Oracle's SQL Developer vs. Toad

So a few weeks ago I ran into the new release of Oracle's SQL Developer originally named Raptor (free). I originally used TOAD which is the widely popular tool to interface with Oracle. So far I have been extremely pleased with SQL Developer. It gives plenty of features and functionality. The best part is no nag screens, it's free! Here's a complete article on SQL Developer, at least give it a shot.

Also on the really cool side, check out Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 (released March 20th) : Get the New Beta 2 Preview of IE7

In other news I have begun my Microsoft certification path. The course is: 70-305 Develop & Implement Web Apps w/VB .NET & VS .NET. YaY! Looks tough though, gonna have to spend plenty of time gaming... uhh I mean studying! Well plenty of stuff planned as far as learning goes, that just means I will have no life for a year or two. It's ok though, work now play later... right? Right?? Thats the plan!

Bummer of a Birthday

So my birthday was this last Saturday - March 25, I turned 22. It was a bummer of a weekend though. I slept most of the day, was really looking forward to spending time with my girl but that was shot to hell. Actually I broke up with her today. I just want someone who loves me, cares for me and wants to be with me. She was just always too busy with herself to think about my feelings. It's hard to find someone that really cares about you. To all those people out there who have a girl thats truly into you, keep it real, I respect that. Either way just knew that I didn't want to have a relationship like that. If I'm gonna be with someone then I want to be loved the same way that I love them. Enoough loathing...

Didn't do much this weekend, got some Olive Garden though thats always a bonus. Got sick a few days before my birthday too ~ still getting over it! Got a headache right now, a little stressed but I hope tomorrow has a good outlook for me.

AV Press

Just wanted to give a shout-out to my step brother who has been working hard to move forward with his Integrity in Academics project. Today he was featured on the front page of the AV Press and is receiving numerous recognitions throughout other newspapers including the New York Times as well as the Los Angeles Times. If you want to read the story go here.

Here's a quick excerpt from the AV Press:

LANCASTER - The Lancaster School District board of trustees voted to implement a "philosophy" of science instruction that encourages students to question Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and that permits science teachers to insert critiques of the long-standing and accepted scientific theory into the curriculum.

Being Productive

I'm sitting here at work and I decided to be unproductive (not to be confused with reproductive). So I have this headache right, and its really starting to pound on me. I didn't get much sleep last night but I had a good talk with Diana. The talk really put things into perspective for me. Why am I sitting around being a lame butt when she really deserves someone who cares for her and is passionate about her? She's a very intelligent girl and she's never caused me any ounce of pain, something I am truly grateful for. I know she truly cares about me and for a while I was afraid of opening up to her, well today will be different. Hopefully I'll be able to take her out to dinner and tell her how much she means to me.

So in other news, my step brother has decided to move to Illinois *gasp*!! Well more power to him for being able to make that decision. As for me, I'm gonna stick around for a while. At least until I get rich and decide to move away to Beverly Hills... hmmm yea.

Well I read some interesting articles in regards to AJAX programming. Microsoft has released their Atlas application today. So I'll be checking that out later this week (hopefully) and i'll slap some insight into it on a future blog. Until then, keep it real home skillets.

ASP.NET 2.0 and Classes with the HttpContext.Current

A few days ago someone asked me how they could access the Session object from within one of their classes located in the App_Code directory. Should be simple right?

I could just use:

Dim strMyVar as String = Session("myvar")

right?

Nope! Ok so for some reason it works within my aspx code and not the class. What should I do? Well never fear because the HttpContext.Current is here! HttpContext.Current provides access to the current http context (duh) ~ Which means I can not only get the Session object but the Server and Response object as well (among a boat load of others).

So now I need to do a redirect from within my class, here's how simple it is:

HttpContext.Current.Response.Redirect("~/mypage.aspx", true)

Enjoy!!

Howdy! Welcome to my blog. Lame first post, I know, but keep in touch I'll have more next week.