Management Tip: Principals for Leadership
"Have a vision for the future
Have a strategy for getting there
Have a process and a plan explaining how to make the strategy happen
Have a skilled team to achieve the plan according to the process
Have a devoted and motivated team (employees and partners)"
Architectural Overview of Windows SharePoint Services
"Summary: Examine the architecture implemented in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. Learn what happens on the server when users issue page requests, and how Windows SharePoint Services responds. Understand the role of managed code in relation to unmanaged code in Windows SharePoint Services, and the Windows SharePoint Services database schema. (13 printed pages)
Contents
High-Level System View
Web Server Topology
How Requests are Handled in IIS and Through the ISAPI Filter
Web Part Infrastructure
Unmanaged Code in Windows SharePoint Services
Contents of the Configuration Database
Conclusion"
When/if I need to do SharePoint/WSS development this information might come in handy.
(via TheServerSide.net - Architectural Overview of SharePoint Services)
Washington Secretary of State - Digital Archives
From SlashDot post:
"prostoalex writes "USA Today and dozens of others report that Washington state archives went online. Over the past two years project participants scanned 1 million documents issued by state and country authorities. The archive is located in my alma mater Eastern Washington University (go Eagles!) The 800 terabyte storage system was developed by Microsoft and EDS."
From the digitalarchives.wa.gov web site:
"The much-anticipated grand opening of America’s first state government digital archives occurred on October 4, 2004. The opening gala event hosted Washington State legislators, county officials, archivists from throughout the United States, as well as a delegation of regional archivists from as far away as China. Among the speakers at this prestigious event were Secretary of State Sam Reed and Lew Bellardo, Deputy Archivist of the United States"
Not sure how I feel about this.
On one side, it's very cool. Also interesting in the image format/viewer they selected (DjVu).
But on the other, there SURE is allot of information that's so easily accessible.
The historical records are cool and I don't see much of a problem having them open and online. But there are current records online too (here's a marriage cert from 1997 for example). I mean talk about fuel for identify theft or for social engineering!
I guess I'm more for "open is better" than not, but still...
(via Slashdot - Washington State Archives Go Digital)
Data Access and Storage Developer Center: Query Notifications in ADO.NET 2.0
"Summary: Learn how to use the new notification technologies in ADO.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005 to handle ad-hoc data refreshes. (16 printed pages)"
I've been reading this article by Bob Beauchemin and really like it... So I don't lose it, I'm posting this to my remote memory storage (aka my blog :)
AclUIAdapter
"I finally got around to finishing up my managed adapter for ISecurityInformation. Turns out the cleanest way was to write a custom CCW in MC++. For those of you who are wondering what the heck I'm talking about, this allows you to add that nifty ACL editor GUI to your managed applications:
...
To use this adapter, write a class that implements ISecurityInformationManaged and pass an instance to AclUIAdapter.EditSecurity(). All this stuff is in a namespace called Pluralsight.Security.Adapters. You can download the code and sample application here. This will be featured in an upcoming article for MSDN Magazine."
This looks very cool. A standard ACL dialog for .Net apps.
I want to code up something just so I can use this... ;)
Update #1
Updated the title to better reflect the post's contents [Thanks Corey] ;)
Add a document to the recent document list
".NET Framework 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 do have a way to add a document to the recent document list. Having needed to do this a few times, I created a wrapper of the SHAddToRecentDocs method in Shell32.dll."
Nice piece of work. I can see this being very useful.
History was made today. Looks like SpaceShipOne made it. Just waiting on official confirmation.
As I sat their in front of the TV watching SpaceShipOne fly into space I could feel the current of history change.
The future is so bright I need... to drop the shade screen on my space helmet. :)
Now all I need to do is save $190K so I can go into space too. Taking donations... ;)
Two simple file tricks
"1. How do I know if a file path string has valid characters without resorting to catching an exception?
bool IsFileNameValid(string fileName)
{
if(filename != null && fileName.IndexOfAny(Path.InvalidPathChars) != -1)
{ return false; }
else { return true; }
}
..."
Nice. Learn something new every day. Don't think I've seen Path.InvalidPathChars before. So much to learn.
sigh
Paint.NET v1.1 is now available!
The cool Paint.Net application has rev'ed to 1.1.
Free, with C# source, with a cool UI. What more could you want? :|
"Paint.NET v1.1 has been released-to-web (RTW)! It can be downloaded in 3 forms from the current Paint.NET page at: http://rbrewster.members.winisp.net/pdn.html. The 3 downloads are the normal installer (4.5mb msi), full installer (25mb that installs .NET 1.1 if necessary), and the source code (7mb zip, modified MIT license).
Paint.NET is meant to be a replacement for MS Paint and was written entirely in C#. It includes all the basic features that MS Paint includes as well as some of the advanced functionality only seen in expensive applications like Adobe Photoshop. It is also free and the complete source code is available.
Lots of credit go to Tom, Michael, and Craig who’re students at Washington State University that helped with the release and will be working on a version 2.0 release that should be available near Christmas.
Big new items for v1.1 include plugin support for filters (“Effects” in Paint.NET vernacular), some new effects and “Adjustments,” and a slew of performance optimizations and UI tweaks. There may be documentation released soon on how to implement an Effect. For now, either download the source code and dissect it, or look at the RotoZoomerSource.zip that is copied to the installation directory (usually "C:\Program Files\Paint.NET v1.1")."
.NET Memory Profiler - Find Memory Leaks and Optimize Memory Usage in Programs Written in C#, VB.NET or any other .NET Language
"NET Memory Profiler is a powerful tool for finding memory leaks and optimizing the memory usage in programs written in C#, VB.NET or any other .NET Language.
It allows you to retrieve information about all instance allocations performed on the garbage collected heap (GC heap) and all instances that reside on the GC heap. The retrieved information is presented in real-time, both numerically and graphically.
Information is provided about: all classes, all instances of classes, the call stacks of the instance allocations, the path to a root from each instance.
The profiler also contains a dispose tracker, which provides additional data about disposable instances (i.e. instances of classes implementing the System.IDisposable interface).
The real-time information presented gives a good overview of the activity and status of the GC heap, but by collecting snapshots of the heap, very detailed information can be presented. A heap snapshot can optionally include the instance data of each instance on the heap, allowing the presentation of field values of instances. It is also possible to compare two snapshots, which is a very convenient and efficient way of detecting memory leaks in a program. The memory profiler also helps locating sections of the program which perform excessive allocations. "
Sounds interesting.
I'm going to want to give this App a go. Have an app that after weeks of running appears to have a small leak. The code has been looked at a number of times and nothing stands out (everything seems to be being closed, disposed, etc, etc).
Maybe this utility will help us focus on a specifc area to review.
Since it's free to try for 14 days, seems silly not to try it...
(via Rays of Thoughts - Find Memory Leaks and Optimize Memory Usage in Programs Written in Any .NET Language
Password Scrambler
"Bill Brelsford pointed out a cool free utility called Password Scrambler by /n software inc.
The application is free and gives you a quick way to create unique passwords for all of the sites you visit by generating a one way hashed password based on your own private password and the target site's domain."
Interesting...
I know I need a better password management tool than I currently have.
Will give this a go and we'll see. Also Scott talks about another similar tool in his post.
Free Programming and Computer Science Books
Tons of free online books (mostly OSS related).
(via Knowing .NET - Technical Books for Free
wingedpig.com: Bloglines Web Services
".... we're augmenting the data that you can pull out of Bloglines programmatically. We're calling the new functions the Bloglines Web Services and we've launched a whole new part of the web site to document them. The new functionality lets a program pull Bloglines subscription data as well as blog entries, using the OPML and RSS formats.
So what does this mean? If you're a desktop aggregator developer, you can use Bloglines to provide a sync'ing capability for your users. And you don't have to worry about supporting the different RSS and Atom formats (and various imperfect feeds), because Bloglines normalizes all data.
If you're a publisher thinking about entering the world of RSS, you don't have to worry about thousands of desktop aggregators pummeling your servers into oblivion. With the Bloglines Web Services, Bloglines acts as a feed cache, insulating content providers from bandwidth problems."
A very cool update for my fav RSS clent.
The timing is great with all the... um... stuff... flying around about RSS readers bringing down the internet (slight exaggeration there).
SourceForge.net: Project Info - FlexWiki
As pretty much everyone in the MS World has already posted, MS has released a third product as OSS.
FlexWiki, what their Channel 9 is based on is now released available on SourceForge.
Downloaded...
Final thoughts on creating a SharePoint blog [Post 3/3]
Part three of the outstanding SharePoint Blog series.
The author has also posted the templates for download from his site (under "blog"), Home - Downloads - Tools and Applications
I need to IM God and ask to have a few more available hours inserted into my day...
:)
Download details: Office Tool: COM Shim Wizards
"Office Tool: COM Shim Wizards
Wizards you can use to create COM shim DLLs for managed Office application extensions. COM shims allow you to isolate managed extensions from each other, and help to increase the security of these extensions.
...
This download provides Visual Studio .NET wizards to help you create shims for three types of managed Office extensions: COM add-ins, smart tags, and real-time data components. Use COM shims to help achieve better security and isolation for your managed Office extensions."
Sounds like something that might come in handy for when I do Office development...
(via ActiveWin)
Update #1 9/29/2004 @ 6:35AM PDT:
Here's the assoicated article for the download...
"Summary: Explains how to isolate Microsoft Office extensions from each other and why you should do so. Presents a set of new Microsoft Visual Studio .NET wizards that automate the generation of COM shims for managed Office extensions."
Isolating Office Extensions with the COM Shim Wizard
(via .NET4Office (Eric Carter) - Add-in Shimming Wizard!
SharePoint Thoughts [With SharePoint] - Discussion view
Cool posting on how to build a blog using native SharePoint (and FrontPage, but no third party controls/parts/etc).
In looking at the posting it seems to take you from start to finish.
Will have to give this a go on my test server.
JPG Processing (GDI+) Bug In the Wild
"Hacktool.JPEGDownload is a program that can be used to generate .jpg files that exploit the Microsoft GDI+ Library JPEG Segment Length Integer Underflow vulnerability (described in the Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-028). The .jpg files that this Trojan generates can download a URL hardcoded in the .jpg file, and are detected by Symantec products as Download.Trojan. "
"Although there are no known uses in any current malware other than this proof-of-concept program, once an exploit has been used as a proof-of-concept, it typically is not long before it is in the field, so patch up."
VERY Scary... As I think I've said, this GDIPlus/JPEG issue could get big and really scary. Just a matter of time.
It can be a pain to find all the different DLL's that are vulnerable and then to get them all fixed. MS HAS to do something to make this easier to fix. Their current solution is just not acceptable. A single patch utility needs to be made available now... I need something my parents can run...
Viruses get bad enough when a user has to click to activate. Now all then need to do view a web page and they could be infected. Or open a Word doc, open a Visio diagram, open a Crystal Report (all of which on my system had GDIPlus.DLL or MSO.DLL's that needed to be patched).
Scary...
Partitioning in SQL Server 2005 Beta II
A nice in-depth article on Partitioned Tables and Indexes in SQL2K5. From concepts to SQL scripts...
(via Kimberly L. Tripp: Improving your SQL skills - SQL Server 2005 Partitioned Tables and Indexes
NASA Ames Research Center OpenSource
Some cool sounding OSS from NASA...
Livingstone2/Skunkworks
"Livingstone2 is a reusable artificial intelligence (AI) software system designed to assist spacecraft, life support systems, chemical plants or other complex systems in operating robustly with minimal human supervision, even in the face of hardware failures or unexpected events. "
World Wind
"NASA World Wind is a graphically rich 3D virtual globe for use on desktop computers running Windows 2K or XP. It combines NASA imagery generated from satellites that have produced the Blue Marble, LandSat 7, SRTM, MODIS and more. Particular effort was put into the ease of usability allowing the user to interact by panning, rotating, and zooming in and out. Visual guides such as political borders, city labels, latitude & longitude lines are included. All this imagery and data is delivered on demand by automatically streaming data from WMS based servers."
Right now World Wind 1.2 is being "slashdoted", so I will have to try back in a couple days... Here's the comment from the download page, "We are sorry but the slashdoting of a 250MB file was a bit more than we had planned for. We will re-post this file later in the day or this evening once the initial rush cools off. Thank you for your patience."
Here are some other software related links.
"Non-Open-Source NASA Software
Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Research/Software/software.html
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/ILab/
http://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/SLAB/
Glenn Research Center
https://technology.grc.nasa.gov/software/
Goddard Space Flight Center
http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_home.html
http://hdfeos.gsfc.nasa.gov/hdfeos/softwarelist.cfm
http://hires.gsfc.nasa.gov/stis/software/library.html
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
http://www.openchannelfoundation.org/inst/group_list.php?institution_id=25
Marshall Space Flight Center
http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/catalog.html
COSMIC Software Collection
http://www.openchannelfoundation.org/cosmic/"
(via Slashdot - NASA Releases World Viewer)
Update #1 9/24/2004 @ 8:02 PM PDT:
NASA put up some mirrors and I was finally able to download it.
Guess what? The source is included in the install and it's C Sharp. That's pretty cool... Now THERE'S my "business case" for downloading and playing with this... :)
So if I wonder about being a coder at NASA... hum... interesting...
BTW, the app's pretty cool... Still trying to figure out how to really use it, but it sure looks cool.
GDI Scan Utility
A GDI+ Scan utility to help find any gdiplus.dll, sxs.dll, wsxs.dll, mso.dll's that contain the JPEG Buffer overflow bug.
Now that there is code in the wild to exploit this, it's important to get this patched as soon as possible.
I try to keep my system very patched, but this utility still found a couple that needed to be patched/updated.
This bug/issue/patch process pretty much sucks. Something is needed now to make the fixing of ALL effected DLL's much easier...
(Via Larkware - The Daily Grind 467
Reference Library
Not sure how long this site will be available, but while it is it has the full/complete text for a number of O'Reilly books online...
(Via Sijin Joseph's blog - Gold mine for bibliophiles...if it is legal? )
Slashdot | Asterisk Open Source PBX 1.0 Release
"An anonymous reader writes 'Today at Astricon (the first Asterisk conference), Mark Spencer announced the release of version 1.0.0 of Asterisk. For those of you that don't know: Asterisk is a complete PBX in software. It runs on Linux and provides all of the features you would expect from a PBX and more. Asterisk does voice over IP in three protocols, and can interoperate with almost all standards-based telephony equipment using relatively inexpensive hardware. Asterisk users can be up and running, making phone calls in under an hour using the various guides found at the VoIP Wiki. Connectivity to the PSTN is provided by companies like VoicePulse, Nufone, Gafachi and VoipJet.' "
Interesting...
I really need a PBX for my house... ;)
Getting Started with Mono - SuSE 9.1
"This is a beginner level guide aimed at users interested in trying out Mono on SuSE Linux 9.1. This document was written against SuSE Linux 9.1 Personal. Following this guide should give the reader a working, tested installation of Mono and common associated components such as Gtk#, Monodevelop, and xsp (a simple ASP.NET web server)."
Very nice... I liked SUSE 9.1, but couldn't get Mono on it, so gave up on it...
With this HowTo I'm going to have to give it another try.
(via Paco's Blog - A Day at the Races
[tip] Speed up VPC under XP SP2
One slimy hack/work around to help speed up your Guest XP2 VPC images....
In short, the VPC 2004 VM Additions are the issue. So wait for VPC 2004 SP1 or use the VM Additions from Virtual Server 2005.
Some Terminal Services links/info from a FTP email today that I want to check out...
Your Terminal Services Setup Guide
Learn the best way to batten down the hatches on your servers without going too far.
Manage Terminal Services
Take advantage of the new Group Policies in Windows Server 2003 to manage Terminal Services from a central point.
Run Visual Studio .NET on Terminal Servers
Use Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services to centralize development projects.
Marquee de Sells: Chris's insight outlet - Giving a Mapped Drive .NET FullTrust
"...you need to add a new Code Group with an URL membership permission specifying the folder (in URL form) to which you'd like to grant full trust. You can do with the .NET Framework Configuration tool or you can do it from the command line like so:
c:\>caspol -q -machine -addgroup 1 -url file://z:/* FullTrust -name "Z Drive"
Once this new code group is in place, any new .NET processes you start will give any assemblies on the Z drive full trust (make sure to cycle the devenv.exe process if you want these new permissions and that message box to go away).
Since awarding new permissions, full trust or not, to any chunk of code is something that can cause a security hole, be careful."
Nice tip on updating your .NET CAS to give Full Trust to a mapped drive...
Outlook's 1-Minute Rule
Nice tip on adding a rule to Outlook 2003 to automatically defer all outgoing email for 1 minute.
There are more times than I can count that I've hit the Send button, and then immediately think, "Damn, I should have CC'ed....", etc. The "Locking the keys in the car as you look at them on the seat" syndrome...
I've copied the steps below so I can highlight #3. I missed the second part of #3 and it jacked me up for a bit...
"1. Click on "Rules and Alerts" under the "Tools" menu
2. Click on "New Rule..."
3. Start from blank rule [GD: Select the Blank Rule radio button], and "check messages after sending" [GD: Two options that will appear when you select on the "Blank Rule" radio button, select the "Check messages after sending" and then click next]
4. Click "Next" and don't select any conditions so that every message will be deferred
5. Click "Next" and "OK" on the confirmation dialog box asking if you are sure you want to apply this to every message
6. Select "Defer delivery by a number of minutes" and change "a number of minutes" to "1". [GD: I actually set mine to 2 minues] This is usually the last action in the list
7. You can click "Next" to specify exceptions or choose a name for the rule or just click "Finish"
8. Be sure to move the rule to the top of your rules or at least before any of the other rules that apply to outgoing messages."
Military Rules for the Non-Military Personnel
Good post... As a veteran I totally agree..
Announcing v2.0 of the Syndication Generator for Windows SharePoint Services
The very cool sounding SharePoint RSS Generator Web Part has rev'ed to version 2.0.
I think this new feature, "SmartSyndication™ of Announcements, Document libraries, Events, Links, and Picture libraries. SmartSyndication™ truly makes point and click syndication a reality. " is the most interesting to me...
I think this is the next phone for me (when it comes out with 64MB of RAM in spring 2005)...
Running a Windows OS (that I should be able to build apps for in VS) thumb-keys, big screen, pictures, etc.
I currently have a generic cell and PageWriter and want a PDA. With this phone I should be able to consolidate to a single device.
Will have to check it out. The keyboard does look a little cheesy, but then again I'm not going to be writing documents on my phone... as long as it's close the the one on the PageWriter, I'll be good.
Inspired by the blogs talking about installing VS2005 B1 w/ Team Services (i.e. fact that that Team Services can not be run all on a single PC), I've just sent up a "local VPC network"...
It's pretty cool.
I have three VPC's. Win2K3 as my domain controler (VPC network is set to 1 card, local only). Win2k as my SQL 2K5 server (again 1 NIC, local only) and WinXP2. All on my trusty IBM T30 Thinkpad...
It's a memory crunch. I can only get the T30 up to 1GB of RAM, which leaves only about 700MB of RAM for all three VPC sessions. So I have the DC/SQL sessions at 128MB and the XP2 at 400MB.
As long as I shut down some stuff on the T30, everything is happy. Sure it's not the fastest solution, but it WORKS!
Now with this config, I can play my OSS games on these images and clean up, and out, my T30.
Paco's Blog: Mono and Gtk# development in Windows
"Mono and Gtk# development in Windows
A lot of folks have been asking recently how and where to use what installer. For a lot of us who use IRC, it may be a good thing to look over my notes below and -- correct me if necessary -- later spread the word about this. I hope this helps.
If you want to use Visual Studio .NET 2003 to build Gtk# applications that will run without having Mono installed in your system. Use:
http://forge.novell.com/modules/xfmod/project/?gtks-inst4win
..."
Some good info on cross platform .Net development with Mono.
(via Girish Bharadwaj - Gtk# in windows)
Code Generation with Codesmith
"Ever find yourself writing the same type of code over and over again? While code generation isn't a panacea, it can certainly help speed up the development process and improve the reliability and maintenance of your code. In this article, Brian Boyce shows how a freeware product called Codesmith can be used to kick-start your projects by demonstrating the development of a set of templates to generate Select, Insert, Update, and Delete stored procedure code together with a corresponding C# data access layer to call the stored procedures."
When I get back to using CodeSmith I'll want to review this article...
(via Todd Carrico - Great CodeSmith article
Seems like heap memory issues have been highlighted for me recently...
Last week I read this in the Oct MSDN Mag:
Web Q&A
"Q. Is there a limit on the number of Internet Explorer windows that can be open at one time? If I open about 30, Internet Explorer starts to behave strangely.
A. You may be low on desktop heap memory, a setting that you can double on most desktops that allows you to open more Internet Explorer sessions, as shown here:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\SubSystems]
See Knowledge Base articles 126962 ("Out of Memory Error Message Appears When You Have a Large Number of Programs Running") and 184802 ("PRB: User32.dll or Kernel32.dll Fails to Initialize") for related issues."
I have a series of systems where I get weird out of memory errors, but my apps are not leaking (that I can tell). But these apps DO spawn a lot of processes and to talk to the local WMI and print spooler a great deal... So I'm thinking I need to look at these KB articles...
Then at work we run into a problem with one of the third party systems we run. We were having "connection" limit problems. After pushing back to the vendor, their response was that we/the service were running into system heap issues (i.e. running out of resources). And to increase the value...
They pointed us to this MS KB article, "Overcoming User32.dll Initialization Failure Errors" to increase the system heap resources.
I thought it a little interesting that two different heap issues have come up recently. Guess it's time to look at and into the different heaps a little more.
[additional jokes and comments about "heap" deleted] :|
Visual Studio Home: Monitoring Application Health with WMI and .NET
"The Windows Management Instrumentation framework is one of the least publicized yet most useful tools in the .NET Framework. If your job is to create enterprise class software, you don't need to lie awake at night wondering whether your application is still running. In this article, Francis Shanahan shows you how to build enterprise class peace-of-mind into your .NET software and finally get the sleep you deserve!"
A nice article on using WMI in VB.Net. Not only how to consume WMI but also how to instrument your app to produce data to other WMI consumers.
SourceForge.net SugarCRM
You might have read about this recently in the IT trade rags (ComputerWorld, eWeek, etc).
Having implemented a CRM product in a past life, I've been watching for a good open source CRM product. If I have a few spare cycles I'd like to check this one out.
It's a web(Apache/IIS) / PHP / MySQL based product. Have IIS & PHP, but will need to get MySQL installed running (which is not a bad thing I guess).
We'll see...
QEMU CPU Emulator
"QEMU is a FAST! processor emulator using dynamic translation to achieve good emulation speed.
QEMU has two operating modes:
* Full system emulation. In this mode, QEMU emulates a full system (for example a PC), including a processor and various peripherials. It can be used to launch different Operating Systems without rebooting the PC or to debug system code.
*User mode emulation (Linux host only). In this mode, QEMU can launch Linux processes compiled for one CPU on another CPU. It can be used to launch the Wine Windows API emulator (http://www.winehq.org) or to ease cross-compilation and cross-debugging.
As QEMU requires no host kernel driver to run, it is very safe and easy to use.
For system emulation, the following hardware targets are supported:
PC (x86 processor)
PREP (PowerPC processor)
PowerMac (PowerPC processor, in progress)
For user emulation, x86, PowerPC, ARM, and SPARC CPUs are supported. "
FreeOSZoo homepage
"
Step 1 - Download and install QEMU emulator on your PC
Downloading QEMU emulator is the first step to Freedom. QEMU is able to emulate a virtual computer, including a processor and various peripherals. The emulated computer can be used to install and launch several Operating Systems (called 'Guest Operating Systems') without rebooting the PC. QEMU can be installed on a large variety of host platforms like FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows and several Unix systems. We provide QEMU packages for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. "
Step 2 - Download and adopt a Free OS from the (FreeOS)Zoo
Before downloading a Free OS image, you must read and agree with the following conditions. FreeOSZoo is a free project independent from Operating System vendors. When you install a FreeOSZoo image, it is very likely that you will not be able to get support from official vendors. If you are not very familiar with Free Software, we recommend that you download the GNU/Linux SuSE 9.1 x86 image."
Now this looks officially cool. If I read this right, QEMU is a free VPC like product.
And on the FreeOSZoo there are already configured and installed OS images for QEMU.
Looks like I have a lot of downloading ahead of me... :)
(via Free Tools I need to install... )
I was back up to six GMail invites to give out... I'm holding two for gmail4troops.com, leaving four.
I am now trying this site to give them three of them, isnoop.net GMail invite spooler.
Pretty easy, you just send the invite to the gmail@isnoop.net and you're done. People can pick up invites at the same site.
Pretty cool...
(via If you have GMail addresses to give away or you need one... )
PS. I still have one extra invite, if anyone wants it...
Update #1
Well it seems to work. I already got one Google "acceptance" email back...
geodata.gov
I guess it's Cool US Gov Sites week... ;)
"Geodata.gov is part of the Geospatial One-Stop E-Gov initiative providing access to geospatial data and information."
Ton's of US maps. With a cool little interactive map viewer. Think MapQuest but with all the data the US gathers...
Here were the available map overlays at the zoom l was at. As you zoom in and out different map overlays are available...
" Geographic Names (text)
GNIS SCHOOL Labels
GNIS SCHOOL
GNIS CHURCH Labels
GNIS CHURCH
Geographic Names 100K
Geographic Names
Hi-Res Ortho Index
County Labels
Counties 100K
State Labels
States 100K
Road Labels BTS
Roads BTS
Stream Network
Waterbodies
Charlotte NC 2
Charlotte NC 1
Amarillo TX 2
Amarillo TX 1
Lubbock TX 2
Lubbock TX 1
Detroit MI 3
Detroit MI 2
Detroit MI 1
Providence RI
Knoxville TN 3
Knoxville TN 2
Knoxville TN 1
Jackson MS
Albuquerque MN
Orlando FL
Sacramento CA 3
Sacramento CA 2
Sacramento CA 1
Atlanta GA 5
Atlanta GA 4
Atlanta GA 3
Atlanta GA 2
Atlanta GA 1
Oklahoma City Ok
Portland OR
Fresno CA
Chicago IL 9
Chicago IL 8
Chicago IL 7
Chicago IL 6
Chicago IL 5
Chicago IL 4
Chicago IL 3
Chicago IL 2
Chicago IL 1
Lincoln NE
Modesto CA
Stockton CA 2
Stockton CA 1
Shreveport LA
El_Paso TX
St Louis MO
Mobile AL
Washington DC 2
Washington DC 1
Seattle WA 5
Seattle WA 4
Seattle WA 3
Seattle WA 2
Seattle WA 1
Lexington KY
Baton Rouge LA
National Land Cover Dataset
National Land Cover Dataset (Transparent)
National Elevation Dataset Shaded Relief CONUs
National Elevation Dataset Shaded Relief PR
National Elevation Dataset Shaded Relief HI
National Elevation Dataset Shaded Relief AK"
Also available are links to other US Gov sites that have geospatial information available (like http://factfinder.census.gov, etc)
(via beSpacific - E-Gov Site Assists in Hurricane Tracking and Emergency Response )
Disk Defragmenter
"Features:
* Can be run by any user (service needs to be installed by an administrator).
* Complete whole-disk defragging, including private operating system files.
* Multiple instances can be run simultaneously (if you have multiple disks).
* Individual file defragging, with wildcards and recursion. This mode is an opportunistic defragger, marginally better than Diskeeper in that it will at least defrag the file as best it can rather than not at all.
* Defrags NTFS, FAT** and FAT32** filesystems on any media (HD, ZipTM/JazTM, Floppy, etc).
* A "shotgun" mode, where it severely fragments files. Useful for testing or really annoying someone.
* Individual file fragmentation analysis. Find out where on disk a file resides, and how many fragments it's in.
* 100% safe and interruptable. This program doesn't actually move the files - the OS does it. Even if you suffer a power failure while it's working, you run no higher risk of file system corruption than you would if you had happened to be saving a file from any application.
* Boot-time defragmentation. "
Interesting free Disk Defragger for XP/2003. (It appears it might work on Win2K, since it's based on the NT Disk Frag API, but it's not 100%. And I'm to chicken to test it ;)
Will have to give this a try as I'm to cheap to buy a full defragger.
(via Jeffrey Wall's WebLog - Defrag APIs
DotNetNuke Hello World!
"... working through Vicenç Masanas' fabulous materials on building DotNetNuke Modules at his dnnJungle site, http://dnnjungle.vmasanas.net/.
... downloaded and executed his Project Template wizard to add DNN project elements to VS.NET, grabbed the CodeSmith DNN templates, created a DNN module project, worked through his tutorial on creating a DNN module, and added the module to a DotNetNuke site..."
I don't play with DNN much anymore, but if I do in the future I'll want to check this out.
Creating DNN modules in the past was an exercise in cut-n-paste. Dave Burke's post sure makes it sound like things have improved.
U.S. Government Manual: Browse the 2004-2005 Edition
A 692 page manual for the US Gov... Kind of neat in a weird way.
Seems like mostly a Who's Who for the US Gov.
Also found a link to GPO Access, which is a directory of US Gov Databases and info.
All the info we need to start our own US Gov. Kind of like a OSS Government...?
:|
Programming Texts/Tutorials
"... just topped 3000 entries, at least by one rough count. ...
A list of freely available documents (i.e. tutorials, books, guides, reference manuals, etc.) for learning how to program in various languages as well as about various Linux and UNIX related topics. "
3000'ish links of pure geekness.
Ton's of Nix and coding text and tutorial links.
For a short(?) summary check out Enigma - Great Stuff and
Enigma - more great stuff
As I play in OSS land more these might come in handy.
(via Enigma)
Cropper updated, now with auto thumbnail option
The very cool Cropper utility is rev'ing faster than a speeding...
besides all the cool features being added, I think, "Cropper now remembers its size and location between sessions." is my favorite.
This utility is now my screen grabber utility of choice.
Grupo Grafistas: We have 4 Gmail invites
Alfonso is passing on the fun. I gave him one of my invites, and now he's passing on the favor...
If you need a GMail invite, he currently has four to give.
SourceForge.net: Lucene.Net core moved from SF
"Lucene.Net core moved from Source Forge to http://LuceneDotNet.com/?sf
We have no plans to stop providing technical support for the Open-Source version of Lucene.Net"
From http://lucenedotnet.com/?sf, "...The new version of Lucene.Net is available only for our customers..."
Looks like Lucene.Net's been pulled. Core files can't currently be downloaded, etc. I'm glad I grabbed them when I did...
Update #1 9/17/2004 @ 1:31PM PDT:
If you're looking for the last open source version, you can download it here, Lucene.NET - The Last Open Source Release
Gmail 4 Troops
"The idea of matching U.S. troops in need of a free way to communicate with their friends, family, and other loved ones back home with those who have spare Gmail invitations is the brainchild of Wil Wheaton and Drew Olanoff. Gmail4Troops is their project, as a result of their inspiration. The sponsors here, including Whizardries and ISIPP, are here to help further and support Drew and Wil's project, and are honoured to be able to assist Wil and Drew, and to serve our troops serving overseas, and their loved ones back home, in this manner.
ISIPP is proud to have helped the Gmail for Troops project provide Gmail accounts to nearly 3,000 brave men and women serving overseas, and still counting! "
I've committed my last two (for now) gmail invites to it. Don't know how good this site/service is, but it's worth a try.
SourceForge.net: NxBRE v2.1 Released
"The Inference Engine has been improved to support the OR logical operator and an infinite nesting of conditions.
The Visio 2003 Adapter is also part of the release.
Check the change notes for more details..."
Looks like today is release day... :)
SharpDevelop @ic#code
The very cool open source (GPL) C# and VB.NET IDE, #develop (SharpDevelop), has been released as 1.0 today.
Downloaded...
For more information, check out this SourceForge forum post.
(via USysWare Blog - #develop 1.0 released)
steepvalley.net: XPCC (XP Common Controls)
"This projects includes some of the most missed XP Controls in .net 1.1, like a taskbox, a grouped listview, a letterbox control and others.
It also includes ownerdrawn theming, so it will run on any machine with the .net-framework installed (Win95/98/2000). Some of the features will work only on Windows XP though.
Read the whitepapers on detailed information "
PDF Whitepaper
Screenshots
Some pretty cool looking "XP like" UI controls, with full VB.Net source.
V2 released on 9/8/2004
Notes:
a) The Setup (for demo and control source) isn't in English (usual next/next/next seemed to work okay). The component doc/chm is in English.
b) If you want to play with the source, you'll want to go through the "Remove Project From SourceSafe" process (like this one)
For the price, it's pretty darn cool
(via Windows Forms Coding Hero)
RockXP download and review - recover XP activation code from SnapFiles
"RockXP allows you to retrieve your XP product key that you used when you installed Windows XP, as well as keys for other Microsoft products. This can come very handy if you need to reinstall but have misplaced or lost the CD cover with the serial sticker. In addition, the program also lets you save the product activation to a file, and enables you to recover usernames and passwords contained in the Windows Secure Storage. "
Saw this while browsing Marc's blog. Since my XP manual is buried/hiding/sucked into a worm hole, I might need this info...
(via Marc's Blog )
Cropper v1.3
"Png file support was added to 1.2. In 1.3 Cropper now remembers your last image format as well as your last opacity level.
This is a lot more popular than I thought it would be. There have been nearly 200 downloads in 2 days! I guess I'll have to keep working on it now :) I'll still keep it simple, but I have ideas for a few more additions.
Tell your friends..."
The cool Cropper continues to be improved...
Joe Stegman - Building Outlook UI in 100 lines of code with Winforms
"Joe Stegman, lead program manager on the WinForms team (.NET client) has one of the more impressive demos we've seen.
Check this out. You can build a clone of Outlook in 100 lines of code (using the next version of Visual Studio and Windows Forms)."
Something I want to watch...
How do I change what CTRL+ENTER does in IE?
"When using IE, CTRL+ENTER is a very useful shortcut. It puts 'http://www' before the text in the address bar and '.com' at the end. So if I want to visit 'http://www.microsoft.com' all I have to do is type ALT+D, microsoft, CTRL+ENTER. But what if I want to change what CTRL+ENTER does? Is that possible? Of course it is! To change it..."
I learn something new every...
Never knew about this shortcut. Now will have to remember to remember it... :|
FilePlanet - Chris Sawyer's Locomotion Trial
Here's another game I've been waiting on. Looks like today is its release date.
Have to give the trial a go and see if it's worth "discussing" with my CFO. ("Honey can I... what do you mean No? I haven't even asked yet... " :)
USysWare DPack Home
"Welcome to USysWare DPack web site! DPack is a FREE collection of Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 add-ins. DPack includes:
Code Browser add-in
File Browser add-in
Framework Browser add-in
Code Navigation add-in
Bookmarks add-in
Surround With add-in
...
...All add-ins have been designed for and tested on VS.NET 2003 only. They work with both C# and VB.NET based projects. ..."
Some of these sound pretty cool.
(via Powertoys WebLog - DPack Free Add-In Collection (Code/File/Framework Browsing, Bookmarking, Surround With, and Code Nav)
How to stop IE from opening up Office docs inline
"By default, when you click on a link to an Office doc (such as on a sharepoint site), IE will open the doc in-frame. For just viewing docs this is usually OK, but it can get annoying as not all features work in this manner. So if you'd rather have IE just open the doc in the appropriate application, follow the instructions in this KB:
1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Go to Tools | Folder Options | File Types
3. Select the appropriate file type like XLS/DOC/PPT and click Advanced
4. Uncheck "Browse in same window" and OK out of all dialogs
Ahhhhh. Much better. I didn't realize that was annoying me until I read about how to turn it off."
Cool tip passed on by KC Lemson
Very nice....
SQLH2 Reports: "SQL Server Health and History Tool (SQLH2) Reports"
Some reports for the SQLH2 tool from MS.
Maybe I'll take another look at this...
First time I looked at it, well, if you can't say anything good... :|
.NET Languages
An interesting new site all about different .Net languages.
I like to pick a language of the month. This site might come in handy.
(via TheServerSide.Net - New site devoted to .NET languages goes live)
SourceForge.net: Project Filelist: DUKNETFramework 1.0
You might have read about this...
Duke Energy released their internally developed .net Framework as OSS.
[Google search]
Well it's now available for download from SourceForge.
Downloading it now.
Cropper in C#. Grab parts of your screen.: "Cropper in C#. Grab parts of your screen. "
"...The UI tells you the width and height of the area you will be capturing. It will capture whatever is under it. All the captures are numbered and placed in a folder named Cropper on the desktop. You can capture images in either BMP or JPG format. ... "
Interesting partial screen grabber, with C# source...
(via The Daily Grind 456)
Working Smart: 'While You Were Out' Outlook Addin
"...The result is what I call 'While You Were Out' ('WYWO' for short). It provides the user with the opportunity to take a message, capture all the relevant information, and send it on to the intended recipient. It's written in VBA, which means there's not an elegant way to deploy it. As a result, I will have to give you detailed instructions for installing it and getting it running..."
Interesting.
(via theofficeweblog)
I'm back up to having 6 GMail invites to give out again...
sigh
I'm going to have to start posting on the different gmail invite sites... (http://www.gmailswap.com & www.gmailforums.com)
...must... give... them... all... out!! MUST....GIVE...!!!
LOL :)
codezone - Europe Middle East and Africa - Magazine
My free copy of MS's Codezone magazine came in today.
Nice mag. It's interesting the differences in it, the content and point of view coming from outside the US....
RSS in Government: "RSS in Government"
"News about how RSS is being used by international, federal, state, and local governments "
Okay this is kind of cool (for RSS geeks).
A site dedicated to listing, talking about, etc RSS feeds from different governments.
The Fire Drill or Randomization 101
"...you see the "hallway dance" outside of your closed blinds. You all know what I'm talking about. The brief glimpse of the person dodging and weaving outside of your window trying to peek through the blinds to see if you are truly busy. And heaven forbid you acknowledge their presence because the door immediately opens and "got a second?" is heard..."
LMAO... No kidding
Instead of two invites left I now have 6 to hand out
MAN I just can't give them away fast enough!
So if there is anyone left who wants one, or you know of someone who wants one, or someone who knows someone who knows someone...
Free & clear, no BS, etc, etc.
Email me at gduncan411 > at <>at] gmail or leave a comment...
(Can you tell I like playing the email address obfuscation game? :)
Update #1 9/3/2004 7:49 AM PDT:
Five left.
And a funny moment.
The number of GMail invites available to give out and the link to do it used to be on the left. In a very clear and obvious place. Well when the first request for an invite from this batch came in I went to GMail... And the link was gone!
"Crap" I thought. Google took them away!...
I was about to reply to the request, giving them the bad news, when I decided to check GMail one last time.
Guess what? Google re-org'ed the page a little... The available invites and link is now in the header above the email list in the Inbox. You have to look for it... No longer really obvious (like it was before).
sigh. I love beta's :
Update #2 9/3/2004 8:36 AM PDT:
Four left...
Update #3 9/3/2004 3:54 AM PDT:
Three left...
HOTMAIL users, please make sure to check your junk mail folder... The invites might end up there. [No comment]
Update #4 10/4/2004 6:34 AM PDT:
All gone.
Dan Grigsby - Bloglines Internet Explorer context menu
"...an Internet Explorer extension to allow you use Internet Explorer's right-click/context menu to:
Add blogs to your Bloglines account.
Search Bloglines for references to a page or link.
Search Bloglines for text selected with the mouse."
Another cool utility from Dan Grigsby...
Makes adding feeds to your Bloglines (my favorite web RSS aggregator) list a little easier. Much easier that the stupid way I was doing it before...
(No, I will not share the steps I was using before... to ashamed ;)
One note to self... click through the RSS link, THEN right click "Bloglines: Subscribe". Just right clicking-Subscribe on the RSS link isn't enough... If I think about it, that makes sense, but I hate thinking...
:|
Is my app already running? Well, it shouldn't be.
"if (Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessByName(Application.ProductName).Length > 1)
{
MessageBox.Show(Application.ProductName + " is already running.",Application.ProductName,MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Warning);
Application.Exit();
}"
Looks like an easier way to implement a singleton application model than a mutex...?
(Via blameMike)
Copernic Desktop Search - The Search Engine for Your PC
"Easily search your entire hard drive in less than a second to pinpoint the right file, e-mail, music or pictures.
CDS brings the power of a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use search engine right to your PC and allows you instantly to search files, e-mails, and email attachments stored anywhere on your PC hard drive. It executes sub-second searching of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, Acrobat PDFs, and all popular music, picture and video formats. CDS also searches your browser history, favorites, and contacts."
Seems like I'm into indexing and search tools recently...
I am giving this a try. I find myself searching my local drive too often, so we'll see if this helps.
Nice interface... and the price is just right (Free).
(via theofficeweblog)
Novell Forge - monoppix Summary
"monoppix is a livecd linux distribution that includes the free MONO .NET framework implementation.
monoppix includes the basic mono runtime environment class library and compiler. It also includes development tools like MonoDevelop (IDE) ,MonoDoc (Class libraries help) , XSP (web server), and some quick start tutorials."
Cool. I dig "live" CD's. They usually work great with Virtual PC. :)
Downloaded.
More info on JonGalloway.ToString() - Monoppix Preview (0.2.2.3) Release
Download ISO from here
I'm running this now on VPC. Pretty cool so far...
Monodevelop on VPC needs help. Fonts are jacked/unreadable. I need to play around and see if there's some setting I can change.
This distro is still very preview/beta... but still the idea is cool.
Update #1 9/2/2004 12:32 PM PDT:
So close... It's the color depth that's making monodevelopment ugly...
As I watch the VPC boot, it first flashes a XWindows screen that looks good. Looks 16 or 32 bit color. Then when XWindows finally loads it's back at 256 color.
GRR.
It's auto detecting the video card and doing it wrong (known issue with Linux and VPC...)
I think there's a way to install this distro to the VPC virtual hard drive, at which point I might be able to force a XWindow config. But that goes against the coolness a little.
But then again, if I want to actually development something I'll need someplace to save it.
sigh.
VirtualPC Default Folder
"If you don't like that Virtual PC uses C:\Documents and Settings\
On the host computer, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
Click the Advanced tab, and then click Settings under Environmental Variables.
Under System variables, click New.
In the Variable Name box, type myvirtualmachines.
In the Variable Value box, type the path of the folder that you want to use.
Click OK two times, and then close the Computer Management window.
That's it!"
Cool...
Also see the MSKB article.
Download details: AuthDiag
"Authentication and Access Control Diagnostics 1.0 (more commonly known as AuthDiag) is a tool released by Microsoft aimed at aiding IT professionals and developers at more effectively finding the source of authentication and authorization failures.
These users have often seen behavior from Internet Information Services (IIS) that doesn't seem appropriate or random when users authenticate to the IIS server. The complex world of authentication types and the various levels of security permissions necessary to allow a user to access the server causes many hours of labor for those tasked with troubleshooting these problems.
AuthDiag 1.0 offers a robust tool that offers a efficient method for troubleshooting authentication on IIS 5.x and 6.0. It will analyze metabase configuration and system-wide policies and warn users of possible points of failure and guide them to resolving the problem. AuthDiag 1.0 also includes a robust monitoring tool called AuthMon designed at capturing a snapshot of the problem while it occurs in real-time. AuthMon is robust and specially designed for IIS servers removing any information not pertinent to the authentication or authorization process."
If you need this, then you really need this...
(via Michael Howard's Web Log-IIS Auth Diagnostic tool now available)
VS 2005 - Team System On MSDN Tonight
"Just passing on the word that VSTS should be available for download to MSDN subscribers starting tonight. I for one am super psyched to get my hands on these bits since I will finally have support for all the team based tasks I do on a daily basis baked right into my favorite development environment."
Downloading it now...
The Code Project - SILVER BULLETS TOOLKIT. Reference Book of Successful Project Solutions in the process of Software Development - Design and Strategy
Free 98 page PDF related to the software development process...
The author's main idea seems to be to take cumbs of SD knowledge/info found around the Net, etc and put them into book form.
Nice overview of a number of topics (RUP, XP, Career Growth, Developer Functions, Life Cycle stuff, etc, etc).
Very update to date, the version on the cover is 8/28/2004...
For the price, it's a nice reference.
SourceForge.net: Edit Inference Engine Rules in Visio 2003!
"NxBRE v2.1 will leverage the DatadiagramML schema of Visio 2003 XML files and a specific set of shapes for bringing the users a new experience in term of rule base edition!
No more clumsy-home-made-buggy user interfaces! The intuitive environment of Visio 2003 allows a very comfortable management of implications, queries and facts.
See: http://nxbre.org/visio.png"
Now that's cool...
How To: Win an Autographed Visual Studio 2005 Baseball
"...an email about VSS performance arrived from one of our hardworking VSS Product Support representatives.
"When using the restore wizard via the SourceSafe admin, you'll notice the CPU using up to 90% processor, but if you click on the title bar of the progress window and hold, utilization goes down to ~15 percent and the restore completes much quicker."
Go figure! This issue appears to repro on all VSS 6.0 builds.
Imagine... You're fresh out of college with a computer science degree. You apply for and get hired as a "Configuration Manager" at a little software company down the street. On your first day, your manager says, "Okay, you've used VSS before, right? Your first task is to sit here and hold down the mouse button on the title bar of this progress window until the restore operation completes." LOL."
LMAO... Nice.
Check out the blog for a contest for the best work around/hack/etc for this...
Big Guns
"...The M82 is a beast of a gun. It fires the same rounds as the .50 cal machine guns that we use. It's heavy and extremely loud. You'll see what I mean in the movie below - it literally causes a shockwave that shakes the ground enough to raise a big cloud of dust for like a 4 or 5 foot radius around the gun... "
I so want one of these... :)
The ArmySteve blog is pretty cool. Written by 1LT Steve Smith who is currently stationed in Iraq.
Even though he's an officer, he still sounds pretty cool... ;)
DAEMON Tools Homepage :: News
"... is a hotfix-version to adress the latest issues
(especially the atapi.sys-lock with XP SP2).
The changelog for V3.47:
* Fixed lockup with some images containing bad sectors made by Alcohol (MDS)
* Fixed Nero InCD formatting problem with DAEMON Tools present
* Fixed atapi.sys locking problem (as a result, some emulation ability is removed for PCD5 until new release)
we greatly suggest to upgrade to V3.47 ! "
Looks like my fav CD-ROM emulator, virtulizer, ISO mounting tool has been rev'ed.
Since I have XP2 on all my hope machines, I should get this...
(via BetaNews)
BVS Free Solitaire - Reviews and free downloads at Download.com
This is something my wife might be interested in. It's nice that she uses her 1 year old uber-Dell to play card games...
:|
Bob Beauchemin's Blog - Good XQuery Books
Bob Beauchemin lists a couple XQuery books...
Having seen XQuery in SQL 2K5, I can see I'll need a couple of these...
I have 5 more GMail invites to give out... (Just got them... seems the more I give out, the more invites I get to give... :)
gduncan411 >at> hotmail. First five emails in get the invites.
No strings, no contests, no BS.
Update #1 8/29/2004 @ 12:13 PM PDT:
Wow, that was fast...
One down, four to go.
Man, I love the communication that the internet enables. I've just added a new blog to my subscribed list, DarthPedro: Random Thoughts. Seems Darth and I share a number of common interests. D&D/RPG, Reading Science Fiction and .Net coding...
He's also got some interesting gadgets on his blog. Will have to check them out. (I like blog free gadgets.. can you tell? :)
Update #2 8/30/2004 @ 6:36 AM PDT:
Two down... three to go.
Update #3 8/30/2004 @ 7:26 PM PDT:
One left...
And another cool blog subscribed too...www.coreyhaines.com (South Park rocks :)
Update #4 8/30/2004 @ 7:35 PM PDT:
Well well... Gmail says I have 3 invites left to give out. I can't seem to give them away fast enough!! lol
Update #5 9/1/2004 @ 2:07 PM PDT:
Two left...
Update #6 9/1/2005 @ 6:05 AM PDT:
Google is now providing free accounts to any who ask... Please go to gmail.google.com for your free GMail account. Thanks.
"Essential SQL Server 2005 "Yukon" for Developers"
Last week I was at a Developmentor course on SQL2K5. It was instructed by Dan Sullivan, the coauthor of "A First Look at Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for Developers". Overall I have to say it was a great course.
My co-attendees were a pleasure to be with and provided a great cross slice of the development community. They were from around the US, form different companies all doing different things. They added a great deal to the class as they asked questions, made observations and had points of view that I didn't have.
Any training on a beta product is tough for the instructor, but Dan did a good job of handling with it. It's nice to attend a class given by someone who wrote the book on the subject. It would have been nice if Developmentor had thrown in a copy of the book though (which I made clear in the course eval).
5 solid days and we still were only able to cover about 1/4 of the new stuff in SQL2K5.... Man there's some cool stuff. It's going to drive DBA's insane. ;)
This was my 4th Developmentor course and I've been able to walk away with something usable from everyone. I wish they had a better location though. They are in a cookie-cutter industrial park in Torrance, CA. For me, that's a commute from hell (about 3 1/2 hours a day). It's actually geographically closer to my house than my work, but the freeways to get there just byte.
Developmentor is not cheap, but the investment in going to their courses always seems pay off...
"Very shortly, we will publish the Research Services Development Extras (RSDE) on our MSDN Office Developer Center (http://msdn.microsoft.com/office). I wanted to give you a heads-up on what's involved. If you have written your Research Service for Office 2003, you have noticed that there is a fair amount of XML work that could be encapsulated so as to eliminate busy work. In your Web service that communicates with Office, you need to volley back and forth with Office in XML streams that conform to the Research Service schemas. This work can get repetitive because it is predictable and straight-forward, and that makes it a good candidate for a wrapper. This wrapper is done, and it is in the RSDE download. We have also included a very cool trace utility that lets you intercept the XML converstation going on between Office and your Web service."
Cool...
There are also some links on this page related to Research Services development.
Research Services or IBF? Guess it depends on if you/your users need the document interactivity that IBF provides or if you just need to "look up" something while in Office...
MSF Agile preview is now available!
"MSF Agile is one of our new methodologies. These methodologies will be baked directly into the tool. By selecting one, you will change the way the source control, work item tracking, reporting, and many other tool features work. Of course, they are extensible and replaceable if you want to do something different."
Randy Miller's, the principle designer of MSF Agile, description for this framework.
"Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) Agile is a scenario-driven, context-based, agile software development process for building and improving .NET and other object-oriented applications. MSF Agile directly incorporates practices for handling quality of service requirements such as performance and security. It is also context-based and uses a context-driven approach to determine how to operate the project. This approach helps create an adaptive process that overcomes the boundary conditions (such as project size and system criticality) of most agile software development processes while achieving the objectives set out in the vision of the project.
MSF Agile is highly customizable, scalable, and will be fully integrated with Visual Studio 2005 Team System. The tooling and processes will work together to provide a more productive user experience than the process or tooling could provide alone. This is because both tooling and processes are built using the same meta-model. In other words, MSF harvests proven guidance from inside and outside of Microsoft and provides a seamless experience with Visual Studio 2005 Team System for process automation and guidance within the software development life cycle."
Sounds cool... Less reinventing the same wheel...
I can't get into the workspace yet (standard GotDotNet "Your request cannot be processed at this time" error when I try to sign in.), but when I can I plan on checking this out...
Update #1 8/28/2004 8:22AM PDT:
GotDotNet Workspaces are up again... The team was applying a performance upgrade, which by the way seems to be working great. The workspaces now seem to be much faster.
Downloaded the release. This first version is pretty much "informational," i.e some stuff to read... But since VS2K5 is still a while away, makes sense there's not much content yet.
Pretty cool information delivery though. A single XML document, a html document and a bunch of XSLT files to transform the XML doc.
So this is currently on a "watch on a scheduled process" monitoring.
Wish Warcry#28664
Sigh... I've been really looking forward to this game. I was in Beta 1 and it was very cool then...
Guess I'll just have to wait. (I hate waiting). sigh
I now have AdSense on my blog! Yeah!
:)
I saw yesterday that Blogger/Google was starting to push adding Google's AdSense to Blogger blogs... So I said, what the heck. Now all my happy readers can see AdSense Ad's for my content (I hope).
I'm sure this will bring in enough money so I can quit my day job...
LOL
Ok. Hey, it's free and kind of cool (in a sick way)? So I gave it a go.
Visual Studio Beta 1 Refresh with Team System announced
"Rick has announced on his blog that we've signed off on a new CTP of Visual Studio 2005. The exciting thing for me is that this is a refresh of Beta 1, but this time includes Team System!..."
Cool... So I guess this will be like Beta1.1...?
I wonder if this will jack up my SQL 2K5 install?
sigh... Time for a new VPC image. :)
Some links on interviewing at MS.
Not that I'm going to say I might need this kind of information soon, but you never know... ;)
"Part I -- What is it like to interview at Microsoft?
Part II -- Riding the recruiting shuttle
Part III -- Mock whiteboard session"
Update #1 8/25/2004 12:49 PDT:
Here's another MS info link.
"Interviewing at Microsoft" http://www.sellsbrothers.com/fun/msiview/
This is interesting... an IE toolbar creation service where you can create your own IE toolbar, all online.
Sounds cool and also sounds like a great way to get spyware installed :
But I've always wanted my own toolbar... sigh.
More to play with :)
Software maker exposes hidden data | CNET News.com
"Workshare, a specialist in collaboration software built around Microsoft Office applications, is aiming to alert businesses to the danger of hidden data lurking in their documents.
The company on Monday launched Metadatarisk.org, a Web site with information on the dangers posed by hidden metadata in documents. The site includes Metafind, a downloadable tool for automatically analyzing and exposing metadata in documents posted on a given Web site.
'There's up to 25 different types of hidden metadata that exists in Microsoft documents,' said Matthew Brown, Workshare product manager. 'And the more documents get passed around, the bigger the risk becomes.' "
Interesting and very related to my work...
Forwarding...
(via ActiveWin)
Rome: Total War demo - Reviews and free downloads at Download.com
I've been watching the History Channel show, Decisive Battles, where they use this game to enact historic battles.
I want to play with the demo and see if this is a Buy or not...
Update #1 8/28/2004 9:08 AM:
Downloaded and installed.
Wow. Pretty cool.
I think it's a "buy" just cause it's pretty cool. The demo has a tutorial and one battle. It's not Battlefield, but then again, it's not supposed to be. If you want to be a General, then this is a game to look at.
Am going to play it a couple more times before I buy, since my CFO (aka my wife) has me on a strict Game Budget...
Looking For the Best FTP Tool
Scott Water looking for the "best" ftp utility... In the comments section are a ton of links to different FTP utilities...
divil.co.uk - SandBar
"SandBar Overview
SandBar is a powerful, easy to use toolbar and menu library for Windows Forms on the .NET framework. It boasts a comprehensive range of features designed to give your applications a great looking interface while minimizing development costs. SandBar gives you toolbars, menubars and task panes that emulate the look of Office XP or Office 2003 and are fully configurable without having to write a single line of code...."
The license is interesting...
"SandBar for Free Software
If your software is free of charge and will generate no profit, and is available for download publicly over the internet, you can use this free version of SandBar - subject to my name being credited in your About dialog.
You must agree to the terms of the free software license before downloading the product."
I might be able to use this product in my personal project...
Managing SQL Server 2005 Express (SSX) Databases via a GUI
This is pretty timly... I'm in a Developmentor SQL2k5 class this week and SSX and it's lack of a GUI came up...
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