Monthly Archives: August 2007

Pedes vallis viridis (The Glasgow Pedestrian)

Posted on Friday, 31 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

The Glasgow pedestrian (pedes vallis viridis) is a very odd beast. Its actions go against Darwinian evolution. Its behaviour so at odds with its environment that it should have caused its own extinction. But some how it survives. I cite … Continue reading →

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What is a DAL?

Posted on Tuesday, 28 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

I occasionally see posts on forums asking for help with some database problem. Then I see they’ve been using the the wizards in Visual Studio (which is okay for a beginner, but should really be ditched once the basic concepts … Continue reading →

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More Sony Rootkit mayhem

Posted on Tuesday, 28 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

A couple of years ago I blogged about a badly written Rootkit Sony were using to hide DRM software that hackers managed to abuse to hide their malware. And after that debacle you would have thought Sony would have learnt … Continue reading →

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db4o: An Embeddable Database Engine for Object-Oriented Environments

Posted on Monday, 27 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

Just posted details about this event for Scottish Developers in Glasgow. The unique design of db4o’s native object database engine makes it the ideal choice to be embedded in equipment and devices, in packaged software running on mobile or desktop … Continue reading →

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How to… Run a .NET application without the framework

Posted on Sunday, 26 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

This is a question that comes up on forums with surprising regularity. It is usually at the point the poster is trying to run an application on someone else’s computer or create an autorun application or similar and discovers they … Continue reading →

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Curious about stats on my blog and website

Posted on Saturday, 25 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

Recently I added Google Analytics to my website and blog. It has been quite interesting to see what statistics it gave back. For my blog a large number of people never leave the home page with 17% of all hits … Continue reading →

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SQL Bits – proposed sessions available

Posted on Tuesday, 21 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

Details of the proposed sessions at the upcoming SQLBits conference on the 6th October are now available.

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More on hiring developers

Posted on Monday, 20 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

Following up from my earlier post asking “Why is it so hard to hire good software developers?” my colleague Frank has an excellent post describing our experiences with hiring a good developer. Tags: hire employ software developer

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Hiring WTFs

Posted on Sunday, 19 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

Worst than Failure has a few of tales of disasterous candidates: 5 years C-pound experience We’ll be in touch maybe You get what you asked for And it has tales of weird interviews The interview from hell Interview by proxy … Continue reading →

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Why is it so hard to hire good software developers?

Posted on Sunday, 19 August, 2007 by Colin Mackay

Why is it so hard to hire good software developers? That is the question I’ve been asking myself recently. The company I work for is currently looking for two software developers and it is incredibly disheartening to see the quality … Continue reading →

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