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serenity |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/30/2005 4:00 PM
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saw serenity (the movie) tonite. it was amazing. i was really expecting just a two hour episode, but joss whedon really delivered with this film. i've been a fan of the one-season sci-fi show for quite some time and was just happy with the fact that I'd get to see the characters once again; but honestly this was a good movie without the television background to fill in the gaps. River (the young girl) was perfect in this movie. neurotically awesome and physically overwhelming (the fight scenes were incredible.) Baldwin pulled off the Jane character with absolute brilliance. I wont spoil the movie for you by describing the twists and irony of the film. definitely check this out in the theatres - if nothing else but for the incredible space battle at the end. (minor spoiler - when the reavers break thru the cosmic cloud....wow.)
check it out. maybe it will bring back the t.v. show if enough people show an interest.
maybe. |
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side project |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/28/2005 4:00 PM
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my wife and i eat out alot. between lunches at work and family dinners out and about, we visit a ton of various restaurants throughout the grand rapids area. and most of the time we get great service and great food. occassionally we hit somewhere that is consistently bad (and consequently we've stopped going) and I've started to think...wouldnt it be great if Grand rapids had an online review/commenting site for people to air out praises and grievances for businesses exclusive to our community? maybe its just me. I'll build it and see if it pans out. i'm not looking to make any money from the site. i just think there should be something particular to our area that allows me(/you) the opportunity to voice our consumer experiences.
so i just purchased the url www.grandrapidsreview.com. its somewhat catchy and descriptive. theres nothing there yet, but soon. prolly thro a dnn3 site up there with some review modules for various entertainment categories (food, movies, concert, cafes). I'll have to spend some time thinking about structure and then build it.
stay tuned....
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podcast |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/21/2005 4:00 PM
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I've had an open podcast on my ipod for a week now waiting patiently for an hour of my brains attention. Polymorphic Podcast is one of the few “tech” casts that i subscribe too. Typically I cant do more than a twenty minute broadcast because my attention veers off the road of attentiveness and i find myself having to rewind and repeat. So i generally only tune into subscriptions that i'm confident will have the means to drive the topic into the inner reaches of me brain. This last cast caught me totally off guard. This session involved an interview with a german developer, “Thomas Tomiczek.”
and...ummmm...well....o.k. there's really no nice way to say this, but Tomiczek is an ass.
Let me elaborate by summarizing the podcast with a few of his own words. I'm paraphrasing, because i dont want to torture myself by listening to the broadcast, that i might quote him exactly.
”95% of software developers would be better off working at McDonalds.” His claim being that most developers are 'stupid' and should 'go home and read a book.' What? You mean to say that an entire I.T. industry is being fueled by a predominantly 'stupid' source of programmers? The technology world would come to a complete and absolute halt if that were true.
”I've read Rocky Lhotka's Business Object and I have to say its a lot of crap.” OMG! I've had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Lhotka as well as sitting thru an INETA session with him. He has some controversial ideas and very strong opinions but he backs it up with intelligent and demonstrative examples.
”If you don't know at least 3 development languages, you're NOT a developer. You're just a hacker.” Wow. O.k....so yeah i know at least 3. But I know alot of guys who only know 1 or 2. I wouldnt call them 'Hackers.' Actually I'd say they're 'specialists.' Almost to the point of guruhood. (So maybe guruhood isn't a word, but it should be.)
“Tiered Application structure is ancient technology. Its stupid to be using it now.“ Apparently Microsoft and the rest of the structured development world didnt get the same memo he did. Good thing too. wow.
So basically this arrogant jerk shot down the very industry that feeds him. I'd give you a link to his site, but I dont want to be resposible for any increase in traffic that might find benefit for him. Even Craig was a little speechless. He was trying to be courteous to his guest, while at the same time not giving into this poor saps obviously tainted view of the industry. Kudos to Mr. Shoemaker for getting thru the interview without bombarding the moron with a multitude of vulgar expletives. He's a better man than most.
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one more thing |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/15/2005 4:00 PM
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 One more thing...make sure that when you use the sqldts ftp object that you do so on the top level package. dont use it within a package that is called by another package. you'll run into some threading issues. It has to sit on the top most process.
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dts ownz |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/14/2005 4:00 PM
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a screenshot of my latest DTS adventure. I swear, sql2k dts could take a bucket of dog poo and scrub a decent database out of it. Definitely an awesome tool. I cant wait to see what 2k5 can do.
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hooray |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/11/2005 4:00 PM
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 | lions picked up a season opening win! The offense was just so-so but the defense was incredible. They kept the packers to only a field goal. i thought for sure favre was gonna cry at the end there. it was awesome. :)
It was a fun game to watch. Hopefully the momentum will continue. Detroit fans need a winning season from the Lions. But we celebrate this win, albeit with great reservation and hopeful anxiety. |
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the nano |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/9/2005 4:00 PM
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Lookout! Run! Flee! Its the End Times! The Apocalypse Has Come!
Surely the end is nigh, because I actually bought an Apple product today. I stopped by the Apple store today and after being molested by numerous people in fruity t-shirts i was able to lay ownership to the new Apple Nano. I picked up the 2 gig player in Apple White flavor. I originally intended to purchase the black model, however, I was told by the sales/customer molestation unit that the darkened model comes complete with WHITE headphones....hmmm...pass. A few initial impressions. First and foremost the player rocks. its a very fine piece of audio-electronica. Seems to be well made and the display is absolutely beautiful. I dropped some pictures of the childrens on to it and the quality is outstanding given the size of the screen. I was a little put off by the fact that there was no case for the device. or even a simple lanyard. My initial fear that, because of it's size, I may drop the unit and watch it smash into little apple bits is still a resounding voice of concern in the back of me head. And i was also a bit surprised by the fact that despite having been released yesterday, the cd version of Itunes included with the product was already out of date. after the 15 minutes or so following the initial installation of the cd products, I was told that my current version was not so current. so off to download, install and register all over again. moments later...i'm back into Itunes. It took a bit of doing to get my music onto the player, having never used an actual Ipod before. And the included instructions are very limited in scope and description. But I was able to figure it out after much clicking, right clicking and poking around within the Itunes application. Overall it wasnt a bad initial "apple software" experience. I probably wouldnt have read the manual anyway, had it actually included said descriptive instructions.
The sound quality of the headphones is actually pretty decent for being stock. Its been my experience that most "headphones included" usually end up in a box somewhere in the basement. But these have decent sound. They could certainly use a bit more bass, but overall....not too bad.
a decent mp3 player. small - no hard drive - and plenty of storage. Its met all my requirements with flying colors. Apple definitely has this audio thing down to an artform. Too bad the laptops suck. :P |
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gone... |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/5/2005 4:00 PM
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another piece of my childhood has slipped off into oblivion today.
Bob Denver died today at age 70.
so long little buddy.... |  |
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venting |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/3/2005 4:00 PM
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| o.k...time to vent. i'm working with a content provider that provides a bunch of data that i dts into my clients database. and the data that they provide...well...its crap. their idea of updating is that you delete what you have and replace it with what they have. thats NOT the greatest methodology for me because we have other data that ties into and relies on theirs...so i cant just go deleting crap because it would kill the constraints on my database. and get this...they have this monthly update that they put out. and in that monthly update they have some tables that you only get with the monthly update and not the daily update. and to top it off..the monthly update is everything. their entire content. and what do they want you to do with it? thats right...delete all your data and replace it with the monthly update.....craptastic. so now i have to start thinking of the dts script thats going to run once a month where i basically have an activex script check for existing rows and update as needed. problem is...its gonna take a REALLY long time for that script to run. I'll have to run it and just see. o.k. done venting. |  |
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laaaaame..... |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
9/1/2005 4:00 PM
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ugh. i'm really wishing that sql server 2000 dts package execution had a "start and run from this step" type of deal. I have this huge package (hehehe......sigh) and when it crashes in the midst of it, i'd like to be able to correct the sql/activex script and then resume it. but nope. i gotta execute each step individually if i want to continue down the road. otherwise i'd have to start the show over. unfortunately, this show runs about 3 hours, so i'm not really up for that....also...when you execute the package as a whole you get a row count, but with "execute step" you'll just get the busy cursor. thats kinda lame too. wonder if this will be fixed in the sql2k5?
if anybody knows how to resume package execution...pleeeease lemme know.
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funny ha ha |
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The Woolston Blog
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By daniel on
8/31/2005 4:00 PM
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Your wife decides to go out with her friends drinking and dancing.... You're okay with it, because you get to watch sports all night.... You hear her stumble into bed around 4am and you laugh knowing she's going to have a monster hangover....
You wake up the next morning and go outside to the family Volvo, which she used last night.... You sigh in relief because it's all in one piece.... You circle the car looking for dents and find none....
But... Wait a minute.... [Click here for a picture of the car]
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