I am reading through the remaining books from Dale Brown that I have missed.  He is not as good an author as Tom Clancy was in his prime, but is far better than any other techo-political thriller author I have ever read.  Shadows of Steel is book 9 of his Old Dog series (I believe all his books are from the Old Dog series).

SoS takes place in the Middle East, ironically, dealing with Iran.  Ironically as Iran is being a bit of a problem now 10 years later.  When, Sky Masters, Inc, loses a stealth UAV in the Persian Gulf, a new Iranian carrier of the old Soviet fleet traces the signal to a recovery ship belonging to the company.  The ship flees, but it sunk by the Iranians.  Several friends of Patrick McLanahan are captured and imprisoned in Iran.  An enhanced B-2 and a V-22 make important appearances in the story along with the usual mix of high-technology and dream weapons that we can only hope are real.

Brown again mixes a good story with awesome, if a bit ambitious, technology to make a very enjoyable, if not real deep, read.  Again, if you haven't read previous works, you may be a bit lost in places.  I enjoyed this one enough to move right into the next in the series Fatal Terrain.

I have hired a few people in my time.  Not many, and I'm not an expert, but I have learned a few things.  In my experience, the best programmers exhibit obvious enthusiasm in 3 specific areas. 

The first is their hardware.  Truly great programmers take great pride in their setup, although not in the same ways.  If you can get the gleam in the eye when off-handedly talking about the latest CPU, the home network, or custom case, or skinned interface, you have found proof that they really are into what they do.  For me, it's my computer.  I have never bought a computer.  My dad purchased my first PC in 1991, and I have upgraded it ever since.  My x386 is now a P4 and soon to be a Core2Duo.  Of course, I love my home network I've been fiddling with since 1998 and I can't use a stock XP installation for more than a few minutes before I have it all modified up.

The second area I borrow from Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror.  Yes, again.  The interviewee should have a favorite piece of code that they have created.  Not usually an entire application, but a class, algorithm or routine that they are especially pleased with.  Don't blame them if they can't put their finger on a single one, I have a hard time there too.  Either my frequent implementations of Linked Lists, the automated Secure File transfer / Content Management solution, auto-validation in C# from custom attribute assignment, or my comic strip collector... It's especially important to me that they have some personal code they love too, not just professional.

The last area I think is important is probably the most controversial:  gaming.  Find out what kind of games they play, it may say a great deal about the kind of coder they are.  FPS gamers tend to be very direct, task oriented, focused coders.  RTS guys are more big picture, and turn-based strategy players even more so and very methodical.  If you find a Civ Addict, hire him now!  MMO gamers are probably good at maintenance or grind programming.  And the ones that love them all will not be exceptional in any one area, but will be very versatile.  That's where I lean, though I LOVE Civ; so much so that I can't leave it on my PC for long before it becomes a problem.

These generalizations are just that.  Not to be taken too seriously, but they have never let me down.  I have found that I cannot even consider someone who doesn't exibit much in any of the categories, or prefers XBox gaming, or doesn't own a PC (!). 

There are always exception, these are just my observations.

Today is Memorial Day.  Today is the most important holiday, we, as Americans, celebrate.  Today is the day we should remember the sacrifice of so many that make so many things possible.  Even the ingrates that protest against the military should recognize that they would not even have that ability if not for the men who have died to make it possible.

So fly your flag high today, remember the brave servicemen who gave up everything so that we might, and see today as much more than a day off from work.

Now here's a holiday I can appreciate.  Armed Forces Day is celebrated on the 3rd Saturday of May to honor all those in our military.  And you know what?  THEY DESERVE IT! 

So why is this 60 year old holiday almost completely obscured, but we all get pounded by "Administrative Assistants" Day?  Shows a profound disconnect in American priorities.

So, Happy Armed Forces Day!  I personally thank all of you in the service of our country.  I couldn't do it, so am doubly grateful that you do!  Stop by, the first round's on me.

I have been working in SharePoint 2007 lately.  Learning how to do things and getting our internal processes posted (and written).  SPS is incredibly easy to use and very powerful for this.  Some of the other things I want to do elude me.  Primary among them is a pull from Exchange.

For some reason, our Exchange server is setup on a different Active Directory domain, so when I try to pull the user-data out of it, I end up with two profiles for everyone.  I have not figured out a way to pull a users info across the domains.  The problem:  abc\frankhagen == AbCo\frankhagen.  But not to a comparison operator...  There must be a way around this, but I haven't figured it out.  So for now I use a BDC to pull in human info for each profile.  (Thanks to Sahil Malik for his excellent series of posts on BDC!) 

Word of warning for BDC: the XML import file is critical.  If you don't get it just right, it will not forgive you for hours.  Start ultra-simple and work your way into it.

"You're an amateur developer until you realize everything you write... sucks, basically."   
--Jeff Atwood on .NET Rocks! podcast #232 (23:44) - 26 Apr 2007

"The minute you realize that then you've crossed the threshold.  Now you're a professional developer..."

When SharpReader starts displaying the message about not connecting to the server at 127.0.0.1:  Shutdown SR, turn off Automatically Detect Settings and any proxy settings in the LAN Settings configuration.

That should do it.

The Civil War is an interesting topic, here in the States.  There is an great deal of confusion and hypocrisy surrounding it and the events and politics around it, foremost being slavery.  Harry Turtledove is the master of alternate history fiction, and crafts the conflict into what is considered his best book.  I have read others of his, but always intended to read this one.

The Guns of the Southis told from the point of view of two very different personalities.  One is Nate Caudell, a 1st Sergeant of the Confederacy, and the other the infamous Robert E Lee.  As it becomes apparent that the war is lost for the South, a mysterious group of men introduce a new type of rifle to General Lee they call the AK-47.  Armed with the assault rifles and the ammunition to use them, the war quickly turns, as expected.  Without giving too much away, the first half of the book concerns the war and its conclusion very well, and the second half, the events after the war which prove even more complex than imagined.

Turtledove is an excellent author who has a great ability to show the surrounding issues equally well as the primary.  He attacks the idea that the Civil War was simply about slavery swiftly and competently, casts Lee in the light of the reluctant hero, and shows Lincoln as a man of integrity desperate to save the United States.  One of the review quotes on the reverse of the paperback edition suggests that every one studying Civil War history should read this book.  I think that should be expanded to everyone, except the people in the area of Virginia that I live in who think the Confederate Battle Flag is about "heritage":  they should read it twice.