ovoleg

I can't connect to the damn local SQL server and it has something to do with the EntityFramework version. It's going to work, or else the computer is going to end up going through the window

mattm

Ha sounds like fun! Hopefully you're at least getting paid to deal with it.

ovoleg

got it working. Not for work, I'm just learning stuff on the side .

I just reinstalled EF 6.1 and it started working.

ovoleg

I must say I'm quite impressed by Microsoft's outlook webmail

Ygduf

our IT person signed us up for Zimbra - yahoo's webmail for offices...

Our students are all on gmail. ... but professional staff are forever sentenced to the god-awful zimbra.

ovoleg

I used to use yahoo mail about 10 years ago and then gave up when they couldn't figure out how to properly filter spam without me doing it manually. Since then it looks like they've been focusing hard on their iOS and Android apps which aren't too bad. Their weather app is pretty decent.

I hear they turned their webmail around but I haven't been back to investigate.

Ygduf

It's terrible.

We were all so excited when Stanford started rolling out the google apps suites and mail. Then they stopped right before we got any of the useful bits.

shovelhd

Somebody hates Google, owns Yahoo stock, or both.

Ygduf

Unfortunately, no. I just hate using 3-rd rate software for work when the better alternative is so easy, familiar to all, and in use by 90% of the people on campus.

mattm

Head, exploded. Compiler implementation is generally beyond me, but this is interesting stuff nonetheless!



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_(compilers)

There is also the "writing a compiler with nothing but a text editor" paper, also pretty mind-blowing:

https://homepage.ntlworld.com/edmund....bcompiler.html

waterrockets 

Cool. I remember back in the CodeWarrior days. They made compilers for everything immediately when it came out. I wrote about 80% of a C compiler in college, and did my Sr. Project for a company that needed their own language compiled into Java -- both of those were lots of fun, but the stuff in those papers is nuts.

shovelhd

My Win8 laptop developed some kind of corruption. It started having issues connecting to wifi and would not go into sleep mode. All this started after a Windows Update three weeks ago. I dealt with it until last week, when it started having trouble booting. Backup, recover, 8.0->8.1 upgrade and it looks like all is well. Data is intact but I had to reinstall my programs.

Ygduf

I'm in the market. What do you have, or what you recommend. Last laptop was macbook pro from 2008-ish.

shovelhd

I have been happy with Lenovo. They are polarizing though. Mine is an i5 Ideapad. Around $500. 8GB, 750GB, 15.4, USB3, nice audio.

waterrockets 

Note: if JRE x64 doesn't work on Win8, try JREx86

shovelhd

Just say no to Java.

mollusk

As a faculty member at some school that will remain nameless in Gainesville, Florida, I have been required to "upgrade" to Exchange.

I am impressed as well, but in a negative manner.

waterrockets 

Good point. There is Qt 5.2 available now so I can whip up C++ for Android these days

FishSci

I love conducting statistical analyses in R. I love writing R code. I love reading and writing Access, MSSQL, and MySQL databases with R. If all of the preceding can be done with fisheries data, I am IN THE ZONE and all else falls by the wayside.

I am a nerd.

I have Ubuntu 12.04 (I think?) on my laptop. I have compiled R packages. I love writing R functions. I am a LaTeX junkie.

mattm

Doing python now, instead of C#.

It's quick, but really dirty. It won't say you made a typo in a method name until you get to that block of code... ugh, scripting.

Also, two methods with the same name in a class? Python doesn't have method overloading, but it also doesn't give you an error in this case. I just spent the morning tracking down an issue that made no sense, and it came down to having two methods with the same name.. hey at least I'm getting paid for my troubles!

waterrockets 

Ouch. No python experience here, but that sounds like a bit of a learning curve. Good tool though, by all accounts, just gotta get comfortable with it like anything else. Thanks for the heads-up though, as it's likely in my near future.

mattm

A fun hacking "game" from Google: https://xss-game.appspot.com/

(Focused on cross-site scripting)

shovelhd

There is a site I go to to request an assignment as a USAC official. It is not part of USAC, it's something the LA had created for their use. When I get to the race schedule page, it throws a .NET null exception error. This is the most important page on the site.

On the footer of every page, there is a banner put there by the developer:

Copyright 2014 Abort Software - If it doesn't say Abort, it's not software!

You can't make this stuff up.

mattm

New language for osx/ios programming: https://developer.apple.com/library/...TheBasics.html

This new "Swift" language is kind of like python but with brackets - which is pretty sweet!

I'm fine with objective-c, but this will significantly lower the bar to writing iOS apps I think.

furiousferret

If you have the money, the new MacBook Air's are awesome. I can browse the 33 for 12 hours before another charge.