tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:06:39 +0000Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone's mind... Curiosity is such a powerful force. Without it, we wouldn't be who we are today. Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder. --Clara Ma, Elementary school student.http://theniceweb.com/noreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)Blogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-3308962653237131601Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:57:00 +00002010-03-13T10:06:39.410-07:00hostingWhatever was free once, is no longer free, after all, Google has to get money out of something else, other than ads...I had used Blogger for a while, probably since their beginning when it was acquired by Google.I never liked to host my blog on their servers though, and I still won't. Hosting on my own account gives me the freedom of owning anything I post, whether it is a rant, an image or just http://theniceweb.com/2010/03/blogger-to-stop-ftp-publishing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-6578868265411304489Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:56:00 +00002010-03-13T09:52:57.351-07:00localizationglobalizationI found one single character from the French language that its binary representation is not the same for Unicode and Windows-1252. The oe ligature. Let me rant about it...create table test_table(name1 varchar (1) ,name2 nvarchar (1) )insert test_tablevalues ('œ', 'œ')select * from test_tableselect ASCII(name1), ASCII(name2), Unicode(name1), unicode(name2) from test_tableselect COL_LENGTH('http://theniceweb.com/2010/03/to-nvarchar-or-to-varchar-in-sql-server.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-1141125356070680508Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:42:00 +00002010-03-04T18:43:17.793-07:00fooling aroundhttp://theniceweb.com/2010/03/i-couldnt-stop-laughing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-5377003231778251583Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:00:00 +00002010-02-02T22:26:34.621-07:00Coming from a C# world I'm trying to get a grasp on the Java language, mostly for comparison purposes and to see if really the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.What I like so far of the Java 1.6 that I see C# might benefit from:1. The main one is cross platform portability. I wish Mono would have more support.2. Enums are more complex, but I'm wondering if we ever really use that http://theniceweb.com/2010/02/java-initialization-blockswhy-should-we.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-5919097190382599884Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:42:00 +00002010-01-04T18:52:07.173-07:00vacationWe drove to St Agustin while visiting Florida these holidays and to my surprise they had a museum with Martí and the Cuban flag :)... mi bandera.http://theniceweb.com/2010/01/cuban-flag-with-hdr-touch.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-1580640735782211659Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:28:00 +00002009-12-05T08:44:26.714-07:00cachingHTTPIE6 and IE5The reason why I published this link is because a coworker had a problem with viewing a PDF on IE6 when the cache was set to no-store over https.The problem does not happen with Internet Explorer 7 or above or with FireFox, but the old IEs fail to retrieve the files when the cache directive is no-store or no-cache.More of this on:Internet Explorer file downloads over SSL do not work with the http://theniceweb.com/2009/12/http-11-caching-directives-for-dummies.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-2097966353564760396Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:18:00 +00002009-12-02T19:21:17.548-07:00data exchangeschema filesxmlI'm coming across more and more projects that make heavy use of xml for data integration or data exchange that lack of schema files.First case:My team was POC-ing the integration with a third party web service. I won't mention names but this company is one of the main sources of collected data for rating. After a purchased subscription for monthly text files with data dumps we are also able to http://theniceweb.com/2009/12/importance-of-schemas-wheres-that-xsd.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-2045777958265833798Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:32:00 +00002009-11-04T21:47:12.825-07:00I came across this articleWhy use the Entity Framework? Yeah, why exactly?refuting a marketing like article by one of the EF team members.After using NHibernate for a while and looking into JPA and old JDO on the Java world, I don't think I'll get my hands on the EF any time soon, if I can avoid it.Why? The main reasons are summarized on this site:ADO .NET Entity Framework Vote of No ConfidenceI http://theniceweb.com/2009/11/re-microsofts-entity-framework.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-7595032449361021527Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:31:00 +00002009-10-26T20:36:42.142-06:00http://geocities.yahoo.com/http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/26/geocities.closing/index.htmlI had my first free sites posted there back in the late 90s...This is how the web used to look like back then :-phttp://web.archive.org/web/19961022173245/http://www.geocities.com/http://theniceweb.com/2009/10/rip-geocities.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-180992320117366431Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:27:00 +00002009-09-29T08:31:23.818-06:00ramblingsThe nasty truth about misapplying duct tape solutions in serious software development is that the duct tape solution ends up creating unnecessary additional complexity because it doesn’t address the whole problem, just the symptoms. This isn’t unique to software development, but if duct tape solutions are used to achieve short term gains, then future solutions are built on a foundation of duct http://theniceweb.com/2009/09/debunking-duct-tape-programmer.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-6756299315394946437Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:00:00 +00002009-08-25T20:31:57.164-06:00AgileUI1. Give users multiple ways to achieve their goals2. Give users all the functions they need to achieve the task at hand.3. Be consistent in navigation, screen layout, and interaction design.4. Use ‘widgets’ correctly. Incorrect use of widgets make people confused.5. Assume users have no memory. They shouldn’t need to remember things about function or navigation.6. Users are like Bears. Never http://theniceweb.com/2009/08/usability-advise-i-got-from-expert.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-3772154587206383945Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:20:00 +00002009-08-11T12:37:58.731-06:00web 2.0web composition pluggable architectureOn my previous post I ranted about the need my team has for a plug in implementation for a web portal. I'm sure this requirement is on almost every web team that develops a web portal.We were paying close attention to the ASP.NET MVC framework in conjunction with MEF:MEF and ASP.NET MVC sampleand see great potential here. the only drawback is that plug ins will run as part of the same applicationhttp://theniceweb.com/2009/08/composing-web-applications-with-aspnet.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-4523066825445580633Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:06:00 +00002009-08-05T08:22:35.021-06:00web 2.0I must confess that the lack of posts on my blog are mainly due to a very silly reason, I started playing FarmVille on Facebook with my friends and it reminded me of my favorite game SimCity.What I like most about the game is how it runs on an iframe, is able to send requests to all the FB friends and keeps the FB session alive even though I haven't clicked outside of the FarmVille iframe in a http://theniceweb.com/2009/08/can-cross-browser-communication-solve.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-6278766260365886981Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:52:00 +00002009-07-29T11:09:51.347-06:00fooling aroundI should be posting about serious technical concerns and I soon will, but this is hysterical...http://theniceweb.com/2009/07/did-you-ever-wonder-how-does-bill-gates.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-4266997542264042267Fri, 05 Jun 2009 19:55:00 +00002009-06-15T09:20:47.283-06:00MocksArchitectureLast week I attended a conference by Mario Cardinal at MSN Canada. The conference was part of the Toronto Architecture User Group.The presentation had quite a few valid points along with the concept of "velcro" or test bed for modules. Test beds are a very familiar concept in electronics. In order to test hard drives or dvd drives, the manufacturer create test beds as opposed to test the parts inhttp://theniceweb.com/2009/06/concept-of-test-beds-or-velcros-for.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-2924751373267739722Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:19:00 +00002009-06-05T09:29:27.246-06:00fooling aroundI like helping my family whenever I can. Two weekends ago I set up the wireless network at my aunt's and last weekend my dad had a problem with a software he installed.He needed the Vademecum application to do some research on prescription drugs (dad is Endocrinologist and draws comics on his free time)The Vademecum application is a Java based desktop application and for some reason, after Dad http://theniceweb.com/2009/06/being-tech-support-for-fam.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-3745064219416741328Tue, 26 May 2009 04:10:00 +00002009-05-25T22:32:25.826-06:00JavaC#Back to BasicsI'm looking into the SCJP 6 as I don't have hands on experience on Java projects (only academic apps). I had bookmarked long time ago a great C# vs. Java comparison Dave Obasanjo made: A COMPARISON OF MICROSOFT'S C# PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE TO SUN MICROSYSTEMS' JAVA PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE I noticed tonight that the member's access modifiers could use some tuning and show: <!--[if gte mso 9]> http://theniceweb.com/2009/05/java-vs-c-access-modifiers-looked-by-c.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-4640636238826601943Thu, 21 May 2009 14:00:00 +00002009-05-21T08:11:57.346-06:00C#How can I add a new empty item to a datasource (BindingSource) if the collection that it contains has objects of unknown type at design time: if (dataSource.GetType() == typeof(BindingSource)) { IEnumerator en = dataSource.GetEnumerator(); en.MoveNext(); Type t = en.Current.GetType();http://theniceweb.com/2009/05/adding-empty-item-to-ilist-collection.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-5622612311239391124Mon, 18 May 2009 23:03:00 +00002009-05-18T17:07:05.576-06:00Out of CuriosityVisiting downtown Chicago I couldn't help but falling in love with this piece of art and its eternal waves...AQUA from Spirit of Space on Vimeo.http://theniceweb.com/2009/05/aqua-tower-in-chicago-my-favorite-piece.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-2747946524319136437Wed, 13 May 2009 17:01:00 +00002009-05-13T11:10:52.665-06:00Out of CuriosityFor all the Java junkies that can't get away from Eclipse, please see the release of Eclipse4SL from Soyatec.I particurlarly prefer Visual Studio but can tell that the Express editions are not the best choice when debugging .NET code.http://theniceweb.com/2009/05/silverlight-development-on-eclipse-with.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-812864147928225183Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:02:00 +00002009-04-29T09:12:17.532-06:00SQL Server stuffMerge ReplicationI got the following email from devx.com, unfortunately when I replied to this colleague, the email bounced. I'm hoping he can Google this up.Hi Lizet, I just read your article on www.devx.com about data loss in Merge Replication. Unfortunately we are experiencing this exact same bug. I have already upgraded the subscriber server to SP3. Do you know if the fix for this issue is included in http://theniceweb.com/2009/04/old-sql-server-2005-merge-replication.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-7346167698936725107Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:20:00 +00002009-03-26T08:20:36.947-06:00Out of Curiosityhttp://theniceweb.com/2009/03/cant-wait-to-touch-it.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-6822948879644720894Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:57:00 +00002009-03-25T10:12:55.660-06:00Reporting ServicesIt's finally here, had I had this feature at the beginning of last year...Finally you can apply different styles to the text on your text boxes and even more, you can retrieve rich formatted text from the database and view the formatting on your report.It doesn't work well with background color attributes yet...List of new features Thread on MSDN about rich formatted text coming from the http://theniceweb.com/2009/03/long-awaited-feature-on-reporting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-6388872269145598878Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:41:00 +00002009-03-20T15:23:36.005-06:00composed applicationswcsfI'm right now looking for options on composing web applications. I recently took part of an interesting project with the composite application block framework (CAB) developed by the patterns and practices team and am certainly looking for the web equivalent. That been said I should add I have a great deal of frustration now.I had been subscribed to several discussion threads at Codeplex for the http://theniceweb.com/2009/03/wcsf-falling-short-on-composing-my-web.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14212809.post-3003713753097860745Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:24:00 +00002009-03-17T08:42:14.143-06:00TSQLIn SQL Server 2000 and 2005 you have the money data type and the smallmoney data type. (Oracle doesn't have this data type)You wouldn't think there is anything smaller than a penny or a cent in money matters, so why did they designed these data types with 4 decimal places? To help hackers puts all the partial pennies in a separate bank account? :-p or to keep compatibility with Excel and allow http://theniceweb.com/2009/03/i-hope-they-deprecate-money-data-type.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Lizet Pena de Sola)1