School vouchers are the talk of the town these days here in Utah, and for good reason. The outcome of Referendum 1 could decide where your children go to school–that is, if it fails. If it passes, you can take your children to school pretty much wherever you durn well please. So why such resistance to Referendum 1? Let’s intimately converse.
Over the last few weeks I’ve had several discussions with people both for and against school vouchers. In my experience, there is a high correlation between opinion of school vouchers and opinion of the role of government in education. That is, those who feel that government should provide our children’s education are against school vouchers; conversely, those who feel that government should stay out of education are generally for school vouchers. That’s a simple enough concept. Still, some find the concept that education should be completely privatized to be far-fetched, radical, and on the fringe of insanity. But is it? I’ve consistently heard a few arguments advocating government-managed education and I have counter-arguments to accompany them: …I want more!
Tags: capitalism, education, private school, Referendum 1, school vouchers
Posted in Politics | 9 Comments »
In a recent post, I talked about my migration to Ubuntu Linux on my main laptop. One thing I did not mention was my migration to a new code editor. While the search was long and lonely, I have finally reached an oasis of goodness. I hope to share it with you….in our intimate conversation. …I want more!
Tags: code, editor, Linux, PHP, Quanta Plus
Posted in Linux | 2 Comments »
After a disappointing run earlier this year with openSUSE 10.2, I recently mustered up the desire to charter into Ubuntu territory. After a couple weeks of real-world use as well as various experimentation, I must say I’m pleasantly surprised at what the latest version of Ubuntu has to offer. …I want more!
Tags: Feisty Fawn, Ubuntu
Posted in Linux | 5 Comments »
While I have often vented my frustrations with how difficult it can be working with DHTML in ASP.NET, Microsoft has taken a great step in helping developers make the transition to their primarily postback-based framework. To explain, one reason why I love DHTML so much is that I hate having to post back to the server just to dynamically add/remove a text box or show/hide a particular div. What makes posting back worse is that when you get the regenerated page, the user’s browser jumps back to the top of the page. …I want more!
Tags: ASP.NET, scrolling
Posted in ASP.NET | 2 Comments »
I’m currently studying Information Systems at Brigham Young University where the main language being taught to students is Java, a very object-oriented language. Some students, after having learned Java, have difficulty making the jump from Java to PHP for one reason or another. While I do not profess to have reached the level of Zen Master in PHP, I do hope I can provide some insight in a way that fellow ISys junkies can take what they’ve learned and pick up PHP if they want. …I want more!
Tags: object-oriented programming, PHP, polymorphism
Posted in PHP | 8 Comments »
In years past, it was rare for anyone outside of the Mormon loop to hear of any public figure that was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka Mormon) besides Joseph Smith or maybe Brigham Young. Things have changed. Recently, a good portion of the world has become acquainted with the likes of Mitt Romney (presidential candidate), Glenn Beck (talk show host), and David Neeleman (former CEO of JetBlue), a short list of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that are now making waves in today’s society. Someone outside of the church, having heard the plethora of anti-Mormon propaganda, might ask, “How could such seemingly intelligent and logical people be deceived into believing such a cult!?” …I want more!
Tags: Book of Mormon, Christianity, faith, Mormon, Religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Posted in Religion | 7 Comments »
Recommended Reading:
Nullable Generic Structure
One giant leap for mankind that Microsoft proposed for .NET 2.0 (specifically VB) was the concept of Nullable types. Unfortunately, reportedly due to time constraints, Microsoft was unable to implement full support for them. To understand the concept, you can just google “Nullable Types” or check out the link above. I’ll give you the quick, trimmed-down version. …I want more!
Tags: ASP.NET, dbnull, null, null-checking
Posted in ASP.NET | No Comments »
Recommended Reading:
New DataSet Features in Visual Studio 2005
New to Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft has included the new DataSet Designer that is supposed to automate many of our data access tasks and to replace most, if not all, of the data layer in N-tier applications. To be honest though, I think they missed the boat on convenience. …I want more!
Tags: database design, dataset, dataset designer, Visual Studio
Posted in ASP.NET | 1 Comment »
While watching the news a couple months back, I saw something that struck me as rather “oxymoronic.” The broadcast was about the protests in Los Angeles held by illegal immigrants or those who support their cause. While most of the signs that the protesters were holding read something like “Legalize Immigration,” “Land of the Free,” or other phrases advocating open borders, one of them said “No somos illegales.” For the English audience, this means “We aren’t illegals.” Interesting. This summarizes what I think has happened in this whole debate–politicians and many Americans are starting to think the same way. …I want more!
Tags: border, illegal, immigration, security
Posted in Politics | 9 Comments »
Suggested Reading:
Understanding ASP.NET View State
Recently I’ve started learning ASP.NET (VB) in order to develop an application assigned to me at ExxonMobil. I have previously worked with ASP Classic, but the .NET framework is fairly new to me, so I’m just picking up on the architecture and how Microsoft is trying to take over my code and make things easier for me. Don’t get me wrong, I think .NET is a step in the right direction. It absolutely does a better job of following the model-view-controller design pattern by almost forcing you to keep your design code split from your logic. With that in mind, there are certainly accompanying downfalls, which I’ll talk about in this post. …I want more!
Tags: ASP.NET, viewstate
Posted in ASP.NET | 1 Comment »
