DFW Coffee and Code

Introducing DFW Coffee and Code

In the spirit of extending a good idea, I'd like to borrow this from http://www.guelphcoffeeandcode.org/ and try it in Dallas.

DFW Coffee and Code is intended to be a very relaxed environment in which you can show up when you please, and leave when you wish. #DFWCoffeeAndCode encourages community building through networking, but also promotes the ability to work on projects, with a great resource of help, just in case one of us is stuck on some code. There will be no demos and no presentations - just show up & work, network, hang out, code, sip some joe...

I plan to be there Friday morning (April 16) working on some Silverlight Control Styling. I'd love to work near any Silverlight badasses that might be able to work remotely on your own project(s) in the morning (sorry for the short notice).

Of course, your project doesn't have to be Silverlight - that just happens to be what I'll be working on.

Venue: Dunn Bros Coffee (free wi-fi)
Address: 4895 LBJ Freeway, Dallas, TX 75244
Date: Friday, April 16, 2010
Time: 9am - 11am

Silverlight 4 Wish List

1. ImageBrush --> TileMode!
2. Rectangluar (Radial) Gradients (not just circular or linear)
3. Inner Drop Shadow or Glow on x edges only
4. Layout Transform (instead of just RenderTransform)
5. Ability to add a stroke to (dynamic) text without converting it to a path
6. The ability to bind ColorAnimations to static resources

(This list is a work-in-progress. I will continue to edit / add to this blog entry as I run into more issues)

SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Express on XP64?

The installer for SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Express is not matching the instructions, which is disabling me from installing it.

As you can see in the 2nd screenshot here http://www.404techsupport.com/2009/08/19/microsoft-sql-server-2008-management-studio-express-stand-alone/

This screen is supposed to have a “Management Tools – Basic” checkbox option:



I can’t get past that screen because the only option I’m getting is:

I’ve tried installing both the x86 and the x64 installer, with the same roadblock.

Here’s what I’m running, if that helps:

System:
Microsoft Windows XP
Professional x64 Edition
Version 2003
Service Pack 2

Computer:
Intel Xeon CPU
5140 @ 2.33GHz
2.33 GHz, 4.00 GB of RAM

Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to provide with this.
-Cori

Nerd Words of the Week

idempotent:
The term idempotent is used in mathematics to describe a function that produces the same result if it is applied to itself, i.e. f(x) = f(f(x)). In Messaging this concepts translates into the a message that has the same effect whether it is received once or multiple times. This means that a message can safely be resent without causing any problems even if the receiver receives duplicates of the same message.


canonicalize:
Wikipedia definition
It is a process for converting data that has more than one possible representation into a standard canonical representation. This can be done to compare different representations for equivalence, to count the number of distinct data structures, to improve the efficiency of various algorithms by eliminating repeated calculations, or to make it possible to impose a meaningful sorting order.
Wikipedia example
As an example, Wikipedia uses canonicalization in its processing of links between articles. For example:

[[Egg_salad]]
[[egg salad]]
[[ egg_salad ]]
all refer to same article.