Warm & Canadian Tire

Since it was unseasonably warm today I decided to take the opportunity to go to Canadian Tire and get my oil/filter changed and change my wipers. It was 20$. I am not sure how it worked out so cheap. I did bring my own 1L [or are the bottles 2L?] and filter, but I'm sure something was calculated wrong. The womean mechanic said it requires 4 bottles for a 'change'. It took 15+ min. :-)

Firefox 1.5 - Now available

Most Popular programming language

Want to know the most popular programming language(s)?

MSDN Forums follow-up

I got a nice reply from Josh Ledgard at Microsoft regarding my post yesterday. Very nice.

MSDN Forums

Microsoft has 'new' forums setup and they, "...hold product teams in developer division accountable for the health of their communities". I just had to post something after reading this.

The Ultimate Guide to Google Services

I knew Google had a lot of services but here's a nice list of them.

The Finalizer - IDispatch the Fury!

I use to watch a TV show called RobotWars but as I've mentioned before I no longer watch TV so I haven't enjoyed that kind'a action for awhile. Here is something I might find entertaining.

Application Settings: Save them all and make it 'exportable'

One of the analogies that software should emulate is the concept of the desktop or workplace. Now Microsoft Window's does have a thing called the, "Desktop". But what I'm looking for is something that remembers where everything was located the last time you finished using it. I should not have to re-open every window and place it where I want it. Applications should save the last location their windows were openned [plus other attributes] and re-open at the location. It's not a hard feature to implement. This ideally would be an OS level function. Think about it in the real world if I'm working on the some reasonably sized project and I setup a workplace where I have all my work spread all over 'am I likely to put everything away each night and re-open the next time I work? Not likely. In fact it would be really irratating to do this everytime. Well that's what an application is like when it doesn't save your preferences as to where windows go, their size, etc. You could take this furthur and allows one to save 'sets' of desktops. I'm sure there must be a utility that does this. Anyone know of one? Let me know.

Work week 40/80/120+ ?!?!?!

I always thought a 40 hour work week was too long, but having worked in the software industry I know it was expected that you did more and I certainly did. But in the 'entertainment' industry 80/120+ hours. See Page #9. Wow?!?!?!

Switch between Linux and Windows using hardware

I've always had problems dual booting between Linux and Windows. Now this seems like a much more viable solution.

Prodigy -- Linux advertisement by IBM

An interesting Ad. Since I don't have TV it's new to me:

Prodigy -- Linux advertisement by IBM.

Maxell to launch holographic storage in Sep 2006

I don't really care what the technology is, but I do want more space: Maxell to launch holographic storage next year.

Starting to miss the chicks from back home

Recently I've been thinking about and talking to some of the girls from back home. I would love to see them again.

Movie Clip Tweening prototypes - download

Interesting tool for creating more realistic tweens in Flash: Movie Clip Tweening Prototypes.

GamesIndustry.biz - Parents set to sue Blizzard after World of Warcraft player dies

GamesIndustry.biz - Parents set to sue Blizzard after World of Warcraft player dies: "to Chinese news agency Xinhua, the parents, who reside in the city of Tianjin, claim the boy jumped to his death whilst re-enacting a scene from the game."... There's no question that these games are addictive and it's really unfortunate to hear something like this happen, but should not the parents have some responsibility here?

Interesting quote...

"... a student’s performance is a reflection upon the instruction.". Now this comes from a QA person @Microsoft. My question can this be applied to Univ. classes?

Metal Website & Petit-P's Fete #1

Spent most of the day building 11 mockups for the new 'metal' website. I asked a couple of people what they thought and everyone is choosing either the last one, physchologically thinking they get better or one that no one else chose. This whole process is beggy for a more automated way of presenting mockup with voting and randomization, etc., but that's another story.

Later in the evening ~@8:00pm I met Mr. W. and gave him a lift to Petit-P's Fete #1. People gvaaffe themselves. And the weather was warm so we went for a walk. Alex and Max phoned later and wanted to join in and crash - no problem. Everything was OK until someone [don't know his name] collapsed in the washroom. Wasn't really clear what happened but we needed to call an ambulance. He was able to walk out so he clearly wasn't that 'hurt'.

After Alex and Max crashed at my place. It was good cause I could gvaaffe myself a little later. They watched the DVD, "The Marksman" and then after the DVD, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

The 100 hour work week: believe it or not?

Steven Sinofsky's Microsoft TechTalk : The 100 hour work week: believe it or not?: "we actually studied bugs counts and defect rates and found that the people that wrote the most code, also had the most incomplete code and the most bugs/line."

CryptoKids: America's Future Codemakers & Codebreakers

I would agree that anyone that's into computers would probably like 'crypto' stuff. Here's a web-site that talks about it and has some exercises. It's aimed at a younger audience but there's still some cool stuff: CryptoKids America's Future Codemakers & Codebreakers

Another evening avec

Mr. W. came by ~@8:30pm. We gvaafe ourselves and then suddenly he decided to leave. I think it was ~@10:20pm. I was trying to figure out when was the first time we met. Since it's Petit-P Fete in 1 week it makes sense that that was the first time we met. I remember him being the person, "avec attitude", and of course being the coolest person.

Anniversary - 3 years!

It's my 3rd year anniversary living here. No time to reflect but it's been interesting.

MAT191: MidTerm #2

Wrote the MAT191: MidTerm #2 today.

MAT191 - Studying for tomorrow's MidTerm #2

Spent the day studying for the MAT191 MidTerm #2 tomorrow.

C++ Assignment #03

Spent the entire day doing the C++ Ass 03.

Mr. W.

Seeing Mr. W. in another car was very funny today. Ironically I was thinking it would be cool to see him by accident.

Macromedia - MAX 2005 : General Session Videos

Some interesting stuff coming from Adobe and Macromedia Macromedia - MAX 2005 : General Session Videos

Humour

At the PDC2005 conference this video spoof with Bill Gates was shown.

Recent DVDs on the watch list

Rented the DVDs: Star Wars III, Saint Ralph and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Booking a Theatre

After spending some time with a local 'metal' band on the weekend (more details to come) I thought I'd look into how much the local university charges for renting the Theatre. Personally I was hoping for zero. Maybe some sort of profit sharing. After all we are all part of the same [university] community. So begin with the usuall find out who's in charge. Go thru several people before you get to the right one. So turns out it's xxxx. Her office is in the basement of the theatre building. Basically the cost is $500 + [extra costs] at least another $200 for setup and another $10/hr for the people. If it's part of a univ. club you get a $100 rebate. Not only is it over priced and these 'extra' cost are just 'made up', but it's booked until Apr of next year. Now if it's not a reasonable price then why is it booked for the next 6 months? I guess it's a matter of perspective and location. Since it's one of the only theatres in the area and it's open to community bookings there's not must choice :-(

What comes after Visual Studio 2005?

"Phoenix is neither a compiler nor a JITer, but will eventually transform both. It is the codename for an internal Microsoft project that provides an extensible framework for the analysis, optimization, and modification of code during compilation. Think of Phoenix as a tool that allows you to peek into the black box at the heart of compilers in order to see and modify their internals." - MSDN Magazine Nov 2005