So, if your a paypal user like me, you may of added your chequeing or saving account for direct withdraws and deposits. Makes sense if you do large online purchases and occasionally sell something as well. They make this “convenience feature” very visible and push it for EVERY transaction. Every time you buy something the default is to use you cash accounts, not your credit card. They tout it as “Safe, Secure and Easy”. Well, I’ve go news for you… it’s not.
I came across this today: Working With Default Constraints
Basically, if you script any sort of table changes in MSSQL you will eventually need to use this code. In MSSQL’s infinite wisdom they made default values on NOT NULL columns occasionally have a mysterious constraint. Ordinarily, constraints on fields on tables are easily found in INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS; but, these particular constraints are hidden for whatever reason.
This makes removing them programmatically very difficult, since they insist on putting a timestamp/guid on the end of each auto-generated default constraint. SO, this useful page on the MSDN provides a way to query the actual name of the constraint given the table name and column name. This, allowing you to remove it before you do something completely crazy like delete the column.
Of course, if your not in to scripting your database migrations then you can just use Management Studio and delete the column.
I’ll keep it brief. You sign up for a card. You get two points for every dollar. Takes 1000 points to get $10 off. $10/$500 is 2% off. They force you to accept a coupon for this redemption as soon as you hit 1000 points. They print this on thermal paper and give it to you to loose. It also expires 3 months after it’s issued. So, if you shop very frequently at Eddi Bauer, this card is for you. Otherwise, it’s a giant waste of time, plastic and paper.
Much to my amusement, UPS managed to get me a package 2 minutes before it had even arrived in Saskatoon!
UPS manages to deliever a package before it arrives
I seriously wonder how hard it is to track a package in this day and age…
So I’m on my way back from the bank today. Heading down 51st towards warman ave. The lights at that particular intersection heading east and west allow for three lanes of traffic, but most people who plan to continue through don’t use the far right lane. Most of the time it’s full of people turning right (and not turning right when they can, given they have their own lane to do so in). At any rate, the light turns green and we all proceed to move through the intersection at the usual pace.
This guy behind me is riding my ass and he obviously want to be in that right lane ASAP. Well all the power to him I think, as I see broken down car up a head in the right lane. Since he was following me sooo closely I think he couldn’t see that car, because he choose to peel out of the lane right into it. I say he was going 60km/h or so when he did that. Right smack into the back of the other car. Didn’t appear to be anyone tending to that poor parked car, and the guy immediately jumped out of his car waving his hands in the air. I figured he was fine if he could do that and kept on moving.
Today’s lesson in driving? Always maintain a safe following distance in your car, and exercise caution when going around vehicle on the right. You have something of a blind spot there.
At work I’ve been using the newest and greatest Install Shield Premier 2008 for packing aforementioned Visual Basic application. We actually had version 10.5 sitting around, but somehow I managed to change the dependencies for this application is such a way that it confused the heck out of the 10.5 version. Now, I’m coming from a unique perspective here, in that I’ve attempted to use 10.5 and 2008. Here are my “Install Shield Grips”:
I’m working with VB6 at work. This list is not nearly complete, but it does represent all the problems I had today with VB6. I’m sure I’ll remember some more as it bits my ass over the next week. In no particular order of importance, here they are:
Note on August 24th, 2007: I realize many of these issues are fixed in later editions. My point here is that I shouldn’t be developing software in VB6… it’s wasting my time.
I’ll keep this as short as possible. I’ve been doing more ASP.NET 2.0 development at work. Sometimes I’m amazed at how simple and fast you can do something. Other times I’m horrified at how lacking it is. I have nothing particularly against ASP.NET 2.0, but if it was something opensource… people would be fixing these petty problems. Here’s an example:
You have a drop down list on a page that is DataBound to a list of items. These items all appear on the page, but you may have to scroll to them. You want to let the use select the item from the drop down and scroll to it (with the magic of anchor tags). Typically you add an “onchange” event to call some javascript that does this. Something simple like: window.location = “#item_id”;
Unfortunately, ASP.NET 2.0 doesn’t want you to do client side scripting with their controls, so you left with these options:
1. Render the control manually in the ASP page. This is the method we’ve been doing for years, creating large unreadable source pages. It’s what all this ASP control jazz is supposed to fix.
2. Extend or rewrite a new control that accepts this property with no complaints. This may already be done by someone out there. Down side is you add a dependency to your project and usually get a bunch of other crap you didn’t want. Extending it consumes some time, but if done write you can probably reuse it.
3. Add the ‘onchange’ attribute to the control with some code: controlName.Attributes.Add(“onChange”,”javascript: return confirm(“Are you sure?”);”); This works, but you end up combining your view and control code, which once again is something ASP was supposed to fix…
None of these solutions are particularly good. When I worked on a site that used Castle I found many similar problems with their “Helpers”. I submitted updates to them, so everyone benefited. With Microsofts ASP.NET, we have to bitch about it. Send in a request. Wait. Wait some more. Then maybe they integrate the requested fix/feature in the next version. The whole process taking years usually.
Note: I’m not endorsing the use of Castle. It’s relatively mature, but doesn’t provide much of an advantage over a well designed asp.net site. Also, to do anything moderately well in ASP.NET, you should understand their DataSource stuff. For larger sites, be prepared to write your own datasource handlers, because the ones they provide are limited in their usefulness on large sets of data (e.g., they retrieve full sets of data before pagination or sorting).
I found these gems on the internet today:
Literally out of no where this morning I was thinking about mowing lawns. Some may already know my particularly odd stance on this subject, but the more I thought about it; the more I needed to say something about it. I use a push reel mower. You can find them almost everywhere you can find gas mower. Let jump into why I use one of these “old school” mowers.
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