For those who attended my recent presentation, "XQuery for DBAs and Developers", at NovaSQL, you can find the files here.

NovaSQLNov2007.zip (958.63 KB)

NovaSQL is the Northern Virginia SQL Server User Group. I would like to thank Jim Rotan and Jeremy Kadlec for the invitation to speak.

The combined groups: Capital DotNetNuke, Capital Area .NET, and NovaSQL are hosting a Microsoft VS2008 Install Fest event on December 12th at 7pm at the Microsoft Reston offices. Developer additions of the new Visual Studio 2008 will be provided (90-day licenses), with vouchers for the full additions. Unfortunately, if you have not yet registered, then you are out of luck. In just 3 days, the 100 seat event was filled.

It is a testimony to the hard work of the user group managers, and the active nature of developers in the Metro DC area that such an event would reach capacity so quickly. Those seats were almost as hot as tickets for a Hanna Montana concert.

If any additional seats become available, we will announce it on all three user group sites and through their respective emails.

Warning! Developer Rant!

OK, this is my rant for the week. I HATE the automatic updates for the Windows XP/Vista operating system.

I tend to leave my computer up for days with several browsers open to pages of information that is usually providing me with assistance on a programming projet or two. Along comes the automatic updates and "poof" there goes my pages, and any open applications I have running.

I have had this happen to me on 3 computers in the last 24 hours. All development computers. I could have sworn I turned off the automatic updates. If I did, and the O/S still rebooted - then I am going to have to disable them all together.

I am personally getting tired of the cyberterrorism that results in operating systems that have to constantly be patched to thwart some new vulnerability. And the result is the constant intrusion of Microsoft and other application development companies (are you hearing me Symantec?), plus the incredible drag that the anti-virus software places on my computers' performance. While I can fault the companies that continue to intrude upon my life, I also realize that the anoninomity (say that three times fast) of the Internet has allowed persons to perpetrate crimes that would surely place them behind bars if translated into non-computer related acts.

Back to the software update issue. Imagine the heating repair man coming into your home in the middle of the night to install the latest patch to your thermostat. In the process, he turns the heat off - and it is the middle of winter. At least he might pat the head of my daughter, Cindy Loo Hoo, give her a glass of water and put her back to bed.

With Microsoft setting this trend, how long before I should expect to see the Maytag repairman showing up at 3 a.m. to work on the dishwasher?

When a television show has peaked there is usually a defining episode that marks the passage of the show into an era of fading quality and interest until its demise. It is called "Jumping the Shark", and there is a whole website dedicated at www.jumptheshark.com.

Well, I figure the same can happen for Internet companies, and I want to be one of the first to note that I think Yahoo has "jumped the shark".

Yahoo had a cool page that you could create - the My Yahoo page - that you could concentrate stocks, news articles, etc.  into. I have resisted going to the Beta site, because I was happy with the current version. By accident, I went to the Beta - and now all of my content is lost + plus the pages take forever to load. Sometims "more" is not "better". I rarely use Yahoo as my search engine of choice, and the only reason to go was to see the content on my page on My Yahoo. I can usually get a quick view of the stock market and the latest market news.

Too bad for Yahoo. They lost my last reason to visit them.