April 2004 Entries

I'll admit it, I'm addicted to Amazon.  However, it's probably not in the same way as others may be.  You see, I go to Amazon at least once a day to look at the sales rank of my latest book (I've given up on the first one).  I keep thinking to myself though that this can't really be the best way to gauge the sales of the book.  Or is it?

For any and all published authors, how do you track the success of your publications?  Amazon sales rank?  Comparison of past sales of your other publications?  Wouldn't it be cool to have an online resource that publishers submit numbers to in order to compare the sales of books?  Where does the New York Times get their data for their best seller list?  So many questions...so few answers.

Why didn't someone clue me into this.  My author bio for my first book “SAMS Teach Yourself Visual C++ .NET in 24 Hours” began: Mark Schmidt has been a software engineer at Hewlett Packard for the last 3 years.”

Now, if you go to SAMS website and look at my bio, it says the same thing.  It's been 2 years since I wrote that, so the 3 should be a 5.  Luckily I caught it in my 2nd book (”Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Developer's Cookbook”) by just saying “Mark Schmidt is a software engineer at HP”.

So, Mark Schmidt's tip #1 for author bio's: Don't put a time based description if its for something that will change the next year and each year thereafter.

A display that doesn't have a screen? Sounds like it's straight out of a sci-fi movie.  At the end it says that pundits claim there is no market out there.  They obviously don't know the geek “I must have all toys!“ mentality.  Personally, I think a thin-air display would be extrememly cool.  Merge the 3D with the thin air and we'll have actual hologram displays!

http://www.floatingplanet.net/planetp2/archives/000322.html

I do far more work in unmanaged C++ (using ATL/COM) than I do in C#.  My C# work is limited to either supporting tools, or the “extracurricular” stuff I do away from home (book writing, shareware, web sites).  Lately, I've come to the realization that I'm mixing C# syntax with C++ syntax.  However, it doesn't hold the other way around.  I always catch myself writing C# code in an unmanaged C++ application (it's usually something like null instead of NULL, or the '.' operator instead of '->').  So what does this mean?  It could be that C# syntax is more natural than that of C++ and hence I feel more comfortable using it.  Either that or I have the attention span of a 4 year old and blindly start coding without realizing what language I'm supposed to be using.

What do you think?  Is there some type of discipline that analyzes the natural feel of language syntax and compares it to others?  In other words, a human factors engineer is to UI as ? is to programming language syntax.  Someone must have done a study on why the '.' operator is more natural than say a ':' or '->'.

Ok, I just went and through the whole iPod thing out the door.  Why? Well, it doesn't play WMA's for one.  I thought you might be able to buy an FM tuner for it.  They have an FM receiver that allows you to transmit to an FM station so you can listen to your MP3's in the car, but that's not what I'm looking for.  Finally, I already have an digital music player (Nomad Jukebox 2).  So, I have come to a final decision.

I bought the XBox the day it came out.  Unfortunately, I received one of the “bad” XBox's that shipped with bad DVD drives.  I learned to live with the fact that some games just won't work and others just barely (I actually found that if I lay the XBox at an angle, it works better).  Basically, my XBox has been an exercise in frustration.  I also have a GameCube.  No problems with it.  The majority of games don't suit me since it's really more for my kids.  So I'm thinking...I have an XBox...I have a GameCube...I might as well get the whole collection and buy a Playstation 2 (I also have a Playstation 1).  I've always wanted to play some of the games on the PS2 (Final Fantasy X and X-2).  Now I just have to wait for the funds to come in, I already got the go ahead from the Mrs. (no, really, I do wear the pants in the family).  Waiting is always the hard part.

I just finished giving a presentation on Whidbey (VS.NET 2k5) and C# 2.0 to a group of engineers (both local and remote via Netmeeting) here at HP.  Going into the class I was quite nervous.  Why? Was it stage fright? Nope, I dig presenting and teaching so that wasn't it.  The issue: I had 62 slides plus code demos to show...and 2 hours to do it in.  Doing the math, thats about 2 minutes allowed per slide and not including the demos.  Well, not only did I finish, but I finished with about 10 minutes to spare.  Granted, some of the slides were a quick “this is what this means...next slide”. I'm working with the Portland Area .NET User's Group (PADNUG) to give this same presentation so if you're in the Portland area and not a member of PADNUG, go check em out at http://www.padnug.org.

Justin King blogged about Amazon's new search engine.  I looked at it, installed their very Google like toolbar and tried it out.  The SiteInfo popups on the search results page were cool.

Then I clicked on the toolbar button that said “mark@schmidt6.com's History” and lo and behold, I was taken to http://a9.com/-/search/edit/sites and their I saw all the websites I had just visited after installing the toolbar.  No way.  Maybe the toolbar is intercepting the http response and filling in my history.  I then saw the following information on their “7 Reasons to Use A9.com”  page:

Search History: All your searches at A9.com are stored on our servers and shown to you at any time from any computer you use.

Click History: If any of the web search results include a site that you have seen before, it's marked on the result. We even tell you the last time you visited that site.

Your History: Keep track of your last sites visited (on any computer) and your most recent searches. It will keep track of the Web pages you recently visited--even if you switch computers.

Diary: ... You can take notes on any web page, and reference them whenever you visit that page, on any computer that you use. Your entries are automatically saved whenever you stop typing or when you go to another page.

And this one is pretty good...looks like Amazon doesn't really have their own search engine (except for searching their own site):

Web Search: Web search results are provided by Google.

Now, I'm all for Amazon creating a service that they think will benefit mankind.  I'm not one of those privacy freaks that jumps up and down yelling bloody murder.  But if I noticed this, then the privacy freaks definately will (btw, the term “privacy freaks“ is not meant to be offensive to those that watch out for us...I call myself a gaming freak which is a good thing, not bad)

Every once in awhile, HP rewards its employees.  The program is quite nice because they give you a set amount of money and you can go to a website to pick how you want to spend it (e.g. gift card, merchandise, traveller's checks, etc...).  I usually end up getting either a CompUSA, Barnes and Noble, or Home Depot gift card or a combination of some sort.

I received an award today so now its time to figure out what I want to do with it.  Usually when this happens, the guilt phase sets in.  Should I get something that the family and/or my wife can use or should I take the selfish route and get a new toy for me?  Currently, an iPod is catching my eye.  For reasons that I'll rant about later, I have to listen to music at work.  I have one of those Nomad Jukebox 2's, but it's too cumbersome to take to the gym.  An iPod Mini looks like just the ticket.  So I go to CompUSA's website and see the 15 Gb iPod for $299 or the iPod Mini (only 4 Gb) for $249.  Only $50 less but over 11 Gb less in storage space.  Ok, so now I have to a) decide if I want to be selfish and b) if I do decide, do I go with the mini or the 15Gb iPod.

I tried the whole blogging thing in its infancy and then left it almost as quickly as I entered.  That was awhile ago and its time for another run at it.  I will do the obligatory introduction post, but attempt to keep it short.  I'm a software design engineer at HP by day, technical author by night.  My latest book is “Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Developer's Cookbook“ whose title is 4 characters longer than my 1st book “Sams Teach Yourself Visual C++.NET in 24 Hours“.

There you go.  Obviously not my life story but you don't care to hear that anyway.  If you want more information about me, you can find an interview here.