frankarr - an aussie microsoft blogger

I swallowed what?

frankarr — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:57:00 GMT

This is a pretty embarrassing story, but I feel I need to document it and help others avoid making the same mistake I did.

It all happened a few weeks back. I’m having lunch, talking with folks, and fiddling with a can of drink. You know what they say about idle hands. Well on this occasion *my* idle hands snapped the ring pull and it fell into the can. I didn’t really notice, and a little while later, I took a big gulp of my beverage.

Well, guess what - I swallowed the ring pull that had been floating in my drink.

I noticed that I had swallowed *something*, but it didn’t really register right away.

During the afternoon, I felt an irritation in my throat. But, I dismissed it.

By the end of the day, my wife was certain that this thing was STUCK in my throat.

Memories of Brice and his whistle still fresh in our minds, Ooops - he did it again, Whistle Update, & The Xray!! we set off for Overlake Hospital Medical Center.

Where we waited.

And waited.

After a few hours, I was taken the x-ray, and the search began!.

They didn’t find anything lodged in my throat.

Phew!

Then to be sure, they followed the path, as illustrated on the famous GI Metro t-shirt, which I happen to have.

Still no sign of the pesky little thing.

So, I was discharged from hospital with the diagnosis of “esophegeal abrasion”, told to take some pain killers and that it would “pass” in a few days.

Later I discovered the following from the Foreign Body Ingestions Answer Sheet

Aluminum, unlike most swallowed metallic foreign bodies we encounter, is poorly radiopaque. Small aluminum objects do not always show up on radiographs. Although swallowed objects may lead to persistent symptoms from esophageal abrasions, we cannot rule out a small aluminum esophageal foreign body here. Although a CT scan might show it, using a hand-held metal detector is a simple way to find aluminum foreign bodies, since they generate a strong signal

Yikes! Aluminum is poorly radiopaque -- Is that thing still in me??

Time will tell!

Technorati Tags: Frank Arrigo,Esophegeal Abrasion,Hospital

dix-huit ans aujourd'hui = 18 pounds!

frankarr — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:12:00 GMT

1991 was a big year for me.

I got married.

I bought a house.

My first child was born

AND

I joined Microsoft on May 20, 1991

Today marks my 18th year anniversary at Microsoft.

They say 18 is the age of maturity, and Wikipedia lists some great age 18 milestones! I wont list them here, but you can guess where I’m going….

One fact about 18 which I really love is that 18, aside from 0, is the only number that equals twice the sum of its decimal digits – cool huh?.

Today I am following in the Microsoft tradition which dictates that I bring in a pound of M&Ms for each year that I’ve been an employee.

Yes, that’s a lot of M&M’s!! (over 8KG for you metric folks)

As I have done for the past few years (17, 16. 15, 14, 13), time to reflect a bit on my time at Microsoft. Yes, I still love the job.

The resume hasn’t changed that much over the year, apart from a title adjustment

May 1991	Sep 1993	Microsoft Canberra, working as a Systems Engineer
Sep 1993	Aug 1994	Microsoft Corp, @ Executive Briefing Center
Aug 1994	Oct 1995	Microsoft Corp, in the Advanced Technology Group, working on Interactive TV
Nov 1995	May 1997	Microsoft Australia, MSN Technical Director
Jun 1997	Jun 1999	ninemsn CTO
Jun 1999	May 2001	Microsoft Region, Digital Media dude
May 2001	Aug 2007	Microsoft Australia, Developer & Platform Evangelism (DPE)
Aug 2007	Current	Microsoft Corp, Director – DPE Field Community & Readiness

I’m leading a team of great guys and we are focusing on helping the DPE folks around the world, who do the real work, day in and day out. I do miss the customer interaction bit, getting up on stage, doing the press interviews.

My guys are on twitter (as am I, @frankarr) so why not follow the exploits of @orco & @jldavid too !!

Ok, time to share those M&Ms

Technorati Tags: Frank Arrigo

Sydney May23rd - "Windows Presentation Foundation" Community Workshop and Bushfire Appeal

frankarr — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:46:58 GMT

My old team back in Australia continues to do *great* stuff.

One of the cool things they have been doing is the WPF Community Workshop and Bushfire Appeal.

A workshop will be held in Sydney on May 23rd, and it looks like there’s still space available.

Sounds like a wonderful opportunity to learn stuff and help a good cause by raising close to $23,000 for the Red Cross "Victorian Bushfire Appeal 2009".

Kudos to you, dglover!

Technorati Tags: Community,Sydney,WPF

Footy + IE8 makes a tasty webslice

frankarr — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:49:00 GMT

I love my footy. Anyone that knows me, knows this to be true.

One of the sites I go to all the time is FinalSiren, it’s lightweight and has the info I want to see.

This week, I was emailing the webmaster of the site and I suggested he add a webslice.

Hey, how about doing an ie8 webslice for the current results?????

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/03/06/activities-and-webslices-in-internet-explorer-8.aspx

To enable a WebSlice on your site, just add HTML annotations to your webpage. A WebSlice uses a combination of the hAtom Microformat and the WebSlice format.

<div class="hslice" id="Results">

<p class="entry-title"><h2>Round 2 Results</h2></p>

.......

</div>

The spec is here - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc304073(VS.85).aspx

it would be SOOOO cool ;)

Well a few days later he replied and let me know that he had done not just one, but two!!

Chris – love your work!

And if you want to do the same, check out these awesome screencasts by our favorite delicategenius

Screencast: IE8 WebSlices in 3 mniutes

Screencast: IE8 Accelerators in 3 minutes

Screencast: IE8 Visual Search Providers with suggestions in 3 minutes

Technorati Tags: IE8,webslice,AFL,FinalSiren

Celebrate Pi Day!

frankarr — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:29:09 GMT

I’ve been posting about Pi day for a while : Hey - It's Pi Day & Happy Pi Day

Now, everyone is getting into the act – even the US Congress had something to say about it

There is even the official Pi Day site.

All I can say, is that I like Pi and I have the tshirt to prove it

Technorati Tags: Pi,Pi Day

GP Blessed and Anointed!

frankarr — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:31:34 GMT

Coatsy wrote about Gianpaolo (or as we like to call him, GP) heading downunder back in December - The King is Dead! – Long Live the King!, as did GP himself Crikey... I am moving to Australia. There was even a press release, Gianpaolo Carraro takes up reins of Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism division

So, I had to laugh when I read this in the Australian IT section today

MICROSOFT has blessed Gianpaolo Carraro and anointed him as its new lead for the platform and developer evangelism group in Australia.

He will be engaging with Australian software developers and will also oversee Microsoft's industry development initiatives, which are designed to nurture innovation in Australia and help in the development and growth of the local IT sector. Carraro was previously a senior director of platform architecture at Microsoft's US headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

Blessed and anointed. LOL.

GP – All the best in your new job. The Aussie team is made up of a great bunch of hard working folks and the local Aussie software industry is full of super smart folks, which I am sure you will get to meet them all over time.

Just don’t stop the blogging!!!

Technorati Tags: Gianpaolo Carraro,DPE,Microsoft Australia

The One about the Snowmobile and the Collapsed Lung

frankarr — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:21:20 GMT

We went to Whistler, BC for a little winter Christmas getaway recently. The plan was to get up there Sunday Dec 21 and return home Friday Dec 26.

Whistler is a short drive from Seattle, so we headed off on a little road trip. We had been meaning to make the trip up I-5 for a while.

We had left behind a snowy Seattle which was experiencing it’s own Snowpocalypse.

In Whistler, we wanted to experience the whole winter wonderland thing, so the kids had ski lessons

and they even got to make gingerbread houses.

I wanted to get in on the fun, so we made plans to go out on a snowmobile tour, run by Outdoor Adventures.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

On the morning of December 24th, Emma, Billy and I headed down to the pickup point. It was to be a 2 hour round trip.

We were driving up to the starting point on a trail on Cougar Mountain, Whistler’s 3rd mountain, where we were introduced to the vehicles and given the instructions on how to drive.

Following the safety talk, we were off – there was even a photographer handy to capture these brave explorer.

After about 30 minutes driving along the trail, we stopped to rest. We had made it to the top of Cougar Mountain, so we took a moment to enjoy the lovely scene.

As we were getting ready to head back down the trail, our guide said that there had been a lot of snow overnight, and that the path was steep and slippery. He recommended we take it slow down the trail. Hand on the brake.

Then we started the descent.

Well. He wasn’t kidding.

I was coming down the mountain extra cautiously. So cautiously I got stuck in the snow. I gave my vehicle a bit of throttle to get moving again.

The next few minutes are a bit fuzzy – what I remember was that I overshot a tight left hand corner, and crashed into an embankment. I was then flung over the top of the snowmobile and *flew* into the trees. I landed with a thud on my left hand side, slid down a bit and was stopped by something which my right shoulder hit. The next thing I know I’m staring straight up into the sky and people are yelling at me not to move.

Let’s reference the official “Snowmobile Tour Incident Report” for what happened next.

As I was transported by toboggan to the Cougar Mountain Snowmobile Base, I felt every rock, every bump on that ride.

Once the ambulance got us to the Whistler Emergency Medical Clinic, there was a quick triage as the doctors poked and prodded me.

They discovered the pain in my chest was a Pneumothorax, or collapsed lung. That explains why it hurt so much when I tried to breath!

The medical team moved quickly and inserted a chest tube to deal with the most serious of my injuries, Everything else would have to wait.

Following the procedure, I was transferred to another hospital, located in the little town of Squamish, an hour from Whistler.

So, after another ambulance ride, I find myself in the Squamish General Hospital on Christmas Eve.

All night i was thinking that I was the father who ruined Christmas for his four children!

On Christmas Day, my family made the trip down the hill, and they were happy to see me.

My other injuries were just some bumps an bruises. No broken bones. No lacerations. No major damage

On Dec 28 the chest tube came out and 7 days later, I had the stitches removed.

I was in hospital all up from Dec 24 to Dec 29. Every day I would have a series of x-rays to check how my lungs were doing.

We made the trip back home on Dec 29. We had stayed a few days longer than we had planned and the kids were all looking forward to get back home.

While in hospital, I didn’t have access to the internet, but I could send SMS, so I sent a simple message to Twitter

This little message was also pushed to my facebook status and the number of comments I got from friends was staggering. Thank you all for kind thoughts and words.

So, here I am, a little under two weeks from the accident and I am starting to feel a bit better. It’s going to take time for the bruises to go away, and for the little pains to go, but I am thankful that I didn’t have more serious injuries. While in hospital I saw folks come in with broken arms, broken legs and spinal damage. And let’s not forget about those snowmobilers in Fernie B.C.

I got a few bumps and bruises. I’ll be ok.

Technorati Tags: Frank Arrigo,Snowmoibile,Accident,Whister,Collapsed Lung

Current Top XLV Search Keywords – What are people looking for when they come to my blog?

frankarr — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:10:00 GMT

It’s been a while since I looked at the keywords which bring people to my blog.

So what are people looking for when they stumble upon my blog

peter griffin
election day 2008
frank arrigo
new emoticons
silverlight tetris
all work and no fun
wpf rss reader
random facts about me
christmas tree vista gadget
mathletics
christmas tree sidebar gadget
frankarr
xmltv australia
best vista sidebar gadgets
silverlight games
open source erp .net
voodoo blogger
my elfamorphosis
there was movement at the station
tanjay phone
you shape it
feeling poorly
think way outside the box
c# erp
best vista gadgets
asli bilgin
christmas gadget vista
girls
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christmas tree sidebar
i'm a pc shirt
christmas vista gadgets
get my cricket
wow wikipedia
tetris silverlight
mathletics for kids
tetris in silverlight
date v6 gadget
pdc news
i'm a pc t-shirt
chumby upnp
lol cat
christmas sidebar gadgets
riot on
sidebar gadget natale

There’s a bit of Christmas theme going on – must be that time of year!

Technorati Tags: Frank Arrigo,Blogging,Keywords

NYT: The Extended Life of Monty Python

frankarr — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:58:00 GMT

Excerpt from New York Times Article:

The Extended Life of Monty Python
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/fashion/07python.html\

IS there life left in the dead parrot sketch?

It has been 25 years since Monty Python was a living comedy troupe — the film “The Meaning of Life,” released in 1983, was its swan song — but that has not stopped one alumnus from trying to convince the world that Python, like the parrot in its ancient skit, is just resting. For decades, Eric Idle has made sure the Monty Python name continues to grace books, DVDs, concert tours, a Broadway show, ring tones and video games.

Now he is helping take Monty Python to the Internet.

Pythonline.com, a social network and digital playground, offers clips of old material that people can use to make mash-ups, perhaps inserting their own pet in the killer-rabbit scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” The home page has a blog format with news about the surviving Pythons; elsewhere there are chat boards and e-mail forums. Membership is free.

MY COMMENT:

Monty Python was a key influence in my formative years. Good to see them keep on truckin’

http://pythonline.com/

To download the Times Reader, click here.

Technorati Tags: pythonline,monty python

Oxite was & is …

frankarr — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 22:46:57 GMT

Oxite was a plentiful ore that could be mined on the planet Oasis in the middle of The Maelstrom, according to Wookieepedia

Oxite is “an open source, standards compliant, and highly extensible content management platform that can run anything from blogs to big web sites.”

cool

Technorati Tags: Oxcite,VisitMix

Aggiorno – a Smart Search and Replace

frankarr — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:17:00 GMT

I got a note from my friend Gilbert, aka SAMIQ about a neat app called Aggiorno

Aggiorno automates a number of code improvement tasks that frankly should not be performed by humans. We all know that source is a nuance that we need to bear with because there are no better ways to deal with the behavior of the site. Modifying source code is error-prone and does not really add value to the web user; however it is necessary to change source code to improve a number of properties in your side.

What I really like about the tool, is how it understands HTML Markup, and how it integrates into Visual Studio.

But, if you don’t want to use VS, there is a Aggiorno Standalone Edition, as well as the free Aggiorno Express Transformations for Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, which automates the process of inserting the IE8 compatibility flag throughout a site.

It’s a cool useful tool which should help prepare sites for the release of IE8

Technorati Tags: Aggiorno,IE8

NYT: The Online Search Party: A Way to Share the Load

frankarr — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:18:57 GMT

Excerpt from New York Times Article:

The Online Search Party: A Way to Share the Load
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/business/23novelties.html

OPPORTUNITIES for social networking abound on the Internet, but not when it comes to one standard job: using a browser and search engine to comb the Web for information. That task is still typically done solo, because browser displays and search procedures have traditionally been designed for a single user.

Now tools are being developed by Microsoft and other companies that let people at different computers search as a team, dividing responsibilities and pooling results and recommendations in a shared Web space on the browser display as they plan a family vacation, for instance, or research a medical problem.

MY COMMENT:
Give it a try from Microsoft SearchTogether (Beta)

To download the Times Reader, click here.

Technorati Tags: SearchTogether

The One About Crocodile Wrestling

frankarr — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:44:04 GMT

We had a busy day on Thursday.

It’s time for the first round of Parent/Teacher Conferences and we had 3 of them on the same day at different locations!

As we met with each of Billy’s teachers, they asked us about Billy’s Crocodile Wrestling.

What?

Seems like our young fellow has been spinning a few yarns!

He was interviewed for an article in the local school newspaper and he let rip with a couple of doozies!

The ultimate Rugby player, the future star member of the Wallabies (the Australian Rugby Union): Billy Arrigo has joined The Bear Creek School.

Arrigo came to Kirkland last year and attended Kirkland Jr. High. He plays with the Axe Men in Marymoor, demonstrating what it means to be a master rugby player by showing amazing skills and impressing his coach, quickly becoming a very trusted member of the team. In his previous school, Knox, back in Sydney, Billy’s team was undefeated for the two years he was in the team.

Rugby is an odd sport, unpopular in the U.S., something only few countries in the world favor. However, something even more strange and unique to Australia is crocodile wrestling. Arrigo did just that. Back in his home town Sydney, he placed first in the Sydney 18 and under Crocodile Wrestling Tournament.

Picking up rowing this past summer, he wanted to keep in shape during the rugby off season. Arrigo rows 6 km (3.73 miles) daily. After school, he can be found in the pickup area wearing his Chinook rowing shirt saying, “I better get rowing now!”

LOL! Nice one Bill. You’ve been found out!

Technorati Tags: Billy Arrigo,TBCS,Crocodile Wrestling

XLV for me!

frankarr — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:25:31 GMT

I’m celebrating another birthday today.

It happens every year, around this time.

I’ve been overwhelmed by all the best wishes from my friends via email, twitter, facebook – however folks can get in touch, they have. Makes me feel all warm inside. Thank you to all who left me a note – I will get back to each and everyone of you!

So, some trivia about my age: 3x3x5, XLV, half way to a right angle, the atomic number of rhodium, not to mention a triangular number, a hexagonal and 16-gonal number, a Kaprekar number, a Harshad number and a Størmer number.

I also happen to share a birthday with Ted Stevens, Brenda Vaccaro, Linda Evans, Graham Parker, Kevin Nealon, Oscar Nunez, Elizabeth Perkins, Kim Wilde, Owen Wilson, and Merrick Watts just to name a few.

What else happened on this day? : Wikipedia – NYTimes - BBC

Anyways, time for "Brimful of Asha" by Cornershop

Technorati Tags: Frank Arrigo,XLV

Sobees – so WPFee!

frankarr — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:45:29 GMT

At the PDC, I met up with Vincent Rithner, who is the man behind Sobees. I wrote a post about bTwitter, which was another neat WPF app from the team. Now the full platform is done!

So what is Sobees?

It’s a social desktop aggregator. sobees organizes and integrates Web applications and services onto the desktop and offers an easy user experience to you and your social network.

With sobees, you can easily share photos, news and videos with your friends, you keep track of your friends, follow the Elections or any other topic which interests you, search web and more

It has just been recently released in beta and has had some good coverage

I’ve just gotten around to installing it, and I will give it a test run this weekend

First impression is that it is a slick WPF app.

Behind the scenes, it is 100% WPF 3.5 sp1, the server DB is SQL2008 and they are using LinqToEnties for both SQLCe and SQL2008 to manage the data, and they using FileStreaming of SQL2008 to manage the update of both platform and modules. I hope we will find out more behind the scenes info from the Sobees Blog,

Technorati Tags: WPF,Sobees