C# 411
April Fool’s Day is tomorrow, April 1st. It’s an annual “holiday” when humor reigns, and pranks and practical jokes are expected and allowed.
Computers are a great medium for April Fool’s jokers because most users have no clue what goes on behind those blinking computer lights. So when a hapless user is hit with a computer prank, they immediately suspect a malfunction, virus or worse.
Here’s a fun article from last year. If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!
When you clicked an icon to launch your web browser to read this article, you can thank Charles Thacker (among others).
In 1973, Thacker and a group of scientists at the famed Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) built the Alto, the world’s first desktop computer. The Alto featured many innovations that we take for granted today in our personal computers: a television-like screen, graphical user interface, windows, icons, and a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) text editor.
The Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) has awarded Charles Thacker with the Turing Award, which is considered to be the “Nobel Prize in Computing.” The award includes a $250,000 check, with financial support by Intel and Google. Since 1966 the Turing Award has honored computer scientists and engineers who “created the systems and underlying theoretical foundations that have propelled the information technology industry.”
An old joke floating around the Internet lately…
If a man cuts his finger off while slicing salami at work, he blames the restaurant.
If your father smokes three packs of cigarettes a day for 40 years and dies of lung cancer, your family blames the tobacco company.
If your neighbor crashes into a tree while driving home drunk, he blames the bartender.
If your grandchildren are brats without manners, you blame television.
If your friend is shot by a deranged madman, you blame the gun manufacturer.
And if a crazed person breaks into a jet cockpit and tries to kill the pilot at 35,000 feet, but the passengers kill him instead, the mother of the crazed deceased blames the airline.
I must have lived too long to understand the world as it is anymore.
So, if I die while my old wrinkled ass is parked in front of this computer, I want all of you to blame Bill Gates!
Apple Inc. has filed a federal lawsuit against “the world” for violating its U.S. Patent 3,141,5926 “Removing a Booger by Performing Gestures with a Finger.” Apple is demanding licensing royalties from all world citizens who pick their nose, and a cease & desist order against Kleenex tissues for providing citizens with an alternate method to jailbreak boogers and avoid Apple’s patent.
This new legal action follows a similar lawsuit that Apple filed against rival phone maker HTC for allegedly violating 20 of Apple’s mobile phone patents. The Apple patents include “novel” inventions such as U.S. Patent 7,657,849 for unlocking a phone with a finger swipe.
This is part 14 in a series of articles on obscure programming languages.
Nimrod is a general purpose, statically-typed, imperative programming language that supports procedural, object-oriented, functional and generic programming styles while remaining simple and efficient. Nimrod runs on Windows, Linux, BSD and MacOS X.
Here’s an old joke that’s been floating around the Internet again:
Why computers may be female:
Why computers may be male:
Here is one more reason that Best Buy® is a geek’s favorite store: Best Buy will recycle your old computer and electronics gear, mostly for free.
Best Buy will recycle “just about anything electronic, including TVs, DVD players, computer monitors, cell phones and more.”
You can bring in up to two items per household per day, but I arrived on a quiet morning with two old PCs and two old printers, and Best Buy cheerfully took them all.
Best Buy will recycle many electronic items for free. However, there is a $10 charge for items with a screen, including CRTs, monitors, laptops and TVs 32" and smaller. Fortunately, Best Buy gives you a $10 gift card to offset the cost.
Use the Best Buy haul-away or pickup programs for Console TVs, monitors and TVs larger than 32", and appliances such as refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, washers, dryers, ranges and microwaves.
One important point: desktop or laptop computers must have the hard drive removed. Watch this Geek Squad video on how to safely remove your hard drive, or Best Buy will remove it for $19.99.
Disclosure: I’m just a Best Buy customer and have no other connection to the store.
The Release Candidate (RC) for Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 is now available to the public. The biggest change from Beta 2 is a major improvement to Visual Studio performance, specifically as it relates to loading solutions, typing, building and debugging. The RC includes a “go-live license” for companies that wish to deploy Visual Studio 2010 in their production environment.
If all publicity is good publicity, then Apple is basking in the glow of its hot new gadget, the iPad, which is not only the talk of the tech world, but has also become the favorite butt of jokesters worldwide.
Following are some of the best jokes about the Apple iPad found online and especially on Twitter. Warning: Given the subject matter, these jokes are not always tasteful.
The iPad: Protecting your data from embarrassing incidents. (kathycacace)
Uncomfortable cramping and bloating? There’s an app for that. (Attagrrrl)
I ran across a novel new tool called SharpKit that generates JavaScript code from C#. I’m not using JavaScript in my current projects, so I haven’t tested this tool yet, but anyone who has worked with JavaScript knows what a hassle it can be compared to the polished managed code environment of C# and Visual Studio.
SharpKit is a free Web Toolkit that enables you to write and maintain code in C#, then convert it to JavaScript during compilation. SharpKit enables web development teams to take advantage of C# and Visual Studio benefits such as compile-time syntax verification, code-completion, XML documentation and refactoring. Many developers prefer this managed code environment versus the expensive and error-prone world of JavaScript programming.
In addition, SharpKit is a nonintrusive, compile-time solution. SharpKit does not change native JavaScript syntax, require server-side changes, nor affect your existing file structure. This non-lock-in model enables you to stop using SharpKit at any time and work directly with the JavaScript source code, if desired.
You can also use SharpKit with VB.NET, and use SharpKit to create iPhone and SmartPhone mobile browser applications.
