Visual ActiveKent Sharkey .NET SE 3.11 : Me too!

Moving this blog -- need opinions

ksharkey — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 03:23:00 GMT

To move the comments, or not to move the comments?
Whether tis nobler to leave every URL intact
or by moving them break them?

I'm pretty certain I can move all the posts without egregious problems, but the comments may be another matter. Would anyone care if they stayed here? Would anyone care and/or notice if I did nothing and just started blogging in "the new place"? As is often the case, I need your opinions to help my brain decide.

Browser Security Test

ksharkey — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 03:41:00 GMT

Run 37 tests to make certain your browser isn't letting anything in you don't want. [via ACMEbinary]

TechEd, will I be there?

ksharkey — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 23:16:00 GMT

I haven't a clue. Last I heard I'd be able to go if I ride my bike there.

Still, Scott & Rory will be there (along with a lot of other Really Smart Folk), and you'll even be able to get them to explain this in person...

Querying RSS

ksharkey — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 20:54:00 GMT

During my early (OK, post 8am) reading this morning I saw this on Jon Udell's blog. Like much of Jon's writing and "little apps", it blew me away, and got me thinking of how I could use it for myself. Maybe not using XQuery (likely too much for my head), but having a nice DB of posts, normalized to RSS 2.0 + XHTML and a full-text query syntax. Then, you start fishing; something like http://server/query.aspx?itemcontains=ASP.NET&itemcontains=DataGrid&authorlike=Walther I think that would provide a nice scheme for gathering up wisdom on not just ASP.NET, but across as much of a knowledge domain as people blog about (find out just who Gina is dating this week or the secret aspirations of Paris Hilton to become President of the US)

... but who will manage the Managers?

ksharkey — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 23:40:00 GMT

I know my blog is in serious danger of turning into a recruiting site or even (heaven forbid) a recruiters' blog, but I have another job offer for you. Our Site Management team (the good folk who keep MSDN and TechNet running tickety-boo to the tune of about 100MM page views (MSDN) and 19MM (TechNet) page views a month is seeking a manager. Help plan, build and run two of the larger sites on the Internet. For more details, see the job posting. For those too lazy to click, here's an excerpt:

The Site Manager is responsible for understanding the business and marketing strategies, 
representing the technologies of a specific product or program, and directing the ongoing 
development of sites that help customers to find the information they need. 
They direct development through project management of content deliverables and relationships 
with product and marketing groups, third-party vendors, and other functional teams. 
The challenge is to maintain a strategic Web presence and also to manage 
the ongoing publishing efforts for the site.

UPDATE: forgot to tell you, if you're interested, send resume etc. to Katherine Lagana

Second Edition, now with more brain-thumping goodness

ksharkey — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:37:00 GMT

Just got a copy of the second edition of Advanced .NET Remoting by Ingo (and now also Mario Szpuszta). I had the good fortune of squeezing my brain through it a while back (and lived!). While the talk continues, you really need to read as much of this book as you can. It's not only THE best book on Remoting (even better than the first edition), it's also a great reference on how to build scalable, loosely coupled distributed applications; information that is useful if you're building Remoting, Web Services, Indigo or even COM/COM+ apps.

Whatever happened to SNOBOL?

ksharkey — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 05:50:00 GMT

I remember it was going to revolutionize text parsing, or something. I love this history, it just feels so relaxing looking at it.

Jobs, jobs, jobs (ASP.NET edition)

ksharkey — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 03:08:00 GMT

While I wouldn't normally post job openings for "just anyone", Scott certainly isn't just anyone. He's the Software Architect for one of the first companies I had the pleasure of working with when .NET was still in the glimpse stage, as well as one of the most active MVPs and RDs out there. So, if you're in the Portland area (Hillsboro, OR), know a *lot* of ASP.NET, and want to work in a cool environment (what else can I say but the meeting rooms are named after *obscure* Star Wars planets, plus there is the name of the company), you might want to apply.

YABRT: Yet Another Blog Ranking Tool

ksharkey — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 06:08:00 GMT

While browsing my Bloglines subscriptions, I see that there is yet another tool available for monitoring the "importance" of blogs -- PubSub. From their site:

LinkRanks are a measure of how many pages link to each particular site, with more weight given to fresher links and to links from a wider variety of pages.

The interesting .NET angle on all of this is that they have a C# library for communicating with their service.

This must be in the frequently asked questions, isn't it?

ksharkey — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 21:16:00 GMT

I want to get a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list up for ASP.NET, but before I do I have a few questions for you.

Would this be a useful addition to the site?
If no, go to #4 below
If yes, what format? Should I use a similar format to the C# FAQ? Something like Longhorn? Or use Scott's new FAQ engine (and find a nice hoster)? Usual places to answer or discuss.
Thank you for your time.

Oh, and you can also let me know if you have a FAQ you'd like answered, or if you've seen a FAQ, and have the answer.

In Remembrance

ksharkey — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 19:43:00 GMT

I'm not usually known for "pro patria mortis" feelings, but thank a veteran today.

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

Jobs @ MSDN

ksharkey — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 00:27:00 GMT

Shawn and Matt posting about some of the many jobs available at MSDN, in case you know of anyone interested.

Also hidden (mostly) in Matt's posting -- the Mighty D is moving from "Content Strategy" to fulltime dev again. He'll be building the infrastructure for MSDN going forward.

Hopefully he'll still recognize me in the hallways.

Buy Visual Studio .NET 2003, get a boat load of fun

ksharkey — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 04:46:00 GMT

I've been reminded by The Powers That Be™ that I haven't provided enough public noise around Visual Studio .NET Professional 2003 Special Edition. So, here we go.

If you haven't purchased Visual Studio .NET 2003 yet (and if you haven't -- "Bad Zoot. evil, naughty Zoot!"), the Special edition is an excellent way to get your copy. For only a few sheckels, you get:

Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional Edition
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (for dev use only)
SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition
Visual Studio Tools for Office
Four MS Press books for self-paced learning
a voucher for a 50% discount on a certification exam

In short, hours of fun for the whole family. (Assuming your whole family develops in VB, C++, J# or C#.)
If you order now (and can identify the movie the above "Zoot" quote came from), we'll through in a limited edition cardboard box, and commemorative styrofoam peanuts or polybag cushioning.

Operators are standing by.

MSDN += new RssFeeds() ';

ksharkey — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:35:00 GMT

Duncan has been working on our new RSS generation system. The new one he's created should be more flexible, accurate and up-to-date. He's looking for feedback on the new format as well. There are two changes we're really interested in feedback. First, he added category support. This is added in two formats:

as RSS category tags
<category domain="msdndomain:ProductVers">Visual Basic.NET</category>
using a custom element that defines the topic domain
<msdn:technology>ADO.NET</msdn:technology>

The second change is that the RSS feeds now have an attached XSLT stylesheet. This means that in browsers that know how to render attached stylesheets, you get a "friendly" view of the RSS, while your aggregator sees the RSS as normal. Send thoughts here, or on Duncan's blog.

Blogjutsu vs. spam

ksharkey — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 22:33:00 GMT

In between my other e-mails, I get a fair bit of spam (as I'm sure all of you do as well). Every once & a while, I get one that I feel like researching a little. (DNSStuff rocks for this) While spending a few moments tracking down the source of one, I came across a website with a *fabulous* idea -- why fight spammers, when you can use their actual tools against them? So, I'm tossed my little dram of Google juice at the spam problem (without requiring any patents)

"Here's the bait...
For some people that have spammed me, I've tracked them down and found their e-mail addresses, which are listed below for the benefit of spambots everywhere. I've also added 12,960 fake addresses on my other pages, which will help to make sure that spambots are less successful. "