.net and other interesting dev stuff in PA : Cool Stuff

Acrylic - beta graphics tool from Microsoft

sspotts — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 02:11:00 GMT

"Acrylic" is the codename for an innovative illustration, painting and graphics tool that provides exciting creative capabilities for designers working in print, web, video, and interactive media. Check out this site to download the beta or get more info.

15Mb FIOS installed... sort of

sspotts — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 04:17:00 GMT

Two weeks ago, I received some marketing stuff from Verizon about their new FIOS offering. Three choices - 5Mb, 15Mb, and 30Mb. There was only a few dollar difference between 5 and 15Mb, so I opted for more speed. Go figure.

I've been waiting for this to be real since last year, when they dug up the front of my lawn to lay fiber, then had trucks up and down the road outside my development putting fiber on the telephone/power poles.

Just to be confusing, the technician showed up on time (actually, about 25 minutes earlier than he said he'd be here). He pulled the run from the street to my house, put up the box outside, and installed the parts inside along with battery backup. I hooked up the router and turned on my PC... and got signal! Whoo hoo!

Then I went to http://infospeed.verizon.net and ran the speed test... and got 5Mb. Much faster than my previous DSL speeds, but a third of the speed I'd ordered. I guess it did sound too good to have everything work at once. After talking to their support person, and explaining that it wasn't an issue with my computer (I wouldn't run their tweak/optimizer tool, which loads an ActiveX control that I have no idea about what it affects), I finally convinced them that yes, I do know how networks work (at least one of my certs says so), and they really needed to look at their own central office to see how the virtual circuit was configured. That got me a network technician on the phone, who checked while I chatted with the support guy - and said, "it looks like we have something configured wrong".

It's nice to be validated once in a while.

It turned out to be more than he expected, so now a tech has to come to the house again (but doesn't need me to be here) while someone at the CO works with him to properly configure my circuit end to end. Once that's done, I'm hoping that the beta bits and other huge file transfers I have to do just about weekly don't take days to complete.

Oh, and one cool thing is that since my phone line is now fiber, my voice calls are crystal clear. One not so cool thing is that since I ordered FIOS, I've gotten at least four more marketing mailings about ordering it.

Microsoft Technology Summit 2005

sspotts — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 03:05:00 GMT

I've been in Redmond since Monday this week at an event focused around "competitive influentials." This event is the creative brainchild of one of my Developer Evangelist (DE) peers in the Central Region, Steve Loethen, and Heidi Dill, our developer marketing manager based in Redmond. DE's from districts all over the US have invited the influencers and come to attend the event with them.

We're privileged to have all these people in one place with us. I'm learning a lot about what the "other side" thinks about our products, practices, technologies, and other efforts. There are some great ideas that I hope we as a company deeply consider. There are also some that are way out there :). Hey, they're still great because they're ideas we might not have even considered!

Some great Microsoft people are interacting here. It's not pure presentation, there's a huge amount of give and take. Sanjay Parthasarathy, Michael Howard, Don Box, Anders Hejlsberg, Ron Jacobs, Iain McDonald, Scott Guthrie, ... the list goes on and on. I had the opportunity to indroduce Don Box, who was, well, typical Don Box in his style. I thought it was one of the most fun group conversations I've seen in a while.

Some of the things that were eye-openers to the attendees were ASP.NET 2.0 and VS 2005, especially with the editing and multiple browser support; Enterprise Library and tools, MONAD, heck, there were a few. It's pretty interesting to see the attendees blogging, and the wide array of responses they're getting as comments, too.

Now we're off to the bus back to the hotel...

Windows XP Media Center Edition

sspotts — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 08:04:00 GMT

Thankfully, my UltimateTV's tuner started to die, and my wife got annoyed enough to let me replace it with an Windows XP Media Center 2005 box. I had certain operational parameters, however.

First, since it was going in the family room, it could not look like a PC. That's grounds for unending huffing. So I looked around and found that the HP z545 Digital Entertainment Center looked like a stereo component, fit in the cabinet where the UltimateTV box was, and had dual tuners. Recording one show while watching another, as well as recording two shows when we weren't watching TV, was high on her list of requirements. Did I mention that it couldn't look like a PC?

I got the unit installed, and after dealing with getting two DirecTV receivers set up to replace the UltimateTV receiver, everything worked as planned. Sort of. It definitely worked much better after installing the update to Windows XP MCE 2005 from the Windows Update site.

With the included 200Gb HD, and the removable 160Gb "Personal Media" drive, it's got a lot more room for recorded TV than the UltimateTV box had. Of course, now I'm storing music, pictures, etc. on disk, so it'll be interesting to see how usage works. Since it has several USB 2.0 connections on the back I can easily add more external storage, too. Didn't attempt to open up the box (yet), as my wife was "supervising" the installation to ensure that the new unit didn't somehow get changed to look like a PC.

I did find that the airflow in the stereo cabinet is inadequate for the heat this thing pumps out, and I'll have to pull the cabinet out and cut some holes in the back and possibly install a small fan to pull out the air in it. I need to find some mountable 120V, very quiet fan to do this.

One other thing that is an issue, unfortunately, is that the remote doesn't have support for additional devices. That means I still need another remote to turn the TV on/off, and another for the A/V receiver. I did hear good things about the Logitech Harmony 860 Media Center remote, and will probably get myself one for Christmas. This should allow me to have just one remote for my wife to use, which seems to be important.

This is all just in time for Christmas, and I've got Christmas music CD's and downloaded music, set up by genre, which my wife loves. I didn't show her yet that I've got most of my digital pics of family holidays and trips on the box, and will spring that on her as slideshows (with music) when the family comes over for Christmas.

Overall, this is a good setup. Since we don't have HDTV (another edict says that I can't get one of those set's until I start, and finish, a planned basement), I'm not overly concerned by the limits in WinXP MCE 2005 for this. Or is it limits in the hardware to support it? Chicken, egg, whatever. I do wish DirecTV made PC card based tuners, or someone did, so I wouldn't need the desktop boxes. For that matter, if such tuners were made it would be cool if HD versions were also made, making upgrades that much easier. Wishlists...

I did download the MCE 2005 SDK to see what it would be like to write utilities for MCE, and if I get a chance to play with that I'll post some findings. I'd love to be able to do some stuff with the channel guide. For instance, a filter to find all new TV show premieres, or first runs of movies, or search-based scheduled recordings for when you know a new show is coming, but it's not going to be on for a few months (example: Earthsea on SciFi Channel, which recently showed up in listings). UltimateTV could do the latter, but neither of the two former. It would also be cool to be able to select what ratings I wanted to search for. With no kids yet, I don't particularly care about G-ratings :).

In any case, I'll find it interesting if we can indeed program against the channel guide, but it'll probably take me a little time to just figure out the correct way to work with the UI. I have to be dead careful, since this is a "production" box!

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Code Camp: Greater PA

sspotts — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 07:35:00 GMT

There was some great stuff done by Thom Robbins, one of my teammates in the East Region (up in Waltham, MA), with Code Camp II (http://weblogs.asp.net/trobbins/archive/2004/10/21/246018.aspx). Forty people presented over 60 sessions over 20 hours in two days.

The goal of the Code Camps series is to provide an intensive developer to developer learning experience that is fun and technically stimulating.

Tonight I brought this up to the PhillyDotNet user group as an event to bring to the Greater PA area, and the whole group was psyched, and so am I. The primary focus for our event will be on delivering programming information and sample code for Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 as well as Microsoft's other platform servers. The event is free and all slides, manuals and demo code will be provided. I'm planning to do this over a weekend in April 2005.

If you're interested, I'm be looking for speakers. RD's, INETA speakers, Microsoft Partners, authors, MVP's, user group leaders, or developers that just want to show how to do cool coding are all welcome. Any speakers at the Code Camp in Waltham will be most welcome to replicate his/her presentations down here!

I like the idea of the following tracks:

ASP.NET 2.0 Development (including WSS web parts)
Smart Client development (Winforms, mobile apps, tablet PC)
Patterns and Best Practices (focus on Enterprise Library)
SOA (think WSE, BizTalk 2004)
Data Access (SQL Server 2005, ADO.NET, etc.)
Dev Lifecycle (all about VSTS)

Presentations will all be aligned to these tracks. Event planning is work in progress, but it's too cool not to do.

There will be three types of scheduled 90 minute sessions.

Presentations. 200 level (50% code/50% Powerpoint), 300 level (75% code/25% PPT), and 400 level (90%+ code)
Roundtables. 3-4 subject matter experts discussing specific topics.
Chalk Talk. No presentation, just attendee-guided discussions and whiteboarding with a subject matter expert.

If you'd like to present at this event, please send me the following info prior to February 1:

Name, title, company
e-mail address
Phone
Which track (see above)
What level (200/300/400)
Name of session
Format of session (Presentation/Roundtable/Chalk Talk)
Description of session

I'm asking for speakers early so I can resource the best venue for the event. I'll want slides (including speaker notes) and demos by March 15th so we can review them and get them ready for distribution for the event.

There are a few other things I'm trying to connect with this Code Camp, so stay tuned.

Microsoft Global Briefing (MGB) 2004 ROCKS!

sspotts — Sun, 18 Jul 2004 07:45:00 GMT

Microsoft is a company that demands great things from you, and you have to work hard. They also make sure that they take care of you here. I'm at the Microsoft Global Briefing (last week and until Tuesday), and while we had some long days and bad cases of numb-butt from the chairs, tonight we had some cool entertainiment.

For almost two hours, we were treated to a Smashmouth concert! I can't tell you how much trouble I'm in with my wife - it's her favorite band in the world - but I did get some pictures and recorded some vidio with my little Sony T1 for her. I was already informed that this requires a present to make up for it, so I guess there's still some shopping to do.

Cellular One submits bid for AT&T Mobile

sspotts — Thu, 22 Jan 2004 23:15:00 GMT

This should be interesting... I wonder if I'll get a better signal if this bid is accepted, or if I'll have a better chance at having my MPX200 upgraded to SmartPhone 2003?

http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EKUX3NLN02O10CRBAELCFEY?type=businessNews&storyID=4167476

Xbox Media Center Extender Kit

sspotts — Sat, 10 Jan 2004 00:29:00 GMT

Yet another use for the Xbox, and one that my wife will actually allow in the house. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/evaluation/devices/xboxextenderkit.asp

Motorola MPX200 SmartPhone with AT&T

sspotts — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 06:35:00 GMT

For various reasons, I stopped service with my PocketPC Phone and started service with AT&T and got a Motorola MPX200 SmartPhone. Nice and small, and very easy to operate with one hand. The more I use it, the more I like it. Smart stuff includes things like integration between the calendar and phone. For instance, if I have a scheduled block of time (BUSY) for a meeting, and I set the phone's profile to Automatic, it won't ring during the meeting. It figures that when I'm busy, vibration would be more appropriate. Another smart bit is that if a meeting has, say, the phone number and name of the person I'm meeting in it, I can open up the meeting and the phone number is recognized as such and I can click and dial it with no cut/paste or further lookup. Sweet! One of the things I did miss from my Pocket PC Phone was the ability to view some Microsoft Office docs, like Excel spreadsheets (useful for Christmas shopping lists) and Word docs. Problem solved - for $29.95, I downloaded and installed ClearVue Suite for the SmartPhone from WestVue (http://www.westtek.com/smartphone.htm). I not only get to view Excel spreadsheets and Word docs, but also Excel charts, PDF files, image files, and PowerPoint slide decks! All that takes about 3.5Mb, so I installed to my SD card that has 128Mb. A bit slower than RAM on my old PocketPC Phone, but more than twice as much space. Three things I wish the phone had 1. A digital camera. Just "to have", since I have a nice Nikon D100. Just can't carry the Nikon around all the time. 2. Bluetooth for a wireless headset. 3. SmartPhone 2003 OS. The phone ships with SmartPhone 2002, which is what, a year and a half old? One of those things where Motorola has to do stuff, then AT&T has to tweak it, and do the customers really care?, etc. Regardless, it's still sweet.

Windows Media Center

sspotts — Fri, 05 Dec 2003 07:37:00 GMT

One of our managers brought his latest toy into the office today. It was Gateway's top of the line model of the Media Center PC. Very cool stuff.

Wide, flat screen. Speakers built in, including subwoofer. The PC guts are built into the neck of the monitor for a sweet design. Keyboard and mouse are wireless.

This version had a CD/DVD writer, like 5 USB ports, firewire, SVID, Stereo/Digital audio out, and readers for CF and other formats. Makes connecting video cameras and storage cards from digital cameras really easy.

I hadn't seen this one yet, but I've played with other models. I'm “adopting” a local store to demo the product as well. One day, when my wife tells me that I'm allowed to buy electronics again (I'm way over my quota, it seems) I'm going to get one of these puppies.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/default.asp