TechShorts

I’ve tried several Linux distributions: Redhat, Coral, Suse, Mandrake, Damn Small Linux, Knoppix, Gentoo and finally Debian.  Of all of these I was most loyal to Gentoo because it was the distro I learned the most with.  The problem with Gentoo though is you spend so much time getting it to run and tweaking it that you don’t really get to use the machine for what you want to. For example, I tried and successfully setup a Gentoo desktop on a couple of occasions.  But, I will never do it again.  I have no desire to spend a week or more building KDE or Gnome when I can have a fully running desktop in less than an hour with other distro. My main file server is Gentoo and I am leary of updating it.  Every time I emerge -u system I have to spend another hour or two cleaning up config files.  Then when I reboot the machine I cross my fingers and hope it comes up. I have started using Debian and so far I like it.  Simple to install, apt-get is just as good as emerge and I don’t have to wait d

Those Who Ignore Standards Are Doomed to Reinvent Them The most Prophetic words I have ever heard. This has come into play several times where I work and where I have worked.  It boils down to each developer thinking his set of Standards is better then my set of Standards . The others should just face reality:  I know best so do it my way. 

I’m sitting in a Dallas Hotel watching the Astros play the 6th game of the play offs.  Hope they win! I hate traveling for this type of work.  It is not challenging at all but it is etremely boring. Jez…

I am back in Dallas working at the EPA RRC, assisting with the data management for the Hurricane Katrina and Rita response.  It is not something I want to do since I am having to use MS Access. My loathing for MS Access is growing on a hourly basis.  I feel like an amature doing mundane BS all the while dreaming of building an Eifal Tower.  One day…. There is desention amoung the ranks and the captions are unaware…….

Rita landed further East of us then originally projected.  We survived with no apparent damage. We now have to find some gas so we can get around, find a store that is open.  It could have been far worse and I don’t plan on doing this again.

I am getting ready to ride out Hurricane Rita.  We have a room set up with food, water and other supplies.  We tried to evacuate but got stuck in traffic; in six hours we only went five miles.  By that time we were down to half a tank of gas so we opted to return home.  We even thought about attempting it again later that night but the roads were still clogged and there was no gas to be found. The winds are just now starting up and the power has flickered several times.  I don’t think I will get much sleep tonight.

NOAA Satellite and Information Service Good place to find imagery of Hurricanes.

Rob Caron's Blog - A Team System Nexus : Suggested Reading - 2005-07-31 Saving and Restoring the Location, Size and Windows State of a .NET Form A list of must read articles.  Go forth and Read.

I finished reading Sandman #9, The Kindly Ones .  This was a very complicated Sandman, and for the Sandman saga that is saying something.  Almost all the old characters returned and a lot of loose threads were tied or cut.  Then Neil killed Dream. I thought, how inappropiate.  I didn’t think he would acutally kill him, just make him wipe out the furies.  But no, Dream goes bye-bye. This was actually forshadowed in the previous Sandman, with the storm and the funeral march. I am trying to avoid reading any reviews of the final Sandman just so I don’t know what is going to happen.  After I finish the final I can go back and re-read the Endless Nights.

Power Collections: http://www.wintellect.com/powercollections/ The Power Collections Library is an open source collection class library for the next version of .NET. The philosophy of the library is to extend the base class library (BCL) of collection classes that will be available with .NET 2.0 rather than provide a complete and separate set of classes from .NET.

Comment found in a code that I was reviewing: if we got this far, then everything is working properly Why does this send shivers up my spine?  The procedure is 91 lines long and this comment appears on line 43.  What about the other 48 lines?  What if they fail?  I should add the following comment to the end of the procedure: if we got this far then there is a God.

Christopher Diggins list the three things he’s leanred in 20 years of programming: 1. Your code will change 2.  No matter how simple you think your code is, it is complete nonsense to almost everyone else. 3.  If you haven't tested your code then it's probably wrong. O'Reilly Network Weblogs: Everything I Know about Programming

Your Travel Profile: You Are Very Well Traveled in the Southern United States (62%) You Are Well Traveled in the Western United States (53%) You Are Well Traveled in the Middle East (50%) You Are Well Traveled in the Midwestern United States (50%) You Are Mostly Untraveled in Canada (20%) You Are Mostly Untraveled in Australia (13%) You Are Mostly Untraveled in Latin America (13%) You Are Mostly Untraveled in Asia (8%) You Are Untraveled in Africa (0%) You Are Untraveled in Eastern Europe (0%) You Are Untraveled in New Zealand (0%) You Are Untraveled in Scandinavia (0%) You Are Untraveled in Southern Europe (0%) You Are Untraveled in Western Europe (0%) You Are Untraveled in the Northeastern United States (0%) You Are Untraveled in the United Kingdom (0%) How Well Traveled Are You?

Your Linguistic Profile: 65% General American English 15% Dixie 10% Yankee 5% Midwestern 5% Upper Midwestern What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

The title says it all.  We want our information to be entertaining. Get over it.

World of Warcraft was finally released last year (w00t!) and for Christmas my wife bought me the Limited Edition.  Of course she did not realize what that meant, after all I had been waiting for three years for WOW to come out! I am focusing mainly on creating Warriors for now.  I have created four different characters, two on a Pacific server and two on one of the Central servers.  I found that the Pacific servers are always over crowded and more prone to lag and other issues so I switched to the Central servers. I have one main character that I am running now, a Night Elf Warrior.  I am following the template from PC Gamer for a High DPS Warrior, going to see how effective it is.  Right now the character is level 13 and I am focusing on getting his professional/trade skills higher.  Since he is a Warrior he has Blacksmith and Mining.   Of course he has first aid and cooking, those two are a must.