[HTML] FIELDSET and LEGEND tags

Learned something new about HTML for the first time in years. (That's what happens when technology stops evolving - I stop learning.)

[HTML] FIELDSET and LEGEND tags

Skype 1.0 impressions

So I donwloaded Skype yesterday, since it has been hyped so much (sorry for the rhyme). The IM client and PC to PC "dialing" works well, but Skype Out has so far been a total bust. Can't make a connection due to various internal errors.

I think the most interesting part of the whole app is the P2P backbone, after reading about it, it sounds very similar to an idea that occurred to me after the big power blackout last fall: A wireless P2P cell-phone network, where bandwidth increases with additional users as opposed to grinding to a halt like it did then. Unfortunately a friend at AT&T informs me present-day technology can't support it due to the power demands placed on each node in the network

As for now, it looks like even wired P2P voice networks are having problems...

Why doesn't this work?

public bool IsIn(object subject, params Type[] targetTypes)
{
	foreach (Type target in targetTypes)
	{
		if (subject is target)
			return true;
	}
	return false;
}

Lookout available for download again

MSDN made Lookout available for download again. Get it here: Lookout for Outlook Download

99,999 Innocent Bystanders Spammed

First some depressing statistics, then some interesting proposed solutions, all based on increasing the cost of spamming: 99,999 Innocent Bystanders Spammed by Microsoft Research.

I like the solution that requires the sending computer to do some kind of computational analysis in order for a receiving computer to accept a suspicious message. Not sure how that would be implemented across all platforms though.

20 Questions

This website was able to figure out that I was thinking of a bottle of Pepsi after asking me 19 questions. Thinking of a tape dispenser took 20 questions. A steering wheel took 27 questions (though it guessed gear shift after 19). It was unable to track down my nephew - though it suggested myself, a "crush", and a cousin:

20Q

You were right, Derek, I did like it...

Tooting my horn

JetBrains is giving me a freebie: Forums - ReSharper 1.0 is released

"Besides that, we at JetBrains have a tradition of presenting our most active EAP members with a free licenses. After much voting and discussions in the team we selected the following guys, whose contributions for this EAP were really outstanding:

Oskar Austegard
Derek Thornton
Ilya Ryzhenkov
Janusz Skoneiczny
"

Thanks!

ReSharper Goes Live

Microsoft Typography - Features of TrueType and OpenType

Got to try this at home on the laptop: Microsoft Typography - Windows XP Clear Type Tuner

Lookout + Microsoft = More competition for GMail

As mentioned earlier here and here, while I was waiting for my GMail account, I came across Lookout, a fabulous add-in for Outlook. While I don't save quite as much time using Lookout as they suggest I might, it really does help when trying to find that e-mail that I sent to my boss half a year ago, or when attempting to locate an old spec file in a network share folder.

Now Lookout Software has been bought by Microsoft, or more specifically MSN. This may be just because someone within MS realized that this is a great tool that would be nice to add to Outlook, but I think it really is a direct response to the e-mail threat posed by GMail and Yahoo! Mail...

Lookout / Microsoft Q&A here.

Note to self about Control.Invoke

"Exceptions that are raised during the call will be propagated back to the caller."

This means that when you're doing a call like

target.Invoke(callbackDelegate, args);

from a background thread and you get a NullReferenceException on that line, the exception may originate from inside the target method specified by the delegate. That is - on the foreground thread.

In my case, the method called by the property called by the method called by the target method of the delegate was the ultimate culprit. I think I may need to start sprinkling in some try...catch statements, at the very least in the target method...

ReSharper Build 98 (RC3)

Getting close now... ReSharper Build 98 (RC3) Changes

Oddpost + Yahoo! vs GMail

So Yahoo bought Oddpost. GMail's excellent DHTML interface will be getting competition: Oddpost and Yahoo!

Visual Studio "Unspecified Error"/Loss of Designer support Workaround

So I lost Visual Studio designer support again, with the beautiful “Unspecified Error” error message. I have determined this is caused by the corruption of some file(s) that is not the solution (.sln) file, not any file checked into vault, and not any file related to ReSharper. I believe it is related to me deleting the obj folder (which I won’t be doing again anytime soon), and I think it has to do with Visual Studio’s source control integration, but that last part may not be the case.

In any case, the relatively simple workaround is to

• Make sure any file you want to keep is checked in,
• Close Visual Studio,
• Delete all files other than your *.sln and ReSharper files (*.resharperoptions files and _ReSharper.* folders),
• Do a GetLatest from inside Vault
• Reopen VisualStudio, and
• Rebuild your solution

ReSharper Build 96 (RC2)

JetBrains is getting ready to go live with their excellenttool ReSharper. They're now up to build 96, which is Release Candidate 2.

First Spain, Now the Philipines.

<sarcasm>Great</sarcasm>
CNN.com - Sources: Philippines bringing troops home early - Jul 13, 2004

Firefox bug fixed, thanks to Luke Hutteman

I've been mostly very happy with Firefox - I tend to forget that I am using it, which is a good sign. Except that every time I clicked on a link in Office, or tried to open a URL from my Address toolbar, I got 2 windows, or 2 tabs, of the same page. Or I'd get an error message about not finding the executable.

Luke's post fixed all that:
public virtual MemoryStream: More problems with Firefox

Apparently 'Richard' means 'dick'

We all say stupid things that we regret every now and then. But Richard "Dick" Riordan, State Education Secreatry of California told a 6 year old (jokingly) that her name meant'stupid dirty girl'...

Firefox

I'm giving Mozilla Firefox 0.9.1 a try. So far I have to say I like the Extensions concept. Tabbed browsing is a minor improvement (I had no problem Alt+Tabbing my way to different windows). Not having a true Google toolbar is annoying (where's my Blog This button in the Google Toolbar extension?), and so is the fact that Delete in the bookmarks menu doesn't work. Yet.

About Michael Moore

Personally I dislike Michael Moore just a smidge more than I dislike Rush Limbaugh. They're both pompous, arrogant slobs displaying quite a few of the traits of narcissistic personality disorder.

But I liked both of these articles:

• Unfairenheit 9/11 - The lies of Michael Moore by Christopher Hitchens, and
• Unfairenheit 9/11 = Bullshit by Byron Crawford
.

It can probably also be safely said that both Mr Hitchens and Mr. Crawford suffer from some of the same issues troubling Mr. Moore and Mr. Limbaugh, but they annoy me a whole lot less.

Elias Torres' GTray

It got a little tiring to have to manually check GMail for new mail, so I thought it would be nice to have some tray app to alert me about new e-mails.

Apparently so did Elias Torres. His GTray is excellent. I'm sure this feature will become part of the Google's Toolbar and Deskbar when GMail is out of beta...