Mouse gestures in Firefox… AND IE

A coworker sent around a link to this Firefox plugin, which basically does this:

“Allows you to execute common commands (like page forward/backward, close tab, new tab) by mouse gestures drawn over the current webpage, without reaching for the toolbar or the keyboard.
You can also use click-only “rocker” gestures which are even faster than drawn gestures. “

But my coworker is really into lots of non-Microsoft things, so let’s be fair and have a link to this IE plugin, which provides mouse gesture support for Internet Explorer users (5.5 and up)!

My Nephew’s Baptism

My little nephew Zachary was baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ this Sunday (yesterday) as prescribed by Peter in the book of Acts.   Also baptised was a young man by the name of Josh, who had just miraculously survived a car wreck.  Three separate witnesses came up to him at the scene of the accident wanting to know if he had seen the man who had left the wreckage and walked into the woods.  But nobody had been in the car with him, and he believes it was an angel of God protecting him until he repented and came back to the Lord.  Praise God for his matchless grace!

ACTS 2:38
     38    Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

VS 2005 Web Application Project V1.0

If you’ve ever tried to migrate an existing ASP.NET 1.x application to version 2.0, you will love this.  The VS 2005 Web Application Project makes migrating projects from Visual Studio 2003 to 2005 VERY easy!

You can find out more from Scott Guthrie’s Blog, and also this Microsoft article.

Ajax Progress Indicators

Here is a nice set of animated gifs to use when waiting for a response from an Ajax callback:

http://www.napyfab.com/ajax-indicators/

Another one bites the dust

DevX just came by and proclaimed that we would no longer be seeing him again.  In his words: “I was not productive or proactive enough, and I surfed the web too much.”  All of this was true, but you can’t help feeling bad when it happens, especially to someone with a wife and kids.

After he left, the Russian and I did a 180 and began working furiously.  Seriously… firing people is great motivation.  I bet managers decide each quarter how many people they are going to fire, whether or not they deserve it.  The ratio has to be right, of course.  Fire too many and the remaining ones will be too scared to work.  Too few and motivation levels drop.  It has to be juuust right!

So note to self: be productive and don’t surf the web at work.  Oh, and no blogging either… oops!

Soft[be]ware

Just before leaving the office today, I got this email from one of our clients:

Subject: “ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Body: <blank>

That was it! Just “ARGH”.  I only hope the “ARGH” wasn’t my fault, because the client who sent this also copied it to several of my esteemed colleagues who I am often trying not to look like an idiot in front of.  So tomorrow, hopefully we can fill in the <blank>… and let the fun begin!

Stevey’s Rant on Agile

This Google employee’s take on agile is a real gem.  Click the quote for the rest of the story:

“And frankly, most Agile out there is plain old Bad Agile. So if I were you, I’d take Agile off your resume. I’d quietly close the SCRUM and XP books and lock them away. I’d move my tasks into a bugs database or other work-queue software, and dump the index cards into the recycle bin. I’d work as fast as I can to eliminate Agile from my organization. And then I’d focus on being agile.”

.NET 2.0 Connection Strings

 There is a default connection string named LocalSqlServer in machine.config:

<connectionStrings>

<add name=”LocalSqlServer” connectionString=”data source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Integrated
Security=SSPI;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|aspnetdb.mdf;User Instance=true” providerName=”System.Data.SqlClient” />

</connectionStrings>

You can override this in the web.config of your local application like so:

<connectionStrings>

<remove name=”LocalSqlServer”/>
<add name=”LocalSqlServer” connectionString=”…” providerName=”System.Data.SqlClient”/>

</ConnectionStrings>

The problem is, when you drag a SqlDataSource onto the designer and click on “Configure Data Source”, your connection string doesn’t show up (probably because of the <remove> element). But if you remove <remove name=”LocalSqlServer”/> from web.config, this error will come up when you go to “Configure Data Source”:“Following error occurred while getting connection string information from configuration. “The entry ‘LocalSqlServer’ has already been added.”

Solution: name your connection string something other than LocalSqlServer and it will work!

Whew!

I’m the only one in the office now.  The rest of the team is on the way to Andretti Speedway, but I wanted to blog about this before catching up w/ them.  El Capitan pulled me into his office a while ago, along with one of the project managers, closed the door and told me to sit down.  They looked very grim, and I started to get nervous:  “… is everything… OK?” I asked.   “Actually, yes.”  he said.  “I’ve had 5 different people come to me and tell me that you’re doing a great job, and just wanted to let you know.”  He explained how hard it was to keep a straight face, and I laughed and told him how scary he was.   I think he was pleased.  

Be on the lookout for a suspicious developer

I passed DevX in the hall on my way to the men’s room.  He was nervously talking on his cell phone.  Back at my cube a few minutes later, a security guard stuck her head in the front door and yelled <HERLOO!>.   Someone had reported someone lurking around our floor looking suspicious.  

DevA told the guard that I was the only suspicious one around. 

I said: “Eureka! DevX was out in the hall a minute ago looking suspicious.  I bet they’re looking for DevX!”.  DevX later confirmed that he probably was the suspicious one, but we’ll probably never know for sure.  I guess he gave them the slip.

But the way I see it, there is a real problem on our floor.  It is the guy from Cloop Consulting who never flushes the latrine.  I’ll be sitting on the pot sometimes and can hear him leave without flushing (or washing his hands).  Then apparently everyone uses the other latrine, because his healthy yellow swill festers for hours in the other one, until it stinks like you wouldn’t believe. 

 Next time he “forgets” to flush, I’m considering calling security from the safety of my stall.