I was taking a look at Scott Guthrie's Developing Data-Driven Web Applications using LINQ.  This is going to make life a little less dreary.

I like the second to the  last line results.Skip(startRow).Take(10);

If your in to "notepad" replacements TextPad is pretty good and as of March 6th 2007 they now have version 5.0 better yet is a free update for all 4.x users.

Download

Release Notes

BrokerUnivers reports

IBM Offering Origination Services

IBM has formed a new business unit that will specialize in mortgage origination services. IBM Lender Business Process Services Inc. "will enable mortgage lenders to replace the fixed costs associated with typical loan fulfillment operations with a variable cost framework," the company said. Services it will offer include loan application, underwriting, processing, vendor management, document preparation and loan closing, according to IBM.

This was just to funny.

Thanks Steve

BBC has a second article(Call for blogging code of conduct)regarding what has happened to Kate Sierra

Its premise is that some how the blogosphere can form a rules of conduct to prevent this type of behavior.  While I feel what has happened to Kate is horrible, it is a stark reminder that in the shadow of our civility lies a boiling cesspool of hatred and bigotry.  We may want to to solve a horrendous problem like this with community rules but at best we could prevent some blog service sites from displaying hate, or our rss feed reader from retrieving hate.  In the end all we would have done is hide the fact that hate exists.  Its only a solution as sweeping dust under your rug is a cleaning solution.  I don't have any magic bullet solutions.  All I can offer is that we live in a free society and we have to except hate speech and actively speak out against it.  We need to adopt a no tolerance attitude.  If some one crosses the line call the authorities (ie police).    If you get physical treats on your blog its not protected speech take action.  Otherwise the problem will stay in a corner and fester until some thing tragic happens.

If your interested Microsoft released " Office Business Applications" OBAs Their first target is a Reference Application Pack for Loan Origination Systems.

Thanks Mike now every one and their mother will think they can build an LOS and Wholesale system.

Video: Microsoft Loan Origination Reference Architecture

Building Distributed Applications

Architecting Regulatory-Compliant Architectures

Building Distributed Applications

Architecting Enterprise Loan Workflows and Orchestrations

Building Distributed Applications

Office Business Applications: Building Composite Applications Using the Microsoft Platform

MSDN Financial Services Industry Center

The Ado and Data blogs have posted links for the screen casts from this mornings VSLive KeyNote.

Data

ADO.Net

If you want to see the press release for what's coming in Point 6.0 check out Calyx Software Announces Point 6.0 with Mortgage Banker Functionality Scheduled for Release in Summer 2007

The announcement doesn't really due some of the new features justice, since they are some what overshadows by the additional Bankers section.  At any rate It should prove to be an impressive release.

Here is my way of getting a DotNet DLL to load its app.config file.

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetData ("APP_CONFIG_FILE",ConfigFile);

Where ConfigFile is the full path to your application's app.config file.(c:\test\myapp.config)

Some Interesting posts regarding Subprime.

Tim O'Reily: Subprime Loans Glossary

I am not sure how Automated Underwriting really played in the over evaluation of the Housing Market.  I believe this swift ramp up was the result of low interest rates backed by very creative loan programs especially Stated Asset Stated Income or ( liar loan as the washingtonpost's Steven Pearlsteing describes it.).

The washingtonpost has 'No Money Down' Falls Flat

I don't agree with item D Piggyback loans were not (at first) a means to no down payment but rather a way to escape Mortgage Insurance.  One could argue that it was a lie to the Investor because there was more then 80% loan to value relating to the borrowers actual liability.

The New York Times offers The Subprime Loan Machine

Little bit of history relating to how AU came to Subprime and its ramifications.  Although A paper ala Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae had AU years before.

Phil (haacked.com)has a story about a nasty little scam some one sent to his father.  In this case the check more then likely will clear paid for by some other hapless victim.  Thankfully Phil's father wasn't taken by the allure of easy money.  Check out the rest of the story

In a slight case of irony and humor you can watch the Daily Show making fun of the law suit between Viacom and Google.

or watch it on YouTube which makes this clip even more humorous. Thanks lonelyjew14

Microsoft's XML Team just announced the release of XML Notepad 2007 2.3

You can find the change log here and down load here.

This is the new feature that caught my eye.

"better handling of XML documents containing illegal characters"

Hmm,

The Google oddity if you search for This Old Code my site does not seem to be listed, nor is "This" searched for.  When you search for "This Old Code" still no joy.  Now if you happen to take out the spaces thisoldcode my site renders at the top.  How very odd and annoying.  And if you ever search for microfisch This Old Code does list as the 15th  site and Microfisch.com doesn't show up at all worse Google is pretty sure you should correct your spelling to microfiche.  Now I may have ulterior motives for this post, maybe if my site has enough This Old Code it will show up in Google's page rank.  Only time will tell.

I have noticed the Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html) user agent in my log files.  Last week it would state the number of subscribers.  So does any one know where has that information gone to?

Microsoft has an interesting site were they followed the money for search spam, using Fiddler.

Strider Search Ranger: War on Search Spam: Shifting the Battleground by “Following the Money”

Ask's little guerilla marketing campaign information-revolution-org seems to be back firing. 

My suggestion before you go after Google. Ensure your search is as good or better then Google.  Unless you just wanted to make every one laugh.

I  have now passed the CodingHorror Certification Program

after testing my blog engine with the following steps:

1. Compile your application code. Getting the latest version of any recent code changes from other developers is purely optional and not a requirement for certification.
2. Launch the application or website that has just been compiled.
3. Cause one code path in the code you're checking in to be executed. The preferred way to do this is with ad-hoc manual testing of the simplest possible case for the feature in question. Omit this step if the code change was less than five lines, or if, in the developer's professional opinion, the code change could not possibly result in an error.
4. Check the code changes into your version control system.

Now I to can proudly display my new logo:

Wal-Mart Now has the right to offer mortgages and debit cards.  I don't know.  I just don't know.

Full story.  A home loan from Wal-Mart?

I was talking about the new crypto algorithms in Orcas with a co-worker today, and since The Moth was kind enough to remind me I figured I would post a link to the .Net Security Blog Covering them

Thought I would pass along this little message to all the Vista users out there

from the IEBlog

Hi, I’m B. Ashok, the Product Unit Manager for Web Development Tools.  As mentioned in my earlier post last summer, we have removed the DHTML Editing Control from Windows Vista as part of making the operating system more secure. 

One application that used the DHTML Editing Control in the past was OWA (Outlook Web Access). We have issued a required update to both Exchange 2000 and 2003 that enables OWA support for IE7 in Windows Vista. However if your server does not have this update applied, you may experience the inability to compose and edit e-mail messages on OWA when running IE7 in Windows Vista. When this happens, you will see a red ‘x’ in place of your e-mail message body.

The Exchange team has a good blog post which explains the issue in more detail, and describes how to update your Exchange 2000/2003 server to remedy this issue. The update does not require a reboot of the Exchange server and will fully enable OWA to work for clients using IE7 in Windows Vista. If you run into this problem, we highly recommend that you contact your Exchange 2000/2003 administrator to make sure they have installed this update.

One other item to note is that the update referenced in this post, was re-released on Feb 2007 to fix two additional issues:

• Fixed inability to edit replies to messages composed in Entourage Exchange client
• Fixed inability to edit replies to meeting requests

If you are running into either of these two issues, installing the current version of the update should fix the problem.

Hopefully this helps anyone using Windows Vista who may be experiencing this issue with OWA.

--Bash

J.D. Meier Blogged about Structuring Projects for Team Foundation Server

Interesting very similar to what we have adopted for our projects.

Other links that I found of use regarding structuring projects all form Microsoft's Patterns & Practices team.

• Structuring Solutions and Projects
• Managing Dependencies
• BuildIt

Source Gear Vault didn't like me this morning and gave me the following error for several files:

 

[3/13/2007 9:54:17 AM] Check in $/Pds/PdsAdmin/main/firstlogin.aspx
[3/13/2007 9:54:17 AM] Upload for item $/Pds/PdsAdmin/main/firstlogin.aspx failed, retrying...
[3/13/2007 9:54:17 AM] Upload for item $/Pds/PdsAdmin/main/firstlogin.aspx failed, retrying...
[3/13/2007 9:54:17 AM] Upload for item $/Pds/PdsAdmin/main/firstlogin.aspx failed, retrying...
[3/13/2007 9:54:17 AM] Ending the transaction
[3/13/2007 9:54:17 AM] Upload for item $/Pds/PdsAdmin/main/firstlogin.aspx failed too many times, aborting transaction.
Please verify your network settings using the Options dialog under the Tools menu in the Vault GUI Client.
The specific error was "The server returned an unknown error header: VaultFileUpload.aspx encountered: FailFileInvalidCheckSum"
An exception was encountered during the transaction. Exception: The server returned an unknown error header: VaultFileUpload.aspx encountered: FailFileInvalidCheckSum at VaultClientOperationsLib.ClientInstance.UploadItem(ChangeSetItem item, String txID, Byte[]& streamBuffer, Int32& bytesWrittenThisFile, Boolean bIsImport)
at VaultClientOperationsLib.UploadThread.ProcessCommand(UploadThreadCommand command, UploadThreadCommandResult& outputResult)
[3/13/2007 9:54:18 AM] Transaction failed
[3/13/2007 9:54:18 AM] Transaction failed

I found a work around but how the server and local file became corrupted is beyond me.

To resolve:

• I copied the file in question firstlogin.aspx
• In the vault GUI I undid my checkout and set local copy to be deleted.
• I checked the file out again.
• I next copied the file back into my work directory.
• Now I can check it in.

It looks like Google pissed off Viacom by not preventing more of their content from being posted to YouTube after they requested a 100 odd thousand clips be removed. 

Link to BBC NEWS | Business | Viacom to sue Google and YouTube

Its events like this that make me wonder why I run my own DasBlog engine and not some Wordpress or Blogger site.

2007-03-12 19:12:51 PM
450
PingbackServerError:
System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure channel. ---> System.Security.Authentication.AuthenticationException: The remote certificate is invalid according to the validation procedure.
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendAuthResetSignal(ProtocolToken message, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest, Exception exception)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.CheckCompletionBeforeNextReceive(ProtocolToken message, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReadFrame(Byte[] buffer, Int32 readBytes, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.CheckCompletionBeforeNextReceive(ProtocolToken message, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReadFrame(Byte[] buffer, Int32 readBytes, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.CheckCompletionBeforeNextReceive(ProtocolToken message, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReadFrame(Byte[] buffer, Int32 readBytes, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.CheckCompletionBeforeNextReceive(ProtocolToken message, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReadFrame(Byte[] buffer, Int32 readBytes, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.CheckCompletionBeforeNextReceive(ProtocolToken message, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessReceivedBlob(Byte[] buffer, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReadFrame(Byte[] buffer, Int32 readBytes, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartReceiveBlob(Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.CheckCompletionBeforeNextReceive(ProtocolToken message, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.StartSendBlob(Byte[] incoming, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ForceAuthentication(Boolean receiveFirst, Byte[] buffer, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest)
at System.Net.Security.SslState.ProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult lazyResult)
at System.Net.TlsStream.CallProcessAuthentication(Object state)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.runTryCode(Object userData)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.RuntimeHelpers.ExecuteCodeWithGuaranteedCleanup(TryCode code, CleanupCode backoutCode, Object userData)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Net.TlsStream.ProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult result)
at System.Net.TlsStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
at System.Net.PooledStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)
at System.Net.ConnectStream.WriteHeaders(Boolean async)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
at CookComputing.XmlRpc.XmlRpcClientProtocol.GetWebResponse(WebRequest request)
at CookComputing.XmlRpc.XmlRpcClientProtocol.Invoke(Object clientObj, String methodName, Object[] parameters)
at CookComputing.XmlRpc.XmlRpcClientProtocol.Invoke(String MethodName, Object[] Parameters)
at newtelligence.DasBlog.Runtime.Proxies.PingbackClientProxy.ping(String sourceUri, String targetUri)
at newtelligence.DasBlog.Runtime.BlogDataServiceXml.Pingback(String sourceUri, String pingbackService, String pingbackTarget, String entryTitle)
while processing http://thisoldcode.microfisch.com/PermaLink,guid,830a2557-66ad-48e2-ae67-16e2beaccd71.aspx,http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=315.

When DasBlog throws up, it really does a number on your shoes.

Is it possible sites like Worse Than Failure do more harm then good to our Development community?   I caught and episode of  TWit today  and an interesting idea emerged could the open source community be stiffed because programmers are worried they would be publicly ridiculed for what they publish?  I know its hard to believe with episodes such as our recent FizzBuzz: the Programmers's Stairway to Heaven were almost we see almost all readers opening them selves to public ridicule by posting adhoc solutions to FizzBuzz 

While  The daily WTF is fun, it must strike fear into the hearts of programmers everywhere what if my code/project shows up?   We've all had our moments of writing poor/lazy code.  What happens when this gets out, do programmers have ego's to damage?  It seems the typical programmer is quite the  introvert.  So what would this type of public mockery affect you?  Would you keep your ideas to your self? would you avoid help to avoid criticism?

Its not only Large web sites that lambaste the programmers for humor.  No you need only browse over to your favorite forum where you can see  people ridiculed for asking questions some one else has deemed childish or stupid.  What breads this type of hostility in our community?  Is it just human nature or some thing else?

Mary  Foley blogs Microsoft builds a ‘MySpace for financial pros’

I'll be interested to see whether this site gains much traction. Corporate controllers and accountants don't strike me as folks who have a lot of time or interest to blog, chat and share photos and play lists.

It seems they do if you look at Mortgage Grapevine.  Many people are contributing questions and answers it looks like they may have a need for their space.  The real question is will  Microsoft's(Microsoft Dynamics Live Beta Community) start up site have the traction to draw traffic away from the Grapevine and BrokerOutpost?

VS Live is the best opportunity I get to learn Microsoft's new technology.  There are to many tracts and I would like to attend them all.  Today I am trying to pick a pre-Conference

Build Distributed Object-Oriented Apps in .NET 3.0

or

SQL Server 2005: Power to the Developer

or

Making the Tough Choices: Selecting the Right Techniques for Your Application

All very interesting but none match verywell to what I am working on.  I think its time to pick of a coin and start fliping. 

The BBC reports today

Internet phone company Vonage has lost a patent case that could threaten phone services for its 2.2 million customers. Full Story

Jeff wrote about x84's dirty little secret. Coding Horror: Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM? I feel your pain Jeff.  I have a Intel Core 2  Dual at home but chose to run Vista 32.  I expect a richer driver life over there.  But it hurts to see 500mb of my ram missing in action every day(The thought that I simply cannot max out the ram on this system drives me nuts as well).  I don't think we will ever see good drivers on 64 bit systems Microsoft has set a high bar, One that is not worth jumping over if your a camera, scanner,printer or mouse manufacture.  Right now 64bit is a server and geek thing.  When Mom and Dad need 5gig of ram then we might start seeing "Good Drivers"(I don't know if such a thing has ever existed).

Mike Swanson's wallpaper Images

Hamad Darwish Flickr Photos/profile

Jeff over at Coding Horror was talking about his new Image host Amazon s3 (Using Amazon S3 as an Image Hosting Service).  I like the service. The only problem with it I could find was Amazon does not provide any client side application to upload content.  Thanks to Jeff's post that has been solved check out S3Fox Organizer a nifty tool to manage the content sitting in the S3 cloud(did I mention its free?).  Also a comment on Jeff's site from John mentioned how to setup Virtual Hosting of Buckets for Amazon S3.

Update:

I mined a few more links off of the Comments on codding horror.

http://s3sync.net/wiki
S3Drive is a Windows application that lets you access the Amazon web space as a local network drive.

Regarding the Google book scanning, I don't believe in Opt out.   I don't believe I should have to Opt out of telephone solicitations, email spam or junk faxes.  Opt out is an easy way for companies to abuse your rights and tell you it was your fault.  Google should get the copy right holders permission before indexing their book.  That would be the right thing the none evil thing. 

The AAP has every right to sue,  Its a legal issue and Google's lawyers should have seen it coming when the project started.  We'll see what the courts have to say.

Microsoft should just stay out of it.  But Tom Rubin's  general counsel for Microsoft had rather harsh comments for Google.  Here is my favorite.   

Mr Rubin :

“Google is saying to you and other copyright owners: ‘Trust us, you’re protected. We’ll keep the digital copies secure. We’ll only show snippets. We won’t harm you, we’ll promote you’.

“But . . . anyone who visits YouTube . . . will immediately recognize that it follows a similar cavalier approach to copyright.” (Microsoft attacks Google on copyright By John Gapper in New York)

 Soapbox? 

Now its Microsoft's claim that they will work with copy right holders to help remove items from Soapbox but currently there is no different between YouTube and Soapbox in this regard.  They allow all content without any review and wait for the copyright holder to send a cease and desist letter.

I don't know about you but I don't need companies to decide what is best for me or my copy rights.  I don't need corporations telling me what is right or wrong.  I would prefer not to be treated as a two year old.  No mater what they say, they have an agenda and by and large item number one in that agenda is taking money out of our pocket and putting it in theirs.