I just wanted to make a small rant against UPS. Generally, UPS and most of the big shipping companies are known for their innovation and ever-lasting pursuit of efficiency. They have large computer networks to track shipments and deliveries and optimize routes.. fleets of hundreds of planes and thousands of trucks.. and can manage to get a box from one side of the continent to your front door on the other side in a day for less than the cost of fuel to drive a couple hours out of town.

Several times, I’ve come across the need for inheriting constructors in .NET, and I am constantly annoyed that it does not work. I’m writing a business objects layer, and what I’m trying to do is create some constructors in the base class that can initialize the objects in many different ways, eg: <br /> Public Sub New() ' Create new object using default storage<br /> Public Sub New(ByVal storage as Storage) ' Create new object using specified storage<br /> Public Sub New(ByVal conditions as String, ByVal parameters() as Object) ' Load an object by the specified query, using default storage<br /> Public Sub New(ByVal storage as Storage, ByVal conditions as String, ByVal parameters() as Object) ' Load an object by the specified query<br /> Public Sub New(ByVal id as Object) ' Load an object by the specified primary key, using default storage<br />

I felt compelled to respond to an article NetworkWorld published (which made Slashdot) that talks about how VoIP and security systems are incompatible (as in home or business burglar alarms), and is apparently based on an article published by CBC. It does raise some valid points, but mostly it is sensational garbage. First off, as the article correctly points out, VoIP does require power, so if you lose power, then you lose your phone line.

I spent some time recently trying to find a new keyboard, since my old one has had enough spilled on or in it over the years that it was uncleanable (still worked fine, but it was getting pretty gross). Now, I don’t know what keyboard designers are on these days, but they’ve made it an incredibly difficult and frustrating task. I don’t have any special keyboard needs, I usually just buy the basic el-cheapo keyboard that gets the job done.