I am happy to announce that Apple iTunes 7.2 has been released and this is the first release since Windows Vista was released 6 months ago that worked through Apples normal install process with out any problems. I just wanted to keep everybody updated since I have talked about the problems of installing iTunes on Windows Vista x64 in the past. If you want any more information about this release, please view Mac Rumors.
You’ll see many posts out on the web talking about what a great thing it is that Dell is offering a Free OS on their hardware. And many stories talking about the Windows Tax. I was very disappointed to see the superficial overview that Jeff Atwood on his website, he has always done very in depth reviews in the past, however he slipped this time: Whether you’re a fan of the latest open source operating systems, or just a fan of plain old-fashioned consumer choice, the end of the Microsoft tax is a win for customers. I was a little worried that Dell would charge extra for the privilege, but it looks like they played fair and square: ...
Recently I read a post by Alex over at The Daily WTF… err… I mean Worse Than Failure. The article explained many of the tactics that the industry now uses to weed out candidates by giving them brain teasers during an interview. Alex explained in only a way that Alex can that, having a candidate that builds a water displacement scale for a Boeing 747 to measure its weight instead of just calling Boeing is probably not the guy that you want working on your project. The programmer that solved the riddle of how to find out the weight of a Boeing 747 probably fits in to the category of “A Complicator”. A complicator is basically a person that takes the most simplest problem and turns it in to an engineering disaster. ...
A major update has been pushed out for Google Analytics, as described in a post on Google Webmaster: Webmaster tools from Google are indispensable for people who optimize their site for indexing in Google. Eighteen months ago, Google launched another free tool for webmasters - Google Analytics - which tells you about your visitors and the traffic patterns to your site using a JavaScript code snippet to execute tracking and reporting. This past Tuesday, Google Analytics launched a new version, with an easier-to-use interface that has more intuitive navigation and greater visibility for important metrics. We also introduced some collaboration and customization features such as email reports and custom dashboards. ...
The ?? operator returns the left-hand operand if it is not null, or else it returns the right operand. int? i = null; int count = i ?? 0; The value that count is set to is 0. The ?? operator is short hand for: int? i = null; int count = i.HasValue ? i.Value : 0; Or int? i = null; int count = 0; if (i.HasValue) count = i.Value; The Understanding C# series at Coder Journal will be an on going project to help the readers to better understand the C# programming language that doesn’t get covered except at the more advanced levels.
If your goal is to take over the world by pure force of your coding skill and you are tired of all those namby-pamby coding languages and frameworks, you should try Java Evil Edition.
Recently I have started seeing this number repeated over and over again on the net. You may be asking what it represents and why it is so important. Well this number is one of the worst kept secrets of the MPAA. This 32 character 16 bit number is the key used to descramble data on HD-DVD disc’s. I have seen it wrote many different ways: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0 09:F9:11:02:9D:74:E3:5B:D8:41:56:C5:63:56:88:C0 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 {09F91102-9D74-E35B-D841-56C5635688C0} ...
Only a geek would find this funny. And if you really don’t understand it then you may want to brush up on your HTTP Status Codes.
In a follow up to my previous post on Proper URL Construction, I am going to dive more deeply in to the Status Codes that control the redirects that were talked about in my previous article. Most developers are familiar with the HTTP 1.0 Status Codes, that have been recently popularized by the SEO guys. We have all heard that you should use 301 Moved Permanently instead of 302 Temporary Redirect. What many of the SEO guys won’t tell you, because they don’t know any better, is that they are using the RFC 1945 HTTP/1.0 Standard that was released in May 1996, that is right it is about 12 years old. The newest HTTP/1.1 Standard, RFC 2616, was released in June 1999, and made some pretty drastic changes the the 3xx Redirect Status Codes. The goal of this post is to inform and familiarize developers with the HTTP/1.1 Standard, specifically the 3xx Redirect Status Code changes. This can have drastic effect on how you handle requests on your website and optimize your site for search engines. ...
Jeff Atwood says all the signs are clear that we might be in the Dot-Com Bubble 2.0. The “dot-com bubble” was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2001 during which stock markets in Western nations saw their value increase rapidly from growth in the new Internet sector and related fields. The period was marked by the founding (and in many cases, spectacular failure) of a group of new Internet-based companies commonly referred to as dot-coms. A combination of rapidly increasing stock prices, individual speculation in stocks, and widely available venture capital created an exuberant environment in which many of these businesses dismissed standard business models, focusing on increasing market share at the expense of the bottom line. The bursting of the dot-com bubble marked the beginning of a relatively mild yet rather lengthy early 2000s recession in the developed world. ...