Brand new laptop preinstalled with Norton Internet Security. Clean as can be. Trying to do something in VS2012 that should not be thrashing the processor like this, what's going on? Task manager check. Norton Internet Security is up to it's same old crap. Why does this stuff even come preinstalled? Windows 8 has protection out of the box. Marketing out of control, or legal contracts signed back in 1998. Whatever it is time to get that crap off my machine.
Lesson. Whatever you do, do not try to uninstall Nortons Internet Security while it is running a scan. After 30 minutes of a pegged processor I finally gave up, rebooted to kill the process because good luck killing it yourself even with Admin rights and the Services control panel. Quickly uninstalled before it had a chance to start up. No I don't want to see "special offers" while I uninstall. Bitch of the day complete.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
SSMS Quirk IMHO
I've been working on a monster stored proc for a few days and out of the blue this afternoon all my collapsed text just expanded with no more option to toggle the expand/collapse text. No more little box things. My first thought was I must have clicked something by accident so I go and check the options in SQL Server Management Studio for the option (Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> Transact SQL -> Intellisense -> Outline Statements). It was still enabled. Ok, what's going on? Wait what is this setting for Maximum Script size and why is it set to 1 MB, wait my file just grew past about 1 MB, you know what??? So I set it to 5 MB, reopened my monster proc and there are my little expand collapse boxes. I do not like that setting! Had to write this one down. Tricky. I know my script is a monster but a 1 MB size limit on a file seems small when I have 4 GB of memory and that's not even considered a lot.
Just internet, all I need is internet
I called my all-in-one TV, Internet, Phone provider today to switch to Internet only. I totally expected to receive the hard sell with this "downgrade" but I was surprised when after answering the single question "do you watch sports?" with a quick "no I don't" that the sales pitch stopped. They had nothing. She didn't even try. I have a feeling they don't get that response often. So now-a-days what do we need cable TV for if we don't watch sports? Netflix and all the other content we can stream off the interwebs has just about totally replaced cable TV as we know it. And the sports thing will follow soon I'm sure. This fact is totally baked into the pricing. To chop off TV and Phone saved me less than half of my total monthly bill, but I'll take it. No regrets... yet anyway.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Hungry again
After bumping into issue after issue trying to play with Windows Azure stuff on my work laptop due to my neutered permissions and forced VPN connection to access anything over the internet I decided it's about time to buy a new personal laptop. After all I'm a tradesman and I need my tools, right? My wife agreed when I mentioned it to her. Cool, buy in! So my son and I headed out to Best Buy to "look" but I had my heart set on getting something because I wanted to start working on a little project this weekend. So as I'm looking at the laptops my son is on the other side of the aisle playing with the big touch desktop Windows 8 machines. Pulling up YouTube videos of Wall-E and the such. I never even heard from him, just glanced over every so often to make sure he was still there. The amazing thing is my son is rarely like that in stores. He typically always requires attention.
This got me thinking about Windows 8. It grabbed his attention and kept it, and that says something for a kid that just turned 6. Here we experienced Windows users are gripping constantly about our moved cheese in Windows 8. Those who don't have the baggage just use it.
This is a generational thing. Just like when Windows 95 came out and people were like where's Program Manager, how do I open anything. Or when Windows itself came out and the DOS crowd was like how do I get back to a command prompt after this stupid thing loads. When we've been using something daily for so long it is going to take time. I'm trying to keep an open mind. I don't want to be old and cynical. A co-worker the other day asked if I was trying to keep up with the kids when I showed him my new WP8 phone. This got me thinking... I don't think it's about keeping up with anyone. I think it's about keeping things new and exciting. It's so easy to get comfortable and complacent. That's the easy thing to do. But to keep it fun I think we have to "keep up with the kids" or better be like kids. That's why they have so much energy and excitement. This is all new. I remember how excited I got when I first learned programming in college. I dug into that stuff. It was so much fun, even the COBOL. Loved it. And then VB and ASP, OMG I was hooked. Never missed a class.
Anyway it seems we are now at another major shift in technology. I didn't really get it until I got off my ass and bought a Windows 8 machine and signed up for Windows Azure and Office 365. Everything is a service now. Conceptually this is really new to all of us who have been in the business for a while. I'm digging it.
All this reminds me of something I heard recently, "Kids will take a chance. If they don't know they'll have a go." by Sir Ted Robinson on NPR TED Talk. Take a chance with the new and unknown. Don't be afraid to look dumb. To make mistakes. Keep learning, keep growing. Run up the mountains. What's the worst that could happen?
This got me thinking about Windows 8. It grabbed his attention and kept it, and that says something for a kid that just turned 6. Here we experienced Windows users are gripping constantly about our moved cheese in Windows 8. Those who don't have the baggage just use it.
This is a generational thing. Just like when Windows 95 came out and people were like where's Program Manager, how do I open anything. Or when Windows itself came out and the DOS crowd was like how do I get back to a command prompt after this stupid thing loads. When we've been using something daily for so long it is going to take time. I'm trying to keep an open mind. I don't want to be old and cynical. A co-worker the other day asked if I was trying to keep up with the kids when I showed him my new WP8 phone. This got me thinking... I don't think it's about keeping up with anyone. I think it's about keeping things new and exciting. It's so easy to get comfortable and complacent. That's the easy thing to do. But to keep it fun I think we have to "keep up with the kids" or better be like kids. That's why they have so much energy and excitement. This is all new. I remember how excited I got when I first learned programming in college. I dug into that stuff. It was so much fun, even the COBOL. Loved it. And then VB and ASP, OMG I was hooked. Never missed a class.
Anyway it seems we are now at another major shift in technology. I didn't really get it until I got off my ass and bought a Windows 8 machine and signed up for Windows Azure and Office 365. Everything is a service now. Conceptually this is really new to all of us who have been in the business for a while. I'm digging it.
All this reminds me of something I heard recently, "Kids will take a chance. If they don't know they'll have a go." by Sir Ted Robinson on NPR TED Talk. Take a chance with the new and unknown. Don't be afraid to look dumb. To make mistakes. Keep learning, keep growing. Run up the mountains. What's the worst that could happen?
Thursday, June 20, 2013
A Beginning
So why start a blog? Like almost everyone else in the modern world has already started one. Why now?
Where do I start? I've noticed a lot of trends in my life. Trends is a good way to say I go through, or put myself through, repeated patterns of stupidity and negative thinking. Often it starts when I'm idle and the brain has too much opportunity to run away with itself. That and sometimes when life gets stressful but typically its from being unengaged. I seem to be at my best when I can throttle the idle and be productive. The three major aspects of my life are family, work and running and when I focus on being the best in these I'm not only the most happy but also the best person I can be. Therefore this blog will be dedicated to those three areas of my life. I'm writing this mostly for myself. Probably won't be interesting but will hopefully capture what is going on and give me opportunities for reflection.
Where do I start? I've noticed a lot of trends in my life. Trends is a good way to say I go through, or put myself through, repeated patterns of stupidity and negative thinking. Often it starts when I'm idle and the brain has too much opportunity to run away with itself. That and sometimes when life gets stressful but typically its from being unengaged. I seem to be at my best when I can throttle the idle and be productive. The three major aspects of my life are family, work and running and when I focus on being the best in these I'm not only the most happy but also the best person I can be. Therefore this blog will be dedicated to those three areas of my life. I'm writing this mostly for myself. Probably won't be interesting but will hopefully capture what is going on and give me opportunities for reflection.
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