Well, after much deliberation and discussion, we finally decided on a name for the new addition to the family:  Loganne Amber Zupancic.  Loganne pronounced as 'Logan'.  We opted for the spelling variation 1) to be more consistent with her sisters' names and 2) to make the name appear more feminine (though Logan is a perfectly good girl name).

She and mom got home from the hospital today and both are doing great.  We're so excited to have her home and in our lives!

Ok, I must admit that I think this is AWESOME!  Though I'm perhaps a bit late to this party, seeing that Craig Paterson posted on it last March, and apparently it's been available for some months, but I wanted to help spread the word for those that hadn't seen this, or known about it.

When it comes to favorite games, the original The Legend of Zelda is probably at the top of my all-time list.  That game was a lot of fun.  Well, it appears that Armageddon Games has created a tribute to the original game (in that it replicates exactly the game we all love), but they've made it extensible.  This allows people to go in an create new quests, items, enemies, graphics, etc.

I am in love...retro-love.

Yesterday was a pretty active, exciting, fantastic, exhilarating, exhausting day.  For that reason I delayed until today to announce the birth of our fourth (yes 4th!) girl.  Born at 9:56 AM, weighing in at 8 lbs 1 oz and 19 1/2 inches in length, Logan [yet undecided middle name, though leaning towards Irene] Zupancic entered this world by way of Cesarean Section.  She was breach (bottom down).

She and mom are doing fantastic and we hope to have them home this Wednesday.  Four girls is a handful...I'm dreading the teenage years...and the weddings...

They're such great girls.  I love 'em.

Without stirring any coals, and providing an impartial perspective and overview, Philippe has created a thorough analysis of the differences between VB.NET and C#.  It's nice to have a good, comprehensive reference that's well written and thought out.  Thanks Philippe!

Today we had a great INETA sponsored .NET User Group meeting presented by Carl Prothman.  The topic was ADO.NET.  This turned out to be a great topic for the group as many people had some questions answered.  For the most part, it was an introduction to ADO.NET, so it covered quite a few of the basics and “What is...” types of things, but I think many participants and attendees gained some new tidbits of knowledge.

We very much appreciate the participation of all that attended - we had a great turnout of just over 50 people - so that's great!  Also, we had the opportunity to give Scott Golightly's Raffle Application a dry run.  It worked out perfectly!  Thanks to everyone for participating!

All too often do I attempt to add a new project to my solutions....who doesn't?  Upon viewing the code window, however, I am greeted by the all-to-familiar, yet undesired VB.NET code.  Now, I'm not saying that VB is bad or undesirous (I happen to very much like the non-.NET varieties), but I was expecting to see C# code.  I guess I get too wrapped up in selecting 'Windows Application' or 'ASP.NET Web Application' and not paying attention to the type of project being created.  Then I have to go remove the project from the solution and delete the new project directory before adding the C# project in its stead.

All this because VB.NET appears before C# in the Project Types list and is selected by default (of course if you've installed SQL Reporting Services, this isn't as much of an issue because 'Business Intelligence Projects' is the default.  Of course if VS.NET were polite enough to ask if I really, really wanted to create a VB.NET project in the first place, this wouldn't be an issue...but I digress).

As it turns out, you can rearrange the order in which these appear by opening the registry (via regedit, et al) and opening the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\NewProjectTemplates\TemplateDirs.  Within this key exists several sub keys, each named with a GUID.  Beneath each GUID is a key named 1 or /1 or /2.  These contain a SortPriority DWORD value.  The lower the value, the higher on the list the specified project file appears.

I simply swapped the C# value (20) with the VB.NET value (10) and now C# appears higher on my list and more to my liking.

Miguel Jimenez keeps on providing updates to his excellent CAPTCHA control.  It's now on version 1.4.  If I ever make the move to Community Server 1.0 from .Text then I know I'll have CAPTCHA support.

Again, the upgrade was seamless.  Simply replace my existing .dll and done.  I really like the support for supressing the CAPTCHA if I'm logged in to the site.  Good job, Miguel!

In tweaking Visual Studio's font and color settings today I stumbled upon a nice discovery.  If you've every seen my development box, you'd know that I prefer a non-white background...the stark white helps accelerate headaches and I'm pretty prone to those.  I prefer a slightly off-white, very light tan (RGB 241, 234, 220) as the background for my code windows.

Well, anyway, I have been using ReSharper for some time now (and thoroughly enjoying it).  I was in the process of changing various color settings (e.g. changing the background color of strings, font color for numbers and operators, etc) so that certain items would stand out more prominantly.

It turns out that ReSharper leverages the exact same mechanism for customizing colors within Visual Studio by adding a slew of ReSharper-specific color settings in the 'Display items' list.  Nice to know it's there if I ever want to customize ReSharper's color scheme.

I broke down last week and installed the latest in the family of MSN Messenger products - version 7.0.  I had been using Trillian for some time now and for the most part enjoyed it, though there were some annoyances about it that encouraged the switch.  Not to mention that I wanted to try out the latest MSN Messenger.

All in all I have greatly appreciated many of the advancements made.

• Much more stable (at least it seems to be so far)
• Nicer presentation
• I like that you can set a default status on sign-in
• I like that the last conversation appears when you converse with a contact
• I like the personal message.  I got sick and tired of people constantly changing their name to reflect their mood, thoughts, etc.  I'm thinking this is to encourage people to not do that.  That said, however, I would still prefer it if I could change how I see them (alias them) so if their name is vulgar (which has happened) or very obscure I get a common presentation.
• I like the fact that what I listening to via Media Player can get shared
• Though I doubt I'll really ever use it, the 'My Space' feature is pretty neat.  I saw the other day if one of my contacts updates their 'My Space' I get a pulsing, glowing star next to their contact information so I can go check it out - that's pretty cool.
• I like that you can turn off nudges, winks, handwriting, etc
• I like that I could finally truly delete old contacts from my block list so I don't have useless, outdated contacts building up in there.

The product isn't without its glaring problems, though.  Despite all of its advances and useability improvements, there are several things that I hope (though in vain, I'm sure) will be addressed.

• More than ever it seems that the Messenger world is proliferating advertisements.  MSN is no exception.  It's all about pushing ads in front of the consumer, buy this add-on, pay $.99 for this feature.  The insanity has got to stop.
• I have always despised the 'ad' panel on the main Messenger window.  There were patched 6.x .exes out there that, through altering a byte or two in the .exe, would suppress this.  Does anyone know of one for 7.0?
• I will never, ever use the search bar on the main Messenger window.  Ever.  I wish I could hide it.
• I will never, ever search from a conversation window.  Not only do I think it's pointless that a search is shared, but you never know what a search will pull back as results.  Can the Search button be hidden?
• I thoroughly despise the status bar on the conversation window - yet another means to push ads to the user.  Can I hide that?
• I don't like the 'Packs' button on the conversation window - I will never use it.
• I wish I could hide the toolbar on the conversation window - I will never use it either. [Updated 04/13/2005 - I forgot that I could hide the toolbar]
• The Conversationator ??? How stupid is that?
• I am so excited and happy to be able to share and view “Movie Trailers & More” with my friends and associates online.  This feature is particularly enticing because though we are apart and at remote locations while viewing these trailers, I will be able to feel my associate's excitement and enthusiasm for the “Movie Trailer or More“.

Basically, the things that bug me most revolve around advertisements and the fact that it all takes up precious screen real estate...I want my space back!  I don't mind so much that they're there (even by default), but I really wish you could turn them all off.

One question...<sarcasm>why don't nudges send a force feedback to my mouse because that would really get my attention and not be obtrusive in any way?</sarcasm>.  Actually, I think nudges are cool and somewhat useful.

Does anyone else get annoyed by these things? or am I simply insane? (don't answer that last question ;)

Have you ever been debugging an application and you start stepping through code that

• you don't care to step through because it's all designer generated (a la InitializeComponent()) and pretty boring (and long) to step through
• is called so repetitively (such as in a loop) that its difficult to concentrate (though Step Over has been known to alleviate such symptoms through repeated usage)
• is long and/or complex and really has nothing to do with what you're debugging and stepping for in the first place
• works perfectly and would prefer to bypass it completely

If you frequently suffer from IRDSS (Induced Repetitive Debug Step Syndrome) have we got a cure for you!  Sure, past developers might have recommended a simple dosage of 'Step Out' (also called Shift+F11).  Said remedy, however, has been shown to show side effects such as opening undesired windows and exposing clients to unwanted code.

Studies have shown that simply applying the DebuggerStepThroughAttribute to your methods and classes increases your ability to debug by at least an order of magnitude.  A single dose of this powerful and useful attribute has been linked to higher productivity and fewer developer headaches.  If you would like to learn more about DebuggerStepThroughAttribute, contact your help documentation or call them online.

There are no known side effects.