Back one more time with another week's worth of useless picks! This'll be quick, as this has been a busy week both for work and home life. It's already 12:50 AM, and I'm just now getting around to getting this out!

• Detroit vs. Cleveland (-2.5) (34.5 O/U): Harrington can run an offense - into the ground! And that's about it. If Garcia starts instead, he'll be rusty, and it'll be?a nice warm up game for him as they get into a few more division games in the next few weeks.
• Green Bay (-2) vs. Minnesota (44 O/U): Both very bad teams, but Green Bay is on the up, and Minnesota is on the way down.
• Indianapolis (-15) vs. Houston (45 O/U):?I usually don't take a team who's favored by more than 10, but this season, Indy has been good when favored by a bunch, and Houston is, well, Houston. If I'm David Carr, I'm getting ready to take a beating this weekend.
• Kansas City vs. Miami (-2) (42 O/U): This game got moved to Friday night in anticipation of Wilma. I have no idea if that will affect the game or not, but I suppose it could. I am a little surprised that Miami is favored.
• New Orleans vs. St. Louis (-3) (47 O/U): No Mike Martz and no Mark Bulger. Expect a heavy dose of runs from St. Louis, which isn't their sweet spot. New Orleans is playing pretty good recently, even without McAllister.
• Pittsburgh vs. Cincinnati (0) (43 O/U): The premiere game this week. Cincy is (surprisingly) in first place, and Pittsburgh is one of the toughest teams in the AFC, and Roethlisberger should be back, even if Ward isn't. That should give them the boost they need.
• San Diego vs. Philadelphia (-3.5) (47 O/U): The above game is the best game of the week, but this is a close second. I don't think it's the best because it's not a divisional rivalry, but San Diego is shaping up to be one of the top AFC teams, and Philly is one of the top NFC teams. Could this be a preview of a Super Bowl match up? No...
• San Francisco* vs. Washington (-12.5) (36.5 O/U): Rattay is gone, and Smith is now playing without a net! Washington is good, but they don't score enough to warrant a 13 point spread!
• Dallas vs. Seattle (-3.5) (45.5 O/U): If Seattle can remember that Shaun Alexander should get the ball 2 out of 3 times, they'll run away with this one. If not, they can still win, but Dallas may have?a shot.
• Baltimore vs. Chicago (0) (30.5 O/U): Two very low scoring teams. I actually saw talk saying Baltimore needs to bench Jamal Lewis! How far they've fallen!
• Buffalo vs. Oakland (-3) (40.5 O/U): No Randy Moss? No offense, and therefore a loss.
• Denver vs. New York Giants (-2) (47 O/U): Just for you Tom!
• Tennessee vs. Arizona (-3.5) (45.5 O/U): Who'll be starting? McCown or Warner? I know who I'd start!
• New York Jets vs. Atlanta (-7) (40.5 O/U): The Jets are bad. Atlanta can play, and they just need to realize that. Get the running game going, and they'll be fine!

Wow. Short post. 10 minutes to get 'er done! We'll see how I did next week.

Another pathetic week. No one's listening to my picks right?

• Atlanta 34 (-5), New Orleans 31 (43.5 O/U) [P: $4.55, S: ($10.00), O/U: $9.52, T: $4.07]: I had the winner correct, but after losing McAllister, who thought New Orleans had it in them to take Atlanta right down to the end?
• Carolina 21, Detroit 20 (0) (41.5 O/U) [P: $9.09, S: $10.00, O/U: $9.17, T: $28.27]: I got this one right across the board, but I never expected a last minute play to be the difference. Of course, it had nothing to do with the Lions "high powered" offense. It was all D. And Jake Delhomme? He had four TDs inside of 8 minutes - it's just too bad two were to Detroit defenders.
• Cincinnati 31 (-3), Tennessee 23 (45 O/U) [P: $6.90, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $6.90]: This just reminds me that Cincy has had a pretty good run so far, but it hasn't been against high quality teams - the one they faced (Jacksonville), they lost. Here's?another bad team - and the Bengals get by, but barely.
• Cleveland* 3, Baltimore 16 (-6) (34.5 O/U) [P: $4.18, S: ($10.00), O/U: ($10.00), T: ($15.82)]: Cleveland is just plain bad. Losing to the lowly Ravens is just pathetic. Not even being able to put up a TD is even worse.
• Jacksonville 23, Pittsburgh 17 (-3) (35 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: $9.52, T: ($10.48)]: Ok. So you make it overtime riding the horrible play of Tommy Maddux all the way. You get a good break, and return the ball to pretty much within field goal range. Remember, it's overtime. What do you do? Kick it right then? Not a bad choice. Or maybe you give it to your running back a couple of times to get the ball a little closer? Another good choice. Or - how about this? You give it to your back up quarterback - after he's fumbled once already - and let him throw a pick that gives the game away? No? Not the best choice? Talk to Bill Cowher.
• Miami 13, Tampa Bay 27 (-4.5) (35 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: $9.17, T: ($10.83)]: Is Tampa Bay going to be another Denver? Where they can plug in any running back and get the yards they need? Well, maybe not, but Pittman sure did take the spot light away from Ricky Williams' return, didn't he?
• Minnesota 3, Chicago 28 (-3) (37.5 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: ($10.00), T: ($30.00)]: Too many sex parties and not enough practice! Tice is gone after this season - no point in firing him now. Statistically, it doesn't work out to change coaches in the middle of the season, and unless Tice doesn't something extraordinately stupid (like join Daunte on the party boat), he should make it through the season. Next year, though? Well, he's gone.
• New York Giants 13, Dallas 16 (-3.5) (47 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: $10.00, O/U: $9.35, T: $9.35]: Dallas is a hard team to figure out. First, they lose to a Washington team they should have beat, and then they come out and beat a hot Giants team. This is parity!
• Washington 21, Kansas City 28 (-5.5) (43 O/U) [P: $4.22, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $4.22]
• New York Jets 17, Buffalo 27 (-3) (33 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: $9.52, T: ($10.48)]: McGahee had a field day, as did Curtis Martin. No run defenses on either side of the ball!
• New England 20, Denver 28 (-3) (47 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: ($10.00), T: ($30.00)]: This one wasn't nearly as close as the score indicates. It was only late that New England made their comeback, but it was too little, too late. The running combo Denver sends your way is tremendous. I wonder what it would look like if Anderson was moved back to fullback (where he started his career) and both he and Tatum Bell played at the same time!
• San Diego 27 (-2), Oakland 14 (50.5 O/U) [P: $8.06, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $8.06]: Moss is out with multiple injuries for a little bit, and that should pretty much seal the deal in Oakland - they're cooked! Interesting stat: Tomlinson has more TD passes than four opening day starting quarterbacks combined! And he's a running back, which he remembers - that's why he ran for a TD too. Oh. And caught one. Not a bad day's work!
• Houston 10, Seattle 42 (-9.5) (46 O/U) [P: $2.50, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $2.50]: Houston might want to start playing on Saturdays instead of Sundays. That may be better for them. Of course, I watched USC and Notre Dame play. Maybe they should start playing Friday night! Dom Capers looked downright confused by the end of the game?- he knows his time is nearing and end too. The Texans did improve in one way - they only allowed 3 sacks, which is 4 less than average!
• St. Louis* 28, Indianapolis 45 (-13.5) (51.5 O/U) [P: $1.19, S: ($10.00), O/U: $9.43, T: $0.62]: This one was close early, but then Indy realized who they were and who they were playing. Then it got out of hand. Congrats to Manning and Harrison, who are now the record holders for most TDs for a QB/WR pair. The previous record was held by...Young and Rice. I'm just suprised that a record with Rice in it was actually reached!

Results Summary

• Picks (this week): 8 - 6 (57.14%) - Winnings: ($19.31): Ouch.
• Picks (season): 49 - 39 (55.68%) - Winnings: ($114.84): Pathetic.
• Spread (this week): 6 - 8 (42.86%) - Winnings: ($20.00): Ouch.
• Spread (season): 36 - 51 (41.38%) - Winnings: ($150.00): Ouch.
• Over/Under (this week): 7 - 7 (50.00%) - Winnings: ($4.30): Ouch.
• Over/Under (season): 38 - 49 (43.68%) - Winnings: ($132.36): Pathetic.
• Total Weekly Winnings: ($43.61): Pathetic.
• Total Overall Winnings: ($397.20): Pathetic and Ouch!

Once again, Thursday will bring next week's picks. And to the dismay of some, I may even take Denver!

RossCode Weekly #22 is ready for your listening pleasure! Ok. I make no guarantees of pleasure, but it's ready regardless!

Intro - 0:00
Download This Episode - 27:31 / 12.9 MB
Subscribe to RossCode Weekly

Previously On RCW - 0:40
Cogent and Level 3 play nice - for 30 days?(#021)
Warner Brothers next to support both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray?(#021)
AT&T fixes VoIP 911 issue?(#020)
Newsgator API gets an update?(#015)

Oops - 3:12
PocketDish?launches, doesn't download from Satellite directly?(#020)

News?& Views - 3:58
Google adds tagging to search history
Relevant blog searches - Sphere
Gada.be launches
Congoo search engine!
Viacom?buys iFilm for $49,000,000
Moreover acquired by Verisign
Google came close to Moreover acquisition
Verisign's payment service acquired by eBay
Free SkypeOut calls by gaming the system
Palm to ship Linux powered phones
Football on your phone?
LG announces TiVo-like phone
DirecTV offering their own DVR
Microsoft released big MCE update
Apple:
Front Row and Remote
iTunes 6 released
new iMac G5
iPod Video launches
Download ABC shows for $1.99
The Podcast Network signs with Motorola
Yahoo Podcasts directory
Yahoo adds blog search and flickr photos to news search
Yahoo offers Stanford students free music for a year

The Cold Wars - 15:00
Microsoft and Real Networks reach anti-trust agreement
Microsoft will use Rhapsody as music service. Explains drop of talks with music networks
Yahoo and MSN plan IM interop
AOL is a hot commodity
Google / Comcast?and AOL
Yahoo?and AOL
Oracle buys Innobase
NetZero adds VoIP service
NTP wins case against RIM - Crackberry's to be turned off?
Delphi files for Chapter 11
Newsgator joins forces with Feedburner to offer enterprise level features
No Google Office
Google and Microsoft revive Kai-Fu Lee court case

The Grapevine - 21:54
Google close to launching Purchases
Google to build Trillian-like IM software?
Comcast wants to offer VOD/DVD combo
Blockbuster could have bought NetFlix in 2000 for $50,000,000
Vonage sale
Microsoft may release Visual Studio 2005 to MSDN Subscribers on October 15th

Bonehead?of the Week - 25:11
FIFA puts publishing restrictions on World Cup games

Next Week - 26:04
Apple to release new PowerBooks and PowerMacs
AOL expected to sign content deal with Intelliseek

Contact / Feedback - 26:35
weekly at rosscode dot com
(206) 424-4RCW (4729)

Sponsor?- 27:15
RossCode Weekly is sponsored by TOURNEY LOGIC: Get In The Game

Tourney Logic is the premiere maker of tournament and pool management software.

Production Notes
Background music provided by Chronos?(Introvert 4), via the Podsafe Music Network.
Would you like to sponsor RossCode Weekly? Contact me at sponsor at rosscode dot com

No. I'm not talking about committing to a source control system. I'm talking about the different models you can use when committing your code to your source control system. Why am I talking about it? Well, David Starr over at Elegant Code is asking the question, and he lists out two popular models. You'll have to go read the post for the details, but the two can basically be broken down into a standard check-in / check-out model and a branch and merge model.

He mentions Perforce as poster child for the branch and merge model, but I've used Perforce and while it's great for doing that type of development, we used it in the standard check-in / check out mode, with a higher level merge function to create our test and release builds.

From my experience, and I've used VSS, SVN, CVS, Vault, PerForce, and MKS, and I've never seen anyone use the branch / merge model for everyday development. Most development project I've been a part of typically do use branching, but usually for one of two purposes: Either after the fact, to be able to continue maintenance on releases while the main trunk can still be moved forward.

The other time we branch is when we are working on a major feature that multiple need to work on at the same time. We typically try to keep our main trunk in good condition, and if we have a major feature that needs to be done, we'll branch it, and have that branch be unstable while it's being finished. Once it's done, we merge it back into the main branch. It's higher level than what David lists - the branch / merge process isn't on every check in. It's on the high level features.

And that's what PerForce offers you - if you look at the development branch as the branch and the test branch as the trunk, then developers are always working on the branch, and when a build is ready, the appropriate check ins are merged back into the trunk (test branch). The same model is used to move from test (the branch) to release (the trunk). But in essense, to developers, you're still using the same check-in / check-out style of source control use.

I'm sure it's possible that others do it differently, and could require a branch on every check-out, but my guess is the way I described is fairly common. And in case you're wondering, the project we used PerForce on had thirty or more developers in multiple locations, and was a huge project that's in some restaurants throughout the nation. It was a big project, and that's where I think we saw the most benefit from using PerForce.

If you're a user of the Newsgator API, you undoubtedly received a series of emails announcing the Newsgator API blog, which is a nice place to go if you have questions about the API. Well, the email had a link to this site, but because of encoding, the link doesn't work properly. The link is to RossCode Weekly #015, my weekly review of technology news, which, by the way, is now a podcast! The paragraph referred to is the second to last one.

Anyway, it looks like they'll be taking care of the issue I pointed out on the 18th.

Technorati Tags: newsgator

I usually write some witty introduction, but I know no one reads it, so I'm not going to! It's not really that witty anyway...

• Atlanta (-5) vs. New Orleans (43.5 O/U): The Saints season is quickly becoming a lost cause. Between losing their home and losing McAllister, this team is in shambles. And now, the bars in Baton Rouge won't even be open on Sunday, so their "home crowd" won't even be as rowdy as usual! Atlanta seems to do OK even with Vick's back up, so even if Vick doesn't play (he's expected to), they'll be OK.
• Carolina vs. Detroit (PK) (41.5 O/U): Carolina was supposed to be better than this. Of course, so was Detroit. Wasn't Carolina's defense supposed to be good? They're giving up 23 points per game - that seems like higher than it should be. Detroit is hurting at receiver - Rogers is suspended, and they have injuries on top of that. I guess Rogers isn't used to playing a full season, so he had to do something to get out of a few games - and this was his best option!
• Cincinnati (-3) vs. Tennessee (45 O/U): I'm surprised this is only 3 points. Cincy is coming off a close loss to Jacksonville, while Tennessee beat the lowly Texans. I guess for the oddsmakers, a win is a win and a loss is a loss, and the odds need to reflect that. Hopefully, I'll benefit from their shortsightedness.
• Cleveland* vs. Baltimore (-6) (34.5 O/U): This'll be a close one. Baltimore is a team in disarray - 21 penalties last week? Seriously? Anyway, the rumors are that Bilick has lost control of the team. I guess we'll see. They have the pieces to be a decent team, but they definitely need to get a grip first. Cleveland just isn't that good, and despite Baltimore's woes, they'll lose this one.
• Jacksonville vs. Pittsburgh (-3) (35 O/U): This'll probably be one of the top games this weekend. Bettis is expected to be back, and if he's healthy, he can bruise a few defenders. The combo of Bettis and Parker will make defending those two difficult for Jacksonville, but they have a very good defense and won't roll over. A lot will hinge on 1. if Roethisberger plays, and, assuming he does (he's expected to), can he be effective enough to give the running game some relief at the least, and put some points on the board at the most.
• Miami vs. Tampa Bay (-4.5) (35 O/U): Ricky Williams is back and Ronnie Brown is playing well. Nick Saban had a press conference and was asked about who would start and he said both. He also said that one will probably have to start at either tight end or line backer so they can both start. Obviously, Saban's tired of the media questions already about those two. On the other side, will Cadillac be back? I think I've heard that he will, but we'll see if he can play well enough to keep Pittman on the bench for the majority of the game. If he does, then Tampa Bay has a much better chance.
• Minnesota vs. Chicago (-3) (37.5 O/U): A division rivalry, where the winner could pull into a tie for first in the division, assuming the Lions lose. That'd be in first place with a 2-3 record. Thomas Jones is (most likely) out, and Benson is in the dog house, so it'll probably be Peterson getting the bulk of the load. On the other side, how will Culpepper be affected by two things: 1. His knee injury, and 2. the cloud around his sexual escapades that are currently being investigated? My guess? He'll do just fine, especially now that they've established who their starting running back is.
• New York Giants vs. Dallas (-3.5) (47 O/U): Eli Manning gets an opportunity to show that he's still hot (and as good as his brother). But they do have?a good test against the Cowboys, who exposed the Eagles last week. Maybe that Parcells guy knows how to coach. Imagine that. Still, the Giants are a good team this year, and should at least cover.
• Washington vs. Kansas City (-5.5) (43 O/U): Washington has basically the same stats as they did last year, plus they are -7 in takeaways. The fact they are 3-1 is due solely to their easy schedule. Last year, they were 1-3 and looked similar. Interesting note I read about this week: Last week when Washington played Denver, it was billed as Champ Bailey against Clinton Portis, which never panned out since Bailey sat out. As it turns out, it should have been billed Portis versus Tatum Bell, with Bell getting the edge. Why Bell? Well, Bell was the 2004 second round pick that Washington threw in the deal to get Portis from Denver.
• New York Jets vs. Buffalo (-3) (33 O/U): Holcomb gets another start over Losman, and Vinny stays in there. As long as Testeverde can stay consistent (not great, but consistent), Curtis Martin should have a pretty good day, and the Jets will win this one.
• New England vs. Denver (-3) (47 O/U): Denver can run (and, on a side note, is a fantasy nightmare, especially if, like me, you have both Tatum Bell and Mike Anderson) and they will against New England. But New England can run too - Corey Dillon had over 100 yards last week - and they have Brady, who rarely loses. I'm still just not comfortable with "The Snake" and his ability to lead a team.
• San Diego (-2) vs. Oakland (50.5 O/U): Losing on Monday night is always tough, but Oakland, who can pass, just isn't that good. Get the ball back to L.T. for a few more touches, and this won't even be close.
• Houston vs. Seattle (-9.5) (46 O/U): It's Houston, and while a?nine and a half?point spread is huge, it's not unheard of when you're playing the Texans.
• St. Louis* vs. Indianapolis (-13.5) (51.5 O/U): Despite the 13 point spread, this should be a good MNF game. At least, I think it will be. I thnk the Colts will stay undefeated, but they won't cover - winning by two touchdowns is a hard pill to swallow. Oddly, even though the "magic number" for o/u is 52 I'm going to take the over in this one, despite being just a half point away from it. I think these two teams will shoot this one out into next Tuesday.

I'll check back with you next Tuesday to see how we did.

A decent week, if you ignore over/under. I did pretty good.

• Baltimore 17, Detroit 35 (-1) (33 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: $9.26, T: ($10.74)]: This had to be one of the ugliest games of the week. Detroit won this on the ground - they had 4 rushing touchdowns despite gaining less than 100 yards (if you take away Bryson's 77 yard run). Looking at the stats, Baltimore deserved to win, but Detroit did, mainly because of the defensive play of Dre Bly. Oh, and 21 penalties. That hurt too!
• Chicago 10, Cleveland 20 (-3) (36 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: ($10.00), T: ($30.00)]: Chicago won this game, if you take away the last 3 minutes of the game, or cover Antonio Bryant.
• Miami 14, Buffalo 20 (-2.5) (33.5 O/U) [P: $7.04, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $7.04]: The Bills definitely look better under Holcomb, who had a solid, if not spectacular, day. No picks, but only 170 yards. As expected McGahee got the bulk of the load, taking the hand off 31 times and scoring a TD. Just when I thought Saban had this game figured out, he lets Gus Frerotte throw the ball 30+ times. and only rushes his top back 17 times. I know they were down 17-0 early, but still. Frerotte threw up 3 INTs. Maybe next week they'll run more with the return of Ricky Williams. That's a pretty good 1-2 punch!
• New England 31, Atlanta 28 (-2.5) (44 O/U) [P: $13.20, S: $10.00, O/U: $9.09, T: $32.29]: I still can't believe people jumped off the New England bandwagon that fast. Yes, their defense is hurting, but they are still the defending champs, and Atlanta was either going to play with a hurt Vick or an inexperienced back up. As it turns out, Shaub played, and performed very well, putting up almost 300 yards and 3 touchdowns. That's probably better than Vick would have done healthy. And they still lost. On a Viniateri field goal. Imagine that. Viniateri is clutch!
• New Orleans 3, Green Bay 52 (-3) (41.5 O/U) [P: $6.90, S: $10.00, O/U: $9.52, T: $26.42]: Ouch. For New Orleans things go from horrible to worse with McAllister now out for the season with a torn ACL. Combine that with the spanking Green Bay gave them, and you've got a very bad week.
• Seattle 37, St. Louis 31 (-3) (49.5 O/U) [P: $13.40, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $13.40]: Both teams ran a lot of plays in this one (SEA: 68; STL: 57), but Seattle got the W, and they were more dedicated to the run. It helps when your back is Shaun Alexander, I guess. He racked up 119 yards and scored twice. It looks like the much maligned Mike Martz will be missing from the St. Louis sidelines for the forseeable future. Will the play calling be more predictable with him gone?
• Tampa Bay 12 (-3.5), New York Jets 14 (31.5 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: ($10.00), T: ($30.00)]: Vinny! Vinny! Actually, Vinny didn't have a great game - he only threw the ball 19 times for 163 yards, but they got the win. Why did Tampa Bay pass the ball 42 times? Pittman is a usable back, but they didn't even attempt to use him! It's amazing how one player can affect a team - without Cadillac, the Bucs look like last year. With him, they look like their Super Bowl past.
• Tennessee 34, Houston 20 (-3) (40.5 O/U) [P: $13.30, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $13.30]: The houston offensive line continues to impress, only giving up 7 sacks! That's now 27 in 4 games, for a pace of 108 on the season. This was just an all around ugly game!
• Indianapolis 28 (-15), San Francisco* 3 (46.5 O/U) [P: $0.87, S: ($10.00), O/U: ($10.00), T: ($19.13)]: Alex Smith was thrown to the wolves in this one. San Fran has a bye week next week - why put Smith in now? Give him 2 full weeks to run the first offense. Or, start him last week against a hapless Arizona team. But against the Colts, who have finally figured out how to play defense? It's no wonder he threw 3 picks in one quarter! More suprisingly though, is that Manning threw 2 INTs to his one TD. And once again, E. James was the difference, rushing for 100+ yards again.
• Carolina 24 (-2.5), Arizona 20 (43 O/U) [P: $7.46, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $7.46]: Arizona held the lead until the 5:00 minute mark of the 4th quarter. That's amazing really. Luckily, Carolina got it done. This is why establishing the run is so important - they wore down the Arizona defense, and was able to put up 14 unanswered points in the 4th to get the W.
• Philadelphia 10 (-3), Dallas 33 (44.5 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: ($10.00), T: ($30.00)]: Bryant Westbrook ran the ball six times. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You will struggle if you don't. And if you're still doubting me, ask the Eagles. Dallas knew they weren't going to run the ball, and defended accordingly. They limited McNabb and Detmer to a meager 145 passing yards in this slaughter.
• Washington* 19, Denver 21 (-6.5) (34 O/U) [P: $3.52, S: $10.00, O/U: $10.10, T: $23.62]: These are the toughest games for me to pick and the sweetest to get correct. Pick a team to cover but lose! This one was close though. With just over a minute left, the Redskins couldn't get the two point conversion to tie it up. Notice something though: despite being down 21-10 at one point, the 'Skins still ran the ball - Portis got 20 touches and broke the 100-yard mark.
• Cincinnati 20, Jacksonville 23 (-2.5) (37 O/U) [P: $6.62, S: $10.00, O/U: ($10.00), T: $6.62]: Andrew called this one?- he said it would come down to the last five minutes, and it did. This was the first test of Cincy, and they did fairly well, despite coming up short. They aren't the best team in the league, and that undefeated mark was a little misleading, but they are a good team to be reckoned with.
• Pittsburgh 24, San Diego 22 (-3) (45 O/U) [P: ($10.00), S: ($10.00), O/U: ($10.00), T: ($30.00)]: Explain to me how Tomlinson only gets the ball 18 times while Brees throws up 35 passes. They lose when Tomlinson doesn't get the ball enough, and he didn't get them last night. On the other side, the Steelers are praying that Roethlisberger is OK. Do they even have a back up? Or will they be calling a 40+ year old retired QB back onto the field, ala the Jets?

Results Summary

• Picks (this week): 9 - 5 (64.29%) - Winnings: $22.31: My picks are getting better! Things are starting to settle down and it's becoming clearer who should beat who.
• Picks (season): 41 - 33 (55.41%) - Winnings: ($95.53): Still down big - I need to be at about the 60% mark to make money.
• Spread (this week): 8 - 6 (57.14%) - Winnings: $20.00: Up again. Like I said, it's becoming more and more obvious who should be winning. The spread is still touch and go, but I'm getting more and more solid.
• Spread (season): 30 - 43 (41.10%) - Winnings: ($130.00): Down big, but coming back!
• Over/Under (this week): 4 - 10 (28.57%) - Winnings: ($62.03): As expected, my over/under picks are hurting me. I was getting lucky in the early part of the season, and it's showing now. I would have been up $42.00 for the week without over/under.
• Over/Under (season): 31 - 42 (42.47%) - Winnings: ($128.06): I was positive 2 weeks ago, and now I'm down over $100. Ouch.
• Total Weekly Winnings: ($19.71): Over/under killed me, and I lose 4.7% of my $420 in bets.
• Total Overall Winnings: ($353.60): Still down very big, and only digging deeper. 16% loss.

Picks on Thursday. See you then!

I don't post a whole lot about NuSoft Solutions (where I work), and more specifically, the people I work with. It's definitely not because I don't think they deserve the recognition, but because their accomplishments aren't usually a public thing.

That makes this the prefect opportunity though. Brad Covelle recently entered the OneNote powertoy contest, which is cool in and of itself. He built a tool to send content from Word to OneNote, which is very cool. But that's not the reason I'm writing. No, I'm writing because he received notification that he's one of 12 finalists!

That's awesome! Congrats, Brad!

Jason Salas posted a while back about another Memeorandum-like service called Blogniscient. I've been looking at it over the past few weeks, and it looks pretty good. Jason even got them to add RSS feeds.

One thing that I see that they have that some of the others don't is a top blog list.

Oh yeah - they offer more than politics and tech. They also have entertainment and sports. Well, sports is a relative term - right now, it's only baseball, which is disappointing because I don't really follow baseball. I'd love to see a general sports section or a football section.

Here's the part I found funny though. The slogan is "Finding The Needle In the Blog Haystack" but when I look at the blogs listed in politics and tech (the two categories that I follow the most), the blogs listed (and those on the Top Blogs page) aren't exactly what I would call needles. Those are more like pitchforks!

Oh well. Slogans are slogans. The service is still pretty good - I see most of the major news stories flow through there, which is what you look for in something like this.

In the Tourney Bracket Control, we have a few Javascript methods that allow for the control to be interactive on the client side. In version 1.0, that code was put right into our control - hardcoded into a StringBuilder and then registered to the page. It works for us, but it wasn't ideal.

With the next version, we wanted to be able to get two benefits that we don't have now: 1.) allow the standard javascript functions to be cached on the client, and 2.) maintain the Javascript code in a .js file rather than in a string. So we started looking at what it takes to embed resources into our DLL. We looked at it in .NET 1.1, and it looked like a bit of a pain to get the little bit of benefit we would have.

But along came .NET 2.0, and it becomes much simpler. We created a folder to hold our resources, and in it, we put a .js file with our standard functions in it, and a css file with our standard css styles that we want. Then, in the control, there's two steps we needed to perform. The first is to put an assembly level attribute that exposes that resource to the world:

[assembly: System.Web.UI.WebResource("Resources/BracketFunctions.js", "text/js")]

Then, in the PreRender event, we register this script to be put into the page:

string scriptLocation?= this.Page.ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl(this.GetType(), "BracketFunction.js");
this.Page.RegisterClientScriptInclude("BracketFunctions", scriptLocation);

Then, when the page is rendered, you end up with a script include in the HTML page:

<script src="WebResource.axd?SomeExtraStuff!" language="Javascript" />

All in all, it's pretty simple and straight forward, and it accomplishes both of our goals. Because it's included as an external script file, the browser can cache it, and since we can now manage it as a javascript file, it's much easier to modify. Same with the css file.

This is just one of the things that have made our life easier building the new control. I'm installing Visual Studio 2005 RC1 right now, and I'm looking forward to see how things have progressed. Once I get the TBC up and running on that, I'll give a quick update on how the migration process went (I expect it to be pretty easy), and what we have left to do.