From reading other blogs, it seems many developers are unimpressed with the sheen of Windows Vista, the next version of the Microsoft operating system. There is definitely appreciation for all the improvements under the hood, but the out-of-box experience (at least in the betas), leaves much to be desired.

A while ago I wrote up a Quick and Dirty Guide to Configuring Log4Net for Web Applications. Today I received an email asking how to set up logging for a web application that also consists of a business layer and a data access layer.

On a recent project, my team pursued a CSS based design as we had two sites to build that were similar in layout, but different in look and feel. We were brought in after the schematics and design had pretty much been worked out, but we felt we could work with the agreed upon design.

Can’t use your favorite IM tool because of a pesky firewall at your place of work? Kyle points me to this web app, Meebo which appears to be in the alpha phase, but worked fine for me. It allows you to sign in to one of several popular IM services and use a rich web-based client.

I can get a bit overboard with my virtual paths. I tend to prefer virtual paths over relative paths since they feel safer to use. For example, when applying a background image via CSS, I will tend to do this:

Ryan Farley gives the lowdown on his tricked out desktop.

Jon Galloway has an interesting write-up on the latest changes to Google’s search algorithms code named “Jagger”

As I mentioned in my last post, my redesign was inspired by some of the lessons in this book, “Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm”.

After completing two of the three books I said I would be reading in 2006, I decided to apply some of the lessons from the book Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm by slightly redesigning my site.

While reviewing some code this weekend, I had the thought to do a search for the following string throughout the codebase, “catch(Exception” (using the regular expression search of course it looked more like “catch\s(\sException\s*)”.

When you hear the phrase, “use your head” you are typically being told to think. There are other uses of the head that are quite unwise. For example, trying to clear a soccer ball away from another player rushing in on the attack when you are a step too late. Unfortunately that’s exactly what I tried today.

Read an interesting quote today, though it’s been around a while. It serves as a follow-up to my post about bringing back the 40hr work week.

I have a really old Kodak photography book laying around that delivers various tips for how to advance from your typical crapola™ snapshots into something worth boring your friends with on Flickr after your last vacation.

Scott Mitchell reminisces about Websites Back in the Day. You mean like this one^1^ Scott?

Via Larkware News I noticed that Subversion 1.3 has been released. Looking at the release notes I noticed one thing in particular that caught my attention.

I happened to notice my dog Twiggy apparently admiring herself in the mirror. At one point she was right up against the mirror looking at herself. By the time I got my camera, she had decided to on a more comfortable vantage point to check herself out.

Yesterday I received a call from my very exasperated father who recently has been helping my Korean mother learn how to use the web and web-based email.

These days it seems that the 40-hour workweek is a pipe dream of of a bygone past (if it ever was a reality). This seems especially true for the field of software development which seems to glorify working excessively long hours like an old fashioned pissing match.