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How To Solve Housing and Financial Crisis With Only $50 Billion

Posted by Keith Elder | Posted in General | Posted on 06-10-2008

I tend to stay out of two circles of public discussion, 1) politics and 2) world affairs.  But given our government spent $700 billion dollars last week makes me take up the keyboard and come to life. 

Dan Gilbert, the Chairman and Founder of Quicken Loans (full disclosure – I work for QL), and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, has a solution to the problem at hand.  It is a plan that, while lengthy, for me makes a lot of sense. 

It makes sense on a lot of levels including only costing $50 billion dollars instead of $700 billion dollars.  It makes sense because people can keep their homes and get more money circulating back into the economy.

Before you pass judgment, read the plan.   If you don’t know Dan, know that he’s a great thinker and a man that has a deep understanding of what is going on.  Also understand this plan is not just something Dan wrote down on a whim.  He’s been doing a lot of work on this with our Chief Economist Bob Walters and the Former Chairman and CEO of Pulte Homes, Jim Grosfeld. 

If you like the plan, let Dan know as well as others.  If you hate the plan, let Dan know.

Here is the plan:

http://choosethinking.com/2008/10/a-solution-that-works/ 

With the stock market today losing over 700 points we need to do something and fast. 

Deep Fried Bytes Episode #14: LINQ’ing the Future of Development with Jim Wooley

Posted by Keith Elder | Posted in Podcast | Posted on 03-10-2008

 Listen To This Episode

http://deepfriedbytes.com/podcast/episode-14-linq-ing-the-future-of-development-with-jim-wooley/

 

How do you thinq…. uh… I mean think?  Do you THINQ in LINQ?  What about the KINQS in LINQ?  Are you the LINQ KINQG at the office? 

We sat down with the author of LINQ in Action, Jim Wooley, in the latest episode of Deep Fried Bytes

I’ve known Jim for several years now and believe it or not we are almost a mirror of each other as you’ll hear in the beginning of this episode.  This is a great show because LINQ really is a great killer cool awesome useful technology.  Our goal of this episode was to help developers work out the KINQS in LINQ.  Elly Mae is back and kicks the show off!  Enjoy.

Ways To Listen To The Show

There are several ways to listen to Deep Fried Bytes.

1. Directly From The Web Site (or click the link above)

When you visit the site look for this:

Clicking the triangle will launch the Yahoo! media player and automatically start playing the show for you. As long as you leave the browser window open the player will stay open. Clicking off the page WILL stop the player!

2. Subscribe via iTunes and Zune

If you have iTunes or Zune installed on your computer you can subscribe to our show. In iTunes open the Music Store and search for “Deep Fried Bytes”. In the Zune software, go to the MarketPlace select Podcast and search for “Deep Fried Bytes” to subscribe to the show. You can also click either of the two icons below to automatically subscribe to the show if you have iTunes or Zune installed.

Subscribe via iTunes Store Subcribe via Zune Market Place

3. Subscribe to RSS Feed

To stay current and up to date with the show, subscribe to the site’s RSS Feed. If you don’t know about RSS feeds you can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)

If you already have an RSS reader installed and setup, click the feed icon below to grab our news feed.

Subscribe to our podcast!

One More Year

Posted by Keith Elder | Posted in General | Posted on 01-10-2008

Just this morning I got an email stating I was renewed for my MVP award!  There is a change though.   The award is no longer in the “Client App Dev” category.  I am currently in the “Connected Systems Developer” category. 

What does this mean?  Well, it just means that my focus the past year has been more on things like Workflow Foundation, WCF, and others.  I think this category is a better fit, especially for my current role at work. 

A big thanks to Microsoft for this recognition, it is truly an honor.  

Deep Fried Bytes Episode #13: Staying Sane in Today’s Software Development World with Billy Hollis

Posted by Keith Elder | Posted in Podcast | Posted on 30-09-2008

 Listen To This Episode

http://deepfriedbytes.com/podcast/episode-13-staying-sane-in-today-rsquo-s-software-development-world-with-billy-hollis/

 

Billy is always entertaining to listen to and he doesn’t disappoint on Episode #13 of Deep Fried Bytes.   Think of this show as a “therapy session” with Billy on how to handle information overload as developers.  In this episode we discuss all kinds of things including WPF, WCF and more.

Ways To Listen To The Show

There are several ways to listen to Deep Fried Bytes.

1. Directly From The Web Site (or click the link above)

When you visit the site look for this:

Clicking the triangle will launch the Yahoo! media player and automatically start playing the show for you. As long as you leave the browser window open the player will stay open. Clicking off the page WILL stop the player!

2. Subscribe via iTunes and Zune

If you have iTunes or Zune installed on your computer you can subscribe to our show. In iTunes open the Music Store and search for “Deep Fried Bytes”. In the Zune software, go to the MarketPlace select Podcast and search for “Deep Fried Bytes” to subscribe to the show. You can also click either of the two icons below to automatically subscribe to the show if you have iTunes or Zune installed.

Subscribe via iTunes Store Subcribe via Zune Market Place

3. Subscribe to RSS Feed

To stay current and up to date with the show, subscribe to the site’s RSS Feed. If you don’t know about RSS feeds you can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)

If you already have an RSS reader installed and setup, click the feed icon below to grab our news feed.

Subscribe to our podcast!

Custom ConfigurationSection Error: Unable to load type

Posted by Keith Elder | Posted in .Net | Posted on 15-09-2008

I was creating a custom ConfigurationSection for an App.Config file.  Thinking I had done everything correctly (this really isn’t that hard) I kept getting this error.

“An error occurred creating the configuration section handler for LogManagerGroup/LogManager: Unable to load type ‘Core.Logging.Configuration.LogManagerSection, Core.Logging, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=br549br549br549’ because it is not public.”

I tried everything I knew to debug this thinking the problem was with the config file but it turned out to be code related.  Here’s the bad example:

   1: public class MyCustomSection : ConfigurationSection
   2: {
   3:     [ConfigurationProperty("IsDebugEnabled", DefaultValue = "true", IsRequired = true)]
   4:     public Boolean IsDebugEnabled
   5:     {
   6:         get
   7:         {
   8:             return (Boolean)this["IsDebugEnabled"];
   9:         }
  10:         set
  11:         {
  12:             this["IsDebugEnabled"] = value;
  13:         }
  14:     }
  15: }

Here’s the fix (just add a constructor):

   1: public class MyCustomSection : ConfigurationSection
   2: {
   3:     // Adding Constructor fixes this error
   4:     public MyCustomSection()
   5:     {
   6:  
   7:     }
   8:  
   9:     [ConfigurationProperty("IsDebugEnabled", DefaultValue = "true", IsRequired = true)]
  10:     public Boolean IsDebugEnabled
  11:     {
  12:         get
  13:         {
  14:             return (Boolean)this["IsDebugEnabled"];
  15:         }
  16:         set
  17:         {
  18:             this["IsDebugEnabled"] = value;
  19:         }
  20:     }
  21: }

Hopefully this will save someone time trying to figure this out.

If you are wondering “why” this is the case, it is because the ConfigurationSection class the custom section inherits from is an abstract base class that doesn’t have a default constructor therefore one has to be added.