University map [zoom=13]

I am still going

This is a current list of my spendings (and I’m still here in Belgium )

• 100$ for the Maggelan Program
• 200$ for Homeland Security
• 15€ to make an appointment for my Visa
• 100€ to get my Visa
• 5.45€ to make them send my Visa
• 80€ on my passport
• 640€ for my flight ticket!

Yorick and I booked our tickets yesterday, and we are leaving January 5th 2009, from Zaventem (BRU) to New York Newark Airport (EWR), and from there an interstate flight to Kansas International Airport (MCI).

I will go get my Visa on December 15th at 0830, just in the rush hour. Luckily I have my driving license

As promised: The code Peter and I wrote last Thursday.

Please keep the following guidelines in mind:

1. Attach the database to a SQL 2008 database (no 2005 does not works. If you really want it I can convert it for you).
2. Change the connection string (changing ‘LAPTOP-SNAKE\SQLEXPRESS’) to your database provider
3. Run it

Good luck, should you have any questions, please post ‘m down here.

I found something odd when writing a Java program yesterday.

In a JTable you have an int to display (the amount ordered e.g.), but when getting the value of a cell you obviously get an Object, not an int.

In order to get the Object into an int variable, you might experience this issue:

//this does not works (obviously)
int element = this.jTableProducts.getElementAt(4, 4);

//this works! (obviously, Integer is a subclass of Object)
Integer element = (Integer)this.jTableProducts.getElementAt(4, 4);

//this odly enough does not works
int element = (int)this.jTableProducts.getElementAt(4, 4);

//but this works
int element = (Integer)this.jTableProducts.getElementAt(4, 4);

This is due the autoboxing of Integer to int (and vice versa).

A while ago there was a request in the class to persons who want to participate in a .NET contest. Ofcourse Peter and I signed up.

Yesterday was the day of judgment. After waking up at 0500 I drove at 0545 to school, to pick up Peter at about 0620. At 0607 I arrived. Fortunately Peter was also on his way (he told me that he didn’t sleep that good the night before), and off we took, to Kontich, to the office of QFrame.

After driving an hour and 15 minutes we arrived at the building, at about 0730.

10 minutes later our teacher arrived, and the other students. At 0800 we entered the building, drank some coffee, and at 0835 the introduction started. We got the assignment and we started programming.

There was a small lunch at 1200 to 1230. I ate 2 sandwiches and we (Peter and I) were the first to go back for our laptop to continue the task, but we had to wait

We programmed our application until 1530, then we got an introduction to Extreme Programming.

At the same time we presented our programs to the jury (1 team at the time).

Finally they told us who the winners where. 3th place for another school. 2nd for the PHL, and 1st for the PHL (Peter and me).

So Peter & I won a BEAUTIFUL laptop, and the year price. But we gave that one to our teacher Mrs. Sporen!

The laptop we won: It’s a Sony VAIO VGN-FW11S:

Just great.

After that we went bowling and eating, but that was just cool, but not too interesting to post on my blog

Let’s say you are one of the gifted persons to have MSDN access.

Let’s say you use Vista 64-bit (I don’t know if the problem occurs on 32-bit).

Let’s say you want to download something from MSDN with Microsoft File Transfer Manager.

And it does not work.

Well use this workaround:

First: download the File Transfer Manager from here.

Download and install the MSI. The default path is c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft File Transfer Manager”. Remember this.

Then use Firefox to go to the MSDN website, start a download, and it will prompt you to do something with the default.aspx. Well open that file with the File Transfer Manager. And it works!

Woei!

A bit late, but I’m back in Belgium Haven’t found the time to post so I’ll summarize the last events:

• Tech·Ed 2008 ROCKED!
• The last session on Visual Studio 2010 made code writing much more useful in terms of ‘I want this to implement like that here’, and then to write the actual implementation.
• Then we took the bus to the airport (at 1730), and the plane to Brussels (at 2100).
• I had a cold in the evening, and the result was that when the plane landed I was deaf as a post because of the pressure difference.
• My dad & my sister picked me up at the airport (Thanks!)
• Today I went to my girlfriend Very nice to see her again (yes, I actually missed her )

That’s it (not to mention the knowlegde I’ve gained

The session on WPF and Winforms databinding was very interesting, I’ll have a look on the powerpoints soon

The food was a lot of lettuce. What are we? Rabbits?

Now I’m attending a session on do’s and don’ts on Silverlight! Very useful.

This is Bart de Smet, writer of the B# blog, and is now working in Redmond for Microsoft!

Damn, it’s almost over…

Going to a session on WPF and Winforms databinding in a moment, and at about 1200 we’ll discuss the last part of the day with the ‘colleagues’ (the other MSPs).