Thanks :) I've been lurking for a while, just not hitting the site nearly as much as I used to.

James

Others have already replied with some good suggestions. You may want to check out the Cloudy Nights forums as well. Lots of helpful folks who can give suggestions for just about anything you're looking to do.

James

Thanks everyone!

James

According to weird al the record co's have somehow justified paying him less for internet downloads than for retail purchases. http://www.weirdal.com/aaarchive.htm[^] April 27, 2006

Tim Sloane of Ijamsville, MD asks: Al, which of these purchasing methods should I use in order to make sure the most profit gets to you: Buying one of your albums on CD, or buying one of your albums on iTunes? I am extremely grateful for your support, no matter which format you choose to legally obtain my music in, so you should do whatever makes the most sense for you personally. But since you ASKEDÖ I actually do get significantly more money from CD sales, as opposed to downloads. This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure.

James

When I saw the title of the post in the CP Insider I wondered whether anyone else would know it was a Tull song - coincidentally I've got the 20th Anniversary boxset playing now. And since I've been brought around to write a post I might as well reply to your question too. I'm always excited by the future and what will come especially technology wise. But I also spend too much time reliving the past wondering how my life would be different had I made different choices.

James

It was great to finally meet you and Smitha. Hopefully my schedule will clear up in a few months and I can take a trip out to Toronto. :D Happy Birthday...again. James

Licenses to it aren't very expensive, just $129 per user (and about $18/yr. per user for support). I bought my own license to use at home last year and haven't regretted it so far. James

I'll recommend FogBugz too...and by now you should know that it isn't open source nor ASP.NET ;) James

Happy belated birthday Smitha! James

Thanks Nish!

Nishant Sivakumar wrote:

I hope you are having fun in your new job and city

Yes to both :) I dropped off an application for my first apartment the other day. I'm hoping I hear back from them soon so I can get moved in before next Monday :jig: James

code-frog wrote:

If you can get a visit for checking out a book from a library written by a famous dead communist then making a public statement like this is just a bad idea and I don't care whose right it is.

For what its worth the student involved in the matter admitted it was a hoax[^]. James

peterchen wrote:

Does Visual Studio 2005 generate docs (like ther 2003 version did)?

I remember reading one of the MS guy's blog posts saying that this feature was cut from 2005 because people weren't using it enough to justify updating it for the new 2.0 features. I can't find it after a few google searches though. James

stock.xchng is down at the moment but will hopefully be back up soon. The terms on each photo were set by the author; many of them were free for personal use but I remember seeing some that were free for commercial use as well. No idea whether they flat-out prohibited redistribution or left it up to the author. James

Maybe I have some settings different on my install; but the Google Toolbar for Firefox works on 1.5 for me and it includes the PageRank item in the toolbar just like IE's. James

Another blog post for you :) http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2005/11/07/490174.aspx "We have a new CTP release of the WinFX Runtime Components due very shortly (within the next couple of weeks), so there's not long to wait for a release that is compatible with the final .NET Framework 2.0." James

While I was reading today's RSS feeds I saw a post that said VS2003 SP1 would be released April 2006 and 2005 SP1 would be released in the first half of 2006. James

If you don't mind prerelease software and a warning about that every time you start VS2005.... http://blogs.msdn.com/scottwil/archive/2005/10/31/487558.aspx[^] You are supposed to be able to uninstall it without affecting VS2005; but I haven't tried that yet....I want to play with it some more first :D James

Christian Graus wrote: If this is true, they were trying to make you feel obliged to buy something that a handicapped person made, without any order being placed. I'd say this is a hard sell, and unfair. I would have said no on principle. I think that is what set me off. Between the 'we are not a charity' and employing the handicap I had an idea -- possibly incorrect -- that the IRS was forcing them to say they weren't a charity. I've given stern 'no' answers or just plain hung up on telemarketers before...but yelling at them is really out of character for me. I can only vaguely remember one other time that I yelled at someone other than my sister or parents, but I have no idea what it was about now....probably one of the jerks in high school. Heh, if I keep posting at this rate I just might get 50 posts in for 2005 ;P James

Douglas Troy wrote: They are providing jobs for the handicap ... not sure how that would be considered exploitation. The exploitation would be in that it is a selling point. John mentioned that they can't not (ugh) hire the handicapped; so there is a good chance of there being handicapped employees at any sizable business. If the businesses existance was to hire them I think there is a better way to do it. Douglas Troy wrote: Not sure what the heck this statement really means ... but that's me ... I blame my not going to bed until 7am on that awful piece of wording :-O There wasn't any reason to use that statement because it was just normal business, they make a product; they sell it to me. I'm pretty sure the TM did mention 'business owner' when they talked to me though. I'm kinda fed up over the whole 'business' thing because it stems from a partnership my dad and I started about 7 years ago but never did anything with after the first few months. James

David Stone wrote: I mean, there are some businesses that seek to give employment opportunities to those unable to get them in the normal market. So it might be that they're actually assisting the handicapped rather than exploiting them. In that case, pointing out that they're handicapped would just be a selling tool that they're using, as well as an appeal to pity (one of those nice logical fallacies they teach you about in high school logic/debate classes). A pity sell IMO is exploitation. There are other things they could have done to get my attention and not my ire. I believe they could have gone non-profit if it was truly just to give the handicapped a job. That would have been better than saying 'we are not a charity'. James