A while ago I blogged that I discovered that attempting to write to app.config was a bad idea. The officially sanctioned solution for per-user settings is writing to the user's profile directory which is accessible in .NET by using Isolated Storage (IanG wrote a good article about this). Up till my earlier blog post I believed that the app.config file was a good place to update settings that might be changed at runtime. I even adapted code from a Code Project article "Save and Restore User Preferences" to help me read and write settings easily, added caching, and used it in all my applications. The...

It's probably done the rounds already, but I found the following quote pretty funny (via Random Developments, originally posted at Max Barry's blog): Windows plays soccer; Linux plays rugby. In soccer (sorry, to me this is football), whenever one player makes the slightest contact with another, he collapses to ground, writhing in agony and clutching at his ankle. Everyone gathers around and looks very worried until the referee holds up a yellow card and then—amazing!—the player springs up again, completely cured. So too Windows: as soon as anything goes wrong with any program, the whole thing collapses in a screaming heap,...

Brendan postulates that the Internet is putting companies out of business, and I agree with him (the title of this post is a quote from him). He uses the example of shopping in person at a bookstore vs. shopping online. I know I personally enjoy wandering around book-laden shelves, but when I'm on a mission I find Amazon.com a lot quicker and more complete. The sad thing is, here in Melbourne I don't believe there's any bookstores with an effective online shop. Even Borders just has a crummy contact page.

One thing that's missing from my blog is an “About Me” page with some current information. Not anymore! My name is Thomas Williams, and I live near Frankston, Victoria, Australia. I have a wife, Olivia, whom I married in 1999, and two children - 3-and-a-half year old TJ (his name is actually Thomas but he gets TJ, which stands for “Thomas Junior“) and Maya Marijke, who was born on New Year's Day 2004. I studied at Monash University and have a degree in Computing (completed with a High Distinction average) and a degree in Education (completed with a Distinction average), which I think qualifies me...

This follows on from Part 1 which ended at lunch time... After a Microsoft-provided lunch and a morning spent in Visual Studio 2005 and Team System, I was looking forward to the afternoon sessions on SQL Server 2005, all hosted by Greg Low. I have heard Greg speak before and I gave him a big rap to everyone I talked to, and once again I felt he didn't disappoint. Greg took 3 SQL server 2005 sessions - "SQL Server 2005 Overview" (aimed at tech kind of guys and perhaps IT managers as well as developers), "SQL Server 2005 Administration, Scalability and Reliability"...

The March 2005 SQL Server SIG has been announced for Melbournites, happening on Tuesday March 15th. The topic is “Performance tuning methodology - SQL Server 2000/2005” and is being presented by Greg Linwood. Registrations can be made at http://www.sqlserver.org.au/Events/RegisterMeeting.aspx?EventId=62.

Yesterday (Tuesday February 22nd) I attended the Microsoft Security Summit at the Melbourne Exhibition & Convention Centre. It was an all day event, starting with the keynote at 8:30AM (which started at more like 8:50 due to the number of people registering) and ending when Greg Low let out his "class" at 5:30PM. The keynote was delivered by the former head of Microsoft Consulting Services and current Microsoft Vice President Bob McDowell. Bob was a really interesting speaker, who had a lot to say on how IT can deliver value to business (in keeping with his latest book "In Search of...

I've been in computers for only 8 years (and that's counting 4 years of Uni), so I feel like a bit of a geek baby when talking about my “experience”. But Rocky Lhotka and Geoff Appleby (and not knowing either of these guys apart from their posts, I reckon you can mention the two of them in the same breath) talk about their language learning progression, so I can also talk about mine over here in junior corner. I tie this information into the fact that recently at the Melbourne SQL Server SIGs I have been asked by two separate people...

Last night (Tuesday February 15th) the Melbourne SQL Special Interest Group (website at http://www.sqlserver.org.au/) kicked off again for the year. Peter Myers from Tenix Connections presented specifically on SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence which is right in my line of business; the rest of the year promises a couple more topics on BI in SQL Server at the SIG, which is good news as it gives me a head start on the upcoming, yet-to-be-released version of SQL Server. Peter presented really well - he obviously knew his stuff - and it was pointed out that he had “nearly every Microsoft qualification there...

After posting my BlogMap I thought I'd go find other bloggers from around my locality (Melbourne, Australia) by using Chandu's Blog Search page and entering my location. The results are returned as a map (der) with an “X“ marking the spot of bloggers (13 so far). I asked Chandu if a list could be returned of all the bloggers in Melbourne, and it can, using the “blogapi”. He sent me a query to get an OPML file for all bloggers within a 20km radius of Melbourne: http://www.csthota.com/blogmap/blogapi.ashx?method=local&place=melbourne&distance=20 Great work Chandu, this is exactly what I was after!

I got a new mouse last week. Here's his story (I shall call him Mousey, and he shall be my Mousey...) About 8 months ago, my boss and I had a discussion regarding me getting a new mouse for my PC, which ended with him telling me to pick one, and he'd order it. I scoped out various mice and at that stage decided to wait for the then-upcoming MS mouse with vertical and horizontal scrolling. About 5 months ago (either I was still mulling over my decision, or I'd forgotten completely about it) I started to get wrist soreness that...

Code Camp Oz is starting to look good. Adam Cogan and Greg Low are presenting - I've seen these two before and can vouch for how good they are - and I'm excited about the other speakers too. Lots of content on SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005. It's being held over the weekend of April 23rd-24th in Wagga Wagga, and it's free to attend, but accomodation and transport need to be organised by attendees. Time to start looking at the logistics of getting there. Car pool anyone? See the website at http://www.codecampoz.com/ for more information/

Jeff Atwood over at Coding Horror has a great post about developers being isolated from their customers, entitled “Ivory Tower Development”. His post strikes a chord with me. When I first started working for my current employer as pretty much a one-man coder (in with other business analysts who have great experience in databases and the health industry), I was more concerned about how I was going to do tasks from a technical perspective, and indeed if I could do certain things with my limited knowledge. 3 years later, I'm over the issue of how being the biggest problem, and more focused on the right...

Via Justin King, my Blogmap: You can make your own at http://www.csthota.com/blogmap/.