ToP Chat - "UnScheduled" Downtime

Team of Programmer's Chat Server will have an unknown amount of downtime today.

I am told it should only be a few hours while some hardware is installed and configurations are worked out, but i haven't been given an ETA. I'll post more details as i get them!

Now what am i going to do while i wait for my Visual Studio to unfreeze?

Web Developer Wanted - CA

Full-Time position available in Pleasanton, CA for a Web Developer Proficient with several of the following: Java, JavaScript, HTML, AJAX, REST, CSS and XML.

The job title is "Senior Software Engineer" but based on the description of skills they're looking for, i think it's more of a Web Development position.

Wanted Web Developer

The Floor is Good Enough!

That's what she said.

Today, i received a spam email, encouraging me to get my carpet cleaned, that said:

"A dirty carpet is like a guilty conscience-it's always nagging you from the background, and it prevents you from eating off the floor in peace. "

This reminded me of something my mother always used to say when i would have come inspect my work of cleaning the bathroom. She would start by saying

"Is it mommy clean?"

I, of course, would nod my head and say yes to affirm that it was, hoping that that would be the end of it and i could go play. But then she'd ask

"Is the toilet seat clean enough that you would eat food off of it?"

.....I could NEVER answer yes to that question, no matter how hard i scrubbed. Even if the toilet was cleaned of all urine...bathroom cleaning products aren't necessarily known for their good tastes! Needless to say, my bathroom was incredibly clean on those nights.

It doesn't matter to me how much disinfectant i used, i don't think i would ever be okay eating off of the toilet seat. I would also not be okay, even after having a carpet cleaning, of setting food directly on the ground to eat it. In the event that it was dirty, i'd use a plate or paper-towel if i wanted to set my food down lol


If you live in Utah, and want to rid yourself of that nagging...click here to see this ad

PHP/JavaScript Programmers wanted - UT

Contract work available in Sugarhouse, UT for a Web Developer fluent in PHP and/or Javascript.

Wanted PHP/JavaScript Programmer

WCF Error: CommunicationException was unhandled

From our friend over at XamlWorkShop we have another write-up. Matt writes about his solution to an "ungoogleable" CommunicationException error he received while using WCF services.

...now it's googleable!

The Xaml Workshop: WCF Error: The underlying connection was closed: T...: "CommunicationException was unhandled The underlying connection was closed: The connection was closed unexpectedly. Once in a while I have c..."

The Takeover of "Cloud Nine"...or Whatever.

Last night, i reached 666 posts on twitter.  It's a milestone, yes i know! It was late, and i had noticed someone had started following me whom i didn't recognize.

AMP3RSAND

 I noticed that under this person's newly followed people...i was at the top of 3 people that have "CloudyOne" in their name or description. Now I've used the name CloudyOne since i was 12, back when i was so cool...that i had 3 AOL separate dial-up accounts for my 3 phone lines at home. Back then, i was the ONLY one who was googleable with the name CloudyOne! So as far as i'm concerned, I'm the first CloudyOne and I'm the real CloudyOne.  The ladies dig my AOL CD collection

I've always felt like i should go around and reclaim my name so i don't get mixed in with some of the people who are playing the imposter to my name. There was some guy on some blog site a while back that wrote some poorly spelled and poorly written poems about how much he hated life. Then there was some girl in canada who was a really big movie...and cat...fanatic.

I don't want to be associated with cats!

So anyway, back to the milestone of 666 posts. This ampersand character, (you see what i did there?) had these other "CloudyOne"'s he was following. So i posted this:

"That's me!"

As you can see, my last name is Cloud, so i really do have a legitimate claim to the name!






Then this morning, i receive a message from my sister with a link to another impostor! Just look at the smug look on his face...

It's a cat! I guess it doesn't matter if i want to be associated with cats, it's already happening! Doomsday has come!









Yes, i realize that technically...the cat doesn't have my full nickname, but girls in high-school (after my aol cd collection, no doubt) used to call me "cloudy" as well, and some still do!

SO...If you are using my nickname, CloudyOne, start doing more prestigious things! Wake-up today and decide to be a little bit cooler!

...and if you're the person who adopted this cat, change her name so i can be selfish and keep Cloudy, and all it's derivatives to myself!

Timing is Everything - YouTube Instant

I don't even dare to pronounce his last name.

Ferros Aboukhadijeh, the creator of YouTube Instant has accomplished what many of programmers are constantly striving for: Good timing.

How many times as a developer have you gotten an idea for a site or a program, and rather than working until it's done...you add it to your list, buy the domain, and let it sit there? I know I've been guilty of that on many occasions, and as we speak my mind is rattling with a list of projects that are either halfway done, or yet to be completed.

I think of the many sites I've parked domains for, created the solution, and created a mock-up for; It's becoming a pretty hefty list. It's easy to my mind drift away with the many possibilities that await if i were to just sit down and actually do it. Seeing the success of one of my creations is worth than any revenue that can be made off of it, though the extra income is always a welcome perk.

But alas, like most of us, the list of projects on my "to-do list" continues to grow.

Think about how simple the idea was for YouTube Instant. The idea of instant search was fresh in everybody's mind from Google Instant's release, and i'm sure the idea struck many minds developer and marketer alike. The difference is...Ferros actually did it!  Kudos, and a big thumbs up to the many doors you've opened up for yourself by continuing to act, Ferros!

So Here's YOUR Call To Action!

Take those projects off the shelf, wipe off the dust and show the world how ingenious you really are! Don't let yourself be in the position to say

"Hey! I thought of that first....i just hadn't gotten around to doing it yet."

If the project is too big to handle, co-op with a friend (or if you're lacking developer friends come hang out on the Team of Programmers Chat and make a friend!).

Engineering the X-Wing Fighter Out Of Aluminum

Every developer has their caffeinated beverage of choice. Mine...well, just watch the movie and find out!

This design has taken a while to accumulate enough cans, as i only build with empty cans!

Note to anyone wanting to build their own--Not all cans are the same size. I measured each can and all the runts were set aside. Once i built the base using all the cans of uniform size, the runts were used at the tops of the wings or as accent cans not vital to the stability of the structure.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.8

M$ Team Member Gets WP7 Developers Involved

Mike Henderlight from Microsoft has given an open invitation to all Developers involved in Windows Phone 7 development to give their input on "needed controls" for the Developer Toolkit.

Though making a disclaimer about not being able to fulfill everyone's desires, this may indicate their intentions of keeping community involved in the progression of WP7! If there's anything that's keeping developers in Microsoft's court it's definitely their outspoken attentiveness to our desires and ideas.

Having an involved Developer make the direct invitation in a single thread, rather than the usual End-User developers making their individual threads for feature requests, was refreshing. It allows for the requests to be in one place, and thus allows for a discussion and catalyst of ideas. Keep up the good work Mike!

O(h that doesn't work either?)racle, Fine.

For the amount of money our company pays every year to Oracle, i sure spend a lot of time cursing their name.

I spend a (un)fair amount of time finding "workarounds" to accomplish something in PLSQL that would have been a straightforward use of code in TSQL. Today's finding?

Code that would normally work in TSQL(Microsoft)

UPDATE            I_HATE_ORACLE
SET               TIMES_HATED = 233544
FROM              I_HATE_ORACLE HO,
                  HATE_REASONS HR
WHERE             HR.DESCRIPTION = 'Missing Keywords'
              AND HR.REASON_ID = HO.REASON_ID
              AND HO.PROGRAM_ID = 1

Doesn't work in PLSQL(Oracle). Instead i had to add 2 lines of extra code....and because i like to keep things formatted properly spacing-wise, it doubled the actual width of the query.

UPDATE            I_HATE_ORACLE
SET               TIMES_HATED = 233544
WHERE             HATE_ID IN (
                   SELECT            HATE_ID
                   FROM              I_HATE_ORACLE HO,
                                     HATE_REASONS HR
                   WHERE             HR.DESCRIPTION = 'Missing Keywords'
                                 AND HR.REASON_ID = HO.REASON_ID
                                 AND HO.PROGRAM_ID = 1)

It's not a HUGE deal...but being i already am opposed to our Oracle servers here, every added annoyance is amplified by that predisposition!  TSQL > PLSQL

"Oracle is like the child who lives in the corner who sells you the first glass of Lemonade for $0.25, and then sells you the second glass for $80,000 because it has the antidote."

Quotes from the Coders 2010-09-08

 After watching my co-worker make multiple attempts at entering a password, make an observation and say

"You realize we don't have any users here called 'Administration'...right?"

Friends says

"wtf Youtube! Vmware.com directs me to watch a tutorial on Vmnetworking and under Youtube's other recommendations...it shows things like "Vmware this" & "Vmware that".

"and then, randomly...."How to breast-feed effectively".

Walking into a conversation at the wrong time.

"Codiality. Yanno, like beastiality...but where you love your code so much you'd have sex with it?"

...and another

"Well if Google doesn't have it, then it doesn't exist. So i'll have to reject your invitation to your 'Piddle Party' so i'm not the only one there." 

"Wtf? You actually looked it up?"

Save a Programmer, Visit a Sponsor

I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone who participated yesterday in the first un-official "Visit a Sponsor Day"!  

Though Google's Adsense program is far from being able to compensate me for the cost of running the servers i have over the years for all of you, it definitely does take some stress off of my wallet! Your response was bigger than i had hoped for--So for that, i tip my hat to you!

For those who weren't online when i made the call to "Visit a Sponsor", here's the low-down. If you like the site, if you've ever used one of my servers in the past, if you've found the blog useful, informative, or amusing--Next time you visit the site, also visit that Google-assigned sponsor that you see in one of the Advertisements!

Why visit a Sponsor? You see ads everyday, you see commercials everyday. Of those you see, how many of those benefit someone you know directly just by you watching or visiting the sponsor? Sites that are "well off" usually won't put ads on their site, so if you see a site you use often with ads, you should support the site by supporting their sponsors.

Job Opening @Twitter - Application Security Engineer

"We are adding to our technical staff to help us improve Twitter's application security. This is an exciting role in which you will have a real impact on millions of lives. You'll interface with Twitter's amazing application engineers, operations teams, and product managers, to name a few. If you have a passion for securing high-profile systems, this is your dream job."

Application Security Engineer / Working at Twitter

We the jury...find the defendant, a GEEK

There are days where i put my headphones in to listen to music (usually techno) while i code, but many times...i quickly take them back out.

Myself and 2 of the other programmers here sit in close proximity and all of us are slightly crazy. One of us isn't just crazy, he's "We the jury, find the defendant..." type of crazy.
-Quoted from Christopher Titus

At random times throughout the day, one of us will burst out with something completely random, and usually objectionable. Today, i'm sitting here coding and i hear my coworker making "beatbox" sounds with his mouth, then i hear:

"pschhhh te chhhhh wcki wcki WrapPanel"

The Silverlight Toolkit has a control in it called "WrapPanel" which we all have decided is fun to use. All day, presumingly anytime he saw the control name in his code, he would would break out into a geeky "rap" of some sort...which kept us laughing most of the day :)

Silverlight Toolkit: WrapPanel: "I’d like for us to talk about one of the new controls in the Silverlight Toolkit – WrapPanel.
In the following article we’ll deep dive into WrapPanel and see how it behaves in different situations."