gid

September 30, 2004

microsoft course 2524C

essentialXML.jpg

The last two days have been spent in training here at work. The class that I am taking right now is "Developing XML Web Services using Microsoft ASP.NET". It has been pretty good so far, but it is moving too fast. On top of that they are not letting us keep the class workbooks. I guess since this is a official MS course the company has to pay MS for the class in order to buy the book. Being that the company will be teaching this class to the next group they want to be able to just reuse the workbooks and not have to shell out more dough to MS. I guess that makes sense, but because of the speed of this class the workbooks would be very useful.

They are letting us keep one book. I have never been a fan of Quick Reference books. If I need a quick reference I just go to google. If I need to know how a technology works I get a book or take a class.

The picture to the right is of the book they are letting us keep.

Posted by gid at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2004

asp.net

I am doing this post so that I can document the resolution to an issue I was having with a ASP.Net project I am working on.

Problem: Due to the way ASP.net handles garbage collection of objects when running a ASP.net application when the debug flag is set to true, in a production environment it is important to remember to have the debug flag in your web.config file set to false. The problem I was having was when I changed the debug flag to false my application would crash.

Narrowing down the problem: I was able to narrow down the problem to one line of code.

  
SDAdapter.Fill(dsDataSet,"TABLE1");

The error I received after several minutes of that line being executed was: [Thread being aborted] or [HttpException (0x80004005): Request timed out.]. I repeatedly tried to set the CommandTimeout property of the DataAdapter, but the command would timeout well before the CommandTimeout properties time had expired.

Solution: Evidently the Machine.Config file has a httpRuntime node whose ExecutionTimeout attribute has precedence over the CommandTimeout property of the DataAdapter. The two solutions to this issue was to either change the Machine.Config file, which is not a great idea or to add that node to the projects Web.Config file.

This is a link to a site with a good write up on this issue. here

Posted by gid at 04:53 PM | Comments (1)

September 28, 2004

css3

This should be very cool:CSS3 Border-Image
Posted by gid at 04:33 PM | Comments (2)

September 27, 2004

joe drake

joe_drake.jpg
joe drake
Our neighbor Joe passed away on Saturday morning. Leslie and I just found out early this morning and we are quite sad about it. Joe was just a great man. He always had a smile on his face and was eager to say hi. I will miss him honking his horn as he drove by our house and him yelling out a loud good morning as I would head off to work. Peggy, Joe?s wife, was the one that told me this morning about his passing. Just lift her and her two son?s up in prayer if you think about it today. It is just very sad, but we are glad to know he is with the Lord.
Links: Obituary
memorial page
Posted by gid at 11:32 AM | Comments (1)

September 23, 2004

cat stevens

CAT_STEVENS_THEN.jpg
then
CAT_STEVENS_NOW.jpg
now

After reading this article, I was reminded of how much I use to pray for Cat Stevens when I first became a Christian. His music was just soo good. In my book he is right up there with the Grateful Dead and Neil Young. This article also reminded me that Aaron has a musician that he is praying for. You can read his post here.

What is most shocking about his choosing Islam over another religion is that he came out of the 60's and 70's which had a focus on love and happiness (no matter how shallow their interpretation of love and happiness was). If I had been alive and searching for love and happiness during the 60's there is absolutely no chance I would have chosen Islam. I would like to hear Yusaf Islam (Cat Stevens) "conversion story". My guess is that through the 60's his understanding of love and happiness caused him to rebel against them both. If that is indeed the case it would make since that he choose the religion he did.

Posted by gid at 12:07 PM | Comments (7)

September 22, 2004

god gene

godgene.jpg
As a good calvinist I find the thought of a "God gene" very interesting. I know the author of the book named it the way he did for shock value so I am not promoting the book, but I do find the name very intriguing.
 
 
Posted by gid at 02:58 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2004

find the differences in two pictures

Beck had a link to this one his blog. As a kid I always loved those games where you had to find the differences in two pictures. This one is of the fiords in Norway. There are three differences in these two pictures, but they are very subtle. Can you find them? It took me a good two or so minutes to find them. Check it out: picture

Posted by gid at 07:37 AM | Comments (5)

political humor

The slide show on this site is just too funny.

This is one of my favorites:
kerry_minime.jpg
Posted by gid at 07:24 AM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2004

dull blog

The simplicity of this blog makes me... Well... I'm not sure. I wish this blogger posted more so that I could figure it out.
My knee had a slight itch. I reached out my hand and scratched the knee in question. The itch was relieved and I was able to continue with my activities.

There was an object occupying a space on my table. Using my hand I picked up the item from its place. Having considered my options for a moment I placed the object on a different area of the table.

I was sitting down on one of the chairs in my house. My hand was resting on the arm of the chair. I started to drum my fingers on the arm, thereby making a barely audible sound.
Posted by gid at 06:20 PM | Comments (1)

September 17, 2004

blog roll

blog roll update:

out
I am dropping Ben because I think he forgot that he has a blog. If he ever starts posting again I will add him back.
in
I am adding nonbreakingspace( ) because it is the funniest and most creative bog I have seen. I have been reading his blog since the day he started posting and I am not quite sure why I have not already blog rolled him.

Also, if you have a blog or know of a blog that I should know about then let me know in a comment. I am always looking for a good one.

Posted by gid at 01:44 PM | Comments (3)

leaving 214 signal view

Other news: our house if finally under contract! We are very excited about moving to this next stage in the move. The buyer is going FHA and needed help with the closing cost, so we had to tack those closing cost onto the price of the house. Being that the buyer is going FHA the inspection will be quite different then the one we had a few months back. Also, we will have to have a higher then expected appraisal to cover the closing costs being added to the sale price. In general we feel pretty good about the inspection and appraisal as well as the couple that is buying the house.
We have had several other offers on the house, but for one reason or the other we could not agree on a price. Of all the people that have checked out the house I think this couple is the best. Though, the first girl that looked into buying the home comes in a pretty close second. Every one else just did not seem to match the kind of people we wanted to leave for our neighbors.
Posted by gid at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)

i like it

tar baby
 I like it. I use it. It is a much better FTP tool then WS_FTP.
Posted by gid at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2004

#30366

I guess there are only 1250 of use who might be interested in this tidbit:
Gidcumb is the #30366 most common last name.
0.0005% of last names in the US are gidcumb.
Around 1250 US last names are gidcumb!
source namestatistics.com

Posted by gid at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)

September 14, 2004

got to love them spam bots

I am growing extremely annoyed with the spam I have been getting here lately on my blog. The funny thing is that it would start just when I am to busy to even delete it. I added a check box that has to be check inorder to post a comment. I am 100% sure that any half way decently written spam bot will not be fooled by this, but it is worth a try.

I plan on having a dynamically created image with a number in it, which will have to be entered into a textbox before a comment is entered. The problem is that my comment page, written by MT is not written in php. That being the case I can not use the code I wrote for another project I am working on. I am either going to have to sit down a learn perl or change blogging tools. Being that I am to lazy to change blogging tools, I guess I will have to learn perl. Erm...
Posted by gid at 08:16 PM | Comments (6)

September 08, 2004

I need one

Man! I need to get me one of these yard tools.
Posted by gid at 11:27 AM | Comments (1)

September 02, 2004

the average computer user

Get Firefox
Leslie and I went back home this past weekend for my mother-in-laws wedding. While home my mom had me take a look at her computer because it was running slow. After the eight hours of defragging, running Spybot, Adaware, installing Firefox, reinstall of Norton antivirus, and fixing her connection to Peoplepc I came to the conclusion that I have no idea how the average user makes it in the computer age. I guess the way it works for the average computer user is that after a year or two of use they either insert the quick restore CD or they go buy a new machine because they think their machine must be old if it is running slow.
As I mentioned in a comment on Jason?s blog I think that for the average user it might be better to install Mozilla 1.7.2 then to install Firefox. Just because Firefox has not made it to a 1.0 release. Though, his argument was that FireFox 9.3 is effectively 1.0, and he might be right.
Posted by gid at 06:18 PM | Comments (2)