Stop the HighDef Madness

Ok, I am well aware that it is Xmas and the retailers are doing whatever they can to stir the feeding frenzy of consumerism that passes itself off as "Christmas giving." But the whole push to digital TV and HighDef schtuff has officially gone too fucking far with this: http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6565742.html?nid=4262

South Park in High Def? The show is intentionally crappy animation with paper cuts-outs and stop-action animation. Man, get a 42" HD flat panel and you'll do ANYTHING to justify the "need" for it. Worse than crack.

But then, I'm just jealous.

Keep the teeth, Santa. I want trains and Legos.

So B lost his second tooth yesterday. He lost the first one about a week ago. So now he is missing his two front lower teeth. Seems like were all set up for some sort of Leave_It_To_Beaver era Christmas card photo. But B doesn't need to limit he wish list with Santa to just two front teeth; he has the adult teeth already halfway in.

Parenthood is such a funny drug - doing things such as making you proud of a ubiquitous biological process.

So what is the state of the Tooth Fairy economy, you ask? B wanted to keep his first tooth so we told him to leave a note for the T.F. and expect that the absence of a tooth would mean no payment. "She" (cuz all T.F's are female, right?) left him a dollar coin for getting the first tooth out by himself (no string tied to a door knob) and told him the next tooth would also get a discounted payment. For the second he rec'd a five spot. WTF! I think I got a quarter per tooth, on average. Man we parents of singles are spoilers. Shame on the Tooth Fairy.

DSD

The sticky state of sperm warfare

I remember many years ago a female friend told me that human ejaculate gets extra viscous upon release, and then 18 minutes later becomes more fluid. Stumbled across this and now I understand why she was right.

Code Charge Studio and helping hands for weary Web app developers.

So for the last two weeks I've been evaluating (aka trying to build something that works) a RAD tool for Web apps. Code Charge Studio 4 is a fine tool for rapidily spitting out pleasant looking Web sites for CRUD actions on database driven sites. It provides a very simple front-end for building the main structure of the app, but generates readily manipulatible code (I'm having it output C# ASP.NET but it also does PHP, Java, "classic" ASP). In between it provides a way to "reach through" the IDE tools and easily add custom code that won't get overwritten by the CCS code generator. That is about as much as I've gone behind the curtain, but I have found it much easier to learn for the fairly common features for a Web front-end for a database application than I have with MS Visual Studio. I suspect as I get more skilled with the CCS tool and C#/ASP.NET, I'll reach more often for the more advanced powers of VS2005/2008. But for now, CCS has helped me get some stuff off my to-do plate quicker than I could have with my current VS2005 skills AND it has helped me advance my C# skills from reverse engineering the code it outputs. Thumbs Up.

Andrew Lahde - So long and thanks for all the $$$$

Well here is one person who seems to have ethically made his millions in the recent sub-prime boom and bust. I wish I could meet this guy and say thank you for this goodbye letter.

No Obama/Biden gushing here...

Though my family is elated that THEIR candidates walked away with the election. I myself am once again scratching my head regarding the electoral college. I tend to be biased towards the founding fathers when the issue is debatable (e.g. the age requirements for President, US Senator) and idealistically libertarian when it isn't (e.g. slavery is NOT tolerable - period). With the popular vote for President much closer than the electoral college results - O=53% of the votes cast for O or M, and M = 47%, but, 349 to 147 electoral votes (0=70%, M=30%) - it just seems strange. Not as bad as 2000 with the popular vote and electoral college at odds, though. Nonetheless, I admit to being discomforted by yet another apples to oranges oddity but I'll go with the founding fathers' design...for now. Oh, and let's not forget the "third-party" candidates' votes. E.g. My candidate - Bob Barr with maybe 0.4% of the popular vote.

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

- Pogo

So I've spent the last two days going crazy trying to get Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services working on my laptop. I was getting an ASP.NET error when I tried to hit the report server's Web user interface (i.e. http://localhost/Reports). My error (for the datasphere search engines) was along the lines of:

Server Error in '/Reports'
Application.

Parser Error

Description: An error occurred during the parsing of a resource
required to service this request. Please review the following specific parse
error details and modify your source file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: Could not load type
'Microsoft.ReportingServices.UI.GlobalApp'.

Source Error:
Line 1: <%@ Application Codebehind="Global.asax.cs" Inherits="Microsoft.ReportingServices.UI.GlobalApp" %>

Source File: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL
Server\MSSQL.3\Reporting Services\ReportManager\global.asax

Line: 1

Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework
Version:2.....

After much grasping at thin straws from the short list of online references to this error, and getting nowhere, I had gone so far as to uninstall and re-install MSSQL Server 2005 and IIS twice. I then spent a ton of time:

1. Running Process Monitor to see if file or registry ACLs were preventing something from getting to what it needed.
2. Modifying ACLs on the ASPNET temporary files folder.
3. Modifying ACLs on the Report Manager folder.
4. Modifying Local Security Policy settings.
5. Comparing a working SSRS install on a W2K3 Server machine.
6. Copying SSRS files from a working machine.
7. Repeatedly running aspnet_regiis with various parameters
8. Playing with the GAC trying to get my stupid laptop to "understand" the parent assembly (i.e. ReportingServicesWebUserInterface.dll) it couldn't seem to find.
9. Swearing, begging, giving up, swearing some more.

Then, in the fashion such successful epiphanies seem to come in - i.e. randomly, sans connection to proceeding efforts - I remembered that on some work laptops we had had problems with Mortgage Cadence Orchestrator installs and had ended up modifying the machine Web.Config file (i.e. C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\Web.Config) to remove a line that was causing MCO to fail to launch.


<configuration>
blahblahblah...
<system.web>
<authorization>
blahblahblah...
</authorization>

<browsercaps>
blahblahblah...
</browsercaps>

<clienttargets>
blahblahblah...
</clienttargets>

<assemblies>
blahblahblah...
<add assembly="*">
blahblahblah...
</assemblies>
blahblahblah...

This wildcard directive to load all assemblies in the Web application's folder caused the MCO app to try and load non-.NET DLL files that were in the MCO app folder. I never heard a good explanation as to why this caused problems on only some consultants' laptops. Regardless, our "quick-fix" to circumvent that problem was to delete that wildcard line in the machine's Web.config file (this was known as the "Web.config line 61 wildcard problem"). Yet, now when I returned that line to the laptop's Web.Config file - SHAZAM! - the report server started working. Two days gone due to short-routing around a problem many months ago. Life at times seems nothing but dealing with the unintended consequences of previous actions/decisions...and I'm talking not just about I.T., parenting, or rescued turtles.

Timmy the Transplanted Turtle

So we have a new turtle at our house. B named him Timmy. Our neighbor Tim found the turtle trying to sneak into his house and called us assuming it was our lost turtle. After a week of waiting for somebody to call on the posted "Found Turtle" signs, my son was pretty set on keeping the turtle. So when we rec'd a phone call from the owner asking about his lost turtle, B was pretty upset. Fortunately (or so it seemed at the time), the owner was very generous and told us that as he had another turtle and had only owned the lost one for a few weeks before it snuck away, he thought it would be best if we kept him. B was thrilled.

Now after $200 at the vet (as Mer doesn't do reptiles - even turtles like Timmy) plus God know how much time online learning about box turtles, and around $250 in turtle cage stuff (e.g. heaters, UV light, food bowls, water bowl, hide, etc) we have the latest addition to the family.

He's actually quite fast and a much better climber than you'd expect from a turtle. Best of all? He doesn't bark or shit on the carpet.

Book Review (sorta): The Balanced Scorecard

So it appears I'm many years late to the KPI, Management Dashboard party. I recently finished reading "The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy Into Action" by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton. Man, what a slog. I read some pretty boring stuff (at least according to the wife) - e.g. Microsoft Press, Wrox, but this book was a real effort to finish. Not that the book is written poorly, just that the topic and their coverage of it is drawn-out and dry.

I guess the hardest part of reading the book was suppressing the constant "Duh!" that echoed in my head. Perhaps because this book and movement is over ten years old, the mindset is just a background perspective I have been unknowingly immersed in for years, thus taking it all for granted. Yet, the idea, and more importantly - the use of, running a business with a strategy that is widely understood by all employees, highly quantifiable, wider than quarterly financial metrics, and based on causal relationships that are reviewed and modified (including abandoned) still appears to be rare in the business world, IMNHO. I think that most businesses want to believe that they have a company strategy that tracks performance towards corporate goals and engenders a work culture of results=rewards, yet most organizations I've seen appear to be doing little more than speaking to that idea, and mostly making knee-jerk, short-term, reactionary moves generally based on paying the bills month to month.

I have a lot of respect for business owners, and I myself know how nervous I get when my income is erratic, so I can understand the natural tendency to struggle by month to month and not have the time/energy it takes to create and evangelize a Balanced Scorecard type of strategy. Yet this book and many more like it, seem to make a huge case for the efficacy of these more measured, groupwise systems. Hi Ho.

B turns six

So my son turned six yesterday. Damn do I feel old. But for the record, having such a wonderful son makes life that much more cherished and worthwhile, even if it does make the speed to the finish seem ten times faster.

Top 10 Ways to Get Yourself Fired

I rec'd this in a recent splurt. I've been guilty of all of these at one time or another. Right now, though, one and two are my critical defects. Anyway, here they are (according to JobSeekerWeekly.com)...


1. Failing to have a life plan - All very successful people have a clear life plan, whether memorized or actually written down. They create it, massage it, and refer to it often.

2. Not keeping your skill set current - The business landscape is ever-changing and there is more demand for jobs than supply. Not staying on par with colleagues and those vying for your job will be a death knell.

3. Failing to deliver results - Winners in business know that it's all about accountability. Those who harbor a sense of entitlement for simply having put forth effort, irrespective of the results of those efforts, are guaranteed to fall by the wayside.

4. Confusing efficiency with effectiveness - Those who think that communicating via e-mail replaces the need to actually talk with people around them fail to recognize the importance of personally connecting with others in today's highly automated and technological environment. Communicating in person whenever possible is imperative for success-seekers.

5. Believing that you are irreplaceable - There is no room for "divas" in the workplace. As soon as you convince yourself that you and only you can do the job "right", your star will surely start to fall.

6. Knowing all the answers - The old adage remains true: knowledge is power. Professing to know it all can readily stagnate a career. Winners remain unceasingly interested in learning new ideas and approaches.

7. Surrounding your self with "brown-nosers" - Losers like having people tell them how smart they are, whether or not it's true, while successful managers and other professionals accept and encourage intelligence and creativity in others.

8. Forgetting to give credit to others - Losers inappropriately take full credit for positive events despite the help or input received by others, while Winners give credit where credit is due. Losers inevitably reap what they sow.

9. Failing to self promote - Bragging is one thing, but letting colleagues throughout your industry know of your success through case studies, promotion bulletins, or other such tools is quite another. Losers often fail to recognize the importance of letting others know about their successes, or go about it in entirely the wrong way.

10. Losing perspective - Intuitive business people recognize that, despite their best attempts to do everything right, sometimes they approach roadblocks and need the advice and perspective of a respected friend, colleague or even a business coach. Those who fail to recognize their shortcomings are destined for the unemployment line.

Further thoughts on Thailand Travel/Tourism

So thoughts on the comments to the Thailand post...

I appreciate your honesty, Nicole. As mg's subsequent post implies, there is a certain expectation that REAL traveling is about the exploration and "purity" of the place you travel to. But how much of that assumption is propogated by marketers (e.g. REI, North Face, Patagonia) selling Urbanites $350 Gore-Tex rain jackets that will be lucky to see rain, let alone foreign rain.

But, mg, gotta say, part of me goes "No shit! You go! Everywhere we (first-world humans, not just Americans) go, we turn the place into a reflection of where we came from." But it is sort of the Heisenberg uncertainity principle of travel. I.e. by going somewhere to see how other people live, no matter how "pure" your intentions, you alter the behavior and lives of the people you visit. Isn't that only fair since most of us tour/travel with the intention of self-alteration (not to be confused with self-mutiliation while visiting WeWak, New Guinea)?

I always liked the David Lee Roth Land's Edge lyrics:

Now take the traveler and the tourist
The essential difference is
The traveler don't know where he's goin'
And the tourist don't know where he is
Small world till they lose your luggage, tho'

Yet, another part of me thinks it unfair to completely leave the "natives" out of the culpability calculation. This world's disparity of wealth makes it only reasonable for a guy in Thailand dragging fat-assed Russian tourists around in a rickshaw to dream of the day he has his own car (aka CO2-belching taxi) and strive to "re-distribute" some Russian rubles into his pocket of bhats?

That giant sucking sound.....

...is the Internet wasting your time.

Thanks to a splurt-buddy, I just stumbled into a teasing theory of McCain not being a legal citizen constitutionally qualified to be US president. It started with an email splurt regarding Obama's citizenship status, and from there into the McCain stuff and ever deeper into the Obama non-citizenship charges. Well, since Senators Clinton and Obama have already passed judgment on McCain's legitimacy, that leaves Obama for me to decide on. You can't totally trust anything you read on the Internet (or anywhere for that matter), but I think this will be good enough for me to lay the Obama theory in the bullshit category.

But, it isn't any worry of their Constitutional legitimacy that prevents me from voting for either of those two, it's the reality of the evisceration either of them will be doing to the Constitution come 1/20/2009 and beyond.

Federal Healthcare - The customer service of the TSA, the cost-control-management of the Department of Defense, and the efficacy of FEMA.

Clever, introspective, and like all "we" bloggers, self-indulgent

http://clevergirlgoesblog.blogspot.com/

"Individuated Publications?" Puh-LeeZ!!

Individuated Newspapers?



I like having a good PAPER periodical in hand during each shitI take, but the trend of electronic publishing compared to paper publishing makes this look too little too late in my never humble opinion (IMNHO).



How 'bout I just use my news page on Google News and read it on my iPhone (which has the nice advantage of still working when some dumbass turns the bathroom light off when he exits and I'm still in the stall). Oh, and these should be banned from bathrooms if they can't sense stall occupants. (Note to self: Put that on the When-I-Become-World-wide-Dictator Legislation List.)

Thailand Vacation Anyone?

Stumbled on mentions of Koh Samet (aka Koh Samed). Sounds relaxing, though a bit of a jog to get there.



Though after turning 40 and going on my first all-inclusive resort vacation, I fear I'm turning into an ugly American (e.g. "Where the fuck is the Starbucks?) not that interested in negotiating the price of a rickshaw ride with people who make in a year what I earn in a week. But I haven't aged enough to not still be able to entertain romantic, idealistic thoughts of time with the honey on a secluded beach with only 8 hours of electricity a day ("Oh, my how we are roughing it, dear!").



So, anybody got thoughts on Inclusive versus backworlds basic seclcusion, Mexico/Caribbean v. Asia v. ??

Who owns Coward Yellow?

" 'Post-It' and the color canary yellow are trademarks of 3M."

Ok, as a big "L" libertarian I'm all for the concept of intellectual property but it's time to confess my discomfort with the ownership of colors, naturally occuring gene sequences, and immortal Disney characters.

"While the banks get fat

And the poor stay poor

And the rich get rich

And the cops get paid

To look away

As the one percent rules America"

Adobe Flex

Previously posted to 3t internal blog:

So Nicole's husband (John) is a user of Adobe Flex. She was talking about his efforts (ok, his and the WIFE's efforts) in the Flex developer community which made me curious. I didn't realize that this is an outgrowth (actually a rebranding post-redevelopment) of Macromedia's Flex Data Services. I know, Duh!, right?

Anyway, this looks really cool. Check out this quick demo video.

The 3.0 version looks to have greatly simplified the required component stack compared to the software needed back in 2004 for v1.0.

When you couple the simple set-up app the guy builds in the video with an SQL Server web service endpoint serving up xml data, you could build nice looking Web apps that are visible only as a Flash movie to external users. I'd be curioius to hear what the Big Tree developers think of this software compared to using MS products such as ASP.NET + AJAX (Atlas?) and Silverlilght.

9/11

Oops, it's noon and I haven't put the flag up yet. Shame!

NASA Remembers

"The world changed today. What I say or do is very minor compared to the significance of what happened to our country today when it was attacked." So said Expedition 3 Commander Frank L. Culbertson, upon learning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center.
This image is one of a series taken that day of metropolitan New York City by the International Space Station's Expedition 3 crew that shows a plume of smoke rising from the Manhattan skyline.
Upon further reflection, Commander Culbertson said, "It's horrible to see smoke pouring from wounds in your own country from such a fantastic vantage point. The dichotomy of being on a spacecraft dedicated to improving life on the earth and watching life being destroyed by such willful, terrible acts is jolting to the psyche, no matter who you are."
Image credit: NASA

Jumping Ship...sort of.

So my experiment in "daily" blogging has been mostly successful. But since I wasn't focusing on direct work-at-hand items on my 3t internal blog and occasionally felt like I needed to refrain from various comments due to the host of that blog (i.e. my employer), I've decided it's time to step out and find purer parchment.