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Rage wrote: Maybe the main loss of most modern PCs : the RS232 connector.
I have mixed feelings about RS232. It was often a PITA to work with but it also was more accessible than, say, USB or ethernet if for no other reason than its simplicity in interfacing to a UART.
What I definitely do not miss is looking up the local access number to Compuserve when I went traveling. Modems! *shiver*
Marc
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That does sound cool! 
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As geeks, we're more interested in hearing about your clientelle. 
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Bassam Abdul-Baki wrote: As geeks, we're more interested in hearing about your clientelle.
Whoa! Geeks are NOT supposed to be interested in those sort of things (otherwise known as g-i-r-l-s). Now where did I leave my pocket protector???
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: Geeks are NOT supposed to be interested in those sort of things
Geeks are always interested in those things. Whether we have the time for them, or they have the time for us, is a whole different matter entirely.
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Marc Clifton wrote: Geeks are NOT supposed to be interested in those sort of things
Oh yes we are - why do you think Seven of Nine exists? 
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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OriginalGriff wrote: hy do you think Seven of Nine exists?
Ah, good point!
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: And that is why there are times this job of software development is truly fun and amazing (and very very geeky), when you put various pieces of technology together to solve problems, and it can be done nowadays from 3000 miles away!
Agreed. It's also the same feeling when a movie comes together considering hundreds of people put their hands in the pot to make one film.
Jeremy Falcon
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: It's also the same feeling when a movie comes together considering hundreds of people put their hands in the pot to make one film.
Now if we could only get the gov't to do something so that I would have that same feeling. 
But yes, I also get that feeling when I listen to a symphony (within certain qualifications!) -- I think it was Carl Sagan who made some commentary about how amazing it is to be able to get a group of human beings together and work together to play a symphony, and that it gave him a lot of hope for humanity.
Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote: Now if we could only get the gov't to do something so that I would have that same feeling.
You have a better chance of Pamela Anderson knocking on your door in the next 30 seconds. 
Marc Clifton wrote: I think it was Carl Sagan who made some commentary about how amazing it is to be able to get a group of human beings together and work together to play a symphony, and that it gave him a lot of hope for humanity.
It's possible... with communication. Music is a form of pre-written communication so it's like nobody has to talk to pull off musical communication. One of the more interesting perplexities of life. It's like birds flocking in an order. They can't speak, but they just know. If they could, some birds would start going on about how some bird BF dumped a bird GF, etc. while they're trying to fly.
Jeremy Falcon
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We have an application that writes xml files when certain things happen.
We have an ESB that picks these files up, converts them to JMS and sticks them in a queue.
We have a Windows service written in VB.net that reads the messages from the queue, writes them into a SQL DB table, then processes the messages into other table(s).
All fairly simple stuff, but the powers that be have decided they want to remove the ESB, the woman who wrote the Windows service has just started maternity leave, no-one else in the team has any knowledge of what it does, nor the time to look at it.
So I volunteered.
I have never written, read, or looked at VB before, I have done plenty of C#, and even worked on a Windows service 6 or so years ago.
So I had a look at the existing code, quickly worked out which bit needed replacing and had a good idea what it needed replacing with. Hacked together something that looked like it should work in under half an hour, then tried to install the service on my Windows 7 box to test.
2 hours of googling, registry hacking, and swearing later I managed to install it. Started it up, dropped a file into the directory, and an error because it was in use by another process. To be fair, I had read a warning about such problems using FileSystemWatcher when I first started so began searching for a solution.
I found loads, some looked nice, some looked nasty, some just looked stupid.
But nearly all of them were in C#.
How do you VBers cope?
I'm sure that if you know C# and VB then it is simple enough to convert one to the other.
And if you do know both C# and VB, why the bloody hell not just do it in C# in the first place?
Anyway, it works now, taken me nearly 3 hours. Apparently when they had a meeting to decide what to do about the problem they thought it might take a few weeks so no-one wants the solution yet.
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
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"And if you do know both C# and VB, why the bloody hell not just do it in C# in the first place?"
I was one that came to the Windows programming world from Electronics/Embedded back ground, had VB6 dumped on me and went from there. Being a C programmer I am happier in C#, VB.Net (& VB6) seem to be a kludge for object oriented programming
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chriselst wrote: And if you do know both C# and VB, why the bloody hell not just do it in C# in the first place?
Interoperability with other developers who don't know C(anything).
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In my environment, there is a mix of PERL, VBA, VB.NET and engineers. Of the 11 team members (including the manager), I think 2 or 3 of us actually came from a computer science type background.
So.. although I COULD write code in C#, it wouldn't be maintainable by the others on the team.
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I come from a company that has used VB since the beginning for about 15 years.
We recently moved to C# for new projects because, indeed, all internet articles and examples are in C#.
Also, third party vendors seem to be happier using C#.
So I'm now fluent in both and both languages have their pros and cons.
When I have a choice I code in C# though 
It's an OO world.
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
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chriselst wrote: Anyway, it works now, taken me nearly 3 hours. Apparently when they had a meeting to decide what to do about the problem they thought it might take a few weeks so no-one wants the solution yet.
The pessimist in me can't help but think these people know about some piece of functionality you haven't seen at all, and this is what they had in mind for the remaining weeks that you've not accounted for.
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chriselst wrote: But nearly all of them were in C#.
This is one of the primary reasons why I moved the teams to c# about 6 years ago. Dramatically more resources on the interweb for c#.
chriselst wrote: problems using FileSystemWatcher
This was so flaky in .net 1.0 I refused to use it and have never looked at it since, sounds like it is still a little rugged to use  .
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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This VBer just deals with it as a form of politics. Coming from a BASIC background since I was a kid, VB is just more natural. The majority of my projects either were already written and maintained in VB or someone higher up the foodchain required it. I've become much more fluent in C# but I would never consider myself simple. I basically find myself writing code in VB style but with C# syntax. If that makes any sense. Though I will admit as I've honed my skills I do find myself little by little start to follow C# samples and practices put to VB syntax. When I am tinkering with something new on my own I make an effort to write in C#.. But if the need requires me to put something together quickly there is no language requirement, VB is my first language.
Ironically, I'm dealing with a FileSystemWatcher issue with a project I'm working on too. Battled with the file locked by another process issue and all is good there.. The new issue is catching and filtering out when the user saves a file from their browser to the Drop folder.. That Partial file that gets created upon download and then removed once download is complete makes for a nice mess in the processing queue.
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Apologies if this is in the wrong place but I couldn't see that it fitted anywhere else either
My clients regularly transfer largish files via ftp and everything generally works happily
As they are in an expensive serviced office one client has transferred their internet connection over to a 4G solution to get much faster access without the corresponding bill and generally it works but....
as might be expected their ftp transfers now have many retries and failed transfers. Sometimes the transfer appears to be successful but the resulting file might be a small percentage of the correct file size
Does anyone have any suggestions for alternatives to look at that might work better (more reliably) over the 4g network?
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As you're trying to transfer files, I'd suggest looking at rsync instead. I believe that there are rsync versions available on the major mobile platforms now, so this should be an attractive option.
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Agreed.
"Courtesy is the product of a mature, disciplined mind ... ridicule is lack of the same - DPM"
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this looks great, do you need a license to operate the pigeon service?
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