There was problem with downloading the source for my first Spaghetti Code screencast.  The link is now updated and working properly.

In this article, Michale Meeks of Novell claims that Clippy is a great example of why people should adopt open source.  Here is the snippet that caught my eye...

---------------

...You couldn't turn it off and it came on and you had to talk to it before you came on.

Now turning Clippy off, in my estimation, is a single line of code change. With Microsoft you just couldn't do that. You couldn't get into their software, find the piece of code and...

...just fix it. If you think about the software cost of some catastrophic blunder, often it would be way cheaper if you could just get in and fix it. I think that is a huge benefit of the free-software industry.

---------------

Say what????  Now, I will readily admit that the Clippy fiasco was a long time ago so I may not remember things clearly, but this seems like hyperbole of the greatest order.  Yes, Clippy showed up the first time you started Office.  However, and this is a big however, you could turn Clippy off by changing your options.  I saw Clippy once, hated him, and immediately turned him off and never saw him again.  So to imply that a) you were stuck with him is totally wrong, and b) that somehow recompiling your source code is easier than checking an option box is somehow better seems ridiculous.

Now, if I don't remember this correctly then apologies to Michael. But I do know that I never used Clippy and he spent about 10 seconds on my screen.  So the only thing I could be wrong about was how difficult it was to turn him off, but I am pretty sure it was just an option check box.  Of course, you could also choose to not install Clippy as well.

Anyone else a wee bit disappointed in the debut of the new season of Heroes?  There were a couple of interesting moments, but all in all I felt it was very disjointed.  A few of the low lights and highlights:

1. Sulu Dead!  I thought that story line was wrapped up way to fast.  At least build some suspense around his impending death.  It looks like the start of another story line obviously, but it just felt forced.
2. More Heroes?!  Ok, I know the world is full of heroes/mutants, but adding the soon to be illegal alien to the list is adding too many people to the mix.  Somebody needs to bite the dust just so I can keep it all straight! ;-)
3. Hiro and the gaijin.  Eh - so far that story is pretty lame.  I'm assuming at some point Hiro will become his hero and if that happens I will be very disappointed in seeing "way too obvious" story telling taking root in Heroes.
4. Peter Must Have Been Very Sleepy.  The dude gets all the way across the Atlantic in a cargo box without ever waking up and blasting his way free? I'll be interested to see how that gets explained.

I see potential in the Mohinder / Noah story and I'm intrigued by what is going on with Parkman and his "new" daughter.  The Claire story line seems to be shaping a bit too obvious (boy meets girl, girl can't stay "normal" despite her best efforts, blah blah blah) but I'm giving it a chance.

Until next week....

Rocky posts some "rebuttal info" on his CLSA.NET Framework.  I've looked at CLSA a lot (I don't do real projects in my current role so I have only used it a couple times on my own hobby stuff) and I like it a lot.  For a lot of the stuff I do (hobby time), its a bit overkill so I strip a lot of it out or just use a lot of Rocky's concepts in my own code.  I do have a few customers, however, that have used CLSA.NET and have been very pleased.  Is every framework for every person/project, certainly not.  But I think you can't go wrong looking at Rocky's work even if you don't use it is since it will show you some wonderful ways to accomplish things we all struggle with when developing a project.

Check out this good informational nugget from Scott if you have ever wondered how to change settings in web.config as you move your ASP.NET app from different environments during the dev process.

Very cool article on CIOInsight.com talking about how Wachovia is using MOSS 2007 and other Microsoft technologies to bring elements of social networking to their over 110,000 employees.  Cool things like wikis, blogs, instant communication and more.  It really shows what can be done with the Microsoft tools and platforms to deliver "outside the box" social technologies to enterprise business users.

Check out an good video interview with developer of Tyler Ballance who works for Slide.  He has an interesting take on working with Silverlight vs. Flash.