I never thought I'd be called a RED but it seems to be a good thing according to the UK Army. The path finder test is is enable you to fit into the right job in the army but selecting from a number of pictures relating to specfic questions. Below is the report of my honest answers to this test. Is this like me?????  yes but not all of me; just a snap-shot really. I am too old to get an sort of interesting job in the UK army, but as least I've still got it so it seems

Try it yourself. http://pathfinder.armyjobs.mod.uk/

You've got an interest in other cultures and broadening your horizons. You understand how important communication is, and want to continue to develop your existing skills. You see yourself one day breaking free from the rat race - indulging your intrepid side. You enjoy plotting an adventure, as well as the rewards of the experience itself. You learn best from someone who can inspire you with their knowledge. You like to be able to soak up as much information as you can and have respect for someone who knows their subject. There's a part of you that isn't afraid to take that leap, you relish the experience of a challenge. You are in it for the results, but enjoy the journey just as much. You are a high achiever and tend not to settle for second place. You push yourself to be the best. In the next few years you hope to satisfy your adventurous ambitions. You're up for a challenge, and determined to succeed. Satisfaction comes from solving problems with your practical thinking. Employers would appreciate your diverse knowledge and proven ability to get the job done. Being somewhat of a pioneer, freedom equates to heading out on your own, hitting new experiences and pushing your limits. You're someone who not only enjoys a challenge, but also encourages those around you to keep going. Focused and tough minded, you enjoy leading others. It's good to know you can rely on the unconditional love your best friend gives you. You can trust them to lend a listening ear and support when you need it. Everyone sees how important your family is to you, and thinks highly of you because of it.

You've got an interest in other cultures and broadening your horizons. You understand how important communication is, and want to continue to develop your existing skills. You see yourself one day breaking free from the rat race - indulging your intrepid side. You enjoy plotting an adventure, as well as the rewards of the experience itself. You learn best from someone who can inspire you with their knowledge. You like to be able to soak up as much information as you can and have respect for someone who knows their subject. There's a part of you that isn't afraid to take that leap, you relish the experience of a challenge. You are in it for the results, but enjoy the journey just as much. You are a high achiever and tend not to settle for second place. You push yourself to be the best. In the next few years you hope to satisfy your adventurous ambitions. You're up for a challenge, and determined to succeed. Satisfaction comes from solving problems with your practical thinking. Employers would appreciate your diverse knowledge and proven ability to get the job done. Being somewhat of a pioneer, freedom equates to heading out on your own, hitting new experiences and pushing your limits. You're someone who not only enjoys a challenge, but also encourages those around you to keep going. Focused and tough minded, you enjoy leading others. It's good to know you can rely on the unconditional love your best friend gives you. You can trust them to lend a listening ear and support when you need it. Everyone sees how important your family is to you, and thinks highly of you because of it.

I've had this for a number of months and had put over a 1000 miles in it so far and I'm mighltly impressed with the little Honda. It just runs and runs and runs. I've not used it over the winter and its been left out in the rain, the rusty frame looks no more rusty that it did last year and well its now 20 years old so what do you expect from a bike that has been used and neglected. The mileage is now a staggering 54,000 and this is also impressive for a 1980s bike. I managed to kill the battery by trying to start it flattening the battery and leaving in a discharged state for a few weeks. So a new battery for £25 and it was sorted; deserved me right!

Starting after leaving it: First ensure you have a battery that is charged *cough* and drain the carbs; that will the carb drain screw on the left side of the bike. Drain fill then drain again to remove an stale fuel; adding a bit Redex Lead Replacement fluid into the tank will help things all no end.

Things I've done so far

Replacement centre stand; this was rotten and half of it was missing. Ebay replacement was £15 with postage and was dully painted black and the old one had to be hacksawed off. A previous owner had eh.. beat both ends to form a rivet with a large hammer. Attaching the spring was feat of brute force which I only just managed.

Right End Foot Hanger: It was cheaper to buy an ebay hanger for £6 + postage with two foot pegs than a foot peg from a scrappy or a dealer so I replaced the whole thing.

Two tyres: Cheap China Tyres as two tyres from the dealer would have cost the same as the bike so not so attractive for my cheap hack. So ordered two tyres and some levers and changed them myself. £80 for the tyres and at first I was very unsure of them, but as they wore in a bit I'm really quite impressed as they have a race type profile and are very grippy. There is an odd small slid in the wet but I suspect I would get this with any tyre as the roads are cold and greasy in Glasgow. While I had the back wheel off I cleaned and serviced the back brake and freed and lubed all the cycle parts. The backbrake is now the best I've had in any bike.

I've been using the CB350sg every day for going to work and went for my first run on it last week. It is a really old bike now; 20 years and does get a few looks with its big Honda wing on the tank, the bright red frame looks kind of cool as well. It works well commuter and you don't notice its massive 400lbs weight as your hopping between lights and queues. The front brake is a bit soft but it does have the advantage of not likely to lock up and since I'm never above 30mph its not a problem.

The big run. This was done on a Sunday afternoon (I had my chores to do in the morning) and I went from Glasgow --> Drymen --> Stirling Services; picked on mate on his 250 trail and then head upto Callander --> Trydrum --> Green Welly for a coffee and back again to Stirling services where we departd with me to the boring M80 back to Glasgow. This was a good 200 miles run and the CB was perfect and super comfy. This is the most comfortale bike I have ever owned riding for long periods is effortless with the riding position sit up and beg style. It is happy to cruise along at 60-70 with no problems. Over taking with the 33hp (claimed) takes planning and sometimes is not worth it. Better to sit back and enjoy the view and lack of wind blast. Even in the twisties the CB was very good not sports bike good rather it was good paced and takes you back to your first bike where modest speeds are fun and exciting. The only time it felt unsettled is when I crested a rise and dropped quickly into a bend, it as unsure what direction it wanted to go in but I never felt it was going to lose it or tank slap but 20 year bikes are not meant to be chucked about like that. Push it two hard and the old cycle parts and weight will get you in trouble with a capital T. But if you want to plod along at 60-70 then this is perfect for the job.

Having VISTA is good, cool and it very stable but it is not designed to work with developers, this is especially true of VS2003 developers. There is a lot and I mean a lot of .NET 1.X code out there to be supported for at least the next 10 years. Anyone thinks they are all going to be writing and supporting new stuff .NET 2.0+ then they might get good luck.

So on to the getting Vs2003 working with Vista.

If you have installed Vs2005 or VS2008 then you may have to remove then you may well have to remove them and install in order VS2003 --> VS2005 --> VS2008 sorry but this is a common issue. This method worked with for me but I suspect others will need different tweaks.

1) Install IIS on Vista.
2) Install the .NET FrameWork 1.1, VISTA only seems to support 1.0 Classic .NET for support out the box (what the.....).
3) Install .NET 1.1 service pack 1
4) Open IIS Management ; I tried all sorts of different combinations and the only one that seemed to work well was deleting the default website and creating a new one using the Classic .NET Pool. Using the ASPNET 1.1 pool would seem that one to use but this didn't work for me.

Notes:
You may have to run VS2003 as administrator
You will not be able to debug in VS2003; I am trying to find a fix for this but its being quietly ignored in someplaces.
You can browse to your localhost to view your websites. This is far from ideal but it can be done.

Alternative:
Install virtual PC and create an XP partition.

This follows the very sucessfully Developer Developer Developer days http://www.developerday.co.uk which are run commuinity events by events by developers for developers. This mean you get real world experts without the sales pitch and a good grasp real development issues. I will be going to DDD6 this weekend and really looking foward to it. A must talk for me is by Garyshort www.garyshort.org who is doing his favirote patterns.

The Scottish event on the 10th of may is the first in Scotland and is being organised by www.scottishdevelopers.com who put on events in Scotland funmily enough. I do hope the a good range of speakers and a good crowd turns up for it. I've to organise muffins for the event not the most glamourous job but I'm sure its useful nevertheless.

I had an error when adding an appsettings to a app.config file that was created with enterprise libraries 2.0 for the Data Application block. 

Only one <configSections> element allowed per config file and if present must be the first child of the root <configuration> element.

The <appsettings> was placed at  the begining of the app.config; moving it to the end seems to have cured the issue. Weird little error tihs one.

oh well it was fun while it lasted, It only took about 7 hours or so. The visual effects are really good, but you don't have time to see it as your too busy keeping yourself alive.

This came in today

1st line Helpdesk Role in Woking, £12-£15 an hour or £22k - £24k + benefits
From: (??????@peoplesource.co.uk)

I've not spent 15 years in IT working hard to perfect my skills and to raise my game for some guy to spam me for a job no one work hire me for. Recruiters the market may be tight but spamming everyone and anyone for any job is not going to do your industry much good in the long run.

Introduction

Moving databases from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2000 is not impossible and can really be quite easy once you come to grips with the basics. Microsoft has made it very easy to move databases from 2000 to 2005 by using backup and restore built into the admin tools, but this is not backwards compatible and has caused some issues, to say the least. The content of this article owes a lot to the very talented Craig Murphy, who suggested using a publishing wizard for reverting 2005 databases to 2000 in a blog entry.

Article in full can be found here

http://www.codeproject.com/cs/database/MovingSQLServer2005to2000.asp

Got a flyer with a recent web order for Geek Squad; this is a US company that’s partnered with the carphone warehouse to provide online and onsite visits to repairs peoples PCs home and small business. Look at the adverts on their site; do you really want these people in your home; they are looking for Covert Operators and Field Agents, mission controller see: http://www.geeksquadjobs.co.uk/JobSearch.aspx . Anyone who thinks this is just a CIA front might be suffering from delusions; but it does seem to be a bit odd; don’t forget you can always get a post in mission control in a bat cave near you. This might have worked well in the US but in the UK I’m not so sure. If I want a computer expert to come to my house (heaven forbid) call them an Engineer for instant respect but I’m not trying to squeeze a few bucks from a desperate and hapless home users.

Can you imagine getting the phone call:

I’d be interested to see what sort of technical experts they send out, the experts in our local retailers are quite frightening telling me how gold plated network cables double my internet speed or the latest processor makes my broadband go faster how you need to be an expert to plug in USB devices. I won’t even start on their take on VISTA never mind how everything should be covered by an all inclusive 33% of purchase price insurance (they call it a warranty but its insurance).

Recently we've been looking for a new Developer, nothing fancy just c#, SQL server, OOP and design patterns would be nice. but sadly we've not found a single one this time round that makes the grade. We don't send things into space nor do peoples lives depend on any realtime processing.  Where do all the candidates fall down; they first can't describe basic microsoft technology. Can't describe things on their own CV. Have absolutely no concept of OO; this is the real sticking point.  I have found there are types of developer out there or that we seem to interview.

Web Design Company:   Might know the front end quite well, good chance they've never used visual studio and use web matrix as their tool of choice. They only see front ends and have no real concept of application frameworks or any real depth in application design. OO forget it they know OO from their college days which was anything between 1 month and 10 years ago. Databases sure they know databases as long as its access and have no knowledge or stored procedures nor any db schema design .

Large Company :  They might use good applications that are well written and designed, but they did not write them. They add bits and bobs and make the odd patch here and they and can fix a bug or two.  SQL experts; but really only hack someone elses code code. There are other types who do small quick apps for internal use.

The Jumper: No quicker are they in a company than they are looking for their next position. The warning signs are they have only been in their current company for 3 months and have some lame excuse of why its not working. Still wants another 4K extra though as they as broad experiance in lots of companies.

Shelf-life:  Sometimes they jump sometimes, sometimes they are pushed (steady but periodic gaps) but they have a finite life in most companies. Not sure what  they seem to do or don't do but they have to month to 12 months before they are back on the market.

The Good ones:  These mythical being are out there but very hard o find.

Disclaimer:  The above is very very generalised and a lot of folk might seem to fall into one of the above while looking at CV we do give them the benifit of the doubt and interview them.

How we Interview

We look at  a CV and the experiance and start talking; we delve down routes to experiance and skill level and start asking questions until we can't ask anymore or they dry up. With luck they will be better than us. Then we go down another router and another. Why we do this is simple; we want to see if they an expert or a good grounding in their area of experiane, it is impossible to find a good candidate that matches your needs exactly so we look for good engineers in their experience.

Technical Test

This is sadly where most fall down. We give them an application spec and they have 2 hours to derive an application. The spec and app is flexible enough so they can show off their skills and we see how they focus their efforts. They can even use the internet or bring a book or use the books lying about or even ask other developers in the department for help. A good percentage only manage a few lines of code and most don't put those OO skills to the test. Some don't seems to read the spec either.