Foo Theory

August 2008 - Posts

• Unnecessary Abstractions

  Jason Bock had a similar title to this post awhile back … and I found a forehead-slapper today when reviewing some code in a app I’m working on during my free time. I seriously said “What the <ExplativeGoesHere>”. Here’s the code:   There is absolutely no need to do this. This is exactly WHAT the IPAddress class does. The worst part is that the programmer who developed this knew that the IPAddress Class existed.  I’m amazed daily. Posted Aug 27 2008, 12:29 PM by donnfelker with no comments Filed under: .NET

• Twin Cities Code Camp – Oct 11

  I will be presenting at the 5th Twin Cities Code Camp on October 11th. My session is entitled … Smooth Operator: Using the Workflow Rules Engine Within WCF Ever changing business logic requires rule systems that are flexible to business demands. The majority of the time the business requires that these rules systems must be consumable by other applications. Come see how we can utilize the Rules Engine within Windows Workflow Foundation to evaluate our rules and simplify our rules configuration. We will then encompass this functionality within a Windows Communication Foundation Service which will enable consumers to utilize the service. Visit twincitiescodecamp.com to sign up! Posted Aug 27 2008, 11:47 AM by donnfelker with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Events

• Twin Cities Give Camp Update

  The Twin Cities Give Camp site has been updated. If you would like to volunteer, you can sign up on the volunteer page and if you or your company would like to sponsor the event, you can sign up on the sponsors page. If you have any questions, please email us from the contact us page. Side note: I have been having an intermittent problem with Grafffiti loading properly on the site. At times when you visit you will receive the graffiti cms error page. If you try to access the site again, it will go away. If you get an error, please let me know as I’m trying to sort it out with the host. Thanks! Posted Aug 23 2008, 09:56 AM by donnfelker with no comments Filed under: ASP.NET, Exams

• Insane Flight Prices

  I was on my favorite travel pricing site today and I was looking up how much flights were from MPLS to Des Moines. Now I'd probably never-ever fly to Des Moines because I believe its only about 3.5 hours away via car. But with gas prices these days you have to check it out. When I used to live in Phoenix, a group of friends and I would always go to Vegas every year. We drove a couple of times but we eventually found out that flying was actually cheaper (back then - 6-7 years ago). A round trip ticket would cost us 80 dollars. Talk about DEAL!!!!  So, wondering if I could score the same for another short flight such as Des Moines would be awesome.   YEAH. RIGHT.   Look at this scree capture:      Seriously. Over $700 dollars for a ticket? YOU GOTTA TO BE CRAZY! - or as the New Yorkers in the Bronx where I lived for awhile would say it "Yo dawg, dat price is banana's!" Its apparent the airlines no longer have deals (at least in this case). If I do go, I'll be driving. :) Posted Aug 22 2008, 06:11 AM by donnfelker with no comments Filed under: Misc

• The Twin Cities Give Camp

  I’ve presented at code camps and given presentations to technical audiences and institutes and I will continue to do so. I have a passion for giving back to the community that has helped me become the what I am today. I’ve decided that I want to give back to the community even further. After doing some research to find someone (or a group) who might already be setting up a Give Camp I’ve come to the conclusion that they don’t exist here in the Twin Cities. Therefore, I’ve decided to start up the Twin Cities Give Camp (site not complete). The web site is www.twincitiesgivecamp.org. I’ll be updating the site this week with all relevant info in regards to the Give Camp. No dates have been set, but as soon as we have one the site will be updated. What is a Give Camp? A Give Camp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, and database administrators donate their time to create custom software for non-profit organizations. This custom software could be a new web site for the nonprofit organization, a small data-collection application to keep track of members, or a application for the Red Cross that automatically emails a blood donor three months after they’ve donated blood to remind them that they are now eligible to donate again. The only limitation is that the project should be scoped to be able to be completed in a weekend. … At the Give Camp, there is an expectation of “What Happens at Give Camp, Stays at Give Camp”. Therefore, all source code must be turned over to the charities at the end of the weekend (developers cannot ask for payment) and the charities are responsible for maintaining the code moving forward (charities cannot expect the developers to maintain the codebase). Source More in depth info can be found here: www.givecamp.org Do you want to be a part of this awesome experience? We are in need of volunteers, developers, designers, DBA’s, volunteers, Project Managers, Charities, Prizes, Giveaways, sponsors and more volunteers. If you would like to participate or sponsor this event, please let me know. I will update this blog as soon as www.twincitiesgivecamp.org is updated. I will be in contact with the local PMI, IIBA, and ISSA, AITP and local .NET User Groups. More info to come soon! Posted Aug 12 2008, 09:13 PM by donnfelker with no comments Filed under: .NET, Events

• DiscountASP vs. Me

  DiscountASP just won. Argh! I wrote a long blog post (because I dont have access to Live Writer on this PC) and then clicked Publish and it logged me out. Dont understand what I'm talking about? Read on ..  Unfortunately, what DiscountASP.NET does not tell you is that due to Community Server 2007’s large memory footprint (~100 megabytes with little to no activity), DiscountASP.NET has to recycle the application pool frequently, sometimes as often as every 5 minutes. The DiscountASP.NET policy is to recycle an individual website’s entire pool once it reaches a size of 100 megabytes. Here are the consequences of being forced to recycle the application pool on a CS 2007 server: * All logged-in users are logged out; * any posts that you may have been writing will be lost if you try to press the submit button; * the entire website is brought to a crawl with slow load times; * and in essence it makes Community Server 2007 unusable. Source - http://www.marketing-ninja.com/hosting/discountaspnet-and-community-server-do-not-mix-despite-what-discountaspnet-advertises/ *Shakes fist violently*   Posted Aug 08 2008, 07:25 AM by donnfelker with no comments Filed under: .NET, ASP.NET