Wow, 1000 comments for 338 posts…pretty good. Thanks for taking me to the bleeding edge Chris!

Last night, Robert McLaws posted the 3 interviews he has coming up with some superb names over at Microsoft. Normally, I like to see his things crash & burn (VisualBlogger 2004(5) anyone?), but this time around I’m supporting him. I just popped over to see if he’s received any comments concerning the interviews, and heartbreakingly enough, he’s received none. Personally, I don’t have any questions, otherwise I’d post them…but I know there are a few of you out there that have that undying canny for creating obscure questions that makes guys like these squirm because of NDA.

So, hop on over to his posts and submit a question for John Montgomery, Brian Goldfarb, and Don Box.

recursion

n. See recursion
See also: recursion

Seriously, a SQL Index I created scared me. Here’s the story – I’m working on a project at work, and this table that is used to collect information has about 100K records in it – basically 1 record per day with 450 unique combinations. And, not to mention our testing data is from Sept. of ‘04 – so the live database has about 130K of records.

So, anyways – I was creating a stored procedure that retrieves those 450 unique records, and have 2 sub-queries that grabs info from the “large” table. Talk about slow, right? No indexes on it, so I created 2 different indexes for columns that I use, and that sped it up from many minutes (like 10) to 9 seconds. Ohh, but thats still not fast enough – so I turned to the SQL Performance Monitor and Index Tuning Wizard (that which rarely results in providing any good information).

But this time it was different, yes, this time it suggested I create a new index that combined the 2 columns into 1 index. So, I did – reran the query…

And with a flash of the screen, and a curddling scream like a girl, I had my data…yes, it was under 1 second, and was more like a few milli-seconds. So, my word of advice, index…index…index – but only if you have to. You’d be amazed with the speed that indexing can do. Now, back to the world I know well, ASP & ASP.NET development. I think I’ll leave the DBA stuff to our Data Architect from now on.

The news is true, and I just have to say – good. JavaHMO will be moving to Tahiti, or HME after the 2.3 release. Why is this good? Well, so much of JavaHMO has hooks into the HMO specs to make things work, that as Leon states, is a terrible mess. Moving their applications to use HME, will advance the functionality of JavaHMO making things much easier. The code name is currently slated as Galleon for the JavaHMO re-write.

[Via TiVo Blog]

Ohh – another thing, PVR Blog setup a new HME section. Check it out – I’m sure it’ll grow over time.

It’s nice to see TiVo supplying something for the large developer grouping of us. Tahiti, the code name for TiVo’s SDK, will be released on SourceForge sometime soon with a few example applications that “allow DVRs download information and content from the Internet that wasn’t possible to download before.”

However, the CNet article points out a few examples that are already available for JavaHMO using the Home Media Option. Maybe Tahiti can provide a more streamlined way of doing it, and not having to generate images.

The good? Well, its Java based, which means it’ll be able to fit right into JavaHMO allowing for their developers to do so much more with a great product. The bad? It’s a Java based SDK – which means someone is going to have to port it to .NET so that I (or many of you) can use it.

[via CNet]

Update: Here’s the direct link to the Home Media Engine (could this actually be the SDK name?).

Toolkit includes a sandbox TiVo emulator app you can run on your desktop to test applications against

Developer backdoor password that enables HME (will require that you have the new TiVo 7.1 OS)

You can now code simple games, audio applications, video applications, and utilities in Java that will run on your computer and communicate with any TiVo with the backdoor enabled on your network (you can share your code with others if they want to run the apps too)

Developer contest announced, to award the best apps developed in the next few months

Included sample apps include a simple game, a RSS reader, and a weather app

 

[via PVRBlog]

So I decided tonight that I was going to force a TiVo update, and this time around it was finally successful. TiVo ToGo, or rather the latest TiVo software was downloaded to my TiVo. After a restart, and another half hour of waiting while it processed the information…I finally had TiVo ToGo. Now, I’m transferring some shows over (small ones of course) to see if I can play it even though I don’t have a supported media codec. Oh yeah, the night has cometh – TiVo ToGo is mine

Update: Looks like my decoder that isn’t supported works like a charm. And so I have 3 minutes of Married with Children to just test. I’m suprised my wireless network transferred that 3 minutes pretty fast. This is sooo cool. Now, how to bypass the decoding stuff and record to DVD without any software. If you’ve got any pointers, let me know.

So on December 28th, I ordered 3 iTunes gift cards from Amazon with my $40 gift card bonus from work, and it has finally shipped. What really sucks is that the first round of ship dates came and gone, and so they bumped it out a week. Yesterday, I shot an email to them saying how unfortunate it is that they cannot fulfill thier orders in a timely fashion. They, however, gave me a sob story that the iTunes gift cards were backordered and they didn’t know when they were getting some in…okay, they’re gift cards – geezus, its not like I’m buying 3 42” plasma tvs or something! So, they finally responded and told me they were upgrading my shipping to 2 day priority from my free shipping that would take 3–5 days. Well, my items finally got shipped…late today (Friday). Which means, it won’t actually go out until Monday – why? Well, 2 day shipping doesn’t get picked up on weekends, so my 2 day shipping is going to take 4–5 days, and so we’re back at the beginning of this vicious cycle except for the fact that I know my gift cards are on their way.

Following David’s example and great code, I also added searching to my blog. Do the same for your blog!

I just finished reading Mike Gunderloy’s latest, Developer to Designer – GUI Design for the Busy Developer, and to sum it up, this book takes up where his other book (Coder to Developer) leaves off. Developer to Designer has a lot of useful information contained in it about proper design considerations for developing windows, web, and Avalon (yes, Avalon) applications.

I must say that this book, on a technical level, is well below what I normally read. This would definitely be a book for developers just starting out in the working world, or those switching careers to that of the more illustrious geekdom. I found it very rudimentary in the level of detail that was brought into describing different elements of design. Sure, I picked up a few pointers, but for the most part I scanned 1/2 (or more) of the book.

I was also considerably dissapointed with the amount of content in Windows vs. Web based design. In the book, he states that web design has its limitations (which obviously it does), but barely chips the ice off the top of the sculpture when discussing it. Coming from a high level of web based programming and design (I’m not claiming to be a graphic designer, my websites show that I don’t have that technical skill), I would have expected more out of the few chapters that he did explain. It seems evident to me that filler was needed to extend the length of the book, so what better than describing HTML elements and how to use them rather than describing best design decisions when creating websites.

Lastly, the final chapter was based on next generation user interface design…specifically Avalon & Longhorn. This chapter seemed completely out of place within this book, and most of the content that was contained seemed more of a “intro to Longhorn” book that probably has already been published. This chapter was completely useless, as it focuses on more of a specific future technology rather than generalizations like the first 3/4 of the book that can be applicable to all development platforms (yes, even Macs). Personally, I would have left this chapter out completely, but my guess is that it was in there due to needing filler.

So, what’s my overall reaction to the book? Well, I’m not impressed, but at the same time I’m not un-impressed (well, except for the Longhorn chapter). I personally wouldn’t have gone out and purchased this book if it wasn’t for me receiving a free copy (Thanks Sybex!). But, if you’re new to windows (and, well I guess web – but I wouldn’t use this for that primary purpose) development, I’d suggest this book. It does give you a very detailed explanation of good design patterns that are currently used. However, if you’ve done some design previously I’d shy away from this one, as it’s probably too rudimentary for your technical skill level.