Reggie's Ramblings » Uncategorized http://www.reggieburnett.com Musings on life and technology Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:37:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 It’s time for something fun http://www.reggieburnett.com/its-time-for-something-fun/ http://www.reggieburnett.com/its-time-for-something-fun/#comments Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:23:04 +0000 reggie http://www.reggieburnett.com/?p=320 So, a few years ago I had this rule that about every 6 months I would use a version of Linux for a few weeks just to see how it had progressed and compare that to Windows.  I can’t really recall when I stopped but I do remember that I really enjoyed having a better understanding of other systems.  I think it’s time to do it again.  However, this time I won’t be using Linux.

I have access to both Windows 7 and Macs.  I’ve been a Windows developer for a long time but with the improvements made in virtual machine solutions I’ve started doing most of my development work in vms.  I find it refreshing to keep all my development work sandboxed in a system that I can easily take and rollback snapshots as needed.  I recently ran some winsat checks on my native box (a Core i7 rig with 8gigs DDR3 memory) and a virtual machine configured to use all 8 cpus.  The results were nearly identical with the virtual machine turning in 95% performance on cpu tests and beating the host system in disk tests (the vm was using a 80gig file as a disk).

So, since the VM is giving me enough performance to do my work I am really free to use whatever I like as a host system.  So, here I am preparing to embark on a fun adventure.

I”m going to use Snow Leopard (in 64 bit mode) for 30 days while doing my Windows work in a VM.  I don’t intend to run back to Windows for anything during that time as I really want to force myself to use OS/X.  During this time I’ll blog frequently about issues I’m facing, things I like, things I don’t like, and work arounds I’ve found.

So, to get started here’s what my day normally looks like on the computer.

  • Lots of development work on Windows (Visual Studio 2008 and 2010)
  • IRC/Skype chatting with friends and co-workers
  • Email with co-workers
  • Using Google calendar to manage my day to day activities
  • Editing Word/Excel/Powerpoint documents (these are more rare these days but they do happen)
  • Watching recorded tv shows from my Media Center HTPC
  • Watching shows from NetFlix and Hulu
  • Listening to music from Pandora, Slacker, Sky.FM, and personal music collection
  • Blog reading/writing
  • Facebook and twitter’ing

Well, wish me luck.

]]> http://www.reggieburnett.com/its-time-for-something-fun/feed/ 0 Comments are now disabled http://www.reggieburnett.com/comments-are-now-disabled/ http://www.reggieburnett.com/comments-are-now-disabled/#comments Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:33:00 +0000 reggie /post/Comments-are-now-disabled.aspx Due to the massive amount of manual comment spam I have been getting, I have no choice but to disable comments until I'm able to integrate a better spam fighting system.  Anyone who is generally interested in a posting and would like to ask me a question, feel free to send me an email.  

]]> http://www.reggieburnett.com/comments-are-now-disabled/feed/ 0 MySQL Connector/Net 5.2.2 beta has been released http://www.reggieburnett.com/mysql-connectornet-5-2-2-beta-has-been-released/ http://www.reggieburnett.com/mysql-connectornet-5-2-2-beta-has-been-released/#comments Mon, 12 May 2008 07:03:27 +0000 reggie /post/MySQL-ConnectorNet-522-beta-has-been-released.aspx Hi,
MySQL Connector/Net 5.2.2, a new version of the all-managed .NET driver for MySQL has been released.  This release is a beta and may contain bugs with some of them possibly being severe.  You are strongly urged to not use this release in production environments.  This release is intended only for testing and feedback purposes.

Version 5.2.2 works with all versions of MySQL including MySQL-4.1,  MySQL-5.0, MySQL-5.1 beta or the MySQL-6.0 Falcon "Preview".

It is now available in source and binary form from [http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/5.2.html] and mirror sites (note that not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point of time – if you can’t find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site.)

Features or behavior changes

  • Added support for using the new PARAMETERS I_S view when running against a 6.0 server
  • Implemented interactive session connection string option 
  • The procedure parameters schema collection has been altered to match what is coming with MySQL 6.0.  Some fields have been removed and others combined.  Please review your application for incompatibilities.

Bugs fixed

  • Fixed profile provider that would throw an exception if you were updating a profile that already existed.
  • Fixed problem where new parameter code prevented stored procedures from being altered in Visual Studio (bug #34940)
  • Fixed problem where the TableAdapter wizard was no longer able to generate commands using stored procedures because of our change to using @ instead of ? (bug #34941)
  • Fixed problem in datagrid code related to creating a new table.  This problem may have been introduced with .NET 2.0 SP1.  
  • Fixed guid type so that a null value is still returned as guid type (bug #35041)
  • Fixed bug with the membership provider where the min non alpha numeric option was not working correctly.   
  • Fixed bug where calling GetPassword on a membership user when the password answer is null would cause an exception (bug #35332)
  • Fixed bug where retrieving passwords that are encrypted was not returning proper passwords (bug #35336)   
  • Fixed problem with profile provider where properties that were specified without a given type could not be retrieved properly (bug #36000) 
  • Removed some unnecessary locking from the pool manager and also reworked the pooling code to not use a semaphore (bug #34001)

Enjoy and thanks for the support!

]]> http://www.reggieburnett.com/mysql-connectornet-5-2-2-beta-has-been-released/feed/ 93 SATA drivers in RC1 suck http://www.reggieburnett.com/sata-drivers-in-rc1-suck/ http://www.reggieburnett.com/sata-drivers-in-rc1-suck/#comments Fri, 08 Sep 2006 03:24:56 +0000 reggie /post/SATA-drivers-in-RC1-suck.aspx So finally Windows has SATA drivers baked in.  I’ve been told that not all chipsets are supported but many are.  Mine is a VIA 8237 and RC1 installs just fine without loading any OEM drivers at install time.

The problem is that the drivers for my system were causing terrible stuttering and skipping the audio.  It as also causing the mouse to skip sporadically.  A little research shows that lots of folks have been having this issue so I think it reaches beyond VIA 8237 systems. 

A quick update of the SATA drivers to the XP64 drivers from my board’s manufacturer’s website and all was smooth again.

]]> http://www.reggieburnett.com/sata-drivers-in-rc1-suck/feed/ 0 PVR 500 supported right in Vista 5536. Sweet! http://www.reggieburnett.com/pvr-500-supported-right-in-vista-5536-sweet/ http://www.reggieburnett.com/pvr-500-supported-right-in-vista-5536-sweet/#comments Thu, 07 Sep 2006 03:00:03 +0000 reggie /post/PVR-500-supported-right-in-Vista-5536-Sweet!.aspx I have this Hauppauge PVR 500 dual-tuner TV card that is apparently completely incompatible with my VIA-based Athlon XP 1700+ system.  So I decided to slap it into my dual opteron box running Vista 5536.  As I was rebooting after installing the card, I was wondering if the official Hauppauge drivers would install properly.  No worries!  Vista notified me that it had drivers for them and they installed perfectly.  Cool.

A few minutes later and I had media center up and running and connected to my XBox 360.  The interface seems snappier on the 360 as well.  Now, all is not sweet in the land of milk and honey.  Tuning TV worked but everytime it tried to record it would just repeat the first few seconds over and over.  Oh well, guess I’ll try RC1.

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