Ever had to insert alot of data into SQL server and did not want to write each record, one at a time? Here's a tip:

INSERT INTO [TABLE] (column1,column2)
select ('Value1','Value1A')
UNION ALL
select ('Value2','Value2A')
UNION ALL
select ('Value3','Value3A')

Note: UNION ALL versus UNION -- UNION ALL does NOT perform a distinct. UNION without ALL eliminates duplicate records (in the resulting recordset) in SQL Server.

Also the maximum batch (query) length in SQL server is (65,536 * 4K) characters long. It would be prudent to avoid passing that limit.

Finding images for various projects can be quite the challenge. Robin Good, provides a very good list of resources on his blog. Most are free for both commercial and non-commercial use.

http://sxc.hu/
http://www.morguefile.com/archive/
http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com/
http://www.openphoto.net/
http://www.imageafter.com/
http://www.stockvault.net/

I gave a talk once to a group of educators (college level) and I did not follow my slides, instead opting for a more interactive style (it was a small conference presentation, about 20 people in the room). While I think I got my message across, the presentation reviews were not that favorable. Mostly the comments were about my "interactive style." I even got one "The presenter does not know how to give presentations to senior academics."

I was rather bothered by this as I had never gotten bad presentation reviews (I usually stick to my slides). Whats worse, I thought I had done well, changing the focus to a more interactive session rather than dictating a talk about software. In any case I finally found someone who agrees with a more interactive style of presentation. The gist is death to powerpoint.

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/06/kill_your_prese.html

Seems to be a nice bit of software to monitor the devices on your networks, or friends networks. With 10 devices in the free version it is a nice tool for home networks or for small businesses. You can check it out here:

http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/opmanager/

Some of the research I am working on is beginning to require semantic web. I have avoided this stuff for years. Looks like no choice now, but it appears that it may be useful. Here is a nice google news to RSS scraper.
http://timyang.com/scrappygoo/ which apparently is based on Gnews2RSS.