I found this really cool library today. #usblib(SharpUSBLib) is a wrapper around the libusb project. If you need access to USB ports in your .NET applications you should check out this library here. I was successfully able to utilize this library to interface with my Motorola ROKR phone. Next step is to figure out how to write a Sync application using this library for my ROKR. Pretty cool library with lots of applications...

I just received this email from my contact at JetBrains: A quick update on the JetBrains User Group Giveaway program... 1) We’re happy to extend this giveaway for another year – at least until the end of 2009. Your work in the community is something we all admire, and we’d like to thank you for your efforts. 2) We are expanding the program to support a lot more User Groups – .NET, Java, Groovy, Ruby, Google, and Agile. If you want us to support any other groups, let me know! 3) We’re also expanding...

Here is the slide deck from my presentation on SOA with WCF that I delivered to the Tulsa Developers .NET Group 9/29/2008. If you live around Tulsa and have not been to one of their meetings check out the Tulsa Developer .NET website and give them a shout. David Walker has a great group of people there and they are doing great things like Tulsa Techfest. Also, don't forget to check out the Bartlesville .NET User Group while your in Oklahoma. Service Oriented Development With Windows Communication...

This new episode is back to the usual Office humor! Love IT

Lately, I have been a little down in the dumps. At work I am constantly behind because of all the support, mentoring, meetings, and of course the occasional time for actual development. Don't get me wrong here, I love my job. However, certain events have occurred recently that were unexpected. For the last few weeks I have been dwelling on those events finding it hard to stay motivated, as well as finding it hard to wake up and get to work. Last weekend, I went to my mother in laws church where her...

Here are the slides from my presentation at the Bartlesville .NET User Group on Design Patterns. Enjoy! Bartlesville Dot Net User Group Design Patterns View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design patterns) NOTE: If you attended my presentation or have enjoyed my presentation I would love it if you would let me know what you thought by leaving a recommendation for Speaker: Design Patterns in C# here http://www.linkedin.com/in/...

I found a very useful new tool today. I have friends that I routinely will chat with using other video chat tools. I wanted to do a multi person video chat and found ooVoo through Google. ooVoo is multiplatform and as I soon discovered worked extremely well. We had 4 people on the chat at once, and although the video was not perfect 100% of the time it was as close as you can get to perfect, especially considering the price. You should check out ooVoo yourself. Enjoy...

Here are the slides from a presentation I did for the Bartlesville .NET User Group on Service Oriented Development with Windows Communication Foundation. These slides are a subset of a much larger presentation I do. The slides cover the basics behind Service Oriented Architecture/Development and over view of the power behind Windows Communication Foundation. Because of time constraints this presentation does not include all the detail and demos that the larger presentation consists of. Enjoy! NOTE:...

Wikipedia is a wealth of information. Recently, I was mentoring a young developer and compiled a list of Wikipedia links to help them grasp some of the basic tenets of OOP. Below are some of the links: Object Oriented Programming Polymorphism Encapsulation Interface Design Patterns Subclass Superclass UML...

I found a great series of on demand webcasts on the MSDN website. It took me a while to track down the full series but here are the links: MSDN Webcast: Windows Communication Foundation Top to Bottom (Part 01 of 15): Overview (Level 100) MSDN Webcast: Windows Communication Foundation Top to Bottom (Part 02 of 15): Contracts (Level 200) MSDN Webcast: Windows Communication Foundation Top to Bottom (Part 03 of 15): Contract Versioning (Level 200) MSDN Webcast: Windows Communication Foundation Top to...

I thought I needed to post this as it took me a while to find the official MySQL drivers for .NET and VS2008. I found the drivers here. The current version 5.2 has the following features: A new profile provider has been implemented along with a fully revamped provider schema. New bulk loading and script execution classes are available. The ability to clear a single or all connection pools. Integration into Visual Studio 2008 MySqlDataAdapter now supports batching BINARY(16) columns are now treated...

Ok, so I was having an issue with the new Micro SD card I bought for my cell phone. The cell phone manufacturer said it would work since their phone supported SDHC cards. However, after trying to format with every possible format Windows Vista offered still no luck. I decided to Google the issue and I found on the SD site this formatter, with a disclaimer saying generic OS formatters do not format the cards to SD specifications. After using this utility my problems are solved. The card works. You...

I found this video that would be pretty funny, if it were not so true! Watch the video and see if you sympathize with your developers...

I just found out today that the Bartlesville .NET User Group I started has now become an official INETA user group! This is great news for the group as it will just help us continue to grow. If you are ever in Oklahoma stop by and say Hi. Technorati Tags: Bartlesville,Bartlesville .NET User Group,BDNUG,User Group,INETA LiveJournal Tags: Bartlesville,Bartlesville .NET User Group,BDNUG,User Group,INETA del.icio.us Tags: Bartlesville,Bartlesville .NET User Group,BDNUG,User Group,INETA IceRocket Tags:...

From their site: ALERT!!! - Campus will be closed which means that the TechFest is postponed, we will try to have reschedule but not until 2009 at the soonest. Thank you all for being part of the Houston TechFest. This is disappointing as I was really looking forward to it. However, I fully understand as ConocoPhillips, my employer, has closed the Houston offices because of Ike as well. I hope everyone ends up OK and this ends up just being precautionary. I will make sure to attend the Houston Techfest...

I received my MBA from the University of Tulsa in 2002 while working full time. I learned a lot from grad school and home to get another Master's degree in the future. The one thing I regret is that I should have looked at more schools for my MBA. TU at the time was rated in the Top 25 for Graduate schools in US News. So academia wise it was a great choice. The biggest thing I have learned since graduating is academics are not the only thing you should evaluate a school on. Even with getting a 3.5...

I really enjoyed this video on Advance ASP.NET from Channel 9. I was listening to it today at work and found there were a few tidbits of information gold. geekSpeak recording: Advanced ASP.NET with Michele Leroux Bustamante Technorati Tags: ASP.NET,Channel 9 LiveJournal Tags: ASP.NET,Channel 9 del.icio.us Tags: ASP.NET,Channel 9 IceRocket Tags: ASP.NET,Channel 9 43 Things Tags: ASP.NET,Channel 9 BuzzNet Tags: ASP.NET,Channel 9...

There is a good video on practicing test driven development on ASP.NET's website. You can view the video here. If your new to TDD this should be of interest to you. Technorati Tags: TDD,Test Driven Development,Training,.NET LiveJournal Tags: TDD,Test Driven Development,Training,.NET del.icio.us Tags: TDD,Test Driven Development,Training,.NET IceRocket Tags: TDD,Test Driven Development,Training,.NET 43 Things Tags: TDD,Test Driven Development,Training,.NET BuzzNet Tags: TDD,Test Driven Development,Training,.NET...

I just found these videos on ASP.NET for Team Foundation Server. I find that many developers new to .NET could learn a lot from these videos. Almost any developer could learn something or two from at least one of the videos. Check them out at let me know what you think. Team Foundation Server Training Videos Technorati Tags: ASP.NET,Team Foundation Server,TFS,.NET,.NET Framework,Training LiveJournal Tags: ASP.NET,Team Foundation Server,TFS,.NET,.NET Framework,Training del.icio.us Tags: ASP.NET,Team...

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Ok so I have been using Google Chrome since I was able to download it around 2:00 PM CST today. I find that I like it's light weight nature, however I have found the usually layout issues on web site. Which, of course as a web developer I am cursing the fact that there is a new browser in town that will have a 800 pound gorilla behind it. This means one more browser to test for every site I release. What fun! :) I have so far only found 1 site with major issues, and that is Twitter. Twitter is one...

If you have never taken a look at Microsoft's Patterns and Practices site, you should! I find that I may not use all of the application blocks, guidance packages, or other things I see there, but I find value in pretty much everything on the site. I find that by looking though the source code I can find new uses for Design Patterns that I have been using for most of my software engineering career. You can find one of my favorite guidance packages here...

Ok, as a Web Developer I am interested in Google Chrome. I really was having issues getting their download to work. I finally got it to work in Firefox using this link: http://dl.google.com/update... Enjoy