Guitar Zero
Check this out. I stumbled onto Guitar Hero Broke My Knee.com. I did not read the entire story, but I am guessing the domain owner is claiming Guitar Hero caused him to break his knee. He even wrote a letter to Red Octane asking for an endorsement.
Hmm, I should follow his lead and register McDonalds Made Me Fat.com. and write a letter to their marketing team asking for an endorsement and cash prizes. I have zero ads on this blog, but may consider posting the Golden Arches for a small nominal fee. Ha!
I Hate IE!
I do NOT know why I use this stupid browser, because I hate it! I click the IE shortcut out of habit. Internet Exploder crashes repeatedly and eats up memory like it was at a memory buffet. Check out the memory hog (after three sites) at work below.
Wun Fur Sum Yum
Well, not just for Sum Yum though he and I do enjoy the Asian hotties ... ha. I have NO idea were I found the picture, but she looks like a hottie to me. She has sexy feet and the jean shorts compliment her shapely legs. Another shallow post, minus 5 points!
Positive Feedback
If you are an eBay member, you know how important feedback is to the eBay community. It helps members identify the ripe and rotten apples in the vast sea of buyers and sellers. The negative feedback is easy to write, "You and your product suck!"
Writing the positive feedback description is boring and repetitive, "Recommend A++", "Easy transaction, highly recommend", and "Excellent eBayer +". Earlier, I found some interesting feedback, check it out!
The City Burns
*Car-ash!* It's official the dead fish we all know as Circuit City is closing its stores. I stopped shopping at the electronics chain years ago, because their prices were always higher than the competition, their return policy sucks, and their sales people are morons.
I buy all of my electronics at Best Buy, Frys Electronics, Costco, or Wal-Mart. I do not need to be hounded the second I walk into the store. If I want to be nagged and pushed around like a rag doll, I would visit the nearest car dealer.
Just for the record, some Best Buy stores suck too. Their return policy bites and their in-house Geek Squad computer services are horrible. Learn how to handle a laptop morons! I am still pissed that you chipped the keyboard and scratched the LCD. Check this out!
De-Friending IM Buddies
Time to clean house again. Earlier today, I logged onto MSN using the Messenger client and noticed that it logged into another account. What the !#$%^&. I have no idea how it logged on, but it prompted me to change my password and clean up the buddy list.
I did not recognize most of the addresses, so I removed them. I do recognize two of them, can you guess who they belong to? Also, I blurred part of the email addresses to keep the email scavengers away. Yeah, I can guess most of the domains (*cough*).
Debug a CodeSmith template
This is more of a more reminder to myself than anything else. Everytime I go looking for the keyword to set a breakpoint in the CodeSmith template code behind, I ended up spending a solid 20-30 minutes looking in all the wrong placed. I guess I need to learn to Google a bit better.
In order to set a breakpoint in a CodeSmith template set the .cst Debug tag to True. Then set your break point using Debugger.Break or if you're in the code behind add the namespace System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break.
More info on CodeSmith Tips by Paul Welter.
Apple vs Microsoft
Sat down this evening and knocked out the two issues that were bothering me about my personal website and also some IE issues that my wife pointed out. I sometimes forget a large majority of the internet population use IE. 
I like Microsoft, but their browser still sucks. In fact I had a conversation with a friend the other day. We were arguing about Microsoft's suckage rating.
My argument: Microsoft rocks!
His retort: Vista, Media Player, IE sucks balls!
I had to agree with him. I can't stand Vista (regardless of the under the hood mods). WMP has always been a thorn in my side (Winamp™ has always been my preferred choice). Firefox is far superior in many ways. So I had to take a minute and step back. Have I had wool over my eyes this whole time? I think not. I forget that not everyone sees MS the way I do. Visual Studio is by FAR the most advanced and intuitive developer environment. MS Team Foundation System has made time consuming tasks as easy as editing a configuration file. IIS7 has powerful integration options...the list goes on. But a lot of these boons, aimed at developers, most people never see and I think that Vista was a stab at changing the face of MS, especially in the face of rising Apple. I think that if MS can keep the nerds and their core base happy that they'll do just fine, but they shouldn't risk increasing general consumer goodwill if that means gaining developer ire in an inverse proportion.
I don't honestly think that Apple has a profound foothold in the market. I use the adjective profound loosely here. iPhone mostly rocks. The hardware is solid and the software is sleek. It's those pesky business decisions they make like keeping iTunes full of DRM(recently changed), or telling iPhone devs their not allowed to post on the internet about their experiences(also changed) or using a closed architecture(also changed!). Apple, to me, is a very reactionary company. They score again and again on hail Mary passes and just manage to score the last touchdown on a technicality. I think we need Apple in the marketplace because of their interfaces. A LOT of companies can learn from them but on the flipside as Vista tries to take that advice, MS falls flat on their face because Windows is just TOO configurable. There are too many options and that is difficult to put into a couple of click menus that make operating the software easy. Know thyself. That's what makes MS so great. When windows has a hiccup I can usually resolve it. When my iPhone or iTunes breaks I have to reinstall/reboot it. THOSE ARE MY ONLY OPTIONS.
The iPhone is great because it's a mobile device which lends well to what Apple does best. But OSX blows and the limitations Apple puts on their hardware just bleed you dry. Want to develop on the iPhone? Sorry, you need a Mac. If that wasn't bad enough. Want to develop on the iPhone and are already a loyal Apple consumer who owns a previous Apple PC? TOO BAD! You have to buy the new intel based Mac. ahaha! What a fucking joke. If I had been following Apple for any kind of length and they scammed me like that, I would be PISSED.
If it wasn't for IBM, we'd all be buying $10,000 Apple PCs. Thank you IBM for having the competitive edge to blow it all.
What The Heck?
Take a look at the image below. Note, the top two icons have a funky black arrow and the bottom two icons are normal. What the heck do these black arrows mean? Is this the new lightning-fast access "shortcut" arrow in XP Pro SP3?
I Googled the question, but found only articles referring to the "shortcut" arrow we know and love. I did not check the properties of the icons, so I do not know. Instead, I deleted the files and re-extracted the archive. Anyone know what these icons indicate?
Hold that thought. The image below is a combined before AND after view of the icons. If it was one view, I would assume the icons with the black arrow were some type of "shortcut" or link to the original files. Thanks for thinking I am a moron.
Odd Case Statement
It's not the worst code I've ever seen and it certainly gets the job done, but i've never seen a case statement written in this manner before.
Select Case True
Case CDate(.Fields("Status2_Date")) < CDate(.Fields("Begin_Date")) And CDate(.Fields("Status1_Date")) > CDate(.Fields("Begin_date"))
.Fields("Begin_date") = .Fields("Status1_Date")
Case CDate(.Fields("Status2_Date")) > CDate(.Fields("Begin_Date"))
'Stuff
End Case