Sara J Chipps

Untraceable - Review

    So I got this movie on Demand tonight and I found it highly entertaining. On one hand, it was a little sick. I'm not big on horror/slasher type things, I was never allowed to watch those types of movies as a kid, so now movies like that really freak me out. This wasn't as much horror as gory thriller, but still, I'm a big believer in Garbage In/Garbage out so I try to stay away. On the other hand I liked the premise, it focused on an FBI agent named Jennifer Marsh that was in a cyber crimes unit. Since this was a web focused movie, it really piqued my interest. One thing I really appreciated is they fact that it wasn't dumbed down at all. Most of these movies set up these situations where someone says something the average Joe might not know, and someone who happens to be in the roon that isn't so savvy says something like "That's all greek to me" so someone explains it so the people in the audience get what is going on. It may have been irritating for the less aware, but they threw around terms like rotating DNS and botnet, and no one had to explain it in simple terms. Also, no fake OSs this time, she was running Vista on her home machine. There was also no "traveling through the virtual internet" shots where we are shown what the inside of computers look like with floating words, and binary, and beautiful green light.

   It wasn't all realistic though, for example her daughter in the movie had admin rights to her machine that she used for work at home that had sensitive FBI info on it. That was a bit off. They were also using trackball mice, which I thought was just dumb, I guess they thought it looked cooler. The "hacker" killer wasn't very good with a keyboard if you ask me, At work she looked at sites with a proxy IP in a vitual machine, yet at home this was not the case. I may be reading too far into these things. I did however, learn new abbreviations like MTC (more to come) and LFM (looking for more). I'm going to be a texting goddess (incedentally, I am tired of people who don't use t9 when text messaging, that's so 2002. Saw someone doing this yesterday).

  The movie brought up a few issues in my mind. Mostly net neutrality. I'm all for it, and no censorship. However, common sense says that what's illegal IRL should be prosecuted online as well. It does need to be regulated on a level, as much as I hate putting control in govenment hands. There are some real sickos out there, and with the access the web gives them it's that much more important to stop it. It also made me think a little more about my personal safety, I know there is all kinds of personal information floating around the intarnette, and I really need to put a kibosh on that stuff. I'm so trusting, you really want to be. It's nice to think that everyone around you has the same intentions you do, but that's simply not the case and I really need to start protecting myself.

 Anyway, decent film 2 1/2 stars IMHO.

Latest Article

Yeah, I was on the front page of DZone today. Why? Because I'm a rockstar, LOL.

 INVASION

Blue hair pics still to come.

I love summer, does anyone else? It's so beautiful out.

Troubleshooting Issue - Help?

Hey guys, I could use your help. One of the things I'm doing before departing Project Awesome is transferring it to the .NET 2.0 post SP1 compilation model. I have been sucessful thus far moving the projects over to the new solution. I, however, am having trouble with the webservices.

Now, the origional developer created a local webservice to get around the issues the compilation model created. There is also another webservice that communicates with a local 3rd party tool. After I publish the site when I open it in IE the page loads (the actual website) however, when it tries to hit the webservice (the one he places his BO in)  I am getting an exception that says ""No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it 127.0.0.1:2438" My first instinct was to check permissions on the folders, everything looks good. Then, I checked IIS, everything looks good there. In the event viewer I'm getting the same exception I get on the page. When I step through it's obvious that it conks out as soon as it tries to talk to the web service. I did a netstat command in cmd prompt and there is nothing running on the 2438 port. Is it possible the port has changed? What is the best way to see what the new port number is?

All help is greatly appreciated. I hope I explained my problem in detail enough. Sorry this post isn't more entertaining.

In more important news I have blue hair, pictures to follow.

UPDATE - This has been fixed, partially because of the issue with the ports (thank you for your help) and partially because of the deployment of the project. I appreciate it guys, this wonjt be the last time. :) 

So my news...

Well, I am moving off of Project Awesome onto another project, we are going to call it Project 007 Top Secret. I'm really excited about this and NERVOUS. The thing I love about this is that it's going to be homeade, by Sara, from scratch. There is a LOT that needs to be done, but when it is finished it will be awesome. I've seen how things should be done correctly, and that's very important to me to not come up with a hunk of crap. Beauty and agility is most important. Everyone thinks they have the next big thing, but trust me, this is the next big thing. There are some great minds on this project and it's going to be hella exciting.

There is a lot racing through my mind right now. I can't get it all down tonight. Just wanted to give everyone the heads up. I a lot of questions. First off, I need someone to do a few pages for me. Professionals that can do table-less HTML and CSS. I need to get my master page done and a detail page or two. I need quick loading standards complient HTML, I have comps, just need to find the best company to do it at a good price. 

My first few weeks will be spent designing the schema and BI.  I'm sure you can imagine it's halfway done in my mind.

I will be asking for a lot of help from my mentors, I picked them because they are the best :).

The Books I am Reading Now and Why

   So, I often read more than one book at once, is that just me? I keep them in different places so that I can have them when I need them. Por exemplo: I like to keep a book in my car for when I am out and going to wait somewhere, or one in my living room for quiet time. So all the books I am reading right now are technical. That doesn't always happen, I love a good mystery novel, but there are a lot of things I want to catch up on.

    I think its important to be well aware of your strengths and weaknesses, it makes you a stronger person. I always say it doesn't matter where you start, if you are consistantly improving without fail you will always succeed. . When it comes to being a developer my strengths are mostly design and learning new things, my weaknesses are my endurance when things get monotonous and my foundation. (Foundation being all the things that occur before the CLR). I like to read to work on the things I am weakest in, so here is my current list of books (and what I am reading about, and where).

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software - This book is the one that EVERYONE reads. Its great because though I've used many of these patterns (often without knowing it) they explain what the problem is first, and then give you the solutions that solve them. So now I know more than just singleton and interface and abstract class. I'm like an architecting machine. I read this book when I am blow drying my hair, you laugh but I hav ea lot of hair this takes a while.

CLR via C#, Second Edition - This book was recommended to me by a friend who saw me struggling with some of these concepts and I can't even tell you how great it is. I have learned so much about terms I hear all the time like MSIL and JITC and such (I just started, can't wait to learn more). This is my gym book, I read it while doing cardio with the Mets game in the background. (Tonight was rough, I miss Willie's scowl from inside the dugout).

Agile Estimating and Planning  - I am reading this book in preparation for long project planning. It is serving me well thus far, I really like the focus on the weaknesses of simply planning, and illustrates the best way to avoid common mistakes. I am learning, and it is also reinforcing things I already knew, which always feels good. I read this book wherever I can.

What are you reading right now? Do you have books you would recommend?

While we're at it what are your strengths/weaknesses as a developer? What do you do about them?

Some Links and a Quick "Good Morning"

So, I’m starting to live on DZone, I only found it a few months ago and it has become invaluable. There are always little opinion blogs, or tips. I enjoyed these few in the past months and def bookmarked them for later use:

Some VS Shortcuts

More MVC Research

Some interesting Interface/Absract stuff

Unit testing help in VS 2008

 

Launchy – Yeah, I said I was installing it a few weeks ago. I freaking love it. It really doesn’t hurt my machine’s performance, and it saves me SO much time.

 

Mistakes of Female Freelancers – When I read the title I was so ready to leave another “punch you in the face” blog comment. Nothing gets me more riled than “Women can’t…” however this author makes some great points. The main one – confidence. See when guys criticize each other, they take it in real stride, meaning they usually ignore it. We, however, tend to internalize it, and take it seriously. Often, I find, that one person saying one bad thing about me can get me down on myself. We need to learn to listen, and evaluate other’s words (esp. the ones coming from men) and see what their motivation really is. If it’s meant to help you it’s being said in a way that teaches and supports you, if it’s being said in a way that is detrimental and made to get you to question yourself take it with a grain of salt. I, myself, have made it a policy to not listen to negative words at all, unless its feedback I’ve gotten more than once, then I will take a step back and take a good look, if I think it’s an area that I can work on than I do.

FACT – I love Yahoo Canasta. My grandma taught me how to play the real game and now I love the online version.

Awesome Read- I am awaiting the real book, but in the meantime I’ve started reading the online version and it is amazing. The guys at 37 signals are awesome in general, and this, so far, seems like the bible for Agile developers.

 

Anyway, just wanted to say hi. Will have big news later in the week, top secret. Tonight I was watching SatC reruns (not a HUGE fan, but being its retro and all) and I got this great quote:

“It’s very hard to walk in single women’s shoes, that’s why we need extra special ones every now and then, to make the walk a little more fun. “ -Carrie Bradshaw

I loved it. (PS the more I watch this show, the more I realize I really am the Miranda.)

 

 Lastly, does anyone here develop in Vista? I am trying to decide the pros and cons. I would really like to hear from people that have experience.

 

 

Girl Developer's Review of the iPhone, the One We've All Been Waiting For?

Yesterday I was completely dead in the water. My mobile phone is my only phone (a clear indicator that I’m part of generation 2.0…. if you have a house line get off the internet immediately Prodigy called, you’re over your bandwidth limit this month and they’re going to charge you another $9.99 if you don’t hang up… and if you say it’s for your kids tell them Raffi called and he says “Baaaaaby Beluuuuga.” every 5 year old has a cell phone now) ANYWAY, my iPhone wouldn’t charge, wouldn’t turn on, nada. I sent smoke signals to the Apple store to set up an appointment and headed on down there. I was cranky, the store was almost closed, and I was 10 minutes late because I had to stop for gas. Long story short the guy looks at my phone with one of those things the Dr’s use to look in your ear and determined that water had gotten into it and it must be replaced. $249 later I have a new phone (I know, I know, don’t even say it, July 11).

All this got me thinking, I haven’t told you guys about how close I am to my dang phone. There is nothing I love more now than standing in line, or on the train, and listening to Bill Simmons, and checking my MySpace, and Facebook. I love being able to find recipes in the supermarket. I like being able to pretend I have something better to do when I’m uncomfortable around people. All these things make the iPhone invaluable. It is a rockstar phone and I highly recommend it.

So what would this article be without a review of the Dev material? Ok, so I’m doing this as I write, I just registered as a iPhone Developer, so let’s get iStarted. Well, I take that back, apparently you need to have a STOONAD Mac. However, let’s just take a look at “Hello World” at least after I check out the text. There is a main file, two delegates, and two MVCs. The crux of the app is in here:

 

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {

   

    // Set up the view controller

    MyViewController *aViewController = [[MyViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"HelloWorld" bundle:[NSBundle mainBundle]];

    self.myViewController = aViewController;

    [aViewController release];

   

    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] setStatusBarStyle:UIStatusBarStyleBlackOpaque];

   

    // Add the view controller's view as a subview of the window

    UIView *controllersView = [myViewController view];

    [window addSubview:controllersView];

    [window makeKeyAndVisible];

}

 

 

On startup the delegates receive message that the application has started, which kicks off the controllers that show the “Hello World” and we’re out. I didn’t go too in depth, but Objective-C seemed to have a lot of familiar characteristics. Here is my thing about iPhone development: Yes, its something cool to learn, but what’s in it for ME??  All of us do this for a living, no? As far as I can see there is not advertising besides “Made By: “ Why would I make an application that makes Apple money and me nothing… I mean there is bragging rights, if you’re in high school or college it’s a great way to get your hands dirty (when you’re not using the other ways)… Unless you are advertising for an existing application, you’re donating your time to The Man, I don’t still get why everyone says Microsoft is the beast.

   There are some changes that NEED to be made. Some of them are being made, like the GPS. Has anyone tried the existing navigation (the one that uses triangulation with cell towers to figure out where you are)? I think it’s just F-ing with me sometimes. I would do better driving with a globe and a compass in the passenger’s seat, so thank god they are changing that. Some things are inefficient about the web access…. Like, I really need it to remember my logins, even if you need to ask me about each one. Or store them in a repository of logins that I could click on when I need them. Tapping away on that little keyboard is tedium, esp since the cookies aren’t persistent. Also, the need to figure out a way for my purse to stop calling people. I think after you hang up a call it should take you to the home page. Also, ummm, has anyone else noticed you can’t send or receive picture texts? This may not be a big deal to you, but my friends need me to be able to rate future MySpace default pictures in real time. Everytime I say something about being able to do something on my phone like surf or email they say “Yeah, but you can’t even send picture messages” as if I’m walking around with a VCR in my purse. Lastly, apps-wise I haven’t found anything super awesome… but I like the baseball one, and I’ve played with some other ones. The games aren’t that dynamic, there are some cool random tools like a Domain Name finder and a program to search for genetci defects?

Let’s end with the worst things about the 3G (besides the fact that I just bought a new-old model and I’ll have to up/downgrade in a month.) Everyone is freaking out about the $10 cost increase, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. AT&T is a lot cheaper than Verizon. The $10 isn’t going to kill anyone, where they are REALLY going to get you is the App Store in your Home Screen. Let me tell you I used to be the biggest offender of being bored and downloading some games on my phone. They aren’t going to just have games, they are going to have every app some nerd created for them, and this time they are charging. When you look at that bill THEN you will be freaking. I’m kind of bummed that now EVERYONE will have an iPhone and I wont look cute but sophisticated in a mysterious way anymore. I’ll be “just another a-hole with an iPhone”. I think that’s the real moral here.

 

 UPDATE: I found an advertisement on one of my iPhone apps I put on my home screen. So, this article is 10% accurate and 80% funny. Totally worth it if you ask me.

 

Stressed

Its effecting everything in my life. Everything. I can't even write right now. Its not funny or interesting just rambling. I wont attempt to bore you guys with it. I'm not usually one to let things get to me, I feel like a caged bird right now. This too will pass, I just hope I don't make permanent damage to other things in my life.

Last night I went out (prolly shouldn't have, thought it would make me feel better), anyway some girl came up to me and asked if she could take my picture for a website, This one here. I can't find the picture but also I can't stay on the site for long without seizing at my desk.  Kids, this is how not to design a website.

Anyway, send good energy my way, or pray, or do whatever angry athiests do. Any help will be greatly appreciated.  

Sweeping Generalizations Always Make the World Go 'Round and Other Tales

      The one type of feedback I have received most often is that I make too many generalizations. I completely disagree, I just think I have lots of opinions…. People don’t have to agree with them but all opinions are generalizations. Just because I speak my opinions as fact doesn’t actually make them fact, it’s up to you to disagree.

 

    Today’s entry was going to be about Microsoft’s new MVC but I didn’t get to go to that talk yesterday because of work things. So, I will be learning about it on my own over the weekend and writing the review then. What I did end up doing is go to Chili’s, I’m not going to write about Chili’s, they have good chicken though. Lots of kids running around like the sky was falling and screaming. I think screaming kids are the bee’s knees and highly recommend being around them if you have the chance.

 

   Ok, so about this “girl search” I really want to keep this site as a resource for girls that feel that they are alone in IT as developers. We are one in six according to statistics (still think that is fabricated have only personally met one other girl developer in my career). Anyway, I really would like to get some clever, funny, normal chicks to talk about their lives as developers for GirlDevelopers.com which would merge with this site. I don’t know how many girls read this site, but if you know of any awesome girls (I know they are out there) please put them in touch with me. I think it’s a great opportunity for anybody to be a part of something that could be big and definitely a resource for others like us. I have one other chick right now, trying to get two or three.

 

Anyway, going to Six Flags today with my brother. Kingda Ka here I come.

 

 

Dev Diary 06/04

So, we are getting another developer on the project. Today at lunch we discussed how I feel there are things that really need to be done to the application that will make it easier to make improvements and add new features and support in the future. Here is my list:

 

1.       Update the compilation model to true 2.0 format (I’m going to pull for 3.5 because if we are doing it anyway….)

2.       Eliminate the internal webservice that is used for objects due to the bad model, therefore:

a.       Make a new project for objects

b.      Eliminate unnecessary interfaces (personal preference and easier to manage)

c.       Create new objects I feel are necessary and refactor

3.       Take all the unneeded controls and put them back in the page (there are multiple pages that are just one control that is never used again).

4.       Make the webapp external via ssl so you don’t have to be ON the prod server to use it

5.       Update the 3rd party apps to latest versions

6.       Implement build software (optional)

7.       Take the redundant controls and eliminate them using admin pages and xml so they can be created dynamically (rather than having to manually create a new control that is a little different based on configuration just have one control generated on the fly based on data in an xml column)

8.       Get rid of the multiple folders containing a single object

 

Tonight I installed Launchy, I had heard of it before but not installed it. I’m a huge fan of keyboard shortcuts so this seemed awesome. Though, I hadn’t heard it from a credible source that it was good. I was also concerned about performance. Well, I caught it in an article on reddit tonight and decided to try it. I will let you know how it works but already I freaking love it. My mission is to never have to touch my mouse it wastes so much of my time.

I am trying a free web task tracking service called pingme. I like it because I can communicate with it easily in few words, I can also reschedule and add things via my cell which makes life more convenient in general. 

Some notes:

*Looking for a few good girls to collaborate with for girl developers.com needed: humor, skill, and glam… if you know some please refer them to me. This will be a fun project.

*Endy Chavez is a clutch player, I don’t care about his batting average, when the game is on the line you want him in the lineup.