge. They rise to the occasion to master problems that at first glance seem unsolvable. Tackling these types of problems leads to growth and maturity in the profession. Thinking "outside-the-box" (to use a greatly overused phrase) is a definite necessity.

4) Adaptability

As stated above, the software industry is constantly changing. Someone that is unwilling to change will quickly be devoured by the sea of change and will drown. They will wonder why they were so successful two years ago and today cannot even understad the new technologies tha have been introduced. Platforms, hardware, software, culture and paradigms are constantly changing and a professional must be able to cope. It's clear that my list has no "semantic-type" items. Semantics are just that - semantics. Whether a person puts curly braces on one-line or another is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. Which language a person chooses is also not as important (in my opinion) as the 4 key ingredients listed above. I believe that the traits listed above will make up for many shortcomings and will greatly increase a person's chance of becoming a successful Software Developer.

Ugghh ... timing is the key!

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:14:20 GMT

So, my wife is in a clinical trial for a promising new treatment for MS - MBP8298. A few weeks ago, we were discussing if it would be a good investment. I thought, "Yeah, but it could be risky". Anyway, we decided for the time-being to hold off on it. Well, as Murphy would have predicted, they signed a new licensing deal with Eli Lilly, and their stock went up 50% in one day! It's probably still a good investment, but now it's even more risky. Even more important than the financial investment, we hope the treatment is successful. Eli Lilly's faith in it is a good sign.

What Have I Been Up To?

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:27:18 GMT

I hope you all had a great Christmas and will have a happy new year! I'm sure you're all really wondering what I've been up to lately since I haven't blogged in so long! Actually, I'm quite sure you're not that interested but I'll tell you anyway. First of all, we had a very nice Christmas. We spent it with family and it was great. Too much food and lots of good presents - just as Christmas should be! ;) One thing that I've been doing that is quite addictive for someone that likes to solve problems (especially through programming) is the Python Challenge. It gives you riddles that are well-suited to be solved with programming. It does not restrict you to the Python language and it doesn't even teach you the language, but the problems are designed to get you to dig into the many features of Python. Most of the problems really get you to "think outside the box". I just finished reading an awesome book - "Freakonomics". I read it cover-to-cover in less than 2 days - it was hard to put down. It was written collaboratively by a brilliant (but different) Economist and a journalist (Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner). Levitt is the type of Economist that simply likes to ask different questions and uses data to find correlations and then causality. For instance, what made the crime rate drop in the mid-90's when everyone expected it to rise dramatically? The answer is controversial and it's one that almost no one had thought of previously. Another example - if dealing crack cocaine is so lucrative, why do so many drug dealers live with their parents? Do teachers cheat by giving their students better grades if they have an incentive to do so? The book is basically about human nature. It's fascinating and I highly recommend it. I got Koreen Seasons 1 of both "House" and "Two and a Half Men". We're looking forward to watching all episodes. I got some books that I've wanted for a while and I'm sure I will be busy reading for quite some time. That's about it for now. How was your Christmas?

Merry Christmas!

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:55:28 GMT

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a great Christmas. Be responsible, have fun and spend time with your family. I hope all your wishes come true. -Mike

Kelly Pickler is Dumber Than a 5th Grader!

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:51:08 GMT

I don't know if you saw Kelly Pickler on "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?", but she proved that she definitely is not! The smartest thing she said was right at the beginning when she said "I'm not smarter than a 5th grader!" Normally, the contestants wait until they have answered a question incorrectly to make that claim, but she obviously knew beforehand that the assertion was correct. Some highlights:

Is a Piccolo a woodwind, string or percussion instrument? "Well, since it starts with 'P' and 'Pickler' starts with a 'P', it's got to be percussion!"
Budapest is the capital of which European country? "I thought Europe was a country! ... I was going to say France, but that's not even a country!"
She was very unsure that a "Road Runner' was a bird (very first question)
How many times does the letter 'E' appear in the following word? (pause, before showing the word). She says, "It's not in word!"

It was hilarious! Here are some YouTube clips:

Heroes

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:11:17 GMT

Well, tonight's episode of Heroes was the best of the season in my opinion. The show has taken some criticism lately because it was moving slowly and not answering any questions. Tonight's episode changed all that. It showed how Maya discovered her powers and how the "lightning girl" fits into the whole story with Peter Petrelli. It also showed how Peter lost his memory and powers. We learned what Bob (the bald guy) is really trying to do and how he came up with "the cure". I think tonight's show will win back some viewers and keep the regular viewers intrigued.

Vector Magic

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:54:00 GMT

Check out this amazing tool I found online called VectorMagic. It takes pixelated, crappy graphics and turns them into vector-based images and gets rid of all artifacts from compressing or enlarging a graphic. Below is an example:

Before	After

It's free and there's no download. Pretty cool!

MS Quackery

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:38:55 GMT

A good article on MS "Quackery". Be aware that there are no cures for MS (yet). Anyone that says there is a cure is lying and/or preying on your vulnerabilities. Here's the article: http://www.mscaregiver.com/2007/10/23/multiple-sclerosis-quackery/