Having worked with BizTalk Server 2004, SQL Server Integration Services (replacement for DTS), and having taken a quick glance at Windows Workflow Foundation, I was kind of confused why Microsoft would create so many competing technologies, especially considering the high license costs of BizTalk Server.

As an aside, during my time with BizTalk, I was thoroughly unimpressed.  To begin with, I hate working with technologies where you can't easily see every piece of the whole.  Too much of the functionality of BizTalk is hidden in property menus and context menus...I can't stand that type of crap.  Even more annoying than that is the dependency on the GAC.  It takes a ridiculous amount of time to build and deploy the assemblies.  Consequently, it's a PITA to test and debug.  I've not found any real scenarios yet where I've felt that I would recommend BizTalk over some other solution, especially considering the insane licensing costs for what amounts to nothing more than an XSLT engine with some workflow and connectors built into it.  People, especially Microsoft, will try to convince customers that it's the solution to everything.  They tried to convince one of our clients to use it for a task that was 10x easier and more efficient (time wise) to do using DTS.  Not to mention the client already had a license for DTS whereas it would have cost them in the neighborhood of $40k just to get a BizTalk server up and running. I dunno, maybe I'll be impressed by the next version.

If you're still interested, there's some discussion about the main differences between Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk on the web today, so I'd thought I'd share with anyone else that's interested:

• Brian Loesgen's Blog
• Jon Galloway's Blog

The short answer is that WWF (no, not the one with big men in spandex) is a framework to be used to develop intra-application workflow whereas BizTalk is aimed at inter-application workflow and [buzzword alert] "business process management".

WWF looks promising.  Without realizing it, I actually built a mini workflow framework for a recent project I worked on which required automating the UI of Microsoft Project Pro 2003.  It allowed developers to program against an API to create "Steps" and "Actions" whose results could be linked to and iterated over by subsequent Steps and Actions.  Very cool stuff.

Yesterday was my first time at an NFL football game (Jets vs. Bucs).  This also means that I've been to each of the three major sports (NBA, MLB, and NFL).  (For my international readers, the NFL is the highest league for American-style football).

I must say, the experience is quite something.  It's very different from either of the other big three sports in that there is a whole huge sub-culture in the football world.  If you've never experienced it, there's nothing quite like it at all.

Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me, but driving into the parking lot of Giants Stadium I was just struck by how many people were there tailgating.  It was incredible, it was like a little town sprung up there that morning, with people pitching tents, watching TV, eating BBQ, throwing footballs around.  I mean, it felt like these people lived there.  What caught my attention as well was that a lot of men would urinate right by the side of the road without hesitation (since the lines for the port-o-potties was ridiculous.

The stadium itself was tremendous.  There's nothing quite like it in the enormity of it all; you get kinda queasy sitting in the third tier just looking down.

The game itself was great.  Vinny Testaverde was playing in his first game in 9 months since retiring with the Cowboys after last season.  I have to say, I can only hope that I'm that mobile and that fit when I'm 41, because damn, the guy can still move and throw the long ball.  He had the crowd roaring during pregame warmups when he threw a 60-70 yard pass to Laverneus Coles.  Wow.  Vinny only threw one interception, which was unfortunate (it was short only by a little), but acceptable considering that just two weeks ago, he was hanging out on his sofa watching the Jets play

Afterwards, listening to Vinny talk, I was reminded of The Incredibles.  Vinny had some great years (the best of his career) with the Jets and here he was again, up to his old heroics after retiring from football.  And like in The Incredibles, it took a team effort to overcome the opponent.

In a totally unrelated sidenote, I got my copy of "Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface" on Friday.  My review is on Amazon, but I'll copy it here for the lazy:

"Before you read on, bear in mind that I'm writing this review in comparison to the first "Ghost in the Shell". While Shirow does mention that this book is not a continuation of the first, there are some major differences in style.

Let's start with the artwork. As I've noticed with Shirow's work, all the ways from Appleseed, his style has matured with each work and is at a very advanced level, in my opinion, among top comic book artists in the world. He has a certain style of coloring that, to me, is really unique in how subtle, lifelike, and tactile he makes fabrics and skin. While only roughly 35-40% of the book is colored, it is done so fantastically.

In addition, Shirow has a supreme mastery of the female body form. It's simply stunning to see how beautifully he can render the female body, especially with the dynamic energy he brings to his characters. While he renders many of the panels with the female characters in the buff, he does not render "R" nudity, but rather "PG-13" nudity, except in one panel). (As a sidenote, parents of younger readers should perhaps consider this an "R" rated book. While none of the nudity is gratuitous, it can be a little too much for some).

As fans of Shirow have noticed, he has been experimenting with integrating 3D, rendered environments and objects with his 2D artwork. He shows his mastery of this technique in many of the panels, where it seems seemless; you feel as if the character is really a part of the scene. Then in others, it seems poorly done (for example, he renders pigs in a sequence of panels and the pigs just look weird). I'd also offer some criticism of his rendering of "virtual space", as it quickly becomes cluttered and very difficult to navigate, visually, especially in the low-res, black and white lineart panels.

As with all Shirow works, there is certainly enough cool technobabble and gadgets to get your geek juices flowing. From exoskeletons that envelope and "swallow" the pilot, to oddly constructed androids, to the techno-metaphysical discussions of reality, life, existence, and justice.

My main criticism with the work is the incontinuity *within* the plot itself (I fully understand and accept that this is not a continuation of the first). Without going deeply into the plot, there are some scenarios where he will start what seems like an arc, but then the arc disappears, without entering into the plot again. It seems like whole parts of the book were created just for the sake of showing artwork, and not progressing plot (to me, plot should always come first in a written work, which this is, despite the medium). It feels like the recent Star Wars movies in that they are really a showcase for Lucas's technique with fully rendered sets and have lost any semblence of a cohesive plot and the great acting (especially Harrison Ford) that made the first three the classics that they are. Yes, while I do appreciate the eye candy, this is still a graphic novel, and, as such, I expect a cohesive plot and not random interjections of this and that and whatever.

Some fans will also find the lack of action (compared to the first book) a bit disappointing. The first book was far grittier and more action packed than this book. It also had a richer cast of characters. "Man-Machine Interface" really only features one character (albeit in various bodies and forms) and thus loses some of the dynamic interactions between characters. Shirow never gets a chance to fully developer the chief of Poseidon police and his crew.

Overall, this book is excellent if you simply love Shirow's beautiful artwork, mastery of the female body form, and creative techno-gadgets. The plot, especially the ending, will leave you sorely disappointed. Whereas the first ended on a revelation of a metaphysical type, this book ends in a fizzle."

If you're a fan of Shirow, it's a no brainer, you gotta pick it up, but it's certainly not for everyone.

I'm also working my way through Fred Brooks' "The Mythical Man Month".  I'm only 1/3 of the way through the book at the moment, but it's absolutely a great book that everyone in an IT organization (everyone!) has to read.  I mean, even after all of these years, the same problems persist in software development (doesn't anyone learn from history?).  If you're in the IT industry, whether you're a manager, a salesperson, or a developer, be sure to pick this one up.  It's an easy read, too, since Brooks' style is very inviting and personable.  He makes some excellent analogies.  I think I'll do a mini book review after I'm done with the book

That's it for now...been busy at work, so less time to post during the day >.<

Welcome to the second installment of my workshop series of articles.

This time, the workshop focuses on tools, for what is more important to the master craftsperson than the tools used in the craft?

While most people are resigned to using Microsoft's default IDEs for working with SQL Server (Query Analyzer, SQL Management Studio), both utilize terribly subpar text editors which are just too clunky to work with when dealing with complex procedures.

Enter EditPlus, the greatest text editor, ever.  Evar.  I've been using it since my Freshman year in college when a co-worker at iCan Services introduced it to me.  I've been using it for everything from Prolog to Java to C# to DHTML to TSQL.  With a little help from some of the tools that ship with SQL Server, we can hook up EditPlus so that working with TSQL is no longer a pain in the butt.

If you're tired of working with Query Analyzer and you're a cheap bastard like me, then this workshop is for you

Please feel free to leave comments, questions, criticisms, error reports, and what not in the thread.

Enjoy.

Engadget is featuring an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto. 

In commenting on the Revolution controller, Miyamoto says:

"Personally, I feel that first-person shooters are really well-suited for this controller. I’ve worked on them in the past in the Metroid Prime Series. And to be honest, I felt that first-person shooter controls on a classic controller were kind of clunky. They didn’t feel very—they didn’t feel very right. Whereas with this controller, with the nunchuck-style of controller it’s extremely natural and extremely intuitive. First-person shooters are a genre that are very popular in the United States, and I think that when gamers get their hands on this controller and start playing first-person shooters with it they’re going to find it’s probably the best way to play that kind of game."

Yeah, I can recall when I first made the leap from console gaming to PC gaming.  I had been playing way too much Goldeneye on the N64 (possibly the single best console shooter, ever) for months during my freshman year of college.  At some point, I started playing Rainbow 6: Rogue Spear, a very fun tactical shooter.  It was hard to play Goldeneye after that since FPS controls on a console just seem weird.  To date, I haven't purchased a single FPS (MGS3 (check out my review on Amazon) doesn't count) on console systems for the specific reason that there's no reason for me to do so.

As has been iterated by others, this will be a huge selling point for Nintendo: they will offer all games and non-gamers an entirely unique experience that cannot be had on any other platforms, including PC.  So far, the Revolution is the only "must have" on my list of next-gen consoles.

On a related note, there's a nice discussion regarding the Revolution hardware at Arstechnica.  I, along with some other Nintendo fanbois, make some good arguments for the plausibility of the "leaked" hardware specs.  Let's hope that Nintendo pulls through

Man, I'm just salivating for more info!

I came across the Editplus Wiki page today and had to share the joy

For those of you who are not familiar with Editplus, it is quite possibly the best free text editor for developers (all things considered).  It's lightweight (it'll fit and run off of a floppy), it has excellent and highly customizable syntax support, the list just goes on and on.  It's pretty much all that I used in college for everything I did, from Prolog to C++ to Java to HTML.  I still us it daily for all of my DHTML work, simple ASP.Net proofs of concepts, working with files on remote servers, T-SQL work, and formatting the stupid HTML generated by FTB.

Best of all, it's free (it'll warn you after 30 days that you should pay for it, but it'll happily let you keep using it).  One of these days, I gotta get around to paying these guys; I've been using it exclusively (with VS.Net for other needs) for the last 6 years.  Possibly the only feature that I've found a want for is an "Export to HTML" button that would export a selected section of code as formatted HTML for display in web pages (that would rock so hard).

One of these days, I need to put together a writeup: "Editplus for Beginners".

I'm kinda puzzled by the nomination of Harriet Miers for the seat left open by Sandra Day O'Connor.

What has me confused is Miers' background, according to CNN:

"Miers, who has never been a judge, was the first woman to serve as president of the Texas State Bar and the Dallas Bar Association. She also served on the Dallas City Council."

Hmmm.  While I have no idea what the president of the Texas State Bar does, I'm quite certain that the job is entirely different from that of a judge.  Analogously, I certainly wouldn't expect that our CTO be "nominated" as the lead architect on a new software project.

Is it a coincidence that she's from Texas?

I guess that's why I'm not in politics...none of this makes any sense to me at all.

I recently read through an article in Time that asked "How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?"  It will shock you how many people, in key positions, are lacking in real credentials and experience for the leadership roles that they're in.  One has to wonder whether the correct question to ask today is "How many more Mike Browns are going to be appointed?".

Finally figured out how to fix some of the bugs and problems I had with jsTetris last night as I was laying down to sleep (I hate that).

Each list element needs to have a property, State, which takes one of two values:

• 0 when the list element is empty (no pieces in it) or the list element is holding an active block (a block that can still move).
• 1 when the list element is holding a fixed block (a block that can no longer move).

One of the big problems I had previously was that it was difficult to calculate when a piece could still move.  The method I was using was too inefficient and took too many lines of code.  It tried to examine each of the target blocks to see if it contained an inactive block.  This should make it easier by performing some simple math instead.

Each block of each piece must be examined in the direction of the move and simply do a sum between each block and the list element in the target block.  If the sum of the State is 0, then we can move the block.  If the sum is anything other than 0, then the block cannot be moved anymore.

Once a block stops moving, before the next buffered piece is moved (may have to cancel timer), we sum across the bottom most row up 4 rows and see if the sum in that row divided by the number of columns is exactly 1.  If so, this means that every list element in that row is holding a fixed block and we can move get rid of that row.  Once we've checked 4 rows, we can then move all of the remaining straggling pieces down before reactivating the timer on the buffered piece.

Seems like a plan.

I was also thinking about doing two other games last night. 

One of them would be based off of pipe dreams.  Remember that game where you have to move around blocks which contained pipes as this green ooze started flowing?  I think it can be done with .gif animations if each of the animations takes precisely the same amount of time.  There are a total of 7 different pieces.  6 of those pieces would need two sets of animations and one of them, a cross shaped piece, would need 4 animations.  This brings the total number of pieces up to 16.  The idea would be to cache each of these images and swap them out as the flow of the ooze moves through the pipes.  This one should be interesting.

The other game would be based off of a game that I had on my TI-83 back in my highschool days which is kind of along the lines of Dr. Mario or Tetris Attack, except without falling pieces.  Basically, you get a random m*n board, which is completely filled with pieces (maybe 5-6 different types).  When you have three or more adjacent pieces, those pieces disappear.  And "loose" pieces fall into the space left by those pieces and can cause "combos".  The objective is to clear the entire board with as high a score as possible (factoring in time and combos).  Like Tetris Attack (I don't completely remember the mechanics of Dr. Mario), you can manipulate two adjacent blocks in the grid at a time.

Neither of these seem too difficult and sound like fun.

Oh yeah, I'm also working on a ASP.Net Beta 2 based version of Chinese chess or Xiangqi.  The idea is to use Atlas to allow two players to play in real time, with the moves and chat being relayed using calls to web services from the client.  So far, I have the board and objects laid out.  I still have to figure out how I want to implement the game rules and how complex to make it in terms of supporting multiple games at once.  I'm also waiting for my Beta 2 hosting account from ServerIntellect, my webhost.

That's it for now.

I (pretty randomly) came across an awesome series of Photoshop tutorials on deviantart.com (good place to wander around if you're in a creative funk).

I haven't done any heavy Photoshop artwork in quite a while now, regardless, my technique never turned out results as good as hers.  Very nice work and nicely put together tutorials.

Makes me want to plug in my (severely) underused Wacom and work on some backlogged sketches.  Gah!  Can't make up my mind.  Am I a software developer, or an artist?

This pretty much sums up how I've been feeling every-freaking-day for the last few weeks/months:

I've never been more unsure about everything in the entire universe. I no longer comprehend what is important in the essence of everything. All knowledge and understanding I have aquired now all just seems meaningless and empty. I feel I am completely hopeless. My mind revolves so much around school and stale concrete fact. I don't really have a life. Right now I am just existing, going day to day with what seems like essentially no purpose or direction. I can't find my foundation for thought or reason or action. This is the worst feeling I have ever had in my entire life. Nothing is important, which in itself is sigificant for some reason. I think. I don't know. I feel so overwhelmed. I feel like I'm trying to wrap my head around life. Do you know what all is in life? A whole fucking lot. And my mind feels obligated to figure out every fucking bit of it at the same time. I feel like I'm trying to wrap a rubber band around a dumptruck. I'll either stay frustrated like this, or I'll somehow keep trying to stretch until it snaps.

In my case, I don't think I can even recall a particular point in time when this happened. It feels like I've been in this kind of funk forever.  I envy people, like my wife, who (at least on the surface) seem to have figured out exactly what life is about, what is important to them, what their goals are, and what they have to do to get there.  I think it's healthy to have goals; it gives you purpose and meaning in every action that you do.  Problem is, I just can't seem to solidify mine.

:Sigh:

For those of you who are curious, this is what my (tiny) "office" space looks like.

The funky looking thing on the right is actually a vertical, blower style, fan made by Holmes.  Yes, that is indeed a 19" Samsung LCD.  Very sweet.  Since I have very little desk space, I've started to invade the neighboring desks and even the divider (which doubles as a bookshelf!).  I swear, we were told that this was temporary, like 3 months ago.  Oh well.  Note the extra fanny cushion...these are the worst desk chairs.  EVAR.

On a side note, I finally figured out how to upload images from my cell phone

I snapped a pic of a truck this morning that had quite a funny line scrawled on the back of it: "REAL MEN LOVE BUSH 04" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  Something very humorous about that , especially first thing in the morning.  Unfortunately, it came out all blurry

Actually, I'm somewhat disappointed in the quality of my cameraphone.  Whodathunk that the camera sucked so much given the hefty price of the Razr?