January 2006 Blog Posts
Thanks to Dan and CDRAX, I finally have all of my CDs in a single rack, nice and neat. Previously they had been split across two home made racks (one of which I used too thin wood for and was leaning rather alarmingly) and the floor. It's good to have them all together, and since they were fairly well organised I didn't have that cathartic re-organise moment. It still feels good though. I now have two spare racks, which will probably get broken up for firewood. Not that I have fires very often, but with the weather like it has...
Might just have to get one of these babies to run Vista on when it's released.
[via bbspot]
[Listening to: Black Disciples - Ernest Ranglin - Below the Bassline]
Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I'll be speaking at ASP Connections this spring. They have a European Conference for the first time, as well as their US one. I have talks on ASP.NET Localization, Building Data Source Controls, and Health Monitoring, and in Europe Alex & I will also be doing a workshop. The European conference is a great thing to see, as there are a dearth of purely developer related conferences of this size in Europe.
And this Thursday I'm off to Amsterdam to do a talk for their local .NET user group.
[Listening to: Mel's Rock Pile...
Over here in the UK there are a few computer magazines aimed at industry people, one of which is Computer Weekly. I've been reading this on and off for about 15 years or so, and even though I really only read the back page (Dilbert & the funnies) it's useful for keeping in touch with the business side of the industry. They like you to register every year, to make sure you're still worthy, and their online registration has this lovely question:
Right. So, that'll be a yes then will it? What's the point of making it a required field an...
Go and buy it now. Really. Right now. Wrox were good enough to send me a copy of this, and after two chapters I've already learnt stuff. The author is Stefan Schackow, a PM on the ASP.NET team, so he really knows what he's talking about, and it shows. There is a ton of material on how authentication works, including IIS, impersonation, ASP.NET, etc. Even if you don't need it now, one day you will, and this contains the most complete description of ASP.NET 2.0 security that I've seen. Go here for more details, including the TOC and some excerpts.
[Listening...
So the VWD book is out, although I haven't got my copies yet. The C# version of Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 is in the works, as is ASP.NET 2.0 Illustrated, which I still have chapters to write for, despite the fact it's going to production soon.
On a side note, I received a copy of Stefan's new book, which looks really good. Despite having been playing with this stuff for a long time, there's some great info in there. It's really good to see a practical security book that's web focused.
[Listening to: Trying Not to Be Sad - Lynn Miles - Love...
since I've been to a gig, Blue Man Group at the beginning of December, but that wasn't really a gig. Last night was Alana Levandoski, Lynn Miles and Dar Williams, an acoustic set in a smallish setting. Really, really excellent; beautiful voices, great songs, and a ton of humour (the bramonica - tee hee - you had to be there). Bought a copy of each of their new CDs because a) thay are really good, b) they are cheaper at gigs, and c) the artists actually get the money. Lynn actually said this, that they'd run out of copies of...