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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.

Posted on November 11, 2008 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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.

Posted on November 05, 2008 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 07, 2008

FireFox 3 Sucks

Worst Browser Ever.

And I've been in love with FireFox for a very long time. (Ironically, I still like it more than IE, but I think I'm going to switch to Chrome.)

But frankly, other than the fact that I love how FF3 renders, I think it's one of the worst browsers ever built. It's so insanely buggy, crashes all the time, and feels like a damned tug-boat.

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad...
I simply remember a few of my favorite things, like:
a) The fact that FF3 crashes 4-5 times per day
b) That whole: Firefox is still running so you can't launch it. But feel free to either use task-manager to kill it or restart your machine.
c) The fact that it 100% broke the WMP plugin.  (And that FF knows about it as a posted/confirmed bug yet refuses to do anything about it.)
d) The way it frequently looses its friggin mind when accessing content on a local network. (I do my dev locally, and when I hit F5 to refresh changes from my dev server, FF3 frequently just completely forgets where to grab that content and won't load the requested page for minutes. Yet I can fire up IE and Chrome and the page loads instantly.)
e) The fact that it goes completely limp 15-20 times per day - and becomes completely un-responsive for 2-3 seconds while it's apparently either choking on a bone, or waiting to see whether or not it will crash again.

Yeah, it definitely feels like it was rushed into production.

It's the plugins, stupid
And before some-one pipes-up and blames my plugins:
a) I’ve only got 4 installed (a password import/export plugin, delicious, and firebug + yslow)
b) If plugins can make the entire browser so unstable and buggy/crash-prone, then that’s not an issue with the plugins, it’s an issue with the browser’s ability to sand-box correctly.

Guess I'll be curious to see what IE8 is like too. (Though I'm just getting too old to bother installing the beta.)

Posted on October 07, 2008 | | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

October 02, 2008

Is this thing On?

No, I haven't given up blogging. Just haven't had much of anything useful to say of late.

I have, however, been busy writing up thoughts and the likes over at WindowsDevPro.com.

So, if you strangely, somehow, feel the need to hear me rant or rave about things, make sure to check out out some of the recent articles.

Blogging here will resume... within a week or so.

Posted on October 02, 2008 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 27, 2008

Hilarious

Nice try apple. But it looks like Jake got the last laugh.

Posted on September 27, 2008 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 30, 2008

It's Alive!!!

www.sqlservervideos.com

Should be self explanatory. But if you'd like to see how to best use the site, make sure to check out the 'how to video':
www.sqlservervideos.com/how-to-ssv

P.S. And... speaking of the reference to Frankenstein (i.e. "it's alive!"), I just finished reading the real book (i.e. by Mary Shelly). It was frickin' briliant - and nothing like any of the movies you've seen.

Hmmm... come to think of it... that sounds a lot like SQLServerVideos.com *grin*.

Posted on July 30, 2008 | | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

June 28, 2008

Why Securing MS Apps is a PITA

As a Developer and IT Pro one of the things I really hate is seeing an example install everything as Administrator, or just completely fail to use good security practices.

Therefore as a Technical Evangelist, one of the things I really strive for in the examples and content I create is to use something OTHER than Domain Admin to run my services in and so on. Though... I'm starting to rethink that based on the hideous number of hours it always cause me to lose.

Case in point, I'm working on some content for a pretty cool new product from Microsoft. And there are a lot of components that make up this product. Those components can be installed on a single machine or distributed across a number of machines.

Rather than just installing everything on a single machine, I went with the more real-world approach of doing it like people would do it in... the real world. And I created separate domain accounts for my services and so on.

And, when interacting with the tool, I'm doing it like a real users would - as I think that makes my tutorials more viable and realistic (especially when part of my job is to watch out for 'icebergs' if you will - and steer readers, viewers, whatever around those problems when they're working with these tools).

Only, I'm really getting sick of the way Microsoft makes security exponentially more and more difficult. By spreading it out over so many different control points, gateways, ACLs, and other points of interaction.

For example, while working with this project I'm on now, there's the ability to deploy my projects to a 'preview' location that's a web site. I try to push to that location, and I'm told, very bluntly, that 'deployment failed'. (Yeah... killer error message there.)

Hmmm. Let's see... there's my security context, the context of the web service I'm working with, and the context of the site I'm routing to via the WS. That also means a couple of places to put ACLs on folders.

That's tedious enough, but hey... it's all ... part of the job of using the principle of least privilege. So I go through all those possibilities and make sure the account I'm using (and the account the service is using) has the right perms on sites and folders.

No love.

Ahhh wait.. the service itself has it's own security accounts and authorization (i.e. like SQL Server). Maybe the account I'm using or the service account I'm using needs the 'Creator' perms/role?

No love.

Google? A few people reporting the same problems - and aside from the obvious suggestions of checking perms.. there's still no love.

Well... it IS a demo after all... and...just to see what's up as part of troubleshooting I make the service account an admin.

No Love.

Just to see... how'z about: Domain Admins?

Still: No Love.

Damnit! What more could you want????!!!111

Fine. Log out as CONTOSO\Mike, log back in as ADMINISTRATOR.

Love. Only... now I don't want it.

Posted on June 28, 2008 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 18, 2008

Free Virtualization Event

WindowsITPro is putting on a free, online, virtualization seminar. Registration is painless, and there are some great talks/presentations scheduled. (Though I've heard that one of those presenters is a tool.)

Make sure to check it out if you're interested.

Posted on June 18, 2008 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 27, 2008

On Acronyms and the IRS

Acronyms are pretty cool.

Some pretty faithfully match the words they're comprised of:
SCUBA - Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus
TLA - Three (or Two) Letter Acronym

Others a bit more of a stretch:
MDX - Multidimensional eXpressions
DNA - Deoxyribonucleic Acid

And a few don't come even close:
IRS - Blood Sucking Bastards

Me? I'm just a wee bit bitter that they 100% robbed me of $1068 this year - and that if I don't pay THEM (the robbers/thieves) then, ironically, I go to jail.

Early 2008 I filed, retroactively, as an S-Corp for 2007. Congress specifically instructed the IRS BSB to allow these late filings. And, happily, they accepted my election without issue.

Only, all during 2007 I was paying estimated personal taxes. To keep things simple, let's say that was $15k. Meaning, that at the end of 2007, the IRS had $15k of my $$ in their grubby little hands. By changing to an S-Corp, the way I pay taxes as a corporation radically changed - and instead of paying quarterly estimated taxes, I now need to pay monthly withholding taxes (i.e. the kind of tax you pay to an employee).

The problem, by retroactively becoming an S-Corp for 2007 the IRS was expecting (let's say) $15k in withholding taxes. I didn't have that. As far as they were concerned, I was Wesley Snipes.

So they fined me.

Yeah, I could get an expensive lawyer and fight this - but I'd lose way more than what I've already lost.

Yeah, they're a gigantic bureaucracy, and I'm not surprised that I got screwed this way.

But by the same token, they're immoral. No other business or organization would operate this way. (If you had a $15k tab with the hospital, and owed $15k ... I'm sure they could figure out how to make that just work.)

I asked that they review my records, and note that I always pay on time, and abate or remove the penalty. They sent me a trial-size package of Vaseline, and told me to pay up. Blood Sucking Bastards....

UPDATE: After contacting the IRS... it looks like they're still trying to decide whether I have to pay the fines or not. i.e. they haven't yet processed my letter asking them to remove the fines. (Hmm... maybe I should take this post down while they're considering... )

Posted on May 27, 2008 | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

May 05, 2008

An Open Letter to My Keyboard

Dear Keyboard,

There's really, never, ever, ever, ever, ever a time when I don't want the NUM LOCK key off. I have a keyboard with a 10-key because I like those keys.

And I don't use that side of my keyboard as a drink-holder. Ever.

So, I'd prefer it if we could work something out where my 10-key always worked. Cuz having the ability to turn off my 10-key/Toggle NUM LOCK is tantamount to having keys that turn off 'right hand' or 'left hand' keys - i.e., totally useless.

Love,

--Mike

No, really: When did 'they' decide that a 10-key was just too much for some users to handle? What was the conversation like?

"Dood, this 10-key thing is nice, but it's just too much power. Stop the insanity and give people a way to turn that thing off for the love of all that's holy - otherwise someone will shoot their foot off with that thing"....

Posted on May 05, 2008 | | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

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