If all things were equal

Getting the University of Alberta's UWS to work on a Nexus One

2010-08-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Pretty simple really:

1. Turn on Wi-Fi
2. Get in to the settings for the UWS network
3. "EAP method" = PEAP
4. "Phase 2 authentication" = None
5. "CA certificate" = (unspecified)
6. "User certificate" = (unspecified)
7. "Identity" = CCID
8. "Anonymous identity" = blank
9. "Password" = CCID password

Click "Save" and you are all done.

This was performed on a Nexus One running android 2.2

Copyright Reform and Bill C-32

2010-06-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

In the fine Canadian tradition I wrote an angry letter. I wrote this letter to Heritage Minister James Moore who called me a "radical extremist," not directly you understand but indirectly. So wrote this letter:

Dear Mr. Moore,

I'm not a content creator or a copyright holder, and I'm certainly not an expert on copyright law. But from what I've read ( http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/23/copyright-heritage-minister-moore.html, http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/crp-prda.nsf/eng/h_rp01153.html#amend and http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/23/a-canadian-authors-p.html ) about what has been tabled in C-32 I believe the bill has problems. Making me a criminal (or a "radical extremist") for copying a CD I own to my computer (which I also own) if it happens to have a digital lock is asinine. The TPMs are NOT in favour of the copyright owner like you suggest. They are in favour of the companies that distribute copyrighted material, like Cory Doctrow points out.

I'm not your constituent and I can not tell you how to vote on this particular bill, however Mr Uppal is my MP and I can tell him how to vote. I feel strongly that this bill needs serious amendment before being passed and that voting in Parliament should reflect this.

Thank you for your time.

-Shaun McGregor

It's short hopefully his attention span doesn't wander before the end. I encourage you to read about what C-32 is and form your own opinions, then based on what you decide send a letter like the one above or a completely different one to Minister Moore at: moorej@parl.gc.ca. If you do send an email please post what you have sent in the comments for others to see and copy off of.

The links I mentioned in my email to Minister Moore are below:

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/23/copyright-heritage-minister-moore.html

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/crp-prda.nsf/eng/h_rp01153.html#amend

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/23/a-canadian-authors-p.html

Poor Poor Petty Popple People

2010-01-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

Okay, maybe petty isn't fair but I really wanted the alliteration there. On November 8th, the dog finished off what was left of her vintage popple, go ahead I'll wait while you take some time to remember...

Yeah they didn't make any impact on my life either however when we moved out we inherited two popples from the basement. When we got Molly she took those popples and used them as chew toys, what we noticed was that while Molly could tear apart a toy from Petsmart in 10 minutes or so these popples would survive for months. Now I'm sure the lead paint and toxic herbicides from the 80's that are on these things are bad for Molly but, she's having fun, who cares? So when the first two got finished off and we got tired of Molly dejectedly carrying around the carcass we bought her a couple new popples from eBay. That brings us to November 8th 2009 when she finally finished off the 4th popple. She was sitting among a pile of stuffing from the stuffed animal and we took a picture and put it up on the flickr. Apparently that was a huge mistake.

If you visit that picture on flickr you'll notice that the "popple people" came out of the woodwork pretty quickly. Which was strange because the picture wasn't even tagged with popple and if you search for popple on flickr the picture is on the 6th page now, after 10 comments and 276 views. Anyway, these people did not appreciate the way we treated this stuffed animal. I even deleted a post which was (in hindsight) not that bad but struck me as a little, threatening...

The reason I write this now is today (3 months later) I got yet another angry post from a popple person about letting Molly use the stuffed animals as chew toys. I think to myself "what the hell is wrong with you people!?" This is a stuffed animal, yes it is considered a collectible by a small group (apparently who all use flickr), and yes it is expensive for a dog toy, but Molly seems happy and they hold up a lot better than the cheap ones from Petsmart. Really am I hurting YOU by giving the dog these toys? What could the stuffed animal be contributing to the world if it wasn't being destroyed by my dog? Was it an important part of the culture in the 1980s? I was only 3 when the TV show was on the air so I don't remember it but they certainly aren't making a blockbuster movie out of the story now are they? Even if the culture did revolve around popples for a short time, if I can find it on eBay is it really my problem that a collector doesn't buy it before I do?

Then you must ask the popple collectors what is your collection contributing to others? Then ask the photo commenters do you really have nothing better to do than criticize other peoples purchases?

It seems like a ridiculous thing to have to write down, but, really evaluate your reaction to what I've done and ask yourself: "if it was a Spongebob Squarepants toy would I have the same reaction?" How about a 12" GI Joe toy from the 70s? Why does it matter what I do with my purchases, with my stuffed animals? I have one stuffed animal that I hold very dear and will not get rid of, I would be upset if it were to be destroyed, but I have a true genuine emotional attachment to it. Is the popple that you've never seen before in your life that important to you that you are actually getting angry about other people destroying it?

Popple People: change the way you react to the treatment of stuffed animals. They are just objects, things, insignificant toys from a different decade, if you put your energy into something else (something creative for instance) you could be doing way more good then protecting the innocent lives of popples.

I just recently bought 2 more stuffed animals from eBay (they were both popples) and Molly has already thoroughly abused one and when she is done with the first she will be getting the second. Those will be my last eBay purchases for popples but only because I found out you can buy stuffed animals at goodwill for $0.25. Now for the price of one popple on eBay I can buy 120 popples at goodwill, just imagine that massacre.

Blame PZ

2010-01-15T08:36:00.000-08:00

I saw this on Pharyngula, and I laughed heartily. However, the image Dr. Myers had seemed inadequate so I made my own:

Enjoy!

PDC 09 Session 3

2009-11-17T16:55:00.000-08:00

This was a very good session with two great presenters. I liked everything they showed, but it is one you should go watch the video for (if you can). http://www.microsoftpdc.com

- Session 3 Evolving ADO.NET Entity Framework in .NET 4 and Beyond
- Gah missed the names. Thanks internet: Shyam Pather, Chris Anderson
- lots o demos
- all .net 4 stuff
- personable speakers
- model first data entities (make the model and then the database gets made from that)
- man this guy is incredibly fast
- Quandrent (spelling is hard)
- Entity Framework.
- This shit is hot, I will be all over this in March when 4 comes out.
- Testing without using your database thanks to the iobjectset
- you can grab data change it local track the changes and submit it back to the DB.
- MIcrosoft Surface is still the coolest thing in the world.
- wow that is special. That makes things easy doesn't it.
- Guy behind me is sleeping, snoring too. I'm way too excited about this (NEEEERD) to sleep
- forgien keys in the model
- Lots of cool demos, that is a video to watch.

PDC 09 Session 2

2009-11-17T16:52:00.000-08:00

Session 2 was right after lunch and was only okay, very abstract as none of it was really real yet. Still some interesting stuff that we will be able to do.

- Session 2: Microsoft ASP.NET Futures with Jonathan Carter and Scott Hunter
- DTA
- SEO stuff in .NET 4
- oooo scheduling in future version of ASP.NET
- what is routing? something related to SEO
- ASP is trying to get Common activities into one line of code (resize an image, scheduling, etc.)
- image maipulation.
- File upload with progress (not a poor man's progress)
- my class in VB.NET? Research
- Good idea, I have way too many apps that need something done every x mins that I do the poor man's way.
- Maybe the guy last time wasn't so short maybe that table is really tall.
- oh Routing I get it. This could be good for events.
- SmartyRoute check for the last "directory" on disk (foo/bar search for bar) if it does not exist goto the next one (foo) and if that exists pass the first one (bar) to the page that exists
- would remove extensions. This would be good for Sitecore.
- Demo fail....
- All this stuff is planned for the future too bad not now
- ASP is looking into implementing HTML5 items into the ASP standard (I think that was vague)
- losing focus.
- hehe the Microsoft guy is using firefox instead of scourge of the software world (IE)
- Microsoft has a cool zoom tool for presentations
- Everyone with a laptop out is surfing the internet
- Velocity - distributed cache platform.
- save anything you want I think got distracted
- works for webfarms one cache for all web servers
- meh
- css sprites and minification
- minimizing http requests for the lifecycle of the page
- sprites put everything in one file so the kbs don't change but the number of requests goes down.
- I really want to work at microsoft now. This shit looks facinating.
- definatly not ready yet, but a really cool idea. All images are done via CSS, slick as all hell.
- Everything will be controled by convention (folders in the correct place and different names etc.
- Active Record - use this as a prototype before creating DB
- neat this will create a database for you as well. With forgein keys and pks
- wow, that's neat, Active record does all the heavy lifting for your DBs
- These view things look pretty neat too.
- Okay you're done now, move on.
- easier, that is good cause web programmers don't get enough flak for not being real programmers :P

PDC 09 Session 1

2009-11-17T13:11:00.000-08:00

My Notes from the first session at PDC 09. I hope to take some notes in every session so that I can continually update here.

- Sat next to a guy constantly tweeting during the keynote. I would have unfollowed him.
- Good keynote, lots of interesting stuff about VS and Windows Azure.
- Stumbled (read: limped) into the wrong session now learning about: "Software + Services Identity Roadmap Update" instead of "Future Directions for C# and Visual Basic"
- I should research STS for single sign on with all our web apps
- The head guy for MS Dynamics is about to speak (Andrew Bybee)
- Claims Authentication, interesting idea. Similar to the idea on certs. Trusted providers authenticate "claims"
- Working in Dynamics working inside outlook as well.
- There is a moth in here, California is awesome
- Spiderman quote, Andrew is a cool guy
- Sharepoint Developer now to talk about claims. Shortest person ever (Venky Veeranghavan)
- Multiple hops to different servers, you lose auth after the first hop. Claims fixes this.
- mmm slow internet
- I want to code all the time, I love coding mmm coding.
- Empty room, really neat talk though crapy abstract
- Quest software guy talking now. (Dmitry Sotnikov)
- Lots of demos.
- This is a cool technology, solves a lot of our single sign on problems.
- Quest software has a cool domain backup thing.
- Looks like you can use this with Google and Yahoo IDs as well as AD and .NET
- .NET ACS
- OpenID - used by Google, Yahoo and Soon LIVE
- Information Card system
- (Gert Drapers) Claims guy
- Relationship information for each "party" inside of AD
- use AD to get information (BRILLIANT!)
- neat, AD could be super powerful, with this claims stuff.

A Little Problem

2009-10-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

Well that didn't work out so well for the prop 8 fellows did it?

Just goes to show that just because you can mislead people into agreeing with you doesn't mean you are right, or that everyone will be so easily misled.

I say write Chief Judge Vaughn Walker a thank you note for bringing some rational discourse into this particular argument.

To the group supporting prop 8: quite frankly it's none of your business what happens at my heterosexual wedding and it subsequently none of your business what happens at a homosexual wedding.

Just a thought

My Referee Theorem

2009-02-25T23:14:00.000-08:00

Once a year for about 10 years I have spent a weekend locked in an Edmonton High School with a class of North Zone Officials. For the past 2 years I have had an instructor stand up at the front of the room and preach to us about the importance of dedication to officiating. Each time he has told us that Friday and Saturday nights are forfeit from September to March. He attempts to shame the class into never saying no to an assignment and he holds himself up as an example telling us his wife just knows she will have to wait until the summer to spend time with him. Both times I've heard this speech and thought to myself: "well that's a load of crap".

Maybe I'm being unfair, this is an instructor who has accomplished more in officiating than I may even be capable of doing. He is respected and well liked, to the best of my knowledge, and as far as I can tell his wife loves him and respects his choice for free time activities. However, I can't help but think that when you do nothing but referee in your free time you end up worse for the wear.

This year like every other year I went to my clinic and I learnt from the experienced and kowledgable people in that room and I came away from the weekend a better offcial. This year like every other year I looked forward to seeing people I hadn't seen for months. This year like every other year was excited about my first games and about moving up in the ranks. This year however, I did something completely different. Instead of answering phone calls and saying yes to every game offered, I limited myself to no more than 3 games a week. I also limited the nights I would referee so that I always had a concrete idea of when I was going to be on the ice and when I could spend time with my wife and friends. Strangely enough this is the first year in about 5 or 6 years that February has come and gone without me being sick and tired of officiating. For once I go to the arena at the end of the year with a genuine intrest in being on the ice.

When I talk to guys doing 20 or 25 games a month they don't seem to be enjoying themselves anymore. For these officials has it become a second job? Has it become an unlikeable chore? Are they so burnt out by the end of the year that they aren't performing at their peak for the most important games (playoffs)? I know when I used to always say yes that is exactly how I would feel when February rolled around. I'd be burnt out, unexcited and unenthusiastic about going to the arena. I have solved my problem but I think a problem remains.

This year the instructor who delivered the dedication speech also asked us why we thought we were losing officials after only one year of being in the program. At the time I might have said "the abuse from coaches and fans", or I might have pointed out that per hour they weren't making all that much money (I would have been wrong $19 for a atom game is a good hourly rate). But as I happily returned from my game tonight I realized perhaps its not the outside elements that affect these first year officials. Maybe the internal pressure to do as many games as possible is driving them away. Perhaps they are getting the same burnt out, unexcited and unenthusiastic feeling going to the rink that I have had and they don't have enough invested in officiating to keep them interested.

Could this be why we lose referees? Maybe first years and veterans alike are realizing that something that is done mostly for the fun of doing it isn't fun anymore. I suspect if everyone took the same approach as me to doing hockey there would be a serious lack of officials during the busy weeks of the year. I don't honestly believe it is the right solution for everyone, but maybe it is worth looking into limiting the first years number of times on the ice per week. Even just teaching them to take it easy could reduce the drop out rate. This would help spread the hockey around to different officials and would keep guys from spending all weekend at the arena and burning out before the end of the season. I could be wrong, but it helped me.

The Code is Killing Me

2007-07-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

And now I want it to kill you... Okay I don't want it to kill you.

This is a neat bit of code, I had to create a new local user in Windows XP. Then I had to change two things, I had to add it to the administrator's group and flag it so that the user's password never expires. As you may or may not know the local users and computers on Windows XP is very similar to Active Directory (I still owe you the Authenticate through AD post). However, there are enough differences that all the AD code I found was just the vaguest of hints as to what I needed to do.

You obviously have to use this in Windows form mode. I'll post a screen shot of the form and then the code.

Sorry I've forgotten all the sites and searches I did.

Now for the Code

The formatting (I hope) will be okay. However I don't think you'll be getting colours. If anyone reads this and knows of a program I can use to convert code to html with formatting and colours I would love an e-mail.

Form

Code Behind

namespace AddLocalUser
{
public partial class Form1 : Form
{
public Form1()
{
InitializeComponent();
}

private void BtnOK_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (TxtUserName.Text.Length > 0 && TxtPassword.Text.Length > 0)
{
if (TxtPassword.Text.Equals(TxtConfirmPassword.Text))
{
try
{
DirectoryEntry AD = new DirectoryEntry("WinNT://" + Environment.MachineName +_ ",computer");
DirectoryEntry NewUser = AD.Children.Add(TxtUserName.Text, "user");
NewUser.Invoke("SetPassword", new object[] { TxtPassword.Text });
NewUser.Invoke("Put", new object[] { "Description", "Computer owner" });

//Insert the User.
NewUser.CommitChanges();
//Now change the "UserFlags" so that the password never expires
int iUserAccountControl = (int)ADS_USER_FLAG.ADS_UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD;
NewUser.Properties["UserFlags"].Value = iUserAccountControl;
NewUser.CommitChanges();
DirectoryEntry grp;

grp = AD.Children.Find("Administrators", "group");
if (grp != null) { grp.Invoke("Add", new object[] { NewUser.Path.ToString() }); }

}
catch(Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show("Error: " + ex.Message);
}
}
else
{
LblMessage.Visible = true;
LblMessage.Text = "The Password fields must match";
LblMessage.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;
}
}
else
{
LblMessage.Visible = true;
LblMessage.Text = "All fields must be filled out";
LblMessage.ForeColor = System.Drawing.Color.Red;
}
}

(BAH Sorry about the formatting I tried really hard..okay sorta hard)

Explanation

This is an easy bit of code to write. I'll go through it real quick.

DirectoryEntry AD = new DirectoryEntry("WinNT://" + Environment.MachineName +_ ",computer");
DirectoryEntry NewUser = AD.Children.Add(TxtUserName.Text, "user");
NewUser.Invoke("SetPassword", new object[] { TxtPassword.Text });
NewUser.Invoke("Put", new object[] { "Description", "Computer owner" });

//Insert the User.
NewUser.CommitChanges();

This bit is pretty similar (If I'm not mistaken) to the AD version of adding a user. The big difference is using "Environment.MachineName" instead of using your AD server address.

Two DirectoryEntries are used, one for the Directory on your computer. One for the user that you are adding. The CommitChanges() slaps it into the local directory.

//Now change the "UserFlags" so that the password never expires
int iUserAccountControl = (int)ADS_USER_FLAG.ADS_UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD;
NewUser.Properties["UserFlags"].Value = iUserAccountControl;
NewUser.CommitChanges();
DirectoryEntry grp;

grp = AD.Children.Find("Administrators", "group");
if (grp != null) { grp.Invoke("Add", new object[] { NewUser.Path.ToString() }); }

This is the more interesting part. This changes the user options that we wanted to change. The ADS_USER_FLAG is obtained by referencing ActiveDS, and then of course adding "using ActiveDs;" to the top of your form code.

Your NewUser Directory entry is used again here. Change the .Property["UserFlags"] to the UserControl int you declare above. Here is a big change from AD code, in Active Directory you would use NewUser.Properties[attribute name]. Here we are changing the UserFlags instead.

After that we create a new Directory entry that will represent the group we want to add the user to. "Find" the group we are looking for (Administrators) and then check to see if that group came back to our object correctly. If it did, simply invoke the add function from AD and point it at the path of our NewUser DirectoryEntry.

WOW I hope that made sense, I did not enjoy writing that i must say. I will try to edit it before I post but my brain may liquefy before I finish that.

Have fun Everyone

This comes in in all sizes

Wow

2007-04-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

Look at the prices that apple charges for WWDC07. I would have gone on my own dime but it's just too expensive, too bad we aren't a mac shop I could have talked my boss into paying for me.

Music

I just "obtained" a copy of Less than Jake's album "In with the out crowd". There are only horns in 3 songs... this is not the band that wrote "Johnny Quest thinks we're sellouts". Oh well pretty good album, they are planning on touring with Reel Big Fish and Streetlight Manifesto this summer. I'm excited to say the least.

Beer

I went to Brewsters here in Edmonton. I had the Bow Valley Brown Ale (good) and Greg had the River City Raspberry Ale (not my taste just okay). They have a barely wine I want to try one day. I might just buy two bottles try one that day and save one for another day.

I have a little work to do before going to buy OS X for Sirina's old computer

I dream about puzzle quest

Beer School

2007-03-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

Well I was listening again to my podcasts (instead of working?) and I thought I'd do the homework for "Beer School: What's in Nico's Fridge?". I bought myself 4 cans of Kilkenny, (9.$$ at Superstore Liquor store). Carried them home (not very gently) I opened the can and tried very hard to ignore the fact that it sounded like a mouse had just died in it (Thanks Motor). After I cleaned up the mess it made on my counter, I poured myself the glass you see to the left.

I had accidently left the beer on the counter for an hour therefore it was at room temperature. I thought, "What the hell. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be served?". So I sat down with dinner and drank it up.

I thought it tasted awesome, totally nice aftertaste, very creamy, all around excellent. This morning when I went looking to see where the stuff was brewed (Ireland) I noticed that on the can it says: "Serve Ice Cold". I'm going to try one tonight and see what it tastes like, but I don't believe that it will be as good as it was at room temp.

Anyway...

..back to the homework. I donned my safety glasses (not really) my protective gloves (wouldn't even know where to find them) and grabbed my certified scissors (from the stationary isle at Wal-Mart) and cut into the can to get my widget. After washing the head off of the can and widget I took the picture to the right.

It was a very simple round white plastic ball. There is a small hole in either end and it's glued together in the middle like a cheap plastic toy might be. Not nearly as cool as I thought it would be.. oh well. I tried to take some close up pictures of it but it just was too white and they came out really bad. Maybe I'll play in photoshop and see if I can't get them looking a little better.

Thanks Beer School, for giving me a whole evening of entertainment.

PS. John left a comment on the site which I thought was awesome, thanks John for taking the time to respond I await your next show with baited (not really) breath.

The can left no marks

Ahhhhhhh!

2007-03-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

It has been crazy at work, today the exchange server broke (no one's fault just bad luck) and consequently broke my Events application. Events app in and of itself was hurried and did not go as well as I would have liked. Oh well live and learn, I will do better next time and manage my time better and manage the expectations better.

I've been listening to a podcast called Beer School. As a good Canadian this is a topic that is near and dear too my heart. I've enjoyed the show for the most part however the show with the bartender in it was annoying...

I am looking seriously into a Mac pro I think I will get one in the next month or so. I'm kinda waiting for dual quad core processors. But I think it will be better for me than building a machine of my own.

Anyway I sould go back to work. Enjoy your day.

The twitter it consumes all!

I'm back

2007-03-07T15:41:00.000-08:00

All 0 of you must be excited I'm making another post. This one will talk about gadgets and macs and podcasts.

Gadgets

I've had my Sennheiser HD 280 pro headphones for a while. These are some amazing headphones, I'm no Alex Lindsay(sp?) so I wouldn't know good sound from fart noise, but these give some amazing sound quality. They sound good with everything I listen to, Rock, punk, Johnny Cash, everything. The only complaint I could see people having is when I listen to what little rap I have, I need to turn up the volume very loud to get any hits from the bass.

I love them, I would buy them again if this set broke, and for the price I can't say that it would break me.

I have to go now as I timed this post poorly but I will try to get back tomorrow and finish up.

Have a nice day you bastard!

Again with the Errors

2007-01-30T16:18:00.000-08:00

I'm still stupid, I still need to learn the order in which ASP.net renders a page. Always! I mean always! Make sure that if you are assigning data to something (anything) that you check that it is NOT a postback. You can not only get strange thing happening with data containers you just get annoyed and frustrated.

Anyway I'm off

Everything in Moderation

Maybe I'm Behind the Times...

2007-01-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

... or maybe I'm just lazy but I've gotten into podcasting of late. I see it as an excellent way to deliver opinions and comments via the web. I also see it as a breeding ground for stupidity and I hope that Apple is keeping tabs on what makes it onto their iTunes store.

I've enjoyed a podcast called "Macbreak Weekly" (do a iTunes search) . I find the people on the cast are interesting and have a lot of useful things to pass onto the users. Leo and Alex are excellent hosts and I think that although it is a long podcast it's something I can listen to and work at the same time.

Another one that Scott Kurtz suggested is: 43Folders it's short and gives good hints on how to do work and get things done (something I need).

My favorite podcast (one that is woefully out of date) is Penny Arcade's "Downloadable Content". It is explicit so watch the volume at work or around children but it gives you an excellent insight on how the two guys work together and make one of the funniest (arguable) comics on the web.

Try some of these out you may even like them.

I installed Office 2007 on my work machine yesterday. Other than some initial hiccups (PocketPC related) it has made a very positive impression on me. I love the new look for the TODO list in Outlook. Things seem to be easier to find and they have done away with most of the menus in favor of a tabbed environment. I'm going to work with it a bit more but I think Microsoft has won me over.

Now all they need to do is release it for the mac and I'll be a happy camper.

Two posts in one week, don't you feel special.

That is all number one!

Long Time No Speak

2007-01-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone, again it has been too long since I've posted here. I thought I would do a quick rundown of things that I have obtained in the past few months and give you all my impressions.

XBOX 360 vs. Nintendo Wii

I have rarely been on the "NEXT GENERATION" bandwagon, I can remember working for my dad for 2 weeks during the a teacher's strike in Grade 12 to save up for the PS2, and that was basically the last time I've bought a gaming system (the DS doesn't count everyone should own one). So when Greg (my Friend) bought me a XBOX 360 for my housewarming gift and Sirina bought me a Nintendo Wii for Christmas I was able to finally compare two next gen systems on my own.

The Wii is certainly novel, Wii sports and Zelda: The Twilight Princess, are the only games I own but both have provided me with all sorts of excitment. I must admit I sometimes imagine looking at myself as I play a round of golf or win a fight in Boxing and think "I look like a moron" but the system is interactive and fun. The xbox on the other hand, has little to no interaction (moving left with your car doesn't help you go around the corner, I promise) but is still quite fun. The wireless controllers on both systems make me very happy and the fact I can turn on the systems without getting up makes me even happier.

I think that right now as we speak the XBOX is the better system in regards to games. I love that I can download game demos and try before I buy on the XBOX. I haven't looked that hard on the Wii but I'm pretty sure I can do that for that system as well.

Another difference is that to set the wii up on the internet all I had to do was enter my key for my internet connection and I was done. The XBOX needs attachments (it does come with a 5ft CAT5 cable) which would be less of a problem for me if my router wasn't 100ft away. My peev about the Wii was the fact that it did not come with component cables, instead I have to convince my TV ever 30 mins or so to goto full screen (I know it's my Tv's fault not the Wii), other than that both systems are simple to set up and take up a minimal amount of space on the TV stand.

Both menus are pretty intuitive (for me) and I've had little to no trouble figuring things out. The cost of XBOX live ticks me off but seems to be a necessary evil. Again I haven't explored as much with the Wii but I assume there is some sort of price associated with playing online.

I'll keep playing both systems, take for instance last night: I played NHL 07 for a couple games and then played Zelda until I cleared the Faron woods of twilight. I think the wii will bore me first it seems more of a novelty than anything. However if Nintendo and Co. can turn out good titles for the Wii I should have no problem enjoying the system. However, the XBOX will hold my attention more because Greg has one and we will be playing Co-Op and Multi quite a bit.

Anyway that's my spiel about that.

I think I'll leave it at that I'm supposed to be working after all.

The twilight scares me.

Now Remember...

2006-12-08T13:16:00.000-08:00

If you are developing a Button Event or an Event of any kind and you have data that loads in the Load_Page Event. MAKE SURE you have either:

if not Page.IsPostBack (for vb.net)

or

if (!Page.ISPostBack) : for C#.net

I'm still dumb!

Holy sheet

2006-11-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

It has been a long time: no one...

Since we last spoke I've gone to the Streetlight Manifesto concert, I moved into my condo, I obtained an animal from the local humane shelter and I received my Sumo in the "mail".

Lets get started:

Streetlight Manifesto

BEST CONCERT EVER!
These guys are amazing they have a tonne of energy on stage and really sound awesome live. Then two of the horn players came out into the "pit" during RBF. I said hello and thanked them for an awesome show but they were pretty high and listening to John from RBF, so they probably didn't care/notice.

New Condo

It's a nice place, Sirina (who has graciously agreed to live with me) has some pictures up on her blog.

I have one gripe it's that the heat seems like it is always blasted it's constantly 25 degrees (thats Celsius) in our place.

Animal

His name is Hamlet he is Feline and was really docile for 2 days and is now a terror that tries to break into the garbage. But he's so darn cute, Sirina has pictures.

Sumo

This thing is gigantic, it just about didn't fit in the car and it takes up a tonne of room in the living room.

I have 2 complaints about it:

1.The colour is nothing like I thought it was from the website "tangerine" really means highway vest orange.

2.The material isn't cloth it's nylon (which they do advertise and I should have read) but it makes me very staticy. I hate that!

Anyway other than those two little things it's an awesome chair and worth the pennies I spent on it.

There

My gigantic pillow is more gigantic than yours

Very Interesting

2006-10-31T07:01:00.001-08:00

I thought that this thread deserved a mention. Since I can imagine most people call their login pages Login.aspx. That causes problems in asp.net 2.0 as

<%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/master/default.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Login.aspx.cs" Inherits="Login" Title="Untitled Page" %>

will try to inherit the Login Control class instead of your code behind class.

Very interesting...

I'm behind

I shall live in comfort

2006-10-26T10:06:00.000-07:00

It has been ordained. Mine is Tangerine, I wish i had seen or sat on one of these before, that would be nice, but I'm sure they rock as they come highly recommended.

Just thought I'd mention it. Still haven't taken the picture of the tickets yet. I should add that to my To Do list.

Update: I just got an e-mail saying it is going to be delayed by 1-2 weeks :( Oh well that's not so bad.

It's Friday Again

2006-10-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

I find myself with the urge every Friday to talk to nobody on my blog. Anyway this week has been hectic I have been working furociously on my project at work and finalizing the deal with the Condo. I'm excited about moving out, and stressed out because until yesterday the mortgage and stuff had not gone to the lawyers.

Anyway that is all boring stuff (not unlike my .net posts ;) ) I wanna talk about gadgets now. See, when I first got my job I ordered a new PDA because my old palm was starting to act a little wacky and I had just got a new shiney expense acount. So on the advice of our tech guy i got the HP IPAQ rx1950. It is a good machine it keeps my contacts and my calendar in one accessable place and it syncs up with Oulook so that all my stuff is managed with one program. However, the guys accross the hall (including the tech guy from whom I took the advice) just got the Blackberry Pearl. Because I am a technophile and a jealous person I yearn for one of those shiny machines to call my own. Unfortunatly I'm afraid the IPAQ will need to quit on me before I can justify the exspense on the staff account.

I have recently procured 2 tickets to what I consider to be the concert event of the Century. I wish I had my camera so I could take a picture of said tickets but alas I will simply be forced to link to a website describing the unbelievable line up about to desend on my humble city.

Up up and away!

I hate and love all at the same time

2006-10-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

This has made me happy and sad all at once. See I need the help to make a repeater work in my code, but it's fairly complex and I'll actually have to do work to implement it. I'm way too lazy to be happy about work I have to do.

Anyway the repeater is going to be cool, but I can't take all the credit. The webmaster actually did most of the coding, I just cleaned up and implemented business rules. Maybe one day I'll post it.

Microsoft in all their wisdom ignores a known bug like this, but are perfectly happy to release IE7 as a mandatory update... Hmm those two points seem to have nothing in common. I must learn this English language shtuff.

I started a post about Active Directory authentication and got most of the way through but I never got it finished. Maybe if I get this control working I'll finish it up today.

And he's off!

EDIT: I ended up using this instead of the solution I posted earlier. The problem with the other solution was that I had no way to check if the radio button was had been checked or not. However, if you want a completely useless way to get mutually exclusive radio buttons in a repeater or a datagrid then the other solution works.

The reason the radiobuttons don't work within the templates of the datgrid or the repeater was because asp adds control specific strings to the groupname of the radiobuttons. This means when you add an asp:radiobutton tag to the repeater or datagrid item template they are NOT muttually exclusive.

YAY! I never got around to finishing up the post about AD authentication. Maybe on Monday.

I've succumbed

2006-10-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

I've decided posting my thoughts on the internet might be meaningful. This means all of the internet "hype" about blogs has finally pressured me into action.

I'll not promise updates and I'll only post things after I've done my mediocre (at best) job of editing them. I'll put code on here and show you issues that I have solved, hopefully without getting into trouble with the boss. I'll also point out neat things I stumble across on the intertron.

hmmmm now lets get down to business.

The battery on our phone couldn't be worse. Honestly, that whole you get what you pay for cliche is true. We got our phones for free and now they are performing like they were meant to be free.

That was mostly just a warning for anyone who is thinking of getting a new cell phone.

These are potentially the coolest controls I have ever seen for .NET. To make it even sweeter they are releasing these soon. Thankfully the boss put money in the budget just for such an occasion. The school bought both packs (webchart and web.ui) on my recommendation.

phew! Hopefully there will be more. Feel free to e-mail me if you stumble across this for some reason, I'm always happy to get mail.

I should be working