DaveFrank.com

Nazi Identicons

dotnetdave — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:02:35 GMT

Some alert commenter on my dysfunctional blog pointed out that some of the icons, that appear next to people's comments, look like Nazi symbols. Well, they're right. Some of them do look very nazi-esque. I'm sure the folks who created them, and the makers of my blog platform, will be pleased to learn that. Man, I'd hate to be the guy assigned the life-long nazi symbol; though I think it's specific to that blog you're posting on.

Actually, the stigma associated with the swastika is a relatively recent phenomenon; resulting from the Nazi's. It would appear that the symbol is actually hindu/buddhist in origin and means "well-being". Good stuff.

Plus this post gave me a chance to try out the latest windows live writer. It seems pretty cool. Let's you add the "Digg This" among other things.

This is a
	table it
		let me add
			as well

Good stuff. But oops.

Server Error 0 Occurred

Illegal Characters Found    at Subtext.Framework.Text.HtmlHelper.HasIllegalContent(String s)
   at Subtext.Framework.Data.DatabaseObjectProvider.FormatEntry(Entry e, Boolean UseKeyWords)
   at Subtext.Framework.Data.DatabaseObjectProvider.Create(Entry entry, Int32[] categoryIds)
   at Subtext.Framework.Entries.Create(Entry entry)
   at Subtext.Framework.XmlRpc.MetaWeblog.newPost(String blogid, String username, String password, Post post, Boolean publish)

Subtext doesn't appear to like it.

Well, I was able to get it to work by removing the TBODY on the table (and I also removed the really long GUID's created in the WLW divs). So if you subtext boys are reading this, I'm too lazy to submit a real bug.

Oh, and when I went to edit, it totally screwed up the digg, and re-added the ID's to the WLW divs (which I think is actually the problem with the illegal content)

Technorati tags: Identicon, nazi, swastika

winlogon.exe memory usage on windows 2003 server

dotnetdave — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:11:17 GMT

Think you don't have this problem? Run taskmgr on your server and see how much RAM winlogon.exe is using. On one of my web servers I noticed winlogon.exe using 2.4 GB of ram. I just assumed it was somehow related to IIS on the machine. Turns out, it's just a memory leak that accumulates every time you remote desktop to the server. I realize I'm just rehashing something already reported, but man, this seems too important not to do so.

How to fix it? launch remote desktop with mstsc /console.

The original source of this info:

http://stuff.doingwhatworks.com/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=6B2CD03E-9C49-AA70-D1909DA73B852F9F

Awesome Awesome Awesome. The server has 4 gigs of ram, but I'm sure that couldn't have been helping anything. Maybe it's just psychological, but my websites seem faster now.

Searching for underscores with T-sql Like

dotnetdave — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 04:46:39 GMT

select * from tb_whatever where whatever like '%[_]%'

Just wrap the underscore in brackets.

'%[_]%' Kind of looks like a face, eh? Your SQL Server is watching you.... :)

Convert Turkey Gravy into Beef Gravy

dotnetdave — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 01:31:50 GMT

True Story: I'm hungry, it's dinner time, but no ingredients to really combine to make a solid meal. Sure I have various frozen things but since I have a pound of relatively fresh ground beef, I figured I'd cook something (preferably something without pasta in it because I eat too much of that). I discovered in the freezer that I had some puff pastry sheets and boy would some Beef Empañadas hit the spot. The recipe I found called for onions and mixed vegetables as well as beef gravy. All I could find was some turkey gravy, left over from last thanksgiving (but hey, the expiration isn't until Nov 2007, so I'm within my rights to still use it). After cracking open the can, I decided it tasted like, well, turkey gravy. So now what. Well, like that scene in National Treasure where the clues pop out of the paper, such did the following ingredients show themselves to me:

Worcestershire Sauce (shake many a droplet out liberally)

Minced Garlic and some powdered garlic (to your taste)

A good dollop or two of A1 steak sauce (which lasts a long time in your fridge)

Some leftover Ready-Made Steak Marinade (if you want it a little tangy)

One important note: since it's a ground beef dish, let the gravy simmer for a while with the ground beef. The beef flavor plus the rest of the ingredients tastes pretty good, and nobody is the wiser.

And if you have some peas and carrots and you want to throw those in because your house is better stocked and it's your wife that does the food shopping instead of you, then by all means, throw those in. For me, for tonight, it's just beef, sauce, and puff pastry.

Here's a real emapanada recipe from puffpastry.com:

http://www.puffpastry.com/printrecipe.aspx?recipeID=23981

Hmmm. That must've been where I saw the worcestershire sauce, but I added a lot more than a Tbsp. Well, it's miller time.

Good Eating!

We love to fly, and it shows

dotnetdave — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 18:30:26 GMT

ABCNews is reporting that a drug smuggling operation was recently broken up at JFK airport. That's a big slap in the face for airport security. Makes you wonder what else can get into and out of this country given enough time and patience to get your people in the right positions. Sleeper Cell anyone? I think it's a joke how airport security varies so much depending on the airport you're at. In one airport, I had to take the laptop out of the case *and* take the DVD's out of the laptop bag. I guess they wanted to make sure that it really was Shrek and not something else? But... another airport wasn't at all concerned about the movies in the bag. They just wanted the laptop out. At least they stopped making you turn *on* the laptop and turn *on* the cell phone. I guess having it on proves it's not a different device that just *looks* like a cell phone? What a hassle. At least they stopped frisking grandma and making women drink their own breast milk. That's a heads up for all you people thinking about making that baby bottle device or hiding something on/in grandma.

All kidding aside, I think airport screening is pretty good on the front end, IE making sure your gels and creams under 3 oz in your carry on go into a clear quart sized bag. Now they just need to beef up the back end screen their own employees just as carefully. All you airport workers start getting to work 30 to 45 minutes early so you can go through that line. And please, take off your shoes and take your laptop out of its bag.

table column to csv (comma separated values) in t-sql

dotnetdave — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:10:44 GMT

I'm not sure why this works because no cursor is involved, but hey, I'm not going to complain...

declare @csvstring nvarchar(3000)
set @csvstring =''
select @csvstring =Coalesce(@csvstring + ',', '') + columnname from tb_whatever where id=12345
select @csvstring

It has a prepended comma, but that's easy enough to take off.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

dotnetdave — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:05:36 GMT

Nice to see the catholics are concerned enough to put this in their newsletter. Get 'er Done, Boys!

Muff, Sexmoan,Wet Beaver Creek, Rectum, Pussy

dotnetdave — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:42:30 GMT

And the funny thing is, these are all names of real places. LOL: Big Bone Lick State Park in Kentucky.

Twentieth Century F**X

dotnetdave — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:23:38 GMT

I've been pretty peeved lately because when I often link people to the perfect YouTube'd Family Guy clip for a given situation. Hey this is just like in family guy when Brian blah blah to Stewie and Stewie goes and blah blah to peter. I'm not asking for the entire episode, just the funny clip that I wanted to refer back to. If I wanted the whole thing, I'd tivo it or download it on Xbox, or buy the DVD's. But now, I can't link to Family Guy clips because an increasing number of clips on YouTube are being removed for copyright violations on behalf of Twentieth Century Fox....Now that Family Guy is popular again... Where were they back when they cancelled it and it was only on late night on Cartoon Network? Jeff Atwood discusses the big copyright lie that is Youtube in an easily readable and digestable format, complete with profound commentary, in a forum much more popular than mine. :) It's nice to see that I'm not the only one who noticed the hypocrisy that is YouTube.

XBOX 360 Red Ring of Death

dotnetdave — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 23:43:23 GMT

Xbox 360 in a well ventilated position? Check!

Xbox 360 not abused in any way? Check!

Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death? Check!

Much to my dismay, it would appear that it's going to be a while before I can play again. It takes one week to get my empty box, and another 3 to 4 weeks to get the thing back. That, of course, is somewhat ridiculous. They should send me a replacement and then I'll send the bad one back. I'm not an uber hardcore gamer, but I can only imagine what it would be like to get the 3 red flashing lights right after, say, bringing home halo 3. I did eventually succumb and purchase a copy, but at least I got to play it for about 6 hours before my console mysteriously turned itself off never to turn on again.

Perhaps I should wrap my xbox360 in a towel? I can tell you this much folks: bad things happen to electronics when they get really hot, so it's not worth heating up your system to try to bridge a broken connection; you'll probably wind up causing other problems. I think I will let Microsoft do their thing and go give my poor Wii some love. Maybe download some old nintendo games. Oh yeahh! :)

Technorati tags: XBOX 360 Red Ring of Death, Red Ring of Death, xbox 360, xbox 360 flashing red lights, xbox red lights