You see on Sunday afternoon, the Internet connection at Theresa’s house was dreadfully slow, and would randomly disconnect for a couple seconds at a time. Just enough time to cancel any sort of operation you were hoping to do while browsing the Interwebs. I, being the only tech-savvy person about, was given the … opportunity to correct the situation.

This is not what I wanted to do with my weekend, but sadly when your girlfriend is Internet dependent and gets frustrated when things don’t work (don’t we all though?) it makes fixing said Internet.

Let me run down the possible causes for you really quickly so that you know where I’m going with this:

1. GF’s laptop was crapping itself
2. The phone line filters are crapping themselves (the house runs on a DSL sytem)
3. The router is crapping itself
4. The modem is crapping itself
5. The provider is crapping itself
6. The wiring between the modem and router is crapping itself
7. The phone line to the modem is crapping itself
8. God hates me.

As you can see, I basically presumed that something had failed along the way (“crapping itself” is a very technical umbrella term). Note that for everything but the finale of this sad tale, I was on the phone with technical support, combining our brains to figure all of this out.

Now I knew it couldn’t be her laptop, because everyone on the network was being effected (my own laptop included). I also knew that it couldn’t be the filters, because not too long ago we had to call tech support to find out why things weren’t working before. One of the steps they got me to try was to unplug all of the phones and see of that was the issue, it wasn’t. I accessed the router and it was fine; no lag, no anything. I sat there and pounded the f5 key on the Net connection page to see if it was disconnecting. As it worked out, it was.

“Ha!” I thought to myself, “easy fix, new modem and we’ll be up and running in no time!” This was, as it turned out, a half-truth.

Attempt One: Modem & Wires

I bought a new modem from the provider (120 dollars, give or take a little) and went home and plugged it in. The connection became solid, but still slower than it really should have. “Hmm, alright so the modem did need replacing, but that wasn’t the cause for the slowdown.” I then decided to replace the wiring from wall to modem, as well as modem to router. Shiny, brand new wires were put in, and there was little to no change.

Attempt Two: Router

“HMMMmmm,” went I, “okay so it’s not anything to do with the modem, so it must be something to do with the router!” See the router was also getting on in years, and though it was still functioning it could probably be upgraded. So I started by upgrading the firmware (fuck you Linksys for making the worst navigation on a website ever) and though the router was happy, it didn’t fix anything.

I then opted to upgrade the router (90 dollars after tax for a new Linksys Wireless-N Broadband Router), and set that up. Everything was hunky-dory with the router, and the network was running fine. Sadly though the speed was still painfully slow. A little faster, thanks to everything I had done, but still running at about 300 kb/s (thank you speedtest.net for not going down via my repeated tests). That’s terrible for a DSL, even a DSL at the maximum range from the switch.

Attempt Three: Filters

At this point I’ve become frustrated, and decide that maybe it is a filter after all. Who knows, between the last time I called them and now maybe a filter could have died. I ran around the house and unplugged all of the phones, and did a speed test. Still sitting at 300 or so. “FUCK,” declared me, “what is going on!? There’s nothing left to cause this!” That’s when I decided to canvas the house for any phone that could be missing a filter. Still nothing, until on a whim I checked the sisters room.

Attempt Four: Filters (again)

And here is the finale, folks.

Now I knew that she didn’t have a phone. Hell she never answered it anyways so why would she have one? I had even been in her room recently playing with the cat, and I had seen no phone. She has a Blackberry that she uses for everything. She has no need for a land line.

Of course, there was a phone in the room.

A phone lacking a filter.

A filterless, fucking, phone.

I unplugged the phone, and ran another speed test; 1200 kb/s. I plugged the phone back in and ran the test; 300 kb/s. I then attached a filter (we had two laying around the house) and ran a speed test; 1200 kb/s.

So 210 dollars later, it was a missing filter that was causing most of the errors.

What I’ve learned

Sometimes the simple answer really is the right answer.

I replaced everything around the filters figuring that they couldn’t be the issue, but I was only half-right. All the filters were working properly; it was a lack of one that caused the issue. Had I bothered to canvas the house first, I could have saved the family 210 dollars. Granted the modem was failing slowly and would had to have been replaced eventually. I rationalize it this way: at least we don’t need to worry about the modem or router failing for another couple years.

Also, I’m pretty sure God still hates me, so I’m going to say it was a joint problem.

The irony in that statement will become apparent as you continue to read. It blows my mind how much effort and extra money all of this cost me.

Also it should be mentioned that the span of all of the following events took place over a week and a bit, because I was only at my home for about two days over the entire time-line.

Alright so where to begin? I’ve always sort of wanted an XBox 360, which would come to a shock to a younger version of me. I was always a huge fan of the PlayStation. Sadly since the PS3 has nothing on it that interests me, my loyalties have changed. That and I don’t think Blu-ray is doing very well, so I don’t need a player for them at the moment.

The issue with wanting one and owning one were two-fold. First there was the issue of my T.V. being almost comically small. I’ve had it since I was 13, and bought it with my very own paper route money. It’s colour, mono sound, has no AV jack ports, and I lost the remote so long ago that it’s nothing but a myth. The second issue is that in order to get a decent XBox, I’d be looking to drop anywhere from 350-500 dollars.

As I have a shortage of funds, these two points were a little more daunting than I would like to admit. I told myself that when I could afford a nice T.V. and an XBox, it would be one of those “for me” purchases and left it at that. Then my parents decided to buy a fancy new T.V., and I was given the older one from the family room. Now it’s nothing amazing, but it has two AV jack ports, stereo sound, and a remote (mind you, the 3 doesn’t work well on it). So I now had a T.V. that would service my needs. The XBox costing too much still put me off the purchase though.

So then Boxing Day comes around, and lo and behold I can get an XBox 360 with four games – Kung-fu Panda, LEGO Indiana  Jones, Halo 3, and Stranglehold -, and a 60 gig hard drive for 260 dollars. that’s roughly 130 dollars cheaper then usual, not even factoring the cost of the free games which average around 45 dollars each. Put it together and I could save 310~ dollars. This is not something I could pass up.

This is where things start to slowly go down-hill.

Day 1 (Friday)

So the flier says that Future Shop opens at 6 a.m. I make the decision to line up at 3 a.m. because they only had 20 or so of these deals. This may sound insane, but trust me when I say that there were people who were lined up there as of 12:30 that morning. The kicker is that due to some insane bylaw in Brantford, Future Shop could only open at 9 a.m.. For those unwilling to do the math, that’s an extra three hours of standing in the cold, hating myself. Thankfully I had a chair and my sleeping bag, so I was alright for the most part. Waiting around for 6 hours was… less fun.

In the end I got my XBox 360, brought it home, and only then did I realize that it is the only NextGen console that does not have built in wireless. Why? I have no actual idea, though “cash gouging” comes to mind. “No worries,” I thought, “I’ll just pick one up while we’re out! How expensive can they be?”

Day 4 (Monday)

100 dollars, as it turns out. Which is, of course, insane. “There must be a way around this!” I proclaimed. I went to the all-knowing Google and started looking around.

There is apparently a way to rig up your XBox 360 into your computer using Internet Connection Sharing. After following 3 of these tutorials, failing, and nearly killing my computer and network to boot, I decided to try a different approach.Well not totally true, I fished out my old laptop, and tried doing the same through that, but it was even less successful; something I didn’t even think was possible.

This whole thing took roughly four hours of my life away.

Day 7 (Thursday)

“I should be able to use a router as an access point, hook into the wireless network that already exists, and then connect the XBox to the router via Ethernet!” This is possible, as it turns out, only if you have the correct routers. D-Link, which was up until this experience my router of choice, does not actually allow this quite the way I want.

What I want:

• Router A is connected to the modem, and broadcasts the wireless network.
• Router B acts as a repeater; that is to say that it connects to the Wireless network from Router A wireless-ly (this is an important distinction) and acts as an additional hub, and/or repeats the signal from Router A.
• Things can then connect to Router B and they will attach themselves to the network, which makes my XBox go live.
• Alternately, allow my XBox to use Router B as an antennae, allowing it to connect to the Wireless signal broadcast by Router A.

What my D-Links can actually do:

• Router A is connected to the modem, and broadcasts the wireless network.
• Router B can connect to Router A with an Ethernet cable, and then act as a broadcast anchor.
• Things can then connect to Router B, and it directs the traffic back to Router A.

Since I cannot run a cable through my house, this effectively screwed me. Of course I only found this out after buying the router, trying, failing, and then finding the manual online (doesn’t come with one!). This took another couple hours of my life away. The router is of course non-refundable. The upswing to this is that when I move out, I have a router. Fantastic. For now though, it sits in my closet, mocking me.

“I know I’ve seen this done though! My friend has this exact setup!” I screamed, bordering upon hysterics at this point. It turns out that the only router that can do this the way I want is a Linksys router, which of course is what he has. This will teach me to leap before I look.

Day 10 (Sunday)

11:45 A.M.

At this point I snap. “Fine! Fuck all of this, I’ll just spend the 100 dollars and get the stupid adapter for the stupid XBox so I can finally get online!”

Totally defeated, I got into my car and drove down to the closest EB Games to pick up an outrageously over-priced Wireless Adapter. I decided against going to the Brantford Future Shop, which is about the same distance as EB Games (in the opposite direction, basically), because they specialize in video games and so the funding should go their way.

12:10 P.M.

EB Games is closed. Not a “back in 5 minutes” closed. This was a “Shutters are down” sort of closed. a Closed closed. No hours of operation in sight.

“Fuck you EB Games, I’ll just go to Wal-Mart” I proclaim as I dive back into my car.

12:18 P.M.

Wal-Mart carries every other XBox accessory, including Viva Pinata face plates, but no Wireless Adapter. It’s literally the only thing they don’t carry. There isn’t even a peg for it. Asking the mouthbreather working the electronics section says “if it’s not there, we don’t have it… I guess.” I hate Wal-Mart.

“Alright, fine. I’ll go to Microplay! They are a trustworthy store that can fulfill my request” I say, my knuckles going white from gripping my cars steering wheel too tightly.

12:29 P.M.

I enter the Microplay and wait until my general anger and distaste for the universe decidedly stops their conversation, and they graciously ask me if there’s something I am looking for. I scan the wall and do not see any wireless adapters. I figure they probably have some in the back, and so I ask.

Both employees look at the wall, then above their heads at the additional storage area and mutter to one another like some sort of synchronized pantomime of ignorance. My forced smile fades as I already know the response: “We’re sold out, I guess” says the less clean of the two. I’m already starting to move towards the door by the time they say this. I thank them and exit, my rage slowly starting to get the better of me.

“Fine. I will go to the Future Shop. The Future Shop I could have gone to in the first place.” This was then followed by a collection of curses, the details of which escape me. Suffice it to say, it was both colourful and creative.

12:45 P.M.

I arrive at Future Shop, park, and stride in. The greeter shies away from me, probably tasting the rage that pre and proceeds me. I walk into the XBox 360 section, and find three wireless adapters left. With 10 dollars off, no less. Lucky me, I guess. I spent about that much money in gas, so it basically evened out.

As I go to pay for the adapter, the check-out girl wishes me a good day with a smile, and I restrain myself from putting a hole in the wall. Thankfully my rage is slowly, slowly ebbing away.

1:05 P.M.

I plug in the Wireless Adapter, turn the XBox on, test the connection, and I’m up and running. The connection is horrid due to my dressers apparent lead physiology. This forces me to re-arrange my entire shelf to allow the XBox to reside on the top with the T.V.

1:20 P.M.

Connect to XBox live, download the OS update, and spend a good 10 minutes online trying to come up with a Gamertag that actually isn’t taken. This is harder than it seems. XBox Live asks me if I want to be a Gold member. To have this privilege (which expires every year) will cost me an additional 60 dollars a year. “Fine, fuck it, whatever,” I mutter as I attempt to explode someones head at the XBox headquarters via transferred telekinesis. I sign my life away and eventually the system is up.

1:40 P.M.

I decide to download Castle Crashers, a game that I love dearly, only to find that I must add Microsoft Points in order to purchase it. 30 dollars for 2000 points (that’s roughly 1.5 cents per point. Not a good exchange rate) later, I drop 1200 to own the game.

In the end…

So lets see: almost two weeks to get the Xbox live, and it cost me 240 dollars to get to that point. How? well 90 for the wireless adapter, 50 for the useless router, 60 for the online membership, 30 more for the points, and 10 for gas.

Good thing I got 130 off the Xbox eh? I would have been totally screwed there!

In the end, I’m glad it is up and running, but the shitstorm that I went through to get to this point almost made me murder someone.

Oh and in case anyone wants to friend me on XBox Live, my gamertag is “Jack Dutson”

Don’t ask, it’s a sort of inside joke with Theresa. She appreciated it.

I thought at first about writing about Poverty all over the world. Then I thought about writing about Poverty in your own country. That’s when I realized I could talk about my own country, because damn it, I live here and this shit’s important. This is probably one of the issues closest to my heart on this planet and I’ll be damned to give up an opportunity to help.

I am against Poverty.

For the grammar and spelling Nazis out there, you will notice that I’m giving Poverty a capital ‘P’. My reasoning for this is simple: Poverty is not just a state; it’s not just something that happens to people. Poverty is a being. It’s a horrible, twisted thing that exists everywhere you go. Wherever you find people, you will find Poverty near by.

Poverty is life going wrong.

Poverty is mistakes.

Poverty is screwing up, hard luck, a missed bill, an empty stomach, a bitter cold night, an addiction you can’t shake,  a child without a home, a man with enough dignity that he will actually beg for help, a squeegee kid, an over-crowded shelter, a woman riding the bus until it closes, a person drowning their sorrows, an under-paid worker, a child labourer, a person who needs help.

Poverty is a disease.

Poverty is a mistake.

Poverty is a thing, and we have to stare at it right in the eye, and bludgeon it to death with a baseball bat.

Poverty in Canada

Canada is considered to be a first-world country, and is a part of the G8. We are recognized in the world as a great country; a land of opportunities and free thought. A place where people can make their lives better.

Then why is it that even in Canada, a place that I am proud to call my home, we have such high rates of poverty? In 2000 Canada’s Poverty rate rested somewhere about 16%. Given the population was just shy of 30 million, that adds up to roughly 4.7 million people resting below the Poverty line. Some reports conflict saying that it was actually only around 11-12%. Going with those numbers, we’ve still got 3.3 – 3.6 million people below the poverty line.

Those same reports also say that as of 2005, the poverty rate is resting around 11 %. I feel it’s pretty safe to say that though a couple years have passed, I doubt that number has fluctuated that much. So we have 3.3 million people that live below the Poverty line.

What the hell?

This isn’t right. In a country as great as it is – sorry world, I’m a touch patriotic – how is it that literally 1/10th of the population – 1.2 million of which are children – are living below the poverty line? I’m aware that Canada does not officially have a set poverty line, but a yearly calculated value. Even with that fact in mind, how can things be as bad as they are?

What can we do?

Well if you want to feel good, throw some money into some hats, cups, bowls, or whatever the poor on the street use to beg. That will give you a warm feeling in your stomach as you walk on down the street to buy food that costs too much and clothing that you’re over-charged for.

If you want to make a real difference, try spending your money and your time helping organizations that are working on improving the quality of life both locally and globally.

Here’s a very small list of national and international charities that you can work with and donate to. If you don’t like the one’s I’ve listed, find another one and get started.

Make Poverty History

“Make Poverty History has mobilized Canadians like never before on issues related to poverty at home and abroad. From hundreds of events to hundreds of thousands of e-mail messages to politicians, from getting organized in communities to meeting with decision-makers, Canadian Make Poverty History campaigners are standing up and making a difference.”

Website: http://www.makepovertyhistory.ca

Free The Children

“Free The Children is the world’s largest network of children helping children through education, with more than one million youth involved in our innovative education and development programs in 45 countries. Founded in 1995 by international child rights activist Craig Kielburger, Free The Children has a proven track record of success. The organization has received the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child (also known as the Children’s Nobel Prize), the Human Rights Award from the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations, and has formed successful partnerships with leading school boards and Oprah’s Angel Network.”

Website: http://www.freethechildren.com

Meal Exchange

“Meal Exchange is a national student-founded, youth-driven, registered charity organized to address local hunger by mobilizing the talent and passion of students. Since 1993, our programmes have been run on over 50 campuses across Canada and generated over $2 million dollars worth of food or 727,200 meals to address local hunger.”

Website: http://www.mealexchange.com

National Anti-Poverty Organization

“The mission of the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO) is to eradicate poverty in Canada by promoting income and social security for all Canadians, and by promoting poverty eradication as a human rights obligation.

We believe that poverty is a violation of the human right to security of the person and, with reference to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the legal right to security of the person. We further believe that poverty is an affront to the values of fairness, justice and the inclusion of all persons in Canadian society. We therefore contend that for these reasons, poverty must be eradicated.”

Website: http://www.napo-onap.ca/

The Hunger Site

“The Hunger Site was founded to focus the power of the Internet on a specific humanitarian need; the eradication of world hunger. Since its launch in June 1999, the site has established itself as a leader in online activism, helping to feed the world’s hungry and food insecure.”

Website: http://www.thehungersite.com

United Way Canada

“The Movement is made up of 120 volunteer-based United Ways – Centraides (UWs-Cs) located in ten provinces and two territories and a national organization, United Way of Canada – Centraide Canada. Its mission is “to improve lives and build community by engaging individuals and mobilizing collective action”.”

Website: http://www.unitedway.ca

World Job and Food Bank

“The primary goal of WJFB is to help the poor in less developed countries to become able to help themselves. By creating income-generating small work cooperatives, WJFB helps to provide jobs and skills training for the poorest. These co-operatives have been in the form of poultry rearing, sewing and dress making, desktop publishing, and others.  Co-op members work together to develop and market their product, and share in the profits. Once fully trained, they can obtain jobs elsewhere, so that more needy people can join the co-op and learn skills.”

Website: http://www.wjfb.org/

Save the Children

“Save the Children Canada has been working for over 85 years to bring immediate and lasting improvements to the lives of children through the realization of their rights. Save the Children Canada provides both long-term development assistance and emergency relief. Wherever possible we work closely with local community organizations to ensure lasting and effective programs to benefit children and their families.  We partner with local organizations, communities, government bodies and international organizations.”

Website: http://www.savethechildren.ca

End Canadian Poverty

“End Canadian Poverty (ECP) aims to provide information about charities and organizations that help Canadians cope with and overcome poverty. We hope that summarizing this information will help you to locate food banks, housing support and more if you are in need of these services. Or, if you would like to help impoverished Canadians, through donations of time or money, we hope that ECP will help you to find information about a charity or organization that is right for you.”

Website: http://www.endcanadianpoverty.ca

In the end

It’s up to us people. Poverty won’t get rid of itself and only we as people, we as a nation, we as a world can change things. I’m exceptionally thankful to be in the financial and economical position that I am, and I’m damned lucky to be here. What’s my excuse for not helping out? I don’t have one, and I’d be hard pressed to find anyone that did have a passable reason.

Get out there and let’s destroy Poverty.

Being the smart man that I am, I thought “Hell, I’ll just roll back a version to when it worked! It’s probably some little bug with WordPress, no big deal.” I totally forgot my FTP information, so there was 40 minutes of my life I can’t bet back.

In the end I rolled everything back and now the site worked again, but I was still getting an error that I couldn’t figure out. I tried re-installing the latest version, and I was still getting an error which totally confused me.

Now I’m getting angry. Something had changed between a couple days ago and now. Could I remember? Of course not. If I could remember what I had really done, I wouldn’t of had a problem. As a result I ended up searing a bunch and scrambling to get my site working as it should again. I tried every combination I could think of that involved installing and uninstalling everything. In this process I told myself, “make sure you backup that theme you worked so hard on!”

I didn’t of course, but we’ll get to that.

Eventually I had the bright idea of “Why not just copy my development version over to of the live version? I mean it works fine there!” I forgot that when you’re going to do a blind copy, it’s generally good practice to back up any and all files you may have changed from one server to the other. This includes the files that make up my new theme. The result? I rolled back 2 days worth of changes to the websites theme and the problem was still there.

Now I’m swearing up and down the walls. I’m saying things that I should probably seek forgiveness for having said. I’m angry because now not only have i rolled back my theme and lost so much work, but Isomehow still have this messed up error!

Now it’s time for me to bust out my debugging skills.

• I removed the entire installation including all theme files, plugins, and extras.
  Result: Site is dead. Good start.
• I reinstall WordPress and get it pointing to the old database (which was a fun time in and of itself, as i forgot my database server location)
  Result: site is up, back to the old blue but up.
• I re-install my theme and apply it
  Result: Site is borked because I need certain things in my theme to work. Old error isn’t appearing
• Copy in my plugins
  Result: no change
• Activate “Hello Dolly” plugin (I like it, shut up)
  Result: Crazy error shows up. I’m now confused.
• Deactivate Hello Dolly, and activate Twitter.
  Result: Everything’s great. Still confused.
• Activate Hello Dolly again.
  Result: The shit’s fucked up again.

Somehow throughout all of my backups and my restores, the Hello Dolly plugin got rather messed up. I cannot and refuse to explain or understand why. In the end I lost two days of work, and a day of progress because of a useless plugin. What have I learned from this?

Back your shit up before you start, and for the love of all that is sacred and pure, think about what you’re doing before you do it.

I eventually got everything running again (as you can see) but believe me when I say I could have done without the self-loathing, swearing, and stress.

Shoddy workmanship is not something I wish to convey. As a result, I’m unwilling to pull an article out of my ass and present it. It’s not what I want, and I feel that anyone that takes the time to read my site should be given something worth reading.

To give a run down, I’ve been amazingly busy at work recently. One of my co-workers opted to move on with his life, and so the responsibilities that he left behind have to be re-distributed. The opportunity has fallen at my feet and I’ve had little choice but to pick it up, shoulder it, and move on. I’ve ended up managing two projects, and found myself both at work earlier, as well as leaving later. This is not a habit I wish to become accustomed to, and I’ve made myself clear about this at work. I’m grateful for the opportunity, but I’m making sure that they know it is not a career path I wish to follow for longer than is required of me.

Despite my statements, they feel I can do the job, and do it I shall. This means that I’ll have to spend whole days with the clients, which will land me getting home at 8 or 9 at night. This eats away at my spare time, and helps ensure that anything I want to get done, doesn’t. Hell, I even had to re-arrange a dental appointment because of this, and trust me when I say that cavities are not something you want to leave alone.

Beyond that, I’ve been working on the new site layout, résumé, and portfolio. This has taken a good portion of my time, because there’s a great deal of care being put into all of it. I stated before that I don’t want to put anything out onto the net that I didn’t feel was representative of me; this is no different. My website is an extension of me, and as such should be representative of myself as well as my abilities. Editing pre-made WordPress themes are fine to begin with, but when you’re trying to become a graphic designer, it really doesn’t make much sense.

I’ve got the résumé done except for some minor standards work. I’ve designed the new site layout, and I’ve just started on the markup. The portfolio has been thought up, and now it’s a matter if getting a design I’m happy with. These have taken me way longer than I would have liked, and I’ve only had time at night (an hour before bed every other night) to work on these. The whole operation has been done in moonlighting-mode for the past two weeks.

I also had to make sure that my first client, who will remain anonymous for now, was happy with the work I did. This resulted in my having to change a couple things with the forum, layout, and coppermine installation I performed for him. I could usually only do this at 11 at night, when it was otherwise my time. Once again, this eats into my personal productivity time.

One also cannot forget the girlfriend, who I must spend time with. I don’t get a lot of time with her what with her being in school most of the year (one more year though, and this statement can change), and so any timeI do get with her is precious. My evenings are usually spent with her, and so I’m not even getting home until nearly 11 pm every night. This too cuts into my personal productivity time, which in turns pushes everything back.

So as you can see, I’ve got a lot of things to deal with, and site content is probably the least important part at the moment. It sucks, but that’s the way it is. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to bring my laptop with me on my business trip (Jesus Christ I’ve got a business trip) and try and get some of my personal designing work out of the way. I’m also hoping I can get the last two Doctor Who books of the Timewyrm series out of the way so that I can at least think about some massive 4 story review epic.

Until things settle down and I get some of my personal projects done, I won’t be able to keep up with my old Monday, Thursday routine. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that there aren’t enough hours in the day, and I needs my sleep.

Then I tried to create a Custom List. I had event receivers attached to custom lists (ListTemplateID=100 for those who care) and i got this:

Cannot insert the value NULL into column ‘Name’, table ‘[somesharepointcontentdatabase].dbo.EventReceivers’;
column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails.
The statement has been terminated.

Took me a good two hours of trying everything I could think of with my XML and code, only to be repeatedly thwarted by this database-level error! I tried commenting out different sections of my receivers and still got the error. When I commented the entire <Receivers> section, things ran fine, but not the <Receiver> items inside. What the hell is going on? Read on!

I’ll give an example of what I’m talking about here – the following comes from MSDN:

feature.xml:
<Feature
Scope=”Web”
Title=”Simple Updating Item Event Handler Registration”
Id=”A6B8687A-3200-4b01-AD76-09E8D163FB9A”
xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/”>
<ElementManifests>
<ElementManifest Location=”elements.xml”/>
</ElementManifests>
</Feature>

inside the feature.xml file (above) it references the following file:

elements.xml:

<Elements xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/”>
<Receivers
ListTemplateOwner=”ADDABAAA-1111-2222-3333-111111111111″
ListTemplateId=”104″>
<Receiver>
<Name>SimpleUpdateEvent</Name>
<Type>ItemUpdating</Type>
<SequenceNumber>10000</SequenceNumber>
<Assembly>SimpleUpdateEventHandler, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=10b23036c9b36d6d</Assembly>
<Class>MS.Samples.SimpleItemUpdateHandler</Class>
<Data></Data>
<Filter></Filter>
</Receiver>
</Receivers>
</Elements>

This works fine. Here’s something interesting though: any comments – <!– Like this –> - you have in the <Receivers> node will be literally interpreted as <Receiver> nodes! That means whenever it tries to attach event receivers to any list, it treats the comments as actual receivers! That’s right, for whatever reason, the code that ties event receivers to lists literally loops through every node (comments are still considered nodes!) and tries to use them instead of using any sort of XPath. How hard is it to use “//Elements/Receivers/Receiver” as your node collection XPath? I really hope whoever wrote that code got the ruler or something.

The solution: Remove comments from your Feature xml file(s).

I say this because God only knows where else this is happening, and the odds of you realizing that it is something that should just work, like comments, are probably not that high. Remember folks, sometimes the most obtuse problems have the most simple answers. Try not to over-think things.

A huge thank you must go out to Janne Mattila for being the first (and apparently only according to Google) documenting this. I wish I had looked sooner.

Some people had to reset the time on their computer. Some had to un-check the starting options (Remember me, Remember Password, and Auto Sign-In) and then do it manually. Others had to go and delete things from their registry, and some even had to repair Messenger and its Sign-In Assistant. Then you had people like me for some reason or another Microsoft decided to totally cut off from their whole service. I mean a total cut off. I couldn’t access their service, I’d get a 404 when I tried to access web messenger. Even their Live Messenger Support website was cut off from me, so I couldn’t even get professional help. It kept telling my my proxy settings were screwed up, when in reality I don’t even use a proxy at all.

I took it upon myself to try and uninstall/reinstall the product and I got half way there at least. I couldn’t reinstall the program, because in order to install it the installer has to download the contents from their server. Since I was cut off from their servers I couldn’t do anything. Thankfully I recently brought my old laptop out of commission, and Messenger worked just fine there. I finally got it working over a day later when my Microsoft-induced ban was lifted.

The point to this rant?

Don’t screw your customers.

I can understand that what they were doing could have been really super, duper important. I get that they had to cut a good section of people off from the service in order to fix whatever it was. Hell a server could have gone up in flames, and we wouldn’t know the different and that’s part of the problem. They didn’t say anything, but instead let a good section of people go without a means of common communication.

This is bad practice.

If you’re going to cut off a good section of people from something that many of them pretty much cannot live without, you need to say something. The only information I found on the subject was what Google told me when I was trying to fix my problem. All it told me was that there were a bunch of others in the same boat with no idea how to fix it.

I’m aware they have a spotless image to try and maintain (whoever they think they’re fooling I have no idea), but when you screw over that many people by not saying anything, you cause more damage to your image than if you just came clean. Sometimes being honest will cause you less grief in the end.

Had they returned a new error number or had a post somewhere on the Internet that said what the hell was going on, I wouldn’t have bothered writing this post.

Anyways, todays little post is a little bit of a bitch. That is to say that I am bitching about something that to this day manages to blow my mind.

Why the hell can’t people drive in the snow?

Seriously, it’s been around longer than we have. We have developed wheel-drives, tires, break-styles, wiper-blades, anti-freezing, self-heating, Pi-calculating cars. So despite our advances against the frozen flecks of water still manage to turn everyone into drooling, knuckle-dragging morons whos only response to having to drive in the stuff is to go under twenty km at any given time. For those out there still using the imperial system, that’s roughly 12.4 miles per hour.

Todays example will revolve around the recent swing in temperature changes: It was cold and rainy, but alright. Then the sun went down, things got cold, and thanks to nature, the roads started to freeze. Shortly after that it started snowing, which blanketed things in a layer of snow. I admit, these are not road conditions wherein driving excessively is a smart idea. I would even go so far as to say that to err on the side of caution would indeed be the better choice. Caution doesn’t need to be 10 km (6.2 Mph).

Yeah so you can’t drive as fast, I get that, but going so slow I can out-walk your car just so that you can ‘safely’ ride the bumper of the car in front of you as you would at regular speeds is, at best, retarded. You can drive faster, if you actually allow yourself the time to stop. What this generally means is that you back the fuck off, and leave room between you and the car you’re trying to ride in front of you. This is generally good practice in optimal driving conditions as well, if only to help avoid accidents by giving your dumb-ass time to react.

Additionally, you can actually drive on the snow instead of the lanes that other cars have driven in. When you are facing the possibility of driving on the black ice that every other car preceding has contributed to, you can actually shift your car a bit to the left or right and drive on the snow which has been otherwise left alone. This will allow you to actually gain now-valuable traction, and get you to where you’re going before you die and ripen from old age while whimpering in your car, cursing mother nature as you plow your gas pedal into the floor, wondering why oh why wont your tires find grip?

Maybe these little things are not common sense for some, but for those of us that live in an area that has frequent and shitty winter weather conditions, I would assume that after a while people would be able to adapt and drive in said weather conditions with some modicum of ability. Apparently this knowledge is only reserved for those who live in perpetual snow, or happen to actually drive in it. I’ve driven through conditions that would blow peoples minds, and so maybe that has given me some keen insight into how to drive in the winter. A lot of it, however comes from not being retarded.

One last note, get winter tires. All-seasons will not cut it when push comes to shove, as today clearly proved to me. I know this because last year I drove my little Yaris around in the winter and slid through many a stop sign, because I simply did not have the grip available to me. Lessons have been learned and this year I dropped the coin on it. I’ve not regretted the decision. Maybe you don’t need them, but I can assure you that the difference they make is noticeable, and you will not regret the decision.

Fuck sakes people, I drive a Yaris and I navigate this weather better than the SUVs, Trucks, and about 70% of the other drivers on the road that managed to spin out for no God damned reason. My car is tiny and super-light, and yet somehow here I am driving like an apparent winter veteran. That’s sad people, sad.

As it turns out, customizing a Wiki Library to do anything isn’t just difficult, it’s not even a chore. It’s a goddamn mission of epically frustrating scale. Let’s start off with some over-all items:

1. I needed to create custom columns, some of which looked at lists.
2. I needed to create a content type that was based off of the Wiki content type.
3. I needed to customize the Wiki library to have said content type.
4. I needed to add custom-made web parts to the various views of the Wiki Library (History, Edit, etc)
5. I needed all of this to work through a feature

Where to start? Lets start from the bottom of the list, because as it turns out this was the easiest and where I started.

You want to edit those page layouts eh? Well have fun because as it turns out all of those files are system files, which means they’re on the hard-drive of the server and therefor shared. That means you can’t mess with one without causing a server-wide change. The solution? Copy those layout pages and rename them. Now add them to your feature. I’m not going to explain how to get the feature to deploy, that’s a different story all together.

That’s sweet! Now how do you make anything use those pages? Well in terms of all the little widgets (Versions tool, History Link, Incoming Link) You will have to build your own versions of those controls. Why? Well the URL of the pages that they point to are hard-coded. Simple enough to get around, though annoying as hell. Just to demonstrate, to the left is a screen shot of what SharePoints’ markup looks like just to recreate some of the controls in HTML. Seriously, that’s messed up. In the end each link was surrounded by two more tables. What the hell man?

Okay so you got all of the default pages redirected. What about when you edit an entry or make a new one? Those pages are tailored specifically for Wiki Pages (CreateWebPage.aspx) and so you’ll have to copy that one. As for redirecting it? Well you should be able to do it via an Event Receiver attached to the Feature that Installs the custom content type that this is all based from. please note my use of the word ‘should’ because I’m still stuck there.

Let’s move onto the library for a moment. Now I have not been able to replicate the Wiki library properly, without making my list type use the basetype of ’119′. As it turns out, this comes with a whole bunch of strings attached, like having hidden name columns and a lot of red-tape. I dare you to try and rename the “Name” column to anything with any sort of graceful code. I’ll leave that one there. For those that are wondering, the default Feature for Wiki Libraries is called “WebPageLib” or something of that nature. Try searching the 12 directory for the content type of Wikis. To find that, go looking for the ctypes Feature and look in there.

Creating the feature to house all of this turned out to be the easiest portion of it all, though all of the problems stemmed from it in some shape, way or form. I can’t bitch too much about the feature markup itself, because all it really lacks is some functionality that should… well really should just be there. I’ve had to rig extra code together just to get what I wanted, but read on and I’ll explain.

I managed to create the content type with little issues, though I had to add Remove references to the WikiPage content type (that does exist by the way, it’s just stored in the ‘_Hidden’ group which is why you can’t touch it via the site). Adding the new content type to the list template was fun too, because you have to do it via the feature, since Wiki libraries do not allow you to edit the Content Types of the list at all. Like I said, Wikis are sealed, and don’t like to play with the other kids.

The problems really started when I created the site columns. Just a note to everyone: if you ever feel like creating columns or content types, then using them, and then trying to remove them via a feature, good luck. SharePoint will not remove anything if it’s being used. Just a helpful tip there. This could be fixed via some EventReceiver code, but I won’t get into that.

Anyways, I had a column. It was a lookup column. It wanted to look at a specific list, so I gave it the list id (though to be honest this is a bad way to do it because what happens when you want to deploy this feature somewhere else?). I deployed the column, and it worked! Then I tried to use that column in a sub-site, which ended up failing miserably. Took me forever to find out that you cannot specify a web property in the feature. webid and scopeid, yes, but nothing generic (refer to my listId comment here). The solution to this was to add more custom EventReceiver code that would do this work for me. Which worked great until I moved the feature to another site.

This is where my night went bollocks.

I installed the feature onto another dev-site and activated it (all through stsadm). Worked fine. Then I tried to deactivate said feature, and it would just sit there. I could uninstall it fine, but when I deactivated it the process would just hang there and I’d be forced to end it via Task Manager. It took me 6 ruined dev-sites to realize that I was missing the lists that my lookups were pointing to. Apparently if you tie a lookup column to a list that doesn’t exist via code, it will cripple the server when you try and remove that column from any content types that it was attached to. When I say cripple, I’m not kidding. stsadm.exe ran up 50 Mb of resident memory, and 100% of the CPU. The best part was that no error would be logged, it would just hang there forever. I admit I toyed with the idea of letting it run all night and going home.

I kid you not, I laughed like a madman when I finally figured it out. I cannot explain why, but that’s just how it is. The lesson I learned from this really was that I shouldn’t have expected SharePoint to have any sort of intelligence sitting behind it, and code for stupidity. Anything you think SharePoint should probably just do probably doesn’t actually happen, or it happens with a hope and some duct tape.

Oh and for the record, I’m still stuck on how to change the Edit/New pages properly.