I finally had an opportunity to make a real life application with Linq, and I must sure the experience has been GREEEAAAAATT!!!

It's really something to go from using table adapters, TSQL code, to do all your queries to a simple syntax like

query=from authors in ctx.authors where authors.name.startswith("john") select authors

directly in my code to do selection. Why is it easier and how different is this from using typed data adapters? well the main difference is the speed at which you can make a new query.

With a typed data adapter you'd have to fiddle around with a designer to create your queries, slowing down developement time. With Linq, you just keep pounding away on the keyboard to build your data layer and queries, so the time for code to go "from brain to actual code" has decreased, thus improving developement time.

Either great, there are some developement choice changes that come with using Linq, and I'm still fiddling with it to see if it can be as flexible as a dataconnection in a pinch.

Mommy let's take WZ to the park near our house, it's a small little park with a little pond.

Then there's the usual children's slide for WZ to run around and play in.

WZ might get distracted by the LRT that passes by over head every few minutes.

I'm sure that the high tension wires that run on top of the park won't do any harm

It's a pretty well equipped park there are some simple gym equipment things here. Like jogging machines, cross country skiing machines.

For sure they are just things that work, and don't have any fancy doodads or instrumentation.

But that's probably because it's a public park and it's better to make stuff that is simple and has a risk of being vandalized and broken.

That's a little on the lake walkway which we'd have to be sure to hang on to WZ if we want to walk on it.

And there are also some rules we need to follow, don't I don't get the bit about the blankets.

So.. what do you say mommy? Shall we go? What do you mean there might be too many mosquitos there? What do you mean WZ is too young to be playing on the slides? So... that's it? Ok... I'll go myself and to take some pics then.

Well.. I finally managed to see the Intel Classmate PC design in Low Yat today, aka the FTEC Smartbook.

At RM1199 with comparable hardware specs to a eeePC 4G, but with a sizeable (I think it was 40GB) hard disk instead of a 4GB Solid State Drive, its a good deal if you're looking for a something in the current popular vain of cheap ultra portable laptops.

But...

There is one problem with the Smartbook. It shares the same 800x480 native screen resolution as the eeePC. But unlike the eeePC (At least not in the one that was on display) It would seem like the Windows XP drivers don't come with the ability to switch it to a scrolling 800x600 display. Why is this important? Because most programs never expected to be used on a 480 pixel high display, so having the ability to switch to 800x600 is NECESSARY if you ever want to run Windows XP on the thing. Hopefully it's just a simple matter of finding a hack or a piece of software to do it.

If not.. remember folks, it's really not a great idea to run Windows XP on 800x480! You might find that you won't be able to hit some buttons in certain programs.