system.reflecti0n.net

...Answer "a couple weeks", not "a couple days". Sheesh. Nothing worse than having youself overcomitted at work because you want to impress a client by turning around changes to a project faster than you can manage.

On the bright side, even when I said 2 days for changes, in the back of my mind I knew that working form home is what it would take... but how much nicer would it be to have a couple more days to look things over.

Now I just have to promise that if anyone asks for another round of changes I'll point out that a couple of days was a bit tight and I'd rather have a week instead... Or reduce the number of changes.

Tags: architecture, office polititc

I'm watching that movie with those two people that just love to use their computer for some kind of entertainment, but not because they love to use their computers, no, their computers are only the medium that their entertainment passes through.

I can barely fathom this... Thre are poele out there using computers not because its a computer but for what it gets them access to, another corner of their life. Wow that bugs me because I just don't use computers like that.

I can't even remember why its fun to use these stupid things... As the years wind on this trajectory I always live out the same old pattern, what starts off as exciting and challenging turns into a druge... a passionless drudge that really leaves me wonder what on earth else I can do and the truth seems to be that there is nothing else tht I know how to do so well, and this bores the hell out of me.

There's stuff I'd like to explore with computers but why, why, why bother, someone else's ideas always come first... Someone else always has all the trump cards!

Why, why bother?

Standing by letting others wash away your passion and creativity is simply the worst thing... and what makes it even worse is that standing by makes me complicit with this whole mess.

It's not like I need a bigger reward, no, I just *want*a*reward* -- a single one. Sure I get paid but it doesn't matter how good or bad I do my job, as long as I do what my boss asks for then I keep getting cheques, that's what i'm getting paid for, not to be brilliant or creative or clever. I get paid to do what my boss says I should do. Period. That's no reward, that's merely the bargain we all strike with our employers.

...But that's not enough. I want a rank. I want to be measured against the best and brightest and I want to surpass them... Not to show them up, but because I know I can pass them when I'm working my hardest and by surpassing them I'm giving as much back or more than they ever did. I got good work to do and I'm looking for the opprtunity to do it.

If there's one thing that's clearer to me now than when I woke up this morning is that I can't wait for the opportunity to find me.

I must go and look for it.

Take that, stupid email movie.

Tags: criticism, office politics, coding

Just caught the end of the Raptors game against the Knicks... The Raps were knocking down three-pointers at will and the crowd was with on their feet for each one. I haven't heard a crowd at the ACC as loud as this in ages.

For the first time this year all the players looked happy to play, that makes for good sport-- they're laughing and hugging each other on the way to the locker room.

It'll be easy to look forward to more Raptors games when they seem happy to be there. Hopefully the players get addicted to the cheer of the crowds again.

Tags: sports

Step 1: Create a new web form, name it "thumbnail.aspx";
Step 2: Delete all the HTML from the web form, replace the @Page directive with this:

<%@ Page contentType="image/jpeg" language="c#" Codebehind="thumbnail.aspx.cs" AutoEventWireup="false" Inherits="blog.thumbnail" %>

Step 3: Change the Page_Load method of the code behind:

private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
if (Request.QueryString["img"] == null) return;
// Check for canonical URL hacking,
// see: http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/aspnet.mspx
string img = Request.QueryString["img"];
string fileName = Server.MapPath("images") + "\\" + img;
System.Drawing.Image.GetThumbnailImageAbort myCallBack =
new System.Drawing.Image.GetThumbnailImageAbort(ThumbnailCallback);
System.Drawing.Bitmap myBitmap;
myBitmap = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(fileName);
System.Drawing.Image myThumbnail;
myThumbnail = myBitmap.GetThumbnailImage(32, 32, myCallBack, IntPtr.Zero);
Response.ContentType = "image/jpeg";
myThumbnail.Save(Response.OutputStream,
System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
myThumbnail.Dispose();
myBitmap.Dispose();
}
// Required callback for
// System.Drawing.Image.GetThumbnailImageAbort
public bool ThumbnailCallback() {return false;} 

Step 4: Start a new web form, add an <IMG> tag to it. Set the src attribute to "thumbnail.aspx?img=xyz.jpg". The image xyz.jpg will be a file in the images folder of your website.

...And that's all. For hosted solutions like the one I have, the ASP.NET user doesn't have write access to your website folders so there's no point to saving thumbnails for repeat access, although this could easily be adapted if you have write access trhough your web pages. Also consider removing things like ".." from the value returned by Request.Querystring["img"] since ASP.NET is still vulnerable to canonical hacks.

Tags: asp.net, jpeg, howto, thumbnails

I'm thinking I ought to change the subtitle of this website to "No Comment", since I'd hate for some stranger to stumble into this site and mistakely think that I actually beleive people are really reading this blog.

...On the bright side, I think the site looks real purdy now. Well, purdy enough...for a dude stricken with pallette-blindness.

Note: still need navigation. Wouldn't want to give any potential audience an excuse not to come back.

Tags: criticism, demotivator, web design, blogging