Robert A. Wlodarczyk's Blog (MSFT) : Random Cool Stuff

It's been a long time...

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 18:19:00 GMT

Well, well... It's been a really long time since I've last blogged. Some might say I even fell off the face of the Earth. But fortunately for me, that didn't happen. This will probably sound pretty trite, but "I've been busy". Really busy. Busy with what you may ask... well...

At work we've been busy getting WinFx Beta 1, WinFx SDK Documentation Beta 1, and Windows Vista Beta 1 out the door. These can out last week and are available off MSDN (well, for WindowsVista Beta 1 you need to be an MSDN subscriber). I've been focused on heading the testing efforts for the Imaging components (System.Windows.Media.Imaging namespace, and WindowsCodecs.dll) and Media (as in audio and video) components. There's alot of cool stuff happening out there in both of these areas... which I plan to blog about in the coming weeks and months.

At home stuff has changed as well. At the end of last summer I met this wonderful girl, Lacey. She's the most wonderful girl that I've ever met. Though we wern't together for a long, when we visited New York City over Christmas last year I proposed to her underneath the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. We've been happily engaged and are now planning our wedding. Our current plans are for a wedding in Key West, FL on February 23, 2006.

So, stay tuned... alot fo fun and exciting articles and posts are coming by way of this blog...

More details on space plan

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 01:49:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I put up some posts about Bush's new space plan... Just following up more on this story, he outlined more of this plan today. Read about it here.

Bold Space Initiative

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 08 Jan 2004 06:06:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I posted an article about the possibility of new missions to the moon. Here's another article along the same lines.

Also, if you're interested in up-to-date images from the Mars Rover (Spirit), check out this page. Very cool stuff! I can't wait until they post more photos.

New Mission to the Moon

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 17:15:00 GMT

President Bush reportedly wants to send a mission to the moon to hopefully leave a more permanent presence there.

This is phenomenal! This is exactly what we need. A new generation of excitement for space exploration. I have been a long time proponent of exploring space and have always believed that having a station on the moon would help facilitate further exploration of space. Bravo George!

Time Travel?

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 04 Dec 2003 17:14:00 GMT

It may sound crazy, but is it really a possibility? According to Prof. Ronald Mallett at the University of Connecticut it is a possibility. He has a theory that's not that far fetched. For those inclined towards Physics, here's the paper. Here's an explanation for those not endowed with Physics knowledge.

Everett... no Everest tails

RWlodarczyk — Thu, 02 Oct 2003 04:08:00 GMT

Stephen Forte talks of his amazing experience at the top of the world. Dude, You ROCK!!! When you're out in Redmond, give me a shout.

Want to backup your XBOX?

RWlodarczyk — Mon, 29 Sep 2003 06:35:00 GMT

Here's a .NET project on SourceForge that will let you back up your XBOX to a remote location. Very cool! (SourceFroge Link)

Fry's eXPerience

RWlodarczyk — Sun, 31 Aug 2003 07:03:00 GMT

I apologize for the non-.NET post, but it's about Fry's... a geek's heaven.

Today I decided to see what all this fuss about Fry's is. I've heard and read many things about Fry's Electronics stores from countless people. To me, being a displaced New Yorker (and still a New Yorker in spirit) I felt that this Fry's thing was a bit over exaggerated and more of a West Coast “thing”. So, I figured that I should see first hand what Fry's is all about.

Let me prelude this post by saying that since I'm from New York, we like BIG things. Tall buildings, crowds... everything big! At least that's how I feel. Also, let me add this that the largest store on Long Island that I've been too must have been either of the few Costcos around Smithtown or Best Buy. So, fairly large stores, but I'm in for a surpirse...

Low and behold I get off I-405 and nearly immediately I saw the Fry's store. Mind you, this store is located in Renton next to one of the Boeing plants. So, there's alot of large buildings around. First impressions... Fry's fit in perfectly there! The store is massive. And the parking lot is even more massive. After quickly finding parking and walking to the entrance of the store, I entered into the store. My eyes lit up as if I was a kid walking into a candy shop. Man, this store was MASSIVE!!! I immediately thought to myself, this is like 2 or 3 Best Buys all in one huge store. Seriously, I'm not exaggerating here. There were tons and tons of people, and hundreds of employees suited up in their suits. I slowly made my way through the store and found that there is in fact a TON of stuff there. Motherboard, electronics components, computer components, stereos, TVs, books, games, DVDs, appliances, phones, office supplies, music... pretty much everything imaginable was there. Simply put, the store is INSANE and TOTALLY AWESOME!

They had some rpetty good deals there... I got the Godfather DVD box set for $30 (normally $60; and ~$60 on the web), an iron for $3 (one of the hundreds of sale items), and some cables. They ran out of the Component Video HDTV XBOX cable pack I was looking for, so I had to head over to Best Buy afterwards anyway, but still, it was an amazing experience. Heck, I may head over there tomorrow again just to see what other things I may “need”. :)

Oh and I forgot to mention, yes there's a restaurant in the middle of the store too, so if you get hungry while shopping you can eat.

Overall, YES Fry's lives up to everything that I've heard from those countless other people. Thank you!!!

UPDATE: I found this map of the Fry's in Renton (which is given to you when you enter the store).

Jedi Kid: Revisited

RWlodarczyk — Tue, 12 Aug 2003 04:17:00 GMT

Ok, a while ago Steve posted a link to the Jedi Kid. Tonight over dinner one of my friends, Chris, pointed out this site. It has 56 clones of the original movie. Plus, there's a petition that will put the kid in Episode III (and supposedly George Lucas has agreed to this too if some number of petitions are signed)! So, check it out. It's hilarious.

iPod Alternatives

RWlodarczyk — Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:15:00 GMT

I must admit, Apple got one thing right... the iPods. It's an elegant piece of technology, albiet a very simple one. However, apparently now there are other manufacturers who are coming out with similar looking devices. Michael W talks about some of these in his recent post.

First SmartPhone 2003 Devices Announced

RWlodarczyk — Sat, 09 Aug 2003 22:15:00 GMT

Oh, this is sweet!!! SmartPhone Thoughts talks about this company Dopod who announced the first SmartPhone 2003 device. Some good stuff with this phone. (Unfortunately I can not read Chinese, so the Dopod website makes no sense to me.)

SmartPhone Thoughts also talks about some of the cool things that you can do with SmartPhone 2003, like the embedded .NET CF :) This is also the topic of the latest MSDN TV.

Featured in the latest Null Pointer

RWlodarczyk — Mon, 04 Aug 2003 22:13:00 GMT

My friend Brian has an amazing talent for drawing. He has this cartoon he does, Null Pointer. In his most recent “issue” he featured me in there. Sorry Brian about the “battle damage”. I really didn't mean to hit you with that spikey ball...

Got my new TV

RWlodarczyk — Wed, 30 Jul 2003 19:07:00 GMT

In prepartion for my move to Redmond next week, I placed an order last week at PC Richard's for a new TV set. I'm not taking the clunky old rear projection TV that we've got here at home since my mom still needs a TV to watch. So I opted to buy a brand new Samsung 50“ DLP. The picture on this thing is the crispest that I've ever seen, definitely beating out any of the plasmas. This thing has both DVI in along with VGA in, and of course standard TV inputs as well. I can't wait to try out how my PC will look on this thing. If you want to read about how DLP works, visit this site.

Must.... resist.... temptation to open the boxes! (movers want them in the original boxes :( )

Awesome weekend!

RWlodarczyk — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 06:26:00 GMT

Ok, this post is a bit off topic... (woah, a whole weekend away from the computer!)

Today some of some of my friends ([of those who blog] Jon, Mike, Steph, Richie, Brian, Jen) et. al. threw me a going away/congratulations party for me accepting my job offer at Microsoft. I must say, this was totally cool! Completely unexpected and just very cool of them to do this. Big shout out and thank you to all of you (sorry for not mentioning everyone's name)!!

Next, I must thank my friend Justina (who's currently a law student at Yale Law) for an absolutely rockin gift! She's an absolutely phenomenal person, of which one of her hobbies is drawing and art. She gave me this awesome piece of art that she did by herself. Simply amazing!

Saturday my friends an I got to hang out at the beach and my pool. Friday night was also a great night since Jon, Mike, Steph and myself went to see their old high school band teacher play at Tequila Jacks on the Great South Bay. Great bar, great music, and great friends. What more can one want?

Overall, one of the best weekends of the summer!!

I am Neo

RWlodarczyk — Mon, 21 Jul 2003 02:41:00 GMT

You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.

What Matrix Persona Are You?
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