February 2008
Nightmares →
LINQ to SQL and NOLOCK Hints →
How to implement the NOLOCK hint in LINQ to reduce locking issues
9 Signs You Shouldn't Hire THAT Web Guy →
Last.FM Launches Gallery for Third Party Apps →
Stan Schroeder via Mashable! shared by 6 people
If you’ve been struggling to find good third party applications for Last.FM, worry no more, as they’re now gathered in one place: …
Who Gets Through the Air Force's Blog Block? →
Thanks to the dozens of Air Force officers, enlisted men, and civilians who have written in to DANGER ROOM about which blogs are blocked — and which ones aren’t — on their base…
DreamWorks: We'll Release HD DVDs Even If There... →
DreamWorks Animation has an interesting stance post-HD DVD/Blu-ray war: they’re going to stick with HD DVD until Toshiba gives them the okay to switch to the other side. While it may be…
How to Read Blog Articles Written Only By Your... →
TechCrunch, BoingBoing, PaidContent, GigaOm, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, AllThingsD.. these are definitely some of the best technology / media blogs on the planet. They are written by an…
“Those who can, do. Those who can’t apparently live in Brussels and engage in a...”
– Microsoft: The EU’s ATM Machine
How to Explain RSS to Normal People, aka RSS can... →
TED video: Microsoft Research’s WorldWide... →
To my surprise, the TED conference organizers has swiftly uploaded the presentation recording from Microsoft’s announcement of their WorldWide…
Three: Decent Mobile Broadband Product, The Staff... →
So I finally decided that paying between $27-$35 a day for hotel internet access when I’m traveling was a stupid idea and signed up for mobile broadband. After some solid advice on Twitter, I ended…
Douchebaggery →
David Heinemeier Hansson has a problem with Windows as a programming platform.
While I can certainly understand the reasons why some people go with Linux, I have run all but dry of…
Coding Horror: "when you're using Rails and OS X,... →
Microsoft Case Studies: NewsGator →
The Tubes Are Still Clogged →
Show Me Your Desktop, Duncan Riley | The Beta News →
LINQ Gymnastics: Creating A Predictive Query With... →
As you may have guessed, I’ve been using LINQ a whole lot with Adventure Works lately. It’s been… interesting (the Adventure Works part) but it’s great for working out those weak LINQ muscles…
Putting Starbucks "Perfect" Coffee... →
As many of you know by now Starbucks closed almost all of its U.S. locations yesterday for 3 hours to school its baristas on how to make a cup of coffee. They now claim “your drink should…
10 Ways to Get More Out of Friendfeed →
Friendfeed.com just opened its doors for everyone… you don’t need an invite anymore to use this site, which can act as your feed reader, social network, and twitter-style mini blog all in…
Ball Pit, Phase II →
I posted a while back about a ball pit I’d installed in my room. Everything in that post was true, but the pictures were a little misleading.
Looking at that, you don’t necessarily realize…
Now this is a beta test that I can really get... →
It is not very often that I get really excited about having a chance to be involved with beta testing something but when I saw Adam’s message on Twitter I’ve never clicked a link so fast.
Robots with MSRS saving life →
RobotTurk is a system that was developed with the Istanbul Municipality and Microsoft that helps provide live video to disaster struck regions. Using unmanned aerial helicopters equipped with an…
Downloading Podcasts with FeedDemon →
If you’re new to FeedDemon, you might not know that you can use it to download podcasts (AKA: “enclosures”) and sync them with iTunes. When an article has a podcast associated with it, a…
Creating IN Queries With Linq To Sql →
Props on this one go to Scott Hanselman who pulled me back from the edge of the cliff last night. I was particularly distraught in getting a MIX demo together where I had to do some queries using…
What made me cry: Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope →
Lots of people are asking me questions about what made me cry at Microsoft a few weeks ago.
If I told you “a telescope” you’d make fun of me, right? Tell me I’m lame and that I don’t deserve to…
Musings on MSFT-YHOO →
I keep dropping stuff in both the NewsGator Clippings folder and del.icio.us on our MSFT-YHOO page, but since Dare was kind enough to work up a chart I was just thinking about, I thought…
How many people get to avert thermonulear war for... →
What made me cry: Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope... →
Wind Turbine Explosion →
FriendFeed Launches, Provides New Lightweight... →
When I thought about writing this last night, I didn’t realize that FriendFeed was launching. Good timing. My intent was to point out two things, really. First off, usage of FriendFeed seemed to be really picking up steam in the last few weeks. In retrospect, that’s probably because they were letting more and more folks into the private beta as they got closer to launching. But the...
How I Use FriendFeed →
It’s no secret that I have developed quite a liking for FriendFeed since Louis Gray pointed me towards it last December and now that the beta period is over and FriendFeed is open for everyone, I thought I would write a little companion piece to the “How I Use Twitter” post from a few weeks ago.
Like Twitter, part of what makes FriendFeed great is that different communities can use it in...
Can FriendFeed Compete With Newsfeed? →
One of the big news items today is Friendfeed receiving a $5 million round of funding and their public launch. There has been a significant amount of discussion surrounding FriendFeed and whether or not it can compete with Facebook. Eric Eldon accurately sums up the current differentiation between the two feeds:
The Facebook news feed is already chock-full of your friends activities on Facebook,...
Keeping Time →
A Bed for Web Workers →
Who says we have to sit at desks to be productive? Leggett & Platt is showing off a product they have in development called the “Starry Night Bed.” I call it a bed made for web workers. Not only does it integrate the kinds of electronic controls we need to do our jobs, but it includes intelligence to make sure we get the kind of sleep we need to face a hard day of work.
The bed includes...
The Boss →
Seth Godin via Seth’s Blog shared by 7 people
Here’s the thing: every single one of these policies is something that you’d be willing to do for a good customer anyway. So, rather than taking the posture of “I hate you and I don’t trust you,” why not start with this one? LL Bean has been doing it for a hundred years. It works. Just down the street, the...
Wind turbine self destructs (video) →
Mark Frauenfelder via Boing Boing shared by 4 people “The braking mechanism that limits the speed of the wind turbine broke during a storm in Denmark. This was the outcome.” Article about the turbine failure
Starbucks closing all stores Tuesday evening →
auDA Giveth, auDA Taketh Away →
ZDNet: auDA took away a domain from Sydney-based web-business after dispute, with only 24 hours notice, and it wasn’t even that poor guy’s fault! His business lost the domain name because 12 months ago NetRegistry mistakenly registered the dropped domain for them, although the original owner has renewed it. That just sounds dodgy.
How can a regulator body provide any assurance to anyone who...
An Englishman’s Home is his Illegal Castle in a... →
In this Google image of a farm just north of Gatwick Airport, England, we can see a large, but not particularly unusual looking stack of hay bales, covered in blue tarpaulins. If however we look at the Microsoft Live Local Bird’s Eye view of the same location, we can see that the hay bales have been removed to reveal… a Mock Tudor Castle! So where did this mini-castle spring from? It was...
Could FriendFeed give Twitter a run for the money? →
You had to know that a post like this would show up at some point now that FriendFeed has opened up its doors and folks like Robert Scoble are jumping on the bandwagon, but the fact is that I do think that FriendFeed could give Twitter some very serious competition. Some would suggest though that this can’t happen because FriendFeed is a different beast from Twitter.
Is it though?
Yes there has...
10 Ways to Get More Out of Friendfeed →
vote for the world's worst dictators →
I’ve been doing my best to spread nifty reddit polls throughout Condé Nast and I keep getting surprised with what folks come up with. Most recently, Parade has been dabbling with our polling tool. I certainly never would have imagined it’d be used to vote for the worst dictator, but sure enough, there’s Kim Jong-Il holding a solid #1 spot with an up-arrow beside him. Mugabe...
Manage Your Online Reputation [Feature] →
Tamar Weinberg via Lifehacker shared by 8 people
Are you happy with the results people get back when they Google your name? If not, there are easy ways to monitor and guide what information is published about you online. Two years ago we covered how to have a say in what Google says about you, and more recently, and how to track down anyone online. But a rash of social media sites have arisen...
A renewed wish for open document standards →
Posted by Zaheda Bhorat, Open Source Programs Manager The subject of open document standards grows in importance not only for the technically- minded, but for anyone who uses a computer to work on editable documents. Across the board, standards are crucial. They ensure that the devices and technology you use today will continue to work tomorrow, that your DVDs will play in your player, that your...
FriendFeed is officially launching →
Creationist crazies at UCL →
Extreme Creationists have been given the use of a lecture hall at University College, London, to preach against evolutionary science. Tomorrow’s event has been organised by the college’s Islamic Society as part of “Islamic Awareness Week”. Is that why UCL doesn’t have a problem with it?
Saturday’s Guardian carried a brief report of the story, but adopted the muted tone it reserves for Muslim...
What should NOINDEX do? →
Okay, this post will be colossally boring to some people. But I wanted to give you a peek at debates behind the curtain in Google’s search quality group. Here’s a policy discussion about NOINDEX and how Google should treat the NOINDEX meta tag. First, you’ll want to read this post about how Google handles the NOINDEX meta tag. You may also want to watch this video about how to remove your content...
Fuck Grapefruit →
Nearly a million users, and no spam or trolls →
I was going to write some thoughts about Twitter last night, but got sidetracked by a Halo 3 session at Diego’s house, only to wake up this morning and see that Howard just happened to put his thoughts about it out there today as well. Nice, but he and everyone else seem to be missing a core - and maybe the most important - feature of Twitter: No spam or trolls.
Think about any other...