Blue Probe

Goodbye Dash, Hello Jack

2009-09-26T10:12:38-05:00:00

I ditched my T-Mobile Dash. If you’ve read sluggish, that’s an understatement. Imagine pressing and holding the #1 key for a shortcut to VME, but the device doesn’t pick it up, pauses, and types eight 1’s across the display – rrrrr! Plus, one would think the apostrophe is worthy of the keyboard. It’s a f’n ‘. Put it on the keyboard!

The Samsung Jack is the same WM 6.1 phone, but speedy and few more keys (hello apostrophe!). Plus 3 bars in my basement office on AT&T vs. the <=1 on T-Mobile is rock solid.

I've just rebooted my answering machine

2009-05-19T17:04:22-05:00:00

I have 3 ATT Cordless phones (700021) and a base. They stopped working and all just display Place in Charger. ATT FAQ says to unplug everything for 1/2 hour including the handset battery.

LOL - It worked.

MS Sync Framework now in SyncToy

2009-04-09T13:19:44-05:00:00

I use the free tool MS SyncToy to do simple backups. It's even scheduled on the Wife/kids PC to run nightly. I upgraded to SyncToy 2.0 an noticed on the install that it now includes the MS Sync Framework. I suppose if you've got "sync" in your name, it's hard to get away from dog-fooding that one. You can checkout the video webcast of one of the providers, the file sync provider, by Ashish Shah.

Adobe Forms missed the Disconnected Boat

2009-04-04T16:37:41-05:00:00

Man I love InfoPath. I've only used it a bit, but the whole XML in the background, generate your own schema or use one to start with, then save or submit to W/S - it just is cool! I bet the productivity of those who use it regularly is off the charts. On the "oh crap" side is the fact that everyone needs to purchase a copy to use it (there is a web version but that's different).

So when a new project required disconnected forms based input, I looked to Adobe LiveCycle Forms ES. Just the mention of this I knew I was in for a trip down the Amazon (think snakes and quick sand). So I downloaded the 1 month trial, and within 5 minutes was emailing the XML output from a completed form. WOW! it's almost perfect. All I need is to change that to SAVE the XML and we've got out Disconnected scenario. Enter snakes and quicksand. It doesn't exist. You need a copy of Adobe LiveCycle Forms ES on each laptop to save a form's data to XML. There is even talk of licensing terms which limit a forms use to X number of activities.

The form is like an app - treat it that way. Why can a dev tool like VB create an app to be freely distributed, but a dev tool that creates forms cannot?

ProxyPal hot key

2009-03-12T21:27:34-05:00:00

I use ProxyPal to turn on/off the proxy setting in IE7. When I'm VPN-ed into work, I want it on, and when not, I want it off. The problem is that <Alt+T> opens my Tools menu, but there is no hot key for ProxyPal. So add one - in regedit look under the following for the ProxyPal entries:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Extensions\

and change MenuText from ProxyPal to P&roxyPal.

Now <Alt+T> <Alt+R> will run ProxyPal as a hotkey combo.

Windows 7 DVD Maker

2009-01-27T08:29:20-06:00:00

I'm playing with the Windows 7 beta. It includes a DVD Maker program. There is no Movie Maker in the beta, but Windows Live has a Movie Maker beta for download (more Internet/cloud features, but not the same as Movie Maker for XP). The DVD Maker too is limited. You can add movies to a project, adjust a few options (4:3 vs. 16:9, etc.), select a menu style and go. A major problem I have is that many of my movies from my Sony HDD Handycam are short segments. I may have 10 short segments of soccer game, which DVD Maker turns into 10 chapters on the DVD. Thus, when watching the final output on my TV, there is this big wacky pause between scenes. With Movie Maker for XP you can stitch together these segments, provide your own transitions, and select your chapter breaks - but you couldn't write to a DVD.

Adding the ability to write to a DVD in Windows 7 is great, especially for the home user (think PC vs. Mac). Other features are very home/family based. But DVD Maker as it currently stands is but a toy.

Soft Skills

2009-01-26T07:11:46-06:00:00

I attended a Microsoft ArcReady presentation by Clint Edmonson entitled Professional Patterns on the Job. I remember hearing a great quote while listening to DNR - "an architect's job is to help keep software projects from failing." It's easy and fun to go heads down on a project and code. It's harder to look around at what is missing and what is needed and where the gaps are. As architects we need to take the time to improve our soft skills. There will always be developers on your team that are better at coding. So instead of working on learning each and every nuance of WF, generalize, learn the gotcha's, and then spend some time learning other "stuff". Here's a couple of Clint's points to think on.

Be early - 5 min in this building; 15 min across town; 5 hours in another city
Follow through - build a contract of tasks and let others know of your results
Be prepared to have the hard conversations
Have you consensus reached before the meeting even takes place

Vista - unable to activate - DNS error finding Key Services

2009-01-17T10:25:35-06:00:00

I got this error message after I upgraded my laptop hard drive. I use Vista Enterprise in our corporate environment. The resolution was:

VPN in to corporate network
Run Vista's licensing manager utility - C:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -ato

The quest for a better mouse

2009-01-17T10:13:35-06:00:00

I picked up a Microsoft Explorer Mouse with BlueTrack Technology for my wife for Christmas (really, it's for her). It lists at $80 but I got it for $50. The big selling feature is the ability to track over any surface. It works great! You've had it happen. Your on the road, the hotel desk is too plastic and your mouse pointer is jumping all over the place. You put a piece of paper under the mouse but it slides too. Arrrrr. Two other things I like is the NiMH battery charger (the mouse sits on top of it), the warning light reminding you to charge it, and the 30' wireless capability. My personal intelliMouse sits within inches of the receiver which is the size of the actual mouse. The new receivers are thumb drive sized.

Security in the Cloud

2009-01-14T18:08:40-06:00:00

I was impressed with my first taste of ADFS on my last project. Specifically solving for Web SSO. Geneva, (aka Zermatt) is now the single federated identity platform. And it sits in the Cloud. At the PDC 1 Day (MSDN Dev Con) the presentation on Azure noted this. This is wonderful. It may be new to us at this point, but it will be the same framework in the enterprise as in the cloud. A Security Token Service (STS) will exist in the cloud, a portal to manage the access control rules will exist in the cloud, and .NET to access this programmatically. Sweet!