My younger brother, Danny, is doing the same graduate program that I did at the University of Florida. Recently he was given a pop quiz from one of my favorite professors where he was asked to describe what the that keyword does in C#. I must admit - I was also initially stumped because I didn't expect it to be a trick question... I figured maybe, since I focus on J#, I just hadn't encountered the C# keyword (perhaps it was part of C# 2.0 and I hadn't noticed). Ok, ok, so really I have no good excuse...
But my question for the readers of my blog: If there was a that keyword for C#, what would it be used for? Accepting all answers, real or absurd. I'll post the best ones here. BrianKel at Microsoft dot com. Who knows, maybe I'll ask Dan to champion the best responses with Anders to consider for C# 3.0? :-)
That's right! Turn tail and go back to the ocean. We've had enough of your kind...
This is a really amusing - and educational - article about the use of the Millionaire's (and his wife) money on Gilligan's Island. Which begs the question... how did it become Gilligan's island? Gilligan seems the least likely candidate to be the namesake of the island... but I digress. Here's the article: http://mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1595
This is an exciting month for service packs. Note the separate download for Windows Server 2003
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 [for Windows 2000/XP] <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=A8F5654F-088E-40B2-BBDB-A83353618B38&displaylang=en>
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2003 <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=AE7EDEF7-2CB7-4864-8623-A1038563DF23&displaylang=en>
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.0 Service Pack 3 [for Windows 2000/XP] <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6978D761-4A92-4106-A9BC-83E78D4ABC5B&displaylang=en>
Couldn't make it to DevDays 2004? Don't worry - now you can download streaming videos of all of the sessions straight to your desktop. You can even download the sample code, such as the IssueVision application developed for the Smart Client track or Microsoft's submission to eWEEK's OpenHack competition which was referenced in the Web track. Enjoy!
http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/devdays/sessions/default.aspx
I am glued to MSNBC watching Hurricane Charley updates. Last night I figured it would be a relatively mild storm - category 2, or maybe category 3 they were saying. Well now it's a category 4 and it's coming straight for where my Mom and brother live. They don't seem to be too worried, but given that I live in Seattle and I can only see the scary pictures coming across the news I'm getting pretty worried.
On a lighter note, my friend's Web design and development company changed their home page for today to reflect the hurricane.www.352media.com
Recently I was talking to my friend about Googling for people's names. She's dating a few people right now and trying to get the low-down on them before she gets any more involved. So I started wondering: What would people find if they were digging for dirt on me?
Luckily for me the #1 hit for my name is still this blog. But go down a few Google hits and you start to blur the line between me and my same-name-counterparts. For instance:
Of course, I'm really not smart or married - so these are other Brian Keller's out there. But I am from Florida, so if I was an unscrupulous person I could pass myself off as a Marine Biology expert. Did you know that a whale is actually not a fish? (See - I play the part well)
Another interesting experiment is Googlism (www.googlism.com). They have an engine which looks for nouns and tries to come up with descriptions of them. For example, you might type in "whale" to learn that a whale is "not actually a fish". Type in "Brian Keller" and you get some weird results. Given that I live just outside of Seattle, somebody could easily think that I was "accused of stealing weapons from the base at seatac." Ouch.
On Google Images, 2 of the first 5 hits for "Brian Keller" are pictures of cemetaries. Hmm...
I think this is a good excercise for anybody to run, because c'mon let's face it - like it or not, we live in an age where people are going to Google you before entering into a trust relationship (employers, dating, etc.) or just for fun, so you should be ready to defend potential bad press (or change your name!). Of course, you may also need to take more aggressive and proactive measures to protecting your reputation. That's why I made this shirt... (click the image to buy yours today!)
http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/
To quote my friend Alim, “I have been using it for a couple of days and it has revolutionized the way I work.”
I don't think I'm not your typical Outlook user. To put my usage into context, I have every email I've ever sent or received at Microsoft. That's about 3GB of .PST files - compressed. To open some of the larger .PST files it takes over a minute. But with Lookout installed, I can type in any search term and it will find mails in seconds. Really amazing.