I've been digging into databinding in winforms 2.0 and haven't had much luck finding anything that did much to explain it...until today. But I stumbled across some good links here (left hand side under Smart Client Data Articles)

 

Just saw on Rob Caron's blog that the VPC images for Team System are available in the subscriber downloads section.

I'm so pleased, I finally got my new computer at work. Now the migration begins.

Here's the list of my essential tools that  are going on my system.

Visual Studio 6.0 (we have much legacy code yet)

Visual Studio 2003

Firefox with DeveloperTools

.NET Reflector

Cropper

Subversion

TortiseSVN

SVNService - because I like to have my own private repository

Slickrun

Notepad2

Windows Desktop Search

Resharper

Cygwin

Ruby

Watir - A web testing framework written in ruby

Virtual PC 2004

Edit: Almost forgot one

SmartPaster

I was reading Scott Hanselman's blog today and he posted the 25 Rules of Management. I found it interesting to read all these and realize how many of them I break....daily....I especially agree with rule 2. I must confess that I am guilty of breaking rule 18, and after reflecting on it...the rule is probably right. I know I've "cc" someone's boss when emailing them before for the sole purpose of accountability (there are probably other reasons for doing it which are valid but I think this is what the rule is getting at) when really I should just email the person and instead of cluttering the boss's inbox go talk to them if there is a problem that needs resolving. Doing the "cc" really just puts the problem in someone else's hands...which is not something I particularily like to do...

I also want to comment on rule's 6 and 11. I have been fortunate in that I have always had a good boss, and it has never been difficult to give him/her the straight scoop. As far as rule 11 goes....how many times have you been in a meeting and several tasks were "talked about" but no one truly took ownership? I always try to do a recap at the end of meetings to verify who will do what...and then write it down....this has been very helpful.

Well, I'm off to Texas for a week. It should be quite an interesting trip, considering we're about to turn up our largest client to date. Working on a project of this size has been quite an eye opener, as Drew would say I've learned about 2 years in 2 weeks (more like 5 years in a year, but you get the point).

One thing I've never really like about traveling is it feels like such a waste of a day just sitting in airports and airplanes not getting anything done. But, this time I'm ready I've got FeedDemon loaded up with content that I've been wanting to catch up on, I've got a ton of Ruby examples and code to look through as I try to see just what all the hype is about, and I've downloaded a bunch of podcasts to my shiny new MP3 player. So hopefully that keeps me occupied. Judging by how late I'm posting this you'd think I'd want to sleep. Now I just have to hope all my batteries stay charged...including my internal one

Microsoft released Service Pack 4 for SQL Server today. Check it out

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/downloads/2000/sp4.asp

Here's something odd that I noticed about XmlNodeList today. Consider this example:

                string xml = "texttext2";
		XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
		doc.LoadXml(xml);
		XmlNodeList list = doc.SelectNodes("//item");
		Console.WriteLine(list.Count.ToString()); // count = 2
		XmlNode n = list[list.Count+100];
		if(n == null) {
			Console.WriteLine("No IndexOutOfRangeException");
		} else {
			Console.WriteLine("How did i get here?");
		}
		Console.ReadLine();

Now I would expect this to throw an IndexOutOfRangeException wouldn't you? But, it doesn't. Instead it returns null. Granted I ran into this because of my own silly error, but it was slightly less intuitive to track down the error based on the exception that got thrown.

TestingReflections.com posted that NAntRunnerAddin has been upgraded. NAntRunnerAddin is a nice little VS.NET plugin for NAnt. You can find it here.

I came across an article on slashdot today about the advances that have been made in personal flying vehicles. This was brought on by a story on 60 Minutes this weekend about an inventor named Woody Harris (whom I've had the privledge of hearing speak live) and his work on his AirScooter. After reading some of these stories about how far we've really come, I have to wonder maybe Back To the Future II 's take on what life will be like in 2015 isn't as far off as I might have first thought.

After spending my first 2 years as a developer using Visual Source Safe I came to realize its many, many short comings. Enter Subversion. This book has proven to be an excellent resource as I've made the transition. It is concise and provides excellent insight into how to effectively use the software. After reading it, it has become a valuable desk reference.

Check it out http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0974514063/qid=1113365740/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/104-0330354-5885566