It is with much sadness and a heavy heart that I have to announce the passing of my mother’s father (my grandfather), aged 85. He passed away this morning up in Newcastle, NSW. He leaves behind his wife (my grandmother), a son and daughter (my mother) and three grandchildren. He […]
Monthly Archives: July 2007
Hi, My mind has been harrassed and tortured by yet another foray into the wild world of data access code generation and I’m feeling a bit at a loss. Code that writes code is one of those funky, somewhat complex things that occasionally has you walking in circles. Coming […]
Select Peril From DataAccess
I’ve adored this bookshop for years… Berkelouw Books. I only knew about the Leichardt shop for ages, but realised recently that they have a couple of others too. It turns out they have a farm "barn"/property in Berrima, which is roughly half way from Sydney to Canberra along the […]
Rare Books!
Ok, so if you haven’t already heard… http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio, or http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-au/vstudio/aa700831.aspx Announcing the release of Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, .NET FX 3.5 Beta 2, and Silverlight 1.0 RC! Deep link for the Professional Beta 2 Edition Yes folks, this is almost hot off the press. No, I haven’t […]
Announcement You Should’ve Heard About
Another 50 minute drive home. Yesterday, same route, was over an hour (departed 5:30pm, arrived at 6:35pm). That’s roughly 50 minutes to go approx 11 – 15kms. The M2 isn’t much faster, probably averaging out to be between 35 – 45 minutes, plus the healthy $4.60 toll! When […]
In Transit
OK. So this is going to probably be a controversial posting. Just call me an old crusty code warrior.. but.. It’s no secret I’m wholly unsold on test driven development [wikipedia] (TDD). I have nothing against testing or writing of tests, it is vital to the overall success and stability […]
Reasons why I’m against test driven development
Today’s whacky statistic: "Total page views: 3995"Yes, that’s right this humble blog has almost hit 4,000 unique visits, or, 2,000 hits per year. Amazing. I wonder who will be the 4,000th visitor? My money’s on an RSS feeder. In other breaking world news of importance. Wallabies dropped the […]
Almost..there
Hi.. I pulled this quote out of a recent post to the ausdotnet mailing list from Rocky H. "You can not drop a file from a Medium Integrity process (Explorer) onto a High integrity process (elevated Notepad). This is actually the problem a lot of developers face with […]
UAC Tip for Developers on Vista
…and the top reasons they’re gonna lose.. Hi.. you guessed it – a sports post.. Tomorrow night marks the culmination of the TriNations series of Rugby Union for 2007. The finale pits New Zealand against Australia for not only the much coveted Bledisloe Cup but also the TriNations trophy […]
Top Reasons Why the Wallabies Are Gonna Win
It’s time for another ‘Random Link Potpurri’ – Check out some of these great value sites.. Here is a site for those who would prefer an alternative to iTunes for managing their iPods: http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/07/08/10-alternatives-to-itunes-for-managing-your-ipod/ Feature Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 – February 2007 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=50b97994-8453-4998-8226-fa42ec403d17&displaylang=en Form which […]
Helpful sites
Hi Everyone, I’m going to be out of the office for the next few days, potentially through the weekend, so check back soon for more updates.. Cheers R
Out-of-Office
I recently had an email chat with Dr Greg Low (Microsoft Regional Director & Readify) during the week about the best naming conventions (best practices) for SQL Server (especially in the post-hungarian notiation, SQL 2K5 schema days). In fact, this is a topic being discussed (again) on the SQL Downunder […]
Database Naming for Consistency
So, those of you who know me also know that I’m, well, a bit out of shape. To be honest, I’ve been getting progressively worse since wife and I came back to Australia from living abroad. I’ve got over the 80kgs barrier for the first time in my life, […]
Getting back on the horse
For those of you who have been following every new technology but somehow have missed out on LINQ, grab the last CTP – LINQ CTP (May 06). It works fine with the Beta 1 Orcas (despite the disclaimers) and it will also work with VS2005. This stuff is pure gold. I’ve […]
Get LinqedIn!
At the recent architect forum in Sydney I was able to sit in on a round table discussion regarding rapid estimation exercises. I’m in no way new to the process of estimating implementation time or generating effort forecasts – I’ve done so professionally for the past eight or nine years, an […]