I hate the email game where you receive 99 interesting items about a person, from everyone in your address book…

I almost never read them (unless they are some my lovely wife)

But, I like this idea. Over the past couple of days, I have enjoyed reading people’s blogs telling 5 things I did not know about them.

In most cases, I do not know the people (personally) I read, so it gives a great clue to who they really are. Thanks Shawn Twain Wildermuth and Clemens Vasters for the motivation.

1. I was born and raised in Lancaster, SC. My dad purchased our first computer; 486 SX25 with 2 MB of RAM. He let me learn and experiment (Gotta tweak that autoexec.bat and config.sys) on the computer. When it would get to the point that it would not boot anymore, dad would take it to the professionals and let them fix it (and let me watch them do it). Thanks dad for the patience and money spent. It was a memory I will never forget and always cherish. I still enjoy learning things about computers and technology.
2. I love to listen to good music. I listen to mostly Christian Rock. My favorite bands are: Project 86, Thousand Foot Krutch, Red, Family Force 5, Flyleaf, and Mat Kearney.
3. My first professional speaking engagement was June 13th, 2006 at the Pee Dee Area .NET Users Group. I spoke on T-SQL coding practices and a few performance “food for thoughts.” I was co-founder of the group with buddies Page Brooks and Chris Craft.
4. Growing up, I wanted to be an Air Force Fighter Pilot. Then I found out I did not have 20/20 vision, loved to draw, and was good at math; so my desire changed to become an architect. Once dad got me a computer (see above), my desire changed once again. I wanted to do something with computers!!! That something is project planning, database design, and application development.
5. I love researching my genealogy. I have collected 50,000+ cousins and relatives in my database. Primary surnames researching: Reeder, Pressley, Baucom, Long, Ferguson, Polk, Whitley, Estridge, Strickland, Allen, and Blackmon.

Now, you have read my five things… So…

Tag goes to: Susanne Reeder, Chris Craft, Page Brooks, Josh Wyse, and Dean Lisenby.

It is not supported per Microsoft Release Notes.

.NET Framework 3.0  can be installed on any of the following systems:

• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 1 (SP1)
• Windows XP SP2
• Windows Vista *

That stinks!!!

A lot of businesses still run Windows 2000 (Pro & Server).

Windows 2000 is pretty solid; so why update?

I guess to be able to implement .NET 3.0 and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

Have you ever needed to see what tables a stored procedure references… or what SQL objects are used in a view… or what objects use a function?

There is a way.

A while back, I blogged about SQL Dependency Tracker, which is an awesome product; but there is a free way to do this.

Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio…

Yes… That is it.

Simply Right Click on the Table, View, or Stored Procedure and Voila!!! 

Thanks Don Savage for showing me this!

Man… The day has finally arrived…

My Preacher, Howard Allen, is blogging.

He can now minister to potentially millions of people and not just the 800-900 members of South Florence Baptist Church. (New web site coming soon)

This brightens my day!!!

Get it here.

Ok… this may be old news… if so, forgive me.

Google has a website that allows a user to render a website not designed for small Pocket PC screens.

Simply browse to http://www.google.com/gwt/n on your Pocket PC device, enter a URL, choose to display images or not… then Click Go.

Voila!!!

I want to personally invite you to attend a free class to learn more about Windows Communication Foundation for the .NET 3.0 Framework (Ready for Vista?). The class will be taught by Glen Gordon who is a Developer Community Champion with Microsoft.

This is the second of four classes of .NET University.

Meeting time is Tuesday, December 12, 2006 6:00 – 8:00 PM (ET)

Location:
McLeod Medical (here for directions)
800 Cheves St.
Florence South Carolina 29506
United States

Here is a list of the four classes with dates and speakers.

Event Overview

This class will take place over four consecutive user group meetings:

11/14/2006 – Windows Cardspace – taught by Page Brooks
12/12/2006 – Windows Communication Foundation – taught by Glen Gordon
01/09/2007 – Windows Workflow Foundation – taught by Brian Hitney
02/13/2007 – Windows Presentation Foundation – taught by Chris Craft

The Pee Dee .NET User Group is proud to present .NET University as a 4-part series during this winter’s meetings!  Join us to get an overview of the next version of the .NET Framework (.NET 3.0), including Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Windows CardSpace. All topics are covered at a 100-level, and labs will be included with the courseware.

We have an IT Department scavenger hunt today. Four teams consisting of 3-4 employees will be competing. It will be a timed event and a speeding ticket will disqualify the team.

My Team consists of:

Will “Parents Just Don’t Understand” Smith
James “007 Bond” Munn
Josh “Mr. Coffee” Lockhart
Chris “The Weekly” Reeder

I will let you know how we place. Should be a great team building experience.

Watch out other teams… The “Live Wires” are on the loose!!!

I had to share this…

I found a site where I can make bumper stickers.

So… I made one…

StupidProgrammer.com

$4.95 for the sticker including shipping…

It made my wife laugh so it was well worth it.

Then when I actually stuck on my truck…

Well… that caused yet another chuckle.

You can notice in the reflection of my dirty truck (free advertising for Ford), a picture of me using my new Pocket PC phone to take the picture.

I have been using VB.NET in my new job;

I am doing ok with the transition to VB syntax;

I come from a VB6 -> jump to -> C# history;

Still want to put a semicolon after each line though;

wink;

Anyway… I found my first real complaint about VB.NET;

I have several lines of code commented;

I try and put a region around it to collapse and make more readable;

What;

‘#Region’ and ‘#End Region’ statements are not valid within method bodies.

That’s crap!!! (Am I missing something?);

Other than that, I am enjoying it;

So far;