Non-official Random .NET Ramblings : Code Trip

Code Trip's rejected launch marketing

woodyp — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:55:26 GMT

You will now see why we don't do the marking for Microsoft products!

Jason did a killer job editing and setting up the shots for this, good job man!

Technorati Tags: Code Trip,codetrip,Windows Server

IE8 Activity: "Define with Wikipedia"

woodyp — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:54:51 GMT

While at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo I was doing a demonstration of Internet Explorer 8 Beta and showing off a new add-on type called Activities. During the demo I had a weak moment and said that it looked so easy to implement that while the bus was driving on the way to Mountain View, CA after the meeting I would implement an Activity for Wikipedia. I thought I understood what I needed to do from just looking at the Windows Live Maps sample but I wanted to make sure. So I found the current documentation Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit and the Activities white paper and gleaned the rest from the available samples. Here's what I came up with:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<openServiceDescription xmlns="http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/openservicedescription/1.0">
  <homepageUrl>http://en.wikipedia.org/</homepageUrl>
  <display>
    <name>Define with Wikipedia</name>
    <icon>http://en.wikipedia.org/favicon.ico</icon>
  </display>
  <activity category="Define">
    <activityAction context="selection" >
      <execute action="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search={selection}" />
    </activityAction>
  </activity>
</openServiceDescription>

I did learn that you need to use the proper capitalization for the category so that the new Activity will be grouped with the other Activities of that category in the "Manage Add-ons" dialog.

Once you have the XML file you need to install it, it turns out quite easy to do:

<button onclick="window.external.addService('http://thecodetrip.com/common/wikipedia_activity.xml')">Add Define Activity</button>

Now a button like this one (yes it's live) will show up.

So how long did this take? Including a stop at Taco Bell on the way out of San Luis Obispo this took less than an hour to implement! Now that is an easy way to improve the user's experience and help drive traffic to sites.

The Code Trip Is Coming!

woodyp — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:01:21 GMT

That's right the Code Trip is coming to Southern California we will be doing some fun events while the bus is here. The bus will be coming from Phoenix to San Diego on the 24th some time in the early evening. We will be keeping the bus at my families winery in Rancho Bernardo (Bernardo Winery) where it will stay until about 4:30p on the 25th where it will be heading to the San Diego .NET Users Group meeting in Scripps Ranch Library where we will get to hear from Michele Leroux Bustamente and Jon Galloway on SilverLight and WCF. We will have Pizza and a bunch of giveaways!

That night we will be driving to Irvine and staying at the Hyatt next to the Microsoft Office where we will have the next event on the 26th. We will hear from John Bowen about the iZooFari project and David Robinson about SQL Server Data Services. This event is being sponsored by speakTECH!

On the 27th the Code Trip is earning it's pay! We have three event we will be at:

Cal State Fullerton
USC
LA Geek Dinner

At each we will have different things going on so any of them will be a good place to catch us!

On the 28th we have a special party at RedBull planed we will hear again from David Robinson and we will see some cool SilverLight applications but mostly we will be socializing and getting to know other developers in SoCal. Space is quite limited so please register soon!

And finally we will be stopping at Cuesta Community College in San Luis Obispo where we will speak to a few classes and have a community meeting as well.

I hope if you are in SoCal you can make one or more of these events I am sure you will see some new stuff and have a bunch of fun!

Technorati Tags: Code Trip,SoCal,SSDS,RedBull

The Code Trip Map

woodyp — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:06:39 GMT

W00t late last night Jason got the Code Trips home page to be the map that we had originally wanted to to be there. You need to check it out! When we have Internet connectivity we publish to the server once a minute the potion of the bus and every 2 minutes any client looking at the map will poll for the current location.

Good job Jason!

Technorati Tags: Code Trip,Live Maps

The Code Trip Bus ROCKS!

woodyp — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:53:56 GMT

This morning Tim, Jason & myself got up and walked a few blocks from the Venetian and found the Code Trip bus and all I can say is WOW! I was more than a little skeptical about the bus but all my doubt was totally erased. This bus evidently just came off tour with the current incarnation of Styx and has been used at the Super bowl (not sure I want to know what for) there are six bunks and a back a front lounge and a small frig and sink crammed in the middle. Each bunk has a DVD player and can watch the TV station that is being watched on the DirectTV throughout the bus (as seen below). I am now way excited to get this trip going and I hope everyone can make a little time to come out and see this insanity as it rolls along!

The bus as we first found it

one of the bunks with TV folded down

Technorati Tags: Code Trip,CodeTrip,the Code Trip

The Code Trip fun starts

woodyp — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:41:10 GMT

At TechReady in Seattle (A Microsoft internal training event) Tim Heuer and Jason Mauer made the introduction video for the Code Trip that is now posted on the Code Trip site. Check it out The Code Trip, film at 11 - The Code Trip.

Technorati Tags: The Code Trip,Code Trip

Look ma I'm famous...

woodyp — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:54:09 GMT

OK maybe not so much but it was kind of spoke to open my copy of the MSDN Flash today and see my own ugly mug staring at me. This was the first time that I submitted content to the Flash news letter so I did not know what to expect (ok so I did not submit it my boss did for me as I was disconnected when this content was due). But from the first day reactions I think I will keep this up, I have received a lot of email from my community and friends saying this is a good thing so look to see my face looking at you if you have customized the Flash for SoCal.

If you are new to this blog (from the Flash or not) welcome, you will note that I am quite inconstant on posting here but I consider it reducing the amount of noise on the web ;).

This is the fist post have done it quite some time, there has been many reasons for this (death in the family, being sick, traveling too much and more excuses) but I will be keeping up some constant blogging for a while if not here that on thecodetrip.com. I am about to get on a "Rock Star" buss with other geeks on my team for a 40 day code trip (d'oh). We will be going all over the western states and talking to people about the latest technology that Microsoft is announcing at MIX 08 in Las Vegas. We will have a lot of activities in the places we will visit and we will be posting a lot of content to the web site. If you want to know what we are up to go to the web site and subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you have anything you would like to see in future issues of the SoCal edition of the flash please let me know but the lead time is quite long 2 to 3 weeks so let me know sooner than later!

Technorati Tags: Code Trip,MSDN Flash