C# 3.0: An Introduction

This article hopes to bring readers up to speed on some of the changes we can look forward to in the C# 3.0 specification. Some of the new features include:

• Object Initialization
• Type Inferences
• Anonymous Types
• Lambda Expressions
• Extension Methods
• Queries (LINQ)
• Expression Trees

SQL Injection Attacks by Example

Are your applications susceptible to SQL injection attacks? I recently stumbled on a decent article that hopes to educate readers by demonstrating sample SQL injection techniques. A recommended read for any SQL developers.

Search Engine Optimization for Beginners and Experts

Scott Bowler has written a great blog article detailing how to "achieve consistent results in the major search engines." I have found his blog post to be extremely useful and recommend it to others to read.

Custom Iterators

Bill Wagner has written a great article on custom iterators that I highly recommend reading. He takes you through a series of problems in great detail to help explain better ways of iterating through collections. A Word document version of the article is also available here and his blog can be found here.

Diet Coke and Mentos Bottle Rocket

First of all, I stress, do NOT try this at home. This is provided for educational
purposes, only. This is basically just a collection of links including the videos to some people that made the rocket.

A little background theory:
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000109

A short video to demonstrate what we've learned:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3673360343168243565

A little more exciting theory:
http://www.gadgetlounge.net/archives/2006/07/27/how-to-make-a-mentos-coke-rocket/

And finally, Diet Coke and Mentos bottle rockets:

The Battle for Net Neutrality

I'm not sure how many of you are in IT and/or undestand and have been following what has been going on with large telco's that provide Internet access to the country; but this is something that affects us all and I just wanted to bring it to your attention.

Basically, the large telco's (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) are trying to push Congress to permit charging additional fees for the use of a connection to the Internet. In the past, you paid for a connection to your ISP, and you connected to a host who paid for service through their ISP. Along the way, you will likely travel through connections (that our tax dollars paid for, mind you) that were laid in place by these large telco's. It's the nature of the Internet. In this situation, the speed of the connection between you and the host you connected to, is limited by the slowest link along the way (by the way, for the curious, when a company buys a dedicated (non-shared) connection to the Internet, ISP's generally charge a little more than double what it costs for your connection to the ISP. This is because you have to pay for your connection to the Internet, and a connection on the ISP's side that can adequately supply the bandwidth of the connection you paid for). That was how things worked in the past.

This push, however, is an attempt to split the Internet into two "lanes" (for lack of better words). A fast lane and a slow lane. In this new Internet, if the host you're connecting to (e.g., Google, Amazon, etc.) does not subscribe to the services provided by the fast lane, your connection will travel down the slow side. The biggest problem with this is that the connection to the host did not change. The hosts have already been paying for unrestricted use of their connection since the connection was originally purchased. However, greety telo's would now like to collect money twice for the same service! It's insanity! And ultimately, consumers will be the ones that end up paying.

If this doesn't make sense to you, I've throught up an anology that I hope can make it a little clearer.

I say we picture the Internet pipes just like a garden hose in our yard. The flow of water through the hose is limited to the physical attributes that make up the hose (for sake of simplicity, ignore water pressure for the moment. But if one wanted to include this in the analogy, simply think of water pressure as the maximum bandwidth your LAN supports (e.g., 100 Mb/Sec, 1 Gb/Sec)). When you buy your hose, you expect to get the maximum flow of water through the hose that the hose can possibly permit. However, unless you pay for the super speedy hose subscription, this new hose comes with a special end that can only be screwed into a device, which slows down the flow of water at the end of the hose. From here, you can screw in whatever attachments you would like to use.

As you can see, the flow of water up to this super stupid device is unrestricted by anything other than the characteristics that originally limited the flow of water through the hose. But somebody wants to rob us of our money and claim that we're getting a free ride by leaving out the device that restricts the flow of water!

Whether this is something you understand or not, I urge you to write letters to your representatives supporting Net Neutrality (the unrestricted flow of the Internet). Believe it or not, as of now, the telco's are winning big time so we really need all the help we can get.

If anybody has been following the battle towards Net Neutrality and has an opposing view, feel free to share your opinion.

Man Gets Hit By Lightning - Well Sort Of

The actual lightning bolt hit about 30 feet away; but a smaller arc hit a guy outside working on his motorcycle.

Made Digg

Well what do you know? After like 1,000 attempts, I finally made the digg homepage. And at the time I took the screenshot, the number of diggs is my lucky number, 109.

Digg Comment Ratings

In recent, I have personally felt that many digg users have forgotten how to properly use the digg ratings system for rating comments. As of late, users need not flame or post spam to have their comments buried. Instead, it has become quite common for the average digg user to bury comments where an opinion deviates from the majority. Take, for example, the comments in response to WGA and Microsoft possibly about to release a Windows Kill Switch. One comment that really stood out, in my opinion, was one posted by the user furtwan1. In the post, furtwan1 suggests that a Windows kill switch is not necessarily a bad idea because it will affect mostly people that have illegal copies of Windows. All that was posted was a difference of opinion, yet digg users buried the comment into what is presently -31, which hides the comment from most users screens, by default.

What good is a discussion if everybody shares the same opinion? Deviating from the majority promotes a healthy discussion. We don't all have to agree, do we? It is my belief that the digg comments area would benefit greatly by promoting "outside of the box" thinking, rather than outcasting those that do not share the same view as you. Additionally, I believe greatly that some individuals may be reluctant to post comments against the norm because of fear that they will be ridiculed by other digg users. Bashing these users really isn't healthy.

Let's all try to promote a healthy discussion that encourages new ideas. If you don't agree with what another user posts, feel free to post your reasons for disagreeing; however, at least give other digg users the respect they deserve for feeling the way they do.

Life in the Green Lane - New York Times

If you're considering purchasing a hybrid vehicle, be sure to check out the NY Times article, Hybrid Cars Not Always More Fuel Efficient.

Also, I've heard, but not confirmed, that the battery packs that hybrids use cost in upwards of $7,000 and last about 5-7 years. Consider this as a possibility and just imagine what it would do to your trade-in value.

And before somebody accuses me of being anti-environment or whatever, let me explain that I'm all for protecting the environment and do whatever I can to save/conserve energy and resources. That said, it is my opinion that hybrids vehicles are like a disease. Assuming for the moment that hybrids car owners use their car in a fuel efficient manner (see link above), oil consumption will decrease. Sounds great, at first. But consider, for a moment, what this will do to large oil companies that relied on regular income. Think oil prices will remain the same? Think again. To make up for the lost margin, oil companies will be forced to increase the cost of fuel to make up for the difference. In turn, truckers suffer the most, which results in raised shipping cost for good and supplies. And it doesn't end there. If the shipping companies have to raise their prices, so do the large retail stores and every other company in the world to again make up the difference. It's a disastrous chain reaction that could lead to the worst inflation this country has ever seen.

There are alternative fuel sources that are both clean and renewable (somewhat unlike oil that takes millions of years to form). Don't allow automotive manufacturers to put a bandaid on the current design by buying hybrids --especially if your driving habits don't make for efficient use of a hybrid.