Those of us who call ourselves 'reasonable people' are oft reminded and remind each other that at the core of every questioning of fact is the search for greater truth.  It is assumed, indeed, taken for granted that the second-guessing which is part and parcel of higher learning is done in good faith.  But what about those who would use this margin to exploit doubt to reach a goal that is other than truth?

Perhaps this is the real motive of Nicholson Baker, author of Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization who casts naked aspersions on the motives of the allies in their struggle with NAZI Germany.  Recently held up alongside of Richard Dawkins and other so-called academics to critique that which was once popular, I suppose, Baker has apparently done nothing more than take a series of disparate observations about the possible (and I say 'possible') isolated motives of certain protagonists that took the stage in World War II.  While some of the observations are valid, even correct - the conclusions either alluded to or outright stated could not be further from the real truth of the matter.  And I'm speaking as a student of history on the subject of World War II!  Which is why I hasten to add: I suspect Mr. Baker knows it!

Were this an honest critique of the characters involved, I'd have little difficulty putting Baker's work alongside those of other historical works on my bookshelf.  But as it stands - this fellow needs to be soundly repudiated, not sounded off in the popular media.  Shame on Mr. Baker.  Shame on him and on the desecrations of the memory not only of those of whom he is guilty of character-assassinating.  On the desecration of the memory of those who fought against Hitler in World War II (like my grandfather) - as being mindless automatons called into service only to serve the alleged petty agendas of self-aggrandizement and naked avarice of those chosen by the people to represent their interests.  Surely, sir, the cause deserves a better testimonial than this!  Particularly when those interests to which I refer were so very much worse than anything your book levels either as accusation or distortion.

Somewhere, perhaps not that far away from where Mr. Baker finds himself sipping a foreign beverage in the company of his fellow dilettantes, those who made the ultimate sacrifice in stemming the evil tide that was NAZI totalitarianism are spinning in their graves. Not at the work itself, but at the notoriety it seems to be bringing Mr. Nicholson Baker.  Ironically, the just outcome to this tale is not to leave him to his questioning of those who led and fought World War II for the allies; rather it is to question Mr. Baker himself.  His motives.  His research.  And ultimately, his culpability for an attempt at distorting history.

See another critque by Andrew Cohen, at the OttawaCitizen.com website.

(NOTE: Continued from the previous article headed 'Wix References:'...)

Well, look long (and hard) enough, and often the solution presents itself.  This morning, taking a look at things fresh I realized that one possible answer was simply doing a direct edit of the .csproj file itself:

  171   <ItemGroup>

  172     <ProjectReference Include="..\..\..\..\Shared\Common\Common.csproj">

  173       <Project>{13736794-CC44-4834-86A6-9733BA4C2089}</Project>

  174       <Name>Common %28Shared\Common%29</Name>

  175     </ProjectReference>

Notice on line 174 the <Name> tag contains text that renders to "Common (Shared\Common)".  Unfortunately, WiX can't use a variable name of the form "$(var.Common (Shared\Common).TargetDir)", without throwing a whole pile of new exceptions.  Obviously, changing the contents of <Name> is the solution here.

And "mission accomplished"!

Eric tries running away from his new "Nazi" nanny, but it ends up being an unglorified and short-lived existence.

There hasn't been a funnier episode yet created for television!  Although it's now over two years since it first aired, SouthPark's episode #1007, "Tsst!" delves into the life of Eric Cartman, the show's lead antagonist.  In a successful, albeit abortive attempt to reform her "out-of-control" son, Eric's mother and a dog-trainer-turned-nanny create a recipe for side-splitting humour that had me laughing so hard it literally took me 20 minutes to calm myself back down!  It helps if you know Eric Cartman's character and are somewhat familiar with the show; but it's certainly not necessary.  I urge everyone to take a look at this and judge for yourself.

NOTE: Viewers with heart trouble or who've experienced a history with cardio-pulmonary or vascular health issues should consult a physician before watching this video.

NOTE: The following article assumes familiarity with C#, Visual Studio Team System 2008, and Windows Installer XML (WiX) 3.0 tools.

It was going so well.  There I was happily creating an installer for an upcoming product release related to Commerce Server 2007, when all-of-a-sudden "bam".  The WiX compiler (called Candle.exe) threw a compile-time exception: "CNDL001: Item has already been added...".  The problem?  Turns out I have two projects with the same name in my solution - albeit in different subfolders.  And, as is often done with build scenarios to maintain project references that apply both in the developers' IDE (Visual Studio Team System 2008) and on the build server, I'm using WiX variables in the form of $(var.Common.TargetDir), where Common is the name given to both projects in question.

After hunting up and down through all the Internet and all the pertinent forums and the WiX-users mail list I found myself scanning many an article concerning reference errors using the linker (Light.exe) or the decompiler (Dark.exe) - but nothing related to Candle.  Yet I'm surprised; solutions can have project names that are identical - particularly if they're large.  Ours isn't particularly large, but the phrase "Common" is being used to refer to a couple of namespaces, and it seems appropriate for the assemblies in question.  Encountering this has thus got me wondering if WiX has any other surprises that may come along down the road to derail either the tools, architecture or approach being used to generate the installers for our wonderful new product.  It is a beta, although one derived from an already-stable product (WiX 2.0).

You may ask - "why use a beta open-source product"?  Well, at this point the subject installer is a prototype.  But even so, the reality is that there's a lot of other strengths WiX offers, at least on paper.  Admittedly, I'm still a bit of a noob with WiX too and perhaps one of the forum readers will be able to offer some constructive advice.  But WiX's .wxs files are simply XML files that, among other things, get translated into parameters of Candle.exe on the command-line (e.g. candle.exe -dDebug -d"DevEnvDir=... -dCommon.ProjectPath=D:\Projects\MyProjectName\etc\Common.csproj"), and the command-line generator appears to not offer any way to differentiate between projects of the same name.  In fact, it may be technically wrong to blame WiX itself for this, since we could simply drop to the command-line ourselves and/or script the directives so that the WiX variable "Common.*" isn't used more than once, but this creates issues for automated builds using WiX 3.0, what was once called 'WiX Votive' in concert with Microsoft Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Team System 2008.

More to come on this in the days ahead...

It has been three long years since my last visit to my home city of Winnipeg, Manitoba - a hiatus that will end this coming August!  This week I received formal approval from my employer for vacation leave between the 1st and 18th of August.  The date of my arrival in Winnipeg will depend entirely on whether I'll be taking my car out, or renting a vehicle during my anticipated week-long stay.

Historically, my arrival has heralded a - shall we say - "festive" atmosphere.  But three years is a long time, and, sadly, more friends have moved away.  And one very close friend in particular had a falling out with me, of sorts.  (While I was hospitalized with a short, but life-threatening illness a couple of years back, he suddenly decided this was the opportune moment to tell me he'd secretly been blaming me for the destruction of his relationship with his girlfriend a year or so earlier.)  Haven't heard much from him since, and I can't say I've been exactly motivated to undertake an effort of my own to reconcile - particularly given that I had absolutely nothing to do with either the management or the outcome of his relationship (as those of you who know the parties in question are aware).  As much as I miss Winnipeg, I'm expecting the trip to go very differently from the others previous.  With so many I knew gone, it may end up being anticlimactic as compared with previous visits.  Then again - this is Winnipeg; a city full of folks who know how to party.

And my good friend Ian is still there - himself getting ready to move to Toronto to begin Ph.D. studies in political theory.  And hopefully, a moment or two of socializing (if not ol' skool, Winnipeg-style debauchery) can be squeezed in amidst his preparations for the big move.

To everyone else who knew me or has kept in touch - I've grown in many ways, albeit mostly fatter and older.  But I still love a good time, so call me while I'm in the neighborhood!

Microsoft released it's presumptive board nominees for an anticipated board proxy fight in the coming months, yesterday - signaling an absolute end to speculation that the company has any plans to take over Yahoo to gain a foothold in the online advertising market.  This resulted in Yahoo stock taking a further plunge (-0.27) off a slight rebound from Monday's lows which followed the failed merger talks between Yahoo and the software giant.

This leaves the door open a crack for other candidates to be nominated by disgruntled shareholders upset with Yahoo's executive over the outcome of merger talks.  Several groups have been canvassing for candidates to represent those interests at the upcoming July 3rd meeting, but speculation continues to abound over who exactly might end up running Yahoo.  At par with such speculation, the voices calling for the company to resume talks with Microsoft to salvage a deal later this year.

Yesterday, Israel celebrated its 60th anniversary.  As a young Christian I was taught that the Jews are "God's chosen people", a lesson shared with Jewish children.  In my teenage years, curious about what that meant - I asked an older orthodox Jewish friend, who explained it only meant that Jews should live as an example for humanity in the eyes of God.  (Talk about a burden to shoulder.)  And today, I saw a video of the last surviving person (himself a Jew) who was in the room where the Israeli declaration of independence was read 60 years go.  He said that Israel, likewise, was dreamt as being an example to the world, but it has "unfortunately", he lamented, not done so.

I've always been glad that my people - the Canadians - don't share that same expectation.  Yet we've shown ever-capable of living up to doing so, when called upon.  Both in wartime and peace, Canada and its people have achieved a great deal.  The nation that brought the world the concept of "peacekeeping" is often regarded with a positive image.  But is Israel really such a disappointment given the challenges that its geography poses?

I guess I've never really understood why the so-called Arab states (not being universally Arab) are collectively anti-Israel, historically.  While understanding the historical motives isn't so difficult, conceptually it's difficult for a Canadian to imagine knowing nothing but a state of conflict for the better part of an entire century - and longer, as some would say.  At some point, it's more human nature to want peace isn't it?  And that always means sacrificing something.  But peace offers so many rewards, including the inevitable promise of a better life.  And then there's that Christian thing about "turning the other cheek"; hardly a philosophy unknown to Islam.

And yet conflict persists.  But at least there seems to be hope on this anniversary that the end of the conflict is in sight.  Here's hoping that those hopes are realized by the time Israel is 75!

The leader of the U.S.-based organization "StopTheDrugWar.org" has it absolutely right when he says "drug prohibition today is like alcohol prohibition of the last century".  And he cites a really solid number of reasons for why the harsh drug laws in the U.S. should be repealed in the context of a Michigan woman who's life was ruined when she sold drugs to a cop at age 19.  She ended up escaping from prison and being on the run for the next three decades, only to be arrested in Québec - which resisted her extradition back to the U.S. on the basis that the sentence for her crime "shocked the Canadian conscience".

Sometimes, I'm so proud to be Canadian.  I really am!

Talk of a shareholder revolt has sparked in the wake of failure for both Yahoo and Microsoft; each unable reach an agreement on a merger deal. A number of other shareholders (holding more than 2M voting Yahoo shares) is planning a campaign aimed at pressuring Yahoo to pursue a deal with Microsoft, and in good faith this time instead of allegedly maintaining a pretense during negotiations over the past several weeks. And I can't say I'm all that surprised.  $37 (USD, also about he same in CDN, since parity with Canada's currency was reached a while ago) is a very reasonable offer for Yahoo, which has struggled in recent months to advance its revenue.  Indeed, many analysts can't seem to figure out what Yahoo's strategy is exactly, although it's a safe bet a handful of Yahoo's shareholders and possibly even a majority on board of directors, simply don't like Microsoft and are eager to forge a deal with one of its competitors.  This is almost certainly a minority view amongst shareholders, the majority of whom are certainly more interested in advancing the company's stock price.  And unless a realistic strategy to do that manifests very soon, Yahoo's board could be in trouble with its constituency.

The analysis of Yahoo's strategy (assuming one exists and this isn't just some ridiculous incarnation of anti-Microsoft sentiment) appears to center around driving Microsoft's offer higher.  Trouble is, of course, the offer's off the table at the moment, signaling probable failure of this strategy and it's even worse for shareholders - as Yahoo's shares are expected to drop by at least $8-$9 per share tomorrow morning as the market absorbs the news of "no deal" (which was a surprise, since a deal was anticipated).

Unfortunately (and I'm speaking as someone who's career has been and will continue to be hugely tethered to Microsoft's success), Microsoft needed this deal.  The software giant just hasn't been able to leverage the formula that helped build its original success in the technology market to repeat that performance with the Internet.  The good news is, the Internet is both relevant and key to Microsoft's growth, but the company isn't going to just disappear because the Yahoo deal didn't happen.  It does mean, however, that the company will need to do the hard work of advancing new innovations and strategy day-by-day to ensure that it can compete and even beat Google at the Internet game.  Internet search is a hugely significant part of that game, but as the leadership of both companies have said in the past - everything can change very quickly in the tech sector.

And we might see just that in the weeks ahead if the deal is resurrected.  Some have speculated that Microsoft's walking away from talks is actually part of a ploy to get shareholders to pressure its board to take the deal - betting that Yahoo's leadership doesn't actually have a coherent plan afoot to increase share price (AOL/Time Warner, also in talks with Yahoo, would likely need to at least match Microsoft's offer in the near term to be practical).  And even if the supposed ploy were to fail, there's still the option of attempting a hostile takeover, although Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has downplayed that idea in recent days, citing a recent deal between Yahoo and mutual Internet advertising rival Google as being contrary to the interests of both Microsoft and ultimately Microsoft's interest in Yahoo.