On reading books ....

Davy Brion has made a statement on his blogs in where he states that reading certain development books should be considered as an investment for a software developer.

I fully support that statement.
I have a few books on my shelf that I consider as 'my Software Development Bibles'. These books have -imho- sharpened my skills, broadened my view and helped me to be a better developer.
These books -which I consider to be my bibles- are, in no particular order:

• Domain Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software


• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software


• Patters of Enterprise Application Architecture


• Refactoring: Improving the design of existing code


• Design Patterns Explained


• Agile Software Development

There are lots of other books on software development on my shelf, but I consider the ones above as the ones that have influenced me most.
Books, you can't get enough of them (you still have to read them as well offcourse). There are still some books regarding software-development on my whishlist, and I'm sure that every now and then, another book will be added to it...

Cannot open log for source {0} on Windows 2003 Server

I am writing an application which uses some .NET remote components that are hosted in IIS on a Windows 2003 Server.
When the remote component throws an exception, the exception information should be written to the EventLog on the Windows 2003 Server; however, Win2k3 seems to be a bit restrictive when a component that is hosted in IIS wants to write to the eventlog.
Although the component does not run under the IIS_WPG or ASPNET account (I am using Windows Impersonation), I always received the following exception when the .NET remote component wanted to write something to the eventlog:

Cannot open log for source {0}. You may not have write access. Access is denied

You can get rid of this behaviour and make sure that the error is indeed written to the EventLog by following the steps below:

• Open the registry on the Win2k3 server using regedit
• Locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application key
• Find the CustomSD key and append the following string to the existing value: (A;;0x0002;;;AU)

Now, the (impersonated) remote component should have rights to write to the EventLog.

Now, what is the meaning of the string you've just added to the CustomSD key ?

• A stands for SDDL_ACCESS_ALLOWED. (See ACE strings).
• 0x0002 stands for ELF_LOGFILE_WRITE. (See also Event Logging Security
• AU stands for Authenticated Users. (See also SID strings

MS LEAP Programme, yet another rant.

A while ago, I received an e-mail with an invitation to take part in the MS LEAP programme.

This looked very interesting, so I asked my employer if I could take that course and if my employer could help me bear the costs.
A few days later, I received the answer that I could and that they (the company where I work) would bear the majority of the cost. \o/

Now, today, I wanted to subscribe but unfortunately, the program is already fully booked. :(

_{The ranting doesn't stop. :(}

Cleaning a Keyboard

My keyboard is about 5 years old, and it has been used extensively. During these years, it has become more and more filthy.
Now, I thought the time has come to do something about it. Basically, I had two options:

• Buy a new keyboard
• Clean my keyboard

I thought the second option was more of a challenge then just buying a new one.
So, this is what I did.

To give you an idea of how filthy my keyboard actually was, I've made a picture of it:

After I took a picture of the layout of my keyboard, I removed all keys from the board. You can imagine that the picture I've taken comes in quite handy when I wanted to place the keys back.

I've put all the keys in a bucket of water, and cleaned them.
After removing all the keys, the keyboard looked like this:

Hmm, this contains a lot of filth as well. I made good use of the vacuum-cleaner to remove most of it.
Then, when all the cleaned keys were dry again, I could put all the keys back to where they belong. The result: a clean keyboard:

It was quite some work, but, devving with a clean keyboard is much nicer then using a dirty one. ;)

Tagged

Seems that I've been tagged by Mike Nichols, so I'm supposed to come up with 5 things you don't know about me; here goes:

• I've started playing music when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I've played guitar until I was about 16 years old. At that age, I stopped playing music. I didn't wan't to do it anymore. I was supposed to go to music classes each wednesday afternoon, and each saterday morning and I wanted to do other things during that time. :) Sometimes, I regret it though that I didn't continue with that guitar-thing. (I still have my guitar though, and maybe I'll pick it up again in the future)


• I don't like cheese.
  Well, that's not completely true; I don't eat cheese 'as is', but I do like food that has cheese as an ingredient (pizza, croque monsieur, tiramissu, heck I even like cheese-burgers). I also like Cheetos. Weird huh?


• I started programming relatively late. I was 17 years old when I wrote my first computer program.


• I always wanted to become a pilot. Not on airliners, but a jet pilot. :) At age 16, I've sent a letter to the Belgian Air Force to enquire for more information about this. A few days later, I've received an information bundle about it. Unfortunately, I never took part in any of the 'promotions' of the Belgian Air Force. Maybe I was already realistic about my chances: there are only very few positions (about 4 each year) and numerous candidates.
  I haven't lost my interest in jets though; I still like to visit air-shows (although since a plane crashed at the Ostend Airshow in 1997, air-shows in Belgium aren't what they used to be...).
  If I would ever have the chance to be a passenger in a two-seater, I'd certainly do it!


• I do like karting. Until a few years ago, I used to do it at least once a week. Unfortunately, I'm not able to keep up that frequency right now. I'm already happy if I can go karting once a month.
  I also dream of driving an open-wheel formula race car once (Formula One, Formula Ford, F3000, ... whatever
  

The 5 persons I'm tagging are: PJ van de Sande, Peter Veentjer, Jelle-Jan Van Veelen, Valentijn and Evan Hoff

Shelfari Bookshelf

As a software developer, I reguraly buy (and read) books on software development. I've found a website where you can create your 'virtual bookshelf', and I've decided to create one.

On my virtual shelf, you will mostly find books on software development and photography. Not all of my books are already listed, but I will complete my shelf in the near future.
For some books on my shelf, I've written a little opinion about it. If you want to buy a book that I have on my shelf, you can directly go to the Amazon.com website by clicking on a particular book.
If you want to know my opinion on a particular book for which I haven't supplied an opinion yet, do not hesitate to contact me. :)

Official owners

Since yesterday, my girlfriend and I are the official and proud owners of this piece of Belgium:




Next step: building a house on it.