Generally I don’t look forward to giving up an entire Saturday at work. However, today’s Dallas Code Camp was an exception. I had been looking forward to this event all week long, and was not disappointed. I arrived a bit early and expected to be one of only a few people there. However, I was surprised to find people already…
I’ve come to learn that there are some really flaky systems out there. Not just a few quirks here and there, but significant problems that someone should have caught. For example, I spent some time earlier this week consolidating two SQL Server machines into one. Through this process, I had to evaluate the vendor app that interfaced with one of…
I would love to find out the statistics about the number of people who blog on or just after New Year’s Day. I’m willing to wager that blogging websites, like health clubs and churches, see a surge of new activity on the first of January. Bloggers, like health club members, sometimes fall into a rut of inactivity, and the new…
Next Monday marks an important milestone in my life. Starting on that date, I will begin a new job in the IT group at a local hospital. Having been at the same job for the past five years, I am very excited about this new endeavor and the new challenges therein. My previous position allowed me a great deal of…
DevConnections 2005 Las Vegas was an interesting week. After spending the past five days attending excellent conferences, dealing with nausea and other unmentionable conditions during breaks, and fighting to find an Internet connection, my body and mind are both exhausted. This conference was enjoyable and informative, hosting some of the best database and programming minds in the world. According to my…
When I get excited about something, I tend to be fairly tolerant of minor shortcomings. The same concept applies to some of my favorite technologies. The relatively new C# programming language is a perfect example. I have been using C# for a little over a year now, and I am very happy with it. The .NET Framework offers some exciting…
After almost a year of investigation, market analysis, and contemplation, I have decided to shift from Perl/PHP/MySQL to a Microsoft ASP.NET/ADO.NET architecture, focusing on C# development. This change will affect my current college enrollment, career goals, and all of my websites I currently own and/or manage. Why, after investing so much time in learning the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/Perl/PHP) platform, would I…