Hirlpoo West

This neat trick came across on an internal alias. I hadn't seen this before, but I'm guessing it isn't new. Pretty handy for notetaking (if you're a plain text sort of guy/gal). Open a blank Notepad file Write .LOG (in uppercase) in the first...

A fascinating and intellectual take on why we (especially Americans) are fat in Harvard Magazine . I’ve been following a low carb regime for over a year now, and am 50lbs lighter because of it. I have several collogues who have had similar benefits...

Having explained this to a number of people in as many days, I thought I'd share this tip for working with long paths on the command line. The easist way to expalin this is to jump in feet first: Open a command line ( <Windows Key> -R, CMD...

I’m moving from Madison to Milwaukee later this month and will be taking the opportunity to switch mobile carriers. I currently have Sprint PCS, but when I was at the new house for the inspection I noticed I got no signal. I’m really leaning...

Has anyone looked into installing a cellular repeater before? Either in your house or building? I'm interested in what the experience was like and if there are amplifiers I should stay away from as there seems to be a huge void between the low end units...

Oh yeah, I’m taking the plunge on a repeater. I ordered a Digital Antenna DA4000SBR dual-band repeater from Concord Marine Electronics . Turns out these things are popular on yachts (get a directional antenna and point it at shore and extend coverage...

A while back I had a customer complain that their web form application broke when they migrated from v1.0 to v1.1 of the .NET Framework. Turns out they utilized HttpServerUtility::Transfer (or more commonly in a Page class, Server.Transfer) and had some...

So I've been spending my free time hacking around my new Windows Powered Smartphone, a Samsung SCH-i600 from Verizon Wireless. I have to say I am slightly impressed, but after using a Windows Mobile 2003 device for 9 months, the Smartphone 2002 OS definitely...

I was an avid Quicken devotee going all the way back to the old DOS version, but in an effort to be a "company man" I switched to MS Money when I joined Microsoft (which is going on 4 1/2 years now). Say what you want about MS Money 2005, I haven't experienced...

As I've mentioned earlier, I've traded my Samsung SPH-i600 Smartphone for the hot new Audiovox SMT5600 from AT&T Wireless Cingular. A co-worker of mine was determined to disable the animated caller-id application and finally determined how to take...

So it’s been a month or so since installing the repeater and the initial glow has worn off. I pretty much cannot get a Verizon signal through it – but it makes my brother-in-law’s T-Mobile phone rock solid – he never has less than...

I’m sure this isn’t new to everyone, but someone internally passed on these instructions for viewing all of the devices installed on your machine. Normally only connected devices show up in device manager, but this little trick will show every thing,...

I got a kick out of this call to ban one of the most prevalent chemicals on the planet. Obviously someone’s tongue is firmly in their cheek

I got an ad from Time Warner Cable in my road runner account asking me to switch to their phone service for "as low as $39.95 a month!" Given Vonage is around a sawbuck cheaper adn Lingo is half of that price, I though it should read "as low as twice...

Dare posted on this last week , but I got my second email today where someone was "super excited" to be doing something and almost screamed. We really need to remove this from the venacular. It has gotten to the point that I honestly tune out after...

One of my customers ran into an interesting issue when upgrading their developer workstations to Windows XP SP2 - they stopped being able to debug ASP.NET applications running on the local IIS5.1 webserver. They went through the standard steps of ensuring...

Since I'm busting hump to try get get all the work done that I need to before the extended weekend (which I super-sized by taking vacation Friday and Tuesday), I need to keep this short, but given about 30 minutes of scouring newgroups turned this up...

I realized I'd left my phone in my car, so I took a quick jaunt out there to go grab it, and this was parked in the lot (no its not mine): I'd only seen one of these on some high concept Ford commercial (as in, "look we have wicked looking cars...

Via Scoble , a humorous look at 2004 from 50 years ago: http://manalang.com/archives/2004/09/19/the-home-computer-of-2004/ I love the dual steering wheel thingie – I wonder if that is one of the technologies “not yet invented” That picture make me remember...

In exchanging emails with friends and colleagues lately I’m getting more and more NDR’s that bounce back with some message that says “We do not accept spam”. I knew one such company was small enough that my friend would know the...

Well, after talking with a few folks, my Verizon Smartphone is on its way to my house. I haven’t moved yet, but if I wanted to expense any of the phone cost, it had to be done this year. The main driver of my decision was that I’ve never...

I get at least one email a month where I know my name gets on the To or Cc line because of bad Outlook auto complete, so it is worth it for me to pass this on.

Here I am trying to wrap my head around threading models, and some blog goodness drops into my RSS inbox (thanks: The Old New Thing): What are these "Threading Models" and why do I care? (from Larry Osterman) SimpleScript Part Six: Threading Technicalities...

There has been a recent discussion internally amongst the ADC’s in my region* about threading and WinForms. I originally cut my teeth in Windows programming by writing a multi-threaded NT Service that ran on a Alpha based Windows NT 3.51 system...

I’ve always enjoyed Pat Helland’s explanations of architectural concepts. He recently put out a new article on MSDN likening the rise in IT technology to the rise of commerce in the 19 th and 20 th centuries. A great read to put things in...