Most people have seen it at least once in their life. In my family, the picture below is referenced every year. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. -Mark Schmidt Oh and a extra special shout out to all the Schmidt's at Microsoft including the 3 other Mark Schmidt's (yes, there are 4 Mark Schmidt's here...

Some people have asked if they could take a look at the source for the WebCam Vista Sidebar gadget. After a little bit of cleaning up, I'm posting it now for you to take a look at. Here are some things worth mentioning: 1. Uses the DirectShow.NET library 2. I found some source in VB.NET and used...

*EDIT* Looks like the nhl.com scheduling page has changed thus breaking my importer. I'm working on a new version but no idea when it will be done. I've taken the link down. Ok, I redid the whole application (since I lost the source code) and added some new features as well. The previous application...

Someone asked "Why would I want a WebCam Sidebar Gadget to display my webcam in realtime"? Good question. Answer: So you are prepared when the maiger strikes again! It's Friday. What can I say.

Ok, I finally worked out most of the bugs (I hope). I'll post the link and follow up with some tutorials and Sidebar Gadget development using .NET. Here's the file...using the new SkyDrive Beta to host the file!!!

I had quite the breakthrough today. First off, I totally rewrote major portions of the .NET Sidebar Gadget Creator. It is now a wizard (photos below) that leads you through the steps to create a Vista Sidebar that uses .NET. Here are some of the changes (then I'll explain my breakthrough): You...

So you want to create a Vista Sidebar gadget and you want to use .NET to do so. While it is certainly possible, it does have a few hurtles to jump. 2 of the major hurdles include assembly registration and gadget uninstallation. Let me explain: First off, let me explain the typical setup of a gadget...

I found a screensaver that plays nicely with my Vista ScreenSaver Sidebar gadget. Just in time for the 4th of July! First, go get the ScreenSaver gadget and install it to your sidebar: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=e321409b-231a-4da0-905c-0580c732223e&bt=1&pl=1 Next, go...

Ok, I just ran a test with some new code that creates an .NETbased sidebar gadget and I was able to get the dll unloaded from the sidebar process so it can uninstall successfully! This is good news for all the people that can't seem to get around this issue (and there's a few of you). I'll get going...

It's a milestone. My ScreenSaver Vista Sidebar gadget has hit 20000 downloads. Some people have commented that it would be nice to double click it and have it launch the screensaver. The good news is, I have a version that does exactly that (can even lock your workstation should you choose). The bad...

For some reason, I'm drawn to creating things that are just cool while not altogether useful (see my Animated Activity Designer post, though one could argue that it may in fact be useful). To that end, I decided to create a Vista Sidebar gadget that displays a screen saver of your choosing. Vista has...

So I got bored a few nights ago and decided to see if I can do some stop motion animation using my wife's Nikon D70 and Windows Movie Maker. After I imported all the pictures I took of my kids (somewhere around 100) into Windows Movie Maker, I went into options and changed the default time to display...

Ok, first off let me say that I really really don't try to just create a blog entry that simply links to someone elses blog entry. Most of what I blog about comes straight out of my head and usually involves the use of an IDE and source code. However, the PostIt Board project created by Michael G. Emmons...

As I mentioned in my last post, I have uploaded the Animated Activity Designer for use in your own project. A common question I can anticipate being asked is "Why?". So, here's why I created it and my reason as to why you may want to use something like this. First off, the reason I wanted to try to...