ROLLYO (Roll Your Own - Search Engine)

ROLLYO

"Are you tired of wading though thousands of irrelevant search results to get to the information you want? Ever wish you could narrow your search to sites you already know and trust? With Rollyo, you can easily create your own custom search engines, and explore and save those created by others. ..."

I read about this in the recent InformationWeek...

"Google's been bragging lately about how many Web pages its engine searches. A new service, Rollyo.com, is proud of how it allows people to search fewer sites. Rollyo.com--that's for roll your own--debuts a search service this week that allows users to keep a list of up to 25 favorite Web sites and constrain search queries to those specific sites. The lists, called "searchrolls," offer an effective way to reduce the volume of results from a keyword query, and are particularly good for building a vertical-industry or topical search engine. ..."

Sounds kind of cool. Like a google "site:" search with a up to 25 sites.

This sparked my interesting because I find myself googling just to find stuff on MS's different sites. So to give this a try I created a Microsoft searchroll...

I'll play with this for a while and see how it goes...

Google Reader

Google Reader

"Reader makes it easier to keep up with your ever-expanding reading list of content from across the web.

Spend your time reading what you care about most
Reader automatically gets the latest news and updates for your favorite sites. You can sort your reading list by relevance, which will guess what's most relevant to you based on how you use Google Reader (such as which items you decide to actually read).

Find the blogs and news sites you've been missing out on
The amount of information on the web is rapidly increasing. Use Reader to discover new content you don't want to miss.

Share interesting items with friends
When you come across something worth sharing, quickly email or blog it from within Reader. Star or labels items you want to save for yourself. "

Well now... This pretty much came out of the blue, didn't it?

I've yet to find an online RSS reader that works better for me than Bloglines, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to give this a try... ;)

Uploading my OPML now...

(via Google Weblog - Google Reader

App_Offline file...

Chris Wallace - Kilted Coder - App_Offline file...

"If you haven't already seen it Scott Guthrie dropped some news about a unique file called app_offline.htm that when put in the root folder of a web app will cause ASP.NET to block requests to the application and instead serve up the content of the app_offline file. Removing/renaming the file causes ASP.NET to restart your app as normal. This is especially effective for maintenance windows and the like. Anyway, this only works as expected when the app is running in IIS. ..."

Now that's cool. I hate playing the "rename default.bla" game when doing a new web release. This is a nice touch that makes live just a little easier...

"Mr. Beer" Brewing Kit

MAKE: Blog: "Mr. Beer" DIY Brewing Kit - $27 shipped

"You thought Mr. Coffee was convenient? Well, make some counter space for Mr. Beer. This ingenious easy-to-use kit gives you everything you need to brew your own tasty suds. It's the most advanced and widely acclaimed home brewing product on the market. And it's the simplest"

LOL, my wife bought this for me a few years ago... And I'm very sorry to say it's still in the box.

Yeah, I know... Greg = (Lamer / Beers Brewed) [Which is currently a divide by zero error, so I'm not a lamer? Or just a big error? dogh ]

The next time I'm in our storage I'll have to dig it out. There really is no excuse. I mean, it's free as in beer! ;)

Chris Johnson : New improved SharePoint Recycle Bin released!!! (must have)

Chris Johnson : New improved SharePoint Recycle Bin released!!! (must have)

"... So ... the smart guys in MS IT have come up with an alternate way of providing document recovery without going to a SharePoint backup. They have also decided that it is so useful that they are providing it to the world via GotDotNet.

This solution uses an ISAPI filter that sits in front of the WSS ISAPI filter. It watches for requests from users to delete documents. When it sees one, it grabs the document and copies it down to a file share first, then allows WSS to delete the document. This means that when someone rings the helpdesk with a deleted document issue the helpdesk can grab the document from the file share, and either send it to them or put it back in the WSS site for them!

Unfortunately, this does not allow users to restore their own documents ... however it does make the process of recovering a document much simpler. This should significantly improve IT’s ability to meet SLAs or reduce them. Great for IT and great for users.

You can get it here:

- SharePoint Recycle Bin 1.0"

Now that's pretty cool... Sounds like it would be easier to implement, TS and support. I like this approach.

PDC05 DVD Set Comming Soon

Michael Swanson's Blog : Working on the PDC05 Post-Show DVD Set

"... We captured four unique data streams in each room: the audio, the PowerPoint presentation, any demos, and video of the speaker(s)...

We had originally planned to expand the 'normal' 2 DVD set to 3 DVDs this time around. But, because of all the content, we've had to increase it to 4 dual-layer 8.5GB DVDs. Each DVD contains a full index, and DVDs are organized by presentation track. You can either drill down by session or perform a keyword search to find exactly what you're after. Or, if you're an uber geek, you can just sit back and watch over 200 sessions back-to-back. That's over 250 hours of content! Wow!

... This is the first time we've included video of the speaker for all sessions, and it really makes for a very engaging experience. ...

So, how do you get all this goodness? That's the best answer of all. If you attended PDC05, it'll be automatically shipped to you when it becomes available (targeting early November). If you'd like to order your own full DVD set to keep handy, visit the order page. Or...drum roll please...we'll be hosting all of this, for free, for anyone, for six full months! Now that's awesome. ..."

Very nice... There were a bunch of sessions I couldn't attend so I was looking forward to this.

Soon I'll be able PDC overload all over again...

Changing the Windows XP boot screen

Coding Horror: Changing the Windows XP boot screen

"...I did a bit of research on how to replace the default Windows XP boot screen with something a little more arcade-y. I came up with StarDock's excellent BootSkin:

This free app makes it painless to swap out your Windows XP boot screen or even create your own. ..."

I like the C64 bootscreen. I'll have to try this utility out... :)

EDD Native File Production Matter...

Order to Produce Electronic Spreadsheets as Kept in the Ordinary Course Requires Production with Metadata Intact; Spreadsheet Cells to Remain Unlocked : Electronic Discovery Law

"... The Magistrate examined case law and the Federal Rules of Evidence (both current and proposed) and found insufficient guidance as to whether the production of electronically stored information as ordinarily maintained would require production with the metadata intact. The current version of FRCP 34 provides little guidance on when and how electronic documents should be produced. ...

As primary sources were found insufficient, the Magistrate turned to the Sedona Principles for Electronic Document Production and associated Comments. ...

...

Based on these emerging standards, the Court holds that when a party is ordered to produce electronic documents as they are maintained in the ordinary course of business, the producing party should produce the electronic documents with their metadata intact, unless that party timely objects to production of metadata, the parties agree that the metadata should not be produced, or the producing party requests a protective order.

The Court held as follows:

• Spreadsheet metadata is not irrelevant as claimed by Defendant. It is likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence in connection with the claim that Defendant “reworked” pools of employees in order to pass the adverse impact analysis. This alleged reworking might be evidenced by metadata in association with changes. Besides, Defendant should have objected based on relevance rather than unilaterally scrubbing metadata.

• Since Defendant failed to provide any privilege log in connection with metadata that will allegedly reveal privileged information, the privilege has been waived. ..."


I think first sentence in the quote says allot about the current state of EDD, "insufficient guidance."

This ruling is another example of how all the parties involved in EDD are still trying to figure out how it effects the process, what it means and what is the "right" way to do it.

Now think about those trying to write software for this industry...

At least it's not boring! :)

Battlefield 2 v1.03 Now Available

Battlefield 2 v1.03 Now Available

I missed this yesterday (damn work!)... The BF2 1.03 patch is out.

Seems BF2 has now caught up to many of the features in BF1 :|

Topanga 2005 Fire Wrap Up (Let's Hope)

I had seen this JPG a couple days ago and then promptly forgot where it was...

Here's the near final (I can't find a newer version at this point) fire lines and stat's.

"Statistics as of this date (October 03, 2005, 8:37 a.m.):

Burned 24,175 acres
Fire is 85% contained - expected containment time: Monday, October 3, 2005 at 1800 hours.
Personnel – appx. 1,594
Costs – $9,313,357
Cause - Under investigation at this time
Firefighter injuries – 13

Structures burned:
3 Single Family Dwellings destroyed; 1 residence damaged
3 Commerical Buildings destroyed; 2 damaged
7 Out Buildings
4 RV's
1 Travel Trailer
34 Passenger Vehicles
1 Motorcycle"
Data from fire.countyofventura.org

Update #1: Between finding the JPG and posting this, it seems it was removed from its server... Well thank god for local caching.

Here's the jpg from my local cache.

Uninstall a Previous Application When Upgrading an Application with Setups Created in VS.NET

Uninstall a Previous Application Installation When Upgrading an Application with Setups Created in VS.NET - The Code Project - .NET

"How to uninstall a previous application install during an upgrade with VS.NET created setups is a question that frequently appears in the forums. No matter what options you select in the VS IDE when you create a new setup for an upgraded application, it still never uninstalls the existing application!

One thing that most developers are not aware of is how to properly use the Update Code, which is what triggers an uninstall of a previous version. Windows Installer includes the capability to find and uninstall previous versions of an application. But there are some steps required that are not well documented in VS.NET to make this happen.

It starts with configuring upgrade codes - GUIDs that the installer engine uses to 'identify' multiple msi packages as being related to each other.However, even when you properly configure the Update Code, the uninstall works - but only for a per-user install. It always fails on a per-machine install.

This article describes how to properly author upgrade setups so that they uninstall properly under typical commonly encountered 'real world' conditions.. ..."

Nice timing...

I was about to release an updated VS2k3 app and was looking for a way to avoid an email with "Uninstall the previous version and then install this..." instructions.

Office 12 and PDF

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Office 12 will support PDF

"... This afternoon Steven Sinofsky announced to our MVPs that we will build in native support for the PDF format in Office '12'. ... It's something we've been hearing about for years, and earlier in this project we decided that while there were already existing third party tools for doing this, we should do the work to build the functionality natively into the product.

The PDF support will be built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, Visio, and InfoPath! ..."

Very nice and an interesting move.

How many companies buy Acrobat (or like tool) just so they can create PDF's from Office apps? I'd say quite a few...