The Haphazard Blog

For any developers out there who are going to develop using ASP.NET and considering using Ajax, I would strongly recommend that you learn jQuery. Microsoft bundles jQuery with Visual Studio so the library is available to you, along with some helpers to get you building Ajax enabled sites quickly. It’s a nice benefit to have, but what it exposes is limited. jQuery is capable of so much more and when you hit a wall with the limits of the Ajax.* helpers, you will find a lot of what you want to do is part of jQuery.

Books about ASP.NET are mostly going to cover the Ajax.* helpers and briefly mention jQuery. But, once you get the hang of it, you can abandon the use of the Ajax.* helpers (if you don’t, you will still be writing JavaScript to initialize and process events in more complex manners.) and build more advanced web sites with the features of jQuery.

There’s only the third place match the final left to be played. I think it has been a surprising World Cup. I had a co-worker predict this final, but outside of him, no one I knew had the Netherlands and Spain in the final. I really don’t have much of a preference for either team. I’ve been thoroughly annoyed by the diving from the Dutch team, which seems like an all time low, worse than the Italians. I’m pretty much just hoping for a good game and leaning somewhat towards Spain. In the third place game, I’m expecting Germany to win. After Brazil was knocked out, I was hoping for Germany to win the World Cup.

I’m hopeful that U.S. Soccer will be able to capitalize on their coverage from this World Cup. Although making it past Ghana would’ve really been huge (1 more win away from playing to the last weekend of the World Cup), they just couldn’t pull it off. I think if they can continue to build on the 2009 Confederations Cup and 2010 World Cup performances, they can attract more fans. And one day, they may get that striker with a killer instinct they so badly need.

I got a little laugh reading the latest ESPN Ombudsman article. While he doesn’t come out and say it, he implies throughout the first section that ESPN is in total control of the World Cup coverage. In reality the audio and video for all the game coverage is provided by a host broadcaster. All ESPN does is not mess it up. I do applaud them for keeping the on screen graphics minimalist in nature and using good announcers. The coverage is not geared for those who suffer from ADD. It’s for people who want to watch the whole game and have an understanding of the game. It’s a welcome change from the usual dumbing down of everything.

Over the long weekend, there were reports that iTunes accounts were hacked and fraudulent purchases were made in iTunes and the App Store. Most notorious was a single author having a lot of his books in the top 50 in iBooks. Yesterday, Apple responded with the following:

The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns.

Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded.

Engadget also reported that roughly 400 iTunes users were affected by this. To me, all of this does not make sense. I still have questions, and as far as I can tell, the press has taken Apple’s word and moved on to other things.

1. How was a developer able to make fraudulent purchases on other users’ behalf?
2. Is Apple implying that Apps this developer made were able to do this? If so, what have they done to prevent other developers from doing the same thing? Have they issued a remote kill on his Apps? This would seem to be a very big security issue. (Also, some of the people who reported the fraudulent activity claimed they never purchased anything from that developer).
3. If they aren’t implying that, what other mechanism was used by this developer?
4. Apple’s own PR says that over 1.5M books were downloaded in the first 28 days. Since then, over 2M more iPads were sold. It took only 400 iTunes accounts to push 42 books into the Top 50? On the surface, it seems like a very low number of books (assume 400 copies of each) to take over the Top 50. Are sales for popular books that low?

I hope people out there are doing some more digging on this and not just taking Apple’s statement as the full story.

Leonardo DiCaprio sporting the flying WV at the Argentina-Germany game.

Leonardo DiCaprio West Virginia University Mountaineers Fan

This isn’t the first time he’s worn the hat. I don’t think anyone has found out why yet.

I just read about the filing of a lawsuit against Apple over their iPhone 4 antenna/reception problems. It turns out, this is the fourth lawsuit filed over the barely week old iPhone. I imagine Apple’s response would be a copy of their return policy:

If you are not satisfied with your iPhone purchase, please visit online Order Status or call 1-800-676-2775 to request a return. The iPhone must be returned to our warehouse within 30 calendar days from shipment to avoid an $175 early termination fee. The iPhone must be returned in the original packaging, including any accessories, manuals, and documentation.

They also said in the case of the iPhone 4 they would give a full refund (they normally have a 10% restocking fee).

Plaintiff seeks actual and/or compensatory damages; restitution; equitable relief, including the replacement and/or recall of the defective iPhone4; costs and expenses of litigation, including attorneys’ fees; and all additional and further relief that may be available. Plaintiff reserves the right to amend his Complaint to add additional relief as permitted under the CLRA or other applicable law.

How much damage can there be in a week? Especially when you can return your phone (your contract is also canceled). I’m far from an Apple apologist, but this just seems like people wanting their 15 minutes.

My backup team is out. Brazil went down 1-2 after taking an early 1-0 lead. They grew more and more frustrated (Melo got a straight red card for cleating) and could not tie it up. Early on, the Dutch were diving like crazy, but in the end, they played the better game.

Watching the Ghana game, the way it ended, I wonder if a referee should be allowed to simply award a goal. I know this is in direct reaction to this game. What the Uruguayan player did was smart, and certainly against the rules. But it essentially took what was a definite goal, turned it into a potential goal via a penalty kick and as we all saw, that shot hit the crossbar. The game then immediately went to a shootout that Ghana lost. So, at the cost of a red card, Uruguay advances and Ghana goes home. No team would ever pass on that chance no matter who the player they lose is.

In the NFL, the rule book allows for a referee to award a TD in egregious and extreme conditions. I don’t think it has ever happened, but it takes into account what would happen if a player from the sidelines ran onto the field and made a tackle. In FIFA’s case, the referee would have the ability to award a goal or a penalty kick in this circumstance. The goal would only be awarded when it is clear a goal was about to be scored. And in reality, the only scenario I can think of is a hand ball with the trajectory of the ball clearly being on target to go in the goal. So maybe it should really be some type of rule specific to hand balls that prevent a goal.

It just seems wrong that Ghana is out given the way it played out.

Now I’m on the Germany bandwagon. Hopefully that does not end tomorrow.

It was a good run for the United States, but it seems they were finally finished after giving up a quick goal in the extra time. In the whole tournament, only mid-fielders scored for the United States. They really didn’t get much from their strikers. Statistically, 1 assist. The United States lacks any type of skilled ball handler and scoring threat.

Up to the last game, I thought Bob Bradley did a solid job with the coaching. I’m not sure what the thought process was for that lineup against Ghana. People were puzzled and questioning it as soon as it was released. His contract ends this year, and while I think he’s a good coach, I hope the U.S. Soccer Federation makes a change and hires the guy they should’ve hired 4 years ago, Jürgen Klinsmann. I think he can bring an attacking mindset to the team and he won’t have any loyalty to any players (making replacing guys a lot easier).

The bad refereeing continued into the Round of 16. Had one goal a yard over the line that was not called a goal and another goal that had a player so offsides that no one was between him and the goal and they gave him the goal.

FIFA should not even be thinking twice about adding video replay as soon as this tournament is over. They can add a chip in the ball if they want, but they need replay. We saw replays within seconds often during the games. If all of us at home can know it wasn’t a goal within seconds by watching replays, it seems pretty simple to add a fifth referee (or make use of the fourth one)  to review every goal/non-goal and immediately notify the head referee of an error.

In the case of the blown England goal, as the play continued it would’ve been simply stopped and Germany would kick-off. In the case of the Argentina goal, as the players were celebrating it would’ve been waved off and Mexico would get a free kick. The flow of the game isn’t interrupted and it is limited to only goal/non-goal decisions.

Another rule FIFA (and the NBA) need is a harsh penalty for diving. FIFA should review game tape and hand out red cards to any player that dives from no contact or grossly exaggerates the level or location of the contact. (The NBA should fine and bench a player for a game.) In addition to the red card, they should also impose any penalty that their diving caused for the other team. So if a player took a dive and the other team got a red card, that player should get 2 red cards.