Brian Laird

Vista SP1

Brian — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:21:00 GMT

I had some troubles with vista SP1 on my XPS 1350, but it's all good now. All I had to do was do a factory restore and start over. From the fresh install it was ok, I've had no problems afterwards with VS.NET 2008 (including SP1), and office 2007 seemed to go OK. I shouldn't have to troubleshoot this, I thought the whole idea was that vista SP1 wouldn't be advertised on windows update until it was ready to go for your hardware. I hate being wrong.

Visual Studio 2008 SP1

Brian — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:09:00 GMT

Go download it. You know you want it.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=FBEE1648-7106-44A7-9649-6D9F6D58056E&displaylang=en

UPDATE: I've previously installed SP1 Beta 1 (which had its own issues installing) and SQL Server RC0. I attempted to use the VS patch removal tool, but didn't have a lot of luck. Rather than actually attempt to figure out what's wrong I'm going old-school and starting fresh. I've uninstalled RC0 and VS.net, and will apply SP1 without the patch tool after reinstalling VS.NET Pro. I'll post about that later.

UPDATE 2: Uninstalling vs_strap did the trick, everything is installing smooth now.

How I got started programming

Brian — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:28:00 GMT

Ok, so I guess this blog will become revived? Posting in response to Lee's post, cause I got tagged. Everyone is doing it on the internets.

How old were you when you started programming?

I wrote my first program when I was in gradeschool, 2nd or 3rd grade I think. There was an after school computer program that Mr. Chappell put together on some pretty sophisticated machines for the time. The most I ever accomplished was having my name bounce around the screen. To be fair I just typed in the program from a ditto sheet, but it was still a challenge to get that right at my age. I thought it was so cool that he gave us each a 5.5 inch floppy to store our weekly work (the expense probably out of his pocket).

What was your first language?

BASIC, but I wrote some AppleScript and Hypercard applications in Jr highschool. My mother and grandmother were both journalists so I had access to some pretty cool equipment for the day. Grandma always had the newest Mac, and would pass the older one down to my mom. She was an avid computer user into her 70s when most Grandmas had a hard time with VCRs and Cordless phones. She got her first PC a year or two before she died because it was the only thing that could program her embroidery machine. She hated it.

What was the first real program you wrote?

What does "real" mean? The first application that I contributed to that people may know about was StoreFront by Lagarde. That was the beginning of web programming for me, and I never really looked back. I spend most of my time in databases and frameworks used by other programmers, but not directly by users. I'm more of a spelunker than a programmer I guess.

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?

I'm not sure. Programming was just something that I could figure out without spending the time or money going to school. To do it over again might include going to college either before embarking on my career, or at least taking classes along the way. I may have gone to school for another career, but this is a loaded question anyway. I really enjoy what I do for now.

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

1) Make sure you can do it. Just because you can pay for a guitar and lessons doesn't mean you have talent or rhythm. This isn't meant to be discouraging, it's just that given particular talents you may find you're better suited to business analysis or project management. There are lots of ways to contribute to development without tearing your hair out becoming a programmer.

2) Just keep at it, and don't beat yourself up when you find that you can't always do it the "right" way. Unless you can find a kick ass R&D gig or a job in academia, you'll still be working for the man, and the man has deadlines.

What's the most fun you've ever had ... programming?

Working before I found a balance in life. When putting an application together was like beating a new video game, staying up for days at a time in an attempt to get to the end. Any day that my brain burns is a good day.

sirius bloomed

Brian — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:16:00 GMT

I like sirius flowers, not sure what variety this is but it sure is neat. Ugly plant, pretty flower.

work work work

Brian — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 00:49:00 GMT

Nothing much to report, just been working my tail off, busier than a bouncer on springer as the saying goes. Been working a new gig, not so much ETL stuff, little projects here and there that need to be done. I actually "made" a vb6 dll the other day. It was awesome! It took me several minutes staring at the ide before i realized i couldn't find the build button.

Weeee!

Brian — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:25:00 GMT

I found an extra hour, so I decided to resurect this ol' thing... i haven't imported old posts and probably won't, but after a 3 year hiatus, I think I'm due no?

Things are nuts, wedding wedding wedding pretty much, and I don't know anything else.

Hasta.