somedropdownlist.Items.FindByText("someText").Selected = True

I thought this should have worked. It did not. When the control was rendered the item I choose was not selected. So I thought that this could be a life-cycle thing. I tried:

somedropdownlist.SelectedValue = "Some Value"

that worked. Why? I don’t get it.

Titled “Multiple Facets of Accessible Design” this event will tackle accessible design on the web and else where. IndependenceFirst which is hosting the event is also in the process of revamping their website. Like their building, IndependenceFirst wants the new website to be a model for accessibility. I am really looking forward to this event.

Now there are many types of captchas some that ask simple questions and others that ask you to pick the correct image, but this still does not address the issue for the blind. So after doing some searching around I found an open source captcha plugin that allows you to use it as your captcha but the nice thing is that it also has a sound component that supports four languages and can read off any code you provide it. After hacking out the sound component out and integrating it with the captcha being used for the site, it worked beautifully. The example provided in the source made it easy to understand how to use it and how to integrate it with my own captcha. I highly suggest it if you are looking for a sound component for a letter/number based captcha. I am sure there are other good solutions out there  for captchas with sound but this definitely suited my needs.  http://www.titude.nl/scripts/demo/captcha/

Six Good Reasons Why to Take Notes in Meetings:

1. Improves listening skills:  When a person is taking notes (s)he is actively listening and trying to recognize main points and important things to record.
2. Your mind will not wonder off:  If you believe that there are benefits to be had from the meeting then you need to be focused.  Taking notes helps you in maintaining that focus.  It is much harder to daydream when you are taking notes.
3. Because people forget: in Arabic the word “human” translates to “Insan” which is a derived from forgetfulness.  We just forget.  The only way to ensure follow-up items and to-dos are not lost is to write them down.
4. Promotes accountability:  When notes are taken one cannot simply say “I did not know about this” or “I forgot that” as a result it is more likely that a task is executed   if it is recorded.  In addition, When notes are taken it is more likely that follow-up will happen than if no record of the meeting exists, as a result, attendees will more likely execute on the action items assigned to them.  Furthermore, when a person of authority takes notes it emphasizes the accountability issue even more.
5. Feed the Ego:  Noting down someone’s comments tells them that what they have to say is important enough to write down and that they are being taking seriously.
6. Credibility:  When communicating the happenings of a meeting to co-workers later on it is more credible to have notes of the events.

Some Tips on Taking Notes:

1. Organize your notes:  The idea behind taking notes is that you will need to find them at one point.  To that extent you need to organize your notes by adding headings and titles as well as dates.
2. Spacing:  You should leave some spacing and don’t cramp everything together.  Spacing allows you to add afterthoughts or correct mistakes while minimizing lines and scrabbles through notes.
3. Laptops:  I am very old school.  In meetings, I prefer to use pen and paper.  I found that the presence of laptops could simply be distracting.  I usually find that people with laptops disturb everyone by looking for network cables and electrical outlets.  However, this is simply my preference and if it works for you then use it.
4. Abbreviations:  Use abbreviations and symbols to enhance your note taking efficiencies.   You can also use the symbols for quick access later on.  For example, you could put a box by an action item and check it once you followed-up on the item.
5. Review:  It is very important to review the notes after the meeting.   This is precisely why you took notes in the first place.  Like me, you will also be surprised to notice how many things you would not have remembered had you not taken notes.

I also thought I would share a giggle for this was part of my “inspiration” . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TzHbcXYwI4 and an example of how everyone can relate to the office geek persona.

1. Repeat after me “NO MACHINES”: This might be an obvious point to make but I want to make it nonetheless. Not only is machine translation not good enough but it also can be damming. Even if the translator was able to translate each world correctly the result is not always guaranteed to have the desired effect. This is because the context in which a word is found can dictate its meaning or semantic. When translating the word spring into German one needs to know if we are talking about the season (Frühling) or the water spring (Quelle). More importantly though, the sentence structure cannot be carried over from one language to another mechanically. When translating English into right to left languages like Arabic automatically, I found the result in many instances to be misleading. Worst yet, sometimes I found it to convey the opposite of what the original text intended. And that was not because of the choice of vocabulary that the automated-translator made but rather because of the sentence structure it choose.
2. Prep your original text: The complexity and success rate of the translation project depends heavily on the quality and complexity of the original text. If the original text is full of regional references and play-on words the translation task will require cultural historian in addition to a translator. My word of advice is “the simpler the better.” In addition to simplifying the language one need to make the text more culturally sensitive. For instance, saying that something is as good an old bottle of scotch will not get you far in the Middle East where 90% of the people detest alcohol.
3. Idioms and Metaphors are simply hard to translate sometimes: choose wisely when it comes to metaphors and idioms in your text. First they don’t always convey the same message when they are translated literally. If you were not a German speaker would you think that the translated German saying “Here lies the dog buried” means “that is the crux of the matter”? How about “This is a nice beetle” would you immediately think that this means “nice trick.” And surly it goes the other way around. Do you think that anyone who is not familiar with the western alphabet -yes there are few of those and many of them with money- would understand “dot your i’s and cross your t’s”.
4. Use a professional translator: Now that your text is ready you need to hire a professional who is not only versed in the language but also knowledgeable about your industry. The translator you hire need to be an expert in the lingua of your domain.
5. Start over: Throughout the process there has to be continuous feedback loop. For example, the original text might need to be reworked if in order to generate a better result.

I recently encountered an issue with an ASP.NET 3.5 solution after converting it from ASP.NET 2.0.  The issue I’m going to be describing only pertains to the older web site projects (and only web projects — class libraries, etc. do not have this problem) as opposed to the newer web application projects.  I believe this to be true because the conversion wizard built into Visual Studio has rarely ever had trouble converting web application projects, while I’ve never successfully been able to automatically convert a web site project.

At some point after conversion of my web site project, I introduced some nullable type syntax, such as:

Dim amount As Double?

The next time I tried compiling the solution, the VB compiler spit an “error BC30037: Character is not valid.” message at me on the line that contained the nullable variable declaration.  Google was no help — every instance of that vague error message occurring in the search results let me further and further away from anything pertaining to nullable types.  I found that if I changed my variable declaration to:

Dim amount As Nullable(Of Double)

that the solution would compile just fine.  I ignored the problem because there was a simple workaround, until I ran into another trying to use LINQ on a simple collection object. I was looking through a collection of payments with a simple where restriction on one attribute on the payment object, like so:

Dim hasSkips As Boolean = payments.Where(Function(p) p.Code = "SKIP").Count > 0

I have used this syntax in other projects just fine in the past, but this time, the compiler reported an “error BC30201: Expression expected” while verifying the web site after trying to build the solution.

This error message, along with the realization that something seemed wrong with these supposed .NET 3.5 features, got me thinking. Understanding that the syntax I was using was reserved for Visual Studio 2008 and VB.NET 3.5, the first thing I did was check to make sure I was targeting the ASP.NET 3.5 framework (but I just converted it!).  Of course, the property pages for the web site project reported that I was targeting the correct framework.

I tried cleaning the solution and rebuilding, cycling Visual Studio, clearing out the Temporary ASP.NET Files directory; all to no avail.  After another 20 minutes of scouring the web for an answer, I finally found it in a comment on another blog.

The Solution

When converting a web application project or choosing a different framework to target, the process going on behind the scenes to accomplish those tasks isn’t afraid to modify configuration files or even modify code inside your solution.  Attempting the same on a web site project yields much less acceptable results.  It turns out that, even though I’ve instructed my web site project to target the .NET 3.5 framework, the compiler needs a little more nudging to actually use the 3.5 features of the 2.0 compiler that 3.0 and 3.5 use under the hood.

Adding the following block of XML to the web.config file in my web site project made all the difference:

<system.codedom>
        <compilers>
                <compiler language="vb;vbs;visualbasic;vbscript" extension=".vb" warningLevel="4" type="Microsoft.VisualBasic.VBCodeProvider, System, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089">
                        <providerOption name="CompilerVersion" value="v3.5"/>
                        <providerOption name="OptionInfer" value="true"/>
                        <providerOption name="WarnAsError" value="false"/>
                </compiler>
        </compilers>
</system.codedom>

Makes all too much sense now that I found it.  I checked other 3.5 web projects and sure enough, they each had this code, conveniently added automatically when I changed their targeted framework version from 2.0 to 3.5.  Trying to figure out why Visual Studio didn’t do it automatically this time is more than my brain wants to handle at the moment, but I’m happy that I can go back to utilizing the .NET 3.5 features that make development even more enjoyable than it was before.

Happy coding!

The Poke!

Wouldn’t it be great if you were walking down the street (do people do THAT anymore?) and you saw someone you didn’t really want to talk to but you still wanted them to know that you are there. And, you could just POKE them. Just walk up, not say anything because that is a bit much, but instead just a gentle POKE. It’s an “I’d like to acknowledge your presence in a way that requires as few breaths as possible.” That could be useful in everyday life.

Offline/Online:

It is completely acceptable to just suddenly go offline during most types of IM chats. Where else can you just stop a conversation . . . for whatever reason? Most of the time it is legitimate, right? Opps, I have to take something out of the oven, or it is time for a meeting and you simply log out. If you are IMing with a close friend, you might receive a follow up text asking where you went or something to that effect BUT for about 80% of the people you would be IMing with, it is totally normal to just be there one minute and not the next. Mid real conversation . . . . DONE. Just turn around, walk away . . . would that ever be ok? I think not.

Notes/Useless Info:

I have never in real life sat down with a friend or acquaintance and said, let’s try to think of 25 ways to answer these questions using song titles from just one artist. Let’s see who can do a better job. Let’s Laugh Out Loud at ourselves. Perhaps we should because that sounds like fun. Or, let’s answer 40 questions about ourselves; delivering tiny bits of personal information yet not have to say anything else. It would be impossible to get away with this in a real conversation: “What is your favorite book?” and you simple answer. Discussion over. In person, someone would ask, why? Or when did you first read it? On Facebook, rarely.  People just read and soak up the information and barely ever talk about it.  And, that is just the tip of the iceberg because usually those questions are about relationships, love, etc.

I could go on and on about this stuff and its real life application. Some are just too silly to even mention (playing tag online, throwing animals at people, buying virtual drinks) but before long it will be completely normal to say in all circles of people . . . “Have you talked to Marge lately?” . . . “Nope, but she just poked me.”