ILSpy

I recently made the switch from .NET Reflector to ILSpy. As of this writing, ILSpy is at v1.0. The biggest drawback to me is the lack of Visual Studio integration and the lack of being able to specify an assembly on the command line. They have good plans for v2.0 so I'm anxious to see that release.

The download for ILSpy 1.0 is just a zip file with the binaries in it. You will have to copy them where you want them to be installed and create your own menu shortcut to it.

To install it as a tool in Visual Studio 2010, select the Tools / External Tools... menu item.

On the External Tools dialog box that opens, press the Add button to create a new tool.

Give it whatever title you want it to have in VS, and tell VS where it is located.

Now ILSpy will be on the Tools menu.

Tact Filters

Here's a good explanation of how techies and nontechies process information when talking to each other. I know that sometimes I can come across as abrupt. Really, it is just that I am very to-the-point. If you want to lose me in a conversation, then ramble on and on and beat around the bush. A much better way to communicate with me is to say what you mean directly. I take it as information rather than personal attack. On the other hand, most people I meet on a daily basis do NOT operate that way and feelings do get hurt sometimes. Totally unintentional on my part.

"All people have a "tact filter", which applies tact in one direction to everything that passes through it. Most "normal people" have the tact filter positioned to apply tact in the outgoing direction. Thus whatever normal people say gets the appropriate amount of tact applied to it before they say it. This is because when they were growing up, their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!"

"Nerds," on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the incoming direction. Thus, whatever anyone says to them gets the appropriate amount of tact added when they hear it. This is because when nerds were growing up, they continually got picked on, and their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "They're just saying those mean things because they're jealous. They don't really mean it."

When normal people talk to each other, both people usually apply the appropriate amount of tact to everything they say, and no one's feelings get hurt. When nerds talk to each other, both people usually apply the appropriate amount of tact to everything they hear, and no one's feelings get hurt. However, when normal people talk to nerds, the nerds often get frustrated because the normal people seem to be dodging the real issues and not saying what they really mean. Worse yet, when nerds talk to normal people, the normal people's feelings often get hurt because the nerds don't apply tact, assuming the normal person will take their blunt statements and apply whatever tact is necessary.

So, nerds need to understand that normal people have to apply tact to everything they say; they become really uncomfortable if they can't do this. Normal people need to understand that despite the fact that nerds are usually tactless, things they say are almost never meant personally and shouldn't be taken that way. Both types of people need to be extra patient when dealing with someone whose tact filter is backwards relative to their own."

Credit to Jeff Bigler.

Email from Wells Fargo

Well this email from Wells Fargo caught me by surprise.  I had to do a double take until I finally realized it was a scam email.  We call it a phishing attack.  It is made to look legitimate. We have in fact been legitimately notified before by businesses that they've been hacked.  The bad grammar and misspellings should be a warning, but if an an unsuspecting recipient clicks the link, they are taken to a webpage that looks just like the Wells Fargo website, only it's not. 

I was sure it was a scam so I did a tracert on www_online-protection_net to see what was there.  The big red flag was that it traced back to Yahoo's servers.

Next, I did a whois and found out that the site is owned by someone in Italy.

This hardly seems like Wells Fargo.  Last, I went to the website to take a look at it.

It is a very convincing fake of the real site.  One tip off that it is not legit is that it does not show secure HTTP https in the address bar.  I feel sorry for anyone that actually enters their true login credentials here.  Interestingly, if you click on some of the tabs they do link to the real Wells Fargo website, as shown below.

These scammers are good.  I can only imagine how many technically naive people enter their info here.