Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com

Charles Petzold is a very cool guy.   Of course we've all read his 1998 Programming Windows, the bible of Win32...I was weaned in the original 1990 Programming Windows.  I've just finished another offering from Charles.  It's called Code.  It's absolutely worth it if you can find a copy.  If you want to explain to your spouse what you do for a living, get it.  If you want to show someone not-to-technical why alternate number bases (hex, binary, etc) are interesting, get it.

I actually wrote 7 chapters of a similar book where I started from the Light Bulb and went up to the modern microprocessor.   I shopped it around to various publishers and then scrapped the idea when I discovered Charle's book.  He writes with startling clarlity.  He starts with morse code and braille and works up through history building and building...past light bulbs, the construction of memory, flip flops, older processors, assembly language...it's just fantastic.

This book should really be required reading in any CS101 class.  Hell, I'd make it required reading for High School Seniors.  It can "fill in the gap" for some many technology questions.  So many people take technology for granted...it just works.  I'm surprised at how few people ask "Why."  My kids will read this book...I have no kids, so as soon as they are born...and learn to read. 

Greeting card virus licensed to spread. If a computer user carelessly clicks an "I agree" button and downloads an infectious program, is that program a virus? That's the question raised by a sneaky new e-mail. [CNET News.com]

This particular virus is evil...it nearly nailed me, and I'm supposed to be an expert!  It sends you to friendgreeting.com (DON'T GO HERE) or some similar domain.  It prompts you to download some innoucous thing like a flash runtime, and if you agree, it sends an unsolicited email to a bunch of your Outlook Contacts.  It installs itself as a Outlook AddIn and an Internet Explorer Listener.  Adds a LOT of stuff to the registry.  I was an idiot to even click "I agree" when it prompted me, and the only reason I didn't get nailed was that ZoneAlarm noticed something called "WinSrvc.exe" trying to get out...I may be slow, but I know EXACTLY what all 56 processes that are running on my Windows XP box are, and cleverly named it may be, this was a foreign process... 

Here's a fantastic bit of ASP.NET news from the DOTNET-CLR list...this bug has personally bit me a few times:

We are in the process of creating a hotfix for the "slow modem copy" issue described below.  The hotfix has two new config settings: <httpRuntime waitChangeNotification="0" maxWaitChangeNotification="0" /> [...snip...] A production server under load will have a constant stream of incoming requests.  Without the fix, a content update like the one described above might result in several AppDomain unloads/loads.  It's also possible for sharing violations to occur, which would be seen as an error such as "Cannot access file 'AssemblyName' because it is being used by another process".  It's easy to imagine a situation where ASP.NET is trying to load an assembly that is currently being copied into the bin folder. [...snip...] The fix is not yet available.  I expect the KB article will be relased around the first week of December, at which point you can request the fix at no charge.

I hearby declare November to be "Web Services Month!"  There are several Webby seminars in Portland slated for the next few weeks:

Tues, Nov 12, 5-9pm (TONIGHT) –  Web Application Platforms: .NET, J2EE, Open Source - Which is best for you? – Internet Professionals Northwest (www.ipn.org) - http://www.ipn.org/ProgramDetail.asp?id=18

Thurs, Nov 14, 6:15-9pm - Patrick Cauldwell and Implementing Web Services in .NET: Remoting vs. ASP.NET – Web Services SIG (http://www.padnug.org/padnug/WebServicesSIG.aspx) – register at: http://cpd.ogi.edu/coursespecific.asp?pam=1066.

Wed, Nov 20, 6:30-8:30pm - Scott Hanselman and Web Services: Behind the Magic – Software Association of Oregon, Developer’s SIG (www.sao.org) - http://db.sao.org/calendar_of_events/event_description.lasso?eventID=11_20_02

Ah, Greg Reinacker has sent me the Java quote I mentioned before..it was in fact he who said:

"1. I personally believe you can write performant, scalable systems with either Java/J2EE or .NET.  It's all a matter of good design.  And I certainly didn't mean to sound like election coverage!
2. Most ".NET people" I know also believe that you can certainly write good, scalable systems with Java/J2EE.  In contrast, many "Java people" don't believe that .NET is even worth considering.  And it doesn't seem to be based on technology - it seems to be fear of Microsoft.  Here's a great example.  Yikes.  Can't we all just get along?  (this is a part of why I've spent so much time working with web services.)"  [Greg Reinacker's Weblog]