Welcome to MSDN Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

October 2004 - Posts

Sunday, October 31, 2004 11:05 AM

BioDiesel Question

Does anyone out there have any experience or knowledge regarding the use of BioDiesel in a regular diesel engine? I am thinking of getting a diesel VW Bug (the TDI), but I want to run BioDiesel in it. I understand there is a Chevron in Bellevue that sells
Posted by bgroth | 5 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, October 28, 2004 10:25 PM

Skiing in Western WA

I saw snow in the hills yesterday, so for all you that are waiting for ski season, here's my favorite quick links. I am getting a little antsy waiting for the snow to get here, and for our puppy to get big enough to go play in the snow with me. 10 Essentials
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 3:45 PM

PhotoStory 3 is released for Windows XP customers

See http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx The previous version is great and I have been waiting for the new release ever since I saw an early copy a few weeks ago. I am downloading it now (was too excited
Posted by bgroth | 4 Comments
Filed under:
Tuesday, October 26, 2004 6:01 PM

Identity Management Challenges

We were presenting to, and discussing with, a customer at the MTC today about the benefits and challenges of identity management. This organization has a pretty complex environment (many environments really) and they know they need an IdentityManagement
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Monday, October 25, 2004 8:52 PM

Flight Simulator 2004 and the team behind it

The video of the Flight Simulator team is now on Channel 9 . It is 41 minutes and 20 seconds long, so it's got quite a bit of stuff in it, but it's more interesting than that rerun of Law & Order my wife is watching for the 5th time. :-) Here are
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Monday, October 25, 2004 9:05 AM

Request for a WMI script

I am looking for a quick way to toggle my 2nd monitor, preferably using WMI, but anything will do. I want to simply run the app/script and have it enable or disable my 2nd monitor. This is because I often walk into my office, plug my Tablet PC into my
Posted by bgroth | 3 Comments
Filed under:
Sunday, October 24, 2004 1:01 AM

Hey command-line junkies: Command Line Parser Updated

Are you writing your own command-line applications? Then you may be interested in this: From GotDotNet : “Parsing command line arguments to a console application is a common problem. This library handles the common task of reading arguments from
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Friday, October 22, 2004 5:22 PM

Hong Kong's use of Technology

A couple of friends, Rob & Becky Dickson, live in Hong Kong and Rob loads up his watch with credits so that when he rides the subway, he simply wands his watch near some sort of reader at the turnstile. I always though that was pretty cool as I would
Posted by bgroth | 2 Comments
Filed under:
Friday, October 22, 2004 9:49 AM

Very cool job opening

Joe Stagner and Jacob Cynamon just blogged about how cool it is to be an evangelist for Microsoft's products and technologies. See the official job details . If you're interested, see Heather's blog for some resume and other tips about getting hired.
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, October 21, 2004 10:45 PM

Call a Web Service from a Command-Line

For all you command-line freaks out there, I hope you know about Microsoft's scripting technologies. Hopefully you are also aware that web services is the hot new thing and is certainly a great way to architect solutions these days. So, combining those
Posted by bgroth | 2 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, October 21, 2004 10:07 PM

VoIP, WiFi, and SmartPhones

My wife and I just setup our new-world of communications: We just got our Vonage phone , which is Voice Over IP, connected to our cable modem and our Microsoft 802.11g WiFi router. We now no longer have a regular phone line. The connection is: Coax cable
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, October 21, 2004 12:00 AM

Electric-powered breaks 300mph

When I was at Western Washington University, I got to see one of their solar cars. They usually did pretty good in a variety of solar car races. This electric car from Ohio State University isn't solar powered, but since all solar cars are electric cars
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 11:50 PM

Time to eat healthy

I am now convinced that fast food is a really, really, bad thing. Sure, it tastes good, but two recent events have made me a rather concerned: Dan, my brother-in-law, told Lorie and me quite a bit about the book Fast Food Nation - we were afraid to read
Posted by bgroth | 5 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 10:49 AM

Environmental Education via Software

I just ran across the EELink site and had to share it with you. They have a huge list of educational software that is focused on environmental issues. <My Personal Soap Box> I'm not trying to endorse any of these products, but if you have kids,
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 9:55 AM

Visual Studio Express links

Some feedback from my last post asked for links to something other than just the .exe files. So, here you go: VB: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vbasic/default.aspx C#: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vcsharp/default.aspx C++: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/visualc/default.aspx
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 5:06 AM

Post-beta1 community tech previews of Visual Studio 2005 express editions now available!

Thanks to Aaron Stebner for pointing out the specific links to the latest builds of these amazing products: Visual Basic: http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/1/a/21a4b949-758c-4ff2-8381-1acb2a943bf9/vbsetup.exe Visual C++: http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/9/6/996fe06a-08fb-459b-a7c4-35640b4f7bf3/vcsetup.exe
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Tuesday, October 19, 2004 11:14 PM

Want a job at Microsoft?

Link to Heather's blog in your online resume. See http://blogs.msdn.com/HeatherLeigh/archive/2004/10/19/244845.aspx for info.
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Monday, October 18, 2004 6:58 PM

Demos You Can Download

I recently cruised through the microsoft.com site looking for demos of real world solutions that include some custom code and configuration. Here is what I found: IBuySpy Demos: IBuySpy Portal SQL CE: IBuySpy Delivery Application Design Speech Enabled
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Monday, October 18, 2004 5:47 PM

Pocket PC Robot - Walking.

This is awesome! I would love to see some sort of a kit created to let people extend their Pocket PC to be a robot’s brain. This comes via http://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2004/10/18/243996.aspx Joseph Wu has been busy working on his Pocket
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Sunday, October 17, 2004 6:36 PM

Command-Line tools and the Windows Clipboard

Matt Williams ' quest for a tool to extend the Windows Clipboard when working at the Command-Line seems to be over. To quote Matt: CLCL seems to be exactly what I was looking for. I tried Shell Toys XP and while it has a clipboard management tool, it
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Sunday, October 17, 2004 6:23 PM

PowerPoint Text to Speech, Part 2

I got some feedback from my PowerPoint TTS blog that a couple of people were having problems getting it to work. In an attempt to keep my readers happy, I wanted to make sure my code and insructions were correct. I verified my instructions, using Office
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Friday, October 15, 2004 9:50 PM

Not a normal Microsoft morning

This morning (Friday), I didn't get much sleep for a few reasons that might be sort of entertaining to hear about: At 3:30am, the puppy woke us up because she needed to go out At 6:00am, the bunny woke us up with some fast hipidy hop action around the
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, October 14, 2004 11:06 PM

My First VS2005 C# App: MSNBC Newspaper App

I finally got around to building my first app with Visual Studio 2005. And no, I am not the only Microsoftee who doesn't write code for a living. Thankfully Betsy Aoki just posted a good writeup about her first VB.NET programming class . I built what
Posted by bgroth | 3 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, October 14, 2004 1:14 PM

Windows Clipboard Tools

Yesterday I was helping a friend find a good way to extend the Windows clipboard , especially at the command line. I am happy to say that 5 people quickly responded with 4 different suggestions. These all look like great utilities too! However, nobody
Posted by bgroth | 5 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, October 14, 2004 11:08 AM

Solar Powered Jacket

In a recent post, I mentioned a solar powered backpack and I just got some feedback that those are now shipping , along with messenger bags and other stuff with solar panels in them. Today I ran across Solar SCOTTeVEST that has solar panels built into
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 13, 2004 1:46 PM

Sake and Sushi in Seattle

It's great to work at an international company! Two co-workers from the Microsoft Japan office are now working in Redmond for a year or two: Oba-san and Arai-san. Early this year, Oba-san treated Lorie (my wife) and I to some great sake in Tokyo : Hakkaisan
Posted by bgroth | 2 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 13, 2004 11:22 AM

Do you know of this command-line tool?

I have had the following request, which I don't know the answer to. So, can any of my faithful readers answer this? Do you know of any tools that let me push/pop the clipboard stack???? I can copy (ctrl-c) a bunch of things to a clipboard. Then using
Posted by bgroth | 7 Comments
Filed under:
Tuesday, October 12, 2004 3:29 PM

Digging into running processes and services via the command-line

Due to the comments in my blog entry about the RemoteRegistry process , I figured I would try to educate myself about it and share that learning with all of you. In my attempt to educate myself on the RemoteRegistry process, I am having fun with a variety
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Monday, October 11, 2004 4:26 PM

More about the WMI Command-Line (WMIC)

I thought I would do a few searches for WMIC, and I realized I am a bit behind the times. From July 24, 2002, we had a Microsoft Support “ WebCast titled WMIC: A New Approach to Managing Windows Infrastructure from a Command Line ” – quite a bit of Q&A
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Monday, October 11, 2004 10:14 AM

Advanced Command-line Tasks with WMIC

In an earlier post, I referenced the Command-line Nirvana article. Here is some quick information to help you get started with poking around the WMIC, when running as an Administrator: Start out by going to a command prompt (Start, Run, CMD) and enter:
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Saturday, October 09, 2004 12:13 PM

Flight Simulator 2004

Scoble has a couple of recent blogs about Flight Simulator 2004 that are pretty interesting: Their philosophy is “as real as it gets”, with an example of smoke curling off of the tires of a 747 when you land it (I have problems landing them). An update
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Friday, October 08, 2004 11:33 AM

My Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) Results

I thought of one more management related topic to share with you.... my own brain. Managers are often involved in training that helps them understand their employees better in an attempt to make a more productive workplace. One of the ways managers try
Posted by bgroth | 4 Comments
Thursday, October 07, 2004 8:35 PM

Summary of Brian Groth's Management Tips

I don't claim to be the worlds best or most experienced manager at Microsoft, but I do try to share what I have learned so others can have a positive and productive work environment. So what have I explained so far? Here is the list of Management Tips.
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Filed under:
Thursday, October 07, 2004 11:50 AM

Management Tip: Growing Skills and Driving Careers

My approach to self improvement is pretty simple: You and your employees need to keep improving your skills; otherwise you will be left behind. Here is how I approach the topic of figuring out what skills need to be improved in the current role. Ask yourself
Posted by bgroth | 3 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 06, 2004 4:08 PM

Management Tip: Motivating your Employees

How do you motivate people, especially if they work for you? I ran across this list regarding how to reward good work somewhere and have found it to be pretty acurate, although at Microsft, I think that "favorite work" one is probably higher on the list.
Posted by bgroth | 7 Comments
Filed under:
Wednesday, October 06, 2004 1:26 PM

Management Tip: Principals for Leadership

Today's tip is around the principals for leadership to help keep you focused on leading your team. 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
Posted by bgroth | 4 Comments
Filed under:
Tuesday, October 05, 2004 9:40 PM

Why run the RemoteRegistry Service?

In a recent post of mine, Uses for the TaskList Command Line app in Windows XP SP2 , someone (didn’t leave a name) sort of challenged me regarding why the RemoteRegistry service would be running on my desktop PC. Here is why, and what it is: Disabling
Posted by bgroth | 5 Comments
Filed under:
Tuesday, October 05, 2004 5:33 PM

Differences between SPS and WSS

What are the differences between SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services? Sure, they're both great products, but here are some very useful articles (thanks Shish!) that help explain the differences. Comparison of features of SPS &
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Filed under:
Tuesday, October 05, 2004 5:06 PM

Management Tip: Be Aware of What Is Behind Your Actions

Thanks to Dennis Grindberg for pointing out the Achieve model for change in a feedback for my Selling Your Vision tip. It looks interesting - I haven't heard of it before. Today's tip requires you to be aware of what is causing you to act in the way you
Posted by bgroth | 2 Comments
Filed under:
Tuesday, October 05, 2004 8:30 AM

Management Tip: Selling Your Vision

As a manager, you often have to get people excited in your plan, ideas, or goals. I call this "selling your vision", which means you have to sell your plan, ideas, or goals to "them". So you have to know what is in it for them. Here are my tips to keep
Posted by bgroth | 5 Comments
Tuesday, October 05, 2004 2:17 AM

Media Center Moves Out My TV

A great write-up about how seeing a Windows XP Media Center in someone’s living room is really all that’s needed to sell it (my experience anyway). I’ve witnessed the same reactions with my own neighbors as those explained below. This
Posted by bgroth | 0 Comments
Monday, October 04, 2004 6:49 PM

Management Tip: Negotiating and/or Meetings

Chances are, if you are a manager you are going to hold meetings and you’ll actually want something to happen because of those meetings. This could be the assignment of action items, negotiating something between two parties, both, or something else.
Posted by bgroth | 3 Comments
Monday, October 04, 2004 2:45 PM

Living with Virtual Server and Remote Desktop

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, my job involves building a very large demo. The way we build it is to use Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 , Remote Desktop , and often the Remote Desktops MMC snap-in . We use Virtual Server so we can have about 16
Posted by bgroth | 3 Comments
Sunday, October 03, 2004 3:52 PM

Developing for the Microsoft Smart Watch

Some fellow bloggers have recently pointed out that MSN Direct is looking for some creative developers to build applications for the Microsoft Smart Watch (the SPOT watch). Channel 9 even has a video about the SPOT watch . Thanks to mikehall for pointing
Posted by bgroth | 1 Comments
Saturday, October 02, 2004 7:44 PM

The C prompt – command line information

To some, the command-line (Start, Run, CMD) is a confusing place to be. To others, it’s the place to get stuff done quickly. Here are a few useful links for that second group, or if you’d like to be part of that group: Command-line reference for Windows
Posted by bgroth | 2 Comments
Friday, October 01, 2004 10:56 PM

Management Tip: Active Listening

Tip number 2 is about “active listening”, which can be useful in any interaction, but very useful as a manager. These tips are in order of how you should listen with the other person, who has some problem to solve, but should solve it themselves
Posted by bgroth | 6 Comments
Friday, October 01, 2004 2:45 PM

Management Tip: Giving Feedback

Over the years, I have compiled a handful of tips that I try to refer to as a manager, employee, and program manager (I'm a Group Program Manager). Today's topic is on giving feedback. Sorry (doomo sumimasen) if my notes are a bit criptic, but I think
Posted by bgroth | 4 Comments
 
Page view tracker