Click “Close” to Acknowledge

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Justin | Permalink 0

I’m not sure if this deserves to be complained about publicly, but it seems pretty strange to me that closing a dialog box equates to acknowledging receipt of the Quicken privacy notice–and annoying when it is a modal dialog that appears when you start the program. How many will stop to read the notice when one just wants to open the books and complete a quick task? Would it be better if there was a “Confirm” and “Deny” button? I’m not sure, but this appears to say, “We know you’re not going to read it, but here’s the very minimum we can do to let you know it exists, and until you click Close, you won’t be able to do anything anyway.”

Observations, Programming

A Better SelectList for ASP.Net MVC

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Justin | Permalink 0

The following is a more complete version of the code I posted as an answer to a Stack Overflow question. The purpose is to provide a strongly-typed method for creating a SelectList. If you work with ASP.NET MVC, you will have encountered these. This version of the code has more overloads to make it that much easier to set selected values, which is especially handy when using a multiple-selection drop-down box. You can specify a boolean to make all options selected or not, or pass a single value (string or int) or an array of values that correspond to the items you want selected.
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Programming , , , ,

Password limits. Why?

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Justin | Permalink Comments Off

I was creating an account for a web site today and hit this error:

Seriously? Why is there a limit to the password length? If I want a complex and impossible-to-guess password, I should have that right. I know that it’s not going to burden your database to allow more characters, because you should be storing it as a hash anyway!!  Please get a grip and don’t put some arbitrary limit on data fields like this.

Observations, Programming

Science Genius Girl

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Justin | Permalink Comments Off

I learned of the band Freezepop through the Rock Band games. I love their lyrics, mixing brainy terminology with humorous situations. The song “Science Genius Girl” popped up on my iPod recently and I wanted to post the lyrics here because they’re very catchy. If any song should be used to encourage more women to join the scientific fields, it may as well be this one.

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Entertainment

Laptop Waking Itself Up

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Justin | Permalink Comments Off

I’ve been using a Dell Latitude E6400 laptop for work recently. Each night, I typically hibernate my laptop so the next day I can resume where I’ve left off, avoiding the whole shutdown and subsequent power-on sequence. It has served me well in the past. However, lately I’ve found my laptop sometimes powered on in the morning and sitting at the unlock dialog as if I had pressed the power button to wake it up. Strange, right? Read more »

Observations , , , , ,

SQL: Turn a Date Range into a List of Dates

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Justin | Permalink Comments Off

I’m working on a project today that deals with date ranges being stored in SQL Server. Imagine a row in a table with a starting and an ending date. My desired output is to transform each single row into several, one for each date within the given date range.
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Programming , ,

Pawn Star

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Justin | Permalink Comments Off

Here are some photos from our recent trip to the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas. I got to see Rick and meet The Old Man. Big Hoss and Chumlee were not there. It was amazing to see how small the shop was–the TV show makes the place look huge. I was expecting it to be about twice the size, but then again, the place isn’t as crowded when they film it. At the time, Rick had a torn ACL, so he was limping around the shop and looked like he was trying to grin through the pain.

Personal

Do you want to go for a walk?

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Justin | Permalink Comments Off

I’ve been so busy with work the past couple of weeks, I have had to forego my typically daily walks with the pugs. I feel bad that all they do is sleep and eat. They wait for any chance they can get to hop in the car or go outside if they see me getting up to go somewhere. Usually a 30-minute walk will tire them out for the night. Once I’m done with this project, I’ll try to get back on schedule with them.

Personal

Solid reporting?

Posted on September 26, 2009 by Justin | Permalink 2

The lead story of today’s local paper was titled Terror suspect linked to Visalia. When you read the article, it talks about a guy in Sprinfield, Illinois who was plotting to blow up a building. What is the link to my hometown in California? His alleged MySpace profile in which he indicated a hometown of Visalia, CA according to the State Journal-Register of Illinois.

There is, however another city of Visalia in the country–one that is much closer to Illinois–in Kentucky. Since the MySpace profile has been removed, I can’t verify what it actually said for the hometown. It’s not clear from the reports if it could have just said “Visalia” or if it explicitly listed the state. The same MySpace profile said the guy attended high school in Michigan. The three states, Illinois, Michigan, and Kentucky are in close proximity to each other–much closer to Kentucky than California from Illinois or Michigan. I’m not saying the reporting is necessarily wrong, but it is a big jump to report that there is definitely a link to our city rather than another when there is no other evidence–school records or family members with the same last name–living in this city. I think somebody might have jumped the gun when searching for Visalia and finding the California city rather than the one in Kentucky.

Observations , , ,

RiffTrax LIVE!

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Justin | Permalink Comments Off

rifftrax_live_plan_9Now you can watch the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 live on the big screen in Fresno.  Check out the details here: http://www.ncm.com/Fathom/Comedy/RiffTrax.aspx or add it to your Google Calendar by clicking the button below.

Entertainment, Humor