Depends on who. Tom Cruise is somewhat ridiculed by some individuals because of his antics in public about his "faith". Other celebs are a no-no though with John Travolta being an example.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

Three keys to successful interactions with Scientologists 1) Do not bring up psychiatry, counseling, depression based drugs. If they bring it up, just nod your head. Do not argue with them about it. They have been brain washed to say that they are all bad despite evidence to the contrary. 2) Do not bring up anything that might possible critize the church. I made this mistake once when I asked why their cource material was so expensive. The story here is that a prospective member needed to cell $20K worth of cource materials before they could become part of the C-Org (a person who works for the church). The 20K worth of stuff was just 5 or 6 items (Book Series, Audio Tapes etc). My inlaws immediately got offended and refused to talk to me about it. They didn't speak to me for about a month (a blessing :D). 3) Do not say anything derogatory about L Ron. He the modern day jesus to them. Except for these 3 things, they seem like mostly normal people but I have quite a few stories that are very eye opening.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

My wife's family is full of scientologists. My wife thankfully is not.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

HTML 5 is the correct platform if you want to support all three. You will need to use PhoneGap (Apache Cordova) to get this done. Right now, Telerik is offering their Icenium product for free[^]. I am not a Telerik employee but I've checked out their product and they make writing phone gap apps really easy to do. I was able to write a quick Hello World app and push it to my Android in 5 minutes. They also let you push the apps to Google Play and the Apple App Store if you have the required licenses. I don't have those so I couldn't try that out. But I was really impressed with the product they put together.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

I've been re-reading this series everytime a new book came out since book 7 when I read it for the first time originally. Needless to say, I am a huge fan of the series and I get something new out of it every time I read it, it is still a great work of fantasy and I would recommend it to anyone who is even slightly interested. I think the story could have been better if Jordan would have finished in say 6 books and then added the additional story arcs in other books that take place at the same time of the story but focused just on that story arc. Mostly, I am saddened that there is this whole fantasy world with only one long story with a rich history that is hinted by names of songs and stories in gleemans' tales. It would have been awesome if Jordan would have been able to write additional stories that these songs and tales inspired.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

They actually talk about them in the book but they extended it for the movie.

There they were sheltering under a hanging rock for the night, and he lay beneath a blanket and shook from head to toe. When he peeped out in the lightning-flashes, he saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out and were hurling rocks at one another for a. game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang. [...] They could hear the giants guffawing and shouting all over the mountainsides. [...] "This won't do at all!" said Thorin. "If we don't get blown off or drowned, or struck by lightning, we shall be picked up by some giant and kicked sky-high for a football." [...] As they passed under the arch, it was good to hear the wind and the rain outside instead of all about them, and to feel safe from the giants and their rocks. The Hobbit, Chapter Four, Over Hill and Under Hill

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

Good for you! I've looked into doing this several times and have opinions of many different eye doctors and they all told me that I am not a good fit for it. My prescription strength is so strong, the only thing they could do is knock it down a few notches but I would still have to wear glasses and not be able to wear contacts. Since glasses at my prescription are so heavy, contacts are a must for me. I wish they could transplant eyeballs so I could have good vision again.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

If you can get around the price, Sitefinity can do almost anything and you get most if not all of Telerik's products for use in the site. I work with it daily at on an enterprise level.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

Create your own conference instead! A group of local developers got together and created the following idea. Maybe you can come up with something similar. Stir Trek - This conference is a one day conference that takes over a movie theater and has 5 sessions with 5 differing tracks of content. At the end of the speaking engagements, part of your ticket is a newly released movie. The last one was $25 for the whole day, lunch, and a movie (popcorn and drink provided). The reason they named it Stir Trek is because the latest Star Trek movie was the one they showed at the end of the day for the first conference.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

You may like any of the Sword of the Stars or Sins of a Solar Empire games

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

Most companies in the U.S. in today's market will tell you they value dedicated individuals that are loyal to the company. The fact is many of them don't really value you and will let you go at a moments notice no matter how long you have been there. If times get tough no matter how loyal or dedicated you have been you could find yourself without a job. A friend who has been a consultant for close to a decade gave me these two bits of advice that I have found to be very true. "Do what is best for you! If you are not happy at a position, you are going to torpedo your own career because subconciously you will not being your best work." "If you interview well and fit their position companies will hire you. Especially if they think they can make money off you no matter what your tenure was at previous jobs."

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I typically use the 'as' keyword when I am looking for controls using .FindControl when I am dynamically binding data which I think would be a good case to use the 'as' operator. But because of my familiarity with it, I am also using it in situations you described where it is dumb to check for null and then just throw another exception. I've got a bit to think about. Thanks again.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

Could you explain to me or give me a reference to why "as" operator is bad? I use this all the time so I can check for nulls instead of throwing an exception. I did a search on as operator and all I found was a bunch of references on how to use it but not why it shouldn't be used. Thanks!

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

I only use Hungarian Notation when naming controls on a win and web forms. I it like this because of intellisense will then show all like control together.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

While the records this guy broke are cool and all but this guy has broken the law in a bunch of countries by base jumbing off of buildings and the like. Should we really be celebrating someone who scoffs at laws in other countries, for a few minutes of cheap thrills?

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

Defense Grid: Awakening

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

I actually just watched this last Friday Night. It was very interesting. I know someone who went out an bought a juicer because of it but it is not just collecting dust. I would have a lot of trouble doing the Reboot because I dislike most vegetables with many of them making me want to vomit. I try to eat right but the fact that most vegetables make me feel sick makes it very hard.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

The only problem I have with this article is that the author says that XP has been out for two decades, and the later for 20 years.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

They are adding religion in the expansion to Civ 5 but it appears to be more of a build your own religion thing and nothing like the religions in Civ 4. Also they are adding another handful or so of civs and global objectives that should add some fun to the game. My wife and I have 500+ hours in the game. Hopefully the expansion adds another 500 more.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer

I had to do something similar. For awhile, if it was turned off it absolutely would not turn back on unless I kept manually plugging and unplugging the power supply into the motherboard over and over again. One day I spent an hour doing this and I thought that my PC was shot. So I called over my buddy to see if we could hook up his components to see if we could fix it. In the process of putting it back together found out that my LAN card was causing the whole system to short out. Once I removed it, it started working like new.

Brett A. Whittington Application Developer