Accessing Experts Exchange without paying

It seems that Experts Exchange is now making people pay for accessing content generated by their users. I’m sure it was inevitable but it’s very underhand to build up a free knowledge base and then make people pay for what will often be content they’ve contributed to.

It’s even more underhand that they have to let the content remain accessible to Google otherwise they won’t come up top for searches any more. But that’s where there’s a route around the subscription system. In easy steps:

  1. Search for something useful in Google e.g. “javascript baseHfef”.
  2. See a possibly useful result from Experts Exchange.
  3. View the version that’s in Google’s cache e.g. results for “javascript baseHref”

Maybe they’ll think of a way around that sometime, but in the meantime if they want their content in Google then it’s got to be accessible.

‘Object reference not set to instance of an object’

The “Object reference not set to instance of an object” error in ASP.Net has to be one of the most annoying of all error messages giving, as it does, almost no clues as to what the error can be about. And yes, I know it’s easy to get more information, but it doesn’t really provide any more help than just saying “It broke” would.

It has to be up there with “Object expected” in PHP and the old favourite “Error on line 0 character 0” in JavaScript.

The Shepherd Epstein Hunter Architects Telegraph Fantasy Football results, 2006-2007

The Shepherd Epstein Hunter (SEH) Architects Fantasy Football league for 2006 to 2007 finished as below. We didn’t quite make it to 1st place in the end, finishing second (which I blame almost entirely on Ashley Cole). Still, given the distance we were behind in 4th place at Christmas I can’t complain that much, and I think this year we finished higher up in the national leaderboard than ever before (although I don’t think they give out prizes for coming 57972nd). Next year it’s going to be important to get a good start, though, given how close it seems to be at the end.

Well done to Keneche for winning, but we want our trophy back next year.

Pos Manager Team Week 40
Pts
Total Pts League Pos
1 Ms K Odogu RUN KENNY, RUN 24 1507 43760
2 Ms A Lakshmanan ANN’S SLACKERS 13 1482 57972
3 Mr E Louie BAIKIN’EL UNITED 18 1462 70307
4 Mr A Wong SUGAR PUFFS 10 1350 141579
5 Mr A Head WAY AHEAD 7 1262 182344
6 Miss V Dudzik CRAZY BLONDIES 17 1199 204052
7 * Mr G Georgion ]OVERPAID CRY BABIES 16 1178 210369
8 Ms D Walkier WALKERS WANDERERS 14 1173 211786
9 Ms C Easterbrook CAZZZA’S COWBOYS 7 1114 227308
10 Mr R Bennett TIPPED FOR THE TOP 12 1085 234126
11 Ms A Corsini ALE AND MAX 2 1035 244343
12 Ms N Luthra BOUBLA 5 638 267777
* denotes Chairman

Telegraph Fantasy Football

SEH Architects

Petition to: Listen to cyclists and not approve the revised highway code.

The new proposed Highway Code will apparently make it compulsory for cyclists to use cycle-specific facilities rather than roads wherever they’re available. Knowing the state of some of the cycle lanes I’m faced with I don’t see this as sensible and hence have signed the petition to have the new highway code rejected by MPs.

Obviously, it’s not going to make any difference, (the government has far stronger groups than cyclists that it doesn’t listen to on a regular basis,) but that’s no reason not to try. The cycle lanes I’d be forced to use are currently half full of diggers around the Olympic site. Am I meant to hop on and off the pavement, into and out of the flow of traffic? It’s just not very well thought out.

Petition to: Listen to cyclists and not approve the revised highway code.

FCKEditor and 500 server image browser error in asp.net

The apparently XML derived “500 server error” problem with FCKEditor’s image upload tool and asp.net seems very common, and there seem to be half a million different confusing solutions on the web. In my case, it turned out the problem was paths and was fixed by adding a new key entry in web.config:

So nothing to do with XML at all really and the error was simply the result of an incorrect URL resulting in a 500 server error that returned invalid XML… A helpful error code could be added to FCKEditor, perhaps?

Camping in Padstow

I was camping in Cornwall with the Sainsbury Clan over Whitsun Bank Holiday weekend. It really wasn’t the best time for it, as this picture of our tent as it looked when we came back to it on a very windy Sunday afternoon shows:
Shredded tent

We decided to call it quits at that point and pack up and drive back to London.