Why I moved to Blogger

After several unsatisfing emails with the wordpress support about Google Analytics I have been forced over to blogspot. I didn’t want to go, really I didn’t want to leave but I was left with no choice. Being a Software Engineer, I wanted my Google Anaytics Damit! While wordpress.com has offered some very nice things like their themes, recent comments, dashboard and pages, I was able to achieve all of the same with blogspot. Blogspot isn’t quite as easy to use but it is far more powerful.

Farewell and Adieu wordpress.com!

My Blogspot blog is benkruger.com
http://www.benkruger.com

Please update your RSS reader for posts http://www.benkruger.com/feeds/posts/default

Please update your RSS reader for comments http://www.benkruger.com/feeds/comments/default

Why Pat Riley is worst than Tom Brady

I used to have this long standing hatrid for that “punk ass bitch” Tom Brady. He stole the starting job from Drew Bledsoe years ago, then went on, no thanks to that “tuck rule“, eventually winning the super bowl. In the last year, my hatred has weened. This is primarly do to the fact that “the man” keeps taking away his assets and he keeps playing phenomimally!

Anyway, here comes a good guy, lets call him Stan Van Gundy and Pat Riley recognizes that the Miami Heat have an awsome team. So he pries the Miami Heat away from his cold dead hands and then goes on to win the Championship. Now that the team is struggling, he is walking away. What a loser and not that I have ever respected him but now I lothe him.  He is he worst type of sportsman!  Plus doesn’t he look seedy?

Sharper Image ruined my Christmas

My wife, Lauren and I never buy each other Christmas presents. We have been together 10 years now and pretty much have the things we want. Anyway, I had been paying special attention to detail this year because I felt the time was right for a Christmas surprise! I thought of a very thoughtful gift. I went online and found the right one at The Sharper Image. Of course The Sharper Image is a pathetic company that doesn’t have a very good e-commerece website so I thought it would be best to buy from them through amazon.com. Things went very smooth as they always do from amazon.com. I sent the package to my work since my wife is still working from home after the birth of my pride and joy Mirabelle.

A week later when I came home from work my wife exclaimed, “I know what you bought me for Christmas”. I was like, what are you talking about… She went on to show me a letter we got from The Sharper Image. The lame bastards sent a letter to my house just to say that I shipped the package to a different address. Now I have been buying items online since 98 and I have never had a letter like this sent to my house.

So I wrapped her present and put it under the tree and she opened it on Christmas day. She of course liked the present but it was much much larger IRL and from the pictures online. She wanted a smaller one. I proceeded to read the return policy and call a local store. I certainly didn’t want to bother with returning it via the mail. That would have taken 6 to 8 weeks and the hassle and worry, who needs that! Luckily the local store said they would be able to refund my credit card.

We trecked all the way into San Francisco to one of The Sharper Images. When we got to the counter, luckily we had the assistant manager, he was very friendly and I explained the story. Of course when I went to give him the receipt, or what was the receipt things got complicated. The receipt that they sent me was nothing more than a packing list with an order number and item number on it. Anyway he went into his pathetic little DOS type interface computer and came back to me and basically called me a bold faced liar. He said I paid for this with a gift certificate and could only get store credit. I explained to him again how I purchased the item. He went back to his pathetic little DOS type interface computer and came back and said, wait, I see you paid for it with a voucher through Sky Mall. I actually laughed at this and told him I didn’t. I paid for it with my AMEX. Long story short, they were unable to give me a refund.

Later I called The Sharper Images corporate office and complained. The customer service woman was extremely nice and after she talked with a couple people she basically said that there policy with amzon.com was weird and there was nothing that she could do.

Bottom line, The Sharper Image ruined my Christmas surprise for my wife and I certainly wont do business with them again and I warn anyone else of the same!

Little Bunny Foo Foo

So I came home from work a few weeks ago and walked in on my wife singing Little Bunny Foo Foo, to Bells. I was immediately enthralled. First off, my wife is very cute and I just assumed she came up with this amazing rhyme on her own, she does things like that! Turns out she didn’t and this rhyme has been around for decades if not centuries. I felt robbed of my childhood at that very moment. How could I not have known about Little Bunny Foo Foo! What else did I miss out on. Turns out there is a lot. These are just the ones my wife knew that I didn’t. They are excellent!

1. Little Bunny Foo Foo
2. Head Should Knees and Toe
3. Tony Chestnut

The Santa Racket

It started out so simple, my wife, Lauren Do and I wanted to take our baby girl to see Santa. While she is only nine months, we wanted to get her used to asking Santa for a special toy for Christmas. We also wanted a few pictures for her baby book and to feed her blog! As it turns out you can’t see Santa without paying! To make matters worse, most places, even if you pay, you can not take your own pictures.

When did the Santa Racket begin? The whole thing just makes me so angry. I remember a time when Santa would show up at a Mall and the children could all go sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. Now, it will cost you at least $14.

It’s a crying shame

It’s a Shame

This morning during my morning exercise routine I witnessed a middle aged lady picking my neighbors lovely sun flowers.  I immediately ran after her and told her that I saw her take the sun flower and to give it back to me.  She of course denied it but I exclaimed, “I saw you”.  She reluctantly handed it over.  Then I noticed the callo-lilly’s she had also picked.  While I did not witness her take these, I did point them out.  I told her that next time I see her stealing flowers I’ll call the cops on her.  I then said, have you no shame?

It is a shame that we don’t live in a shame based society!  How can people think it is okay to steal other peoples property!  I find it simply outrageous.

Easy to say but hard to do

One of the blogs on my google reader is Coding Horror. I often find this guy amusing and interesting, both in a postive mannor.

Today he was off on an interesting rant, Does Writing Code Matter? and I have a few thoughts on the subject. First and foremost it does! A codeslinger enjoys his ways and has not only a swagger but a look in their eyes. So, again, first and formost, it matters.

However, Jeff went on to make a very good point, one we all already know in the back of our heads. He says “Become a better writer. Become a better speaker. Improve your personal skills. Participate in the community. … That’s how you distinguish yourself from your peers. And that’s ultimately how you become a better software developer, too.”. While I completley agree with this statement it is not that easy. The vast majority of developers are poor at this skill set and either don’t want or can not obtain it. So while it is a lovely idea, it isn’t practical and has nothing to do with writing code.

If I can do it shouldn’t the Database be able to?

Back at the ZIPR I used to get teased about things like BJava (Ben’s Java) and BOracle (Ben’s Oracle) since I would often find annoying and limiting aspects of a Technology and then I would go on and on about what a POS they were.

Now I work a lot with MS SQL Server, which I enjoy working with much more than my old friend Oracle. So this is no way a reflection on one POS Database or another POS Database.

Anyway, if I can tune a query, shouldn’t the Database be able to do it for me? Why is the optimizer more often then not wrong? Why do I need to use join hints and join types? Why will it even allow me to add a redundant index? I’d really like to see some improvements in these areas. I feel so limited in what we can do with DSQL with a POS optimizer. Imagine a world where you write a query and the Database figures out how to make it run fast. I don’t care if it re-writes the query for me. Why should I have to worry about join order and indexing? Can’t the database figure out I need an index and what columns should participate in that index? Java has done a fairly good job with their Hot Spot Technology.

It is time for the Databases to shape up since there is no way they are going to slim down in todays world of unsurpassed data.

Fantasy Football (pickem)

Doesn’t FF just make a leisurley day of football more enjoyable? There is something to be said about rooting for not only teams but individual players. It is sad however that the black out rules often pre-empt the best games on TV. I was not able to see the Dallas vs. Philadelphia game today due to the Niner vs. Raider game with the same time slot and that game was hardly worth watching. I am doing quite well in all of my leagues! I have an algorithm that I follow for Yahoo Pickem.

1. Always pick a team coming off of a bye week.
2. Never pick against New England.
3. Never pick Arizona, they are the new Cincinatti. No matter how much you are tempted
4. Make your picks after the Sunday Night Game while everything is fresh on your mind. This saves you a lot of time during the week thinking about it.
5. Don’t adjust your picks during the week unless a significant injury occures to a key starter.
6. Never join more than one pickem league, this can lead to your down fall if one of your leagues is doing poorly.
7. Always go with your gut!

I’ll be riding to a first place win this year if I can follow my own algorithm.

Getting your leg up with Rounders

I am tired of playing Texas Hold’em. Seems like that is the only type of poker anyone wants to play anymore. I used to enjoy getting my leg up with with the Rounders but not so much anymore. It used to be about drinking, talking about computers and finances, oh and the occational smack, but with Hold’em everyone is so much more serious. I am calling for a ban on Hold’em!

Lets bring back the fun games like Legs, 727, Baseball, Del-Solar, even 5 card draw and not forget why we got together in the first place.

Who is with me?

A codeslinger in the making!

Today my daughter is well on her way to becoming a codeslinger

Donations Welcome for The BMW Performance Driving School!

Yes I have a 2006 330i with the sports package (bloged one of these days…)

But I want to drive the M5 and M3, So please donate so I can go experience The BMW Performance Driving School

Frackin Clustered Index Seek

The key to tuning your query is to have all of the columns you want returned in your composite index. This is a pain in your ass especially as the number of columns grows. However, when you are dealing with data sets in the gizmillions (Yes a reference to my fat kitty cat gizmo) then you have no choice because the last thing you want to see is a Frackin clustered index seek. What you want to see is a comely Index Seek.

My Broken Ankle

My Broken Ankle