Rampidbyter Rampid byter: A byte of my .Net developing life.

I hate when you say something and you have to take it back. I watched ‘The Dark Knight’ last night and it was fantastic. The scenes were great, the graphics were great, the story was pretty decent, but some of it was hit or miss to me. Overall fantastic movie, and I’ll give it to Heath he was fantastic.

I really hate to say that too. Heath was unrecognizable in his role as the joker, his face was totally different, his acting was completely flawless, and in several scenes he really did make for a completely convincing psychopath. I was amazed, and my initial reaction is to be awe-struck. Go see if it if you’ve not already. Oscars should be passed out to Bale and Heath. Damn they were good.

Well, I start my new job tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the new experiences and working with a new group of people. I had a wonderful send off from my client location, handshakes galore, people talking about how my programs affected their lives, one guy said I saved him two hours a morning with the program I made specifically for him, and others recapped when they first met me. They talked about the first interview I did with the company with all the big wigs at the company, and how their first reaction was that some young punk kid wants to come into their system, without any MRP experience, and how at the end of the interview it was oowing and awing at my knowledge. It turned into a close to four hour interview.

The main boss and I decided to play a joke on the shop foreman by having me send an email to the main boss CC’ing the foreman saying how I couldn’t work there anymore and I quit because I was promised the 40oz and never got one. The foreman is on vacation so the first thing he’ll see in the morning is an email saying I quit, and because he didn’t deliver any of the 40oz’s promised. The branch boss and I laughed a pretty good while after I sent that email. It was one of the best places I’ve worked, the people were amazing, and I enjoyed learning lean inventory manage and MRP processes. After spending 8 months building inventory control applications I think I turned them on their heads a little bit since they didn’t expect so much out of me.

I also had the chance to perform an exit interview at my actual company. I went down there and met with the HR lady, and my ex-departmental manager from when I originally started with the company. It was kind of a bitter sweet meeting because I did miss working down there. However, when I went to say good bye to everyone I only found three people I actually knew. I turned the corner, went to say good bye to the bullpen guys, and found only one original person from when I worked at the office 9 months ago. It’s been a heck of a lot of turnover and all these new people I’ve never met before were in the cubes. One new guy stood up, introduced himself with ‘I’ve been here a month’, and I introduced myself and was like ‘I was here a year and today is my last day.’ The new guy looked kind of confused, but what are you going to do. I said good bye to the two guys I knew from working with them and left. I never felt like more of a stranger than I did rounding that corner.

On a plus side HR was in the wrong on the number of PTO days I used and was owed. Turns out I get about four paid days off, and so I get money from the buy-out of those days by the new policy. I was also given another contract for a sub-contract role for my old position with the client to help facilitate the change. Since they said it was just an hour-by-hour thing I looked over the contract and had to decline. The original employment agreement I signed when I first started stipulated a 6 month non-compete agreement, and this new contract would be three years. It even says if I get a job with a client of my company I have to pay 30% of my first year’s compensation to the company in the event I get a job with a client within the first year of the non-compete agreement. Why would I sign a contract saying I can’t work for these companies for three years on a contract where I may not get any work anyways? That doesn’t make sense to me at all! So as it sits I miss out on a contract, but at least I could work for these clients after six months from today if need be.

Well, I start my new job tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the new experiences and working with a new group of people. I had a wonderful send off from my client location, handshakes galore, people talking about how my programs affected their lives, one guy said I saved him two hours a morning with the program I made specifically for him, and others recapped when they first met me. They talked about the first interview I did with the company with all the big wigs at the company, and how their first reaction was that some young punk kid wants to come into their system, without any MRP experience, and how at the end of the interview it was oowing and awing at my knowledge. It turned into a close to four hour interview.

The main boss and I decided to play a joke on the shop foreman by having me send an email to the main boss CC’ing the foreman saying how I couldn’t work there anymore and I quit because I was promised the 40oz and never got one. The foreman is on vacation so the first thing he’ll see in the morning is an email saying I quit, and because he didn’t deliver any of the 40oz’s promised. The branch boss and I laughed a pretty good while after I sent that email. It was one of the best places I’ve worked, the people were amazing, and I enjoyed learning lean inventory manage and MRP processes. After spending 8 months building inventory control applications I think I turned them on their heads a little bit since they didn’t expect so much out of me.

I also had the chance to perform an exit interview at my actual company. I went down there and met with the HR lady, and my ex-departmental manager from when I originally started with the company. It was kind of a bitter sweet meeting because I did miss working down there. However, when I went to say good bye to everyone I only found three people I actually knew. I turned the corner, went to say good bye to the bullpen guys, and found only one original person from when I worked at the office 9 months ago. It’s been a heck of a lot of turnover and all these new people I’ve never met before were in the cubes. One new guy stood up, introduced himself with ‘I’ve been here a month’, and I introduced myself and was like ‘I was here a year and today is my last day.’ The new guy looked kind of confused, but what are you going to do. I said good bye to the two guys I knew from working with them and left. I never felt like more of a stranger than I did rounding that corner.

On a plus side HR was in the wrong on the number of PTO days I used and was owed. Turns out I get about four paid days off, and so I get money from the buy-out of those days by the new policy. I was also given another contract for a sub-contract role for my old position with the client to help facilitate the change. Since they said it was just an hour-by-hour thing I looked over the contract and had to decline. The original employment agreement I signed when I first started stipulated a 6 month non-compete agreement, and this new contract would be three years. It even says if I get a job with a client of my company I have to pay 30% of my first year’s compensation to the company in the event I get a job with a client within the first year of the non-compete agreement. Why would I sign a contract saying I can’t work for these companies for three years on a contract where I may not get any work anyways? That doesn’t make sense to me at all! So as it sits I miss out on a contract, but at least I could work for these clients after six months from today if need be.

I for one appreciate the batman saga every since the introduction of Christian Bale to the cast. However, I don’t understand the recent phenomena of people wanting to nominate the now dead actor for an Oscar before the movie even premieres to people. People paying upwards of $140 for a movie ticket to see the movie opening weekend doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Are they paying to see the next installment of the Christian Bale batman movie, or are these people paying to see some dead guys last performance? If so I don’t understand. Doesn’t that kind of under shadow the movies actual character list and the fact that Christian Bale is the star?  I saw this article and I really have to ask myself what is the problem with these people?

http://wcbstv.com/entertainment/dark.knight.tickets.2.774172.html

I mean really? Why does that Heath guy deserve an Oscar already? The movie just came out last night, but they’ve been talking about it for the last few months. The dude accidently OD’d people were not here supporting his family or donating to a good cause. I have a feeling I’m going to go to the movie myself but at least I’m going to see it because I’m not on any Heath bandwagon. I’m a Bale-man myself, and I thought his movies are pretty fantastic.

Thinking about it today I have come to realize that my abilities, learned in school, to spend large quantities of time doing nothing, but looking productive has made me a skilled master of the ‘rock’ technique. The rock, the under-appreciated epitome of laziness, can teach us many things.

For one the potato is completely hyped and overrated. I think the potato just happened to grace fame through usages of a consumable food product AND life style. However, those who live by the ‘rock’ lifestyle, non-musically associated style, can find themselves starring long hours into space while somehow magically looking productive. The technique, closely related to meditation, involves putting oneself into a deep stupor, and then figuring out how to autopilot ones body to perform seemingly productive repetitions. Clicking a mouse, open/close dialogs, and start a batch job that makes the screen flicker.

This friend is called the ‘rock’ style. This technique should be used sparingly as it doesn’t tend t result in much being accomplished, and often lends itself to eye strain. After sitting through many countless hours of classroom lectures that have no point other than to cover material I’ve already read I have mastered this technique. I’ve also figured out how to independently control my eyes, a neat parlor trick, but the fundamental question remains. Since rocks last longer than potatoes, are you a potato or are you a rock?

I was just engaged in a conversation with a woman from the client site who came over to ask me a question about computers problems. At home apparently someone got on while she was off doing something and a virus took hold. I asked about her setup, i.e. software, users, and her internet connection.

Turns out her computer is hooked up to the internet through Road Runner and is directly connected to the cable modem. So in short she’s connected to an unprotected internet connection, and got a pretty nasty virus. I tried to tell her to get an additional router with a built in firewall, turn on windows firewall, and she stopped me part way into the conversation. She said she doesn’t need all that because she knows that ‘they’ are watching her already, and she has nothing to hide. I think I probably gave a pretty confused look.

She started to tell me that she knows that since she got online that she’s been watched by hackers, or whomever else can see her, and that they already know everything she does. She said to prevent them watching she turns the computer off at night, and only allows people on the computer while she is around to monitor. Her kids and grandkids are allowed to use the computer but if they do it without her she kicks them off. She blamed her kids for installing a virus while she wasn’t home (keep in mind the unprotected net’) and that one of them was a programmer in training that could have made it. This kid is ten years old, I think, and she considers him using NotePad, yes I said Notepad, as ruining her computer. I asked what language, and she said English. It got worse from there…

My brain hurts a little.

Vista,

You scare me. I’ve been sitting here trying to think of ways to end it with you, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I mean you’re so gorgeous I’d be so hard pressed to ever replace you, except to go Mac, but I’m not gay so I can’t swing that way.

Vista, what is wrong? I mean you treat me really, really well for the most part. You warn me whenever I try to do anything with you that you could be upset with it. It was nice for the first day but then we got into that fight when I had to keep accepting your demands. Thankfully I found you just had a nasty case of the UAC when we first got together, but that was cleared up after a while when your friend Defender moved away. Things even got a little better between us when you went to see your first SP therapist.

Last night we were just about to get really hot and heavy in a menashatwa(sp?) with C, and then you decided dump me. I don’t know what the problem was it isn’t the first time that I was with you using C to get my Groove on. This isn’t the first time we’ve been with C, well it’s becoming more frequent since I dumped Visual Studio, but I thought you were different?

It’s really starting to get rough Vista I think you’re starting to get out of control. Since that night… I almost hate to mention it because we swore we’d never talk about it. I just can’t hold it back. I know what you did. I know you killed XP. I know you over heard my plans to break up with you and leave you for XP. Since then I’ve heard that XP isn’t around anymore, nobody seems to know where it went to, and you’ve been silent about it ever since.

I want to know the truth, did you really kill XP? I’m going to go to the …. *preparing dump file*

I was sitting here finishing up some tiding up on client code and I am constantly switching between VB.Net 1.1 and C# 1.1.

For some unbeknownst reason the song “Everything you can do, I can do better” popped into my head. Hrm.

Let me tell you a story from a life experience of mine. I was still a few months from turning 17, and I got a dream job doing a co-op at a large technology company. I came on board as one of the four youngest people to ever work at this company, which was a very big honor. I started there with one of my best friends to boot so the experience was fantastic to think I was still in high school and starting to become a professional programmer.

Cutting to the chase on this story I told a lie. A very big lie, one with ramifications, and I was caught. Why did I lie?  Looking back it was complete immaturity and the desire to have the freedom to go meet a girlfriend in another state for a few days. Hormones and a lack of better sense can do that to a person at that age. The lie caught up to me just a week later and my contract was immediately terminated. However, somehow, they saw compassion for my situation. Without the co-op I’d be held from graduating high school, I’d be black balled from the industry, and my reputation would be soiled.

In the end I was given a second chance, moved to a new department, and I personally went to apologize to all those whom I misguided. It was utterly and completely humiliating, but was probably what showed that I at least had the character to accept what I’d done wrong. Lies compound more lies after all until they spill over with sometimes disastrous consequences. I was given a second chance that I’ve continued to remember since that defining point.

Since that point in my life I’ve realized that lying has no merit, no practical uses, and in the end will harm more than it heals. I mention this life lesson because since that time I’ve changed my life to always present the truth in all matters, be it personal, or work. In that regard I’ve been very straight forward on many things and in situations where the truth could harm I’ve still never the less continued to uphold truth. You can ask any of my friends for that matter I tend to speak my mind, for better or worse, and present myself just as I am.

Recently I was contacted by my department manager whose been overseeing my progress over the last couple of weeks since my last department manager quit. This new manager, whom was a project manager on a previous project, knows me pretty well, and has been a genuinely good leader. I received a request for why I was leaving the company, and I responded with the generic ‘new opportunity’ explanation with emphasis on an increased leadership position. I received another email essentially saying ‘is that is? Why didn’t you ask us first?’

My choices were A) ignore the request for clarification and leave with an ambiguous exit stance, or B) to tell many of the internal short-comings that I’ve felt contributed to my departure. Keep in mind until this point I was relatively content in my current position with exception to a few points I’d already voiced concern about. Thinking back I decided to take a risk by going with B. I drafted an email with no ill-intent and outlined several main reasons for my departure ranging from dissatisfaction on the recent career structure assessment, alarming employee turn-over (I’ve had 4-5 managers in less than a year) , dissatisfaction with current hiring practices, constant restructuring, but anyways I took the risk.

Why would I do this? Well, I’m probably crazy, looking to get black balled in the area, or am just looking to help the company take a look at itself. I figure it’s better to give an honest assessment of the company because I can’t be the only one there feeling the strain. I’ve been separated from the office for nearly a year, but a bit ago I went to an office party where I couldn’t help but think ‘who are these people?’ I come back out to work at the clients, and on one occasion I had to re-clarify to a client manager that my manager was a new manager. I think his response was like “How many managers do you have?”

I just think in this situation I’m not trying to burn bridges, but some of the things I’ve gone through were displeasing. I think the company has a lot of great people in it, but that there are big problems. There have been articles talking about the company peaking with the resulting downward spiral. I’ve seen a lot of employees displeased with processes, changes, and many have jumped ship as well. What I say won’t change the company, but maybe it’ll help them save another employee. If anything at least I’ll have given them an honest assessment.

Lately I’ve been getting a ton of traffic directed to my log here regarding RDLC main report invalid errors.

To simply put verify that the Microsoft ReportViewer control is installed on the server these reports are being deployed to. Microsoft article on ReportViewer control is located here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms251671(VS.80).aspx

You can also download the ReportViewer control for use on the production system from the link below.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=49981

The reason for the ‘invalid main report’ error, that is terribly descriptive huh, is due to the lack of the ReportViewer on the deployed system. This can be caused by the lack of Visual Studios (VS) being installed on the machine, as VS automagically installs the ReportViewer dependencies onto the system, and at that point will make the RDLC reports function.

If I can help anyone with RDLC related questions please email me at rob at coderrob dot com. I would like to see what has brought people looking for this answer, or if there is any additional content I should post regarding RDLC.