Deezer

The co-founder of a Web site that offers free streamed music from top artists said he's determined to operate his service legally despite menacing overtures from Universal Music Group.

The site offers about 200,000 songs and has signed up 300,000 registered users in the past few months, co-founder Jonathan Benassaya said on Monday. Most of the users are in France, he said, although the site is available in 16 languages.

The record labels have been less enthusiastic. Universal Music, a division of Vivendi Universal, said on Friday that Deezer.com's use of its music was illegal and that it would take "all measures necessary" to get its music removed from the Web site, according to press reports.

Full Article:
Free music site attracts wrath of industry

Pagination With MSSQL Server Made Simple(r)

First a Brief Overview of SQL Server 2005 Paging Headaches.

If you have ever found yourself working in a web development environment backed by SQL Server you undoubtedly have adapted a hatred for pagination. This hatred is only further fueled by knowing how easy it is with MySQL with the aid of the LIMIT operator. Prior to SQL Server 2005 developers were left with unintuitive and tedious stored procedures that would create temp tables prior to serving the desired results.

Now let's look back at the title of this post "Pagination With MSSQL Server Made Simple(r)"... MSSQL 2005 doesn't offer an operator with the equivalent of MySQL's LIMIT, but I'll show you the next best thing.

Using Straight SQL you can make use of the ROW_Number() function as described below.

SELECT Title, Description, User
FROM (SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY created DESC)
AS Row, Title, Description, User FROM Blog)
AS BlogLimited
WHERE Row >= 6 AND Row <= 12

This can be thrown into an easier to use Stored Procedure.

CREATE PROCEDURE usp.BrowseBlog
@PageNumber INT,
@ResultsPerPage INT
AS

BEGIN

WITH BlogEntries AS (
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY created DESC)
AS Row, Title, Description, User
FROM Blog)

SELECT Title, Description, User
FROM BlogEntries
WHERE Row between 
(@PageNumber - 1) * @ResultsPerPage + 1 and @PageNumber*@ResultsPerPageEND 

Hopefully this will make your lives a little easier and reduce some of that stress :)

Ruby On Rails vs. PHP (Video)

Rails Envy, a blog created by two Ruby on Rails programmers from Orlando have just released an excellent spin-off of the Mac vs. PC commercials. In the spoof, they have created Ruby on Rails vs. PHP.

I haven't dipped into Ruby on Rails yet but I have been known to walk around with my CakePHP shirt.




Ruby on Rails vs Java - RailsEnvy.com Commerical
Ruby on Rails vs PHP - RailsEnvy.com Commercial #2
Ruby on Rails vs PHP - RailsEnvy.com Commercial #3
Ruby on Rails vs PHP - RailsEnvy.com Commercial #4
Ruby on Rails vs .NET - RailsEnvy.com Commercial #5
Ruby on Rails vs PHP - RailsEnvy.com Commercial #6

Bioshock (Obtained Without a Reservation)

Tuesday Shane and I took an early lunch and walked over to a nearby GameStop in McArthur Mall. The day before we planned on trying to get our hands on 2K Games just released Bioshock FPS for the XBOX360. When we walked into the store, on the day of the release, and asked if they had any available copies of the game they responded -- "Do you have a reservation?" After hearing this we doubted they had any extra copies. After telling them that we didn't they said they may have one or two extra copies. I was surprised to find out that they had three. We quickly told them we'll take them and walked back to the office.

After I got home, I popped in the game and was amazed at how realistic the graphics were. It took me a few seconds to realize that the graphics I was seeing was actual game play and not an in-game cinematic.

I've had the game for a 2 days now and all I have to say is ADDICTING! I called Shane earlier (since he hadn't played yesterday) and his 360 crashed. Talk about bad luck!

Speaking of "addicting" I'm off to play for a little bit longer before I have to call it a night.



"Mr. Bubbles... Mr. Bubbles" -- Little Sister

Open Letter

Dear Fridge Bandit,

Your Link issues are piling up and we've been getting complaints. Please pick them up soon.

Thanks

Pat McGee Band (Virginia Beach)

Catch 31 sponsored a free concert outside of their patio in Neptune Park. The headline band was the Pat McGee Band from Richmond, Virginia. This was the second time I have seen them in concert since 2004 at Browns Island in Richmond. There was a pretty good turn out and the drinks weren't 10 bucks this time.

Could this be the last concert I'll be attending for a while? Who knows I've seen a few more that are coming up that I would like to check out.

Dave Matthews Band (Virginia Beach, VA)

I was trying to figure out which concert I'd rather attend - Projeckt Revolution vs. Dave Matthews Band - and I decided what the hell I'll go to both. This was my first Dave concert and I must say it was one of the better shows I've seen. There were nearly 20,000 people and plenty of 10 dollar beers to drink.

Projekt Revolution 2007 (Virginia Beach, VA)

Yesterday I went to the Projekt Revolution tour at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Virginia Beach .

Featuring:

- Linkin Park
- My Chemical Romance
- Taking Back Sunday
- Julien K
- HIM
- Mindless Self Indulgence
- The Bled
- Styles of Beyond
- Madina Lake
- Placebo
- Saosin




Linkin Park - For me this was by far the highlight of their performance.

Dunning-Kruger Effect (Digesting The Weak-Minded)

"'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." -- Abraham Lincoln

There is an interesting theory out there called the Dunning-Kruger Effect, that simply put, suggests that Dumb People Think They're Smart. At Cornell University Justin Kruger and David Dunning hypothesized that:

1) incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill,
2) incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others,
3) incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy,
4) if they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.

For detailed information about their findings you can read their submission in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology entitled Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.

Until recently I never really gave much thought to the psychology and reasoning behind some individuals desire to overestimate their own abilities and label others as mediocrity. I suppose that subconsciously I have noticed this form of social interaction but brushed it off for arrogance. For example, in college my peers that would widely vocalize their comprehension on a particular subject or discipline would often exaggerate or speak as fact when they were not certain. Whereas my peers that were more soft-spoken and less likely to gloat were far more gifted. Outside of college, whether it be in a social atmosphere or in a work environment, the same basic principles applied.

A few weeks ago a co-worker of mine turned me on to this phenomenon by referring me to a Wikipedia article about this concept. After reading this article and others related to this mentality I am now much more aware its apparent existence.

Whether you find this to be true in your life or not it is really worth a read....

What Year Is It?

My web development boxes:

Windows Box:
P4 1.0 Ghz
512MB RAM
Broken Keyboard
8MB GFX Card

Linux Box:
Unknown Processor
64MB RAM
Unknown GFX Card (It has black, white, and a greenish tint)
5 1/4 DISK DRIVE WTF!!!

.... No comment ....

Still Wasted From The Party Last Night (Video)

Where's your lunch? Ask the Fridge Bandit

Looks like the Fridge Bandit's victims have been crying out and posting signs all over the building. I wonder if he feels bad about what he does?

Fallen Cubemate

Well Ian is back from his wedding / vacation and I have managed to get my hands on one of his post wedding pictures. Plans of a post-wedding bachelor party are still in discussion. I'm a little hesitant because I really don't feel comfortable jumping out of a wedding cake with an arsenal of novelty gifts (which begs the questions, why is this the "best" idea people can come up with)?

I digress... Congrats Ian and Whitney

Wrecking Ball (Myth or Legend?)

Legend Duh!

In 15C there has been questions as to what exactly is the wreaking ball. What is it you ask? Well unfortunately that question will not be answered here. I can tell you however that the wrecking ball is probably one of the coolest stuffed things around :)

Caution The wrecking ball has been known to slam its head into unsuspecting office supplies.

Exectutive Board Decision

Not only does Matt have an entire phone number appended to his Gmail email address he actually goes by the name "PHPMatt". We all agree that this warrants an infinite number of demerits, however in an effort to save time we'll round it off at several billion demerits.

DELETED!

Creating The Characters

Today at lunch I decided to create some new cartoons. I must say that these are the best and graphically rich cartoons on the net. To steal from a drastically misused and unjust web development term... they are "Web 2.0".

I put together these masterpieces during a lunch at the 16th floor Bistro Club (BC) while enjoy a steak and cheese lean pocket.

On a side note, Ratt received 10 demerits points at the BC today. The executive board will be reviewing his case in order to best determine if he should be allowed back.

Until next time...

The Fridge Bandit