Chaz Blogs

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Chaz Blogs It's all about the eXperience!

Jun 09

I created a data model in Visio AE 2003 and went through the extremely tedious task of putting a note on just about every column. Unfortunately when I generated the DDL the notes on the columns were simply generated as commented lines that don't do much more than annotate my DDL. Not exactly what I was hoping for. So after quite a search on the web ......

Posted On Friday, June 5, 2009 3:08 PM

Oct 08

The scalability of Scrum

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So I've been playing the role of Scrum Master for a grand total of 6 Sprints on 2 projects. In that time I've come to two very distinct issues that make me question if what I am doing is really Scrum? While I believe that you cannot adhere to any methodology 100% without some interpretation and customizing, I am wondering if the things I am doing are ......

Posted On Sunday, October 19, 2008 8:35 PM

Jul 08

The End of a Decade's Work

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Well I guess I should be satisfied that I sustained a company for 10 years. But it is a bit anti-climactic. I've screwed up a lot, learned a lot and accomplished a lot since 1998. I like to think of it as a long MBA program based in real world experience. I wouldn't trade anything for the experiences I have gained over the past 10 years. Nothing is ......

Posted On Saturday, July 5, 2008 9:43 PM

Mar 08

A shift in focus

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Well for those of you who follow me and my blog (and who doesn't); a major life change signifies a shift in focus on this blog. For over a year I have been a big proponent of good User Experience. But as I have made some very deliberate decisions in my career I am assuming a role as a Scrum Master and Delivery Manager. I will still have architectural ......

Posted On Friday, March 14, 2008 11:50 PM

Feb 08

I can see the light -- Silverlight 2.0

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Silverlight 2.Oh My God! Shawn Burke posted about his endeavors with Silverlight 2.0 and he says one very important thing... "I'm having fun!" Man that is what it should be about. Programming should be fun and not a hassle. I am expecting some instant gratification from Silverlight 2.0. Shawn also points to Scott Gu's blog. If you aren't watching that ......

Posted On Tuesday, February 26, 2008 3:31 PM

Jan 08

Do you WCF/WPF/WF/Silverlight?

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Okay so we've had an onslaught of new things hit in the Microsoft stack lately. I am curious how many folks are using WCF, WPF, WF (workflow), Silverlight, LINQ, etc. And for what types of problems you are trying to solve. It would also be nice to know if you are using the P&P Guidance Packages and Ent Libs. Oh and which Visual Studio version are ......

Posted On Thursday, January 24, 2008 10:16 AM

Jan 08

Microsoft Sync

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If you've watched any TV lately you will notice an odd pairing of product brands. Intermingled in car ads recently has been the mention of Microsoft Sync. I thought hmm... that might be a pretty cool feature. When looked into Sync a little closer I had the feeling, I've seen this trick before. Like, connect your cell phone to your car via Blue Tooth ......

Posted On Wednesday, January 23, 2008 10:20 AM

FireStarter NYC

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I will be presenting on the interaction of ASP.Net, ASP.Net AJAX, and Silverlight 1.0 this Saturday at Microsoft in NYC. I'll also be showing off a small bit of Expression Blend 2 December Preview. It is amazing how easy it is to pull all of these technologies together. Some of what I will be showing this Satruday is just a bridge until Silverlight ......

Posted On Wednesday, January 23, 2008 9:20 AM

Jan 08

Options For Porting Java to .Net

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I am working on a port of an opensource domain specific Time & Money java library written by Eric Evans to .Net. To the best of my knowledge there are 2 ways to directly convert Java to .Net; 1. Use the built in Convert function within Visual Studio 2005/08. This lets you point directly at the java classes and allow studio to handle the conversion ......

Posted On Thursday, January 10, 2008 8:10 AM

Jan 08

Optical Drive Door Virus?!

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Okay, this is too precious to keep to myself! My DVD Rom door keeps popping open on my laptop. Probably a worn out do-hicky or an out of place gizmo right? Well I thought I'd just hit up HP tech support for an answer. Basically I want to know if I can fix it myself or if I should just buy a new drive. Here is a very funny tech support exchange: HP Tech: ......

Posted On Wednesday, January 9, 2008 3:16 PM

Jan 08

Bad Verizon Policy

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So you are a loyal Verizon customer, huh? You are up for your "New Every Two" upgrade, huh. You hate your old cell phone because the up arrow and 9 key are broken. Well it is a no-brainer then, run don't walk to your Verizon store and get that new phone. WAIT! STOP RUNNING! Do you have applications, games or ringtones on your current phone that you ......

Posted On Saturday, January 5, 2008 11:12 PM

Dec 07

Philly Code Camp Registration Open

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Registration for the Philly Code Camp on January 12th is now open. I will be presenting "Entry Level Event Models". It is a part of my "Entry Level" series that will attempt to get "the willing" up to speed on fundamental architectural, design and development practices. I'm psyched to kick off 2008 with a code camp presentation. This should be a good ......

Posted On Tuesday, December 18, 2007 6:16 PM

Oct 07

Live Search Maps (Next Generation)

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Hello Live Search Maps.... ehhh... Virtual Earth goodbye Google Maps! I was hanging out with Peter Laudati tonight and he showed me the next rev of what I call Virtual Earth. Can anybody tell me what the correct name is? Peter totally got the jump on me and blogged about the new release already! There is a new Interactive SDK (version 6) to go along ......

Posted On Wednesday, October 17, 2007 9:59 PM

Oct 07

REMIX07 Boston - Day 1 (and final day for me)

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Even though REMIX07 Boston is still going on until tomorrow, I had to get back to work commitments. I'm bummed because there were so many great sessions to check out. The Key Note presented by Brad Abrams was cool. He presented a number of things I had seen before, but I think the crowd was very impressed. Most impressive for me was seeing Miguel de ......

Posted On Monday, October 8, 2007 10:41 PM

Oct 07

Remix 07 Boston Day 0

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Okay, being a speaker at Remix07 Boston is probably among the coolest things I have done professionally to date. And I haven't even presented yet. We had a "speaker's" dinner which included the Microsoft full time employees. I randomly wound up sitting with Brad Abrams, PM Silverlight and Seema Ramchandani PM WPF(Avalon). Brad will be our Keynote speaker ......

Posted On Sunday, October 7, 2007 10:56 PM

Oct 07

A book providing a good User Experience????

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Funny, I never thought a book could provide a good user experience. But sometimes it is the little things in life that are overlooked. I just bought Martin Fowler's book "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture". And as always the book is written well and the content is aces. But what really dazzled me about the book is that the publisher (Addison ......

Posted On Tuesday, October 2, 2007 2:52 PM

Dear ALT.Net Attendees:

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This is an open letter to the attendees of the upcoming ALT.Net gathering in Austin TX. Dear Friends, Sadly I will not be able to join you at ALT.Net due to some poor planning on my part. I regret missing out on the opportunity to surround myself with some of the brightest minds in our industry. If I were to attend ALT.Net though, my goal would have ......

Posted On Tuesday, October 2, 2007 10:12 AM

Sep 07

REMix07 - Boston Oct 8th & 9th

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I will be presenting "Developing with the Virtual Earth SDK" at ReMix07! If you missed Mix 07 in Vegas, you should come join us for this 2 day event in Boston! You can get a $100 price break on registration too! Just because you read my blog! When registering, use discount code: RM07EXTB What to expect at ReMIX07 Boston … If you’re in the web business, ......

Posted On Saturday, September 8, 2007 9:59 AM

Does anybody "own" User eXperience?

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A couple of weeks ago I had a very intriguing conversation with an unlikely contact. I received an e-mail from an individual "in the business" based on some of my User eXperience (UX) blogs. I thought cool, a new contact in an area that I love. I should speak to her in person. So I set up a phone call. She runs a business where she places Information ......

Posted On Saturday, September 8, 2007 9:33 AM

Jul 07

Innovative User Experiences Kids Play

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I have found two new inspirations for excellent user experience in a most unlikely place; my kid's toy box. Well so to speak anyway. The first inspiration is innovative from both a marketing perspective as well as a User Interface perspective. If you have a child from 5 to 15 you probably know about Webkinz. A very short explanation for those that don't. ......

Posted On Saturday, July 28, 2007 5:32 PM

Jun 07

Infragistics Web Grid on a Web Tab

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I am writing a bit of client side code to move data from one Infragistics UltraWebGrid to another. To do this I have given the user a button on each row of the main table. If they click the button in a row the contents of the id and descrition columns should be inserted into the destination grid. This all should have been real simple. Except my javascript ......

Posted On Friday, June 22, 2007 3:04 PM

Jun 07

Dev Dinner This Wednesday

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Scott Watermasysk just posted up for a dev dinner this Wednesday night. If you are around stop by the Harvestmoon around 6:30PM.

--chaz

Posted On Tuesday, June 12, 2007 11:24 AM

May 07

Sky Blue Soccer {way off topic}

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I normally don't post off topic, but I really want to get the word out about a great event! So if off-topic posts offend you or you are not from NJ, please just skip this post! I've just learned from an anonymous source that a semi-pro (W-League) women’s soccer team, Sky Blue Soccer {ranked 17th in women’s soccer} will play the Chinese National team ......

Posted On Thursday, May 24, 2007 10:14 AM

Apr 07

WPF Starter

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A great post from Karsten Januszewski should help you get started with WPF. I like this not only because Karsten points to great resources, but because it is oganized into a nice 5 day self paced course. Really cool!

--chaz

Posted On Tuesday, April 24, 2007 10:26 AM

Apr 07

User Interface Smackdown 2007

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As I had mentioned in my review of the NJUX meeting the User Experience movement seems to still be in its infancy stages. So I am psyched to see things like Josh Holmes' blog about the User Interface Smackdown 2007. These are exactly the types of meetings and conversations that need to happen to bring more momentum and attention to the User Experience. ......

Posted On Thursday, April 5, 2007 10:01 AM