I'm not sure having to manually refresh is very minor. Sure, when compared to all of the other failings of this OS (from what I've heard), I guess you could say that, but I view an automatic refresh after modifying a folder's contents as a requirement. Considering that many, less aware users don't even know about View->Refresh (F5). How do they deal with this situation? It sounds like one more, in a long line of serious screw-ups. BTW, I picked up a free copy of Vista Ultimate 32bit at an MSDN Event yesterday, so I'll finally install it and have a chance to see what it's really like :). -Justin

Actually, that's what I was worried about, because according to their language, it could just be the SP1 on CD. Of course, that would really piss off a bunch of people, but you never know... -Justin

Really, it's only because I want to check out DirectX 10 and MS has made Vista a requirement for upgrading beyond DX 9. Nice of them, huh? (Well, along with the fact that I may someday want to ensure something I develop works on Vista. No reason to pay for the disk if I don't have to.) -Justin

"repave", huh? I like that term :) But no, I haven't -- my wife really doesn't seem to notice the slowness and doesn't do much with it. She'd rather I not even touch it. I only ever do just to fool around a bit in Vista. Note also that her laptop only has 1 GB. Oh, and you're right about the Toshiba crap, especially these "Flash Cards" (or other similarly named POS). The default drive image from Toshiba includes these stupid drop-down, semi-transparent "flash cards" that come alive any time you use the function key -- you know, for adjusting the screen brightness or muting quickly, for ex. Problem is -- they can take 5 - 15 secs just to wake up and react to the keys -- completely defeating the purpose of the special laptop function combo keys. Anyway, disabling those made a huge difference, so now she can just use the keys and they react in seeming real-time. When I get around to it, I'll bring her up to 2 GB and I expect that'll help quite a bit. Thanks, Justin

Well, yes, I guess you're right :) My wife got a cheap Toshiba laptop last year that had Vista on it and only 1 gig of RAM. She's not upset about how slow it is, but man it's horrible. I'm curious to see if Vista's actually quick (and useable) on my desktop with 3 gigs.

I won't say no to that, either! Lately it seems MS is giving away so much software. I remember back when I was in school and was happy to be able to buy Visual Studio 6.0 on the academic license for 2 or 3 hundred bucks. I think the full price was ~$600. Now, you can get these express versions for free and they're giving away the OS and VS Standard and, soon their virtual machine software. An interesting change... Thanks, Justin

Hey, that's OK with me...I'll gladly take their trash. :)

Hi All, Has anyone here actually gone to one of these free, one-day MSDN or TechNet Events? The one I'm considering attending is about Vista IT support and development. Specifically, I'm wondering if they're really giving away fully licensed copies of Vista. Here's the quote from the email: "Join us for a free day of live learning with the most experienced IT pros and developers in your local area. You'll get plenty of useful tips, and still have time to swap stories with your peers. Plus, you'll leave with a copy of Windows Vista® Ultimate Edition 32 bit SP1, just for attending. Take your technical skills to the next level with MSDN and TechNet Events." I realize this will mostly be an ad for Vista, but it's hard to pass up a free copy of the OS. NOTE: I plan to stick with XP, but I'd like to be able to see how Vista runs, especially because I'm a gamer and I want to check out DirectX 10 (for Crysis and Flight Sim X) and you must have Vista for DX10. So, anyone know if they really are giving away useable copies of Vista? Thanks! Justin

Wow, that really is a silly (read bad) exam question. It's the poster child example of an expression with an undefined result (it can be different on different compilers). You can see in the ISO C++ standard here http://www.kuzbass.ru:8086/docs/isocpp/expr.html[^] (look at 5.4) that you can't know the value of this expression. I agree with the others that 21 (6 + 7 + 8) and 24 (8 + 8 + 8) make some kind of sense, but I've got no idea where 22 came from either. Show the standard to your prof, if you're in the mood to argue :). Thanks, Justin

They might be under the official minimum age, but I think the real problem with Olympic gymnastics (maybe gymnastics, in general?) is that judging favors small, girl-like bodies and fast, jumpy movements. For decades, women's gymnastics has really been all about girl's gymnastics -- the gymnasts with larger, more muscular bodies don't do as well as the 16 - 20 year olds that look like they're 12 (the Belarussian Swan, Svetlana Boginskaya[^], is a notable exception). I think it's a major problem that harms the young gymnasts, since they must remain unnaturally small to keep winning, and it explains why China (or any other country) might try to skirt the rules. -Justin

Thanks for the tips! I was already thinking I may need to bring my own extension cord and/or power strip -- now I'm sure I should. Kind of hard to believe -- That a convention center in the computer geek capital of the world wouldn't have better support for laptops. Oh well....I'm not complaining! :) -Justin

Hi All, I'm finally going to my first software development conference in March in Santa Clara, CA (SD West 2008)! I'm very excited :) -- California in March, where it should be in the 60's (I live in Baltimore, MD, where it's in the 40's). Also, from what I gather, this is one of the best conferences around. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. I'm worried about plugging in my laptop and wonder if any of you have been to the Santa Clara convention center (or specifically to SD West). A number of the classes require laptops, so I emailed both the convention center and CMP and they said only that wall outlets were available. I was shocked that a convention center in Silicon Valley doesn't have outlets throughout the room under floor panels -- my lowly cubicle office space has that! Anybody have experience with this? Also, does anybody have any ideas of what might be fun to see/do/eat while I'm out in that area (San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Clara, Oakland)? Thanks! Justin

Hi All, I'm calling a SQL2000 SP from my VB.NET app with the following code: Dim sqlCmd As SqlCommand sqlCmd = New SqlCommand("JHU_SAS_IDOC_Process", conn) sqlCmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure Dim adapter As SqlDataAdapter = New SqlDataAdapter(sqlCmd) adapter.Fill(tableReturned) This SP performs a SELECT that causes the tableReturned (a DataTable) to be filled. The SP also returns an INT (0 or 1, depending on whether an error occurred). The SP code is basically this (much simplified for this question): CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.JHU_SAS_IDOC_Process AS BEGIN SELECT * FROM JHU_SAS_IDOC RETURN 1 -- or 0, depending on an error condition END My question is: How do I read that return value in the app? I think I could read it using the SqlCommand.ExecuteScalar() func, but that wouldn't work to fill my table. Any ideas? Thanks! Justin

I used it for a few years and loved it. I also tried that VisualAssist thing (something about Tomatoes) and didn't find that as helpful. I was using SI while doing C/C++ and MFC programming with Borland C++ 4.5 and VC++ 6.0. It worked great in that environment. I would just use the Borland or MS IDEs for any automated generation tools (such as the ClassWizard) and for compilation, but do all of the hand coding in SourceInsight. Sadly, in my current job I'm forced to do VB6, VB.NET coding and SourceInsight's just not so helpful in that environment. I definitely recommend SI if you're doing any C based dev (C/C++/Java). -Justin

Well OK then...looking forward to it :) Thanks!

Hi All, I'm new to RSS (a bit late, I know :)) and I've just installed RSSBandit. I like being able to keep up with my interests all from one place. Can I get RSS feeds for any and all of the message boards here? I allowed RSS Bandit to "discover" the feeds available and it came back with the Lounge and 6 different versions of Latest Article lists. Are any of the technical message boards available as feeds? Thanks! Justin

I'd suggest HolidayInn Express. I've stayed in these all over the country and have always been pleased: clean, free breakfast, internet access in every room (a few don't have this, but most do). They're a bit cheaper than the "family" standard Holiday Inns (I guess they're meant for business travelers). They don't have an in-hotel restaurant, but those usually suck anyway. I found this -- I've never stayed at this one, but it looks good and you can get a room for ~$105 /night plus tax (works out to ~$340 for the stay (including tax)): LAWNDALE-LAX AIRPORT AREA Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites 14814 HAWTHORNE BLVD LAWNDALE, CA 90260 UNITED STATES Good luck and enjoy your trip! -Justin

It sounds like you're having a wonderful time. I traveled to Grenoble and Paris for a business trip back in 2003 (right when the Iraq war was beginning -- a scary time to be on an airliner). Sadly, I couldn't bring my bike, even though I think Alpe d'Huez was very close. Anyway, I remember thinking that everyone I met was very nice -- none of that "everyone in France is rude" nonsense. Also, I ate the best food in my life on that trip. If you like Italian, there's a great place in Grenoble with the biggest, most excellent Calzones I've ever eaten. I don't remember the name, but it's a small place across the river (the Sienne?) -- embedded in the rock at the bottom of that cliff. You might also try the restaurant at the top of that cliff (at the Bastille?) We had tartaflette (sp?) -- another wonderful food experience! Enjoy! -Justin

Let's also remember that a large portion of the homeless people in the US are single moms and their children. It's pretty easy to get stuck without housing when the deadbeat father leaves a mom with kids to support. She then needs to work AND take care of the kids daily. This is impossible on a low income. I hope you realize that the minimum wage in this country (what can be earned at MacDonalds, WalMart, etc.) is NOT a living wage. Also, I know a large number of people were purged from mental institutions in the 80's and they had no real chance at finding stable work and housing. Many of these people were schizophrenic or had other very serious problems. It is very easy to lose one's home if you don't have the safety net that many of us take for granted and something bad happens to you (you are disbaled, you lose your job, your spouse leaves, ...) My father-in-law, for example, had a disabling stroke in Novemeber of last year. He could no longer work -- yet, his SocialSecurity disability payments only began this month. The only reason he didn't lose his housing is that his family members were able to make his payments. Many people aren't so lucky. -Justin

Are you a cycling fan? I am (used to race on the road here in Maryland, US) but the US tends to ignore bike racing (except for Lance :sigh: ). If I remember correctly, Stuart O'Grady is a pretty good Australian rider and, a while back, Phil Anderson was near the top. Enjoy the race :) Justin