Greetings, I've been having an issue on one of our servers here where we could not connect to the SQL database hosted on the same machine over named pipes from a web application. We could, however, connect from enterprise manager using the same credentials. Shutting the firewall off didn't help, nor did any tweak we made to the sql server configuration. While biting my lip in despair, I happened to notice that the system time was off by three years. I figured I'd fix it while I was trying to figure out what to do with SQL. Once I fixed it though, SQL authentication started working again. Now, while I'm totally stoked that I was able to fix the problem, I don't understand WHY that fixed the problem, and I do try to avoid cargo-cult style system repairs. Can anybody explain this to me? Thanks, Will

Greetings, I'm making a little utility app to dump out test data for my forays into neural network programming (to make the training data sets). I'm trying to make it a little easier to create test data sets, so I'm building this application that allows me to create a list of input fields (along with the range of their values). From that, I want the app to spit out a file that contains all the possible combinations of values that are available (I'm assuming that the sets of values are small, and not interrelated). I've got an abstract base class called BaseDataBuilder that simply contains a description and an abstract function that returns an IEnumerable that represents the set of available values for a particular input field. I'm currently only inheriting from this class in another class called BooleanDataBuilder that has the following function that defines the available values: public override IEnumerable AvailableValues() { yield return true; yield return false; } In the future, I'd like to have the flexibility to use this with other data types, but for the moment, I'm only considering booleans. Further up, I have an object that contains a list of BaseDataBuilder objects (currently called DataBuilder, but I'll be changing the type name soon as it isn't descriptive). This object has the following function definition. public IEnumerable GetDataValues() { } What I want this to return is essentially a set of rows that is a combination of all the available values as defined by the list of BaseDataBuilder objects. However, I'm kind of stuck as to how to implement this. I know I could do it using recursion, but I was hoping there was some sort of LINQ-ish type of way to do this. Anybody have any ideas?

Me either. I think I'm going to take the usual strategy of waiting until version 2 or 3 before using it.

Ok, I've got a dinky little form with a media element control on it. I have it reading from an mpg file and the video display is apparently playing perfectly. However, I can't get the current position within the file. I'm trying to use the Position property to do this. I suspect I'm doing something dumb, but a google search didn't help me. I get the same value for position regardless of what I do. Anybody?

Has anybody seen a full implementation for a date(time) class/struct in C#? I don't need this for a project or anything (the built in one seems adequate for dealing with date and time constructs for business apps). However, I have a friend who is trying to pick up some of the more arcane OO concepts in C# and I thought such an example might give good coverage of operator overloading, serialization, etc. I had to do one way back in the day with C++, so I thought something similar might be a handy way of explaining the same concepts to him.

I had the chills too, and the sore throat. And I usually don't get very sick either, but this one put me down for three or four days (plus another week or so of feeling too crappy to do anything fun, but not crappy enough to skip work). I probably should have gone to the doctor, but as I do have some allergies, I figured it was probably one of them acting up coupled with fatigue. I don't guess there's any way they can test and see if you've had the flu, is there? Other than the blatantly obvious and dangerous way.

Is that how yours manifested? Makes me wonder if I had it earlier in the fall. I had about a week there where I was coughing up large amounts of phlegm all day long, but they said I didn't have the flu (I didn't have a fever, but then, I rarely do). Were you sore all over too?

Yeah, that's probably the best way to go. I'd hate to have someone try to write a recommendation for me based on my code from 3 or 4 years ago. I mean, I still write crap sometimes, but at least it's loosely-coupled crap now. Much less 5 or more years ago.

Hmm. Looks like I'm missing more email than I thought. All I get are viagra ads and Nigerian scams. I feel like I've been ripped off now.

Exactly. I'd speak more to attitude than to personal skill on most recommendations. Usually the technical skill is easier to sort out in an interview anyway.

Agreed. Once a good engineer, someone is likely to maintain that path (because it's a lot of work and usually a labor of love). However, I wouldn't be nearly as comfortable saying that someone is a bad engineer. They might have had an attitude adjustment or a good mentor since last time. In fact, I knew a dev that talked badly about another guy we ended up hiring anyway (at a previous employer). Turns out when they had worked together before, the guy we hired had been having a flare up of clinical depression and was in the process of switching meds. He ended up being a great guy that got a lot done. He got through the depression stuff and did well afterward. The other guy was a liar who wasn't even bright enough to log into his machine remotely when he said he was working from home. But he would have been an awesome drinking buddy. His celebrity impersonations were particularly good, if not entirely safe for work.

Are you on Yahoo, perchance? They seem to be having trouble, of late. I get a lot of emails days after they are sent. They are roughly as fast and reliable as transmitting messages by carrier pigeon in an area with lots of hawks. And don't even get me started on their ajax failures...

How long after you've worked with someone are you willing to vouch for them (or say they suck) for a technical position? I ask, because I've seen an epidemic lately of people who worked with someone back in the .NET 1.0 days saying that the person isn't experienced (they were a new developer then). I've also seen a couple of people who will vouch for someone's skill (as a resume reference), when they haven't worked with that person for 5 years or more. To me, this seems pretty unprofessional. What sayeth the lounge? Does a recommendation (in terms of skill, not work ethic or other considerations) of someone that you have not worked with in years say more about you or the person? I personally wouldn't go more than a couple of years out in that regard (unless I'm regularly conversing with the person about coding) - it just seems a little likely to backfire. Will

Does anybody have a suggestion of good clipart packages that will let you use their images on hats and T-Shirts (for resale)?

You mean Obama isn't a Muslim, Kenyan, Commie-Fascist Antichrist? Heh. Next thing, you're going to be telling me that people came from monkeys or that figurative writings of long-dead Levantine desert dwellers shouldn't be taken literally as advice on how to live in an advanced, technological society. --------------------------------------------- This post is entirely sarcasm, of course. But watching the stuff that comes across WingNutDaily is like watching a train wreck. A train wreck with a hundred boxcars of stupid, colliding with a train carrying a hundred boxcars of paranoia. It's retardalicious. And I say that as a card-carrying member of the NRA.

They are great for laughs. And my grammar is great for showing people what not to do.

You mean WorldnetDaily? (wnd.com) Yeah, they great for laughs.

My boss is a coder too. I expect she'll straighten them out. What kills me is when the web filter gets overzealous and decides to block all blogs. That's REAL helpful.

True, but it becomes my problem if stuff isn't done on time because of something boneheaded that they did.

I found it. They stuck a shortcut on the desktop to lock the workstation and set the shortcut key for it to F10. So, it was at least easy to fix.