I’ll be honest, I like watching The Apprentice. I always find myself comparing their project experiences to my project experiences at Avanade and even though Donald Trump is an arrogant ass, he does have good leadership qualities. If a candidate is hated by the entire team and that person is totally incompetent, he brings them into the board room with all their critics and allows them to defend themselves and call bullshit if bullshit needs to be called.
-CP
Out of the blue my Xbox 360 died today. The unit would not output any video or audio and I was seeing three red lights flashing on the Ring of Light.
I bought my Xbox from a friend back in November so I was thinking I had no chance of having this resolved under the 90 day warranty. Just as I was getting ready to rant on the phone about spending over $500 on a plastic box with red blinking lights, Microsoft said they would repair it at no cost to me. Even though I’m upset that I’m not playing GRAW right now, this has made me slightly happier about the whole situation but still uneasy given that Microsoft was so quick have it repaired. Obviously, this is not a rare situation for the Xbox 360.
-CP
In addition to all the awesome formatting and namespace management features, Resharper also detects certain coding issues like variables that gets assigned to and are never read but I was surprise to find out it even detects when a parameter won’t show up in a format string. Take the following snippet:
foreach (ResourceScheduleDetail rsd in schedule.ScheduleDetails)
{
Console.WriteLine("AT={0};ASI={1};ASD={2};MRN={3};PtName={4};AD={3};", rsd.ApptStartTime,
rsd.ApptStatusInd, rsd.ApptStatusDesc, rsd.PtMRN, rsd.PtName, rsd.ApptDesc);
}
Resharper detects, and subtly notifies you through bolding and tool-tips, that the last field is improperly indexed as 3 instead of 5 causing the last parameter’s data to not be properly displayed in the console. While this is a trivial example finding hard to detect issues like this makes this an invaluable additional to your tool belt. Snap!
-CP
Marriott can now send your bill via email with a feature they are calling eFolio. For someone that has been Platinum for the past 7 years, and constantly has to keep track of receipts for expense reimbursement I think this is awesome.
-CP
My employer, Avanade, is participating as a sponsor of an “Xtreme Techover”. This sounds a great opportunity if you qualify. Here are the details:
Avanade, NPower NY and Microsoft invite local nonprofits to apply for an “Xtreme Techover” organizational makeover, to help transform their community technology centers and administrative systems to better serve their communities. Organizations can apply online by May 26, 2006 at www.avanadeadvisor.com/xtremetechover.
One nonprofit will receive the grand prize, consisting of:
· Consulting services worth $150,000 – including two consultants for 4-6 weeks – from Avanade, the leading global integrator specializing in the Microsoft enterprise platform
· $50,000 in software licenses and $50,000 for physical improvements to a technology center or training from Microsoft
· Server and storage value of $150,000 from Network Appliances
Second and third place winners will receive an online Microsoft certification course and access to an online library of the latest technical and business books.
All applicants will receive a free one-year membership or auto-renewal to NPower NY, which includes access to discounted or free volunteer resources, software, hardware, workshops and Webinars. Winners will be announced at a June 20th breakfast for all applicants.
Deadline: May 26, 2006
Who’s Eligible: New York/New Jersey metro region nonprofit organizations that are registered as a 501(c)(3), have between 20 and 50 technology users, not affiliated with any school or hospital organization, and currently have an on-site community technology center delivering technology access to its constituents.
I know I have a few NY/NJ readers so spread the word.
-CP