Livin' the life...

I blogged about this a little while back but unfortunately this was one of the posts that was lost. So.. here is the article again on how to view Postscript files on a pc. (Main programs being Ghostscript and GSview.)

Also, in a comment, Matt had suggested IrfanView as an alternative, so you can check that out as well - http://www.irfanview.com/.

T-1 day people .. woah!

From Saturday 22 September I've been crazzzyy busy and from what I can tell it will only get worse in the next couple days. On the up side of things, it has been a pretty enjoyable time (except for work–that's just been frustrating)! I hope to have some photos soon and when I do, I'll post'em and let you see what fun stuff I've been up to!

In helping me through these busy days, organisation is simply KEY! If you're faced with some busy days, I recommend this article - Five Tips for Getting Organised - that I peeked at to help keep everything under control/organised. Enjoy!

Here's a rather thought-provoking article I got in my feeds this morning - Top 10 Qualities to Look For in a Wife. Guys, I definitely suggest you read it, even though... to be honest, some parts sound rather utopian. Gals? Well... take a gander, this may just be the package most guys are looking for in you.

For me, I've already bookmarked it for later (like.. wayyyy later) reference.

For the last couple weeks I've had a constant problem while doing debugging in Visual Studio 2005. The issue is within the Immediate Window where, somehow, all the integer values are being displayed as Hexadecimals. (Now.. of course it's easy to just do a ".ToString" to get the integer value but this simply not ideal.)

Skipping to the solution - Google served up this nice blogspot blog titled, "Technical News about Microsoft and tips from My learning". The guy explained in very concise terms (unlike how I blog) that all one needs to do is "goto Watch Window and right click on any row and you will observe that 'Hexadecimal Display' is enabled. Select or Deselect depending on your requirement." (Ref) And presto! Problem fixed!

So guy, whoever you are, I thank you as I was truly tired of seeing hex.

Further to yesterday's post which was somewhat related to World of Warcraf (WoW) I just found this interesting and.. crazy news item on ubergizmo.com. Check the following snippet:

How much money would you spend to pick up a high level character or items in World of Warcraft? Apparently, somebody figured out that saving on all that time levelling up and searching for an elusive weapon is worth $9,500. (Ref)

I did mention that WoW is called the "crystal meth of online gaming" didn't I?

Everyone that knows Jason Nurse, would know that I spend .. well, that I'm at my computer a lot. When I'm here it's either for work, chat or miscellaneous personal projects. Lately though, I've made the decision to look more into gaming. Interestingly there are only two games that have ever caught my eye, namely Duke Nukem 3D (pc) and Crash Bandicoot (playstation).. so straight away you can see I have very unusual appetite.

Anyways, in this pursuit of some good games I downloaded what has been dubbed the "crystal meth" of online gaming - World of Warcraft (see picture). So far it's been pretty captivating.. the graphics are Excellent, game play is smooth and it being an online multi-player game that boasts 9 million members worldwide isn't a bad thing at all! (Ref) The only problems I've had so far are that: (1) I think there could be a bit more .. direction to the game, instead of leaving new users to roam or hope they find a friend in the game who's willing to give tips (trust me, you can roam FOR HOURS, there's that much 'scenery'!) and (2) to continue playing it's about $14.99 USD per MONTH (Ref).. That's correct, $14.99 USD. That one definitely broke the camel's back for me and I'm back looking for another game.

Another game that was suggested to me was Half Life 2. I've just finished downloading that one so as soon as possible I'll give it go and let you know what I think. For now, see ya later!

Needing to select a random row in MS SQL is definitely not your everyday task but then again, I'm not your everyday developer am I? . Luckily finding this SQL query was a piece of cake. Check the code below:

SELECT TOP 1 <column> FROM <table> ORDER BY NEWID()

Interesting thing is, I've never heard of NEWID() before and MSDN's description for it doesn't fit in with its use above at all! Anyway, it works.. so hurray!

Special thanks to this site for providing the code and I also recommend it as it has examples for selecting a random row in MySQL and PostgreSQL.

What's all this about Peace Day you ask? Well, to explain I've including an excerpt from http://www.internationaldayofpeace.org .

"What: The International Day of Peace provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations and nations to create practical acts of Peace on a shared date. Use the International Day of Peace annually to highlight the Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World, 2001 to 2010.

Established by a United Nations resolution in 1981, the International Day of Peace was first celebrated September 1982.

When: Annually, 21 September - The International Day of Peace

Where: Wherever you are.

Who: You and all who care about building Cultures of Peace for the children of this and future generations.

Why: To mark our individual and collective progress toward building Cultures of Peace, and serve as a reminder of our permanent commitment to Peace, above all interests and differences of any kind. " (Ref)

Now that you know what it's about, I'm sure you'll appreciate it's cause! Next step? Head over to Peace One Day and Make a Commitment and Spread the word! I'm spreading the word by using an IM display picture (the one I've included in this post) and I think I'll email a past.. friend just to say hi.

Enjoy the day and remember the focus is Peace. If you'd like, please leave a comment with what you're going to do today in the name of Peace.

Just came across what I think is one of the shortest BUT most meaningful definitions for the monster dubbed 'Web 2.0'.

"Web 2.0 is a technically and socially driven phenomenon that has made the internet world a platform for communication, collaboration and community learning." (RawSugar)

Impressive ain't it?

So I in the kitchen making some hot chocolate and I get the phone rings.. on the other end of the line is my boy Do, he starts, "So.. it seems Mourinho's left Chelsea though, or got sacked". I blurt out, "You're KIDDING!!!", and rush to the PC and browse to www.soccernet.com. To my amazement, there it was, "Mourinho sacked after Chelsea crisis meeting" (use this url). Man.. oh man.. I was so shocked I hit up www.goal.com and www.bbc.com/sports just to make sure it was true!

This is some serious stuff though..  I'm very.. very interested to see how Chelsea will perform come this weekend as they travel to Old Trafford to face Manchester United. Thing is, in Chelsea's last 3 games it's been L-D-D and somehow I doubt this will get any better at the weekend. Sir Alex will surely be looking to ride this wave and pull off an impressive win at their home grounds.

Oh well, goooo Pool!

After about two weeks offline, finally my blog has been restored! Partially anyway.. Sad to say, I've lost quite a few posts (and comments), actually, all of the ones from September and some from the end of August. Cool? Hardly! However, it really, was my fault but a lesson well learnt.

Since the blog was down, I actually was playing the harlot with quite a few of the other highly regarded blogging tools. I signed up for Wordpress and Blogger and downloaded ASP.NET 2-powered, BlogEngine.NET. Besides those, I was actually thinking about using a blogging tool I had developed myself as a little learning project-sadly it really isn't up to par.

After testing all of those options, I decided to return to the proven solution in DasBlog and just in time as well, to catch the new version 2.0, which has been fully migrated to .NET 2.0. Truthfully, DasBlog's a great blogging tool and even though I played around with the others, I don't think I would have ever left it completely. The allowance for the creation of new themes (GUI) PLUS the fact that it's open source (c# tho ) permits and encourages me to tweek as much as I want!!

Along the lines of tweeking, one of my main task now that I have the blog operational again will be to try to create macros or 'gadgets' for it. I've seen some pretty cool stuff that Wordpress and Blogger have implemented under the name of "widgets" so I'll be looking to create something like that to probably enable news, or del.icio.us favourites, etc to be shown on the blog.

For now, I bid you adieu and I will see you soon!!