Sharp Learning Curve Ahead

Or maybe I should entitle this blog, “My Secret Shame”. I’ve got a confession to make: until this morning, I’ve listened to maybe a total of 3 podcasts… One with Roy Osherove about testing, one about ASP.Net MVC and Elijah Manor’s first jQuery podcast. Oh, the shame.

I think a lot of it is that it’s difficult for me to do just one thing at a time, and it’s a lot more natural to me to stop mid-read than it is mid-listen. Also, I am a total n00b about podcasts and the best way to get them.

But no more… thanks to the quality of content on Herding Code and jQuery podcast, I could resist no longer. I finally got around to finding a nice podcast application (DoggCatcher) and have been downloading podcasts from both feeds this morning. Right now, I’m listening to episode 71 which talks a lot about things I’m very interested in; NoSQL databases. (more on that later)

Can anyone reading this suggest other good developer/tech podcasts?

Tags: podcasts

So I haven’t blogged in … forever. Partly work has gotten pretty crazy lately, but when isn’t work crazy :) The main reason I haven’t blogged is that I’m trying to grok event driven architecture, messaging, and domain driven design while learning  NHibernate, StructureMap, MassTransit, ASP.Net MVC 2, jQuery.UI and log4net (to name a few). Oh yeah, not to mention, Jim Cowart is now attempting to enlighten me in the fundamentals of database warehousing…

The great thing about being surrounded by well-informed, talented people is that you have a lot of learning opportunities. The short-term downside for me is there’s so much to learn that I feel like I’m drowning : ) So how does one cope with trying to learn so much? Well, I don’t know how others go about this, but I’m very much a hands-on learner. I can read and understand what I’m reading, but I don’t internalize well without application to some degree. So I’m building an fun/personal project in MVC to attempt to tie in as much of these things as I possibly can. It’s definitely over-kill to some degrees but I’m starting to see the how and why of it all. I have to say, I’m definitely sold.

I’m also contributing to a few open source projects which I’ll probably blog about later (some little things some big).

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A few weeks back I noticed that comments started popping up on my blog that smelled an awful lot like spam. Well, I found out the explanation a day or so ago, there’s some terd-gobbling* doofus who’s released software that will automate posting comments to BlogEngine blogs.

Fortunately, Chris Blankenship posted what I thought was a nice summary of what the software does and how which made “protecting” my blog from further spam pretty simple… I hope.

Now my blog should be relatively safe and I’ve cleaned up all the spam. Thanks to all the jerks who made the past hour of busy work a necessity.

Oh, I heard a rumor that the person responsible has a site that’s vulnerable to SQL injection. I don’t have time, but if anyone has the time and know-how and can bring this idiot’s site down, I would certainly appreciate it :)

*Yes, I imagine that he is using the proceeds from the sale of this malware to purchase the finest excrement for his own personal consumption. I hope he spontaneously combusts.

Tags: blogging spam