The GeekWithin

Are we all phony?

2011-08-19T07:30:00.002-04:00

In response to an article by Scott Hanselman, I must say I completely agree that I too am a phony. You should take the time and read it here.

Management Awakening

2011-08-01T20:24:00.005-04:00

It has been sometime since I tried the blogging route and felt it was time for a new awakening. The topics will be within the realm of IT, but as I have taken on a management role in recent months I plan to focus on leadership and growth.

Don't worry, there will be plenty of opportunities for Star Wars, technology, and my other passion of music.

Let's see where this goes!

What happened in to the posts?

2008-05-27T09:36:00.001-04:00

Since I am moving my blog back to Blogger, I will be adding posts from my now defunct blog here, but setting the published date to its original. Not sure how that will affect feed readers, guess we will see.

Blog Is Moving!!! - Or Not

2006-05-10T15:13:00.004-04:00

*** UPDATE! ***

Consider my blog "unmoved" as of now. I have been silent the past year due to offline family busyness, but it is time to attend TechEd 2008!

I have taken down my domain for now, so my posting will be back on Blogger for the time being.

------------------------------------------------------

Well, I am extremely excited to announce that I am moving this blog off of Blogger to my own hosted site.

This innovation came about with the awesome open-source .Net blog implementation named dasBlog. Seeing as my main profession is .Net coding I felt it was important to host my blog on a code base I can modify and extend without a problem. To that end, stay tuned for my future posts on dasBlog mods I have implemented.

The new blog is located at http://www.geekwithin.net/ and has a new RSS feed associated with it, just check the side bar.

While I was able to write some code to transfer my Blogger posts to the new system, I am still working on moving comments from Haloscan. We'll see if that works.

See you at the new site!

Search Engine Fairness

2006-05-02T07:06:00.000-04:00

Wow. I had thought that Google was big enough that it had no fear of Microsoft, but apparently I was wrong. According to the Reg Developer Google has complained to European Union watch dogs stating that it is unfair that the new search dialog in IE7 hits MSN. There main assertion is that it is difficult to change, while Microsoft has an equal share of documents showing how easy it is to change.

Why is this an issue for Google? I don't understand what they have to fear seeing as EVERYONE uses their site for searching. Have to watch to see how this plays out.

Microsoft Goodwill

2006-04-20T14:59:00.000-04:00

In an article at the Reg Developer (Microsoft extends Visual Studio handout program) Gavin Clarke reports that Microsoft has decided that the express versions of both Visual Studio 2005 and SQL 2005 will not cost anything. Initially, the plan was to offer them for free to get people interested and then to start charging for them.

To me, this is a good thing and will help generate more interest in Microsoft's programming languages. There is a steep price to pay to get legitimate copies of Visual Studio and many who may wish to give it ago don't have access to it via a corporate job. As more people give it a try they will find out how good Microsoft .NET technologies are.

Personally, I plan to get a copy for my ten year old son and his friend. This summer I am starting him on the path to programming/networking/hardware excellence. He doesn't have a sports interest, but his ability with computers has impressed me... I can't wait to see how he does.

Blog Ministry Post - Prayer Journal

2006-04-17T07:43:00.000-04:00

Quicklink to my post at Blog Ministry discussing how a prayer journal can enhance your prayer life.

Top Job In America

2006-04-14T11:53:00.000-04:00

Well, now isn't that cool. It seems that I am one of the luckiest employees around in that my job is the #1 top job in America according to MONEY Magazine.

That will teach me to complain.

Windows + Macintosh = WinMac

2006-04-14T07:34:00.000-04:00

I can't help but laugh out loud at the ignorance of Mac owners. I am sure that there are still some die-hard Mac fans out there, and I applaud you for your devotion.

WATYF has written a great post over at MusicalNerdery.com about the ability to load Windows XP on to the new Intel based Mac hardware. For anyone who has kept up with or been involved in the whole "Microsoft versus Mac" debate, it makes for a great laugh.

Microsoft Atlas

2006-04-14T07:22:00.000-04:00

Well, last month Microsoft issued a pre-release of a product called Atlas and just a couple of days ago they have updated the pre-release with more controls.

For those of you were aren't familiar with it, Atlas is Microsoft's development kit for AJAX. That's right, another framework to help out the lowly developer. Of course, this one is bent to working well with a Microsoft ASP.Net backend, but that is to be expected.

You can check out the features and download the pre-release at http://atlas.asp.net and read what the Reg Developer had to say here.

.NET Helper Tools

2006-04-12T10:55:00.000-04:00

A coworker of mine recently pointed me at an article on MSDN by James Avery that lists the Ten Must Have Tools For Developers.

Wow. This is an awesome resource. Mr. Avery does a bang up job in describing why these tools are great and provides links to them all. On top of that, they are all freely available (with the exception of CodeSmith) and fill some important functions. Take a look!

Where Art Thou, O Rational

2006-04-12T09:43:00.000-04:00

Having just read an article on the Reg Developer, I am struck by their question of what has happened to the once great company, and product, of Rational. For the company that created UML and produced the best, if not most expensive, software tools for design applications they have been suprisingly silent. Is this IBM's doing?

In case you didn't know, IBM bought Rational Software about two years ago. It was said, jokingly, at the time that IBM bought Rational because it was cheaper to buy the company than to purchase the licenses they needed for the software suite. It is expensive.

The article initially speculates that IBM is planning on replacing the Rational tools with others that it has developed, but the marketing manager for the Rational division disputes it.

Either way, Rational is as good as dead if they don't get out there and get visibility. Only time will tell.

Whirlwind of Life

2006-04-07T06:15:00.000-04:00

Wow, what a busy few weeks. I must apologize for the significant delay since my last posting, there has been so much competing for my time that the blog lost. From college final exams (passed!) to project due dates at work, and not to mention an ISP change at home that has been less than perfect... whew. Now I just need to catch up on the technology news and let you know what I think of it!

History of Delphi

2006-03-09T07:39:00.000-05:00

You will notice that I have a soft spot in my heart for Delphi. It was my first experience with good UI design as well as OOP concepts. The Reg Developer has an article, written in an Old Testament biblical (King James) manner, that lays out the slow descent of Delphi.

Good-bye my friend.

Inside Out

2006-03-09T07:27:00.000-05:00

My friend Joe at d3 eMinistry found one of those personality quizes, this one from Personal DNA, and passed it on. Since I know he looks at things from a development standpoint, I checked it out. Wow. What a cool interface. I would have to say it was the most professional personality survey I have encountered. I enjoyed their usage of Flash without making it look like Flash was used.

My results are here.

Blog Ministry Post - A Life Of Prayer

2006-02-28T13:22:00.000-05:00

Quicklink to my post at Blog Ministry discussing our prayer life and providing some practical techniques for improving it.

Blog Ministry Post - Slumbering

2006-02-28T13:20:00.000-05:00

Quicklink to my post at Blog Ministry dealing with issues raised while reading Ted Dekker's book "The Slumbering of Christianity."

Extendability and Blog Ministry

2006-02-28T13:02:00.000-05:00

An awesome opportunity has been granted me recently - I am now a guest blogger at Blog Ministry.

What does this mean?

Well, for one thing, I will now have an opportunity to reach more people. Blog Ministry has created a following that I have not achieved yet.

Another thing is that while I have focused this blog on technology and software development, my new opportunity will be more ministry with technology based postings.

Anyway, I will be posting links to Blog Ministry as I contribute.

Web 2.0 Takes A Hit

2006-02-24T07:23:00.000-05:00

Everyday I see examples as to how the U.S. patent process is broken, and today is no different. It seems a company has gone and received a patent for "rich-media applications via the internet".

Uh, is there any intelligent life at the patent office?

This means most of the Web 2.0 is in trouble while even well known technologies could be affected, such as Flash, Flex, Java, AJAX, and XAML. Not to worry though, the company with this newly minted patent, Balthaser Online, is generously offering to provide licenses.

Borland's Bad Idea Becoming Permanent

2006-02-24T07:18:00.000-05:00

Sigh. In my previous post I mentioned how Borland is getting out of the development IDE business. This means goodbye to JBuilder and Delphi. I lamented that this is an idea that should be corrected much like their failed name change.

According to the Reg Developer it looking final. Now Sun and REAL are fighting over developers who used Borland tools and want them using theirs.

The end of an era is at hand.

Microsoft Office 2007

2006-02-21T08:08:00.000-05:00

Have you heard about the new version breakout? Here are the three low-end packages:

Microsoft Office Basic 2007 ($ N/A)
Includes:
- Microsoft Office Excel 2007
- Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
- Microsoft Office Word 2007

Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 ($149)
Includes:
- Microsoft Office Excel 2007
- Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
- Microsoft Office Word 2007
- Microsoft Office OneNote 2007

Microsoft Office Standard 2007 ($399)
Includes:
- Microsoft Office Excel 2007
- Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
- Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
- Microsoft Office Word 2007

Do you see it?!? Both the lowest package (Basic) and the Standard addition include Outlook, but the Home edition does not! This, to me, is outragious as Outlook is my tool of choice for email. To make matters worse, you can't just buy the Basic edition, it is intended to be OEM distributed.

I know many of you are anti-MS and probably don't care, but I have found Outlook to be a suprisingly stable mail client. The built-in security is fairly decent and the add-ons I have installed make it easy to manage junk mail. Why would they do this? Does anyone know the reasoning behind this decision? To buy Outlook seperately it will cost $109, which would bring the combination up to $258.

On top of all this, there isn't even an upgrade price available for the lower packages. Sheesh.

Borland's Folly

2006-02-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

Have you heard about the recent announcement made by Borland? They have decided to drop all involvement in IDE production and focus more as a provider of tools that will help optimize code. Why is this important? It means that Borland Delphi is going away, and is a sad day for the faithful who have stuck it out.

I am a Delphi programmer and find it superior to almost all other IDE's I have used. They have always been at the top of the stack and they have legions of developers who love their product. Their compiler has always been the fastest on the market, and their forward thinking caused them to move to Object Oriented Design well before products like Visual Basic.

Let's just hope this is a bad idea that will be corrected.

Get It Done Yesterday

2006-02-21T07:54:00.000-05:00

As I was writing my last post, it occurred to me that some businesses have come up with solutions to the so called "development timeline creep" - they require it to be done yesterday.

I ran into this at my last job where we had to produce a software build weekly. It didn't matter if the add-on or new feature might require more meetings to define it, in the end we were expected to provide a solution yesterday. Not.

There are other things that suffer in that sort of environment, such as: documentation, object reuse, code redundancy, and bugs. We had an one entire person dedicated to fixing bugs and they were busy!

I am sure there has to be a happy medium out there. It is important to be able to properly design software as well as new features. Additionally, it is important to provide value for each dollar a customer commits to a project. Truly, as professionals our job should be to make the customers happy and hopefully gain additional work due to our ability to get the job done, not because we never finished or embedded too many bugs.

Professionals Wanted

2006-02-21T07:44:00.000-05:00

Recently I read an article on Reg Developer that I completely agree with.

David Putman starts out by describing a process I have used many times: a Kanban system. This is where you break your project down in to small segments, write it on index cards, and post on a wall. As developers work through the project they take the index cards and move them from a waiting section to an in progress section, and finally to a finished section. This not only provides you an "at a glance" project update, but it also ensures you have not missed anything.

Mr. Putman's issue is in getting developers to break the project down and use the system. His experience is that developers rebel and cry "but I'm a professional" and state they do not need to be "micro" managed. He then exposes the unsavory side of software development: no one knows or is willing to commit to a specified timeline, unless of course it provides twice the amount of time it may need. I have seen this as both a customer and a consultant. It is why the cost of custom development is so expensive.

An arguement Mr. Putman puts forth in the article is that other professions are required to provide time and cost estimates up front, so why not those who are completing a development project? I must admit, this is an area that is not given any thought and one that developers would benefit some training in.

Belated Valentines

2006-02-21T07:41:00.000-05:00

If you don't already read the d3 Ministries blog, then you missed an awesome post on Geek Romance. Give it a read and you'll wonder if he was reading your mind.