One of the things that absolutely drives me insane is phone spam. Nothing like being deep in concentration inside some algorithm and have the damn phone ring with a phone spammer on the line. A lot of days, I’ll just turn off all the phones in an effort to get shit done… I’m on both the US and Canadian “Do Not Call” lists. I report every single unsolicited call, yet they keep on coming…
Came across this blog post today detailing an awesome honey pot project by a UK ISP. They’re turning the tides on phone spammers. There are some hilarious mp3’s on the site where you can hear the “conversation” between the honey pot and one of the “moron” phone spammers. They’re keeping some of these calls on the line for 4+ minutes. Totally awesome.
I hope someone can take initiative and setup something similar in North America. If I had the resources I would take this on in a heartbeat…
Hats off to you guys.. =)
In the RADE tabular reports we have the ability to format the output of a column using a standard String.Format syntax. This is used often in the reports to convert string data containing URLs to clickable links when the page is rendered:
1: "<a href=”{0}” target=”_blank”>{0}</a>"
This format string of course when applied to the source data would result in a hyperlink being created with the URL in both the href property of the link as well as the visible link text. Lance called and asked if it would be possible to change the report so that it showed simply the word “View” instead of the url. We already had a remote control session running so I opened up his RADE and changed the format string to:
1: "<a href=”{0}” target=”_blank”>View</a>"
He saw this small change and I heard him slap his forehead, and he asked “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner, I’ve wanted to do this forever!”. To this I responded “You never asked…”
So the moral of this story is directed to managers, sales types, or any other person who works with software developers. We’re incredibly smart, and there is far too much good stuff inside our heads for us to just “tell you everything”. If we were to try, you would either fall asleep or your head would pop. So please, rather than expect us to tell you what you want to know – just ask. =)
In preparation for our vacation to Costa Rica I was reviewing the Canadian government’s list of items that should/should not be packed in your carry-on or checked luggage. I was shocked to find out that catapults are not allowed in either your carry on or checked luggage! Catapults are so bad, they’ve made the list twice!
Other honorable mentions include:
- Hand Grenades
- Molotov Cocktails
- Nitroglycerin (this is OK when in medication format)
If you’re planning some air travel in the near future – leave your catapult at home! Maple Syrup and spread is completely OK though!
Did you think you’d see Google on this? Scroll down…
Using keyboard shortcuts will speed up your development big time once you get used to them. Microsoft released handy keyboard shortcut charts for VB, C#, F# and C++ 2010. They print OK on 8.5×11 (not great). Sucks that Microsoft put scary stock imagery on the sheets though. These shortcuts are only partially accurate if you’re using ReSharper, here is a key map for ReSharper 5 – and look, no scary stock imagery in this one.
I was trying to get some images off my iPhone this morning, but the thing wouldn’t show up in Windows explorer. ITunes was doing the backup and sync no problem – but the phone would not mount as a usb device. Usually the phone shows up in explorer under the Computer section as “Apple iPhone”. Unplugging and reconnecting the thing would just cause a re-sync.
After much mucking around the best solution I could find was to disconnect the iPhone from the usb cable, start the windows Device Manager and un-install the Apple iPhone driver from the Portable Devices section of the devices. Make sure you check the delete driver checkbox. Finally, re-connect your iPhone and the driver should re-install allowing you to see your device in Windows Explorer again.
No images on device
So now I can see my phone in Vista – but when I browse to the device the internal storage folders are empty. There are tons of images in the “Camera Roll” when looking at the phone. After much more muckery – I found one image that was saved from the interwebs rather than taken with the phones’ camera. Once I deleted this image, and reconnected the phone all the images showed up no problem.
Stating there was a man walking around in a white suit carrying a machine gun.
I love Blendtec. From the makers of Cochicken, here is blending the iPad!
We’ve ALL done it. Having to send out that follow up “Oh yah, here is the file I meant to attach. I’m dumb” e-mails. I just about sent one today – but Google mail saved the day with a new feature!
Thank you Google…
Friday night I was working on a customers server configuring FloorView. I’m pretty happy now that I recommended they go with Rackspace. The server had some issues. I had installed and configured Mapguide Open Source, SQL Server, Image Web Server, FloorView was up and running and all the data was loaded in.
I was getting some strange IO errors in SQL Server. dbcc checkdb was telling me “OMG this is bad”, Checkdsk on the drive was saying things like “Windows cannot complete the scan”. I wandered off to get some more coffee thinking this was going to be a fun night. When I got back I saw a console message sent from a Rackspace support technician asking me if there was anything he could do to help. I sent him back my phone number and asked him to give me a call.
After a bit of conversation on the server we agreed they would strip out the guts of the server and replace all the drives, controllers, and motherboard. I went to bed, and the server was back up and ready for me the next morning. So, 10:30pm Friday night, Rackspace support is proactively finding my problems and tracking me down. I now understand what they mean when they call their support “fanatical”…
<3 Rackspace.
And I’m sure you’re sitting there thinking “can’t he find something better to do on a Friday night?”, well you now know the answer to that question…
