The Salty Korean

My Mariah Carey Geek Rant

by Randy Walker on May 9, 2008

So if Mariah Carey is going to feature us Geeks on her videos, the least she could do is get her geekspeak right! I mean sheezh, who uses 802.11a anyway? (mentioned at the end of the video) The geek in the video needs to upgrade her firmware to 802.11n! Oh wait, I think her doctor already upgraded her “firmware”.

Well, we (us geeks) should all be happy at least. We finally got the jocks off the music videos. So does this finally lend legitimacy to the new Geek Era, or just make fun of us? In either case, my Guitar Hero is going in the trash (as soon as I find a Mariah Carey expansion pack).

Relationships

by Randy Walker on April 6, 2008

One of the most difficult things that many tech people have, are problems with relationships and communication. I was recently forwarded a document that outlines two types of relationships. I found it very appropriate to every type of relationship I have had. Parent - child, significant other, boss - employee, employer - employee, co-workers, friends. I hope you’ll read over it and evaluate yourself and the relationships you have. If you find that your boss or employer is selfish, perhaps it’s time you move on to that job that cares more about you.

Selfless	Selfish
Room to grow, expand; Desire for other to grow.	Dependent, based on security and Comfort; use of intensity of need and infatuation as proof of love, which is hiding from fear, insecurity, loneliness.
Balance of Separate interests, Involved with other friends.	Total involvement, limited social life, Neglect of old friends and interests, Other meaningful relationships.
Encouraging each other's growth, Secure in own worth.	Preoccupation with other's behavior; Dependent on other's approval for Own identity and self-worth.
Grown mutual trust and openness	Jealousy, possessiveness, fears, competition, "protects supply"
Mutual integrity preserved, Tolerance for differences, forgiveness for mistakes	One partner's needs suspended or sacrificed to take care of the other's. All or nothing, black/white thinking. Unforgiveness / Intolerance
Willingness to risk and be real.	Search for perfect invulnerability, eliminates possible risks or fears.
Room for exploration of thoughts, feelings, wants, in and about the relationship	Reassurance through repeated ritualized feelings, and needs
Ability to enjoy being alone	Intolerance of being alone - unable to endure separations (even in conflict); Hang on even tighter. Undergoes withdrawal - loss of appetite, restless, lethargic, disoriented, agony.

Received Microsoft MVP award

by Randy Walker on April 6, 2008

Ok, so my announcement is 6 days late.

I’m proud to announce that I received the coveted Microsoft MVP award for Visual Basic (currently the only MVP in Arkansas). I’d first like to thank the Academy … oh wait wrong speech again. Actually I would like to thank the following people for their help and encouragement. My apologies in advance if I neglected to mention you.

Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group - a great bunch that has been an exciting group to get to know and share with
Travis Doyle- for getting me interested and involved in starting the NWA DNUG
Caleb Jenkins - for being encouraging during his tenure of Tulsa DNUG President and Microsoft Developer Evangelist
Jay Smith- for bringing that spirit of friendly competition and taking over the building of the NWA DNUG and doing an awesome job
Jeremy Sharp- for being a terrific guy to hang out with
Chris Koenig- probably the number one person responsible in helping me get the MVP award
INETA- for being dumb enough to let me “mentor” other user group leaders
Zain Naboulsi- for being the crazy role playing geek
Phil Wheat- for hanging with me during some of my presentations
Omar Villareal- for letting me crash at his house
Dave McKinstry & Tim Rayburn- for always being willing to speak to our UG on their own dime
Peter DeBetta- for being the crazy SQL guy he is
.Net Rocks!- for allowing me to meet my hero from Carl & Gary’s VB website
Josh Holmes- my golf partner
Cory Smith- for being my fellow VB’er and introducing me to the Microsoft VB team
Steve Walker - for being that totally awesome guy that we all know and love even if he disappears off the face of the earth every few months
Mark Leon Watson- for putting up with me on the We Are Microsoft Event
all my Twitterettes- for listening to me blather on about my boring life
all my Facebook friends - for accepting my friend invites
and lastly …. Ed Hickey for allowing me to be an MVP!

Preferred method for read only Config files

by Randy Walker on March 26, 2008

I had come across an article where you can use the following line to read custom section settings from your config file (where SectionName is the name of your section) in .Net.

NameValueCollection myData = (NameValueCollection)System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.GetSection(SectionName);

The advantage of this is your setting doesn’t have to be in the app.config file (web.config). You can have a file named mywackyweirdfilename.config, and you use the exact same line. The beauty of it is in the app.config (web.config) file where you point it to reference the mywackyweirdfilename.config. e.g.

configSections <section name="SectionName" type="System.Configuration.NameValueFileSectionHandler, System, Version=1.0.3300.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/>
</configSections>

Why is this such a beautiful way to handle your config file? Because if you distribute your application, the system administrator can decide where to put the mywackyweirdfilename.config file. It could, in fact, reside on a public share (although not recommended in case of the network being unavailable) or thumb drive.

So what’s the problem? You can’t write to the config file easily. I’ll do a later post on my solution for writing to the config file, in which the format of the mywackyweirdfilename.config does not match below .

The format of mywackyweirdfilename.config for the examples above:

?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”utf-8” ?> SectionName add key=”myKey” value =”” </SectionName>