70-536 Exam Prep

Ok, I hate getting certs. Did I say I hate it? Oh well, for those of you on the MCTS track for web development tacking the 70-536 exam, the following web page will be extrememly helpful.

http://en.csharp-online.net/MSDN_Reference_Guide_for_Exam_70-536

Also, the Microsoft training books for the exam, though useful, are riddle with errors. Just an FYI.

SQL Server Express And Abyss Web Server

Ok, I have an ancient (PIII 850 mhz machine with 1 gig of ram) that I'm using as a test server. I've got Windows XP Pro installed and I'm using the Abyss X1 Webserver instead of the throttled IIS 5 that comes with XP. I ran into one snag though, I couldn't get my ASP.Net app to talk to a SQL Server Express database when I pushed my ASP.Net project from my dev box to the test server. So I fooled around and got it working, probably in a very insecure way, but it will work fine for now. Here is what I did incase this will help anyone.

First, I moved the database from the app_data folder in the web project to somewhere else, probably not necessary but I thought it might help. I also attached to the database using sql server express studio and created a new login name that was different then the one I used on my dev box (did this both for global security users and then added the new user to the instance of the db...again may not be necessary).

From there I himmed and hawed until I came up with a connection string that works. Here it is roughly. Sql server express was installed in a named instance like this-

devbox\sqldev

So my connection string ended in my web.config file for my asp.net project ended up like this.

<add name="somename" connectionString="Data Source=.\sqldev;AttachDbFilename=D:\data\test.mdf;Initial Catalog=reports;User Id=someid;Password=somepassword;user instance=true;Integrated Security=SSPI" />

Hope that helps someone else at least get going.

Infocyde!!!

I love RSS (ATOM) feeds. I subscribe to numerous ones. I spend way to much time looking briefly through my feeds using Google Reader, staring feeds that I'd like to read later.

Well, I decided that all these stared links were pilling up, so I went about trying to unstar them, parsing the info and putting it into some useful state either in my brain or an Evernote notebook.

Well, it took pretty much a good chunk of the day, just to get through LAST MONTH's stared items. There is just no way I can process all the data, and as we have learned throughout history (using intelligence and wars as an example) data not processed is absolutely useless, and the time spent gathering it data that wasn't processed is essentially another definition of absolute waste.

So, I'm pondering going to a once a week RSS feed check, and really being selective about what gets stared, and hopefully processing data right then into info. I don't know if I can do this or not because I'm so addicted to real time info, but I really should, for a lot of reasons.

And I bet I'm not the only one out there who has a problem with this. So here are my rules.

1) Can I find this data relatively easily in the future? Yes->Ignore the data.
2) Am I at work? Yes->Star the data for later.
No->Process it (save/copy/bookmark) now.

That should cut down on the info glut. I'm trying to turn myself into a search engine, and that probably isn't helpful productivity wise.

We Lost An Interesting Person This Last Week

Amid all the celebrities dying the media over looked the death of a lesser known but important figure who died recently. On July 3rd, John A. Keel died. He wrote the Mothman Prophecies and many other books relating to the Fortean, my favorite being Operation Trojan Horse.

I was very much on the same page (or like to think so) with Keel's views about UFO's, Ghost, Faeries, etc... all really being the same phenomena, and that phenomena isn't extraterrestrial, but ultraterrestrial. Keel, though not a Christian, declared on several occasions that he wasn't really a "UFO-ologist", but a "demonologist" because he recognized the phenomena for what it really is. He, independent of a religion paradigm, came to the same conclusions I have and many others have about UFO's being something other and more complex then little green men from space or hicks out in the back woods who drank too much.

I admired Keel, as I admire anyone, who looks around the world and realizes (or really admits to themselves) that there is more then meets the eye as to what is going on in this fascinating realm we call existence. I admire his courage and the intellectual honesty to peer at the things that "don't make sense" if the world is exclusively a by product of random mutation.

Here is a pretty good article on Keel and his impact on the Fortean community.

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/keel-obit/

I hope that Keel's journey lead him ultimately to Jesus, and that now John A. Keel is in peace.

VS 2008 and PHP

Want a free version of Visual Studio 2008 that not only runs PHP, but also allows you to build win form applications using PHP?

Well then check the following link out-

http://www.php-compiler.net/doku.php?id=core%3aphp-in-vs2008

Have fun!

Microsoft BizSpark

I officially started a small start up company today. Microsoft has a great program called BizSpark. I don't want to give to much away, as it is a wide open program right now. But if you are a start up, or want to be, you should check it out.

Special thanks to AZ Groups and Scott Cate for helping me get started. Scott Cate rocks. And thanks to Microsoft for their willingness to help incubate start ups.

www.mykb.com

www.azgroups.com

www.microsoft.com/bizspark/

I still have and love my day job, so I will proudly serve my employer as long as my job holds out. So I'll only be a part timer at the new gig, but with two or three other developers also working part time, I think we will roll something out quickly. If anyone has some spare computers laying around, I'd love to take 'em off your hands.

And I've been praying about some direction, this opportunity just fell in my lap, so be sure that God answers prayers in Jesus's name. (I know, that makes me strange I guess, but it is true).

My HelloWorld LINQ Example

I know it is sad, but up until today I hadn't ever written a single LINQ query. So, for future prosterity, here is my hello world example.

 string[] s = { "test", "hello world", "mamma", "zack", "aaa","xxx" };
 // LINQ
 var subset = from z in s where z != "hello world"
    orderby  z descending select z;
 int i = 0;
 foreach (var l in subset)
 {
   Response.Write("Item " + i.ToString() + " = " + l + "<br />");
   i++;
 }