Blog

Can social websites save a life?

Fark.com and other social websites are coming together to raise funds for one of their own. Can social websites save this man's son?

Project Euler #30: Feel the Power

Taking on problem #30 on Project Euler today, revealing numbers that are more than the sum of their very powerful parts.

On not giving up when you think you suck

Ira Glass, an accomplished radio and television personality, shares some thoughts on closing the gap between how good you are now and what you know "good" really is.

Print out ordinal indicator (e.g. "th", "nd") for any number in C#

A simple utility function for printing out the ordinal indicator for any number.

New Series on Project Euler

Starting a new set of posts on Project Euler to showcase some fun C# code, and to satisfy my math-geek needs.

Document your To-dos in Visual Studio's Task List

Visual Studio provides a neat way to see all the to-dos you've left for yourself as comments inside your code. This was handy today as I was documenting a project that will be shelved for a little while.

Utility for Painless Month Dropdowns in .NET

I wrote a little utility function for returning a range of months in different formats for quickly databinding a dropdown. As a bonus, there's a quick trick for binding day and year dropdowns painlessly.

Improve website forms in .NET with Labels

Adding a specific parameter to your s in .NET can quickly make your form more accessible to screen readers, and more usable to sighted users.

Lego Recreations of Famous Photographs

Recreations of famous photographs with legos. A good example to support my firm belief that legos are the coolest toy ever. The awesome overfloweth.

Server side comments with ASP.NET

You can quickly comment out ASP.NET code without having the tedious, cludgy task of changing runat="server" to xrunat="server" to try and prevent the controls from loading. Nifty.

Father's day from afar

On Father's day we celebrate our dads. Today I'm celebrating being a dad, and I'm really, really missing my kids.

Selecting a column of text in Visual Studio

Visual Studio has a trick built in that lets you make a rectangular selection over your text, instead of letting the content of your editor dictate the shape of the selection. I saw this feature on a website a little while ago and mentally tucked it away for a day I might need it - a day like today.

Taskbar Shuffle, This Bud's For You

Simple and sweet - drag windows around in your taskbar and quick launch bar. Works with stacked/grouped windows, too, if you like that sort of thing.

Microsoft: "Language Preference? Not Yours"

Either I'm missing something, or the creators of a form on Microsoft's website are missing the point of asking for a user's preference.

Gah! Don't look at me! The dilemma of a pending redesign

Undergoing some work under the hood, but shy about inviting more visitors during the process. Le sigh.

Listening to someone vs. Solving their problems

Sometimes you should listen, sometimes try to help, but make someone happy by learning when to do which.

Please don't make users hate your interface

If I'm looking for something to throw at the screen after using your interface, you've overlooked something in user testing.

If there are no roses to smell, stop and see the leaves

A few months ago, when trying to relax by stepping outside, I realized I wasn't doing it right.

Drinking the FeedBurner koolaid

I've updated the RSS feed to use FeedBurner; please update your subscriptions. If you've used Feedburner and have tips, gimme a ring.

Breaking a slump

I've been in a slump with writing, obviously, and tonight I hope to put that to rest. Onward to better, frequent writing.

panic-mode management and you

Some thoughts on a Rands in Repose entry about management types you may encounter when you reveal that you've massively messed something up.

Getting Things Done, take 2

Getting Things Done offers greater organization with less stress. My first look at this system was half-hearted, and it's time to give it a fair shake.

Back from Washington State

I just got back from a week in Washington State, including a tour of Boeing and Seattle, and can't wait to get back again. Beautiful state.

There is an "I" in "team"

For years I wondered why a line of traffic at a light couldn't just move in unison. Now that I'm older, I understand why, and I'm just geeky enough to apply the lesson to teamwork.