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July 2008 Entries

RAR and Other Alternative/Annoying Archival/Compression Formats


I hate when people send me an email with a .rar (or similar non-.zip) attachment.  I realize that rar has some special features that set it apart - but those features are not really very important when you're just talking about sending me a small non-commercial c# project in an email.

I think I will create my own custom compressed archival format, and start sending out .lnc files (which doesn't stand for "lance", but something creative that implies its the worst compression format ever, like "loco nasty compression" or "like...not compressed" or "lame non-zip creation") instead of .rar or .zip.  Then everyone who wants to open one of my email attachments will have to download and install my software. 

And when someone replies back to me and says - "Can you send me a zip instead of an lnc?"  I'll just be like "What??  You're still using zip?  Ugh.  Dude download WinLNC already, its 2008.  I sure hope you're not using that 'compressed folders' crap that is built into Windows like all the other Microsoft sheep."  Then I'll post information on the WinLNC website about buying the WinLNC subscription package, and false testimonials from all my "customers" raving about how WinLNC is soooo much better than all the other available tools.  Then I'll upload the free trial version to download.com and similar sites and write a script that automatically passes through anonymizing proxies and downloads my software once every 5 minutes. 

Before my PowerShell friends think they're immune, soon to follow will be the read-lnc and write-lnc cmdlets.

Are you thinking the same thing I'm thinking, Pinky?  I'm going to take over the world [of compressed archives]!

posted @ Friday, July 25, 2008 11:23 AM | Feedback (4) | Filed Under [ General ]


New Stuff on the Home Front


On the home front:

I’m planning on trying some triathlon events, although I really would prefer to try some adventure racing instead.  First I’m going to start with a tiny little super sprint triathlon, where the distances are very short.  First I have to wait for my ankle to get healed though, but the swimming part will be the only tough leg for me so I can train for that even with the injury (for those who don’t know, I took a bad sprain playing volleyball about 5 weeks ago).  I’m also planning on my first half marathon in November.  I need to get to work training for this one ASAP if I am going to make it.  I’m sure that I’m out of shape since I haven’t done any running in the last 5 weeks.  For now swimming and mountain biking will be the bulk of my exercise.  Got any good advice for me?

I have recently enjoyed live performances of Iris Dement, The Bowerbirds, and Tom Petty.  I love live music!  We also went to see Dave Attell, who was absolutely freakin’ hilarious!  I went to all of these with someone I met recently, and I’m having a blast spending time with her.  Her music taste is much like mine (which is not exactly common), and we get along great.

prius My friends keep making fun of me because I have it in my head that I want to buy a 2009 Toyota Prius.  I don’t think the Prius body style is as lame as they say, but for all that mpg I don’t really care either.  Right now I drive a 2002 F-150 gas guzzler, which has its uses of course…but also has its hefty gas price tag.  Maybe I’ll keep it too and just park it most of the time.  Maybe whatever gas money I save on a new hybrid I can throw into buying a boat!  Thats not exactly a step in the carbon-neutral direction, huh?  Everytime I drive over the lakes around the area I am so completely jealous of those people I see riding their waverunners, skiing, wakeboarding, etc.  I want to get out there, but a ski boat is a big chunk of money to drop.  Is it worth it?

Its almost time to go white water rafting!  Can't wait for that!  :P  Then I want to learn how to do some river kayaking.

posted @ Tuesday, July 22, 2008 12:30 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ General ]


New Stuff on the Work Front


From the work front:

What have I been doing at work lately?  I’ve been spending a lot of time at work playing with SharePoint, the PowerShellToys’ PowerShellASP which lets you create ASP.NET apps with PowerShell script, and I set myself up with a brand new openSUSE 11 (this is a great distro) machine where I’ve been spending a lot of time in MonoDevelop.

Speaking of PowerShell and ASP.NET – check out PoshBoard [at CodePlex], Antoine Habert’s PowerShell driven ajax portal.  Antoine has a nice little video on his blog.

/n software has also made a small flurry of new announcements over the past week or so.

  • New release – IP*Works! EDI/AS2 V8.  Another fresh round of Drummond cert tests are complete.  On top of the insanely popular AS2 components, we’ve added OFTP, FTPS, and a new java GISB component.  A new AS2 Connector application is coming out of the pipeline soon too!
  • New release – Paymentech Integrator v5.  Paymentech Integrator is probably my personal favorite of all of our credit card processing components.  With PABP/CISP compliance being so important, this new release has been highly anticipated.  This release adds Canadian Debit and Health Care/FSA support.
  • New beta – UPS Integrator.  Unlike the other /n software shipping integrators (FedEx and USPS), this one does NOT include the ability to generate shipping labels.  While the technology is there, unfortunately UPS licensing restrictions will not allow us to release a component that generates UPS shipping labels, but we are trying to work with them to change this.  If this is something you’re looking for, do contact me so that I can get your comments passed on to the right people at UPS!
  • New beta – SharePoint Workflow Extensions.  The toolkit includes SharePoint Activities for Internet communications, namely FTP (ssl & ssh), RSS, email, sexec, SMPP (sms messaging), SNPP (paging), and XMPP (jabber).

posted @ Tuesday, July 22, 2008 12:27 PM | Feedback (0) | Filed Under [ Programming General PowerShell IPWorks ]