What to Do When Airline Breaks Your Stuff?

You could try something like this:

Why Shouldn't I Sign My Code

While ago I talked about reasons for signing your executables. Now I will tell something about reasons against it.

Speed issues

In certain situations loading of .NET assemblies may be delayed. While usually this is not visible that much, it is something to keep in mind.

Not having trusted root certificate

If you don’t have one of trusted root certificates (e.g. VeriSign’s) you cannot count on Windows recognizing your signature. You will get same prompt as unsigned applications (on Windows Vista and 7). While your application may be signed, your users will not see that.

What do I do?

I do not sign my assemblies. I did try it for a while, but without proper certificate (expensive one), there is just no reason to do it.

However, I do strong-name my assemblies. This is not exactly same as signing them but it does provide you with integrity check which is only thing that I really need.

Last Access Time Under Windows 7

For a long time the easiest thing you could do in order to speed up your system was to disable recording of last access time on NTFS. Since time was updated on every directory listing, performance gains (especially on laptops) were great.

It seems that someone at Microsoft also saw how useless last access time information is and decided to disable it by default. Let just hope that it stays that way.

Hohm Beta

While ago I applied for beta of Hohm. Site looked like nice utility. You would (I assume) put list of your home appliances and site would calculate how much electricity you are using.

However, it seems that people from Croatia are not worthy of those calculations since to sign up you need valid postal code. Although it is not written clearly anywhere it became clear to me that Croatian postal code is no-no.

Maybe there is valid reason why only U.S.A. is supported by this web site. Maybe it is political decision - I am fine with this also. What I am not fine with is Microsoft sending me “sign up today” message while it has Croatia in my profile. Is it so hard to filter your non-U.S.A. customers and not send them an invitation?

One Mighty Wallet

I accidentally stumbled across this wallet and I liked the idea. I didn’t care about Tyvek nor did I cared how thin it was. I fell in love with number π (pi) on Dot matrix printer style paper.

I shared my excitement with wife and she immediately noticed that you don’t have pocket for coins. Disappointed with this, I decided not to buy it. That decision didn’t last too long since I did order it next day.

I have wallet for more than a month now and I cannot say that it is most practical wallet I had. I keep my coins floating freely in my pants (no pocket for coins), least used cards are hard to extract from wallet (only two compartments) and my driver’s license cannot fit.

However, every time I take it out and I see those numbers, I do not care. This is ultimate wallet that programmer can have.

[2009-07-11 For those who are wondering, fifty (50) Euros is biggest denomination that still fits inside of wallet] [2022-03-03 Newer version of this wallet has holes painted instead of punched]