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Saturday, August 30, 2008 #

Jon Galloway posted an article describing a way to view low bandwidth optimized MSDN pages by modifying the URL.

Try it out...

Simply take the URL - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.object.aspx

And add "(loband)" just before the ".aspx" - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.object(loband).aspx

The "loband" page provides a link near the top you can use to switch back to full fat version. 

Also check Jon's site for a bookmarklet he wrote which you can use to switch this functionality on or off at any time.

This option will be very useful when my laptop's cellular connection has a bad signal (like when on the train).  I imagine this will also be helpful to all those smart phone browsers out there.  Any smart phone owners care to try it out?

Check out his comments section.  The Product Unit Manager for MSDN responded with some insight into what they're doing.  It sounds like they might change the way the "loband" option is specified.  I was wondering why they didn't just make it a query string item, but I'll bet they've already got some serious url rewriting going on.

Thursday, August 28, 2008 #

Magenic is sponsoring a developer event called CodeApalooza.  It's Saturday, September 6th 2008.  Lots of great sessions and speakers.  They will be Data Layer, SharePoint, Development Process, and User Experience tracks.  I know I'm going to have trouble deciding between similarly scheduled sessions.  For full details and signup info, check out the CodeApalooza site!

Monday, August 20, 2007 #

Some quick functions I created to reduce my time at the subversion command line.  The trick here is that I couldn't just alias the commands, I needed to create some small functions for each...

function st {Invoke-Expression "svn status"}
function sup {Invoke-Expression "svn update"}
function sci {Invoke-Expression "svn ci"}      --I use the %SVN_EDITOR% env var for my checkin message editing
function sin {Invoke-Expression "svn info"}

You could easily modify these to accept parameters...

function srv ([string]$filename){Invoke-Expression "svn revert $filename"}

I imagine I'll want these to be more flexible in the future, but for now they're saving me a lot of typing!


Friday, May 04, 2007 #

I want to turn this blog into a respectable place for my technical thoughts.  Step 1 of that initiative - Get rid of all the trackback spam.

 


A "clean" sampling of my trackbacks.


Almost all of my old posts have a few hundred spam trackback links.  It's absolutely ridiculous.  Dasblog has a referral blacklist feature that I'm looking into.  Unfortunately, their documentation is a little out of date.  It refers to an older blacklisting feature called "Moveable Type Blacklist".  I believe 1.7 was the last version this feature was available (I'm running 1.9).

Some light googling gave me some direction on how to enable and configure it.  It's a keyword based filter that will send 404's if a site that matches one of your specified keywords tries to refer back to you.  Making up the keyword list should be fun. 

Omar Shahine's WebLog


In the meantime, I created a PowerShell script to remove all trackbacks from my content files.  I'll post that when I get home tonight.  But until I get the blacklist feature figured out, I'll be leaving trackbacks turned off.

Thursday, May 03, 2007 #

I didn't go to MIX, but I did read a few blog posts of people who did.  Definately need to dive deeper this weekend.  Here is my quick overview of what was announced/released...

DLR
  • Dynamic Language Runtime
  • Lets your .net code iteract with dynamic languages like Ruby, Python, Javascript
  • Lets those languages interact with your .net code!  Neat!

CLR on a Mac
  • A browser plug-in that will run .net 3.x apps
  • OSX Only
  • Intel based Macs only?
  • Safari, Firefox, IE
  • Subset of the BCL
  • Rewritten CLR
   
Silverlight
  • Lots of classes to make working with media easier.
  • 720p

Some links for further review...
http://www.silverlight.net/
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/

Wanna try it?
Get the plug-in. - Quick install.  No need to restart computer, but you will have to restart the browser.  Definately works in FireFox.
Go to http://silverlight.net/fox/


Monday, March 12, 2007 #

Classic computer games never get old.  People will always find a way to play their favorite games.  If it's playing Quake I on your PocketPC, slinging bananas at each over in Gorillas, or firing up Windows 3.11 in VirtualPC to play SkiFree.  Virtual PC Guy linked over to The Most Officialest SkiFree Home Page! where you can get a 32bit build of this classic game.  I didn't have this game on my first windows machine (386SX - Windows 3.0), but if I recall correctly I first played it on my friend Tony's screaming fast 486DX (we both had Packard Bell's at the time...who didn't?)...

Scoot over World of Warcraft, I gotta see if I can outrun the Abominable Snow Monster this time.


Wednesday, February 07, 2007 #

An email from fellow blogger and brother-in-law Eric prompted me to checkout Google Reader for reading and managing all the blogs I subscribe to.  After importing all 154 of my feeds, I sat back with a cup of coffee and started reading.  I dug it...quite a bit.  Google Reader has the usual google UI goodness.  The seamless updating of different browser elements that's so shiny and Web 2.0-y. 

I haven't played with the tagging yet, and I'm not sure what "Shared Items" are, but Google Reader has one killer piece of functionality that has already converted me...It only marks items you've actually read as "read".  Bloglines is terrible about this.  As soon as you click on a folder in bloglines, it assumes you've read all the posts within.  It's a real pain to have to update items as "Keep New" individually in Bloglines.  It's a backwards way of processing things.  Google Reader updates each item as read once you've scrolled past it.

Because of this feature alone, I'm switching to Google Reader.


Friday, February 02, 2007 #

Since I'm a big fan of the Getting Things Done system, I'm always looking for ways to increase the efficiency of my process.  I want to dedicate a few posts to how I've setup my GTD system and the shortcuts I use to make it easier.  Let's start this off with a "brief" post about how I organize GTD within Outlook.

As I noted in an earlier post, I use Bonsai as my main GTD project/action storage.  But as many of us business users know, there is an entirely separate system that needs the full attention of a good GTD implementation...Email.

I honestly feel that if everyone used GTD just for their email, we might just achieve world peace  How many of you out there have an Inbox with thousands of messages just sitting there?  Can you list all the people you're waiting on for responses?  Do you know which emails you've acted on and which you still have to do?  What about everything you worked on last week, or the instructions your vendor sent you about Project X?

I used to be in Email hell.  My inbox was the only folder I used.  There were thousands of messages in it.  Once every year I'd make an "Archive" folder and move everything from an arbitrary point in the past into that folder.  I tried using "Flags" and "Reminders", but those never stuck.

I have now reached Email nirvana (not that one, this one).  My Inbox is empty.  I process everything.  I delete ferverently.  Every meaningful email has a place.

Let me give a brief overview of the Outlook portion of my GTD implementation.  I'm not going to go into great detail about GTD, I'm just going to show you how I process my emails...

My Outlook GTD

For starters, I use the Shortcuts view in the left pane of my Outlook.  This keeps the clutter of all my actual folders way way down.

 



Now, any seasoned GTDer looking at my list of folders should see that I've got the main tenants of the system all lined up.  For the uninitiated, here is the rundown...

Main Section
    Inbox - Everything comes in here and remains until processed.
    @Action - Anything that will take more than 2 minutes to actually do goes into this folder.
    @Waiting For - Anything that I'm waiting for a response on goes into this folder.

Project Support Section - Any currently active projects get a shortcut here.  All project related emails get moved into their appropriate folder.  (Note:  The names of my projects have been changed to protect the innocent).

Reference Email Section
    @Somday/Maybe - Anything that might hold interest or be a good project "sometime" in the future.
    @Read/Review - All email lists I subscribe to go in here.  I never really look at them after that :)
    @Completed - The final email from a non-project task goes in here.  Hopefully the full conversation is intact.  Useful to see what you've been up to.

My normal routine is to go through each item in my Inbox and process it appropriately.  In GTD terms this means doing the task if it's less that 2 minutes, deferring the task till later, delegating the task, deleting if not needed or filing if needed.

Another part of my implementation is that I CC all emails I send to myself.  This gives me an easy to reach copy of all my correspondence.  Some of these get deleted immediately, others get moved into my @Waiting For folder so I know what I'm waiting on from someone.  You can setup Outlook to automatically CC you on everything, so there's no overhead in typing your name on every email.

Doing
If it's quick, and you have the time.  Do it.  Nuff said.  Move your CC'd response into the @Completed folder.

Deferring
Can't do it right now?  Move it into your @Action folder.  Review this folder regularly when you have time to burn off on these items.

Delegating
Not your problem?  Need more information?  Got a someone you can pawn it off on?  Forward it to them and move your CC'd forward into the @Waiting For folder.  The best part about this folder is that the next day, you can iterate through each of them re-forwarding each message asking "What's up with this issue?".  People will think you're totally ontop of things (and you will be!).

Filing
Important information in this message?  Stuff you'd like to keep around for future reference?  If it's part of an active project, move it into your Project folder.  If it's long term stuff (HR docs, important memos, sweet pics of Paris Hilton) move it into the appropriate Reference folder.

Deleting
Don't need it ever again?  Delete.  If everyone did this one step right away, it would probably save exobytes of space and put hard drive manufacturers out of business.


So there's the "brief" overview of my Outlook GTD system.  Like I said, there is really nothing special here.  It's just important to keep up on your processing!  You'll end up making all this second nature and being a very happy camper.


Wednesday, January 31, 2007 #

I use virtual envionrments fairly regularly at work.  I mainly use them for app debugging in a clean environment,  permissions testing, and automated deployment testing.

I have a Virtual PC 2004 setup with my base OS installed on it's own virtual hard drive.  I create a new differencing vhd on top of that when I need a fresh environment to work in.  This has worked very well for me until today. 

I created a new differencing vhd and booted into it.  Everything was fine until I tried to login.  I received the following message box...


Windows cannot connect to the domain, either because the domain controller is down or otherwise unavailable, or because your computer account was not found.  Please try again later.

At first I thought that my domain wouldn't let me logon because I had a bunch of updates to install.  After letting the vm run for 20 minutes I restarted it, installing all the updates it downloaded.  (On a side note, I didn't know windows would download updates even when you're not logged in.).  Even after that, no luck.

Google to the rescue...An old newsgroup post hinted that it might be because my (virtual) computer already existed on the domain.  The solution, login as the local admin, take the computer off the domain and put it back on.  Success!

I'm posting this in hopes the answer will be more accessible to future generations of googlers.

Friday, January 12, 2007 #

So I'm a pretty big fan of organization programs.  I currently use Natara Bonsai, which is a pretty sophisticated outlining program.  It syncs up nicely with my Treo 650 and the mobile client has the full functionality of the windows client.  I use it for organizing projects at work and at home.  It fits well with the Getting Things Done system that I've been using for the past year (Thanks again Kenny!).  More on Bonsai and GTD later.

Before I used Bonsai I was a huge Microsoft OneNote fan (this was back in the Office 2003 days).  It was the first org app that really caught my attention and I quickly fell in love with it's ease of use.  I like it's freeform nature.  You could click on an area within and start typing.  It allowed for organized lists, tables, imported images.  It integrated nicely with the other Office apps.  You could create emails/tasks/appointmens from any of your OneNote outlines.  The tasks would remain synced with Outlook.  You could also import any Outlook Notes directly into OneNote.  I used this particular feature to take notes on my old Samsung i700, then import them into OneNote for further processing. 

While this system worked, if you wanted to be completely mobile it had one serious shortcoming.  There wasn't a mobile client.  It was a one way street.  Take the notes on the mobile, import and organize in OneNote, and they were stuck there.  No syncing back up with the mobile.   I know you could use the tasks feature of Outlook for this (OneNote Task -> Outlook Task -> Mobile Task), but I was really stretching the boundaries with all the projects and tasks I was trying to keep organized all at once.  This was the main reason I switched back to Palm and Bonsai.

Fastforward to the present.  My boss has been raving about OneNote that comes with Office 2007.  I just did a little googling and found that not only did Microsoft release a mobile client for OneNote 2003, but they have full mobile integration with OneNote 2007.  Some other new features include OCR for any images you take and include with an outline (say with your mobile's camera), internal linking between outlines, and multi-user editing capabilities.  It sounds like they've taken some good ideas from wikis.

Needless to say, I'm very interested.  The only problem is that I don't have an up to date windows mobile platform (pocketpc or smartphone).  This is probably a good thing since I really like my Natara Bonsai (and don't have the $$$ to get a new phone).  It's just that I sometimes get stuck in Bonsai's rigid hierarchical nature (more on that soon).

If anyone out there is using OneNote 2007 (with or without it's mobile capabilities) I'd be very interested to hear from you.

Extra:  It also looks like they've provided an API for OneNote 2007.  This wasn't the case with OneNote 2003 (or maybe I didn't look hard enough).

Edit:  The wikipedia article is pretty informative.