Jason Mauss' Blog Cabin

This feels like a lame way to reach 100 posts but I'm kinda stumped at the moment and figured maybe someone that reads this will be enough of a SQL Wizard to help.

I guess this a two-subject post. Hopefully I'll start having more to blog about.

I'm thinking of starting up a .NET Users Group for the San Joaquin County area since Bay.NET and Sacto.NET are both at least an hour drive away.

So this isn't really a post bashing XHTML but I do have a question that hopefully someone can help me with.

Last night I visited Amazon to get some database books that were on my list of books I wanted to read. I ended up getting 7 books for about $140. Anybody that buys tech books know that about $20 a book is a pretty good deal. Here are the titles I purchased:

1. Practical Issues in Database Management: A Reference for the Thinking Practitioner
2. Temporal Data and the Relational Model
3. Joe Celko's Data and Databases : Concepts in Practice
4. The Database Relational Model : A Retrospective Review and Analysis
5. Handbook of Relational Database Design
6. Database Modeling and Design
7. An Introduction to Database Systems

It's nice to get back into writing. Developer.com just published an article of mine about Enterprise Development Planning. It's a bit lengthy but I'd appreciate knowing what you think if you read it.

I never should've neglected blogging for so long. It's kinda like therapy to be able to write out some of my daily thoughts and experiences here. So, I'm back at it again.

Some recent "things":

1. Switched from SharpReader to FeedReader recently. I'm linking to both of them here because I think they're both good RSS aggregators. What made me switch? Memory consumption. With about 120 feeds, SharpReader was taking between 60 and 70 megabytes of memory while running. FeedReader is taking 2 megabytes. 'Nuff said.

2. I'm working on a little personal ASP.NET project right now that should add some value to anyone that uses Jeremy McPeak's XWeb menu and wants to be able to manage all the menu hierarchies through a web interface. It will also let you generate the XML files that the XWeb menu uses for menu definitions and menu fragments. Might have to hit up foO to help me make the announcement when I'm finished. Maybe he'd even beta test for me.

3. I've rededicated some of my efforts towards gaining database design wisdom and trying to improve my database designs. Some good links to what I've been reading are the Database Debunk website , SQL Server Programming Group, and bought a few books from Amazon on database fundamentals from people like Joe Celko, Fabian Pascal and C.J. Date. Thanks to Alex P. for chatting my ear off on the subject occasionally, too.

4. I noticed on Jon Goodyear's blog that he posted a second "Project Rally" trailer. I'm curious what it's all about but - his trailers leave a bit to be desired. Aren't trailers supposed to at least give you a hint at what you're going to see? I'm guessing he's under some pretty tight NDA or something. Speaking of  ASPSOFT, Jon - looks like the address on your website changed. Did you move or does ASPSOFT finally have an office somewhere?

5. I finally got back into the writing thing again. Expect to see some articles by me around the web in the near future. I'm doing it not only because I enjoy writing but, because I need to get back into writing shape for the launch of DevCampus, whenever it happens. I am still working on it for anyone that's curious. In fact, that's part of the reason for #2. That's going to be part of my admin tools for the site. I just renewed the domain(s) for 2 more years, too.

6. On Monday morning I watched the live streaming WinHEC keynote where BillG and some of the MS PM's showed off the latest Longhorn features. Like a lot of other people, my reaction was mixed. There's a lot of cool things I saw, but none of them made me excited enough to want to go download the latest Longhorn build and install it. Maybe I just don't get as excited as I used to about beta software. Buh.

I'm the boss. Need the "info".