EchoBooming in Birmingham

Config files are easy to do in .net 2.0 and up. You add a little file to your project through the properties dialog and poof, you’ve got a strongly typed settings file stored in an easy to edit XML file.

Well, I deployed a dll with a config file (conveniently named dllfilename.dll.config) to our business server and despite all of the Settings.Default.Reload() statements that I put in, the darn thing would never update with the values that I put in there.

After I created a test project and fooled around with it a while, I came to understand that if you have an EXE calling a dll, the config file that your dll is going to look for will be named exefilename.exe.dll!

Sure would have been nice for microsoft to make that more prominent in their documentation!

So, after a few dozen failed attempts at asking Google for the answer, I finally figured out the correct wording to find what I needed…

…and of course it’s an ill-documented “magic word” to get it done…

AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetData("APP_CONFIG_FILE", @"C:\somepath\someconfigfile");

So there it is, maybe next time someone wants to specify a config file for their dll, or override or replace or specify their own config file for an assembly, all of the words that I just typed out will help them find it….

Newsweek takes a look at pop-culture and the influence a “post 9/11″ world has had on it.

Their piece on Television highlights what I’ve been saying for years.

Battlestar Galactica fraking rules!

Newsweek article

Thanks to teh madman for bringing this one to my attention…

Internet celebrities nerds come together in order to save Net Neutrality. Watch the video below and please help me figure out who the “boom-box” lady is…

I recognise the Tron Guy, the freaky Peter-Pan dude, the Back Street Asian Singers, the dancing baby and the spongmonkeys but what is up with that other chick?

I’ve been stupid busy at work, so I guess it’s great that Helluva covered this yesterday, so just head over to his place and fill out your schedule for this weekend….

And if you need something to do to fill in the last hour or so of work:

KBCO HD-2 Studio C Stream <– All in studio performances going back to 1988, what you wish your local radio station was (OMG, they’re playing Short Skirt, Long Jacket by CAKE right now!!!)

It’s time for the big show over at WorkPlay this weekend.

The Soulful Pop /Singer-Songwriter sounds of Louisanna native Marc Broussard will share the stage with Birmingham’s own Michael Warren (AAA /Singer-Songwriter). The show in the soundstage way in the back of WorkPlay to accomadate more than the normal 500 or so patrons. This show will sell out if it hasn’t already (but knowing Birmingham, it will probably sell out about an hour before the show).

Also of great importance to myself this weekend is a little thing called AutoX (Auto Cross). Me, in my grocery getter, driving as fast as I can through a course of cones set up in the BRC’s parking lot. Time is added for every cone you knock over and time is subtracted for every Sweepstakes patron you take out (the new time subtraction rule was sponsored by the SBC).

Our course is conciderably smaller than it was before the casino Sweepstakes came to town, but it’s still just as fun. Come watch several dozen people train their daily driver cars to massacre cones!