paypal commerce starter kit for asp.net 2
check out the paypal-enabled commerce starter kit for asp.net 2.0
potential issue in visual web developer 2005
i ran across a potential snag some of you may be experiencing in visual studio web developer release version.
one of the goals with vs2005 was “intellisense everywhere” — and it was incorporated everywhere, even web.config files. here in lies the issue.
create a new web.config file — by default it is created correctly and you should have intellisense. save it and close it. now open the web site administration tool (Website menu…ASP.NET Configuration) and make some changes. go back to your web.config file and you may notice that the root node <configuration> now has an xmlns in it (which is the namespace for the config environment).
now, try to use intellisense in that modified web.config. does it work? if so, great. if not, you hit the snag i did — i’ve been able to repro it but haven’t been able to isolate if i’m the only one. the workaround is to remove the xmlns attribute on the configuration node to get the intellisense back…which leads me to potential bug #2.
put your web.config in source control and check it in. close the file. now go back to the web site administration tool — do you get a message saying you need to have web.config be editable? or does the file get automatically checked out (because of your settings)? the WSAT tool for some reason needs the web.config to be editable (i don’t think it does, it just thinks it does) all the time, even when you aren’t modifying web.config properties. this is an annoying issue, but the workaround (if no changes are made to web.config) is to either (1) undo checkout (if you don’t want erroneous source control audits) or (2) checkin the file again. again, this is annoying because of bug #1.
i want to point out these are DESIGN TIME issues only — no runtime execution is affected (with or without the xmlns, the web.config is readable). if they are annoying to you and you want them fixed, please submit your vote for the existing ladybug requests.
san francisco observations
i’m in san francisco for the microsoft launch activities and while waiting to check in to my hotel i thought i’d just wander around.
getting off the plane i decided to take the bart system to downtown rather than the typical taxi (and now that i have, not sure why i ever took a taxi). i wish i lived in a city with major public transportation all over the place. the ride was $4.95 (versus a $40 taxi) and got me there in about 10 minutes.
getting off the bart i noticed the station (powell station) was flooded with ipod advertisements all over the place — like every sign was ipod, the column pillars were ipod, the benches, everything. you’d think there was an ipod conference. as i climbed the stairs i realized potentially one of the reasons why…at the top of the stairs of the powell station is an ipod store. even high above union square though — ipod nano all over the place.
i guess this struck me as in all other major conferences i’ve gone to of microsoft’s, the city is usually plastered with marketing of that conference. granted launch isn’t as large (attendee speaking of course) as others, but why not put out the word?
sfo is a great place and if i could convince my family to move, it would be one i’d consider — beautiful and cool (weather speaking) — remember i’m from phoenix. i wandered all over downtown aimlessly just observing. i noticed a homeless man pressing the coin return button on a newspaper stand violently/consistently about 20 times in a row…then he’d check the change bin…repeat 5 times…maybe he knows something we don’t? i thought.
i also saw a bunch of photographers taking pictures of trolleys and people — something i would imagine isn’t uncommon in other large metro cities. i really enjoyed all the social gathering and just business of the city…it was great to see that. there were some other weird things i saw (like a toilet/public restroom in the middle of the sidewalk that i must have walked past several times on previous viits), but in general, if you like people watching, sfo is a great place to be.
well, i’m off to some pre-launch stuff and can’t wait to see steveb tomorrow.
java vs .net 2
some tests of java versus .net v2
from the tests:
This indicates that on the whole .NET is a more efficient platform, with perhaps at least one area for improvement – native type memory efficiency.
Kinko's and color copies
i was putting together a flyer promoting community user groups and i had some color in it — nothing fancy, just red and blue (note: the flyer was ALL text, no photography or anything — picture word doc with some text in color).
so i waited to the last minute and kinko’s would be the only one able to get it done in time (aside from another place about an hour from my house that i wasn’t willing to drive).
color copies: $.89/each — are you friggin kidding me? for the 1500 copies i needed, that is $1335 for paper. okay, so they’d give me a bulk discount — $.59 = $885. i asked for the company discount and it wasn’t much less. point being that i could have bought 2 color printers for less than it would be to print out these copies (sure paper and toner in the long run, blah blah, but i’m trying to make a point here). i decided i couldn’t justify it and opted for the b&w copies — how much you ask? = $45. that’s right, color copies were going to cost me at best 16X more than standard copies (same paper mind you). unbelievable in this day and age. i remember when kinko’s first started offering color copies and they were roughly $1 — now probably 10 years later, that price has only dropped 11 cents. unbelievable.
[UPDATE (27-JUL-2010): I thought I'd check in again, here we are 19 months since my last check. Kinko's still has pricing at $.59/sheet standard color copy and $.39 for bulk (online lists bulk at over 5,000 copies now). That's still outrageous. Those same 5,000 copies would cost $1,650 LESS at DocuCopies where they offer .05/copy for the same job. Amazing.
[UPDATE (27 JAN 2009): Since this post has caused some discussion, etc. I thought I'd do a check up on Kinko's pricing. I called my local store with the same specifications as my original job 3 years ago. Updated pricing: $.59/sheet standard color copy and $.39 for a bulk discount of 1500 copies. So that is still $585 or 13 times the cost of B&W copies.]
i also used their “print online” capability for a different one (that i would get color — there were only 4 of them) — convenient seeing how i live in the boonies and wouldn’t have to drive just to drop it off and have them tell me to wait 45 minutes for 4 copies. i hate consumer companies that take the cable company appointment approach (you know, “we can be there between 8–12 or 1–5). i know other customers are waiting — but it seems to me, you’d be able to get the small 4 copy guys out of the way and make them happy so you can get on to the 3000 copy, fold, binding, box jobs that those customers know are going to take a while — needless to say, i put my order in at 8am and as of 3:30pm it still isn’t done — 4 color copies people.
that color printer is making more sense by the minute.