Howdy, Dr. Dotnetsky here
again, with some cool tricks and info to feed yer hungry mind on! First,
what I think:
Hell in a Handbasket Dept. (or, "the luckiest people in
the world")
What the HECK is going on in the world? Last night I dreamt that
George Bush made a personal visit to Saddam Hussein's cell in Iraq and
interviewed him (he wore his USS Abraham flight suit). This got those
nutty Democrats even madder (Ted Kennedy's face actually turned purple in my
dream-- maybe it was just from checking out John Kerry's rear end too much...)! After
the interview, Hussein announces that he is supporting the presidential
campaign and endorses John Kerry for President. Kerry's poll numbers go
twenty percent higher as the Democrat voters reflect their anger towards Bush
for starting a war with an innocent dictator -- who was merely minding his own
country's business when the Imperialist Americans illegally attacked. The
liberal media elites see Kerry's poll numbers going up and throw their support
behind the ''Saddam for Kerry'' campaign. Meanwhile, the Bush camp is still
hanging on ("Well, we need to appear Presidential"). It's become polarized
as hell, man. Joe Lieberman, one of a number of sensible Democrats who possess
an above room-temperature IQ, got squashed early on and simply gave up. Al Gore,
(the guy who invented the Internet, remember?) never even had the courtesy to
call him first about his decision to support another candidate. Man, I can see
it already - Kerry gets elected, market goes down the crapper, and I'm on the
street with a handwritten sign that says "Will write programs for food".
Wanna see what Socialists / Left Wing Liberals do to stock prices? Take a look
at the Madrid IBEX index.
Yes, in Spain, the rain falls mainly on the plain, and the Socialists
are baaack in power! Ouch! Do they REALLY think Al
Quaeda is
going to leave them alone for renouncing support for America and its
war against terorrists? I fear that the fine Spanish people have just
sent a wakeup message to terrorists everywhere - a message that is the exact
opposite of what
we really need to be sending... How about the French, with their cozy
inside-deal United Nations "oil
for food" arrangements and $50 billion in transfer money at a French
Bank with zero accountability? Does any western democracy really believe
these fanatics won't bother them? They are insane fundamentalists who
will kill themselves in the name of their God to destroy anyone from
the West - Socialist, US ally, or not! The rules
have changed dramatically. We cannot hide from these ogres because they
will deliberately seek us out, we cannot appease them because they do
not respond to it (Hitler didn't), we must protect
our collective asses, or face getting wiped out by these maniacs.
Lets face it -political platform planks don't
mean diddly when
your butt is about to get blown up on some train by a terrorist's bomb
in a backpack - or worse - by a Nuclear Dirty Bomb - because YOU
didn't have the guts to preemptively head them off at the pass!
Hey, Dubya is far from perfect, but you know what? He understands this!
Kerry, on the other hand, is still back in the 1960's getting ready to
pee on the walls of the Pentagon with Jane Fondle holding it for him.
I know. I was there, man. But, I grew up! I seriously doubt whether John
Kerry has, based on what he has been saying and voting for the last 18
years.
The leader of the Nationalist forces in Spain, General Franco, headed
the authoritarian regime that came to power in the aftermath of the Civil
War. In addition to being
generalissimo of the armed forces, he was both chief of state and head
of government, the ultimate source of legitimate authority. If we are
not careful, other so-called "Democracies" in
eastern and western Europe will go backward in history the way Spain
just did. Don't like America? Hey, get on a plane, Bud! Americans really need to be educated that the war against terrorists is likely to last 35 to 40 years (similar to the Cold War) and that we not only need to eradicate the maniacs whereever they can be found - we also need to work to relieve the abject poverty in many Islamic areas of the world that promotes these schools that teach young children to become suicide bombers.
Meanwhile our friend John Kerry, whose political savvy is admittedly
slicker than snot on a doorknob (
"the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen," ) continues to say
virtually nothing about his policy on either terrorism or defense. Colon Bowel
gets on Fox news with Chris Wallace and sez what I just spouted, only a little
more diplomatically. I wonder who John Kerry would ask to be his Secretary of
State. . .Oh, I got it! Babs! Yeah, she can sing the right tune! Hell in a handbasket?
You bet your sweet ass! I can hear it already - 350 people dead from explosion
on some train in Secaucus, and Barbra Streisand singing "People... People
who need people...." --
accompanied on the AK-47 by Michael Moore, and on the duct-tape toilet-paper
comb by Martin Sheen...Yo, Wake up people now, smile on your brother!
Are you sure this is what you really want? Because if you don't wake up fast,and DECIDE,
that's what you're gonna get! And it will be TOO LATE to change your mind.
OK, I've vented my spleen, at least a little. Now let's get down to
my regular digs.
Whidbey
Whidbey is coming. Big deal, right? They have 28 new articles on MSDN
and everywhere else, six new books, "Rah Rah, Yay Yay Whidbey /
Longhorn",
and the only thing they have to show us developers is some Alpha Software!
Not only that, unless you are an MSDN Universal subscriber or attended
the last PDC, you can't even get your hands on it anyway! How 'bout it,
Microsoft! I'll wait until the first beta - I'm still trying to figure
out all the stuff in the 1.1 Framework anyway. I'm glad they are working
on it, but guess what? I just don't have the time. In parting, I will
say that guru Daniel Cazzulino reports there is "experimental" support
for Longhorn
on the VMWare Window 2003 Server VM.
Offline Application Block
Dr. Dotnetsky has always liked the MS "Application Blocks" -
which are self-contained class libraries that illustrate the solutions
to common programming problems and represent their gurus' "best
practices" code
examples. The latest one is the "Offline
Application Block" . Now this is very cool stuff, which enables
you to --
- Detect the presence or absence of network connectivity.
- Cache the required data so that the application can continue to function
even when the network connection is not available.
- Synchronize the client application state and/or data with the server
when the network connection becomes available.
Kudos to
Edward Jezierski and all the other MS and affilated experts who put this fine
piece together. Highly recommended for intermediate to advanced - level
.NET Developers - and remember, Dr. Dotnetsky wouldn't play you wrong!
Compressed DataSet for Compact Framework
Our own Peter Bromberg has published his CompressDataSet class
for the Compact Framework, which enables CF developers to perform binary
serialization and compression on the ADO.NET DataSet, and store it locally
on the Compact Framework - compatible device with no licensing fees.
Self - Updating Technology
Responding to the eggheadcafe.com call for paid authors, Hendrik Swanepol
has produced his "Writing
A Self-Updating Application in C#" here on the site. Excellent
treatment of the implementations of another Application Block!
Top Ramen
Anthony Hart, a longtime frequent contributor to eggheadcafe.com, of Top Ramen fame (he really is "Chief Noodle"!) has published his treatise on OOP programming, along with some excellent source code that compiles right out of the box and some very prescient comments to boot!
Google Dept
Google never ceases to interest me with their innovations and how they
have just "swooped the web". They have become, in Dr. Dotnetsky's
humble opinion, an "Internet Icon". With
4,285,199,774 web pages currently spidered, I have found more information about
what I need to know faster and more easily than virtually anywhere else!
Look at their Advanced
Search Tips and their Google
Features pages for more information about how you can harness this
"F1 on steroids for the web" search engine! Before you post
to our forums with some inane "I forgot about F1" questions,
check out Google with some well-chosen keywords, and especially their
20 + year Usenet history
"Google Groups" search. You know, every major Microsoft product
ships with free Help, and it simply appalls me how many questions we
get on the forums here where its so obvious they never even opened SQL
Books Online or hit the F1 key while their question phrase was highlighted
to see if there was anything there for them. And don't forget, to search
on a multiword exact phrase at Google, surround it with quotes (e.g. "George
Boosh" --
oh, yes -- you will actually find stuff on this exact phrase!).
From the Grapevine Dept.
Finally, I've heard from the eggheadcafe.com grapevine that you can
soon expect an open-source, .NET version of Peter Bromberg's custom Digest
Authentication module (based on Greg Reinacker of "NewsGator" fame's
published example), with a combination of Digest, BASIC, and LDAP Authentication
against your favorite Data Store, and it supports Single Sign-On across
apps and sites! And brother Robbe Morris is hard at work with the Compact
Framework. More later!
Cheers, kiddies. And don't forget, when all else fails, just "Press
F1".
Dr. Dexter Dotnetsky is the alter-ego of the Eggheadcafe.com forums, where he often pitches in to help answer particularly difficult questions and make snide comments. Dr. Dotnetsky holds no certifications, and does not have a resume. Always the consummate gentleman, Dr. Dotnetsky can be reached at youbetcha@mindless.com. Dr. Dotnetsky's motto: "If we were all meant to get along, there would be no people who wait for all the groceries to be rung up before starting to look for their damn checkbook."
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