The MSDN Developer Conference is coming to a city near you (hopefully!) And it's only $99.00!
http://www.msdndevcon.com/pages/start.aspx
It'll be in Atlanta on December 16, 2008.
http://www.msdndevcon.com/pages/Atlanta.aspx
Wow!!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553
I am not a comic or cartoon fan, per se; but I do have a favorite of each. My favorite comic, of course, is Dilbert; I can totally relate to that guy when it comes to office politics (not when it comes to his personal life.)
My favorite cartoon is not even on TV. His name is Strong Bad, and the dude is absolutely hilarious to me!! I'm not going to try to explain to you who is and why he has the name of Strong Bad - it is a very painful process; I'll just say that either you'll get him or you won't (like my wife!) Anyway, the storyline is that he answers real e-mails from people (sometimes even outside the country), usually accompanied by some mischief! I usually check in about every other month or so, and I noticed that he is celebrating e-mail #200.
You da man, SB!
This week, Google has unveiled their new web browser. Google Chrome. I've been using it since yesterday, and here's my two cents:
- If you're a fan of Google way of designing application interfaces (simple, clean, uncluttered, fast, and yet powerful), then you'll like Google Chrome. You've got tabs, helpful hints that make finding sites easy, and all the basic features you'd get from IE or Firefox without the options that you don't need. I love how you can click and drag a tab out and turn it into its own window. That's hot!
- There were early complaints about the EULA, which stated they could freely track ALL of your browsing and personal info. As of today, that is no longer the case.
- Silverlight 2 applications are not working properly, and sometimes not at all (like for me!) Flash appears to work AFTER you reinstall it. I find it hard to believe that no one at Google thought it would be a good idea to test for this! I consider this an "air ball".
- I thought for sure that Chrome would be bogged down with links to their other Google applications and that they have an option for you to login with your Google account. Not so! That's a big "and one" in my book.
- More info about Chrome that I read from Shawn Wildermuth.
Over all, this isn't a bad first swing at a web browser. I know it will improve in the future. Only time will tell if it's gonna be a IE killer; but I'd say for now everyone safe for a while. That being said, I like it enough to continue using it - kinda diggin' the new browser history page.
One of the students from my Philly 512 class gave me permission to post her cool YouTube video. She's from Tulsa, OK; and is a ice skater when she's not programming. Anyway, after our class was over, she was able to stay the weekend to enjoy as much of Philadelphia as possible, took a bunch of pictures and put 'em all together in this YouTube video set to music. You'll see me in two slides: in the class picture, and at Reading Terminal Market where we had our first authentic Philly cheese steak (but don't blink or you'll miss me!) Hope you enjoy these beautiful pictures of Philly as much as I did.
The term "separation of concerns" is something I've been thinking a lot about lately as it relates to programming. I was reminded of how important it is when I had to troubleshoot an method with over 300 lines of code that performed about 8-10 tasks. This would have been so much better if it were modularized into 8-10 methods, thus separating each concern (or task); this means I probably would have only had to deal maybe 15-20 lines of code. As it was, I ended up breaking up into about 4 methods, just so I could get my head around it.
As the Wikipedia definition in suggests in the link above, as well in this post, separation of concerns can also apply to your life. Instead of dealing with life's challenges all at once, it's always good to separate them by your roles or goals. Whether it's programming or life, doing this helps to ensure that a failure in one area doesn't lead to the entire thing failing. For example, if you're not very productive at work because you have personal problems, you have done a poor job at separating your concerns. If you're playing poor defense because you can't make a shot offensively, same thing. The inability to perform one task should not prevent the other pieces of an application from working. Right?
What I'm wondering is if you can ever have too much separation of concerns. Or maybe a better question is if there's ever a point where further separation won't hurt, but is also pointless. I have four children; if one of them has a problem with lying, it would not be fair to assume that all of them lie. That's a good separation, right. But what concerns do I draw from the one child being a liar? In fact, a parent would probably ask the child in anger, "Why did you lie to me?" And what's the answer we always get .... "I dunno." It makes us more angry; but sooner or later we realize that he/she is probably right. It doesn't matter why, we just need to find a way to make sure they think twice before he/she does it again.
I could have spent the time breaking that 300 lines of code into 8-10 methods (maybe even more.) But I think we need to ask ourselves the reason for doing so; and if the only reason is for the sake of separating concerns, I don't think that's a good enough. Sometimes, perhaps we should ask if there's a good reason to keep lines of code together; if you can think of one, it's time to re-factor it. I think separating with purpose is a much more responsible approach than blinding separating every chance we get. However, what is even more irresponsible is not to separate them at all.
I can't count the number of news channels that cover politics; multiplied by the number of shows on each channel that cover them. Some are better than others, of course; and most of them have some very cool graphics to show poll and voting results. With Tim Russert it was different. I don't follow politics as much as I should (SportsCenter usually wins out!); but whenever Tim Russert was talkin' politics, my eyes were always glued to the TV. I could listen to him for hours; and during the elections, I always did.
His gift was being able to paint an easy-to-understand picture of political topics that are very complex and usually very boring. And in most cases, he did it without the fancy-dancy graphics. But when he needed a visual aid, the whiteboard was all he needed! I don't think there's a lot of people in the world that can pull off. But Tim could, because of all of the other intangibles that he had.
Florida - Florida - Florida!
Many Americans have expressed their loss that Tim Russert will no longer appear on Meet the Press, or the Today Show, or be a part of this important presidential campaign. One of those comments even came from "OBAMA_08", who said this:
"I am very shocked and saddened. Tim was The Best - period.
He worked 50+ hours every week just reseraching his guest for the upcoming Meet The Press. He was pointed but never rude. He was respectful of his guests but he pushed for the truth as a good journalist should.
Tim was in my living room electroniclly so much it was almost like he was family. I felt like I have lost a good friend even though I never met him.
God Bless his family and friends and know he has millions of fans like me that will miss him dearly."
We love you, Tim. See you when we get there.
One thing I really love about the ASP.NET community of developers (as well as the development community in general) is how we share things with each other for free. I love free stuff! Some of the best things in life are free; and the Internet is no different - especially now.
I recently added another website to my regularly used bookmarks - The Daily Plate. It's a free service that allows me to log my meals and my workouts with easy to use tools that tell me caloric intake, protein, sugars, carbs, etc, as well as how many calories I've burned. And based on my current weight, it can even tell me how calories I have left to eat if I want to lose 2 pounds this week. Very cool.
My brother, Sebastian, and I have both created personal family portals that our families use to maintain calendars, chores, blogs, photos, etc. Once our friends saw my brother's portal, they all asked how they could get one; so he reprogrammed it so others could sign-up to get one. It's called HouseholdPages.com. At first, he was going to do the free trial thing (like we used to do back in the day, which didn't work!); but I was able to convince him to do a completely free offering. After 6 months or so, he has 450+ families signed up. He has since upgraded the site with the ability to invite friends and extended family members with read-only access. The possibilities are endless!
If you're a developer that has built something based on a personal need of yours, I guarantee that someone else in the world needs the same service. But unless you a lot of due diligence, don't expect to start pulling in huge bucks right off the bat. People like me want FREE first; then if I can't live without it, I'll consider whatever premium services you have. Even without premium offerings, there are many creative ways to make money from your free offerings (including pay per click ads, sponsorship, etc.)
Here's some other free sites that I can't do without:
Don't forget about the million of blog sites out there - one's bound to have info you're interested in.