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November 26, 2008

Dear IE,

Could you possibly suck any more than you currently do?

This is a great error message, with PLENTY of decent details:

uselessIE

But without the name of the flipping file where the error occurred, what use is all that info?

And you've been like this for like 4+ versions now. (And I don't even have the energy to point out that lines and chars would be different even IF you were able to give me a file name. *sigh*)

Sheesh,

--Mike

November 20, 2008

Mommy!

SSDs.

I've been watching these great little 64GB SSDs (128GB are just as good), and thinking about getting 2 of them. (In a RAID-0 I'd get insane performance. Insane.)

Then this comes along:
Insanely fast Samsung 256GB SSDs.

2 of those would melt my face off.

November 13, 2008

SQL Server Videos

www.sqlservervideos.com launched a few months ago to provide the world with free, top-notch, videos and training resources to help developers, reluctant DBAs, analysts, and IT managers learn about SQL Server.

Since launch SSV has had over 20,000 visitors, served up nearly 7,000 videos, and is now to the point where it's consuming about 1-2GB/day in transfer (for downloads). Of course, I'd like to see 10x all of those numbers, but that will come as I add more content.

Speaking of content, when the site launched I only had about 10 videos in two different serieseseseses. I've now got 3 series and 24 videos and I'm hoping to launch a new series on "What's new in SQL Server 2008" within the next few days. (I've already got one of the videos done and two more on the way.)

So, go check out the site if you haven't already done so - or if you haven't checked it out in a while. And make sure to sign up to the site's RSS if you'd like stay up-to-date on new releases as I'll only blog about SSV every few months on this site. (In fact, I'm mostly just blogging about this here today to make sure that search engines know where to find "SQL Server Videos". muhahahaha.)

November 11, 2008

Veteran's Day

One of the most amazing pieces of film I've ever seen is Ken Burns' "The War" - which is a very sobering documentary about WWII. Not only is it a powerful review of the impact of war on people and on nations, but it's a sobering reminder that freedom isn't free.

And in a world that increasingly seems to forget that, I just wanted to take a few minutes out of my day and thank all of those brave men and women who have given so much to make my life what it is today.

November 05, 2008

Killer, Free, Visual Studio Plugins

If you like Visual Studio, and you like free, then you need to check out two really killer FREE extensions, or plugins, out on the Visual Studio Gallery.

The first one, Source Code Outliner PowerToy, is a great tool that gives you a full-blown outline of the code in whatever file you're currently using. The best way to describe it is to liken it to a document-outline when working with HTML in something like DreamWeaver, or to contrast it to that nasty-little drop down you get at the top of your code window in VB.NET - only this isn't a drop down (but double-clicking on anything takes you to its exact location in the code). (And, before I get flamed by VB users, I'm NOT saying VB's nasty - i'm saying that little drop down is nasty because it provides GREAT functionality, but I hate that all of the contents are in a tiny little drop down).

The second one, PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008, is just a motley collection of various power-tools and augmentations for Visual Studio. But it offers over 20 different little tweaks, improvements, and options that will make your life tons easier. Fact is, I'm sure that just about everyone that uses this tool will find 4 or 5 different things that they've wanted their entire adult life...

Best of all, both plugins are not only free, but they're both just a few MBs each, and both have an MSI installer - so you can download them and install them in just seconds.