Most Recent Stories & Articles for May 2006
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Wrox: Professional SQL Server 2000 Database Design
- Posted On: 5/31/2006
This book was tedious!!! Although the book's insight into data modeling and design, including system configuration and performance optimizations rounded out my personal profile as a SQL Server DBA, the ~550 pages of content were like trudging through mud to find something of value. You shouldn't walk away from this review thinking "oh, the book sucked then", because it did not. However, I am certain there are others out there that will suit your needs better. Besides, SQL Server 2005 is out and will soon be the database of choice, especially with regard to the Express versions that will be shipped with applications. I had not read an official SQL Server book other than strictly programming in SQL and ADO, so this book was an excellent tutor. Now, what next? -
Body For Life + The TRUTH!
- Posted On: 5/30/2006
Yes, I'm re-attempting the 12-week "get a fantastically healthy body" Body for Life program with more vigilance this time around. I officially start next Monday, June 5th. Wendy, my wife, started yesterday and I hope to support her and follow through (but, I'm doing the program for myself). Wendy had purchased "The TRUTH" by Frank Sepe a couple of weeks ago and she informed me that she would be using his nutrition program and suggested I read it. Well, I did, and I love the book! Yes, the perfect male model body on the front did raise the hairs on my neck (just a normal instictual response I suppose). I've read A LOT of training and nutrition programs and his is fantastic. VERY balanced. Though, we will be sticking to the Body for Life competition rule of purchasing and using an EAS product. The two nutrition programs are very similiar (see: TRUTH Level 3). We'll only be doing 1 cheat meal per week though. I'm more worried about sticking to the eating than working out. I'll keep you posted! 
Read an Excerpt From the Book! -
Starting a NEW Job!!!
- Posted On: 5/30/2006
After 6 years and 2 months with The Alexander Group, Inc., I have accepted a new position with BlueCross / BlueShield of Arizona. Yes, from Sales and Marketing Management consulting software to the insurance industry. My title as a Sr. Software Engineer will remain and my responsibilities will be similiar, although I'll be working with a 13-person team instead of 5. I'm excited! OH! And, full tuition reimbursement!!! I can finally get that degree of mine. Of course, the medical benefits are good... There's a workout center at the office, which is a bonus. Now, with a weight bench at home, a free community center gym, and the gym at work, there really are absolutely no excuses!
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MySpace Extras!
- Posted On: 5/30/2006
Don't fall prey to the sneaky hackers stealing your traffic by offering extras on MySpace.com that are supposed to be free anyways! Yes, people like "johnny[x.X.x]" are setting up their own advertising websites with the false pretense that they are the source for a special MySpace feature. NOT SO! They're just re-posting the steps already outlined somewhere on MySpace as their own.
"I see said the blind man." ..... MySpace is quietly offering website extras to members through their advertisers. Have you seen a person with 4-16 friends on their home page yet? Have you seen people with more photos than the minimum? These ad-sponsored "features" are only available if you support the advertisers. For example, X-Men paid for the exclusive support of adding additional friends to your MySpace page by adding them as a friend. The infamous "Tom" posted a message last November that if you added MySpace records as a friend you would get to add additional photos to your profile.
Do you know of MySpace.com extras offered by simply adding a friend? — Post a comment!
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Comment SPAM
- Posted On: 5/26/2006
Getting SPAM comments in a blog is simply to be expected these days, but I'm doing everything I can to help prevent it! You can now only post a maximum of 3 links in a comment (spammers often post a hundred in a single comment). SPAMMERS BE WARNED! I have no reservations of returning the favor, although I respect our laws and, conveniently, I know them well enough to still cause problems on your SPAMILICIOUS website; I'll just eat it up!
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A General Update on Life
- Posted On: 5/25/2006
I don't have much time to post today, but I thought I'd at least give my reasons for disappearing over the past week or so...
- SECRET: Yes, I can't tell you one of the biggest reasons for being so busy yet, but I will... just you come back next week and see.
- Acting: The play, Lend Me a Tenor, was fantastic and the whole cast got rave reviews. Thank you all for coming to see me make a fool of myself!
- Acting: A 2nd installment for this topic, I tried out for Starlight Theatre's next production, Music Man. I hope to get the lead for Professor Harold Hill, but there are a lot of talented guys and gals and the casting of each character has proven difficult, even for the incredibly talented and experienced group of directors. I see the results coming down to questions like "Well, if we put Eric in this role, then where will we put so-and-so?" Realistically, I think I'll end up with Marcellus, the comedic relief and shadow of Prof. Hill. Why? 'Cause I think they'll have to, since I don't know who else they can really cast as that guy without leaving a hole somewhere. I should know my role next Wednesday, May 31st.
- Singing: The Anthem, AZ "Music in May" series is coming to an end. The choir I am in, ProMusica, will be performing tonight with the Phoenix Symphony once again for a spectacular concert in the park with TONS of fireworks! We'll be singing general Americana and you'll find me in our a cappella group singing some fun songs too.
- Pets: We are down to 1 bunny. The more aggresive of the 2 died overnight a couple of days ago. From some extensive research, I found Miami University's "H.A.R.E" website to be very helpful. We think the bunny died after quickly developing diarrhea due to complications during the delicate development of its intestinal bacteria balance (just like humans, but apparently more delicate).
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Understanding MySpace Bulletin SPAM!
- Posted On: 5/18/2006
Update Wednesday, August 08, 2006: Great news — MySpace is using temporary "hashes" (random tokens or "keys") within urls to help eliminate automated control of their system. This includes SPAM, hackers, etc. Although this is unfortunate for valid, 3rd-party automation of MySpace features, the result is a much more secure environment. There are still many changes that MySpace needs to make before eliminating the majority of security problems, but this was a step in the right direction!
Update Tuesday, May 30, 2006: Just got 2 more, but unrelated bulletin SPAM posts, one enticing you to view a video you never get to see and a 2nd that actually works, but is posted just to get you to view and hopefully click on advertising.
Join the fight against MySpace.com SPAM! I am going to attempt to explain MySpace.com SPAM to you regardless of your technical expertise, so here we go...
*If you just want to help, you can spread the word.
Yes, there are people who want nothing more than for you to visit their website and to click an ad and generate some revenue or download some software so that they can do whatever they want (more ads, trace your website visits, blah, blah...) Today I received 2 bulletin messages from a friend. The 1st was automatically generated SPAM and the 2nd was his apology. When you read the first message, it contains content enticing you to click on an external link (SPAM WEBSITES: thug444.com, but also includes: http://www.prevalentmedia.com/incredible, http://www.ps3era.com/incredible, and http://www.fhuta.com/incredible). This website appears to be completely dedicated to one thing: Get MySpace.com people to visit the website and either 1) Click on an advertisement and generate revenue or 2) Click the button to generate another bulletin SPAM message to all of your friends. *Note: visiting the site may or may not work, the content and implementation may change, and even if it is all the same it may not even work for you. They are relying on sheer numbers to get visitors to the website...
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Well, I'm not signing up!
- Posted On: 5/16/2006
My wife has been subtly prodding me to sign-up for the National Guard to take advantage of their college benefits (since I never finished to get my degree). My first reaction was, "I don't want to go to Iraq!" The subject came up again yesterday and even my grandmother was in on the prodding. So, what's the headline news today? "Bush to order up to 6,000 in Guard to border" um... I don't think so, thanks. I'll search for a company to hire me and pay for my tuition.
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I signed up with MySpace.com
- Posted On: 5/15/2006
Although I'll hate myself in the morning for signing up for a MySpace account in a drunken stupor, I did it anyways. Ah, the careless things we do sometimes... The idea, of course, being to see what they offer now and if/how I can make it better. No, I'm not completely done with MSN Spaces, but I'm taking a break to see the if the grass is greener.
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Happy Mother's Day Mom!
- Posted On: 5/14/2006
I can think of no greater tribute to a mom than to let her know with complete certainty that you love her, appreciate everything she's done for you, and will be there for her when she needs you; and then to publicize that love to the world! So, this one goes out to Debora Swanson! I absolutely love you mom, I appreciate all those years of telling me I was your favorite while having to hide that secret from the rest of the family, and I will certainly be there for you when you need to be tossed into an old folks home. Heh... Thanks for putting up with me and my odd sense of humor. Thank you for teaching me the best things you knew to teach me and trying your best to always do what's right and in the best interests of my future. Besides me, thanks for being such a great mother to my sisters! Don't worry, I never told them all of your stress was from them and them alone. Thank you so much for being such an angelic example of giving and personal sacrifice. Your attitude toward service of others has and always will be a source of inspiration to myself and the many lives you have touched in your life. Rumors are circling in heaven that God has you listed as the official chef and caterer of the annual "Heaven's Gala for the Arts". I'd wait tables for you anyday. Thank you and happy Mother's Day!
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Google Trends Released
- Posted On: 5/11/2006
Google recently released "Google Trends", a service that identifies broad regional and lingual search patterns. Check out Google's other products and services and be certain to play in the expirimental Google Labs.
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Table Names - Singular or Plural?
- Posted On: 5/10/2006
I have always worked under the rule of thumb that table names should be singular. The debates between singular or plural table names continues without end... Recently, I have challenged my own assumptions and come to a new conclusion, which should satisfy all parties. Perhaps today will be the day when the debate stops.
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Liquid Love
- Posted On: 5/9/2006
I took this amazing photo of water from a fountain while celebrating my 3rd anniversary with my wife. *Click the picture for the unique story of "Liquid Love".
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Website Fixes
- Posted On: 5/9/2006
ALL: Thank you for notifying me, making comments has been fixed. I have also fixed the bunny movies for those of you who cannot use the "mms://" protocol. *It looks like comments were down for almost a week! Sorry about that.
Membership registration has also been fixed for those of you who keep trying to impose your concerted and pointless efforts upon me and my website!
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WARNING: CUTENESS AHEAD!!!
- Posted On: 5/8/2006
*WARNING: The following content contains cute images that may cause tearing of the eyes, full-face smiles, and an overall sense of well-being and happines.
Pictures will be added regularly as the rabbits develop, so check back!
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Securing Atlas Method Calls
- Posted On: 5/3/2006
After seeing the popularity of the AJAX methodology grow and new support technologies popping up left and right, I wondered what the implications on security were. We have discussed this at length at OWASP.org and everyone agrees... There are no new security threats posed by the implementation of AJAX other than possible bugs in the frameworks and implementing web browsers. However, solutions using AJAX are at great risk of falling prey to well known application vulnerabilities by failing to provide adequate security precautions around their exposed methods.
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Programming in a Text Editor
- Posted On: 5/3/2006
I have to admit that I take a great deal of pride in programming using only a text editor. Efficiently pounding out thousands of lines of code without the help of an IDE and things like drag-and-drop, intellisense, etc. shows an intimate mastery of the language. However, the drawbacks are great when compared to others who are efficient in an IDE. So, why would you choose a text editor over a robust tool like Visual Studio? The answer used to be simple... control. You see, the visual designers for Visual Studio USED to be like FrontPage and everything you manipulated by hand was almost guaranteed to be jumbled up by the designer. I hate when programs change my source code the way I wrote it!!! There's nothing more annoying than having your spacing and indentations messed up and seeing seemingly randomly inserted code within your work. It's almost like trying to paint a fast car while others keep running around with different colors of touch-up making marks. However, the 2005 version of Visual Studio has taken great strides and I am finally able to "trust" the program not to mess with my code. The "bloat" of a large IDE is still annoying at times when you simply want to make a quick edit, so I'll keep my trusty TextPad handy just in case.
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I'm not much help
- Posted On: 5/3/2006
I just realized that all of my posts as of late have simply been about me or random things, but NONE of them help anyone really... So, I'll attempt to write some little software utilities and maybe I'll upgrade or simply re-write AndNBSP.com.
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Weekend Events
- Posted On: 5/1/2006
Weekend events included Red Bull's Flugtag in Tempe, Arizona on Saturday as well as running in the Tribute to the Armed Forces Triathlon on Sunday.
My mom made cool t-shirts for the family (right)!
