Friday, December 23, 2005

Another Poker night

It was another attempted repeat of yesterday's Poker night. I had thought from yesterday that Mr. W would feel a bit awkward given who the other people were there and it kinda came up in conversation as to why he was there. But that quickly passed. He returned the next evening. It was rather weird he basically had to leave before they arrived. And so it happened like that - he left 10 or 20 min. before the others arrived. There was about 9+ people. We played Poker and N64 again. People started to get hungry. Since I over fed yesterday and they wanted to go out get some food and return I waited briefly for their decision. They decided since it was so late to just leave. It was around 1:00am and since we had done the 3:00am thing last night that was OK with me. I enjoyed both nights. Really great people. The HS-gang are welcome anytime.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Poker

More Poker with the HS gang. Nice group of people. Mr. W. also came over and though it was suppose to be a larger group of people after all today was the last day of school and I thought any family obligation would not start until tomorrow. We had enough people to play a decent game of Poker and N64. Mr. W. missed his last bus and had to take a taxi later. The evening wrapped up about 3:00am.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Final Project: C++

Tonight is an 'all nighter' to get the final C++ assignment completed. Working with others on my team has been interesting. Lots more to be said here but we'll have to wait for the marks to be handed in.

Speaking of marks I think I'll wait until ...

DVD: The Island

Watched the DVD, "The Island".

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Exam: MAT

Today was the MAT191 Calculus exam. I was up late last night studying. I ended up going to bed at around 2:30 or 3:00am. Woke-up at 7:05am. Eeeech. Was it worth it? Well I have to put in the effort :-)

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Joel on Software

I've posted a response to a MS Office problem loading a different versions of the .NET framework.

Oh and another reply to a deployment issue.

Monday, December 12, 2005

For those in the need

Years ago a friend and I were talking about the design of something that would allow him to work with his laptop on his couch. We came up with something different from this but this has other advantages.

Free Book - Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers

Visual Basic 6.0 Resource Center: Free Book - Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers: "Free Book - Introducing Visual Basic 2005 for Developers".

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Poker and the DVD, "Cinderella Man"

Well it's been a long time since the last time I played Poker. Boris and Zoran came over and cracked out the poker chips. I had decided that today would be my 'relax' day. They showed me a couple of games I've never heard of. Interesting stuff. Another person dropped in, can't remember his name. After I watched the end of the DVD, "Cinderella Man". Wow an incredible movie. Directed by Ron Howard, it is a extraordinary piece of film making. Now I was a bit gvaafe at the time, but I ended up falling asleep on the couch and watched it repeatedly all night, with different commentaries, etc. Great movie.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

Exam: CSC211

Today was the CSC211 - Digital Design final exam. I had gone in early (10:00am) to get some last minute studying done. Since it is Sat. that means the normal computer club room was closed as well as the door to even access the hallway. Not good. So I went to the library and studied there for a while. I was desperate to meet someone from my class to go over a couple of things. After 2 hours I decided to see if the Prof. had arrived and/or maybe another student. I could see the light from the computer club room was on so that meant someone was there. They must have got in by another door since the normal door into the basement was still locked. I went back upstairs and to the other side of the hall. That door was unlocked. Ya! I met a couple of people from my class (Tom, Ed, Abdul) we went over some things and I eat my meat pie before the 2:00pm exam. It was a 3 hour exam and not feeling to good (eg: going in/out of sickness) all week I was prepared by bring some medicine and food since I was planning on being on the campus all day. As far as food and health went I was OK, as far as the exams results I guess we find out late Dec.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

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.

Monday, November 28, 2005

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.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

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.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Monday, November 21, 2005

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?

Saturday, November 19, 2005

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".

Thursday, November 17, 2005

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

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

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.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Sunday, November 6, 2005

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.

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

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

Sunday, October 23, 2005

XaraXtreme - A cheap Illustrator Competitor?

A really interesting piece of software mentioned in this article. And yes they are correct I've never heard of XaraXtreme before.

Monday, October 17, 2005

No School

Due to the amount of rain in the last 2-3 days, school was cancelled today.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

This is what I always imagined

One of the things that I always wanted as a kid who could draw was the ability to touch any object in the world and get the colour into my pencil. I always imagined something that would allow me to do this. As time pasted I came to realize that the, 'eyedropper' tool found in most modern day painting applications have this. So I became to love this. And with digital photos and scanning I could now accomplish what I wanted. But I still always wanted a portable pencil like tool that I could just touch objects in the real world. Well here we are today and MIT has published information about a new technologythat allows this. They call this the, "I/O Brush" Very Cool. Let's work on the size and we will have something.

Monday, October 3, 2005

Office 12 - PDF Support

Why does Microsoft take so long to implement PDF support in Office if they've been hearing about it for YEARS from customers and they get 30,000 search requests (per WEEK) on the OfficeOnline website? Good God, how is that listening to customers?!?!

Scripting Language Stats

It appears scripting languages are falling a bit.

Saturday, October 1, 2005

Mr. W Fete

Today was the bornday party of Mr. W. [tomorrow is the real day] I put together a custom label for some Johnny Bootlegger, made a custom DVD, gathered some mini chocolate bars and some paper (+f) and 2-pizzas and gave that to him. There was some familiar people. Hadn't seen Julien in a while. I was ifie about going over there I only wanted to drop by for 15 min. show him the stuff and leave avec P. But things got a little extended. I walked around the street so everyone would be comfortable. But I heard later they weren't. No problem in the end I wasn't there that long. I hope everything was OK with him. It was an important Fete and I didn't want to ruin it.

Took P to his friend Nick's place. Nothing seemed to be going on there. It was apparently his bornday as well but the real date was 3 weeks before. It turns out that it was really boring but I certainly didn't hang around. Dropped-off and departed within 5 min.

Back to my place to watch the DVD, "The Longest Yard". Not a bad movie, good for a Sat. night. It was just reaching the climax when P and Alex phoned. Pretty late ~12:30pm. I picked them up with Max [of course] and let them crash at my place. It's the first time that P crash. We watched the DVD again and then watched, "Robots". Everyone fell asleep watching this.

People left in the morning to catch the 10:25am bus.

A long week

A long week is finally over. I was sick since last Friday and had assignments to hand in today. After failing to get some personal things done I'm certainly happy with the effort and results [I hope] that I did for school.

Mr. W. wanted to gvaa himself tonight and I was more then happy to since it's been a while. Wow, it was great a different taste and experience. Probably the best ever. Also found out that's he's left handed. Cool. But better not tell him that we are the same, this doesn't go over well :-( Oddly it was very difficult to sleep last night. Maybe it was just one of those nights. Mr. W. left at ~9:00pm. He wanted to go to the Subway but I had just eaten and wasn't up to it. I just thought I'm not hungry why do I want to watch him eat. And I was very tired and I returned home and had a night of the DVD, "Robots". Interesting DVD.

Monday, September 26, 2005

TactaPad

An interesting revolution in interface design can be had with a TactaPad.

SCC Switch Provider v1.0b2 - Downloads

It's been a while since I looked at the download count for my application: Source Code Control Switcher.



It's currently at: 678



:-)

Visual Studio C++ Macros

After writting a C++ assignment I wanted an easy way to comment my code in 'my' format, so I wrote some macros to do it.

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Office 12

There's so much new technology coming out from Microsoft now it's incredible. Here's a look at the new Office 12 and my opinion on the brief preview.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

DVD - The Ring Two

Watched the DVD, "The Ring Two". I don't know I never saw The Ring but I can't say there was a lot in this movie.

Macromedia - Flash Professional 8

The latest version of Flash, version 8 is now shipping.



A gift ?

If anyone feels like buying me something try: Adobe Messenger.

SyncToy v1.0

Here's and interesting syncing tool for Windows: SyncToy.

Programming: C# and VB.NET -> LINQ

Today at Microsoft's PDC, Anders Hejlsberg did the first public demo of the LINQ Project in the keynote. There has always been a 'disconnect' between programming and querying DBMS. The LINQ project proposes changes to the CLR to support querying a datastore as a first class citizen - meaning you get strongly typed query language and you can query anything from your SQL database, to business objects, to anything thing else the has implement an IEnumerator interface. For a quick overview you can watch this video.

Monday, September 12, 2005

DVD - Crash

Watched the DVD, "Crash". Wow that's a really different and good movie.

Hacking the GoogleToolBar

Recently Google released a version of the GoogleToolBar that allows you to search your Google e-mail. What's also cool about their implementation is the fact that with a simple registry addition you can search any e-mail account (eg: Yahoo Mail, etc.).

Using regedt32.exe or any other registry editor:

1) Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\CustomSearch
2) Create a new key called, "Yahoo Mail".
3) Duplicate the keys under the GMail Key.
4) Modify the keys such that you have:
(Default)
Icon {Use a custom hex .ico file here}
Site http://mail.yahoo.com/
Tip Yahoo Mail
Title Yahoo Mail
Url http://us.f607.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Search?
Find=1&B=1&_p=top&ftyp=A&T=HDRS_ONLY&M=CONTAINS&S={query}
&ymuri=ym&fi=3&order=down&sort=date&pos=0

The only 'tricky' value is the 'Url'.

5) Save your changes and restart IE.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Amazon and WebServices

And under the area of interesting but almost useless I found a web-site where you can type and phrase and it will search Amazon for anything with the text and generate a montage. Here's an example.

Biking

Went biking today. It didn't start well but certainly picked up. Petit-P, Mr. W and I found some new trails. It was good. We did a lot. We started @3:00pm and had a good time. There was the typical sharing problem, but I can't be concerned about this anymore. We all separated [at 6pm] and went our different ways. I had luckily brought my car half way and having no food ended up at the grocery store where there was, "tons" of people. Got home eat some left-overs.

UI Design - I love this stuff

Well Microsoft has finally updated some UI Guidelines for the upcoming version of Windows, Windows Vista. I've been looking for some interface guidelines for years. Though preliminary they are a good start.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Mr. Mexican + Gang

Well Mr. Mexican brought his gang over again. They are very interesting. They seem to fall into this age of knowing something about old video games, NES and Battleship [the board game not this one] but I don't know if it's something they grew up with or are they doing the 'retro' thing. They seem like a great bunch of people. Only I'm not really sure how much they understand English. Most of them seem pretty good. But as with other groups the cool guy doesn't seem to talk a lot. But he's certainly helpfull. There's no organizational problems here. These guys know how to have fun. I think they left @11:30pm or so. It was great. I was easily gvaafe.

Friday, September 9, 2005

Last weekend of entertainment - maybe ;-)

Well Mr. Mexican, Alex, Kevin and P came by. After relaxing at the 'tea' place I went and picked them up at the village. Around 8:00pm. I was expecting Max and Frank but they were doing other things. This was the first time I'd ever met Kevin. He seemed OK. We returned to, 'the' place and everyone gvaafe themselves. Mr. Mexican and P left early [@10:30pm'ish], but Kev and Alex hung around. We watched some DVD and ~@12:30am I drove them home. Alex is cool in these situations.

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

School: First Day

Today was the first day of school. The usual organizing of courses and schedule will probably take a week or so. I'm glad to be back.

Later @9:16pm Mr. W came by and made me gvaafe.

Friday, September 2, 2005

Petit-P went away for the weekend to his boat but that didn't prevent Mr. Mexican from phoning. He brought over 8+ friends. It was great. I was so, "gvaafe". I watched a DVD, "The Deal" after and didn't understand a thing. Merci.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Mr. Mexicans' Fete!

It was Mr. Mexican's Bornday today. He wanted to have his party at my place. No problem. Other then having about 15 people that I didn't know, things went OK. It was short but that was perfect - everything ended before twelve. I waited for Mr. W. for 40 mins. but no luck. I assumed he had forgotten or decided to not come. Then @12:28am Mr. T phoned. He was with: Alex, Max and Frank. They wanted to come over. Since it was unclear if Mr. W. was coming [I had assumed not at this point] and I still wanted some entertainment I welcomed their call. I picked them up at the corner store. We came back, they ordered pizza. I don't know why everyone always orders pizza I'd gladly sell/give mine. Well they watched the DVD, "Sin City" and then crashed. Mr. W. had finally called @1:40am. I had to say no - even though I felt bad. I don't think some of these guys get along with him. I'm glad I didn't wait after all waiting over an hour and a half and not knowing for sure if he was coming would not have been fun. I guess next time I will wait'ish.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Mr. W. - back #3

After being away for the entire summer Mr. W. finally returned. The first night was boring as hell with P and him, but the other two days were great. Mr. W crashed.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Mr. W. - back #2

A much better more normal time with Mr.W. He left ~3:00am. Makes up for yesterday. Just watched the DVD, "7 Seconds". Not a great film.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Mr. W. - back #1

Mr. W. is back - I had a lot of running around to do some stuff - like take out Chinese food etc. Unfortunately someone began his stuff in the car too soon. The whole night wasn't fun. We meet up with P and stuff just got more boring.

Sudoku

After reading about a new puzzle called Sudoku here I found an online version.

Of course the home page for the game is: www.sudoku.com

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Mini MDB

Another small MDB avec: Petit-P, Alex, Max et Mr.T.

Mr. T. and Alex stayed the entire night. Alex is tres cool.

Inputting Math Equations

Finally a cool [easy] way to enter Math equations into a document:

Math Equations

Friday, August 19, 2005

Monday, August 15, 2005

Exception Handling

No matter what venue you go to from customer service to program development, in my mind it's all about exception handling. Oddly I don't believe as human beings we handle exceptions at all well. So of course this begs the question why modern programming languages use this method for handling problems.......

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Back from Vacation

Well got the brakes fixed while I was on vacation. There was a steel on steel sound so I didn't want to return with that sound. It's still not perfect, but it's better.

Friday, August 12, 2005

Prep for School

Signed up for school. Since there was a weird pre-req for one of the courses I had to go onto the campus. The 3 people that can sign-off on me taking the required courses weren't on the campus, so I returned home and e-mail them.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Got back from vacation today. Left at Noon and arrived at 8:30pm. The trip is 750+km, but it always takes a bit longer then you'd expect. I took what in hindsight was the incorrect road and it went thru downtown rushhour traffic. But not a big delay.

Friday, July 22, 2005

MDB #2

Well it was a much smaller more controlled MDB #2. Started about 8:30pm when Tony showed up. Ended around 11:30pm. It was good.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

A Good Sunday Afternoon

Well today was a good day. Petit-P came over and we had a good afternoon. Very refreshing. Later Remi #2 (aka: Cool Accent - CA) visited. It's the first time I've ever met him. He's another of Petit-P's ami and he's got a very cool accent. And oddly he lives on my street.

Friday, July 1, 2005

Canada Day

Today is Canada. After a 2-3 hour bike ride to Mr.T and Darth's place then back I was certainly tired. Came home did some photo work then at ~@10:00pm went to get Petit-P, Zarco and Darian. We went to the park for the Canada Day celebration. It finished at 11:00pm and shortly after it started to rain. Came home, really tired, watch an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 3: Krazee-Eyez Killa, then went to bed.

Monday, June 27, 2005

OD Day & Subway

Well today was another hot day which is great, because then rain we had before was killing us. The OD thing happened at Subway today. That was weird.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Allergies

I found a cool new secret biking path. Leads to some water. Since I was so hot I just sat in the water. I'm not sure if it was the quality of the water or the heat but my eye puffed up. Not looking good.

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Holiday

Today was a holiday. That means everything is closed and there's a celebration in the park tonight. I decided to go to be social and ended up getting there around 10:40pm. Fortunately it was free after 11:00pm, so I wandered around until 11 and then went in. Did bump into Mr. T. God he knows every chic in the city. Incredible. Ended-up giving him a life home. He wanted to practice driving. We drove around for a while and then Mr. W phoned @12:44am. Since it is the last time I will see him for the summer I decided to give him a lift as well. Dropped Mr. T and off to the corner store near the Canadian Tire. Picked him and his friend Julien. Apparently we've met before. Can't say I remember. They wanted to go to my place. No problem. We did the usual. Drove them home ~@3:20am.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Course Content

Free Microsoft Training Content for Visual Studio Team System: Course Content only until Nov'05

Sunday, June 5, 2005

A late visit

Mr W. visited today. I had a great time for 3+ hrs. We visited the top of a mountain. And with the wierd weather [a cool breeze] it was great.

Saturday, June 4, 2005

Plans cancelled for 2nite & Sunny Day #4

Well my plans got cancelled for 2nite, but I was kind of expecting that.

Since it was such a nice day [again] I ended up going to the bar(s) downtown @9:30pm.

Friday, June 3, 2005

School Holiday & Sunny Day #3

Well there was another school holiday, and Mr W. wanted to go buy a gift for his friend's party tonight. No problem. We went to the main mall and looked around. He bought XYZ.

We saw Petit-P on the way there.

The day got better when we went back to my placed and talked.

Thursday, June 2, 2005

Sunny Day #2

Since it was sunny again I decided to do what I use to do and get some sun and read. Started a new book a friend lent to me a while ago. Upon returning started to install Microsoft's Live Communication Server. Two issues so far. I think the machine has to be an Active Directory server and this means a Domain Controller. Next step how to configure 'patch' drives under Virtual Server!?
After, Petit-P phoned at ~5:30pm to 'organize' an evening. Apparently there's no school tomorrow so that means a celebration for him tonight. Dumped him off at his friends place [Nick Sr.] ~@9:50pm after visiting the Grande-M.

[Ed: Petit-P and Mr. T. phoned later to ask if they could crash here. I ultimately relented.]

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Sunny Day

Today was the first sunny day of the summer. We've had lots of rain in the past 6-8 weeks. So since I've been inside a lot I decided to go out and take some photos and follow-up on some projects. I ended up meeting up with the Linux IT person and as usual we got into a long conversation about, well everything. We covered wireless, open source Win98, OS X, etc. I nice conversation.

Then as I was leaving Petit-P phoned. Since I was leaving and he had some sort of 'activity' day at school, he was ready to leave @3:20pm. We gave Conan and Mr. T a lift, then back to my place. We did the usual [hanging out] and then I gave him a lift home and went to the local Hot Dog/Fries place. On the way there popped into get a DVD.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

GoogleMaps

Spent a few hours putting together a cool little demo with GoogleMaps. Nice little hack.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

A Visit

A friend visited today. He's very cool. He's got things together. The 'manual labour' thing got me thinking.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

The Future

I always feel a responsibility to pass on information. To teach the next generation. But recently I came across someone that said the same thing that my cousin said, "I want to do manual labour". I just don't get it. Why aim so low? There is absolutely nothing wrong with manual labour but I don't think it's something to aim for. Aim high. If you reach it great, if not then hopefully you fall just a little short. And the real question, what is my responsibility? Is there something that I can do? We'll see in the next 10+ years.

Interesting long weekend

Well as usual I had no idea that this weekend is a long weekend. Looks like everyone has left town.

Did a photo of Mr.W. today.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

School - Report Card arrived!

Well today my report card arrived. Looks good. Over 80% average. Cooooooooool.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Website w/XML

Spent the last few days doing a web-site with XML, CSS and HTML. Really interesting stuff. The question - how x-platform compatiable is it ? Will find out in the next few days.

Friday, May 6, 2005

MDB #1

Well the MDB #1 went pretty well. There was only, "Frank" that seemed to get sick. Otherwise as of this moment I don't see anything missing [please]. I'm really surprised everyone was pretty cool. Nico [aka: Nick] spent sometime speaking to me in English. It was one of those things where there was always another person standing there kind'a laughing because of the way he was speaking but everyone is really OK in English.

First day of Biking for the season

After failing to go biking @4:00pm with Mr.W yesterday, we managed to do something today. A short one but that's perfect for the season opener.

Friday, April 29, 2005

Summer Begins

Well school is officially over. I've just handed in my final MAT project and now I can start my summer. Great!

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Project 1: REL126 - Book Report

Handed in my REL126 Book Report. It's suppose to be a bonus project but I must say I really enjoyed the story I read.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Exam: MAT111

Wrote the MAT111 exam @7:00pm -> 10:00pm. Went to the local Chinese food place to get something to eat since I didn't eat before the exam. Unfortunately it was closed. Odd? So I ended up at the Grande-M. Haven't been there is a while.

Two projects to do in the next two days.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Js and Contributions

It's really too bad that doing a paper about Js under the limitations that one has with University courses [e.g. time constraints, etc.] that you can't possibly do it justice. I could spend a life time reading and probably still not do it justice. It makes you feel even worse not to be able to contribute something substantial but I guess with any University project what are you really doing? It's about 'making the grade' I guess.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Exam: MAT223

Wrote the MAT223 exam today. We'll find out how it went in a few weeks.

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 live on MSDN subscriber downloads

Microsoft has just posted Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 live on MSDN subscriber downloads:

See:
Developer Tools > Visual Studio 2005 > Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2

Friday, April 15, 2005

Future: No Work!

I've always imagined a time in the future when none of us work. Where people simply play. Isn't that they way is should be? Did G-d want us to work our entire life? If one theory in life is to find something you like to do and do it, would not 'playing' fill this? Don't get me wrong I don't want people to be lazy. But were we meant to push paper? Does this really need to be done? I think not. Pushing paper wasn't done years ago so why have we created a society we thousand if not millions of people do this? We create technology to simplify things yet when does it ever do this. Years ago things used to be simpler and I would argue we were happier. Now that you are 'connecteed' 24 hours a day are you happier. I think not. Let's aim for a happiness quota. Other countries have this why not North America?!

Monday, April 11, 2005

REL126

Spent most of the weekend trying to complete the final essay project for REL126. Spent the 'evening' in the library. My G-d there's a lot of information on the subject. One could spend a life time studying any subject. My advise - choose wisely.

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

Life Pursuits

I'm always thinking about how people choose to spend their lives. Recently I was talking to someone who mentioned they were at the 'pool' hall during the day. I was thinking well that's an interesting thing to be doing in the middle of day [in a sarcastic sense]. Then as I thought more about this is it really any better to be sitting at a computer 'hacking' a way? Certainly the later is more intellectual but it's so much more unsocial. So then I began to think can hacking be more social? Could you hack with a friend? Or is the act of hacking pursuing something that is so fundamentally unique to oneself at a particular time that the chances of someone else wanting to pursue the same subject and the same time is almost zero? What any interesting situation it would be if you could 'match-up'. Can we call this, "scrum-hacking"!? More to come...

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Religion and friendship

On this day, the day that Pope John Paul II died, it got me thinking about religion and friendship. It wasn't just this but also the fact that I have a REL126 Paper due in the next two weeks.

One of the people that I've come to know after having moved out here [it's going to be 1 year 5 months on Apr-15/05] is Petit-P. He comes to mind because not only have things been a bit weird between us recently but it was thru Pop John Paul II and a Christian meeting in T.O. that we meet. I remember that first time we meet and boy did I ever think he was conservative. He mother was strict with him, insisting that he go to bed really early and given we were on vacation my God. Over the last 1+1/2 I've come to know him. He's growing up. He's certainly a lot taller then he used to be, in fact he's taller then me, but that's not hard. I've come to know some of his family and some of his friends. Everyone is interesting just like any group of people is interesting. Some are judgmental, some are creative, and some are 'cool'. But what's got my attention recently is that being a Christian doesn't seem to make a person a better person. I've always held out that religious people should be better. I don't know why exactly I think that. Certainly history has shown that much violence has been shed in the name of religion, but somehow I continue to think that religious people should somehow be better. I've never had any first hand evidence of this being the case but I still believe and will probably always will. In regards to Petit-P, he's probably going thru a tough time in life adolescence and all. He's recently begun this 'lying' phase which I hate. It seems to have caused a little problem with his mother and me, and I can honestly say I was truly disappointed that he let it go and didn't do the right thing. But then that's what some kids do. No matter how much their parents think their perfect the reality is most are the same and we all go thru the same thing. For the unknown reasons mentioned above I was hoping that he would be a bit different. His mother and him are both religious and as I said I expect these people to be a bit 'better' then the rest. After a recent issue with a computer problem and his mother and him dealing with it really poorly [ed: It's not over but we'll see in the next few weeks how it goes] I kind’ a question why I'm in his life. Since moving out here I've kind have accepted him as a younger brother. It's a been a friendly gesture hoping that if there was anything he needed/wanted and I could help out with that I would. The odd time he's asked for me to take him to different places and we've certainly gone to the odd sporting event here and there. I'm more then happy to drive him anywhere he needs to go as long as I'm not busy with school and/or with friends. Being a computer 'geek'ish person myself I'm always looking to 'download' anything I know to the next generation. I fundamentally believe that it's not worth learning something if you can't pass it onto the next generation. We've built up his web-site and set one up for his mother but lately it's become static. There's some issues stopping me from updating it but there's certainly nothing stopping him. I guess he's not really into it any more. Oh well. The real issue is not the web-site but more of an attitude thing recently. I remember as a child I thought there were three areas to avoid talking about: Politics, Religion and Sex. Why? I always took the 'comedian' perspective and it was only the really intelligent comedians that approached these topics. And from personal experience I could see these topics causing problems when brought up. So I always tried to avoid them. After all there were a lot of other things to talk about so why bother with these. And things went fine for a long time. I think it was also a case a shyness that I avoided conversations as a child as well and therefore these topics weren't approached. Anyway life went on, shyness passed ['ish], and everything became fair game. In fact given the right situation and the right people I'll talk about anything at length. Which brings me back to Petit-P and I. In the beginning we were having some good conversations but now it's becoming confrontational['ish]. He thinks everyone of his friends, "plays for the other team". I don't even know how to address this. Every time it comes up it's kind’a irritating. I don't mind listening to him and commenting but he's going wild accusing everyone of his friends of this. I somehow doubt it. I've meet some of them and they all seem, 'normal'. Who knows. But more importantly who cares. The issue being he seems to be going thru some problems of his own and basically accusing other people of xyz. It's such an immature thing and really irritating 'cause I would expect him to be 'above' it for a multitude of reasons not the least of which would be a religious background.

I only hope things get back on track with him and I because it's troubling to deal with this kind of stuff.

Video: DotNet Security

An excellent explaination of DotNet security.

Friday, April 1, 2005

DVD: Terminator III

Watched the DVD: Terminator III. Lots of action, a little story, it was OK.

I was hoping to catch some people online tonight but no one really showed up.

Still a little sick today, but getting better.

Got back the REL126 Test #1. Given no warning and the poor lecture I guess I should be happy with the results.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Sunday, March 27, 2005

VS Studio Add-in: Unleash It

An interesting add-in for VS.NET: Unleash It. Main feature allows you to deploy your projects to an ftp-site. I had rolled my own several months ago but it was piecing together some old Novell code and some custom stuff. This seems a little cleaner.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Word/XML & Shuffling Petit-P

Most of the day was spent investigating Microsoft Word's ability to handle XML documents and how to protect them [XML Nodes] from being deleted by the user. There's some interesting stuff [t]here.

Some of the day shuffling Petit-P around to Canadian Tire and then a Church where he was going to meet a friend and then later to a 'party'.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

DVD: Incredibles & Some Food and...

Petit-P, Abdol(sp) and Yanick came over for a couple hours from 5:30pm ->8:30pm. Petit-p did an accident on the carpet [see other entry for details]. A nice 'short' gathering.

Watched the DVD, "The Incredibles". Didn't finish it.

Problems to come

Petit-P came over and spilled some stuff on the carpet. What's the problem. Well after problems with Petit-P breaking my computer over a month ago, and this carpet being from his Mother. Will she believe that it was him? Probably not.

Friday, March 18, 2005

IT People

I believe that technology should be dead simply. Unfortunately the industry has a way of promoting complexity. It's always the cool thing to know every command-line switch for this or that. But I always think of my Parents and would they know to do this and/or how to do it? No. And the more importantly should they have to know. Computers must become an appliance.
I was recently talking to an "IT" person and he disagreed with this statement. He was very adament that if you don't want to learn everything about a computer then you shouldn't buy one. I totally disagree. Though you are always better off learning about the things you use: A) There's only so much time and B) Somethings you just don't want to know. Do I need to know everything about my TV to use it? No. Just turn it on. That's how simple a computer should be. Though it's a multipurpose device maybe one can configure it in such a way that it only does the specified tasks. "Lock" it down to only perform tasks x,y,z. Having explorered this recently this doesn't seem to be that easy with Windows either. More details to come.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Outlook 2003 - Corrupted outcmd.dat file

Today when I started up Outlook 2003 I noticed my custom toolbars w/macros were gone. These are essential for me so I needed to fix them. After looking around the net and not finding anything I went about one by one removing files from the:

{boot drive}:\Documents and Settings\{local user}\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
I quickly hit upon the problem file, "outcmd.dat". Move this out restart Outlook everythings fine.

Suggestion: Microsoft please provide a method to backup EVERYTHING involved with Outlook including toolbar settings, account settings and email, etc.

Some interesting Outlook sites:
http://www.outlookcode.com/

***NOTE: I found after fixing the problem that Sue Mosher documented that sometimes that this file does become corrupted [thread from 2003].

Friday, March 11, 2005

REL126 & DVD: The Bourne Supremacy

Got back my REL126 mid-term. 75%.

Watched the DVD, "The Bourne Supremacy". Since I wasn't paying attention I'll have to watch it again.

Thursday, March 10, 2005

CSC303 - MidTerm

Wrote the CSC303 MidTerm today. After last night's stomach problem writing the exam was a little hard. The exam certainly covered all the material.

Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Stomach problems

Periodically I get this massive stomach problem. It's more pain then you can ever believe. It feels like a balloon in your stomach that starts in the middle, moves to the front and then to your back. It's guaranteed pain for 4-5 hours. This time I tried to fight it with some medication. Ironically this would heed the pain but an uncomfortable'ness would be with me for 48+ hours.

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

J# Installation Issues

Well today I learned that the Supplemental UI Library for Visual J# (aka: Swing) will not install if you have the NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package Beta 1 installed. However easy work-around. Uninstall the Beta FrameWork, install the UI Library and then re-install the FrameWork. It's working now :-)

General Information on the SUILFVJ.

Friday, February 25, 2005

March Break

MAT111 Assignment was due today but the class was cancelled which we were warned about. I have to go in anyway to hand in the assignment as well the J-Class in the afternoon.

Turns out the J-Class got cancelled.

Well today the March Break starts! Excellent.

Friday, February 18, 2005

MAT111 & REL126

Got back MAT111 - Quiz #2. 100% Great!.

Wrote the RELigion MidTerm today. The topic was Moses and the Torah. I wrote for 2.5 hours and was the second last person finished. Though this wasn't particularly surprising I was surprised to find that the last person to finish was the religious student. He's the guy that is apparently studying religion full-time. I talked to him briefly today and interestingly he had the same opinion as me on what we are learning in class. Everyone wants more! Well I guess I'll find out how I did sometime in the next 2 weeks. Keep ya posted.

Watched the DVD, "Cat Woman". Not a lot of story. Similiar to Spiderman with combo special effects.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

REL126, Jeff and SharePoint

Well tonight was all about studying the Religion courses I'm taking. It's suppose to cover: Moses, Abraham, Prophets, the Scriptors and the Torah. I did the required reading but there's not a lot of information. Also decided to catch up with an old friend Jeff. Long conversation ~282 minutes. Great conversation about SharePoint and Jews.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

More on Scheme

Well spent most of the day doing the CSC303 Assignment #2. It's another Scheme assignment. Looking over the interenet it appears it's a popular question to ask at other universities. It's a puzzle solver.

I had this really strange bug [which I still haven't solved] with Scheme and maybe with the implementation [Dr.Scheme] where a global variable is being change but for no apparent reason. I've looked over the code, traced it down to the routine but no where is the global variable being addressed here. Backing up there's only one place in the entire program where this global is being changed and the bug is not there. I've spent hours on this one :-(. Unfortunately it's time to move on. Is it a show stopper? Well, no but it sure is bothersome.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

So let me get this straight?

So let me get this straight Microsoft creates software that is 'easily' attacked. A teenager creates a piece of software to exploit these holes and now the teenager may go to prison and Microsoft may get a large part of the settlement?! Well that that's interesting. Create a system that's unstable, wait for someone to exploit it then demand they pay you. Wow. The wonderful world we live in.



Details...

http://software.silicon.com/malware/0,3800003100,39127362,00.htm

Monday, January 24, 2005

MAT xxx: Time in the Library

Spent a good part of the afternoon in the Library doing the MATxxx: Assignment 1. Certainly got a good start at it.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Welcome to hell or Learning Scheme

Well it's my first day looking at the Scheme programming language. My God, welcome to hell. Let's stick with C#!. More on my experiences with Scheme to be posted...

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Why Programming Is Fun?

I was recently thinking why programming is fun for me. What is it that I like about this field. I think it comes down to these reasons: 1) Solving problems in an elegant way, 2) Diversity of the subject matter, 3) An ever changing field of information and 4) Controlling a machine. Let's examine these a bit furthur:



1) When programming you solving some sort of problem and though for the most part any problem can be solved when programming it's about solving it in a elegant way. On the surface one can compare lines of code and say well 100 lines is better then 1000 but it's not really about number of lines as it is the algorithm of the elegance to which you solve a problem. I don't care what programming language you used or how long it took you, but did you solve it in an elegant [aka: cool] way. When I discuss solutions with other people and you get to the 'key' item in a problem if the solution excites you that's what it's all about.



2) Diversity of the subject matter. When you are programming you a solving some sort of real world problem and that requires you to go out and learn something about a completely different subject matter. In the early years Computer Scientist called this, "Artificial Intelligence" or "Expert Systems". No matter how you categorize this it's about becoming an, 'expert' in a subject that you knew little if nothing about before. This requires all sorts of skills ranging from personal interaction, to the ability to extract pertainent information, to 'specing' etc. And in the end if done right you've now learned something about a new subject that you didn't know before. And can we a programmers say other people in other industries do the same - I don't think so. What a very fortunate thing!



3) The about of information in the 'computer' world is constantly changing. From programming langauges to the latest hardware changes things are constantly moving and there's no sight that's it's going to stop. If you can manage it, pick you 'interests', it's a fasinating world to be in. If you ever want to learn something just hit the 'Net and learn something about another subject. There's already a life time worth of information out there. It's great!



4) Controlling a machine. No matter what you are programming whether it's your typical PC or a PDA or home built robot it's ultimately about control. Making it do exactly what you want. When you've learned something about this new technology, put together an elegant solution and expanded on your knowledge it's a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Somehow you feel a great sense of satification having control over something. This probably pulls on something innately human but that's a story for another time.

Friday, January 21, 2005

DVD: Thunderbirds

Watched the DVD, "Thunderbirds". I don't know how well this movie did at the theatre but I don't recall hearing it doing too well and I can see why. Probably because it's based on an old story that today's viewers don't care about. SideNote: Directed by Jonathan Frakes [aka: #1/Commander/Captain William T. Riker on StarTrek Next Generation].

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2005

If you watch the 2005 CES KeyNote with Bill Gates, you'll see what I think truly represents what technology is like for people. If you notice throughout this show almost 90%+ of the demos fail to work and if 'they' can't get it to work, can you?!

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Disappointed Once Again

Well today I spent putting together the custom frame for France. It took a good six+ hours but I knew it would. The montage photo of Petit-P turned out pretty well and required about 1000 photos, and could have used more.



After finishing the frame [staples] at the Grande-Mall, rushing in before 5:00pm I returned home with my Chinese food and ready to watch a DVD. ~@5:51pm Petit-P phoned and confirmed that the diner was still on. I asked what was for super and was shocked to hear that they were serving meat-pie. God I HATE meat-pie. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but they continue to serve this. Though her's is not as bad as everyone elses, still enough already! Then to top things off she gave me some sort of body cream. Given that she sells this stuff for a living I wasn't impressed last year when she did a similiar thing but to do it again. Come'on! How about cracking out $5, $10, or $20 and buying me something at the store or making something or doing anything that shows some effort. My GOD! Then to top it off this gift is supposedly from Petit-P and it's the second gift, the small jam, that I had tried two months before that France gave me. Come on. This is not a gift but something that you would give a person upon a visit not a gift for XMas. I don't want to seem ungratefull but let's make some effort here. I bought Petit-P a video card when I first arrived in this city [then dozens of cloths for his first bornday] and his mother a music CD [returned it 4+ times, after she complained about] and a gift certificate for her favourite store. Then for Petit-P's bornday a DVD, and this year a PS2 wireless controller. Then for Mother this year a custom frame and Petit-P the latest No #1 game for PC, "Half Life 2". This currently sells for $59->$69. You know all I wanted was something inexpenseive like the Depeche Mode CD or the "Family Guy" DVD or season 3 of the same. Come ON! SOME THOUGHT GEEEZ! Disappointed Once Again. :-(

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

ECY was in a car accident today. He didn't hit anything just forced off the road by a deer. $100 for towing.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Apple - iWork - Pages

Spoke a little too soon. Apple introduced a word processor today at MacWorld. Called, "Pages" it looks pretty cool.

What Apple should do

Apple Computer Inc. needs to have an Office compatiable application. Yes, I know Microsoft Office is available for the Mac and has been for years but Apple needs to either have their own or some third party needs to step up. Why you ask? Because if you've looked thru the transcripts of the recent Microsoft court cases you've noticed that Microsoft has held the future development of Office:Mac over Apple head. Apple needs to take from this a word of warning and get control of this. No matter what, people will need Office compatiability and the only way to ensure this now and in the future is for someone to step-up. Let's get a Word processor that people love and want to use.

Saturday, January 8, 2005

Returning from Vacation

Left T.O. ~@3:00pm after visting with Rob and picking up ECY's Noel gift, a new CD Burner. I was a little disappointed that I left so late but I arrived ahead of schedule @~10:45pm.