Reggie's Ramblings
My thoughts on life and technolgy
Enjoying March Madness
Mar 19th
It’s been a lot of hard work (and we are still not finished) but it’s time for March Madness and there’s nothing like watching it in 140″ of glorious 1080i HD. Behold!
Maybe we should link those tables? Nah….
Mar 3rd
So this morning I got a LinkedIn request from a friend of mine and saw this when I accepted it. The last names are blacked out (to protect the innocent) but trust me when I tell you it was the same person. So I guess I *may* know the person I am now connected with. Nice!
MySQL Connector/Net 6.3 Alpha 2 has been released
Mar 2nd
MySQL Connector/Net 6.3.1, a new version of the all-managed .NET driver
for MySQL has been released. This is an alpha release and is intended to
introduce you to the new features and enhancements we are planning. This
release should not be used in a production environment.
It is now available in source and binary form from
[http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/6.3.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.)
The new features or changes in this release are:
- Visual Studio 2010 RC support
- Nested transaction scope support
What we know may be broken
—————————-
- Documentation is not updated yet and is not integrated into VS 2010
- Some users are having trouble installing. We are working hard to determine what is causing this problem. These users may continue having trouble with 6.3.1. Please be patient as we work through this.
Please let us know what else we broke and how we can make it better!
Wireless mic required — or not
Feb 21st
We recently acquired Rock Band 2 and I’ve been looking around for a wireless mic to use with it. I was going to pick up a copy of Lips but I was at my local Best Buy last night and saw a game on their clearance table that seemed interesting. It was a singing game based on High School Musical and appeared to come with a mic (though you couldn’t see the mic). The game was marked $9.99 so I examined it more closely.
Reading the box there was a small blurb on the back that said the following:
Gameplay requires use of a Logitech or Xbox 360 wireless microphone.
There were also several areas on the box that said a microphone was included. So, trusting what it is telling me, I picked it up. Yep, you guessed it. The microphone was wired. Maybe the reason it was on the clearance table is that noone could play it since a wireless mic is required but it doesn’t come with one.
NOTE: I didn’t have a camera with me so I couldn’t take a picture of the box. You’ll just have to trust me.
One of the things OS/X does right
Feb 21st
I’m writing this on a 2008 Macbook Pro that I dual boot between Snow Leopard and Windows 7. I spend most of my time in Windows but occasionally I pop into SL to test something out or use iMovie to edit some video. From time to time, when OS/X boots, you get this nice System Update dialog that explains that some installed software on your system needs to be updated. Here’s a shot of the one I just got.
What’s interesting to notice is that it is listing non-Apple products as having upgrade available. My Epson printer drivers and Microsoft provided remote desktop client software are both listed.
Why can’t Microsoft do this? Why do I have to manually check for upgrades for products like this?
Keeping a system fully updated is the easiest way to keep things running smoothly. Microsoft does a nice job of this with system level patches and hardware components, but it does nothing to help keep my products updated. Windows 7 gets a lot of things right but this one goes to OS/X.