It seems like forever since I got eight hours of decent sleep. I love my kids, but it sure would be nice if they would sleep past 6am! My wife is on me for drinking too much pop -- she thinks 4 a day is too many (if only she knew it was more like 5 or 6!). I figure Diet Coke and Diet Mountain Dew can...

If you want to see what some of us VS Core and MSBuild folks look like in person, there's now a Channel 9 video of many of us. We each give a brief blurb on what we do. It's about 42min in length, so if you want to be able to skip around, here's how to download the (130MB) file to your machine: Go here...

Well, I got the game Pirates! for Christmas, and I have to say it’s one of the best games I’ve played in a long time. I was an addict of the original version back in the 80’s, and so I had high hopes for it. It doesn’t disappoint – it has many great components that make it a super game. Why can’t all...

MSBuild is one of the coolest technologies in Microsoft's Developer Division, and it also happens to be what I work on! We have a job opening for a Software Design Engineer, and are looking for world-class candidates. Here are some of the things we do on the MSBuild dev team: Love our customers Write...

I am so jazzed...I've been at Microsoft for 11 years, often prowling public places with my MSFT account, and yet until today I've never had an outside recruiter come after me. But, my drought is finally up. "Barbara" (do they use aliases, I wonder?) called and say she had an opportunity I'd be interested...

Jimmy Buffet: "...like a man just released from indenture" Supertramp: "...like a ship without an anchor...like a slave without a chain..." Frank N. Furter: "I'm going home" OK, it's not quite as extreme as the legendary Transylvanian's final trip home, but it sometimes feels that way (but with a happier...

I had a great time on Easter Island.  The pics are here .  I'm having trouble getting Easter Island out of my head -- more than any other place I've visited overseas, it calls me to return. Take care! -Chris

Greetings all -   We've been moved (not voluntarily, I might add) to this new blog server.  So far it looks like this a nicer system.  Hopefully my old content will get moved over soon so that this blog isn't split up.   Thanks for reading! Chris

Dear Readers -   Please be advised that my blog is moving to http://weblogs.asp.net/cflaat  (but I don't have any content there yet).  See you there soon. Chris  

Greetings, all!   My apologies again for doing such a bad job of keeping you up to date.   I have been absorbed with my duties as interim development manager for our team, and have not had much time to delve into the various technical things going on in the areas I’m still nominally dev...

Greetings all –   My apologies for being a bit out of touch for the last few weeks.   There have been several “fires” burning that I’ve had to deal with, plus a short vacation for my 10-year college reunion a couple weeks ago.   And now, my manager has been promoted to a...

So, I saw the movie Whale Rider this weekend, and I have to say it's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.  Reading a synopsis of the film you wouldn't think much of it, but it really grabs you.  The girl who plays the lead role does an amazing job, and the rest of the cast is...

Greetings, all!   It looks like the Europeans came to their senses and rejected American-style software patents.   See here for a ZDNet article on this.   There was a recent article in the Economist discussing the EU’s consideration of software patents, which got to the point much...

So, the July stats for the GotDotNet blog pages came out, and I actually showed up with a statistically significant number of hits!  I started my blog in late June, and I had so few hits in June that I didn't even show up in the June report (kind of demoralizing).  But for July I got over...

Greetings, all.  So...I was re-reading (well, actually re-skimming) Pete McBreen's book Software Craftsmanship , which I think has a lot of interesting observations. One of the things he calls for is a return to the practice of letting software teams insert their names into the product...

Greetings all!  It's a hot summer here in the Seattle area.  We went on a family getaway this last weekend and I got a chance to do some reading.  I finally got a chance to finish "Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing" by Jane Margolis & Allan Fisher.  This is a really...

So, someone here at MS who was more blog-savvy than me pointed out that I wasn't using categories, which is a real annoyance for those listening via RSS. I plan my comments here two basically fall into two categories.  Entries in the "VS tips" category will be tips on using Visual Studio...

There are generally two kinds of books.  Those that you read once and seldom return to, and those that you want to reread every few years.  (And if you're smart you'll get the ones in the first group from the library and only buy those in the second group!) A book that I reread every...

Not long ago I had a question about some accessories for my  telescope .  I called up Tele Vue , one of the premier makers of eyepieces and telescopes in the amateur astronomy market.  I told the lady who answered the phone that I had some questions, and she routed me to someone in...