My Geek Notes

I learned a few new things about the Javascript Date object today:

1. When using this constructor: new Date(year, month, day);, month is 0 based. So, if you want to create a date object for September 30, 2007, it would look like this: new Date(2007, 8, 30);
2. It’s far better to use a completely different constructor - one that takes a date string, parses it, and returns a valid date object. So like this: new Date('9/30/2007'); will generate September 30, 2007.

I can’t help but get really excited about XMBC getting a Linux port. I’ve got a modded XBox that I use to play a variety of media formats: XVID, DVD, MP3, MP4, etc. It’ll even act as a karaoke machine if you have CDG files to go along with MP3 files. The fact that it’s getting ported to Linux means that without a serious amount of effort (unlike most things with Linux) I can get a simple media PC setup that’ll run just about anything I want - at least, that’s the dream, right?

Recently, I’ve been using Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server (TFS) for source control. Both my last job and my current job use it and as a Microsoft developer, and so, whether I like it or not, I expect to see a lot more of it in the future; but that’s really beside the point. Microsoft’s diff / merge tool simply isn’t adequate. It highlights the differing line just fine, but it’s not smart enough to tell me what’s different.

Years ago, I started looking around for a good solution and found KDiff. It’s an open source project hosted on Source Forge. It’s a wonderful piece of software that does exactly what you’d expect it to do. It even tells you if the only difference on a given line is just spacing (which typically has zero impact on code execution).

I wanted it to integrate with TFS nicely without having to work around it and found the necessary command-line paramters to feed to TFS:

Compare:
%1 %2

Merge:
%1 %2 -o %4

So to make them work with TFS, open Visual Studio, go to Tools -> Options and under the Source Control -> Visual Studio Team Foundation Server tree, click “Configure User Tools. . .”. That’s where the magic happens.

That’s pretty much it. It makes dealing with different files, concurrent checkouts, and other issues related to development and source control so much better.

I’ve always been a big fan of paper. I learned to make a crane as a young lad sitting in church. (Hey, gotta have something to do while the adults are all talking).

So when my friend Vitamin K sent me a link to some really cool paper models, I was impressed.

Found this interesting map of Linux distributions today. I’m sure this doesn’t include them all, but it was interesting nonetheless.

I’ve heard about this program for a while but never actually taken a look at it. Basically, for $375, you can get legal licenses for a ton of Microsoft software. You can read about the details here: https://empower-isv.one.microsoft.com/isv/programguide/Default.aspx

Some of the software you get on the cheap:

• Windows Server 2003
• Windows Vista (Business or Enterprise)
• SQL Server 2005
• Sharepoint Portal Server 2007
• MSDN Universal License and four user licenses! (worth its weight in gold - good thing DVDs don’t weigh much)

The requirements for enrollment are pretty basic. Simply announce production development and release it within 12 - 24 months. Easy enough. If you’re a software developer already, odds are good you’ve got a project already floating around your hard drive that with a little effort could be polished up to meet these requirements.

I killed everything on medium but the last two flying bosses. I almost got one, but he got away. Stupid game.

Darn you to heck Hallamigo for ever sending me the link to this filthy game. Utterly irresponsible of you.