Software Development

I'm a little pissed at myself because I missed an opportunity to become the webmaster for my chapter's web site. I didn't even know they were looking. Why is this my fault then? Because when I joined I told myself that I should let them know that I am a developer and offered my services should they need anything. I didn't do it. I should still send them an email and let them know that I'm available should they need any help or any other software.

Kari and I are going to start a design company. We've talked about it for a while but have never really done anything about it. Well, it's time to get our butts in gear. We talked today for a bit and it's a go. We'll do web and print design, logos, etc.,  and hopefully some programming. Now we need a name, domain name, web site, logo, and business cards. Oh yeah, and customers! Stay tuned.

I created a maintenance plan for our warehouse management system SQL Server database that included a rebuild of the indexes on all the tables. All went well except that the size of the database file just happened to triple after my plan ran! Not good. Since I'm learning to be a DBA by the seat of my pants it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Before implementing the plan, I spent a lot of time researching the correct way to rebuild the indexes. I wanted to make sure we were doing things the way they should...

Well my first week at Belle Tire is over. I have to say that I really think I'm going to like it there (fingers crossed!). It's pretty laid back and I can pretty much make my own hours. So far, I've been going in early so I can leave early. I was home by 5:00 every day last week and that was sweet! Another thing that we don't do there that I'm really happy about is keep track of our time. I know that sounds like a trivial item but at my last employer we had to track EVERY 15 MINUTES...

My friend and former co-worker has started blogging. He started a technology company named Hybrid Technology and Training Partners (HTTP for short) after leaving The Solutions Group where we both worked. So far, most, if not all of his posts are about the daily activities and growth of his business. I read nearly all of the posts today and I have to say it was pretty interesting. It doesn't hurt that Jeff has an incredible vocabulary and is quite the wordsmith. Anyway, Jeff does some great work and will treat you right. You should give him a call if you have...

My very good friend, and the person who got me my current job, was fired today. Not only that, but the long time number 2 man turned in his resignation today. Things have not been good for a while at the office. Cash flow is tight. The direction of the company has changed since I hired in. The project list is short and not very interesting. Interesting to me anyway. The weird thing about Ronda getting fired is that she said it happened right in the middle of a meeting! Like it was something that just occurred to the owner! I'm sure...

The A List Apart Web Design Survey that is. Not that I would call myself a "web designer" but I do create, design (a little, mostly I ask my daughter for help), and code various web sites. You should take it too!

I don’t know about you, but I use my debit card for pretty much everything and also pay all my bills online using online banking. The last book of checks I went through lasted me over a year and outside of a couple other things, the only checks I ever write are for bowling and my stock club. Because I rarely use my checkbook I don’t record any of my transactions in the check register so I never know how much money I have left in my account. Yeah, I can always go online and check my balance there, but...

This is kinda weird. I'm building a web application in ASP.Net 2.0 and I want to put a CheckBox control in a TableCell object. Should be pretty straight forward. Simply create the checkbox, set its properties, and add it to the TableCell's Controls collection. I run the app and the checkbox is not showing up. What's up with that? Stepping through the code, I can see the checkbox in the TableCell's Controls collection right after I add it, but after I set some properties on the TableCell and add it to the TableRow object, the checkbox isn't in the collection. I...

Why doesn't the image in this post (the one right below) float left like the image in this post? Is this a SubText thing? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I've tried. I have really, really tried to layout web pages without tables. I can't do it. I suck at it. And, it takes me longer to get the layout right than it does to create the page content and the code behind. So I give up. I will however do the following... I will use the very minimum number of tables as I can to do the layout - usually all I need is one I will continue to try and do “tableless“ layout but I can't spend hours and hours on it I will learn as much as I can about CSS and...

Here's a really good post from Kathy Kam on the .Net BCL Team that covers a lot of different things you can do with string.Format. Update: Formatting Dates from Kathy Kam. Update: And yet another great reference post.

I learned some new words today. Folksonomy. Tags. Social Software. Between these and AJAX and ASP.Net 2.0 and C# 2.0 and VS.Net 2005 and SQL Server 2005 and these and who knows what else... When do I live? When do I sleep? Where do I put all this information? My brain is about full now.

What great .Net developers ought to know

Just a note to myself that I moved my blog over to SQL Server 2005 today. Keep your fingers crossed.

Friday I moved my stock club web site from MSDE to SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. It was realitively painless except that I had to uninstall the SQL 2000 tools that I had on my computer. The new Server Management tool is pretty cool and it only took a short time to get up and running with it. I was really surprised that I had to do virtually nothing to the code when it ran against the new database except change the server name in the connection string. That was pretty awesome. Now for the bad news. Since the install for...

Can anyone recommend a good book for getting started with Ajax?

Well, day three is in the books at the new job and I am absolutely loving it! I'm getting along great with everyone and already loving what I am doing! Heh, I've only been there three days and they've already bought me lunch twice! I should probably explain. The have a couple of traditions where they buy lunch: on a new employee's first day, and on an employee's birthday. Well, my first day was last Monday and my birthday was yesterday! Timing is everything right? Today I worked on one of our client's ASP.Net web application and created a new page. It...

On this Thanksgiving Eve of 2005, I am thankful for... my wife - after 26 years, the fire still burns my kids - they are so awesome my sisters - we are all we've got my in-laws - there are none better my friends from NW - a great bunch of guys and gals who are going through some tough times right now The Solutions Group - who you say? The Solutions Group, my new employer!!! Yes, I have a new job! As of next Monday, the 28th of November, 2005, I will be doing software development for The Solutions Group in Ann...

Ever since I read about Ruby and Watir on my friend Jeff's blog, I have been fascinated by them. Ruby is an awesome language and Watir is just too cool. It does things that other companies (ie. IBM/Rational, Mercury, Segue, etal) charge thousands and thousands of dollars a seat for. Anyway, now that I'm gettin' the hang of Ruby and Watir, I'm starting to automate everything I do on the web. Even the simple things like logging in to web sites, searches, you name it. I can't be doin' all those mouse clicks and typing and stuff. Now it's one click...

I love watching the Channel9 videos. These two are my absolute favorites. To me, they are incredibly inspiring. I've watched them twice this year and I'm sure I'll watch them again. I like when she mentions that “we have a lot of really smart people here [at Microsoft]“. Suzanne Cook is definitely one of them. Suzanne Cook - Developing the CLR Part I Suzanne Cook - Developing the CLR Part II

SDE/T stands for “Software Development Engineer in Test” which is an automated testing position at Microsoft. I really like this post (and most everything else The Braidy Tester has to say!) that describes what a great SDE/T is. These are precisely the reasons why I got into testing in the first place. That and to move into a developer position. Would I make a great SDE/T? I think in time I would come close. Tell me why I left testing again?

I started out in the IT field as a software tester and testing software is still very near and dear to my heart. Hell, I may even go back into it one day. It really is a great profession! That said, I found this link to an article at Sticky Minds on Sara Ford's blog. Sara is a tester at Microsoft. It's a collection of slogans about testing software that would be suitable for bumper stickers. It's written by Harry Robinson who I believe, also works for Microsoft. Pretty clever if you ask me. Some of my favorites are... A good tester has the heart...

Well, tonight I was all excited because I downloaded and installed Visual C# Express and Visual Web Developer Express to my home computer. I don't have VisualStudio so I always had to use my work computer whenever I wanted to do some development at home. Unfortunately once I installed them, all my other .Net applications didn't work right! It was really kinda weird because some “parts” of the applications worked and others didn't. For example, when I tried to load my blog in the browser it would always go to the aggregation page. Or when I tried my nGallery application, the...