Author: Bryant Sombke

  • ‘Til the Blinking Red Light of Death Do Us Part

    I can still remember the launch of the Sony PlayStation 3. While the supply shortage was nowhere near that of the launch of the Wii or Xbox 360, it was still quite difficult to get your hands on one. All I knew is that I wanted a PS3. I wanted one badly enough to pay $600…

  • The Day I Left Firefox Behind

    In the early times of the Information Age, web junkies like myself did not have many web browsing options. Internet Explorer had been absolutely terrible for essentially its entire existence, but early versions of Netscape Navigator and Netscape Communicator left much to be desired. Then Netscape 6 was released, which was based on the young,…

  • Net Neutrality: A Lose-Lose Situation?

    Much has been made about net neutrality recently. But what does “net neutrality” really mean? In a nutshell, it’s the idea that Internet Service Providers should not be allowed to discriminate against any type of traffic on their networks, for any reason. While it has many more implications, it has become a hot topic of…

  • Five Great Gift Ideas for Public Transportation Commuters

    At my previous job, I took the train from the suburbs straight to Union Station in downtown Chicago. The train ride would leave me with about 2 hours each day to do whatever I please, as long as it could be done on a train. Thankfully, technology has drastically increased the number of entertainment options…

  • SharePoint Solution Deployment Horror

    A couple of weeks ago, I had the worst professional SharePoint moment of my life, thanks to SharePoint 2007, Visual Studio 2008, and WSPBuilder. Deploying custom solutions to SharePoint is something I have done many times, but I’ve learned to expect nothing but the worst, especially when the task at hand seems like it should…

  • Ask Techerator: How can I search by only File Name in Windows 7?

    Techerator team: I’ve just switched from Windows XP/Office 2003 to Windows 7/Office 2010.  Before, I could easily find files in Word & Excel by simply typing a word that I knew was in the filename…. Now with Windows7/Office 2010, by searching in the upper right corner search box, the directory instead lists all the files…

  • A Developer’s Guide to Troubleshooting Microsoft SharePoint Errors

    Anybody that has worked with Microsoft SharePoint as a developer knows that it can be an exercise in frustration for the strangest of reasons. One only has to see a handful of helpful error messages such as “An unexpected error has occurred” to understand exactly what I mean. Yes, one may look through the logs…