Owner: Joe Enos URL:http://blog.jtenos.com Join Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:28:38 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A mix of software development, personal finance, entertainment, politics, and whatever else I find interesting. Site statistics:Click here
FireFox 2008-06-16 16:02:06 Internet Explorer dominates the browser industry - it comes with Windows, which is by far the most popular family of operating systems. However, just because it's the biggest, doesn't mean it's the best. Mozilla's browser, FireFox is superior to IE in many ways. It's more secure, HTML compliant, customizable, and just a better browsing experience.
TheBetterBrowser.com is one of many sites out
Babylon 5 2008-06-11 14:26:52 After two minutes watching the Babylon
5 pilot, I already knew the entire series was terrible. Horrible special effects - it looked like I was watching some low-budget sci-fi from the 80's. The characters were annoying and stupid-looking. The dialog was ridiculous. Even the credits were awful. I enjoy a good sci-fi series. Star Trek TNG and DS9, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Time Trax, Eart
Chocolate 2008-06-10 14:58:01 About a year ago, I gave up soda in an attempt to live a little healthier. Before then, I drank an incredible amount of soda - mostly diet soda, but still full of bad stuff. It was a little tricky at first, but after just a month or two, it was second nature to order iced tea when I went out to eat, and to only buy water for drinking at home. If you want to read some interesting stuff about sod Read more:Chocolate
Blog Comments 2008-06-09 11:40:46 Well, I'm officially a real blog now. I've been bombarded with spammers posting comments on the blog, ranging from absolute nonsense to...let's see..."non-family-friendly" material. I am notified whenever a comment is added, so I've been able to quickly remove the offensive comments, but I've decided to add an approval process to comments. Now, whenever a comment is added, it will not be posted Read more:Comments
Thought Experiment - Vision 2008-06-07 17:35:47 I'd like to discuss something that's bothered me for years: When nearsighted people look in a mirror at something far away, why is it still blurry?
I'm not alone with this question - I googled the topic and found many "experts", all who say the same thing: some nonsense about how the light travels just as far regardless of whether or not you're using a mirror, so nearsighted people still can't tr Read more:Experiment
Options: Covered Call 2008-06-06 16:16:22 The last 5 or 6 years, I've been dabbling in the stock market. I really haven't been very successful - my best year, I broke even. But it's been a very educational experience, and I've learned a lot about how the market works, and I've definitely learned what not to do. This year, I decided to expand my horizons a little, and look into options. I learned the basics back in college, and figured Read more:Options
, Covered
ASP.NET Compilation Options 2008-05-30 07:29:03 There are two very distinct ways to build ASP.NET web applications in Visual Studio 2005 or 2008: Web Application projects, and WebSites. There are advantages and disadvantages to each type - I will discuss my personal experience with both of them - there are more differences, but these are what I have come across.
Option 1: WebSite
This is the new way of building a web application beginning wit Read more:Options
Flash Gordon 2008-05-28 17:11:29 Just finished watching the 1980 movie FlashGordon
. It's hard to describe just how bad this movie is. Absolutely awful in every possible way - acting, characters, story, special effects, music, dialogue - all were just terrible. But for some reason, I just couldn't turn away.
I didn't have any idea in advance what the movie was about - it just happened to be on my Blockbuster queue - I never e
Personal Software Projects 2008-05-26 06:36:04 In my previous post's comments, we discussed my projects that I've started and not yet released. Here is a list of all of my personal projects, including both completed and in progress - all of them are .NET, mostly .NET 2.0:
Completed and Released
JTCollections: Utility for sorting collections easily. Available for download on my downloads page.
JTDataManagment: Project for database-driven Read more:Personal
, Software
, Projects
ReSharper Review 2008-05-25 06:19:49 I've been using a product called ReSharper, from JetBrains, for several months. The product is a plug-in to Visual Studio, and is designed to help refactor code, provide additional
shortcuts, formatting, and other code maintenance services. I use several of the functions on a regular basis, and have experimented a little with the rest
of the features.
My review follows:
The good:
As a plu
Today's Weather 2008-05-23 16:48:12 Isn't Phoenix great? Two days ago it was close to 110 degrees - very hot for most of the country, but the start of an average summer here in the valley. Today
it didn't even approach 70 degrees. And when I got home, a huge storm hit for only a few minutes, and the ground was covered in hail. And we'll be back over 100 in less than a week.
Operating Systems 2008-05-22 15:14:56 There are plenty of opinions out there about Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, and Solaris. Everyone knows that Windows is by far the most dominant OS for both business and personal use. It's what I use for business, and my own personal development. In my opinion, Windows XP is the best operating system out there.
Many Microsoft users are totally 100% pro-Windows, and scoff at the very mention of Mac Read more:Operating
, Systems
, Operating Systems
New Blog 2008-05-17 11:32:28 Welcome to my blog at My goal is to post no less than twice per week, with various topics such software development, news, sports, politics, technology, finance, and whatever else I find interesting in any given day. I am definitely not a writer by trade, so I'm sure many of my entries will be short and to the point, and probably not very elegant. But I will do my best to provide well thought
Papa Murphy's Pizza 2008-06-21 08:16:20 A few months ago, a Papa Murphy
's Pizza
restaurant opened near my house. I'd heard of it, but hadn't tried it before - I didn't even know there were any in Phoenix until this one opened. As soon as I tried it, I knew it was the greatest pizza ever. It's a different type of pizza place - they build you a pizza, using fresh ingredients, and give it to you to bake at home (Take-N-Bake). Since it'
NULL in Subquery 2008-06-19 17:00:03 I've come across an interesting phenomenon with regard to database queries. It's not a bug or flaw, but rather just an unexpected behavior (at least to me). If you have a query that filters records by a "WHERE ... NOT IN ()" clause, your query will return zero records if any of those results are null. For example:
SELECT 'TRUE' WHERE 'A' NOT IN ('X','Y','Z')
returns one record with the word 'TR
.NET 3.0/3.5 2008-07-12 16:24:52 There are a million and one articles and blog entries out there devoted to .NET 3.0 and/or 3.5. But I'm running out of interesting topics, so I'll put my two cents in. I realize I'm a little late, but I recently started using Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Framework. So far, it's very impressive. I will discuss the features I have personally used and appreciate. Since I jumped directly f
LifeLock 2008-07-05 15:12:46 I recently decided to protect myself against identity theft, the fastest growing crime in the country. I decided to go with LifeLock, a company that is well-known and seems to have a good reputation. LifeLock is famous for having its CEO freely give out his social security number to the whole world, since he trusts so much in his company.
LifeLock's services include setting fraud alerts with th
New SmartPhone 2008-07-01 16:55:35 I just bought a new cell phone, after my "new every two" from Verizon Wireless elapsed. I've wanted a smart phone for awhile, and decided it was time to go for it. I decided to go with a Verizon XV 6800. So far, I'm very happy with it. I have 4 of my email accounts linked to this phone, so I can always stay current on my emails. The web browser works pretty well, even though it doesn't seem t
No title 2008-07-29 14:13:53 There's a new search engine out there, supposedly a "Google killer", named Cuil (pronounced "cool"). I don't know a lot about it, other than that it was built by a lot of former Google employees, and that it crashed on its first day. You'll find thousands of blogs out there already talking about this search engine, most of them more knowledgeable than I am.
I just wanted to give a few examples
Mobile Blog 2008-07-27 13:41:54 I have added a mobile page to this blog, available at The page has the same "stuff" in it, but in a more compact and simpler format, with no javascript, CSS style, or images - the page renders fast and accurately in my new smart phone. The main page should automatically redirect mobile users to the mobile page, so the regular link can still be used.
Please let me know if you experience any d Read more:Mobile
Blog Comments 2008-07-26 17:39:30 Regular readers of my blog may have noticed that I comment on each of the entries myself. Most of these comments talk about how talented, wonderful, and amazing I am. Sometimes I even respond to my own responses. You may think one or two things: 1) I'm a very conceited and arrogant person, who thinks that the world revolves around me, or 2) I have multiple personalities. I just want to assure Read more:Comments
Cubs Fans 2008-07-24 05:28:40 Last night I went to the Diamondbacks game vs. the Cubs. It was a close game until the Cubs scored 6 in the 8th inning. The D-Backs scored a few runs in the bottom of the 8th, but still lost 10-6. The game was pretty enjoyable - Tony Clark hit just his 2nd home run of the year, hopefully one of many to come this year - it's nice to have him back.
I knew there were a lot of Cubs fans in Phoenix
JTCollections 1.1 2008-07-21 15:37:19 I just added a new version of JTCollections, version 1.1, to my downloads page. This contains a new method in the CollectionSorter class, utilizing a params array of generic Comparison delegates.
This will allow easy sorting by multiple properties, without the need for reflection (Version 1.0 was all reflection - those methods are still here, but a new one is added). This will significantly inc
Not Always Right 2008-07-18 17:02:26 Just found a great website: It's full of very funny customer service stories. Supposedly all true stories, but some are a little hard to believe. In any case, they are very entertaining.
It's also set up as a regular RSS feed at Read more:Right
Money-Saving Tip? 2008-08-01 20:00:12 In a newsletter I recently received from my bank, there were a few tips on how to save money by conserving gas. Most were reasonable, but one kind of caught my eye:
----------
Fill up when you're almost out - Fill up your gas tank less often and you could save $100 a month since you'll be hauling a lighter load between fill-ups.
----------
I ran a few numbers:
At $4.25/gallon, a person driving 1 Read more:Money
, Saving
.NET is a failure? 2008-08-31 22:01:23 Some blockhead at PC Magazine wrote an article called 21 Great Technologies That Failed. It gives 10 Microsoft and 11 Apple examples of "failure
s". Most of the stuff is reasonable, like WebTV and Mac G4 Cube - but they somehow slipped .NET into the list, saying everyone went to Java, and that .NET "has nowhere near the scope that MS had envisioned back in 2002". What an incredibly stupid thing
Dvorak 2008-08-30 19:09:30 I've been working on learning a new keyboard layout, the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. This is supposed to provide an alternative to the standard QWERTY layout, making it easier to move from key to key, thus increasing speed and reducing strain on the wrist and fingers.
I bought stickers to put on one of my keyboards, which helped to get me started. After just a day, I memorized the layout, and s
British Tax Dollars At Work 2008-08-25 17:48:58 British scientists have discovered that herds of animals tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction - some scientific nonsense about magnetic fields at the north and south poles.
My favorite line of the news article, possible the greatest thing I've ever read: The scientists were unable to distinguish between the head and rear of the cattle.
The article can be found at:
Read more:British
5 things Hollywood thinks computers can do 2008-08-23 18:43:37 I found a fun article called 5 Things Hollywood
Thinks Computers Can Do (PG - some profanity), from the good folks at Cracked Entertainment, where several movies are called out for being technologically ridiculous. It's a funny look at why these things
are ridiculous, along with what would happen in real life. Read more:computers
LifeLock - Part 2 2008-08-21 03:35:06 Last month, I wrote a short review on my initial experiences with LifeLock, a company that protects your identity by handling various tasks related to your credit, such as registering and renewing fraud alerts and removing you from junk mail lists, backed up by a million dollar guarantee. At the time, 45 days had passed since I had signed up, and I still had not received my credit reports.
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