Open Source vs M$ - Good Documentation

Developing can be a trial if you don't have good documentation. At the company I work for we develop console applications using C#. Its nice, very similar to Java, that has its pros and cons as does any language. VS .NET comes with a nice IDE in which one can easily create a form and what not. I came from a Java background and the transition was smooth for the most part. However there has been one thing I've noticed about migrating to .NET, Good Documentation is hard, nay, impossible to find. In the open source world you can find some good documentation on anything. .NET has the mediocre MSDN and a handful of M$ zealot forums. In the event that you think you found what you're looking for, you have to pay to get access to it. Maybe its me but that contradicts M$ mentality of needing to invite/capture more developers. Granted M$ is not in charged to of the forums, but it is a turn off. What's better is that as soon as you pay to get access to the code, its a bunch of crap! On the flip side, if I need to look something up in the open source world, I can at least get my hands on some source code to get a better understanding of a problem. In the event that I do have to pay for some open source code, which defeats the purpose, its 9 times out of 10 exactly what I'm looking for. Bottom line, if you have to pay you're going to get crappy code in .NET and great code in open source.

PS2 Praises

I bought a new PS2 over the weekend and happy times are here again. With the new PS2 I received the network adapter and an AV Off Roading game for free. Not to shabby for $150. Since then, I've been busy playing Metal Gear Solid 2 and watching the DVDs I couldn't on my old PS2. Now the only thing to decide is what to do with it. Some have told me to just throw it away. But there has to be some use for it. It plays 45% of my movies and games, and about 90% of my PS1 games.... Only time will tell.

Selling Out

Recently my boss asked if I would install Microsoft IIS on one of my machines. I was perplexed to say the least as to why he would ask me to do such a thing. It turns out that I might start doing web development on M$ IIS. We'll right after I installed it I had this deep feeling of guilt, like I had sold out. I've used Apache for some time now and its nice. Bloated with options but nice. What have I done, I've installed IIS, probably the most insecure web server known to man. Script kiddies rejoice, you know have a new target!

Slashdot | Corporate Servers Spreading IE Virus

Slashdot | Corporate Servers Spreading IE Virus

"...the flaws affect every user of Internet Explorer, because Microsoft has not yet released a patch. Moreover, the infectious Web sites are not just those of minor companies inhabiting the backwaters of the Web, but major companies, including some banks..."

Makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside doesn't it?

PS2 Blues

When the PS2 first came out at $300 I told myself that I would only buy one if I was in the right place at the right time. I wasn't going to be like some of the freaks out there that called every store everyday just to here the same thing, "They will arrive in x days." So one night after work I went to the local 'Wally World', that's Walmart for those who have never heard that expression, and there it was. A couple of PS2 sitting right in front of me. Needless to say I bought it that night and was awed by its power. I've played many games and watched many movies on my PS2 but no more. Some of the games I used to play and movies I used to watch are no longer playable on the PS2, Disc Read Error! I can play/watch them on other people's PS2 but no longer can I on mine. This just perplexes me. I've taken care of my PS2, it cost me $300! I've kept it in proper storage conditions, haven't dropped it, hit it, or anything like that. It just doesn't work! Any ideas/hints/do this/etc would be greatly appreciated.

GMail

Alright, now that I've had my GMail account for a couple of hours, I can only say one thing. WOW! Not just a wow, but a WOW! 1000Megs are very nice to say the least. I have a yahoo account I use for business and it has a nice 100Megs. I've just read on Slashdot that msn is increasing their free accounts to 250 and paid members to 2Gigs. So in the long run I'll have 1600Megs of email storage, 2 hotmail, 1 yahoo, and a GMail :-). So how does GMail stand up against the mighty M$ and Yahoo? I'm glad you asked.

Storage - This is a no brainer, 1000Megs vs 250Megs vs 100Megs. I would take the 1000Megs for free over the rest of the competition any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Point Google.

Conversations vs Emails - For the most part there is no real difference. A conversation is an email. There are some cool features that conversations have but I haven't messed with them yet....

Folders vs Labels - Almost everyone has used a Yahoo or M$ account. You know how to create folders, mark them read, and move them around. We'll you can do the same thing with GMail but it might take some getting used to for all the n00bs out there. In GMail you don't have folders, you have labels. Labels are essentially folders. The big hurdle to get over is that you don't actually have folders, you apply labels to conversations. For example, I apply a Slashdot label to all conversations that I get from slashdot. If I want to see every conversation from slashdot, I can simply select the Slashdot label.

Searching - GMail is into searching. This makes sense since GMail was developed by Google, the world's best search engine. Basically, if you want you can keep all of your conversations in the Inbox and when you want to find something, just search for it. This allows for fast and easy means of finding any conversation. Point Google.

Starring - Haven't messed with this yet but from what I can tell, its marking an conversation as important. An yes, there is a Star link that will display all star conversations.

Conclusion - So far GMail is on top. I'll be sure to update this in the near future.

Playstation 2 - A Continuation of Metal Gear Solid 3

Bad news sports fans. Last night I placed my MGS2 disc in my PS2 only to have it tell me that there was a Disc Read Error. Disc Read Error!!! Could it be that my disc was scratched? No, the disc was clean and scratch free. So what to do, what to do. I reset my PS2, place the game in the tray, and bam! Disc Read Error! OK I thought, I'll just try it again, make sure the tray is clean and what not. After inspecting everything I put the disc in the tray, reset and lord and behold, Disc Read Error! Why I ask. Why is this happening to me? The game works, I've played it before on my PS2 and have kept it in the proper storage container in the proper temperature, so on and so on. WTF?!

Script Kiddies

Script Kiddies, script kiddies, everywhere I turn I see script kiddies! GO AWAY! I have just recently set up apache on my Gentoo box and have hence forth been subjected to a great array of scrip kiddies. 99% of the kiddies are using Windows 'attacks' and the one in a million that actually try to 'attack' Linux are pretty lame. 'Sigh' - What the hell are you people thinking?! Either do some research about the place you're trying to 'attack' or get some better scripts!

Welcome to Gmail

Success! I have landed me my very own Gmail account thanks to one individual Dan. Dan, you're the man!

Working with 'Tards part 2

I'm back at work, again, and felt like blogging about the 'tards I work with, again. FYI, for those of you who don't know what a 'tard is, preform this script s/'/re/, it will help. I'ld like to take this opportunity to take about my boss's boss. This person works for the Company X that I talked about previously. I kid you not when I say that this man has a BS, nay, Doctors in BS. This man can BS himself out of any situation!

Your first question is most likely, we'll if he's that good, what makes him a 'tard? Thats a good question, and its a little difficult to explain. You see this man has been working for Company X for seven years and knows less than the new employee that started working there a few days ago! I'm talking about the most basics of basics. Good business ethics, how to address your hire ups, how to address your subordinates, everything!

On the technical side of the conversation, he'll ask me or one of my co-workers a question. We'll reply in the most fundamental way possible. He'll smile, nodd, and leave. Two minutes later we receive and email asking us to take care of the problem that we just told him how to fix!!!!! I'ld go on but I thnk you get the idea.

P.S. He never washes his hands!

Metal Gear Solid 3

This game look awesome! I stayed up the other day to watch X-Play's MGS3 preview and man does that game look Bad A$$. The graphics have always been great but the game play looks sweet. This will be the greatest Metal Gear game to date.

I've played the original MG for the NES and at the time I was too young to know that it was a good game. At the time I was into Mega Man, Zelda, and Super Mario Brothers. I was 7 years old! Time went on and I played MGS for the PS1. That was a milestone game. Admist I never beat it, due to many outside factors, it was still a cool game. The same can be said about MGS2 for the PS2. I get really into it and play it for hours. However something always happens that takes me away from the game. School, work, family, friends, just too busy, etc. For me, I can't play a game, stop playing for a couple of months, and then pick right back up. Its just not the same. The same thing happended to me with Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, and The Legend of Dragoon.

I promise this now, with God as my witness. I will not only buy MGS3, I will beat it! I will then proceed to play it again and beat it again. And so on and so on.

My Gentoo thoughts

I've been a Gentoo user for a couple of months now and I must say, its damn good Linux distro. Emerging is a great way to update your system! I've used the package system on Open BSD, it was nice but the folks at Gentoo are a little more up-to-date. I can't wait until Gentoo goes completely non-profit. Once they do I'll be sure to donate!

I won't beg for GMail anymore

I've decided to take down my other blog, Give Me GMail Please. Why, because I was browsing different peoples blogs and found some really desperate people begging for GMail. There was one site, that I can't remember where it was right now, where the author posted "Gmail" or "GMail?" every hour on the hour! I don't want to be associated with these people. Google, forgive me!

My First ./ Point!!

Slashdot | When Think Tanks Attack: "Re:In other news (Score:1)
by jokerr (618070) on Wednesday June 23, @07:59AM (#9505398)
How can anyone be surprised? Though this isn't the first company that has done this, it is getting old. 'We don't have any real proof that open source is bad, so lets just get our customers to say it for us. While we're at it, we'll give them some sort of compensation.'
[ Reply to This | Parent ] "

Working With 'Tards

The title is actually a bit misleading, let me explain. I work for a contract company making/designing/building/etc home grown software. It’s a nice job and I get to do something that I enjoy. The problem lies with the company that we have our contract with. I will refer to the company that hired us as Company X. Company X is a Fortune 500 company located nation wide. It’s a nice company filled with a bunch of 50 year old adolescents that cry when they don't get their way. So what you ask. My company has the same types of people you say. Yeah we'll this is my blog! Anyhow, the employees at Company X are the most computer literate people I've worked with. It doesn't help that they're still using Windows '95 on sub 400MHz machines! If they click on a short cut that points to nowhere because the out-source IT company failed to re-ghost the machines properly, its immediately our fault. After spending 20 minutes to explain the situation to the boss's boss, that's right I said 20 minutes to explain a bad shortcut, I'm finally able to fix the 'problem'.

I gets even better. When we do have an actual problem, we get the lecture and then we're unable to fix it because we don't have access. Imagine, if you would, you're in charge of fixing legacy software that you didn't write. When someone has a problem you fix it on your machine because you had to spend time and money to research the problem. With the fix in hand you go over to the person with the error only to realize that you don't have access to actually fix it for them! Speaking of access, I'm a developer and I don't have access to run anything on my own machine. I can compile and say, "Man, that's some gorgeous code!" but I can't actually test anything. And to those who were wondering, no my dead line hasn't changed. Three weeks without 'run rights' and I'm still being hounded to finish my work.

Sorry about the rambling/venting, just getting this off my chest. To paraphrase, I develop software but can't actually develop because I don't have rights. I also fix legacy software but can't actually fix it because I don't have rights. Fortunately, 90% of the errors on the legacy system are user errors and just require me to strategically tell them to RTFM without actually insulting them. Man I'm glad my job title isn't IT Support! Enter sarcasm here.

I don't get it

I don't get it. WTF are these militants thinking? So your pissed off that the world is against you. So why do they take it out on civillians. Doing so has indeed heightened (sp) the level of fear but doesn't this fall under war crimes? I mean, take it out on military personal. Don't get me wrong, I think beheading someone is sick. Hold them prisoner and if you HAVE to kill them, just shoot them in the head or something. Anything more civilized than beheading. I just keep telling myself, we all reap what we sow.

GFX Card Blues

A travesty has occurred. The fan on my GeForce 3 Ti500 has died. This really sux for me since it was my best card. For now, I'm stuck playing UT2004 on a 32Megabtye TNT2 Card at the lowest possible settings...

End users

There is an employee here at work who is a real hoot. I'm in charge of maintaining an Access '97 application that is to say the least, buggy! We'll amist my many trouble tickets I see to, I've meet some really interesting people. One person in particular said something to me that was the funniest thing I've heard. The application had an error and displayed a message box, it that much right at least. Or so I thought. While he was venting on me he said and I quote, "The box says OK, but its not OK. I don't want to click on OK because its NOT OK. Do you understand, its NOT OK!" End users, gotta love'm

Slashdot | WinXP SP2 Sacrifices Compatibility for Security

Slashdot | WinXP SP2 Sacrifices Compatibility for Security
Its about time!

Slashdot - News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot - News for nerds, stuff that matters
Just had to get my props to the "warm green glow"

Gmail and the pains of web filtering

I want Gmail. I can't say it any other way than that. I want a 1000Meg email account! Great, who doesn't you ask. And what about the rest of the title you ask? Well, I work for a contract company located at a Fortune 500 company that uses a web filter. I'll admit that web filters are nice and all, but they blocked the Gmail site! I know that those reading this are saying, "Well duh! Gmail is a web based email service and good web filters block that!" I have no argument against that, but damn it, I want to do some more reading up on it. I want to bask in the wonderful information about how great Gmail is/will be once it goes live. But instead I have to get second hand info from slashdot. Don't get me wrong, I love slashdot, but its just not the same....

To My Wife

What kind of husband would I be if I didn't start blogging with the most important and obvoius blogging thought? Stephanie, I love you more than life its self.