Minnesota Geek

Oklahoma State Security

2008-04-21T10:51:00.002-05:00

How many of you heard about the data leak that occurred in Oklahoma? It didn't get as much press as I thought. Here is a good link to learn about the data leak that occurred. Why did it happen? Bad programming. Plain and simple, it was bad programming that caused this breach. How bad was it? Anyone that had data stored because of a criminal offense was vulnerable.

The sex offender website used a query string to bring back data. Unfortunately, they stored the entire SQL command in the query string. All that was needed to get the entire database back was a 'select * from xxxx' in the query string instead of what was there to begin with. As an application developer, I am appalled that someone could put that kind of code into production. That is a huge security threat and such a basic mistake.

Pic Lens

2008-04-18T10:26:00.000-05:00

My roommate found a nice plug-in for Firefox today. It is called PicLens and shows online photos and videos in a large wall format. This works with Flickr, deviantArt, Facebook, Google Images, Yahoo Images, etc. This is basically just a large scrolling wall that displays these items. This tool works in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.

The idea is great and something like this should be available in iTunes to support album art scrolling.

Carlson Etiquette Dinner

2008-04-17T11:12:00.003-05:00

I attended the Carlson School Etiquette Dinner sponsored by Protiviti today for Business Week. The dinner was delicious and I learned quite a lot by about how to act at a professional dinner. I learned various things such as the proper placement of utensils to indicate whether you are done with a dish, the proper way to consume soup, and the proper way to hold a glass with a stem. I also learned that the garnish on a plate is used to hide unsightly pieces of food such as pits of olives and bones in a meat. I also learned that the clinking of glasses in a toast is to drive away evil spirits.

Carlson School of Management and ClubMIS

2008-04-15T14:59:00.002-05:00

I would like to announce that ClubMIS of the Carlson School has held elections and yours truly is the new CIO. My duties are to maintain the website and to organize, keep, and provide information for the group. It is also everyones responsibility to try and raise awareness about the club and to help increase attendance. We'll see what next year brings, but I am looking forward to taking on these duties and trying to help the club improve. One thing I would like to see happen is that IDSC classes have information about them other than what the University publishes. I would like to consolidate student knowledge about these courses to help future students decide what classes they would like to take.

ORM and NORMA

2008-04-14T14:03:00.002-05:00

I would like to introduce all of you to the best database modeling scheme out there. There are many modeling schemes, ER diagrams being the most prevalent, but these do not adequately model database structure. ORM or Object-Role Modeling has been created by Terry Halpin and he has produced his tool, NORMA, that allow you to think the real world in real terms. Everything is thought of as an object and objects are related to one another. In ER diagramming, groups of attributes are clustered into entities and this can produce what is called "table think" that does not accurately portray real life. NORMA will also generate the relational model, the database scripts, and if you put in population details, it will generate tests for you as well. This program is an add-on for Visual Studio 2005 and for Visual Studio 2008. The added benefit of using ORM is that is based on fact sentences. These sentences can easily be validated by users for trueness. Learned correctly, ORM will produce correct database structures that are normalized and that can easily be extended should the need arise.

Menard's Future

2008-04-11T14:50:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know, I used to work at Menard's Inc. Although I have been out of the company for almost eight months, I continue to speak with friends who still work there and occasionally read updates about the company. I am predicting that once John Menard leaves the company due to retirement or other factors, the company will be sold to Home Depot or more likely Lowe's, or will fail and go out of business. I am making the prediction based on the fact that John Menard fired the person he was training to take over the company, Charlie Menard. In addition, after working there for over four years, I am well aware that the company mostly runs on the personality of John Menard. His ego and drive are what make the company function the way it does.

With that prediction made, here is a list of things that I would fix immediately if I took over Menard's. First, I would upgrade the software for the POS system. The current system is older than I am and needs to be badly upgraded. The machines that run the system are relatively new in some stores and could easily run newer software. The information that connects stores together needs to fit together so that I can easily work with other stores on sales. I should not have to fax over paperwork to ensure that a store receives credit. Second, a major overhaul of the receiving procedure needs to be done. This is currently done manually by a single person in each store. This is unacceptable and needs to change. Also, the supply chain to different stores is often whatever can fit on the truck, regardless of if the store needs it or not. That also needs to change because it clutters stores and makes inventory counts harder. Last, Menard's would need to get rid of those managers that were used to doing things the "Menard's" way. This means that hiring and recruiting needs to take a bigger priority and training needs to improve. Managers that did not follow this would be gone.

Not that I would run Menard's, but this was a hypothetical exercise into what I think would need to be done if I took over the company.

Top Ten Ways To Waste Time

2008-04-10T16:09:00.002-05:00

Top ten ways to spend a Saturday afternoon in college. This might not get you good grades, but you will wonder what you really accomplished.

10. Facebook - The boon of all college students. Get caught doing this and it should evoke a chorus of "Facebook Livin'" songs from your friends.

9. Collegehumor - Again, similar to Facebook except it does not have the requisite humiliation associated with it.

8. Digg - Easy time waster. Click on the links to watch movies, look at pictures, and read news articles that you probably don't care about.

7. Lolcats - Very embarrassing to be caught looking at, but they're just so cute.

6. Lifehacker - Great time waster and a way to read about being more productive. You can be more productive at your job to let you have more time to read Lifehacker.

5. Study - We all know that when you say you studied for five hours that you really studied for maybe three hours and spaced out for about two hours.

4. True Life - Or any other show on MTV that is really bad but is really hard to turn away from. Another form is the show "The Hills". That show just makes you watch it all the way through, if only to thank god you don't really know those people.

3. Addicting Games - The most comprehensive list of free Internet games out there. You could literally spend all day playing these games and only play about four games.

2. Craigslist - There are so many cool things to find on this site that you could waste many hours just looking at postings. The free stuff section is the best place to look. This could also waste more time as you drive around picking stuff up.

1. Bash - This site has so many great IRC conversations that you could spend hundreds of hours reading them and re-reading them. Beware that once you start, you won't want to stop.

Questions About Life And New Developments

2008-04-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

I had a thought today that I decided I should share with the Internets. Why is it that when businesses make a price cut they list it as "half off"? I walked past Steaknife, a local restaurant, and they listed that their tap beers are half off all day. Wouldn't that mean they just changed the price to be half as much? Either way, the food is good and I suggest everyone in the Minneapolis/Dinkytown area to try it.

On another note, I plan on buying a new computer and the first project I am going to undertake is one to create a website using the new Visual Studio 2008. This site will feature drink specials from the Minneapolis area and have cool AJAX/animation. Here's hoping I actually follow through with it.

DreamSpark

2008-04-08T12:00:00.001-05:00

At the risk of sounding like a Microsoft fanboy, I have a great opportunity for those students out there. Microsoft is giving away professional copies of Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition, Windows Server 2003, Expression Studio and many others. As long as you are a student and have a valid college email address, you are eligible. Go to DreamSpark and sign up. Then you can download the iso files to install from. Simply use Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools to mount the iso or burn the iso to a CD or DVD and install from that. Great opportunity to use professional software to create great web sites and applications. This is Microsoft trying to develop an open source community. Take full advantage and you could be recognized by Microsoft and given a job. Or bought out by Google.

Ten Things Not To Do In A Presentation

2008-04-07T10:41:00.002-05:00

These are ten things that I have noticed in my peers presentations at school. These should be minimized. If you can eliminate these, your presentation could still suck for lack of content, but at least you will have good presentation skills.

10. Involvement - Don't pander to your teacher by asking for user involvement when none is needed. Quizzing the audience very rarely gets you answers, just present more material, don't quiz me.

9. Introductions - Don't introduce presenters as they start to present their section of a slide show. If you need to introduce speakers, do it at the beginning and try to minimize flow interruption.

8. Posture - When you're presenting, you should be facing your audience. You need to be looking people in the eyes to let them know you are speaking to them. If you are not presenting, stand up straight, hands out of your pockets, and be looking around at the audience as well.

7. Questions - If you want to take all questions at the end, state that at the beginning. Otherwise, people will assume they can ask during the presentation. If that is true, you don't need to announce it.

6. Clipart - With sites such as Flickr, and other stock photo exchanges, there is no reason to use the Microsoft built in clipart that looks like a cartoon. Get real stock photos or use the stock photos in the clipart. You are an adult, you don't need the cartoon-like car.

5. Novels - Keep the amount of text on a slide to a minimum. If I wanted to read the idea, I would have you write a paper. You are speaking, present the main idea and then extend it by speaking. That way I can look at the slide and have my mind remember what you said based on the key words on the slide.

4. Reading - This relates to point 5 and point 8. If you are facing your audience you are less likely to read a slide. If you don't have a paragraph of text, you are less likely to read your slide. I can read, you don't need to repeat what your slide says.

3. Transitions - Related to point 6 above. This is a professional presentation, you don't need the lame slide in transition. Does that gong sound really help your presentation? Probably not.

2. Um - Know your material. This will minimize you saying things like "Um", "Ah", "Like", etc. This takes time as well. Train yourself not to fill in dead air with these words. Instead, learn to stop, think about what you want to say, then speak.

1. Control - Maintain this in your presentation. Do not let audience questions, comments, or technology failings make you lose control of the presentation. This is also difficult, you need good user comments and questions to have a good discussion, but you need to maintain overall control and authority in a presentation. This is a very fine balancing act.

Heroes Happen {here} Part 2

2008-04-04T12:43:00.000-05:00

So, after a delicious lunch with strangers, there were three more sessions left for the day. The first session after lunch was probably the best one, in my opinion, on the developer track. This revolved entirely around changes to Visual Studio in the 2008 version. First off, JavaScript is now completely codeable in .NET and it takes full advantage of Intellisense. Also, Microsoft has made using CSS style sheets easier by making it like the properties window. Also, the IDE itself features a new split view for web design, allowing you to see both the raw HTML as well as the visual display. Also, selecting an item in either window will also select the item in the opposite window. This makes finding specific HTML incredibly fast.

The next session was about developing for Office. I thought that this session was going to be awful but it turned out to be alright. The coolest thing I learned at this session is that developing for the ribbon in Office 2007 is very easy and can be very useful. Imagine having Outlook access while working in Excel. I know, really cool; you're still on Office 2007 though, so that sucks.

The last session was about developing for a mobile, asynchronous environment. This session was not all that useful as the pieces discussed would not yet work on Windows Mobile. Also, the tools given to make "quick, easy applications" seemed really hard to use. I see a future here and I think that this will really take off soon, especially with Microsoft trying to gain market share with Windows Mobile, but for now, the technology is pretty young. Check back next week for articles around what computer I am going to be buying, upcoming projects, and other un-thought of topics.

Heroes Happen {here} Part 1

2008-04-03T10:44:00.000-05:00

I owe the blog two posts from this week. They are both going to be about a launch event I attended for Microsoft at the Minneapolis Convention Center. They gave away copies of Visual Studio 2008 Pro, SQL Server 2008, Server 2008, and Vista Ultimate. My first impression of walking into the event? Wonderful. Easy check in, all they did was scan the barcode on my email confirmation. There was also coffee galore. The keynote was given by Gabriel Broner. It effectively displayed the new tools that they were given away. Also, Microsoft was huge on having partners on stage, vendors that use their product to sell their own service. In the first session, Visual Studio was introduced. The woman giving the session was not as knowledgeable, but they did give away a free ticket to TechEd. Picking up breakfast and lunch was extremely easy. You gave an usher your meal ticket and they handed you a Microsoft lunch bag that contained our breakfast and lunch. Microsoft knows how to throw a party. That's it for Part 1, please read Part two to get an overview of the event after lunch.

Enough Of RFID

2008-04-02T12:11:00.002-05:00

I've had enough of hearing about RFID. Here is a news flash to all CS, IS, and IT teachers and TA's: No college student cares about RFID. We've grown up hearing about it. When I was in high school, RFID was the new, hip thing. It could change the way supply chain works. As a college student, I am still hearing about it. Why hasn't it been implemented? It costs too much. Alright, I get it. I don't need to hear about it again until it's cheaper. There are many things that could change the supply chain. Walmart allowing other retailers to use its supply chain would change the way businesses work. Why don't I hear about that? It's unrealistic. The same goes for RFID. So a plea to all college presenters out there: No one cares about RFID anymore, please do not tell me about it.

Ten Drinks You Can Make At Home (College Style)

2008-04-01T14:46:00.000-05:00

10. Anything my friend has - Moochers drink this, it happens to be whatever my friend has right now.

9. Jack Daniels - Or any whiskey really. Pour it over ice and drink. No ice? Warm is fine. No glass? Take pulls.

8. Jello Shots - There's nothing like eating Jello filled with alcohol, proclaiming there to be no alcohol in it, then passing out.

7. Alcohol in a water bottle - Usually carried by females to parties, but men will do it in a pinch.

6. Bombs - Jaegerbombs, Carbombs, anything where you get to drop a shot into another glass and then chug.

5. Alcohol and Redbull - Nothing like mixing an upper and a downer. It should even itself out right?

4. Vodka and Juice - Doesn't matter what kind of juice, just pour over vodka and you're set.

3. Alcohol and Coke - Pour in some alcohol, add Coke, drink, repeat.

2. Shots - Is there alcohol in it? Let's take shots. What? It's Listerene? Screw it, pour it in a glass.

1. Beer - Simple, easy, cheap. Everything a college student looks for in a night out.

Ten Things You Need To Know To Be In IS/IT

2008-03-28T14:50:00.004-05:00

These are the ten things that an employee must know to be able to work in an information systems or information technology role. If you can not do all ten, you belong on the business side.

10. Know the difference between Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows. One is used for word processing and spreadsheets, the other runs your computer. They are not interchangeable and only one can acceptably be referred to as "Windows".

9. Know the first three culprits for the screen being blank. They are monitor off, computer not plugged in, computer not on. Do not call support until these have been checked.

8. Know what Firefox and Thunderbird are. You don't have to use them, just be aware of what they do.

7. How to change the ink and add paper to the printer. Not necessarily every printer, just the one your computer prints to by default. Ability to learn from instructions located inside the cover/drawer are a plus.

6. Understand why computers must be kept in a cool environment (and not the hip kind). Oooh, melty.

5. Know how to set up a computer (plug in monitor, mouse, keyboard, sound, ethernet, and power). It's an adult version of the round peg, round hole game. And it's color coded.

4. Be able to use as media: floppy, cd-rom, and flash drive. At least know how one would use each one.

3. Be able to check the anti-virus you are running to see what it has found. No anti-virus? FAIL.

2. Do an everyday task online. Check a bank account, pay a bill, read some news. There are so many applications out there, you need be able to use at least one.

1. Know whose fault it always is. The correct answer is users. Always, no matter what.

Ten Things Not To Do If You Work In A Cube

2008-03-28T13:51:00.003-05:00

The following is a list of ten things a person should not do if they work in a cubicle. Now that I think of it, most of these things work are true for almost everyone.

10. Knock - When you enter a cube, it is like entering someone's house. Would you walk into my house without knocking? Not if you didn't want to get hit with a baseball bat.

9. Cube Toys - These are not yours. These are mine. Buy your own.

8. Headphones - Where them. I do not want to hear your music. You cannot listen to the radio while collating. It might cause me to set the building on fire.

7. Phone Calls - If you get a call, leave the room. I do not want to hear about what you did last weekend with your significant other.

6. Shower - Enough said.

5. Email - If I'm in th cube next door, do not email me a quick question. Get off your lazy butt and ask.

4. Yelling - No yelling over the partitions. Didn't Mom teach you this?

3. Smells - Avoid things with strong smells like certain foods, perfumes, colognes, and lotions.

2. Laughter - This is good in the workplace. However, it is creepy when you laugh hysterically in the middle of the day from the cubicle next door and I have no idea why. It makes me want to violate Rule 5.

1. Carbon Copy - Do not cc: the rest of the office on an email simply to "keep the team in the loop". This is why I am in the same room, let us know what you are up to. People tend to mass delete emails from you after a while and this is probably not what you want.

Changes

2008-01-31T09:51:00.000-06:00

There will be some changes coming around here. I'm going to be updating the side and top nav as well as changing some links around. I also have some posts saved up that should be rolling out in the next few days. Let me know what you think in the comments. In addition, I am toying with the idea of buying a URL so let me know what choices might be good.

Coming back

2007-06-07T10:17:00.000-05:00

Well, lets see if I can give this blogging thing another shot. I on a computer for many hours of the day now and we'll see if I can't start posting every day. Guess I have to read my feeds so I have some stuff to talk about. More to come hopefully.

Test

2005-11-29T11:55:00.000-06:00

So this is my first post using the new browser Flock. I would make that a link, but it doesn't support raw HTML, which is a major bummer. The link is http://www.flock.com. If you just paste that in your address bar and hit enter, away you will go. Keep in mind this is brand new and will crash without cause, but other than that... I like it so far, it looks and feels like Firefox but has built in blogging, rss integration, and photo sharing. This could be cool once it gets to be stable. One neat thing is that they stole my idea about having a blogging tool that does tags automatically by just typing what you want the link to say. It's ok though because my idea was for a more mobile solution for a Pocket PC. We shall see if I will once again switch browsers.

technorati tags: Flock,

School

2005-11-20T00:23:00.000-06:00

So as you know, I am a student at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. In case any of you are bored and want some awesomely good writing, or you feel the need to proofread a freshman level English paper, check out my research paper on Electoral College Reform. This paper is for my English Composition class, ENGC1011. If you have any suggestions or would like to discuss this further with me, just post a comment, send an email to duli0015@umn.edu, or im to seandulin.

P.S. I am considering buying a domain, most likely www.seandulin.com. What does everyone think about that?

Tags: Minnesota, English, Electoral College, Reform

Netvibes Review

2005-11-20T00:08:00.000-06:00

I have tried Netvibes, recommended by Jeramey Jannene and I must say I was very impressed. It is a startup company, founded by Florent Fremont and Tariq KRIM and is based in Paris. The site includes French, English, Spanish, Russian and Portuguese language support with three new languages on the way. Like Live, it uses AJAX and Web 2.0 to make an awesomely customizable website. You can add feeds, drag them around to where you want them, edit them, and delete them at will. One thing it doesn't have that live.com does, is the gadget feature, but seeing that Microsoft has not finished Firefox support, the gadgets don't work for me anyway. A huge plus is that you can have a slide show or display of pictures that have been tagged a certain way on Flickr. It shows up in a tag box and you can draw it around to where you think it fits best. You can also integrate Netvibes with your Gmail account so you can get your latest email. You can also search Google, Yahoo, Ice Rocket, and Wikipedia all from the middle of the first page. Netvibes is now my new homepage and for anyone that reads news feeds, is looking for an interactive website, or wants something cool should do the same.

Tags: Netvibes, AJAX, Web 2.0

Moblogger

2005-11-17T15:22:00.000-06:00

There is a new project that I will be starting, and it is called Moblogger. This stands for mobile blogger. It is a application for Pocket Pc that enables you to post to your blog and edit posts. One new feature that I am really excited to develop is the idea of a tag field. This will be a box near the bottom of the program that the user can type words in, seperated by commas that they would like to tag their post with, much like Flickr. The program will automatically insert the html code to turn those words into technorati links. I get really tired of typing out the html code for the links, so this program might start as one for a laptop or desktop and then migrate to one for the Pocket Pc, so I can also use it while I'm at home. If you have any suggestions for me or would like to help, send an email to duli0015@umn.edu or post a comment.

Note: To post a comment, click on the # symbol below then click on the Post a Comment link. I know this is cumbersome, but that's the template I'm currently using. Sorry

Tags: Moblogger, Flickr

Live

2005-11-17T14:54:00.000-06:00

So Live.com is now public, although still in beta. It is really cool. It uses web 2.0 such as AJAX do some really amazing stuff. It has RSS, a cool gadget feature, and an assortment of other things. I recommend trying it out. What I really like is how you can drag different elements around to new spots. Jeramey Jannene over at MSOE tells me that netvibes.com has similar features and I am going to be checking it out here soon. I think this is where the web is going. Customizable, personal, and integrated. Within 10 years, I I see everyone checking email, posting to blogs, and getting updates via their phone. I see smart phones becoming more popular and smaller. No longer will smart phones be large and obtrusive. I am making this prediction now, we'll see if it comes to fruitation.

Tags: Live, AJAX, Netvibes

Changes

2005-11-17T12:17:00.000-06:00

So some of you might have noticed there have been some recent changes to my blog in the last couple of days. I have added AdSense to the left hand side so I can perhaps make a little money. If you want to click an ad, that would be great. If not, that's great too. I just want to see more traffic, so if you could spread the word about how awesome this site is, that would be great. There will be another post in about 2 hours or so while I'm in my Physics for Game Developers freshmen seminar.

Tags: AdSense, Minnesota

New Tool

2005-11-13T12:10:00.000-06:00

Well, this is my first post using the blogging tool w.bloggar. We'll see how I like it. I am tossing around the idea of creating a blogging tool for the pocket pc and am trying this out because I hear it is the best PC blogging tool available. If you have a blog you can try it by going to wbloggar.com and downloading the installer. The setup was incredibly easy and as I look around the options, it has many cool features such as pinging your favorite service to let other sites know that you have updated your blog. This would be a really cool program on a pocket pc because you could easily post from virtually anywhere without having to carry a laptop. Pocket pc development is also the same for smart phones, and as we become more involved with our cells, smart phones become better and better. Imagine having everything you need on a phone. You can read email, chat, blog, talk, all on a cell phone. Amazing huh? My project would also have a field near the bottom where you can just put in what you want to tag your post so technorati can easily see it. Put them in a list seperated by commas and the program would write the html for you. It's a pain having to write out the html code for the technorati link, not because it's hard to do, but because I'm lazy.

Tags: w.bloggar, Pocket Pc, Smart phone