Rev’s Thought Dump

Remember.  Setting variables to null doesn’t necessarily mean null. I had an Enum variable that I would set once.  So I’d declare it:

Values MyValue = null;

Then, in the natural order of things I’d check to see if it was null and assign it the current value if it was.  But, oddly enough it was never null. I forgot in obj-c (or c in general) unless you specifically set a pointer it’s pointing at god knows what.  So I added a None value to my enum and made sure to set it up as such:

Values MyValue = Values.None;

Make sure you have the images added to the project as “Content” and not as “Embedded Resources”.

I really haven’t been updating this very often have I? Probably because I spend so much time fighting with IE.

Just a quick heads up. I’ve talked about Mono in the past. Get your C# app on any platform. Now they’ve released MonoTouch.

MonoTouch allows you to develop iphone apps in you favorite .Net/Mono language and compile it down to run on the iPhone. You can use Xcode’s Interface Builder to edit the views and layout.

When complete your app it just like any other and can be submitted to the App Store.

This is a licensed and for pay tool. But you can download MonoTouch to evaluate and it’d fully functional, save the ability to build to your iphone (You can test in the simulator).

Have a look. I’m porting the app I was previously working on to it and we’ll see how it goes.

I got really tired of how restricted the TPain download options are. They claim you can share your song on Facebook and My Space as well as email it to friends. Well, no. Your file is uploaded to the smule site and facebook page (dunno about myspace). And then you can link from there.

I quickly created this Greasemonkey script that will create a link you can use to download your file from the smule servers. They were a little tricky with the way they create the url to the file for the flash player. So when you go to the site with the script, click the play button on the player and the link will appear above the name of the song.

Enjoy

http://www.revfry.com/stuff/t_pain_song_link.user.js

Fought with this one for a while. I was trying to use a selector to grab all check boxes in a given DIV. So I used this:

jQuery(‘#ResultsList :checkbox’).each(…

So, of course this works in EVERY browser, save for IE. After hit and missing for a while I found that being more specific fixed the issue.  Like so:

jQuery(‘#ResultsList input:checkbox’).each(…

In the docs they suggest using input just to narrow down the options and speed up the call.  Clearly it’s not an option in IE.

Took me a while to find this since it worked earlier when called .live on it.  Oh well.  Problems solved.

Hopefully it saves you some hair.

Okay, so I’m trying to have the .NET conversion of the site at work use Entity for our Data Access Layer. Seems reasonable. I also figure I’ll represent the different silo’s of data (accounts, catalog, etc) into their own Entity Contexts and in their own Assemblies… all under a namespace.. like DAL.Accounts or DAL.Catalogues. So far so good.

Now my thinking goes that I’ll want these accessible by any of the web applications we’ll be creating for the site. And I’ll only want to maintain one copy of the files rather than spread across all the web apps. So clearly I should put the assemblies in the GAC.

First issue comes up is that the default connection string is stored in the app.config file. This isn’t put in the GAC. So, no default connection string. Hrmmm okay…

Well, if I put the appropriate connection string in the web.config of the web app this should suffice. Hrmm stretching a bit.. but okay. Ooop, nope. Not working. Well, perhaps I need to be specific about the assembly name in the reference section of the connection string. Noooo… still hates me. In looking at the documentation is looks like (if I read it correctly) it’s going to search for the resources files in assemblies in every spot BUT the GAC!

Sure, sure… I can create a context and pass the connection string in by hand. okay.. that works. I even created an EntityFactory class in the assembly to pass back a new context… so I don’t have to worry about knowing the connection string. But, I’m faced with the fact that none of the data binding is working.

What am I, or Microsoft, doing wrong here? Clearly one of the two of us is at fault.

Just got back from picking up my iPhone Stencil from Design Commission. The stencil looks nice. Look forward to using it as soon as I get a chance to design one of my ideas. Got to email a company and see if they’d have my app pulled if I did it. We’ll see.

Oh, and 3rd and Yesler is a pit! Like one of the lower levels of hades. Uggg.

I’ve found myself reaching for my iPhone and my twitter client, which I’ve deleted. It’s like reaching for smokes all the time. Oh well. It’ll pass. Now I need start getting projects in order.

So, I’m breaking up with twitter. But not just twitter. I’m reorging my tech heavy life to try and get focus and control back.

My focus and time management are trashed and with ADD, a very delicate thing to begin with. So I’m pulling a Star Trek reboot on how I do things and the tools I use to interact with others on the net.

I’ll be rolling back to my blog as my outlet for ideas and tips and what not. I mean, the sub caption is “Rev’s Thought Dump”. For chatting feel free to email me or even IM if you’re so inclined. Could even call!

Yeah, it’s just time for me to finish projects and work on myself for a change.

It was cool meeting everyone on twitter. And it’s been my primary social outlet. But I get nothing done with it in my life. Not just twitter, but that’s the most notable outward change.

To email and chat I can tell you I have a Gmail account and it’s rev(dot)fry.

Hope to keep chatting with everyone from twitter. It’s not you, it’s them. =)

(go go power iPhone wordpress app)

“I’m Philbert and I approve of this message.”

Had a conversation with my coworker about customer service asking for passwords on the phone. It devolved into us taking turns in creating the fictitious one side phone support call transcribed below. At the time we laughed our asses off.

Excuse me sir i’ll need the social and cc numbers for you and your extended family in order to fix that site problem…. in fact just mail a check to this po box.

Do you have a daughter? Uh huh?  Is she cute?  uh huh… 16?  Yeah… yeah, I was afraid of that sir.  Yeah she made need to fly out here and stay with me for a few weeks while we get this fixed.

no the blank checkis just for identity validation purposes…. yes you must sign it

Noooo…. if you write VOID on it then it’s VOID and I can’t….. erm…. use it to fix the problem.

Are you trying to void your identity sir …. i beleive that may be illegal…

Something tells me, you’re the kind of sick terrorist bastard type that rips the tag off their matress.  Am I right, sir?  AM I RIGHT?! I’m sorry sir, but to continue working with you despite my moral judgement I’m going to need you to send me a $150 star bucks card.  yes, yeah, that’s right sir.  Just send it along with your daughter.

I’m going to need you to make several deposits to this account in order to establish a “Freedom of  Information Transaction Channel” – no don’t worry the money will never really l;eave your account – it wil;l just appear that way for a little while…

We are sorry for the increased security sir – unfortnately these measures have become nessacary in the post 9/11 world…

Of course, sir, everyone in the know will deny all knowledge.  The is triple top secret stuff, you understand.

you are very lucky to have been selected for this special patriot plus program.

To decline our offer would surely indicate terrorist ties and you WOULD be subject to a full body cavity search as well as complete IRS audit.

Ahh, bein’ nutty is fun.  I <3 imagination.