simon.says : Technology

Hitting the WPF Curve (a.k.a. Falling off the WPF Cliff)

smguest — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 02:02:00 GMT

Learning WPF can be hard. Even if you have experience with Windows Forms or SWING, many concepts in WPF/XAML are very different and require a total brainwash before you can even put a button on a form. In his blog, Karsten calls this the WPF Curve and offers several resources to help.

Being on a mission to get more familiar with WPF (if for nothing else, to avoid handwaving in my UX presentations :-)), I wanted to offer this post as one of the many resources to help get you started. This is what you may learn in today’s installment:

Environment

Getting your environment right before you start following any of the code samples is critical. If you are not using a Beta version of Vista, you’ll need to install either the June or July CTP of the WinFX runtime. Fortunately, testing whether everything is installed OK is relatively easy. Simply use notepad to create a test.xaml file with the following:

<TextBlock>Everything is working!</TextBlock>

</DockPanel>

Save the file, then click on it from Windows Explorer. If you see the text “Everything is working!” you (should) have the right foundations to begin.

Which IDE?

After the runtime is installed correctly, I recommend considering what IDE you are going to use to create WPF applications. Options include:

Notepad (or other text editors) – for the diehards out there that can live without Intellisense.

Visual Studio.NET with Cider preview installed – for the VS.NET junkies that can’t live without Intellisense.

Expression Interactive Designer CTP – for the photoshop inspired bunch.

Personally, I use a mix of all three. Notepad is great just for copying/pasting code snippets that you want to test, but difficult to bind events to, or do anything advanced with. Cider is good for providing Intellisense support for XAML files in VS.NET, but don’t expect full designer support today. EID is good for drawing a shape and then examining the underlying XAML to see how it was done. It can be a little verbose, but it works well for “how do I draw a circle?” type questions.

You may have heard of XAMLPad (a utility that ships with the Windows SDK). Again, it’s a good editor for trying sample code out – saves ALT-TABing between Notepad and Explorer, but I find it difficult to manage multiple XAML files and code behind scenarios.

My First Project

After getting your IDE choice setup, I recommend creating a blank application as a reference point. This is something that you can always fall back on in time of need. After a few attempts, I created a blank project in Visual Studio 2005 by choosing File -> New Project -> WinFX Windows Application.

After you do this you may see this error:

Error 1 Could create an instance of type 'Window'. C:\Users\sguest\Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\BlankProject\BlankProject\Window1.xaml 1 1 BlankProject

…but if you compile it goes away (a Cider-related bug I believe).

You now have your first project up and running – now what? I recommend the following sequence for starting out learning new controls in WPF:

Panels

Start with Panels. Learn about the StackPanel, DockPanel etc – add a few pieces of text and change the orientation around. Add a couple of buttons for good measure (although they won’t do anything yet). This will give you a good overview of layout in WPF and you’ll have an appreciation where and how objects are displayed on the screen.

<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal" DockPanel.Dock="Top"

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"

xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"

Name="StackPanel1"

</StackPanel>

Multiple XAML Pages

After you master the panels, check out the Hyperlink control. The demos in the SDK documentation show how to use it to navigate between multiple XAML pages, which is really useful.

<Hyperlink NavigateUri="Window2.xaml">Go to Window 2</Hyperlink>

Events

Once you have some mastery of placing stuff in a window, I recommend learning how to bind events. The easiest way to do this is to create a button that changes its own title. Start with a button, and add a Click element that points to a function in your code behind file (you’ll have to add the function manually).

<Button HorizontalAlignment="Left"

Width="100" Height="25"

Margin="10,10,10,10"

Click = "b1Click"

Name ="Button1">Click Me Please</Button>

…

public void b1Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

{

this.Button1.Content = "You clicked me!";

}

This is an easy way to explore events – and will give the opportunity to see how you can modify objects defined in your XAML file from code behind. Use Intellisense to dig into the options available.

Styles and Triggers

After getting an event working, you’ll next want to investigate styles. A style enables you to control the look and feel of multiple controls in your application. For example, you can create a “MyButton” style which sets the background of each button to red. When you define a button, you can then set the style as appropriate. Of course, the advantage of this is that you can change the style once and effect multiple controls in your application.

<StackPanel.Resources>

</Style>

</StackPanel.Resources>

…

<Button HorizontalAlignment="Left"

Width="100" Height="25"

Margin="10,10,10,10"

Style ="{StaticResource MyButtonStyle}">Button 2</Button>

After getting the hang of Styles, look into Triggers. These are a subcomponent of Styles, and allow events to be fired based on a style. For example, changing the style of a control when you hover over it with the mouse.

<StackPanel.Resources>

<Style.Triggers>

</Trigger>

</Style.Triggers>

</Style>

</StackPanel.Resources>

Where are we?

Hopefully that’s enough to give you a taste of using some of the simple controls in WPF…

I’m off getting my head around 2D elements in WPF (a.k.a. Argh… All I want to do is to draw a line!) and will be back with news. Wish me luck...

SPARK UX 1 - 3 Oct, Half Moon Bay, CA

smguest — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:02:00 GMT

SPARK UX

the two faces of design

A FORUM TO EXPLORE THE INTERSECTION OF ARCHITECTURE AND EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Too often today, software products and interactive experiences fall short of their potential because the user experience does not serve the interests of its users. The engineering side of software architecture often fails to consider the full implications of its design, leading to interfaces that are non-intuitive, and experiences that compromise the product and threaten the success of the business.

To help address this, my team is inviting industry leaders and luminaries in this area for a think-tank meeting called SPARK UX. SPARK UX will examine the issues behind this problem to inspire a new framework for bringing the “art of user experience” into the process of software architecture. The event will bring together a diverse collection of architects, engineers, designers and analysts to define what user experience means for software architects, and provide guidance to all practitioners for improving both the process and end results.

The mission of SPARK UX is quite simple: to empower software architects to improve the user experience of products everywhere.

Together, we will help software architects think about user experience, define how software architects can employ UX in their software development lifecycle, and reveal how product managers can value UX as an integral part of the development process.

SPARK UX will be held at The Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, CA (south of San Francisco) Oct. 2-3, 2006. If you know of someone that should be there (or if you think you should be there!), let me know by using the contact form on this blog.

Launching Applications in Vista 5472

smguest — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 18:54:00 GMT

Scott has a great post about replacing “start/run” to launch applications quickly – I’ve used a number of the tools he lists in the past to find optimal ways of launching applications. One of the options he does miss however is the new start menu in Vista, which now contains a field for entering search or command line requests.

This new field (at the bottom left of the menu) gives me a few interesting ways of getting stuff done quickly:

· As with the previous MSN Desktop search, I can search for things on my desktop or on the web by just typing in the box and launch applications on the path by just typing their name (e.g. notepad).

· I can find and launch applications on my start menu by typing in a portion of the name. For example, instead of going Start -> Programs -> Microsoft Office -> Microsoft Word, I can type in “word” [enter]. I use “studio” for VS.NET etc.

· This also works for favorites – for example, I have a favorite saved as “owa” (for Outlook Web Access). I type owa [enter] and the URL is launched. I use foldershare to synchronize my favorites folder between machines, which works really well.

· I can shutdown/hibernate/standby the machine by [Windows Key] [right arrow x 3 times] and selecting the appropriate option (e.g. H to hibernate).

I’m still looking for a good way to do macros with this approach (for example, [amaz lord of the rings] or [quote MSFT]), but so far I’m finding this a very useful feature.

Windows Vista 5472 - First Impressions

smguest — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 17:57:00 GMT

I took the leap yesterday and installed Vista (5472) and Office 12 (4228) on my main machine (a Toshiba Tecra M4 Tablet). Although it's still been less than 24 hours, I've been very impressed so far. Both builds seem very stable and already I'm seeing some gains over my old setup.

My initial impressions:

Installaton - I used WDS (Windows Deployment Services) to install the build, which worked really well (although a rogue Thinkpad driver crept into the build and needed to be disabled shortly after installation). Windows Update in 5472 is good, although a little "hidden" for my liking. It took me a couple of minutes to dig through the control panel to find it in order to get the drivers for my machine.

Display - The Tecra M4 comes with an NVidia 6200 graphics card (128M) – after finding the right driver online, the machine now has a 3.0 performance rating, and Aero glass works really well.

Gadgets - I'll admit, I was a little skeptical when I first heard about Gadgets in Vista, but I think they are going to be cool. I'm not one for displaying clocks, slideshows, or other such things on my desktop, so I quickly turned off the default selection - but I think custom-built, RSS "powered" gadgets will be very useful (and popular) once they start to appear. My favorite out of the default set today is the CPU load gadget. Much more entertaining than keeping taskmgr minimized in the system tray.

Tablet - I still need to work out the automatic rotate feature on the Tecra. Screen orientation is supported in this build, but detection of "going into tablet mode" looks to be a feature of the Toshiba driver set that isn't there yet. I believe there is a tool called iRotate that may provide this functionality until Toshiba release a new driver set.

Performance - I've been pleasantly surprised that the performance of this build is actually better than my old Windows XP setup. Ok, my old XP setup was in desperate need of a rebuild, but even so... Standby and Hibernate seem to be working well in 5472 on the Tecra - although I did see one glitch this morning (I think it had to do with a 2nd hard disk I was trying to plug in at the same time).

Security - When I played around with an earlier build of Vista (on a VPC) I thought I would get annoyed at the constant "do you want to allow this?" dialog boxes as part of Vista LUA. Having gone through many of these while installing stuff yesterday (even logged in as admin on the machine), they require extra time, but after a while I found myself left with a good feeling that I'd quickly know if something rogue was being installed. In a strange way, I'm actually becoming a fan of this feature...

Breadcrumb Navigation - Many explorer windows now support a "breadcrumb" navigation where you can quick navigate using "breadcrumbs", but then select all the breadcrumbs and copy the physical path - very cool.

Launching Programs - On XP, I used to run (and love) SlickRun to launch programs. The Start Menu has a way of quickly searching for things, but I don't know whether it's possible to customize it with a set of shortcuts (which I really need) – it looks like I may be able to use “pinned” menus on the start menu providing I can make them work with parameters.

Handwriting Support - Really works well - much better than XP from what I've seen.

Other Apps - I've still lots to install, but no incompatibilities yet. Foldershare is working well (and currently updating my libraries as I write this).

That's it for now - as I said, just the first impressions after a few hours of use. I'm sure I'll have more to say as I start loading all my applications...

*** Updated video driver section - found updated driver (see comments) ***

Implementing Getting Things Done using Outlook 2007

smguest — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 00:14:00 GMT

Last week, I made the switch from Office 2003 to Office 2007 Beta 2. Prior to the upgrade I was organizing my “stuff to do” using David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology and using the NetCentrics GTD Add In for Outlook. Unfortunately, as I discovered after the upgrade was complete, the NetCentrics GTD Add In is not yet compatible with Outlook 2007. They have plans to release an upgrade, but closer to RTM.

My Requirements

Not wanting to revert back to Outlook 2003, yet still wanting to implement GTD style functions in Outlook, I wanted to see whether I could implement a system that takes advantage of some of the new features in Outlook 2007 (such as the improved categorization for items) without requiring any custom Add-Ins for Outlook.

To start, I drew up a list of ten requirements I needed for implementing GTD using Outlook:

1. File Email. I want to set a project (e.g. TechEd) for an Email and then file it to a searchable folder.

2. Create Task from Email. I want to set a project and action for an Email (e.g. TechEd, @Office) and then convert the Email to a task item.

3. Filter Filed Email and Tasks. I want to filter my filed emails and tasks, both on project and action as applicable.

4. Create Waiting For Tasks. I want to create a “Waiting For” task when I send or reply to an Email that delegates an action to someone else.

5. Create Tasks from Any Machine. I want a quick way of assigning new tasks from any machine, and ideally any Email account. (For example, sending myself a task from my Pocket PC Phone when I’m on the road)

6. Sync with PDA. I want all my tasks to synchronize with my Pocket PC – and with the ability to filter on both project and action.

7. Works with the Command Line. I want to implement a system that also supports my command line add-in from an earlier post.

8. Supports Keyboard Shortcuts. I want to use keyboard shortcuts for everything above. I need a rapid fire way of going through my Email box without using the mouse.

9. Leverages New Features in Outlook 2007. I’d like to leverage the new features of Outlook 2007 (e.g. the ToDo bar) if possible.

10. No Add Ins. I want to avoid a COM Add In, although rules and VBA macros are OK.

Phew!

I spent a few days after the upgrade thinking about the above list and looking at the best ways of implementing this using Office 2007. I checked out other add-ins (Omar turned me on to ClearContext – I actually really like this add-in, although the current version doesn’t have great support for exposing topics (projects) through tasks. They use their own topic category system which was incompatible with #6 and #7. I’m looking forward to the next version, which is supposed to fix this).

The Approach

Here’s my approach:

1. First, I store tasks in Outlook 2007 as “tasks”. I did contemplate keeping a folder of “tasks” using mail messages only – after all, 99% of my tasks seem to come from Email – but decided against it as I wanted the tasks to appear in the new Todo list in Outlook (Requirement #9), and creating a new mail and saving it to a folder is hard.

2. I use a single task folder. I did consider separate task list folders for each action (@Home, @Office etc.), but this proved difficult to synchronize with my PDA. (Requirement #6)

3. I use categories in Outlook to define both the action and the project (e.g. @Office, Blog).

All my tasks have two categories - both an action and a project. All my filed Emails just have a project assigned to them.

4. To turn an incoming Email into a task (something I have to do), I assign it two categories (action and project) and move it to my tasks folder. Using Keyboard shortcuts, I discovered this can be done as follows (to create a task from the currently selected item, set the project category to TechEd and the action to @Office):

ALT-A, I, A, @ O F F I C E, [SPACE], @ T E C H E D, [SPACE], [ENTER] (to categorize)

CTRL-SHIFT-V, T, ENTER (to move)

To file an item from my inbox – I select and:

ALT-A, I, A, @ T E C H E D, [SPACE], [ENTER] (to categorize)

CTRL-SHIFT-V, F, ENTER (to move) (this sends it to my “file” folder, which is the only one beginning with “f”)

I found this worked well, but after a couple of mishit keys, I couldn’t help thinking there was a more efficient way of doing this. I blew the dust of an old VBA book and wrote a couple of Macros. This one does exactly the same as above, excepts opens the categorize dialog and moves the item automatically:

Sub Task()

Dim item As MailItem

Set item = Outlook.Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.item(1)

item.ShowCategoriesDialog

Dim myolApp As Outlook.Application

Dim myNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace

Dim myTasks As Outlook.folder

Dim myFolder As Outlook.folder

Set myolApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")

Set myNamespace = myolApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")

Set myTasks = myNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderTasks)

item.Move myTasks

End Sub

Now all I need to do is assign this macro to a button on the tool bar (called GTD Ta&sks) and it’s:

ALT-S, @ O F F I C E, [SPACE], @ T E C H E D, [SPACE], [ENTER]

Same with filing an item to the task folder (a little trickier this time as we need to search for the folder):

Sub File()

Dim item As MailItem

Dim myolApp As Outlook.Application

Dim myNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace

Dim myInbox As Outlook.folder

Dim rootFolder As Outlook.folder

Dim subFolders As Outlook.Folders

Dim subFolder As Outlook.folder

Dim fileFolder As Outlook.folder

Dim fileEntryID As String

Dim fileFolderName As String

'Set the folder name - must be at the same level as the inbox

fileFolderName = "File"

' Pick the category

Set item = Outlook.Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.item(1)

item.ShowCategoriesDialog

' Move the the file folder

Set myolApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")

Set myNamespace = myolApp.GetNamespace("MAPI")

Set myInbox = myNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)

Set rootFolder = myInbox.Parent

Set subFolders = rootFolder.Folders

Set subFolder = subFolders.GetFirst

Do While Not subFolder Is Nothing

If subFolder.Name = fileFolderName Then

fileEntryID = subFolder.EntryID

Set fileFolder = myNamespace.GetFolderFromID(fileEntryID)

item.Move fileFolder

Exit Do

End If

Set subFolder = subFolders.GetNext

Loop

End Sub

With a 2^nd button called GTD F&ile I can do:

ALT-I, @ T E C H E D, [SPACE], [ENTER]

Much easier!

5. After getting the categories and shortcuts out of the way, I started thinking about requirement #5 – to quickly create new tasks on the fly. With the NetCentrics Add In, I was creating a new task (CTRL-K) and then assigning the project and action. This is still possible, but in Beta 2 I couldn’t find any keyboard shortcut to bring up the categories – and I really wanted to create something that could work from my PDA also.

I wanted a system that would allow me to send an Email to myself with the associated project and action in the body of the Email.

I then wanted Outlook 2007 to categorize accordingly and move it to the task folder. To do this, I started creating rules in Outlook that would fire everything an incoming Email came in and I was the sender and on the TO line (i.e. I had sent it to myself). I had one rule for each category – e.g. a rule that set the category to @office if the body of the Email contained Office etc.

One thing I quickly found however (unfortunately, after having entered about 50 rules), is that the total size of all rules cannot exceed 32k. This is because Outlook sends all rules to the server using a single RPC call (the maximum size of the data in an RPC call is – you’ve guessed it – 32k). Even though these were considered client side rules I found Outlook bombing out after I created over 30.

To overcome this, I wrote a script in VBA that does the categorization for me. This is really nice as it’s easy to add and remove categories.

Sub SetCategories(MyMail As MailItem)

Dim body As String

body = MyMail.body

Dim action As String

Dim project As String

Dim categories As String

'Actions

If InStr(LCase(body), "@blog") > 0 Then

action = "@Blog"

End If

‘ etc…

'Categories

If InStr(LCase(body), "projectx") > 0 Then

project = "ProjectX"

End If

‘ etc…

categories = action & ", " & project

' Save

MyMail.categories = categories

MyMail.Save

End Sub

As you can see, the VBA function looks at the body of the incoming Email, checks whether it has any matching categories and sets the categories accordingly.

With this, all I need is one rule that runs the categorization script, and a second rule that moves the incoming mail to the task folder. I call these GTD Categorize and GTD Move To Task.

One important point: I was finding that my categorization script was failing for two reasons. 1. The macro security has to be set accordingly and 2. I had download headers and then full items enabled on my mailbox. This was causing some synchronization errors (some of the time) and the categorization would fail (depending on whether the full item or the header was downloaded). To resolve this, I set the option to download full items and everything worked perfectly.

6. Creating a Waiting For task. Now that I had the quick and dirty way of creating new tasks I wanted to enable creating a waiting for task on my delegated mail. (Requirement #4)

To do this, I created a third rule called GTD Waiting For. This rule checks Email as it arrives in my Email box to see if it was send from me and if I’m on the CC line. If this is true, it sets the category of the Email to “@Waiting For” and moves the Email to my task folder.

Now, to set a waiting for action, all I need to do is to make sure I’m on the CC line of Email that I send (which I’ve seen a number of other GTDers do).

7. Searching for stuff. To search for stuff, I created a third macro that opens my “File” Folder (which is very similar to the “File” macro above – except it does a folder.Display instead of moving the item – I’ll spare you the VBA listing).

Once the folder is open I hit CTRL-E which moves my cursor to the top of the email list. I think type and using Windows Desktop Search (WDS) 3.0 Beta, it provides a really quick way of searching my file folder. This is probably my most favorite feature of Outlook 2007.

One note of caution however: By installing WDS Beta, you’ll lose the UI of Windows Desktop Search (i.e. the search edit box on the task bar). I was happily using this until the beta, so have moved to SlickRun until the UI re-appears. (Actually, SlickRun provides me more options for shortcuts, so I may just keep it J).

Other GTD Habits with Outlook 2007

Well, that’s pretty much how I implemented GTD in Outlook 2007. Other good habits I try to use:

1. Decide when you are going to check your Email. I check mine first thing in the morning, at lunchtime, and then do a “zero email” session in the evening (i.e. take my inbox down to no items).

2. If you do need to cursory glance at your inbox during the day (after all, things do come up that need your attention), I recommend creating an Outlook rule that sets the color of mail sent directly to you to a different color (e.g. blue) vs mail sent with you as a CC (e.g. green). That way you can easily tell the important Emails and get back to your task list.

3. Related to the other 2, I also recommend removing Mail from the Navigation pane. This will prevent you “accidentally” clicking on your inbox to have a sneak check!

To get to your inbox you can use CTRL-SHIFT-I, which will add enough cognitive friction that you’ll think twice before doing so. I also recommend keeping TASKS as your top most pane, the default view as you open Outlook, and learning to love CTRL-4 (which takes you back to the tasks view at any time).

Conclusion

Well, I hope some of the above is useful – especially if you are looking to implement GTD using Outlook 2007. I’m going to start work on creating a new version of my command line add-in to work with the new categories in this upgrade. (I need to work out where the complete list of categories is being stored in Outlook 2007 – for previous versions it was in the registry, but this no longer seems to be the case).

In the meantime, I’d love to hear any more tips and tricks for implementing GTD functionality in Outlook! Enjoy.

Putting the User back into SOA - my first ARCast!

smguest — Sat, 20 May 2006 00:36:00 GMT

After the US NAF (National Architect Forum) last month, I sat down with Ron Jacobs to record my very first ARCast. The topic was "Putting the User back into SOA" - you can listen to it here.

Architecture Journal - now in 8 languages!

smguest — Sat, 20 May 2006 00:32:00 GMT

Issue #7 of the Architecture Journal is now available in 8 languages (English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Simplifed Chinese, Japanese and Korean).

To access these in PDF format, visit http://www.architecturejournal.net and select the lanuage from the top menu.

Enjoy.

Cliff Atkinson / Beyond Bullet Points

smguest — Wed, 10 May 2006 20:35:00 GMT

Cliff Atkinson is my new hero. For those that don't know, Cliff put together an MS Press book called Beyond Bullet Points. In the book, he describes a new way of compiling and putting together presentations using PowerPoint (without bullet points!). I used this style in a recent keynote I did at the US NAF (National Architect Forum) last month and it seemed to be very well received. Half way through the presentation I was amazed at how many people were engaged with the message I was saying - actually 100% focused towards me and not doing Email!

Cliff also has a blog - you can check it out here.

T-Mobile MDA

smguest — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 06:50:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago I switched from Verizon Wireless to T-Mobile, and at the same time had the opportunity to pick up a new cell phone.

After a lot of deliberation I went with the T-Mobile MDA Vario. This is the first PocketPC phone I've owned since the Samsung i700. The Samsung was a bulky phone so I was a little hesitant at first (and as a result was leaning towards the SDA), but now that I've used the MDA for a couple of weeks I definitely made the right choice.

"Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete the API"

smguest — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 06:42:00 GMT

I have a Toshiba Tecra M4 with 2Gb of RAM. I've had the machine for a while now and every so often, when I went to hibernate I would see a message saying "Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete the API" (and the machine would only go into standby). On a couple of occasions I've failed to notice this before placing the machine in my bag (and as a result I end up with a hot bag, an even hotter laptop and not much battery left).

After researching this yesterday, it appears that this is a problem with memory fragmentation (a lot of applications running causes memory fragmentation which for some reason prevents the machine/kernel from going into hibernation - this affects laptops with > 1Gb RAM).

Fortunately, this seems to be have been fixed with a post-SP2 patch. (KB909095). You have to contact Microsoft Product Support for the actually patch file, but it is now available - and from what I can tell appears to work well...

5 Options for Backing Up My Home PC - Part II

smguest — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 07:34:00 GMT

I would like to say thanks to everyone that submitted comments to my previous post. This is what I ended up with over the weekend:

1. I went out and found an external Maxtor USB 300Gb Hard Disk at Fry's for $229. At the rate we are adding photos and videos to the machine I calculated this gives me about 18 months of expansion.

2. I installed backup software and setup five backup jobs for my main libraries (photos, music, videos etc.). All of the backups run once a week and I have a nightly differential for the most important files.

3. I installed a Double Layer DVD drive (Memorex, $79.99 with a $20 rebate) to take these 8Gb backup files to DVD once per month. This will be a manual task, but allows me to get some of the data "off site". At today's price of $40 for 15 x DL DVDs I can't afford to do this any more frequently!

4. Foldershare is re-setup to synchronize all of my libraries with my laptop and a second machine.

All in all, I'm hoping that this should provide a reliable strategy regardless of what happens to the machine in the future. Call me paranoid, but it amazes me when I think how impossible it would be to replace all the photos and videos we have collected. On my quest for the ultimate backup solution I also found:

1. I'm way behind in disk drive technology (after accidentally purchasing an Ultra ATA/100 interface instead of a SATA) - I didn't even know there was more than one type...

2. Windows XP supports RAID 0 (striping), but does not support RAID 1 (mirroring) in software. For this I would have had to upgrade to Windows Server 2003 or installed a new disk controller.

3. The return people at Fry's are pretty friendly - providing you get everything back within 15 days of purchase :-)

5 Options for Backing Up My Home PC

smguest — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 09:49:00 GMT

I'm recovering from losing both the power-supply and hard disk of my home PC after we just moved house. I'll cut a long story short by saying that there was a loud bang and smoke coming out of my Shuttle XPC after I unpacked it from moving.

After a couple of relatively expensive trips to Fry's, the machine is now operational and this recent event has me thinking about taking backups a little more seriously. One of the problems I have (which I'm sure many people share) is the sheer quantity of data held on the PC. If I add up all of the photos, videos, music and other stuff on the machine it's reaching near 60Gb - and this grows exponentially on a monthly basis. My question is - what is the best backup strategy for this? Here are the options I've been toying around with:

1. Backup to DVD - cheap, but 60Gb / 4.7Gb = 12.7 DVDs to backup all the data. I guess I could re-organize the libraries so I'm only backing up the incremental changes, but then this makes restoring difficult.

2. Backup to Dual Layer DVD - see option #1, buy new DVD recorder and divide number of DVDs required by half. Better, but still lots of media...

3. Buy additional 300Gb Hard Disk and setup a RAID 0 mirror. Cheap and easy to maintain, but won't survive the PC being stolen, flooded, burned in a fire etc.

4. Use Foldershare to distribute libraries across multiple PCs. This has the main advantage of not requiring any regular backups, but if any of the files get corrupted this can start spreading across machines without me noticing (until I have to show that all important slideshow one day to my family :).

5. Go out any buy some tape backup hardware and a ton of tapes. Most reliable form of backup, but expensive. I read a blog article about using my viedocamera and 4mm digital tapes to "reverse backup" through the firewire port, but this sounds like it could be slow (and each tape has only a 20Gb capacity).

My gut is to implement #3 and #4, make another trip to Fry's and purchase #2 and record to DL DVD every month or so.

Any other options I could consider?

Is this what they mean by being "Service Oriented"?

smguest — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:58:00 GMT

Wes (formerly from webMethods) forwarded me this snapshot from a shopping mall in TX. (Apparently "Simon" is a retail management company :-)

Beta of Scrum Add-In for VSTS available

smguest — Tue, 22 Nov 2005 07:56:00 GMT

A few guys at Conchango (for whom I used to work :-) have created a Scrum plug-in for VSTS. Good reading if you are interested in agile development.

http://blogs.conchango.com/howardvanrooijen/default.aspx

Creating Word documents on IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic

smguest — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 02:48:00 GMT

Running IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic or another J2EE application server? Wish you could generate server-side Microsoft Word documents without any third party add-ins? With Microsoft Office 2003 and an XML reference schema called WordML, you can do this today.

Here's the first part in a series that shows you how.