Virtual Varia : Random Seed

Fine. I’ll do the Twitter thing.

mikekol — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:31:05 GMT

I have to admit, I really don’t quite get Twitter.

My first experience with it probably wasn’t the best one.

It was with Twinkle on my iPhone, which – if you don’t know – will not only show you the people you’re following, but will also show you tweets from people who are around you. I live in downtown Seattle – the tweets I was seeing weren’t exactly what I would call… “interesting.” It was like a Seinfeld episode, but with younger people and more swearing - lots of teenagers with lots to say, but with nothing to talk about. :)

But, I’m willing to give this whole Twitter thing a shot, in the context of a work-related experiment. I’m not good at blogging very frequently, as you may have noticed. I usually have something to say, but not something substantial enough to warrant a whole blog post. Maybe Twitter’s “Micro-blogging” concept is the right thing for me to do. We’ll see, I guess.

So, if you’re up for experimenting with me:

(Thanks to Thoburn Design & Illustration for the free Twitter icons!)

All work and no play makes Mikey … ‘SPLODE!!!

mikekol — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:14:54 GMT

I’m between video games right now, so I thought that I’d take a look at what’s available in the Xbox Live Arcade. There was one game that caught my eye, simply because of the name. As you may have guessed from the title of this post, that game is ‘Splosion Man.

Ladies and gentlemen – let me be clear: If you have not yet played this game, stop doing whatever you’re doing and go play the demo. All the way through. I’ll wait.

Done yet? Ok, now buy the game and play the rest of it. Seriously.

This is one of the best games I’ve played in the last 5 years – and I’m completely serious about that. For me, this game is right up there with Portal, with the wonderfully odd plot and the amazingly quirky music.

What a fantastic game!

How To: Install Ubuntu 9.04 in a Hyper-V VM

mikekol — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:17:00 GMT

The webbernetz are abuzz with news that a new version of Ubuntu has been released today. As such, I figured that I should post instructions on how to get it going under Hyper-V.

Now, I know that these steps are pretty complex, so I'll try to use as much detail as I can when writing them out.

Step 1. Download the ISO for Ubuntu.
Step 2. Create a VM and attach the ISO to it. Use a Legacy Network Adapter if you need network access.
Step 3. Turn the VM on.
Step 4. Follow the on-screen instructions.

That's it. It works right "out of the box", so to speak.

Enjoy!

Some awesome Windows 7 tricks

mikekol — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:23:44 GMT

Tim Sneath posted this last night, and I wanted to share it with all of you Windows 7 users out there.

Now, I’ve been using Windows 7 throughout the entire development process (since just after Vista RTM), and after reading through this list I actually came across some features that I didn’t know about previously.

I think my favorite features from that list are:

Who Stole My Browser?
Being able see what plugins might be causing my browser to behave like a pouting three-year-old is fantastic. It’s easy to do over the phone, and – this is the part I like the best – it’s easy to teach.
Installing from a USB Memory Stick
I just got an HP Mini 1000 netbook, and it runs 7 so amazingly smoothly. I’ve been installing it by using PXE boot from the Microsoft corporate network, but being able to install 7 from a USB key is equally as handy (especially since it would allow me to make customizations to the image before applying it. (You know how much I love the Windows AIK, right? There’s a new one specifically for Windows 7 over here.)
Command Junkies Only
I admit it. I’m addicted to the command-line. It’s faster for me to type a command than do something in the GUI, especially with Powershell (got v2 CTP3 yet?) Being able to open a command prompt from any arbitrary window is an amazing time-saver.

What are your favorite Windows 7 tricks?

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Something Different: SmallBASIC and the triumphant return of the Turtle

mikekol — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:21:45 GMT

This has nothing to do with Virtualization, but it’s something that I think is really very cool so I’m going to write about it. Sorry for the long and rambling post, but I’m getting all nostalgic thinking of this stuff, so I’m just going to gush for a little while.

When I think back to the first program I ever wrote, I usually think of something ridiculously lame that I hammered out on my dad’s old 286 when I was in middle school. I used to skip class every now and then and go to the library to read programming books. (OK, that’s not entirely accurate. I lived in a small town, and the only library that had programming books – actually, book - was the school library, so it wasn’t like I was going far, and my teachers knew where I was.)

Anyway, the book was on BASIC, specifically a language called VB-DOS, which the school owned a copy of. Needless to say, I didn’t, so I had to learn with QBasic. I would copy down the sample programs in the book into my notepad (the paper kind…), and then type them up when I came home and make minor changes to see what would happen.

The thing is, though, I’m wrong.

That wasn’t the first program I wrote. I wrote programs much, much earlier on in my life than that, but I didn’t know I was writing a program.

I’m referring to something that I wish was part of more peoples’ childhood – LOGO writer. When I was in elementary school, my mother enrolled me in summer school so I would ~~be out of her hair for a while~~ learn new things, even during the summer. One of the classes was about computers, and featured a section on LOGO writer, and the beloved turtle (which looked like a triangle, not a turtle). It was the first time that I ever gave the computer set of commands and the computer did as it was told.

Years later, I found out about Lego LOGO at school, and built some really interesting, albeit useless programs around that (which is an entirely different blog post).

The point I’m trying to get to, though, is that happy days are here again for all those little programmers-to-be out there. Microsoft DevLabs has released a small programming environment called SmallBASIC, which is, in my opinion, a fantastic tool for people who are just learning how to program no matter what their age.

SmallBASIC is just that – a very small, very limited BASIC interpreter that allows you to have access to certain objects on the system and manipulate them. It even includes a Turtle object for drawing on the screen LOGO-style.

This is a great beginner’s tool, and a fun little toy for more experienced programmers to play around with when they feel like being all nostalgic and gushing about something.

(The SmallBASIC blog is located here, and includes some neat code samples for SmallBASIC, as well as information on how to extend the SmallBASIC environment.)