Auri's Blog

A great comedian and a true inspiration, George Carlin passed away Sunday, June 22, 2008. George, keep ’em laughin’ up there.

I write a monthly column for ASP.net PRO magazine about the business side of software development. The column is called Consultant’s Corner.

The latest article is about growing your business from one to two or more people.

Check out some previous columns:

May 2008: Microsoft’s Partner Solutions
April 2008: Back to Basics – What Every Development Shop Needs
March 2008: Got Issues? Issue Management Systems

Coming Soon: Incorporating Your Business, and the legal issues you must address.

I ported the OpenCSV project (opencsv.sourceforge.net) to the .NET Framework. This version is read-only, although if you want a writer, let me know. Unlike OpenCSV, OpenCSV# returns a datatable, so you can simply pass in a CSV filename and it will be parsed and returned in a form that’s bindable!

You can download the DLL and the source at: http://aurigroup.com/downloads/OpenCSVSharp.zip

So why not use the Microsoft Text Driver? Well, Microsoft’s Text Driver doesn’t work on Microsoft’s 64-bit operating systems! Necessity is the mother of all invention, and therefore I’m releasing my port of OpenCSV for all .NET users to enjoy 🙂

Also unlike OpenCSV, OpenCSV# support setting whether the first row of data is the column headers, and automatically populates the column names so you don’t have to work with index values and potentially wrong data.

Technical details:

* Written in C# instead of Java.
* Written for .NET Framework 2.0 and above.
* Made the ParseLine() function public so you can just pass a string and parse it, in case you don’t want to parse an entire file. I haven’t tested the ParseLine direct call, fyi.

Enjoy!

Auri Rahimzadeh
President, The Auri Group, LLC (TAG, http://www.aurigroup.com)
Contributor, ASP.NET Pro Magazine, Consultants Corner (yep, I do that column)
Author, Hacking the PSP, Geek My Ride
Technical Editor, Building Web Sites Bible 3rd Edition, Beginning Access 2007 VBA

Well, I went to Zoobilation at the Indianapolis Zoo Friday night. You had a choice: Wear a tux or dress for the Outback. I chose the latter.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Zoobilation, it’s an evening with about 100 restaurants sampling their wares, with the high-dollar entry tickets going to charity. It’s a great cause, and it’s great food. Steaks, seafood, breathtaking deserts, and bars constructed entirely of ice. The new koalas were apparently out, but they brought them back in prior to the arrival of most of the guests.

The photos are in my photo gallery…

Yours truly, at the office prior to heading to Zoobilation

All of us Segway Marshals had to make sure the pipers (bagpipe players) were not disturbed by the crowd… 

Quote

Indy 500 Parade: Segways Marshaling the Pipers

 http://images.video.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf
Video: Indy 500 Parade: Segways Marshaling the Pipers

Junior ROTC performing some cool moves 

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Indy 500 Parade: Junior ROTC

 http://images.video.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf
Video: Indy 500 Parade: Junior ROTC

They’re
on horseback, and I’m on a Segway

This video was taken at the end of
the parade route, after we had finished marshaling the bagpipe players
(pipers) on our Segways… 

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Indy 500 Parade: End of the route

 http://images.video.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf
Video: Indy 500 Parade: End of the route

Man, they had to be HOT in those get-ups… 

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Indy 500 Festival Parade: The Belles

 http://images.video.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf
Video: Indy 500 Festival Parade: The Belles

A fellow Segway glider and marshal approached me while I was marshaling 🙂

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Indy 500 Festival Parade: Fellow Segway Glider

 http://images.video.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf
Video: Indy 500 Festival Parade: Fellow Segway Glider