I have a programming problem in VB.NET. There is a thing called events. If something happens in one program (class) I can ‘raise an event’ which is called asynchronously soon after in the second program. This sort of thing really works well, allowing the 2nd program only to listen in for the events that it is interested in. Common events are the mouse moving, a button being pressed, or a key being pressed. Now, I have an interesting challenge.

I want to raise an event, but only if I know if someone is listening for it. Why? Well, I want to do some processing first and then raise the event. If noone is listening there is no point in doing the back end database work that woule be sent to the event handler. I have emailed a couple of friends but neither have got back to me yet… I guess some people have weekends off.

On another subject, Microsoft has released a program called Personal Folders which are encrypted local folders stored on a lock machine. The idea is that you can store your personal files on a work machine, and have them being unable to be accessed by anyone but you. The problem is what happens when work files get in there… So there are reports that Microsoft is going to remove this tool PDQ. Pity really, but I can see their point.