Searching for my lost shaker of salt

http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/fun/wator/index

Came across this site while researching various TDD methodologies.  Its an OO approach to visualize a predator/prey model.  You need to watch it for a while to fully grasp the "drama" of the greens vs. the blacks.  Its even more interesting if you view the source code to see how its all put together.  A great white OO example :)

Wait, how can a flash drive crash?  There are no movable parts, no platters for heads to crash into... how is this possible?  Apparently (gulp), even with FastWrites turned on, you can still crash the file system on a flash drive by removing it without "ejecting it".  I know, you've done it a million times and never had a problem.  I said the same thing earlier today when my Creative MuVo drive died after a 2-day brainstorming session.  Of course I backed up my files to hard drive (not).

All was not lost.  THANK YOU to the folks who put together this freeware file recovery program that restored all my files in perfect condition!

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

Here are some lessons learned from today's heart-stopping experience (I swear I was going to die when I said my flash drive died!):

1. No not re-open Word or another Office app.  These applications "clean up" their temporary directories on start up.  By not opening them you stand a chance of recovering files just from their temp directory (typically C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Microsoft\<office app>, or a "temp" directory).
2. Speaking of Office, I found an option in Word under Options | Save, called "Make local copy of files stored on network or removable drives."  According to the help it implicitly stores a copy of the file locally, so you can save regardless if the network or flash drive goes out to lunch.
3. Don't mess with the flash drive.  The more you use it, the greater the risk of loosing everything.  Keep it away from the PC that last used it; it may have caused the problem.  Do NOT reformat the drive just yet.
4. Use the program above to scan and restore the files on a new computer in its entirety (to the hard disk!).
5. Don't panic!

Face it, there are times you want to inflict a lot of pain on your PC.  Here's some food to feed that fantasy...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5393904704265757054

Our February meeting, scheduled for 6:30 pm on Feb 16th, features author Andy Leonard.  Andy is one of the principal authors on the upcoming Wrox book on SQL Server Integration Services.

Beginning SSIS Development covers:
 - Introduction to the new SSIS Integrated Development Environment
 - Control Flow and Data Flow discussion
 - An overview of controls, connections, and package flow
 - Troubleshooting techniques
 - A demonstration (or two, depending on time) 
 
The meeting will be held at ESI in Newport News, VA:

(directions)
 
ESI Newport News 11838 Rock Landing Drive Suite 150 Newport News, VA 23606 757.873.1045 (v) From I-64 W toward HAMPTON / RICHMOND. Merge onto US-17 S / J CLYDE MORRIS BLVD via EXIT 258A. Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto DILIGENCE DR. 0.2 miles Turn RIGHT onto ROCK LANDING DR. 
 
 

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/03/pf/pay_hike_jobseeker/index.htm?cnn=yes

Its good to be wanted :)

One of the cooler things about Visual Studio 2005 web development is the addition of intellisense to web.config files.  And, of course, the one day that I really needed it (last Sunday) it wasn't working.  Turns out there is a simple reason; there is a bug in the ASP.NET Configuration utility (the admin web pages) that changes the schema definition in the web.config file.  So, if you see this in your web.config file:

<configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">

All you need to do is remove the schema definition and viola!  Intellisense returns!!!

<configuration>

VS2005 Service Pack 1???

G. Andrew Duthie from Microsoft had a great presentation on customizing the membership provider at the Richmond .NET User Group meeting last Thursday.  In reference to my earlier post, I was on the wrong track; the answer isn't to change the behavior of the default provider or add extra user properties as profile settings, you need to create your own custom provider.  The help talks about creating a custom provider when you use a datastore that isn't supported out-of-the-box (like Oracle).  While that is true, its also appropriate to create a custom membership provider when you want to integrate the new membership features into your existing data model.  This includes interfacing with your own business objects as well (woo hoo!)  Basically, you implement the MembershipProvider interface in a custom class that has knowledge of your data model and "translates" it so you can use the various membership controls that ship with Visual Studio 2005.  I've completed this in a basic form without too much heartache and will post code once its further along.