August 2006 - Posts

• Documentor for DXCore

  The other day I was looking for Lutz Roeder's (of Reflector fame) Documentor application, but I couldn't find it on his site for the life of me. Yesterday I stumbled over the solution of the enigma.  Apparently, Lutz has taken it from his site, but he gave the source code to someone else. This someone else converted the application to a plugin for Visual Studio that uses the (free) DXCore framework. Since I'm a satisfied CodeRush/Refactor user, I already have the DXCore framework installed.  I downloaded the converted application, dropped it (according to the readme) in DXCore' plugin directory, and started Visual Studio. I went rocking-and-rolling frome there. Great job, Paraesthesia! Posted Aug 31 2006, 06:19 by Dirk with no comments

• Toolbox: SqlSpec

  Last week, serendipity struck while researching a SQL Server error message. I found out about SqlSpec, a utility that generates documentation of tables, views, stored procedures and whatnot in a SQL Server database.  I tried it, and it was sort of love at first sight. SqlSpec's premise is simple (generate documentation of a database), and its solution is elegant.  It does one thing, and it does it very well.  SqlSpec features a simple enough GUI but takes command line parameters as well. I created an MSBuild task to integrate SqlSpec into an automated build script.  I then handed the source code for the MSBuild task over to Jesse Hersch (SqlSpec's creator), so other people can benefit from my work as well.  And I get to add one more item to my resumé, of course :-) Posted Aug 30 2006, 06:57 by Dirk with no comments

• GP of Turkey : Review

  Ok, so I was wrong about Schumacher leading in the first corner. Congratulations to Massa for winning his first race in a very mature fashion.  He was fast, and never once made the impression that he had to push himself or the car beyond specs to win the race.  Alonso and Schumacher delivered a nail-biting finale, with Alonse securing second place by only 81/1000 second. Winner of the day: one might be tempted to say Massa (it is his first win, after all), but the real winner IMO is Fernando Alonso. He managed to extend his lead in the championship by two points after a race where he looked set to lose four points to his rival.  He now leads by twelve points with 4 races to go, so Alonso can become world champion by scoring second places. Loser of the day: Michael Schumacher. He should have won this race, and reduce his disadvantage to Alonso by two or even four points. For the record: Schumacher's coming into the pits when the safety car was deployed was the right thing to do.  Waiting behind Massa was the lesser evil compared to doing a pit stop during a normal race phase.  Maybe Ferrari should have sent Massa on his way, but then the old "team orders" discussion would flare up again. Posted Aug 28 2006, 08:01 by Dirk with no comments

• GP of Turkey : Preview

  So Massa scored his first ever pole position, beating Michael Schumacher.  Good for him.  Who's willing to take on a bet that Schumacher will lead going into the first corner? Posted Aug 27 2006, 07:31 by Dirk with no comments

• The Solar system has only 8 planets

  The astronomical community has finally taken the heart the make the (imo long overdue) decision to no longer call Pluto a planet.  A courageous decision, and one that I totally approve of.  Read here at CNN or here at Urania (in Dutch). Posted Aug 26 2006, 06:23 by Dirk with no comments

• 2006 Silly Season

  The silly season is in full swing, so I created a list to keep track of all rumours and facts. Key: bold is confirmed, italic are rumours, and normal are current drivers (if nothing else is "known"). Renault Fisichella Kovalainen McLaren Alonso De La Rosa Räikönnen Ferrari M. Schumacher Räikönnen  Massa Toyota R. Schumacher Trulli Williams Rosberg Wurz Honda Button Barichello  Red Bull Coulthard Webber  BMW Sauber Heidfeld Kubica Midland Monteiro Albers  Toro Rosso Liuzzi Speed Super Aguri Sato Yamamoto Albers Posted Aug 25 2006, 10:59 by Dirk with no comments

• Who cares if hybrid cars pay for themselves or not?

  Shawn Burke has a thoughtful rant (if that isn't an oxymoron) about the discussion whether hybrid cars pay for themselves or not. He quotes a recent study saying that hybrid cars pay for themselves - but that's not really the point of his post.  I remember reading on Slashdot about another study that concluded "it seems the only winner is the environment".  I also remember thinking at that time "Isn't that enough reason to buy a hybrid car?". For the record: I don't have a car. The most important reason is that I can't afford one (*). People's reaction to this argument is usually something like "That makes sense, I suppose. But if you could afford one, would you buy one?".  This question will be a lot less academic when Tatjana finishes her studies and starts working as well.  My response so far: probably not.  I need a car only every couple of weeks and I am blessed with a family of very good friends who will gladly lend me one of their cars. (*) Without plunging myself, Tatjana, the cats and seven generations of grandchildren into hopeless debt, that is. Posted Aug 24 2006, 08:36 by Dirk with no comments

• Automatic cat food dispenser

  Every pet owner faces the problem of who feeds the pets in the owner's absense.  There are several solutions, but this one is definitely the coolest I've seen so far. Posted Aug 23 2006, 06:22 by Dirk with no comments

• Pirates of the Carribean : Dead Man's Chest (spoilers)

  Tatjana and I went to see Pirates of the Carribean : Dead Man's Chest. two weeks ago.  It's only the second movie we see in a cinema this year - prices have gone up so high over the last two years that we really need to do make some hard decisions about which movies to watch.  Anyway, Pirates is one of those movies that benefits from a big screen. We came out of the theater thoroughly satisfied.  The Curse of the Black Pearl was a great movie, living from Jack Sparrow's weirdness and witty dialogues. Dead Man's Chest was all that, and more: it takes the absurdities of the first movie to a new level, while managing to stay within the boundaries of taste. One thing that leaves me a bit baffled, though: if we're talking about pirates of the Carribean, then why is the second movie playing out in the Pacific, and why is there never made an issue of that?  The East Indian Trade Company, ya kno? Before going to watch Pirates 2, I had watched parts of the Dune TV mini-series again - so I found that the mouth of the Kraken that eats Jack Sparrow looks very similar to the mouth of the sandworms. Posted Aug 22 2006, 06:53 by Dirk with no comments

• My first drive with a navigation system

  My best man at my wedding, Andreas, sent me a navigation system as a wedding gift. Today I finally had a chance to try it out. The pros: It was relatively painless to configure, once I realised that I really needed to be outdoors.  When the GPS receives enough satellites, the map automatically goes to the present location. The instructions are clear and to the point. The software recalculates a different route very fast after you take a wrong turn (by accident or by design). Most important: we arrived where we wanted to arrive :-) The cons: The software (Arkon) isn't too helpful in case there is something wrong - be it bad satellite reception, missing map files or a write-protected memory card. You still should take a look at the route before you drive away (using the "demo route" feature) because there can be some spots where the maps aren't accurate, or satellite reception is bad, or many turns come in quick succession. The user interface would benefit from a bit of polishing and gradient/glossy effects. Posted Aug 20 2006, 04:34 by Dirk with no comments

• Assorted SharePoint Musings

  Some bits and pieces that I learned while doing a SharePoint consulting gig. When you have a document library where large files (say 50 Mb) will be uploaded, you should set the large-file-chunck-size property: stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn large-file-chunk-size -pv <bytes> When you are programming add-ons, it's tempting to put SPWeb and SPSite variables in a using statement. After all, they implement IDipsosable.  See Knowledge Base article 901259. Some SharePoint 2007 bits for good measure: When using SQL Server 2005 for storage, the collation of the entire server (not just the Sharepoint databases) must be set to Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS.  See Steven Van de Craen's blog entry. We ran into this issue at work. If you get the error "The form cannot be displayed because the session state is not available" (for example while defining workflows on a document library), you need to enable the Session state httpmodule in the site's web.config (typically found at c:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtualdirectories\<site>\web.config). Posted Aug 19 2006, 02:41 by Dirk with no comments

• Everybody play the game ...

  The "Microsoft Product Naming Game", that is.  More specifically, what will Atlas be called? My guess is "Windows Live Foundation". Posted Aug 18 2006, 11:45 by Dirk with no comments

• Another Link Round-Up

  Remote Membership/Roles Management of ASP.NET 2.0 Applications Flickr-ing about with .NET VM Additions for Windows Vista Beta 2 New features in Team Foundation Sidekicks 1.1.0 Writing Scenarios: Part 1 Identification How to fade background and show a dialog box 3-tier Architecture wtih ASP.NET 2.0 Links to MSBuild tasks to extend your build system Videotaping To Improve Presentation Skills Posted Aug 17 2006, 09:59 by Dirk with no comments

• Jumping on the Windows Live Writer Bandwagon

  I couldn't resist and I had to try out Microsoft's new Windows Live Writer.  Seems pretty cool to me, and it even seems to work. Since I have been sorely neglecting the computers category (according to my tag cloud), I will tag this post with computers.  At the same time, I will test the "categories" function of WLW. Posted Aug 16 2006, 08:53 by Dirk with no comments

• Print your Outlook calendars in style

  Tim Sneath gives us a pointer to the Calendar Printing Assistant for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.  I wish I had thought of something like that myself.  I'm sure this is going to be great for 7 Habits-compliant week planning.  I only wish they had included A4 templates as well, but I'm sure that'll come in the RTM timeframe. Update: Florian Voss of Microsoft, who's on the team that built the Calendar Printing Assistant, sent me an email saying that the RTM version will indeed include A4 and A3 templates.  Great! Posted Aug 16 2006, 06:39 by Dirk with no comments