Seattle was inundated yesterday by a steady snowfall during which it was cold, then warmer, then colder again: AKA, a recipe for icy road disaster (at least in a city of 142 square miles with 26 snowplows). Today’s morning news and communications, then, were dominated by transportation-related issues. “Schools are closed!” “Courts closed!” “Clinics closed!” [...]
Posts from ‘November, 2010’
Web.config and App.config file gotchas
If you try to use idiomatic .NET, and you have even modest configurability architecture requirements, you will almost certainly want to use the *.config system (App.config or Web.config). According to old hands at Win32 programming, this is quite a step forward from *.ini files or registry manipulation. Perhaps so. However, the *.config regime is extraordinarily [...]
Don’t bother with symlinks in Windows 7
Yes, in theory, Windows has rocketed into the 21st century with symbolic links. However, you can’t make them in Windows 7 unless you’re an Administrator, or unless you manage to give yourself “SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege.” Giving yourself this privilege is possible with Professional/Ultimate versions of Windows, but not Home Premium, via secpol.msc, which just doesn’t exist (and [...]
Lopsided Barbell of bank credit
At a fascinating macro talk this morning by a Goldman Sachs strategist, he mentioned a “lopsided barbell” of credit. To the biggest firms with the best ratings — think IBM or MSFT — money is basically free, with coupon yields at sub-2%. But to middle-market (say, $100M – $500M sales) and lower-end of middle market [...]