I'm moving my blogs to a new home. More about why and how I (hope) to do it here: http://blog.egilh.com/2010/01/moving-from-text-095-to-blogger.html (the link will not work until the DNS changes take effect)

Then you should try your skills at Code Jam 2009 It's all about solving problems so knowing the latest development fads will not help you. You can access last years tasks in the practice section to get a feel for the problems you will have to solve. You can use any programming language, development environment or text editor as long as the compiler or interpreter you use is freely available and easy to download and use. Visual Studio can be used as there is a free version available: Visual Studio Express. The top 25 online contestants will travel to Google headquarters in Mountain View, California where they will will compete for ACRush's title of Code Jam Champion ...

I hardly ever user Internet Explorer so I don't know when it broke, but today it gave me this error for all sites: The address is not valid Most likely causes: There might be a typing error in the address. If you clicked on a link, it may be out of date. Looks like one of the latest set of security patches messed up something as the problem went away after I reset the browser settings: Go to the Tools menu Choose “Internet Options“ Click on the “Advanced“ tab Click the “Reset“ button Close the browser

You can get a preview of the next version of Google Chrome by enabling the developer preview channel. It is not for the faint of hart so only do this if you have time to waste or like to be on the cutting edge: The Dev channel is where ideas get tested (and sometimes fail). The Dev channel can be very unstable at times, and new features usually require some manual configuration to be enabled. Still, simply using Dev channel releases is an easy (practically zero-effort) way for anyone to help improve Google Chrome. The latest build picks up a lot of fixes from Web Kit so you will notice increased compatability and several new features like user scripts.

Developing with emulators is “fine” but you have no idea how it works on the final device. Which is why I usually make builds for the real device as soon as possible to verify that what I am trying to do is feasible on the real device. I'm thrilled to see that Google has launched a $399 Android Dev Phone that is not locked to any provider: The Android Dev Phone 1 is a SIM-unlocked and hardware-unlocked device that is designed for advanced developers. The device ships with a sys

I spend a lot of time troubleshooting web applications. My Swiss army tool of choice for all network related issues is WireShark but it falls short when it comes to analyzing SSL encrypted traffic. FireFox takes forever to load compared to IE7 but its wide range of add-ons can be a life saver at times for developers. I am a heavy user of: User Agent Switcher which quickly lets me change the user agent of the browser SwitchProxy lets you quickly swap between proxies. Proxy configuration scripts are great if you always use the same proxies but I frequently have to force a specific proxy to test different web application behaviors. LiveHTTPHeaders plugs into FireFox ...

The agenda is not finalized yet, but I am sure Community days 2008 will be as interesting as the past events. I doubt I will attend the free event this year as I do not program in .NET at work. I still do some coding for fun but it is hard to justify two days away from work just for fun :-) I will try to attend some Microsoft events to stay in touch with friends but you are more likely to see me at Python conferences in the future...

I have played around with GTD for several years. It has worked reasonably well but I recently learned that I have done one thing wrong: I used categories instead of contexts. They sound like the same thing but using context has made a big difference. In the past I used categories like: "personal" and "work". It works for grouping tasks together but it is a bad idea when you have to choose the next thing to work on as it says nothing about the "context" you require to do them. I could have a personal task like "scan letter" that I actually have to do in the office where I have access to a scanner. Defining real context makes it very clear what you should work on at ...

SQL Server Magazine has a set of free essential guides regarding many SQL Server tasks. They are targeted at people that are new to the topic and they are short and to the point: The Essential Guide to Business Intelligence Reporting: Choosing the Right Tool for the Right Job Virtualization of SQL Server 2008 The Essential Guide to Reporting Services Tips & Tricks The Essential Guide to Disaster Recovery and Virtualization The Essential Guide to SQL Server Backup and Recovery The Essential Guide to Jump Starting Your SQL Server Skills The Essential Guide to User Continuity Special Report: Perspectives on SQL Server Sprawl The Essential Guide to ...

Got a great idea for a web site or web service but not the resources to host it? Why not try Google App Engine: Google App Engine lets you run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow. With App Engine, there are no servers to maintain: You just upload your application, and it's ready to serve your users. You can serve your app using a free domain name on the appspot.com domain, or use Google Apps to serve it from your own domain. You can share your application with the world, or limit access to members of your organization. App Engine ...