Strong Passwords for WinQual:

Password Requirements: Contain 8 - 16 characters with both upper and lower case (e.g., a-z, A-Z). Have digits and punctuation/symbol characters as well as letters e.g., 0-9, !@#$%^&*()_+|~-=\`{}[]:";'<>?,./). One or more of the characters from the second (2) to sixth (6) positions must not be an alphabet character e.g. between A-Z or a-z.

I wonder if I will remember it in the morning

Allison over at O'Reilly Radar wrote a little note to Google for the international feature.

By Allison Randal

Dear Google,

I applaud the enlightened international perspective that led you to provide your site in multiple languages and to detect a user's country and language preferences by their IP address. You'd be surprised how much French I remember from studying it as a child, and how much Dutch I can read as a result of studying Afrikaans the past 3 months. However, perhaps you should consider providing an option to change languages, or set a language preference, so your users aren't all forced to be so linguistically nimble when traveling. If there is such an option, I haven't been able to find it yet while navigating my account preferences in Dutch. I'm curious to experience Google Docs & Spreadsheets in Japanese, but maybe not that curious.

Love,
Allison

I post this as proof.  "Google guesses your language based on your IP address." and you doubted me!

Jeff Atwood over at Coding Horror is at it once more FizzBuzz: the Programmer's Stairway to Heaven In His second blog post he left out the FizzBuzz test so as not to distract his programmer brethren.  As with the last article Jeff addresses the surprisingly high ratio of weak programmers to interview candidates.

Jeff once again asserts his readers superiority

The whole point of the original article was to think about why we have to ask people to write FizzBuzz. The mechanical part of writing and solving FizzBuzz, however cleverly, is irrelevant. Any programmer who cares enough to read programming blogs is already far beyond such a simple problem. FizzBuzz isn't meant for us. It's the ones we can't reach-- the programmers who don't read anything-- that we're forced to give the FizzBuzz test to

In yesterdays post Why Can't Programmers.. Program? I thought Jeff ment if you read  programing blogs, you are competent.

I now realize Jeff is just trying not to offend his readers. 

The Moth broke the Orcas News fist.  The Orcas March CTP is available for download.

Install or VPC image

After numerous articles about MySpace's scalability it would appear the camels back broke today.

Perhaps not  the best message to great hundreds of thousands of teenagers after school. 

In the past Eric Sink has discuss the idea that there is some thing wrong with Google when his name comes up before Eric Clampton(who ever that is.)  I have to agree. I have a small blog it's just wrong that a Google search for 2008 epa estimates is the first search result.  I know there is a delicate art form to constructing a Google query to limit this noise but..  There is something flawed with the system and we need to fix it.  Maybe the search game isn't over, Yahoo, Search.MSN and Google really don't provide search results but rather link results.  I think there is still room for a new search king to emerge.

Jeff Atwood at codinghorror.com writes Programmers can't.. Program? 

In comment Jeff says

Any programmer who cares enough to read programming blogs is already far beyond such a simple problem. It's the ones we can't rerach-- the programmers who don't read anything-- that we have to give the FizzBuzz test to.

winch brings to mind.

Phillip Haack at Haacked.com response Why Can't Programmers.. Read?

Trouble is there are many Specs that are not well constructed just as there are many Developers that need a little better reading comprehension. Why this idea that blog authors and readers are some how better then others in this industry?  Where is your proof?  There are quite a few wanabes that hang around the proverbial water cooler trying to blend in because they want it.  This is the reason you see Programmers that cannot program.  Look around programing forms or myspace.  Jeff also  observed.

it's amusing to me that any reference to a programming problem-- in this case, FizzBuzz-- immediately prompts developers to feverishly begin posting solutions.

Why do "pProgrammers" feel the need to prove themselves?  Is it because any one that uses a formula in Excel can self proclame themselves a "Programer"? 

At any rate what we are left with are a group of "Programers" that can't read, can't write but are desperate to prove otherwise to the world, typicaly in the most public forum they can find!

Did I miss something when did it become popular to be a Programer?  Were's the glamor?

Take a look at Wells Fargo's next generation ATM, witch uses WPF.  Pretty cool

Microsoft's Case Study

Thanks Somasgar for pointing this out.

I have found a new low to my procrastination. I have reached the end of the Internet.

Ok people blog something I don't want EOTI as my home page for ever.

Question What is a social network? 

Google Says:

Definitions of Social Network on the Web:

• The personal or professional set of relationships between individuals. Social networks represent both a collection of ties between people and the strength of those ties. Often used as a measure of social “connectedness”, recognising social networks assists in determining how information moves throughout groups, and how trust can be established and fostered.
  www.parliament.vic.gov.au/sarc/E-Democracy/Final_Report/Glossary.htm
• refers to structural characteristics such as proximity to others, frequency of social contact and the type of relationship (eg spouse, confidant, relative, friend, group).
  www.therubins.com/geninfo/Definit.htm
• A web of interconnected people who directly or indirectly interact with or influence the student and family. May include but is not limited to family, teachers and other school staff, friends, neighbors, community contacts, and professional support.
  rrtcpbs.fmhi.usf.edu/rrtcpbsweb/glossary.htm
• A social network is a map of the relationships between individuals, indicating the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. The term was first coined in 1954 by J. A. Barnes (in: Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish, "Human Relations").
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network

So what purpose does MySpace or the others with this type of social networking website format really provide that a personal blog would not?  After all those that run the Internet, you and me the small development community really isn't the whole of the Internet our Social Network?  For example take a look at what happens when Dare Obasanjo nags about functionality in Google Reader and Feed burner.  Blog Rants as Bug Reports.  So you can notice that with the advent of RSS and RSS aggregator like Google Reader our little Geekdom has cemented itself.  Developers of feedburner and Google subscribe to Dare and now their respected peer, thus they respond promptly his criticism.

I wouldn't call WordPress a Social Network but it does provide the bare free foundation.  You can start a conversation with the world add resource pages. Is there any thing missing from this equation except some one specifically telling you "you are not part of a social network called the Internet."?

Last night I asked do I really exist without any readers?  But I know I have at least three constant reader Google, MSN Search and Yahoo.  So perhaps the better question is do you really exist if you don't blog?  If you don't there is no real potential for your view points and insight to propagate through the Internet and to others in our little Geekdom.  I think blogging for Geeks is the equivalent to all of the more "Social networking" that is done in other businesses ie lunches and dinner parties.  But that's just my two since what do you think? and yes a blog with comments enabled begets conversation.

I have seen a few people point out that along with SQL 2005 SP2 there was also a update to the online book documentation.  It looks to be a nice set of documentation maybe when I have a free week I'll read through it all.

SQL Server 2005 Books Online

Hamad Darwish has published his collection of images taken during Microsoft's Windows Vista Photoshoot.

They didn't make the cut but are still spectaclular, I only wish I could take such amazing shots.  Have a look. World of Photography

You can also see Hamad's full gallery at Flickr

Seth recently asked:

If no one reads your post, does it exist?

What do most people get out of blogging? After all, most blogs are virtually unread by outsiders...

The act of writing a blog changes people, especially business people. The first thing it does is change posture. Once you realize that no HAS to read your blog, that you can't MAKE them read your blog, you approach writing with humility and view readers with gratitude. The second thing it does is force you to be clear. If you write something that's confusing or in shorthand, you fail.

Respectful and clear. That's a lot to get out of something that doesn't take much time.

Or maybe I just like like the sound of crickets. After all silence is golden right?

Last night I got a letter from MSDN.  If you have been in away and missed it the Daylight Saving Time has changed read on to see what might be affected if you use DOT NET or CRT.

Dear Valued Microsoft Customer,
In 2005, the United States government passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This act changes the start and end dates for Daylight Saving Time (DST) as of spring 2007. These changes may impact the way applications run. Microsoft is releasing an update for Windows through Microsoft Update that reflects these changes.
Developers who use the .NET Framework may find their applications affected if the application uses the time zone information for historical purposes or if they have derived custom classes from System.TimeZone to provide custom time zone information. The standard System.TimeZone class provides a managed wrapper for the underlying Windows Operating System time zone functions.
In addition, developers who use Visual C++ may find their applications affected if they use the CRT time functions, or the TZ environment variable. Microsoft is currently working on a fix for this issue and will post information about its availability on the Visual Studio Support page.
Most applications that use these affected classes will not need to be modified as this update will ensure that the correct data is provided seamlessly to the application. However, applications that use these classes or the underlying Windows API to perform historical time look-ups will need to be modified.
In most cases, developers who have extended the .NET Framework’s time zone support by creating custom time zone classes derived from System.TimeZone, or by direct access to the Win32 API, will not have to update their applications as long as the available updates to the operating system are applied. However, solutions that rely on private time zone data, or that retrieve system time zone information by accessing the registry directly, may need to be updated. Applications that deal with historical time zone data may also need to be updated.
Microsoft advises all developers who make use of time zone data to test their applications against this update to ensure that their applications function correctly.
For more detailed information and the latest updates please visit http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/bb264729.aspx, Preparing for daylight saving time changes in 2007, and KB928388: 2007 time zone update for Microsoft Windows operating systems

From Irena Kennedy:

SQL Server Enterprise Edition customers, and I quote, “only need to purchase one license per physical processor regardless of the number of virtually deployed instances. “

In other words, “when a customer licenses all of the processors in a server, they can run an unlimited numbers of SQL Server instances on an unlimited number of virtual operating system environments, at no additional licensing cost. “

This is going to be an important step in fostering the virtualization software.

I heard if first from Lutz

Reflector 5.0

the Add-ins are now hosted over at CodePlex.

Chris and Scott also mentioned this today check out Scott's blog to see the neat features but be careful I moved to version 5 and none of my add-ins work.  I am going to try to clean out my addin folder and start from scratch.  I don't think you want to use Reflectors check for update.  Download it and run 4.2 and 5.0 side by side make sure all your addins work first.

4.6 billion dollars evedently.

Reuters reports Sirius plans to buy XM in $4.6 billion stock deal.  Its so nice to say I called that one.

Virtual PC 2007 has been released download here.

Also Microsoft has released SQL 2005 sp2 and you can download it here.

This makes me nervous the RFID Journal reports Discover Rolling Out RFID Payment Platform Some how I doubt this is as secure as it needs to be for financial data.  What annoys me is we don't have a choice.  Three month ago VISA sent me a card with RFID, I don't want it. I don't want any of my information broadcasted when I walk around town.  This is almost as bad an idea as the State Department putting RFID into our passports.  Do people think about the negative consequences of these decisions or just see the beautiful possibility. 

Even if these toys are secure any one with a reader will know you have a credit card(and what type) and are an American citizen.  They may not care what your name is at that point.

Mike Walker reports Bank of America Releases Mobile Banking Application (nice ui mock up)the story originated over at Computer world Bank of America to launch mobile banking  This will enable their customers to

• Check account balances for checking, savings and credit card accounts, as well as mortgages and home equity lines held with Bank of America.
• Pay bills.
• Transfer funds between Bank of America accounts.
• View transaction details for Bank of America checking and savings accounts, mortgages and home equity lines, including posted, pending and scheduled transactions.

Its pretty cool and nice to see BoA embrace new technology during the market down turn.

Scoble has me thinking "Note to Steve Jobs: unions are only half of school's problems"  I agree with Steve "No amount of technology will improve education"  I think its insane to push computers into the class room, this device is a tool no different a hammer.  It does not help you think only help you do.  So yes you can have as many tools as you want they will not help you learn to learn.  Now Unions, I like unions and I know they have problems but they are not the root of all evil as some like to make out.

Don Doge Thinks its incentives and he is dead wrong.  Teachers don't choose to teach for the money, ideally the wages should help cover the cost of living and Unions help prevent schools from firing senor teachers to hire cheaper fresh out of college staff.

I do tend to agree with Giovanni Rodriguez Dumb Moment: Steve Jobs Demonizes Teacher Unions and Are Teachers Being Paid Adequately?

Public education is complicated, its politics at its whose, every state and every city want to do it different.  Its a  pipe dream really.  How can you offer equal education for all when we are truly not the same?  How can we do this efficiently and economically when ever school has a different set of text books and a different set of lesson plans.  That doesn't even cover the fact that most of our poor scores come from at risk schools ESL schools who's children don't stay for long or are put/promoted into grade level base on age not merit.  Don't criticize the teacher all they can do is teach the willing.  If the principle promotes the F student because, and the principle does not remove trouble makers.  How much teaching can really get done.

Update Alfred Thompson chimed in with People Who Know Nothing About Schools Telling Us How to Fix Them.  I fully agree.

Link to Coding Horror: What's In a Version Number, Anyway?

I would agree with the contention that meaning full version names for the end user are best left to the year published. Point 2007.  But what then would you do if you have two releases Point 2007 sp1? could you sell a service pack?  Or perhaps Point 2007 R2.  I don't know what R2 stands for( Release 2).  At the very best this is not a question "developers" need be concerned with.  Strictly speaking Marketing will decide what "version" the user should see on the splash screen.  When it comes to the internal versions what Dev, QA and Support refer I like (Major).(Minor).(Full year).(days since January 1st).  Don't ask about two builds in a day :)

 Today I am just an aggregator.  Anyway if your into .NET 3.0 Irena has a very neat trick.

Link to AppDev: Something You Should Know by Irena Kennedy : SYSK 289: Want to Have a Choice of Running an XBAP Application in a Standalone Mode Using the Same Project File?

One more reason for to support SQL 2005. 

Link to Jon Galloway : Passing lists to SQL Server 2005 with XML Parameters

You may have already seen this, and I know I missed it for valentines day but check our the .Net love stories. 

.NET - A Love Story

.NET Love Story Continues...

CSharp-Source  nice resource listing different categorized CSharp based open source projects.

I found this product on CodePlex this morning and while I need to find some time to really play with it, I thought I would share.  Basically Visual WebGui is and adding for Visual studio that lets you more or less use winforms to for your website( Cool AJAX) 

Visual WebGui Quick Starts

Does P2P effect legal music sales? 

P2P effect on legal music sales "not statistically distinguishable from zero"

I have seen odd things in Vista related to performance,  Typically I have been uninstalling the offending software. Rick found a link to UAC 

User Account Control and Application Slowdowns - Rick Strahl's Web Log

I personally don't think so highly of UAC, generally your typical user is just going to click allow because all of us "Bad Software Developers" will teach them to do so.  My gut feeling is, I am a uber user and thus find it far more annoying then lets say my Mother would.(Although the UAC prompt is almost as scary as an anti spyware/virus prompt.  So maybe the system will never get turned on, which would be safe.  Right?)  If we as developers work in our sand box, then UAC probably won't be as big an issue as Apple's commercial would like to make it.   

 I heard Mark sign the MaxiVista Vista Blues today. And had to respond

Mark Miller - Vista, I'm so Pista (part I)

I love MaxiVista, but I think they are using WDDM as to much of an excuse. The product tanks under xp when you try to use WPF (if you ever want to see your computer on acid. just try WPF and MaxiVista together, seriously you could sell tickets.)
Any way I digress MaxiVista will be outa busina if they don't come up with some type of solution(direct X). And thus I have given up the dream that is three monitors. My poor shiny Vista Computer will forever look funny with just two :(