January 2005 - Posts

31 January 2005
Statcounter Carnage -- Firsthand Look
This is what it looks like lately over here on my site ( Jan 17th was D-Day ). Not a pretty picture. In other news, I got a bad piece of fish from my local grocery store last night (name withheld to protect the guilty, err…innocent) and was up until sunrise “ refunding ” it. Today has been a miserable day trying to recover. I noticed it smelled a little funky, but hunger won over and I cooked it up anyway; we have a sense of smell for a reason, so next time I’ll heed any aromatic warnings wafting my way. Cheers. Read More...
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30 January 2005
Why Apple Makes a One Button Mouse
Via Slashdot ( full post here ): "There is a short article at Gear Live that tries to explain why Apple still sticks with a one button mouse . It points out the fact that although it is perfectly possible to use a two button mouse on a Mac for 7 years now, developers are forced to rethink their design approach and can't flood the right click menu. No article of this kind would be complete without mentioning that users get confused with two buttons.” The link to the post on GearLive is (of course...for now) /.’ed; the irony is that even I as a professional developer never thought about it affecting Mac developers, hence why they still have a one button mouse. One of the (initially frustrating) coolest things when I moved from Mac to Windows at age 21 was having a multi button mouse (proud owner of an Intellipoint Explorer with no less than 5 buttons), and easy access to a contextual menu (I’m pretty sure I remember Mac OS 8.x-9.x having contextual menus, albeit accessible... Read More...
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29 January 2005
Enterprise Library 2005 Released
As many have already reported, Microsoft has (at long last) released their Patterns and Practices Enterprise Library . Downloading and installing it now, can’t wait to see what it brings to the table. More to come as I play around with it…and kudos to the folks over at the PAG team! Read More...
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28 January 2005
Finally Forked Out Some Dough for a Real Domain
Bob recommended using GoDaddy to finally get myself a real domain name (not my first, but the first I actually intend to keep, I’ve used GKG for my previous registrar needs…their tools are horrid though, I didn’t realize how far the tools had come in the years since I used to use GKG…I can manage pretty much everything DNS related via web based interfaces at GoDaddy, whereas GKG was a much more manual process). I’ve been hosting my blog under zerotrilogy.gotdns.com for a while now, and that address really doesn’t mean anything (other than the fact that I use DirectUpdate (version 3.5 which was free) to dynamically update my IP using the gotdns subdomain nameservers). So, on to the point of this post… Incredibly enough, my name was available for registration; so I snagged it ( www.jaysonknight.com , which (for now) redirects to my current blog address ). I also plan to set up host headers for most of the common stuff (blog.jaysonknight.com (which... Read More...
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27 January 2005
If You Blog It, They Will Come
In a strange twist of fate, Google finally emailed me back concerning the de-indexing of my site, no doubt having read my previous post lightly chastising them (do I really believe they read it? No. Would I like to believe they did? Of course!). Message follows: Hi Jayson, Thank you for your note. We understand your concern and have passed your message on to our engineering team for further investigation. We appreciate your patience. Regards, The Google Team The timestamp on the email is 7:30 PM, my post was at 7:05 PM. strange stuff< /eerie music>. It only took me sending them 7 emails in total, and the message they replied to was the 3rd one I sent. What I find truly dumbfounding is that they have bots that can automatically sniff out code on sites that violates their terms of service (and subsequently drop said sites like week old pizza), but it’s going to take an “engineering team” to figure out what’s going on and (hopefully) get me relisted? Crikey…Google... Read More...
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26 January 2005
Don't Piss Google Off, It's a One Way Street
It’s been a little over a week since I was dropped from the Google index; I foolishly installed some compsci student’s code without reading the fine print over at the Google Terms of Service which mandate that if you write code that uses their index, you must invariably include the Google logo. Incredibly enough, the above mentioned blogger hasn’t revised his code to include said logo, he only has a disclaimer posted saying to do so, and of course by the time I realized I needed the Google logo it was too late. There is the saying “caveat emptor”, but I still believe his code was posted with wreckless abandon. His site states “ I (David Cumps) cannot be held responsible for any damage what-so-ever that might come from this blog.”, but to me that’s the equivalent of saying “I cannot be held responsible for any moronic people I kill before I’ve had my morning coffee”…in other words, please do your research first. If this... Read More...
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21 January 2005
Apprentice Season 3 Predictions
That’s right folks, you heard it hear first (ok, maybe not first). Forgive the vagueness (18 (whoops, 17) candidates to get to know? I haven’t even lived that long yet…), but I really like the format this go round…street smarts versus book smarts. Seeing as I only did about a year and a half of college before entering the workforce, it’s pretty apparent where my vote lies…but I’m trying to be impartial. That being said, I still feel quite strongly that someone from the street smarts team will be crowned the apprentice. Some of the most talented/savvy/tenacious/brilliant people I’ve ever worked with have had little or no college, a rare breed of go-getters who simply saw college as a means to an end and nothing more. IMO, nothing beats good ol’ on the job training. I will make a final prediction after a few more episodes (and after I learn all of the candidates names). One thing worth mentioning is that there seems to be a good number... Read More...
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18 January 2005
Blog Stats Take a Huge Dive -- Did Google Reindex?
[Update]: Apparently I am in violation of Google’s Free Search Agreement by adding my own custom search box querying google without including a Google logo. By the time I realized I needed to include the logo, it was already too late.. So, search removed…hopefully I’ll be reindexed soon. Whatever google. I’m confused. I’ve been averaging ~350 unique visitors a day for the past few weeks; upon checking my stats for the day (via StatCounter ), I’m at a whopping 16 uniques for the day. Furthermore, after googling a few keywords that I know I’m number 1 for (or at least in the top 10), I’m nowhere to be found (try either ‘jayson blog’ or ‘jayson knight…I’ve owned those number 1’s pretty much sense the inception of this blog)…what gives man? Furthermore, using the ‘Search this site’ functionality that I added a few days ago (sends a search to google using the inurl google keyword) for something... Read More...
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17 January 2005
Lightly Nerdy? Hmm...
I ran across this test a few days ago, thought it was silly, then everyone else posted their scores…so why not me as well. It’s not as high of a score as I would have thought…but that doesn’t necessarily mean I wanted a high score. Anywho, I have been branded as: Oh the irony... Read More...
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13 January 2005
Some Interesting Links, Plus What I've Been Up To
I’ve been inundated by recruiters lately (I think every recruiter in the free world got back from holiday on January 3rd, Outlook/the phone have been going non-stop since then…which of course is a good thing, but I’ve also been sick the majority of the new year which has made it tough). Being on the phone 4–6 hours a day has been mentally draining, but well worth it…I’m currently in talks with a local company for a Sr. ASP.NET developer position…again, more details to come soon. I’m way behind on news/blogs/anything not involving getting a job, but I’ve come across some interesting links these past few days: Robert Hensing writes about Admin Personas . We’ve all probably worked with some of each type, though I’ve had the pleasure to work with some talented system admins out there…watching them in “crisis mode” is pretty impressive. Fredrik Normen writes about a great new feature in ASP.NET 2.0 known as Control... Read More...
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