The definition of idempotent in the development world is to perform processing and, even if the same operation is performed multiple times, at the end of that processing the system is in exactly the same state as the first time you processed. I first heard this word from a database developer who was writing idempotent scripts to update the database. So, if we needed to add new rows to a lookup table as part of our rollout he would create an idempotent script so that no matter how many times you ran the script only the rows that needed to be added would be (the first time you ran it…subsequent runs would be checking for the presence of the rows already and simply do nothing).

There are several upcoming Azure related events that I wanted to share. First, if you want a high level overview of what Windows Azure is then you should check out one of the two hour webinars coming up. MAX Technical Training, Microsoft and Strategic Data Systems have teamed up to present a few Windows Azure KickStarts. You can sign up for these on the MAX Train website. They are completely FREE.

In most of the Office applications there is a shortcut to move a line up or down in a paragraph. You can make: Line One Line Two Line Three into the following: Line Two Line One Line Three With a simple keyboard shortcut you can reorder lists pretty easily. Try it. Paste the lines above into Word. Put your cursor on one of the lines and use Alt-Shift Up/down arrow to move it around.