Back to being a Geek!

Learning Problems
I've been getting into programming stuff in C# and ASP.NET over the last few days, so you're in for a sprinkling of geeky advice for the next few weeks, as I work through the insanities of working with MS development.

Firstly, I'm using the 2008 Express versions of both. I bought a small book "Build a Program Bow!" by Patrice Pelland of MS that has SP1 versions of all the express systems (VB, C#, C++, Web Developer) and also a=one of SQL Server. I already have a developer copy of 2005 installed, so I didn't need to install that. The rest went in fine, and the C# part works fine - better than the full version of VS 2005,

Using ASPX hasn't turned out so easy, however. I ran into a lot of permissions problems, because I'd never used the IIS on the PC, despite it being almost four years since it was installed on my laptop! Eventually, by the expedient of making all folders open for everything, it started working. Then, of course, something else cropped up! The error message was this:
BC2017: could not find library 'C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_32\System.EnterpriseServices\2.0.0.0_b03f5f7f11d50a3a\System.EnterpriseServices.dll'
After a lot of searching I figured out that this file was sitting in C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727, so I copied it over. Fine. Then I got exactly the same message for System.EnterpriseSeervices.Wrapper.dll. Same procedure to fix. All went well. However, after I'd rebooted it all went away and I had to copy the stuff over again! Drat!! Now I have a batch file!

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Chrome Problems
Here's another interesting tidbit. I wrote a really simple piece of ASPX (below). It shows two buttons on a browser page and, depending on which one you click, changes the caption on the button. It all works fine on IE 7 (like you'd expect anything else!) on my local IIS server. However, Google's Chrome apears to have some problems with this: one button works fine but the other doesn't always do so well. Try it out and tell me if it's just my copy of Chrome!

[script runat="server"]
'----------------------------
Sub submit(Source As Object, e As EventArgs)
if button1.Text="You clicked me!" then
button1.Text="Click me!"
else
button1.Text="You clicked me!"
end if
End Sub
'----------------------------
Sub submit2(Source As Object, e As EventArgs)
if button2.Text="Boo!" then
button2.Text="Click me!"
else
button2.Text="Boo!"
end if
End Sub
'----------------------------
[/script]
[html][header][/header]
[body]
[form runat="server"]
[asp:Button id="button1" Text="Click me!" runat="server" OnClick="submit" /]
[asp:Button id="button2" Text="Click me!" runat="server" OnClick="submit2" /]
[/form]
[/body]
[/html]
'----------------------------

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Blogger Change
Have you noticed that Blogger has added a new editor? It has a nice control bar for selecting things like fonts, etc., but, right now, it doesn't appear to allow you to paste anything in! That makes life a little difficult!

That's all for now ...

TTFN

Yarn, Tech, and a Blog

A couple of weeks back we were in Harrison, near White Plains, NY, helping a friend with her computers. On the way home the AG asked that we stop at a yarn store called KnittingNation in Nyack, NY. As always, we got a friendly reception and, as always, permission for me to take pictures.


Nyack is a nice town - really easy to get to (over the Tappan Zee bridge from NYC and the first right off the main road) - and a lot of neat shops and restaurants. To get to KnittingNation go down the main street until you get to Broadway, and take a left. It's on the left, opposite a tea shop rejoicing in the name of The Runcible Spoon, which may well be closed by the time you get back from seeing all that KnittingNation has to offer.


There's a big selection of yarn, books, tools, and accessories to browse through, and the owner (whom we met) is really friendly and knowledgeable.




The other customers that we met we friendly too, and there's a comfortable couch to sit on at the front - always a good sign.

So, in sum, going to KnittingNation looks like a good move. They have a long yarn list and they do courses and instruction for learners.

After we'd spent waay longer than we expected to at the LYS, we noticed a small Greek take-away on the way out of town. Two Greeks and a Gyro looks like a kind of Greek Burger king. However, once you get inside and meet the staff, and see the food, you'll realise that this is really a proper Greek restaurant with all the proper Greek attitudes to food and hospitality, just dressed up in early-21st century Americana!
Then you get your order and settle down to eat. WOW! You realise that you didn't really order all the things you wanted to order to try! You'll just have to back again. And again! And you probably will - it's that good.

[Geek]
In April last year Microsoft bought a company called Danger (a somewhat reckless name, one would think!). This company specialises on creating "premium software" for mobile devices (smartphones to you and I) to provide a "rich consumer experience", whatever that might mean. MS bought it just four months after it registered its first IPO. Obviously the guys at Redmond $aw $omething they liked the potential of.

Anyhow, T-Mobile got the software loaded up on their SideKick phones, which seemed like a cool idea. Then, as MS bought Danger, it suddenly became MS' responsibility to maintain all the back-end stuff that had been run by Danger. For example, all the messages, addresses, contacts, photos, etc. that are kept for use on a Sidekick device are stored on the servers so that the device in your hand doesn't have to be huge.

Fine - it all works great. Until it doesn't. In early October all the info vanished. MS have, reportedly, managed to get a lot of the data back (although how old it is is another question). You'll have noticed a few cynical remarks in the last link of MS' experience with the needs for backups; well, it appears that someone in MS might have placed a little too much confidence in the success of the immediate future.

The exec involved has a long career in MS' divisions handling Mac products and Entertainments products, which is fine, and I'm sure that she's a very good manager, but this looks like a really bad case of forgetting that a belt and braces strategy is usually safer then just winging it. In fact, if things actually happened as people are saying, then it would appear firstly that all caution was dropped, and then the department involved appears to be trying to cast the shadow of the problem on the other, non-MS, parties. Of course, being Sun and Oracle, they can be viewed as competitors .....

So, this can be viewed as a good example of the operations of Murphy's Law. It can also be looked on as an example of people trying to distract attention from their own shortcomings by casting aspersions on others. Oh yes. T-Mobile is giving its users a month's free use and $100 in compensation. For being their valuable customers. The trouble is that the users have probably lost far more in value than that. I wonder how many will be jumping ship real soon now!

TTFN

Rhinebeck 2009 - 3

Well, this took a day or so to get to, but you'll have to wait for a post or two to find out why.
Between the first two barns was a rather unusual structure - a yurt. No! not a Hollywood-style plastic yurt, but a genuine Turkish yurt. If you think that they're only from the steppes of central Asia, think a little longer: the turkish people only arrived in what is now Turkey a little over a thousand years ago. The yurt is a convenient and portable structure well suited to nomadic people, and, as people found who entered this one, very warm indeed, even with two open doors.

Yurts are made of felted material - sheep wool or horsehair in Asia, probably, and are held upright with thin wooden supports. Inside this one was a display of art on woolen items, including this piece of material with images of a bird and two people, found in a town called Catal Huyuk, from about 6000 yeas ago.

The people appear to be headless, which accounts for their positions - lying down. A bird-cult? Who knows. Anyhow, the yurt was staffed by people from Ikonium, who are very friendly and have lots of fun stories to tell and info about felting to provide.

Between the second and third barns were a pair of lines of outdoor stalls - very cold for the poor vendors - where we found, amongst others, CreativelyDyedYarns. Dianne Lutz produces hand-dyed yarn of various mixes, including some wonderfully soft mix of wool and seaweed! I want it called Mermaid Tresses, and, like all her yarn, had beautiful colours.











Finally for this episode, some local colour. I believe this worthy was employed to keep the sheep under control: certainly they were all well controlled.

More rambling very soon Photos all on Photobucket.
PS. The MD Sheep & Wool was back here.

TTFN

Rhinebeck 2009 - 2

Okay, everyone - here come the pictures!
First, the line in. This was just a snap of the people arriving at 8.15 in the morning - opening was 9 am.

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Although Weather.com insisted that it was 42F, it really wasn't very warm all day. For example, you may think that this is a cute picture of a bunny rabbit, but, in fact, there are three white rabbits and at least one black one, all huddled together for warmth!

Above are silk & rayon velvet scarves. We were admiring the colours as the early sun shone through them.

We were looking for Kermit, but I think he's put some weight on recently !

Here's a longer look at some of the booths in the first barn, and the display of yarn at DyeDreams.

Left is a woman's cardigan from Jan, The Village Weaver from Sugarcreek, OH. She had some really nice cardigans and sweaters - for men and women - and I really think I'll be getting one - they look gorgeous!

Right is a collection of little stuffed animals. Things like these seemed to be quite popular at the fair.

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The sheep incognito pictures from Conni Tögel were here, just like at Maryland. When you go to a fair with these you have got to see them - if you have the money, buy one! They are just so funny!

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Well, Blogger seems to be having upload problems here, so I'll add more in the next blog.
Meantime, you should be able to go here to see all the pictures. Unfortunately, they're in reverse order and I haven't worked out how to get pics in the order I want them yet!

TTFN

Rhinebeck 2009 - 1

For those not "in the know", the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival is one of the major festivals for people involved in knitting in North America. It's in a small town of the same name in eastern New York state, about 25 miles from the Connecticut border, and the AG and I decided many long months to save up our pennies and go to it this year. So here we are, just waking up and getting ready for breakfast, in the Super8 in Danbury, CT, which is about 40 miles from Rhinebeck.

On the outskirts of the town we stopped at a fabric and yarn store called The Fabric Tree. This is mostly a fabric store, and the yarn section had a selection of Plymouth yarns. I caught this neatly fishy bag in the window.







Last night we wandered around Danbury (a confusing town to drive in - especially at night). The last time I was here was when I was at a Ventura Publisher conference on the week of September 11, 2001, so I don't remember much of the town from then. It seems a nice place - we stopped in one grocery store for a couple of things and ended up buying rice and plantains 'cos they smelled so good.

It would be a nice morning drive in, we thought in June. Last week we were becoming a little less sure of that, as we watched the Weather Channel offer dire snow warnings for this weekend! Right now Danbury is a little above freezing, and Rhinebeck just on, but both are just cloudy and neither is expecting rain until later in the day. It looks like the bullet missed us! OTOH, it may all be wrong, and we may be several feet deep in snow up to our knees and more by the end of the day !

I'll be trying to remember to be camera-mad during the day, and post pictures tonight.

TTFN

Now Hear This !!

This time I'm going to talk about the 'flu. If you don't want to read on - fair enough. If you have some strong views about getting vaccinated (or not), the please read on. You don't have to be convinced, but at least read on with an open mind, and try to follow my arguments (assuming I don't make some horrendous blunder in the middle !). References to what I've said before: see here for a short update on H1N1, and also here for an entry that has references to other sites with more info.

Firstly, some definitions. Influenza is a virus. That means that antibiotics are not any use against it. At all. The body (human or other) defends against viruses by "learning" to recognise the intrinsic "shape" of the virus and then attacking anything with that shape. Something with a very similar shape may be "recognised" in the same way (as being "close enough"), whereas a sufficiently different shape will not trigger the reaction. A vaccine to protect you against a virus has to be able to train your body to react against a new shape. The best way to do this is to introduce your body to the real thing - actually getting infected! However, that's not normally recommended, so we normally use an infection with a virus that has been killed. Even dead, it has the same shape and will teach your body what to react against. Some virus vaccines are alive, but very much weakened: these should really only be taken in emergency or by those not considered at high risk of serious consequences from getting the virus for real.

Talking about risk, you should remember that there are two very different risks here: the risk of contracting the disease and the risk of suffering serious or fatal results when you do contract it. Mathematically, if you have a 1 in 10 chance of getting it, and a 1 in 10 chance of dieing from it, then of the 10 people in 10 that get it, just one can be expected to die. This factoring is often skipped over, both by people trying to calm the masses and also by people trying to inflame fear and uncertainty.

So, to history. About 90 years ago, in 1917, it is believed that there was the beginning of an outbreak of 'flu in China, although this is only a little more than informed speculation and educated guesswork. Little seems to be known of it until later in 1918, when ut started spreading, first in the military and then into the civilian populations in Europe. It is often called Spanish Flu, because many of people contracted it in Spain, where there was also a high death rate amongst the affected. It spread via the trade routes of the world, and affected almost the whole human population, killing millions more than the Great War itself. For reference, see here.

One unusual characteristic of the 1918 'flu was that it's effects were most severely felt in the 15-34 age range, showing a death rate maybe 20 times higher than with previous varieties of the 'flu.

Since the four year of the 1918 Spanish Flu, the strains we have seen have returned to the virulence known before those years. We've had scares about Avian 'Flu, and other things in the last few years, but in 2009 we appear to be back in the cross-hairs again!

About six months ago a disease that popularly became known as the "Swine Flu" hit Mexico, spread throughout the USA, and has since become pandemic throughout the world. A lot of people died of what is now called "H1N1 influenza", especially in Mexico, but quite a few in the USA and Europe. One characteristic that was noted by an interviewee on an NPR program one Saturday afternoon was that the H1N1 seemed to affect its victims in a way remarkably similar to the symptoms seen in 1918 - that is, the people most severely affected by it are the 15-34 age range! Now, on CNN today, comes an article that repeats this view.

Up until now it has always been considered that a valid explanation for this characteristic of the Spanish Flu was that these groups were preferentially targeted because they were the targets available. This age group was roughly that which was most involved in the previous four years of war. However, that should not explain the similar impact on the population of the USA, which had only experienced about a year of warfare, and of other countries' populations. This was a question that was never properly explained by the idea that it was people weakened by war that were more susceptible, hence the continuing scientific efforts to obtain "infected" DNA from exhumed corpses of the era.

So now for the idea of getting protection against the Thing. Before I start, I should state here that I am on a drug for arthritis (Enbrel) that is an immuno-suppressant, so I have already had a vaccination against the "standard" 'flu this year. Firstly because if I get it then I'll really get it badly, and secondly because if I get 'flu then the doctors won't have to wonder about whether its "standard" 'flu - it won't be. I have no problem in saying that I paid $25 for it at a Walgreen's in NJ, and that it hurt far far less than accidentally pricked with a pin or needle. For more specific info, please see here, which gives a good, concise list of things to think about. Walgreens and CVS, by the way, will give you vaccine without charge if you are unemployed and looking for work. The vaccine for the "standard" 'flu is prepared in exactly the same was as it has been for the last 10 or more years, and has very few risks (the last link describes the risks that do exist).

The H1N1 vaccine is a brand-new vaccine, but created in the same way as the "standard" variety, so will have the same caveats as above. It has been created from intensive research carried out world-wide since last Spring. There are two things to consider here: will it work and will it be available in time. Efficacy is something that only time will tell - we won't know until either nobody with it gets sick or a lot of people do. Availability is another matter. This version of the 'flu is not a seasonal variety, but can be expected to become more severe during the Winter, just like the Spanish Flu did in the four years it ravaged the world.

Some people are worried that the components of the vaccine - aside from the actual vaccine and water there are some preservatives, etc. - can be dangerous. The CDC has reported that some H1N1 shots will contain the preservative Thimerosal, and others won't. Your doctor will know what your shot contains - when I got mine from Walgreens they gave me a pamphlet that explained exactly what was in each type (there were two available), including things like other ingredients. Some people have expressed concern about Thimerosal for children because it's mercury-based, but the CDC states there is no scientific evidence the preservative is harmful.

Other people have expressed (to me) worries that the risks of taking the vaccine are greater than those of not taking it and possibly getting the 'flu. This is a very difficult equation to balance in order to see which way to go. On the one side there is a mathematically describable measurement of how likely you are to get the 'flu, and, if you do, how likely it is to be at any particular severity, from very mild to deadly. On the other side is the same piece of mathematics about the likelihood of being damaged by the vaccine, and the subsequent likelihood of getting the 'flu, and the consequences of that, too! If all that isn't enough, you also have to give mathematical values to how bad you consider degrees of sickness to be! The particular problem with all the above is that there are no numbers for them yet - these won't exist until the 'flu has happened to people, and, by that time, it'll maybe be too late!

So, life is hard. Yes. My personal opinion is that getting 'flu is such a bad experience (I had it when I was 18 and haven't forgotten since!) that I really don't want it again, especially as I don't have an effective immune system any more. So I'm getting the H1N1 jab as soon as I can.

Back soon - stay healthy !

TTFN

... and the News from New Jersey ...

The AG "crafts". That is to say, she makes physical things that are of practical use to herself and others. Whereas I have, on occasion and when the need has been apparent, been known to produce carpentry and items of metallic mechanics. The AG, on the other hand, takes pieces of sheep and transforms them. Yes - I do the same - using my teeth, but she uses needles and wool - she knits. Socks, shawls, scarves, gloves, and hats. You've maybe seen some of these on this blog. She also takes existing knitware (old sweaters) and turns it into more useful things like handbags. She produces hats and gloves from polar fleece (i.e. shredded plastic water bottles), and pouches from handles of old shop bags.
So where are we right now, and why am I te all .lling you all this?

Read on !

Three weeks ago we went to a craft fair at the end of our road. The AG has done this before, but I haven't. Being the dyed-in-the-wool geek that I am, she was fairly sure that I was going to be bored out of my mind and going to slope off quietly to find a pint or ten of Guinness at the nearest pub. Well, curiously enough, I wasn't bored at all. In fact, I was quite happy for two whole days away from the keyboard. We sold enough to cover our stall fees, cover food for the two days, and pay a couple of bills. Not a huge amount at all, but encouraging.

But why was I not unhappy to be parted from my PC ? Remember: this isn't really something that's happened more than three or four times in the last thirty years! (and you thought that you were addicted to computers!). Partly it was novelty, and the enjoyment of being with the AG all day. A lot of it, however was, I believe, down to our neighbours. One, just on Sunday,was a lady selling decorated bottles. On the other side, however, was a family selling picture frames that the wife had made. They were attractive and well made, and the family themselves were warm, welcoming, and friendly to their "newbie" neighbours - us.

The next week we went to a town open day nearby, and had about the same amount of success, but without the same friendly neighbours. The new neighbours were friendly enough - don't let me mislead you - but those on that first weekend were definitely superior!

The Much-Troubled Laptop.
Well, the SD's Acer Aspire One came to me last Thursday. It looked just as it would have done when it first came from the factory, except that there was no extra software on it. Nothing - just a note to say that there was a new hard drive in it together with standard software.

Here it is again - for real, this time, and not just company pictures. Here it's just starting up. You can see (if you enlarge the picture) the camera at the top-centre of the picture. You can pull images in from that into your applications if your application knows about a standard called TWAIN. If you're in a word processor (OOo Writer, for example) you select Insert and Picture. Then you choose Scan (not From File) and then Select Source. Once you've selected your source (Camera, Scanner, ...) you can go the same route and choose Acquire and get an image. Easy!

BTW, if you're wondering, the laptop peeking in around the corner is the edge of my 17" Acer laptop, it's almost three years old now. It also had a disk catastrophe in the first three months of its life, and it too was fixed by Acer. No problems since then, I'm happy to say!

Anyway, I stuffed it full of software that the SD needs and sent it off to her on Saturday, so she should get it tomorrow or Wednesday. Have fun, M !!

TTFN