Simple human interaction isn't always bad

So Costoda was in a bad, bad, bad mood last night. What got him there? Well yesterday afternoon I had enough of Vista's blue screen oh death because of a faulty iastor.sys driver that Lenovo ships with the T61p's. I had been living with it for about a week, but when I lost 45 minutes of code, enough was enough.

CDB was kind enough to offer a Windows XP image for my laptop. After a little playing around and a second image attempt (and I admit I might have removed the CD a tad bit too early on the first attempt), the laptop was in working condition. So I put it on our fancy dancy new WSUS server and let the good times roll. I figured about 2 hours was enough time to get all the updates. This is where I was wrong.

At 6:00 PM I decided it was time to start installing my plethora of development tools to get this laptop in working condition. My hope was by 9:30 PM I could be getting back that 45 minutes of lost code. That wasn't meant to be. After installing SQL Server 2005 Dev and SP2 I noticed that winders was totally ticked off (it popped up and said things weren't starting properly). Looked into the event log. Great, errors.... Missing KB patch(es). I should have stopped there, but NO I had to go and install Visual Studio 2005 and then put SP1 on that, knowning well that I'm already missing KB patches. XP is awesome when patched, a complete pile of crap fresh out of the box. Well next reboot was a nightmare. Let's just say the laptop is now a big brick (RPC and Workstation services won't even start)

This put me in a bad mood last night and carried on into the morning. I woke up at 5:30 AM, did my normal stuff, got in the car at 6:05 with the hopes to get in really early and get this machine back into working state and get some work done. I was still in a terrible mood. All the way to work I was bitching at traffic. 5 snow flakes on the road and everyone drives like morons in Appleton. *sigh*

I get to the Express gas station where I normally grab some breakfast if I go in really early. Randy, the normal dude that works the counter was there. I walked up to pay for my lootz and he asked me how my day was doing. I told him I only hope it get's better. He chuckled and said that his night was for crap too - he stated he was waiting for drunken hookers to show up all night, but alas none had shown up to this point and he was giving up all hope. I told him funny, that was what I'm hoping for tonight. He laughed and said he would pray for me then. I walked out of the store with a smile on my face. Funny random human comment had changed my mood.

I'm at work rebuilting the laptop now in a much chipper mood.

Tired...

Well 22 hours later the L'Anse Class of 1994's Senior Video is re-edited and posted on You Tube Here. After stumbling over my lost collection of VHS tapes in the garage last week I decided I should get them into digital format before they die. I'm not sure whom all, if anyone, has a copy of the video. I felt it was my responsibility to get it in a format that I can share with everyone.

The good news is that the first part is done. Now even more work needs to get done. I decided that I can easily pop all this and a bunch more onto a DVD and ship it out to anyone and everyone that wants a copy. So I'm starting to compile a list of things that should be on the DVD. I already am working on pictures, but I really need content. So if anyone is from the Class of 1994 and your reading this, email the Costoda the scoop if you have some pictures, video, or just want to bitch about something.

Oh I can hear the commits now: "Why did you put so much video of this person or that person? Why ain't I in the video more?"

Remember folks, if you loved the camera, you got tons of time on it, and if you told me to buzz off, well then I just said screw you and went and shot someone else. Where simple rules back then, still simple rules today...

I found out several things about my classmates from 13 years ago:

1.) They all know how to use their middle finger

2.) Most of them know how to say LaBeau get out of here, or LaBeau turn that thing off

3.) The guys know how to flex

4.) The girls were always easy to deal with

Looking through the videos was like walking in to the past. A dangerous place indeed. I enjoy knowing that the past made me the person I am today, but in no shape or form will I ever wish to go back there, or fix any mistakes I ever made. The past is what it is, and the Costoda is whom he is. No one can fix that now...

-Costoda

The second coming of the MacBook Pro

For the second time in the past 3 years I'm the owner of a MacBook Pro. This wonderful 17" notebook is amazing. It's got power, beauty, and Mac OS X on it. It is using a Intel Dual Core processor, and it's rather fast. I'm not too bothered by the heat. The last MacBook Pro I had, the first generation of MacBook Pro 15" was like typing on an oven. I think they have gotten better over time.

I'm using VMWare Fusion in order to run Windows and Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. I'm also running the new Beta of SQL Server 2008 Dev. It's a pretty nice product and I'm excited to see the final release next year. Visual Studio 2008 is also pretty nice, but really the GUI hasn't changed at all from 2005.

My side project while I do homework today is to take a bunch of old video's I had on VHS and transfer them to DVD. That should be cool. I ran into a bunch of Anthony and Katie at the water park back in 1999. Man do I look different, and do they back then. So many things have changed. But it's fun to watch again. I also ran into the now famous Tease Rain videos from the Youth Center back in 1994. Man does Rock Star Chris look VERY young. I'm going to post the video's to my My Space site. I'm also working on remastering the 1994 Senior Video to DVD. I'll probably post that on a seperate My Space site.

Yes, the Costoda is still very busy as you can see. Should get back to homework.

-Costoda

More VB vs VB.NET vs C#/Java/C++

Well I loved last nights class. I got into a heated discussion with a few VB 6 programmers taking the VB.NET programming class. They were talking about a bunch of terms that I didn't understand. I love how Microsoft made up a bunch of terms for VB programmers, then decided to bring VB into the true OOP world, and thus, had to change the vocabulary so it matched other languages. Now why the didn't do this in the first place totally pisses me off.

My favorite is that they were talking about how they could just start up objects using a Property Bag. I'm like WTF is a Property Bag and they are like, oh you must not be a OOP guru because it's in all languages. This was the first time I've ever heard the exact term Property Bag, so I was getting fusterated. Well it turns out that is what VB used to call Serialization, a feature I've used in Java over 8 years ago to write the state of an object to disk and read it back in at a later time. More information is here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa289514(VS.71).aspx

What I also love is that they hide the code behind files in VB.NET. WTF is up with this? So I ask my professor, and he is like "Oh no one ever needs to go into that file". I'm like WHAT??!! Are you kidding? I couldn't even process that. VB.NET assumes programmers are dumb or something, because they just hide way too many things from people.

I now know I will never be a true VB programmer. I would have to forget too much stuff I already know...

-Costoda

Vista Home 64-bit woes

Well it has been a fun filled holiday weekend. Heck yeah, what's better than reinstalling Windows Vista 64-bit on your main PC? Nothing I can think of. It was a regular party of sorts.

I found a great bug where the ntfs.sys file in c:\windows\system32\drivers\ becomes corrupt. After that, you can't even stinking repair the installation. I tried everything minus standing on my head and clapping my hands at the same time. Needless to say Friday and Saturday were spent re-installing the OS and all my apps. Now Visters is back to normal, and a bit faster since I decided to format the drives different this time.

So I've been playing Bioshock a bit in my free time (which I have none of). Anyone that is a gamer and hasn't been playing this game before is cheating themselves. This game has some of the best graphics the Costoda has ever seen, period. Very early in the game you have to make a tough decision: do you help the little sisters, or do you harvest the Adam from them at the cost of there lives? Scientists have modified them, they are no longer little girls. Now they are zombies with parasites living inside them. So which decision did the Costoda take? Do you even have to ask? It's all about the Costoda, so I'm going to harvest them. Damn straight. Before I start hearing people asking me if I'm a sicko, remember people, it's only a GAME!! Man I've read blog posts where people are pissed about this part of the game. I myself can tell the difference between reality and a game. I won't be going out killing zombies and looking for parasites inside of them. So rest assure little zombie girls of the real world, the Costoda doesn't give two craps about you.

Today is homework day. Tons of reading, tons of other crap that must get done. I hope you all enjoy your last day of freedom before life comes and takes you back to your twisted world they call reality...

-Costoda

Costoda <3 Levono

Well where to start with this wonderful story. So I'm talking on the phone this afternoon, trying to schedule a meeting with admin from another office. I'm looking through my Outlook calendar hoping to find a few hours free in the next two weeks to book her in for a conference call when I hear three really loud beeps come from the ThinkCentre tower on my desk. These beeps were loud enough that the person in the next cube heard them. Then my screen went black. Pitch black, like in I'm screwed pitch black. AWESOME!!! So I try to start it back up. I get the same three loud beeps and shut down. WTF. Pull power cable, wait 30 seconds, plug back in. No power to the box now.

Well I can see that the quality IBM was bringing to the desktop and laptop market went out the door when Levono purchased them. I've used IBM laptops, desktops, and servers for over 10 years. I have never seen the failure rate as high as it has been since Levono purchased them. I won't even go into the T60 notebooks. My blood pressure can't take it. Thinking happy thoughts, puppies and kitties. O.k. I'm better now...

I got Mobile 6 on my Treo thanks to some wonderful people in Russia and Google. Mobile 6 runs like a charm so far. I really do like it a lot. Much faster, and the battery life is even better. I know some might find this hard to believe, but after a full day my battery is way fuller than normal, AND I have been using the phone more today than normal since I'm looking at all the new features, GUI, etc. I only feel for you suckers that are left in the Windows Mobile 5 world, or worse yet, Pocket PC 2003. For all you dev's, .NET Framework 2.0 Compact is now in ROM. Yes, you read that right. Isn't that the cat's meow?!! Oh and Bubble Breaker, Google Maps, and MAME still work in Mobile 6.

I've been looking hard at those MacBooks. A kid in the VB.NET class I'm taking has one and man that new screen is just WAY too sexy. I could see the Costoda using that instead of his 24" iMac at home. Now if I could get it into the building at work without El Guapo having the snipers shoot me down because I'm carrying an Apple product.

Last but not least big thanks to Mac Daddy Micheal at work for scoring me a new 2 GB iPod Nano from the Apple store in Milwaukee after my current one did the "white screen of death". I love my iPod Nano and running hasn't been the same since I've been forced to use my 30 GB iPod video.

Needless to say I predict a new iPod in my future as Apple has a new event scheduled for September 5th. What can I do? The Steve says I should buy all his good warez because Apple rules. I must obey the Steve, for he tells me all that is good in the universe comes from Apple....

-Costoda

VB.NET 2008 vs. C# 2008 - Round 1

OK, so if you don't already know the Costoda is taking a VB programming class. Ok I know a lot of you are already thinking, WTF - how is he going to last in that class and whom is that poor professor that has to deal with the Costoda for 18 weeks? Well to start, the instructor is really cool, although I do feel sorry for him.

So according to Microsoft the only difference between VB and C# is syntax because everything is converted to MSIL. Ok I will drink this kool-aide. So I start up Visual Studio and make a new VB project. I make some private vars and then make my first method. I go through and type in a new method that I haven't created yet, expecting to use Visual Studio's awesome refactoring tools to generate a stub method. Right click on the name, what's this, NO CREATE stub method... WTF!!! So next I take some code and release that really this code should be in another method, so I select the code and go to right click on the code and refactor it to another method, and NO refactoring menu option. WTF!!! Come to find out, these are only available in C#. Wait, I though they were the same except for syntax. True, but Visual Studio's editor doesn't think that way. Instead C# get's all the cool features in Visual Studio... Oh they are equal, R.I.G.H.T.

Next WTF is up with the complete different terminology for stuff like static, I mean Share. Another example is this whole Me vs this object. C++/C#/Java I get the 'this' object, in VB that's the 'Me' object. Then I see this Dim is sometimes private and sometimes not. I see this crap all over the place. How do VB programmers talk to C# when you have all this damn terminology crap that makes a barer between the two. But wait, they are equal. R.I.G.H.T.

Ok so my conclusion is that they are NOT equal until I can do the same crap in my VB project in Visual Studio as I can in C#. Until then, VB.NET is always going to be some kind of candy language given to VB 6.0 programmers so they don't jump ship to Python and open source.

-Costoda

Why buying from the Internet is so much easier than buying from Best Buy

Ok where to start? Saturday the Costoda decided that his piece of crap Microsoft wheel mouse on his 24" iMac has out lived it's usefulness. So, the decision was made to pick up a super cool Razer Death Adder mouse. This is the same mouse that is on my 64-bit workstation UGM (Ultimate Gaming Machine). Getting Vista 64-bit is a whole other blog post.

So anyhoo I take a trip to the Best Buy on the west side of town. They had one left in stock. Perfect. I purchase and take my prize home. I get home plug it into the mac, great blue light comes on, but no mouse movement. Ok, I reboot. Still no mouse movement.... Ok, plug into the ThinkCrap. Still, same thing. Ok plug into UGM. Same thing, no stinking mouse movement. *sigh* It's 11 PM by this time, which means I'll have to return it on Sunday.

I go to Best Buy at 12:15 PM. After standing inline for 20 minutes I explain how the mouse looks awesome but doesn't work and I want one that does work. She states I should go and get one to replace it with from the shelf. Ok, I go and look, no stinking mice on the shelf. GREAT!! So I go back and stand in line for 10 more minutes. After a few calls she states the store on the East side of town has a few and I should pack up my crap and go there. Needless to say by this time I'm already late for another appointment, so this will have to wait until Monday, which is today.

So after work I go to the store and stand in line. I explain my store AGAIN and she looks in the computer. Ok they have one left in inventory. I go to the shelf, no mouse. GREAT!!! I go back and explain to her that it's not there. She looks around. 15 minutes passes. Some dude comes up and states they will have to get another one from a different store. He attempts to make his Cisco VOIP phone connect to another store in Wisconsin. 1o more minutes pass by. As he finalizes the day, the chick returns from the back with the last mouse they have. They found it. So after like over 2 hours of running around I finally have a working mouse.

So explain to me why this is worth paying way more for a mouse when I could order it from Newegg have it here in 3 days and pay a LOT less for it? I want to drink the help out the local community by purchasing crap local, but man oh man, sometimes they make it really hard to swallow....

Costoda