Dan K Blog

Ubuntu / Kubuntu 8.10 out

Dan K — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:31:10 GMT

Head on over to http://www.kubuntu.org/ or http://www.ubuntu.org/ to get the freshest drops of the slickest OS out there. As always you can boot it off a liveCD if you want to try it our with NO changes to your existing OS. If you choose to install it, it dual boots nice with any Windows, and as long as you install it second, it will add a nice boot loader for you that gives you an easy menu to allow you to chose which OS to boot to.

Check it out today!

The kubuntu drop comes with KDE 4 or 3.x, depending on if you are feeling adventurous or not.

There are tone of new features out in the latest drop, all listed on http://www.kubuntu.org/ so check it out.

Joel & StackOverflow

Dan K — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:44:59 GMT

Hi Guys, I just found a good resource for development questions & answers.

Here is a post about the site and how it works:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/09/15.html

and here is the site:

http://stackoverflow.com/

Sounds like a great idea, and Joel is known for taking great ideas and making them into great things

Support the eBay Strike!!Feb 18 - 25

Dan K — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:19:20 GMT

eBay sellers are planning a sellers strike Feb 18 - 25. Hit this cnn link for more info, including a couple videos -
http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/07/smbusiness/ebay_boycott.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008021009

Sony Vaio Wireless Vista Update

Dan K — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:09:09 GMT

This past week I blogged a problem I was having with a friend's Sony Vaio Vista laptop and wireless randomly dropping. After some digging on the Sony site, I came up with this: http://www.iq.sony.com/srvs/autoresponsev4.asp?id=568483

Details from the Sony KB article

Knowledge Article C568483

The wireless network connection intermittently fails to connect.

When using the internal LAN-Express (Atheros) wireless network adapter to connect to a wireless network the following issues may occur:

    * Not able to connect to a wireless network after a long period of usage or after resuming from suspend or hibernation.
    * The LAN-Express wireless network adapter intermittently disappears from device manager or VAIO Smart Network.
    * The wireless network connection intermittently fails to connect.

This issue is currently being investigated by Sony. Please contact the Customer Information Service Center at 888-476-6972 to speak with a customer service representative.

that's pretty much our issue in a nutshell. I guess it's good to know it's nothing we did wrong and there's nothing we could have done to fix it, but it sure is annoying still. Hope this helps someone else from going crazy trying to fix this.

MSDN Code Gallery

Dan K — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:01:59 GMT

In case anyone else missed it besides me, MSDN launched it's Code Gallery site this week.

You can check it out at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/

thanks to Somasegar's WebLog :

The MSDN Code Gallery is a portal for snippets, samples and other resources. In it you can find pages that describe samples and supporting documents including screenshots and design documents. In addition, you will find hosted conversations about these samples, sample projects or other resources that have been provided to the community. This destination is open to the entire community to contribute content to.

Great Download - Query Express

Dan K — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:17:48 GMT

While checking different tools lists of people I admire, (Hanselman's is still the best) I came across a great little exe called Query Express. It's a single EXE, no install no mess. It's written in .net and you can get the exe or the .net project to compile yourself if you are paranoid. It also sounds like you can take the project and roll it into your own commercial apps for free. It's compatible with 1.1 and 2.0 and up.

Ok so it's a single, no install exe, but what does it do? It's basically a Query Analyzer standalone that can talk to any SQL database, as well as Oracle and any Ole-db. I actually dug out the connection string for access and was able to do some work on a server on an app that uses an access DB with no access installed on the machine.

I actually used it today at work twice. If you get stuck for the odd connection string, I recommend

http://www.connectionstrings.com/

In query express you can also right click on tables and fields to get some common queries stubbed out for you.

download it from : http://www.albahari.com/queryexpress.html

add it to your portable apps thumb drive today.

No More MS Acropolis

Dan K — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:13:56 GMT

Talking to someone at our user group this evening, I got the bad news that the Acropolis project will see no more CTP releases. It seems that the project is now in the hands of the Patterns & Practices group. From the Acropolis website :

"We are very excited to be entering the next phase of the project where we will begin to roll many of the Acropolis concepts into future versions of the .NET Framework for the desktop and Silverlight. Unfortunately, while we figure out exactly how to go about this, we have decided not to release any more Acropolis CTP's. We’re going to keep the current CTP bits available to allow you to continue prototyping and evaluating the Acropolis concepts. There will be no new functionality added to the Acropolis CTPs but we do hope that you will continue to provide feedback to us on what you like or don’t like."

and

"We are very excited to announce that we are going to be working closely with the Microsoft Patterns & Practices team to provide guidance (samples, applications blocks, patterns and so on) for building composite client applications for .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008. As part of that effort we want to engage with those that have been following the Acropolis project to ensure that this guidance meets your needs. Glenn Block, the Patterns & Practices client product manager, has much more information about the Composite Applications for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 project here."

They plan to release more info in the next couple months.

I guess it would be a safe bet that I can scrap my Acropolis session at New England Code Camp 9.

Portable Apps and You

Dan K — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:38:33 GMT

Well I've seen these about thirty times now, tried them once or twice, but now that I am doing a little more work with my side company, I've found this great tool for becoming a bit more mobile. Check out the suite here. You can run Open Office from a USB drive. Never be without the ability to open word, excel, access or powerpoint files again. I recommend trying the initial suite on that extra USB drive you have laying around for starters, then check out the whole apps list. Adding more portable apps from the site to your stick is as easy as pie. From the list you can make sure you will never be without a to open PDF, or a .ZIP RAR, TAR, and other popular compressed file formats, or connect to a needed FTP site. There are dozens of others, ranging from dev tools(a pretty good front-page clone) to utilities (use eraser to completely wipe info from a hard disk). There is also a portable version of Firefox (that you can add your favourite dev extensions like Web Developer and Firebug ). There are also tips on portableapps.com on how to speed up Firefox portable (that also work on regular FFox). Definitely worth a few hours of time play with. Worth having an old drive in your glove box for that visit to the random relative or friend that "needs your help with something"

Also if you haven't checked out Web Developer and Firebug for firefox, you owe it to yourself as a developer!

PS Don't forget to encrypt that drive with TrueCrypt if you are running around with sensitive customer data!!!!

Top 10 Reasons to not buy Visual Studio 2008

Dan K — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:54:43 GMT

Bravo Dave, Bravo!

http://blog.dmbcllc.com/2007/11/30/top-ten-reasons-to-not-buy-visual-studio-2008/

There's both a movie and some text, enjoy!

CONGRATS to S.B. Chatterjee

Dan K — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:51:37 GMT

Wow, didn't realize I was this slow on things.

CONGRATS to S.B. Chatterjee on his MVP for Office Groove!

See more here : http://weblogs.asp.net/sbchatterjee/archive/2008/01/13/microsoft-mvp-award-for-groove.aspx

Way to go man, 'bout time!

Sony Vaio, Vista & Wireless

Dan K — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:41:52 GMT

Anyone having problems where they get an intermittent connection to a Wireless AP using a Sony Vaio laptop running Vista? The only thing that seems odd to me is that you have to set the Wireless AP settings in both Windows Network & Sharing and also in the Vaio Communications center. I have a friend who can connect fine, but every so often, only for 10 to 15 seconds, the wireless LAN drops to "Local Only" and after a couple page refreshes (and no other interaction from the user) the connection is good for a while. We had days where my she was able to surf 2-3 hours with no noticeable interruption, other days were she drops 15 times an hour.

Any help here or in email would help, there are about 100000 "professional" posts on various forums that people claim to fix this, but non of the problems are the same as mine.

Thanks in advance.

New England Code Camp 9 - April 5 & 6

Dan K — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:44:43 GMT

Well, Chris Bowen has posted it on his blog, so we are official; Code Camp 9 Will be April 5th and 6th in Waltham. Hard to believe it has been 9 already. He is also looking for a subtitle to number 9. Also if you have a little artistic talent, maybe you can help him design a new logo for us? Head over to his blog for all the info.

Also Registration and Call for Speakers will be posted there soon, so keep your eyes open.

New England Code Camp 7 Reg. Open

Dan K — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:17:00 GMT

Get Ready New England Geeks! March 31 - April 1 2007

Via Chris Bowen's Blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen/archive/2007/01/24/code-camp-7-registration-open.aspx

Hmmm, something's *really* fishy about Code Camp happening on April Fool's Day, I'm very very afraid...

Give a yell if you're going, I'm definitely going, most likely speaking. Any ideas for talks that might be interesting?

CT MSDN Event announced - August 31, 2006

Dan K — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:06:00 GMT

CT MSDN Event announced.

Thursday, August 31, 2006 1:00 PM -5:00 PM
Welcome Time: 12:30 PM

Session #1: Exploring the System.Net Namespace in the .NET Framework 2.0

Developers are increasingly being asked to create applications that interact with common network services. So, it’s a good thing the .NET Framework 2.0 enables you to write connected applications with less hassle and fewer lines of code. This session will delve into the System.Net namespace, including:

• How to create applications that detect network availability and connections

• Sending SMTP mail and transferring data via HTTP and FTP

• How to use the HTTP Listener class to write a simple Web server

Session #2: Windows Communication Foundation Exposed

Windows Communication Foundation (formerly code-named “Indigo”) is a set of .NET technologies for building and running distributed systems. WCF is a new breed of communications API that unifies previously disparate communications mediums and offers one single API for coding. In this session, we’ll explore:

• How WCF extends the .NET Base Class Library and builds distributed connected systems

• Where WCF fits into the larger WinFX world and how to use WCF to build distributed applications

• Enabling services that communicate across multiple boundaries and transports

• How to optimize for platform or performance

Session #3: Building the Next Generation of Web Applications with ASP.NET “Atlas”

Tired of postbacks taking precious seconds away from your Web app’s performance? Do users complain about slow-loading pages? Are you wondering what the AJAX buzz is all about? Learn how you can take advantage of ASP.NET 2.0’s new AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) framework – code-named “Atlas”– to build next-generation Web applications. This session will cover:

• The Atlas architecture, including scenarios associated with the AJAX programming model

• How to apply Atlas to enhance new or existing ASP.NET applications

• Applications that incorporate AJAX, Web services, and rich DHTML-based user experiences

If you are not in the CT area, check http://www.msdnevents.com/ for the session nearest to you!

Great Deal from Apress

Dan K — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:42:00 GMT

Head over to the Apress site for a great deal on a bundle of VB 2005 books.

They are offering:

From June 16-30, purchase this limited edition VB 2005 eBook bundle for $50 (a $110 value!). That's right, instead of the standard eBook discount of 50% off the list price, you'll pay just $12.50 for each eBook. The four titles included are listed below. Sorry, but no substitutions allowed.

This is a great deal for anyone who works with VB 2005. I’ll be ordering mine at lunch today! Check it out.

Virtual Mobile User Group - Wow

Dan K — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:13:00 GMT

Wow, Don Sorcinelli is a genius! Head over to the Boston Pocket PC site for the announcement of their new user group. From the site:

Our meetings will be held live via Microsoft Live Meeting every other 3rd Wednesday of the month from 12 Noon - 2 PM EDT/EST.

What a great way to meet the challenges of starting a new user group! If you develop applications or web sites that target Windows Mobile devices, check this out. Don is a great presenter and a great guy all around. Make sure you mark your calendars for Wednesday, July 19th from 12 - 2 PM EDT.

SQL Prompt Not for me.

Dan K — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:31:00 GMT

Ok I tried to love the new wonderful, highly acclaimed SQL Prompt, but can’t. It says it works with VS2005 and, although I no longer take the short yellow bus to work, I feel like I should. I cannot get it to work in the IDE. I checked all my settings, emailed friends, etc and… nothing! The conflict between SQL Prompt’s ‘hot keys’ and the ones I know and love in VS2005 just confuses me. I think I’ll stick with snippets and TextPad copy-pastes from my existing library of SQL ‘code’. Sorry SQL Prompt, it’s not you, it’s me, and I hope we can still be friends?

p.s. Shame on me because I was up at Tech*Ed last week in Boston and I saw people walking around with Red-Gate shirts, so they were probably there, I was just too busy to go see them and have them hit me over the head with my laptop to get SQLP to work

CodeSmart for VB6

Dan K — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:18:00 GMT

Ok, I now know I am not the only one still writing VB6 code. I think the number I keep hearing is something link 50%? Well I am one of that whatever percentage. We have some apps that will never need enough maintenance / upgrades / enhancements to warrant a migration, but we work on a lot. The VB2005 upgrade wizard took *all* weekend when we analyzed the app to see what we needed to do to move it, just for laughs. I do a talk called VB2005 for VB6 Developers, and it usually draws a pretty good audience. Today I was checking out Roy Osherove’s blog and I came across this. I quickly downloaded and installed the demo and I have to say I quiet like it! I haven’t even checked out all the features but it looks like this app is a keeper!

It kinda makes VB6 look and act like all the parts of VB2005 that I use every night. Trust me, if you are still doing work inVB6 land, this *is* the tool for you. The web page has a ton of information on it, but really, you have to see it to believe it, so download the trial today, I just have to warn you, you’ll be either begging your boss by noon for this or trying to calculate how many lattes you would have to skip to be able to buy this yourself .

Try it today and let me know what you think, and, *NO* I do not work for any of the companied involved here, I just love great tools.

Getting Sh-t Done

Dan K — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:05:00 GMT

I think I am still stuck in my analog world for task management. I love my moleskine and 3x5 cards from Levenger I needed to find a way to get my personal, fulltime job, side jobs, household and speaking tasks in order. I couldn’t find one I really loved, GTD was probably the closest, but I wasn’t in love with it. Enter Bill Westerman and his wonderfully simple Getting SH-t Done (GSD) Check out the article and his photo stream for all the details, I love it.

It’d also integrate easily into a text based digital system. Use [ ] [.] and [x] or [/] and keep the list(s) in something like gmail or backpack to have it always accessible. Thanks Bill for a great system!

TechEd Bot

Dan K — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:01:00 GMT

Hey I just found out, if you add the bot teched06@hotmail.com to your MSN messenger you can get all kinds of TechEd info, pretty cool. Can you find the hidden game? I’ll be up at TechEd on Thursday and Friday.

NJCode Camp II another success!

Dan K — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 02:31:00 GMT

Ok, despite what the timestamp might say, it’s midnight here in CT. A late end to a long day. It started around 530 AM when I got in my car and headed to Iselin New Jersey. Many hours and many miles later, I do declare the day to be another success for Don, Scott and Peter, as well as all who attended and presented. I did 2 talks VB2005 for VB6ers and Meet Visual Web Developer Express. Although the ‘intro’ sessions weren’t as popular as they were at the last Boston Code Camp, those who *did* attend my sessions seemed to have learned a few things and enjoyed themselves. I caught a great presentation by Chip Lemmon called ‘Down With Datasets’. I recommend catching this talk if you happen to see it at a user group or code camp in your area. Got to see some old buds like Don, Kevin, and Robert Holmes, and meet some new and interesting people like Chip and Mr Community Server, Scott Wateramsysk. Another great Code Camp put on by the NJ guys. We ended up at Bertucci’s after and managed to get the wait staff to sing Happy Birthday (complete with a candle and cake) to Don, as thanks for pulling the thing together. After another 3 hours of driving through night and rain, I am home and looking forward to the next NJ Code Camp. Keep an eye on NJCodeCamp.Org for more information on the next round! Next time I’ll leave the ‘intro’ stuff at home and bore you with some crypto! Sam Gentile was definitely missed, dunno much about the situation, but I wish you good health and a speedy recovery Sam. Miguel, where the hell were you? I’ll get my code and slide decks up on the site for all who are interested.

Online flash card library

Dan K — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 11:00:00 GMT

Last night, while browsing lifehacker.com, I found a link to a great site, http://www.flashcardexchange.com/. They have virtual flash card decks for anything you could ever want from science, to high school subjects to music to computers. I checked out the cards tagged 'Microsoft' and found some great ones for Microsoft Certified Developer exams. There are many others, linux, cicso, jave, etc, but the MS ones seemed pretty good to me. They also allow you to create your own card decks, view existing ones online, and even print and download them! If you are trying to study for, or learn anything, check the site out!

A strange thing happened at the user group...

Dan K — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 00:16:00 GMT

Ok, here’s the scene, I’m sitting in the audience at the CTDOTNET user group meeting, stuffing my face with pizza and picking my nose when I hear SB (user group leader guy) say something that resembles my name. <munch><munch><pick><scratch><munch> There it is again, sounded like my name, something about Web Parts and ASP.NET and now everyone is looking at me, hmm… Wait a minute, is tonight the night I am scheduled to present? Heyyy, I think it is. Everyone’s looking at me, uh, maybe…

Ok it wasn’t exactly like that, but I did take the plunge last night and I delivered my first public .NET presentation. I did intro to Web Parts, and I think it went ok. The evals were good, and I felt it went ok, for a first time ever speaking type thing. I wasn’t exactly caught off guard like the first paragraph might misrepresents. Actually, I probably over-over-over worried / prepared / re-worked the talk.

Picture eminem in 8 mile, I was in the men’s room at the local Microsoft office, minutes before the talk, in a stall, with a VB for Applications hooded sweatshirt (hood up), getting sick in the stall, sweaty-ily (not a real word but it fits) clutching a Bluetooth keyboard and some PowerPoint printouts close to my chest, my MP3 player jamming out some Dot Net Rocks montage (a nice mix of the Dunn Years, the Rory Era and the Campbell Saga I might add) and me bopping my head to the Toy Boy theme getting pumped up!

Thanks to all the audience, you were gentle and kind and understanding, I had a good time, hope you had a good time, and hope someone (besides me!) learned something. I may even do something like that again. I plan on doing the same talk (only way more gooder) at Code Camp 5, as well as a VB2005 for VB6 developers session. I will get the slides cleaned up tonight and have them to SB tomorrow night. For that one person who was at the group and actually reads this, I will drop a note here as well pointing to the demo and slides. Thanks to everyone who sat through it tonight and thanks to SB for giving me the opportunity to talk!

Oh and next time, I’m bringing my bass and jamming a few tunes during the talk a-la Mr Franklin : )

Oh, Oh, if you run a user group around New England and want to watch a sweaty fat guy stumble uncomfortably (for him and the audience) through a Web Parts presentation, feel free to contact me!

Announcing the ASP.NET 2.0 Webcast Series! and free stuff!!!

Dan K — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 13:34:00 GMT

Announcing the ASP.NET 2.0 Webcast Series! From the site:

Welcome to the Microsoft® ASP.NET 2.0 Webcast Series, sponsored by Microsoft, Dr. Dobb’s, and O’Reilly. Choose from 45 webcasts organized by track—JSP, PHP, and ColdFusion. Each track has been designed to take advantage of your existing Web development skills and includes insightful content contributed by Dr. Dobb’s and O’Reilly. Select the track you’re most familiar with, and then pick the webcast topics that’ll make your skill set even more versatile.

When you attend three webcasts, you’ll receive an ASP.NET 2.0 Development Pack, including Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 Standard Edition (Not for Resale), five chapters of Programming ASP.NET 2.0 Core Reference, by Dino Esposito, and more.

Get your complimentary ASP.NET 2.0 Development Pack.

Attend three webcasts, either live or on-demand, and you’ll receive*:

Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Standard Edition (Not for Resale)
Five chapters of Programming ASP.NET 2.0 Core Reference, by Dino Esposito
A 30-day hosting account to try out your custom Web applications
Microsoft Developer Security DVD with how-tos, white papers, tools, webcasts, and code samples that demonstrate how to write more secure code
A 50% discount on a Microsoft Certified Professional Exam so you can add your new skills to your resume
A voucher that allows you to buy Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition with an MSDN® Professional Subscription at renewal pricing (a $400 savings)

Altogether, this complimentary package has an estimated value of $400.

The link for the site is www.learn2asp.net Register today, there are some awesome sessions up there.

Announcing the CTDOTNET MCSD MCAD Study Group

Dan K — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 14:26:00 GMT

Announcing the CTDOTNET Study Group:*
I am please to announce the beginnings of something
new and great for developers in CT, the CTDOTNET Study Group.
CTDOTNET will be offering another great service to its members
starting in Spring of 2006. Are you working on getting your
MCSD, MCAD certifications? Just want to take a couple exams?
Why not get together with fellow CTDOTNET members and work together on
studying and preparing for the exams? This study group is
*brand new*, so we're looking for good ideas and participants. If you
are interested in being a part of the study group, please
contact Dan Krhla at 'ctdotnetstudy@gmail.com'.

We will be working out the hows, whens and wheres of the group
over the next month, so if you have ideas, suggestions or an
interest in joining, please email Dan soon! Also, if you have
already taken the exams and would be interested in sharing your
tips and advice with others interested in taking them, please
let Dan know and we will arrange to have you sit with the group.
Also any exam prep resources you no longer need would be a great help
to the group, so bring or send in your books, pdfs, videos or
anything else.

We will be mainly focusing on developer and SQL exams for now,
but if you have other exam interests, please contact Dan today.