Steve Bargelt

MCMS SP2 Web Application Visual Studio Project Template

Thanks much, Spencer!!!

[from this post: MCMS faq.com - Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) Resources]

For those of you developing MCMS SP2 applications with Visual Studio 2005 you will have notices a number of quirks (that's putting it politely!) with the MCMS Web Application Web Site Project Template and Template File Item Template.

posted @ Tuesday, January 31, 2006 4:59 PM | Feedback (0) |

CTP editions of the Expression line of tools

[from this post: Owen Allen (MSFT PacWest) : Bling, Bling!]

Bling, Bling!
This will put the shwizzle on the kibizzle.
I'm probably not saying that right (I'm old), but today's release of the CTP editions of the Expression line of tools for Web Designers and Illustrators is welcome news. Not so much that Microsoft is offering products into an already crowded web industry, but that Microsoft Is Offering Products To Better Enable The Creation and Production Of Web Sites!!!

posted @ Tuesday, January 31, 2006 4:59 PM | Feedback (0) |

SharePoint Team Blog : Content Management Server and SharePoint

The SharePoint team discusses Content Management Server and SharePoint integration

[from this post: SharePoint Team Blog : Content Management Server and SharePoint]

that the upcoming version of MCMS 2002 (which I’ll refer to as ‘CMS’ for the sake of this post) will be built entirely on the Windows SharePoint Services architecture (with SharePoint Portal integrating the new CMS publishing features). I wanted to give some insight into how we went about making this decision

posted @ Tuesday, January 31, 2006 4:57 PM | Feedback (0) |

New version of Cropper available (1.7.1)

[from this post: Brian Scott : Cropper in C#]

Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C# on the Microsoft .Net platform. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen. Use it to easily crop out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor. Use it to easily capture parts of a web site, including text and images. It's also great for writing documentation that needs images of your application or web site.

posted @ Tuesday, January 31, 2006 4:54 PM | Feedback (0) |

ChubClub 2006: Week 4

Sorry I’m late with the update.

267.2 pounds with 24.7% body fat. Overall I’m happy. I’ll say it again – I don’t care as much about the weight as I do about the body fat percentage. This was a tough week in that I’m home with my new baby girl and not in my normal routine… but I did extremely well. Not too much snacking (which is always a temptation while at home).

Training

• Weights: Friday, Monday and Wednesday – typical workout all three nights. Abdominal and leg work all three nights. Extra bicep work all three nights. Also added lat pull-downs to my extra routine. My shoulder is really acting up again (DAMN!).
• Cardio: Ummm… I’ll take the “F” again for week 4. Next week, I Promise!

Food

Did very well. Hit Trader Joes early in the week and stocked up on protein bars, whole-wheat bread, organic apricot spread (no high-fructose corn syrup or other BS sugars), and I made oat-bran flax seed muffins which are a nice healthy, filling snack.

Stats

Today (1/26/06) 267.2, 24.7% BF
Started (1/1/06) 271, 25.3 BF%

Here are the charts for 2006 (click for larger versions):

posted @ Monday, January 30, 2006 6:31 AM | Feedback (0) |

ChubClub 2006: Week 3

266.0 pounds with 26.6 body fat. I do not care about anything else this week. I have a new baby girl, Zoe!!!

Training

• Weights: Nada.
• Cardio: Yeah. Nada here, too. I ordered my treadmill.

Food

Not too bad considering Brenda’s birthday celebration on Saturday. At one piece of birthday cake (carrot cake) on Sunday and one on Monday).

Stats

Today (1/12/06) 266.0, 26.6% BF
Started (1/1/06) 271, 25.3 BF%

Here are the charts for 2006 (click for larger versions):

[edit 1/25/06 - fixed treadmill link]

posted @ Friday, January 20, 2006 11:29 AM | Feedback (2) |

More on cheating referees

posted @ Monday, January 16, 2006 4:28 AM | Feedback (0) |

How about the Steelers!

Referee Pete Morelli says:
“I had the defender catching the ball. Before he got up, he hit it with his leg with his other leg still on the ground. Therefore, he did not complete the catch. And then he lost the ball. It came out, and so we made the play an incomplete pass.”

Is that really English? This guy is brilliant! More from Morelli:

"(Polamalu) never had possession with his leg up off the ground doing an act common to the game of football. He was losing (the football) while his other leg was still on the ground."

Sounds like the braniac Morelli wanted Polamalu to pee like a male dog! Troy had rolled over completely once. His knees had been on the ground, off the ground and back on the ground after catching the pass. I think rolling around on the ground is an act very common in the game of football. How many times do his knees need to be on and off the ground before it is a catch? Morelli needs to be fired. Period. This was NOT a simple snap judgment that had room for human error. This was a replay that he had plenty of time to review and when all is said and done if it was too close to call the right thing to do is to stay will the call that was made on the field.

posted @ Monday, January 16, 2006 4:05 AM | Feedback (0) |

Rules of Engagement

I’m mostly blogging this so I don’t forget it again. I forgot this yesterday. I hope it doesn’t come back to bite me us.

“Never present an estimate that you do not want the customer to pick.”

This always happens. you throw an extra option into a quote or RFP or proposal that you absolutely know that you cannot or will nto deliver. There are many reasons for this – you may need to round out the options, you may need to present a low-end option, you may need to present a high-end option – whatever the reasons you think you have DO NOT DO IT. The customer will always pick the one that you have no intention of ever delivering.

posted @ Friday, January 13, 2006 7:29 PM | Feedback (0) |

Using SharePoint and AJAX to Gather Website Feedback

[via: Using SharePoint and AJAX to Gather Website Feedback]

Using SharePoint and AJAX to Gather Website Feedback
When building intranet web applications, I recommend making it very easy to allow your users to tell you what they think. If you are reading this blog, you know how important instant simple feedback is to web sites, their value, and the trust of their community

posted @ Friday, January 13, 2006 3:43 AM | Feedback (0) |

ChubClub 2006: Week 2

265.7 pounds with 25.7% body fat. I’m happy with the weight and body fat. This week was tough. I was starving all week and every morning I woke up feeling sick. 

Training

• Weights: Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday – typical workout all three nights. Abdominal and leg work all three nights. Extra bicep work Friday and Wednesday nights.
• Cardio: Yeah. Well I’ll just say that I need to improve here. For some reason I woke up feeling sick every day this week. I’ll commit to the cardio again next week. On this subject I think I found the treadmill I want.

Food

I have been hungry non-stop this week. I did a fairly good job of managing that hunger as can be witnessed by the weight drop. I think I need to consider a few more calories daily. I’ll experiment by adding a protein drink to my lunch next week.

Stats

Today (1/12/06) 265.7, 25.7% BF
Started (1/1/06) 271, 25.3 BF%

Here are the charts for 2006 (click for larger versions):

posted @ Friday, January 13, 2006 3:32 AM | Feedback (0) |

Jakob Nielsen: Search Engines as Leeches on the Web

As if I didn’t think the Jakob was a big enough idiot (he is). He’s now saying that Search Engines are Leeches on the Web becasue the businesses that are found must *gasp* improve themselevs to compete with other businesses who can also be found through search engines. What next, man? A communist web so that all sites can be of the same economic ilk?

Do nothing and you'll disappear when your competitors improve enough to easily outbid you and therefore consume all the space on the first search engine results page.

Yeah no shit. So what is Jakob saying that if it wasn’t for google web businesses could just sit on their hands and roll in the dough. COmpetition is GOOD Jakob. The fact that tiny stores and mega stores can both be found in goole is a GOOD thing. You are an idiot. Here’s a clue. Don’t click on paid ads. You wouldn’t click on a banner ad – why click on a text link?

While search engines will take all the profits from users who arrive from search ads, you get to keep the increased earnings from all other users. Thus, non-search users become the true source of added value from website improvements.

So you are saying that consumers who arrive at a car dealership without ever seeing a TV ad are more valuable than the consuers who watch the TV ads?

Oh and Jakob, your site is but-ugly. I don’t care how usable it is.

posted @ Tuesday, January 10, 2006 6:10 AM | Feedback (0) |

MCMS faq.com - Using the Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Project with MCMS SP2

With the recent release of Service Pack 2 for MCMS, it is now possible to develop MCMS applications using Visual Studio 2005. Visual Studio 2005 offers a vastly enhanced design time experience and significantly reduces the time to develop solutions. One of the most useful aspects of Visual Studio 2005 for MCMS developers is the improved design time Web designer, which amongst a myriad of new features includes superb support for HTML validation. However with Service Pack 2 MCMS Applications are developed using the new 'Web Site' Visual Studio project type, which has a number of MCMS integration issues and causes an undesirable design time experience for developers.
This article details an approach to using the Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Project to avoid problems associated with the 'CMS' Virtual Directory and the default Item Templates.

[via: MCMS faq.com - Using the Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Project with MCMS SP2]

posted @ Monday, January 09, 2006 5:09 PM | Feedback (0) |

Celestron SkyScout

I want a Celestron SkyScout.

The SkyScout is a revolutionary, one of a kind, patented handheld device that instantly identifies and/or locates any celestial object visible to the naked eye, providing educational and entertaining information, both in text and audio.

A fun learning tool for all ages, the SkyScout personal planetarium puts the knowledge of an expert astronomer in the palm of your hand

UPDATE 1/10/2006 10:17AM: I pre-ordered a SkyScout last night from Amazon.com!

posted @ Monday, January 09, 2006 5:07 PM | Feedback (0) |

Correctness by Construction

High-integrity software systems are often so large that conventional development processes cannot get anywhere near achieving tolerable defect rates. This article presents an approach that has delivered software with very low defect rates cost-effectively. We describe the technical details of the approach and the results achieved, and discuss how to overcome barriers to adopting such best practice approaches. We conclude by observing that where such approaches are compatible and can be deployed in combination, we have the opportunity to realize the extremely low defect rates needed for high integrity software composed of many million lines of code.

I found the article left me wanting more… like real-life examples.

I googled and found: http://correctnessbyconstruction.com/index.html (nothing here, really) but it led me to http://www.anthonyhall.org/html/technology.html
Snippet from this site:

software with extremely low defect rates – fewer than 0.1 defects per thousand lines of code – with good productivity – up to around 30 lines of code per day)

posted @ Monday, January 09, 2006 4:44 PM | Feedback (0) |

Google: Fire & Motion??

This is a great post. It occurs to me that Google is running more of a political campaign… creating messaging that only really serves to cause their competitors to react.

…lessons learned from articles such as Joel Spolsky's Fire & Motion. In the article Joel Spolsky argues that large companies like Microsoft tend to create technological imperatives that force competitors to respond and keep up thus preventing them from focusing on new features.

[Via Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life]

posted @ Monday, January 09, 2006 4:35 PM | Feedback (0) |

The Perils of JavaSchools - Joel on Software

there's nothing hard enough about Java to really weed out the programmers without the part of the brain that does pointers or recursion

The Perils of JavaSchools - Joel on Software.

posted @ Friday, January 06, 2006 3:46 AM | Feedback (0) |

Telerik now blogging

Check out their blogs at blogs.telerik.com

ps. These guys are lots of fun - if you get the chance to go partying with the team from Telerik don't turn it down. I had the opportunity @ PDC in 2005.

posted @ Friday, January 06, 2006 3:45 AM | Feedback (1) |

ChubClub 2006: The first week

First weigh-in today. 268.4 pounds with 26.7% body fat. I’m very happy with the weight – considering I really didn’t start eating right until Tuesday. Yeah really happy with that number! Not so happy with the body fat. I think it was a fluke. I did it again and it was lower but I’m taking the first reading – heck it’ll make next week look better, right?!

Training

• Weights: Monday, Wednesday – typical workout both nights. Abs both nights. Extra bicep work both nights. Monday really hurt after 4 weeks off (nursing injury).
• Cardio: Wednesday, 30 minutes on the trainer. Thursday 20 minutes on the trainer. I slacked Tuesday. After 11 days of sleeping in I just could not get on the bike at 5:30AM. Swore I’d do it after work – yeah right - that didn’t happen. I’ll get 3 or 4 in next week.

Food

Monday was a holiday so I started in on the diet (hate that word) on Tuesday. Ate well both Tuesday and Wednesday. No major guffaws. Brenda made cookies Tuesday evening and yes I ate one – but just one! Drank plenty of water both days (1 liter plus). Ate a small bowl of cashews for my final meal Wednesday night. I think I should have gone with a protein shake since it was a weight workout night.

Stats

Today (1/5/06) 268.4, 26.7% BF
Started (1/1/06) 271, 25.3 BF%

Here are the charts for 2006 (click for larger versions):

posted @ Thursday, January 05, 2006 3:45 AM | Feedback (0) |

My New Year Post

First of all I’d like to wish everyone out there in the metaverse a prosperous 2006.

2005

Time flies, or does it?. It seems that just yesterday we were ringing in 2005 yet I am hard pressed to remember what happened in 2005. If it was just yesterday shouldn’t I remember it well? Anyway… here is a brief list of my personal hits and misses and keywords of 2005 and a brief list of goals for 2006.

Hits:

• Brenda became pregnant – IVF worked on the first try. Bargelt 4.0 is due to ship on February 14th 2006.
• Derek turned 9. Every day he amazes me. He is so smart and funny and cool. He was also accepted into the gifted program at his school.
• I’m happy with my weight for the second year in a row! Yes I gained weight (roughly 10 pounds) but I’m convinced that I reduced my body fat percentage even though I have no data to back that claim up. There is some anecdotal evidence in that I dropped a pant size and a shirt size (38 waist and XL respectively) from what I wore towards the end of 2004. I received a new scale for Christmas that measures body fat so I will be able to track this in 2006.
• I worked out (weights) three times per week with rare exception for the entire year.
• Brenda and I coached Derek’s baseball team. Tough but fulfilling.
• We managed to take the RV out no less than five times, once for almost an entire week – which is an amazing feat considering all of the hoops we were jumping through with IVF treatments and the resultant pregnancy.
• Brenda took a job and worked for the first time in 5 years. It was cool while it lasted. The best part was that the job was at Derek’s elementary school so no day care for him.
• I finally made my “hanging guy” Halloween decoration this year!
• I built my terabyte server.
• I build a Windows XP Media Center Edition PC.
• I took a development manager position. Actually I’m not sure if this is a hit or a miss quite yet.
• I read no less than 17 books.

Misses:

• I wrote a lot less code that I really wanted to.
• I played computer and console games a lot less than I wanted to.
• I did not go on a single hike or backpacking trip in 2005. This must change in 2006.
• I did not log a single geocache in 2005. I think the Gig Harbor Cache Machine was early in 2005 but I never logged any of the finds. Damn guys… we ever gonna geocache again?
• I wrote zero reviews on the 17+ books that I read in 2005.

My keywords of 2005: Tsunami, Patriots, Janet Jackson, (damned) Steelers, WoW, HDTiVo, San Antonio, Chassel, IVF, injections, ICSI, pregnant, NetFlix, PDC05, Los Angeles, blog, WinFx, WinWF, hurricane, google, gmail, WhiteSox, Agile, Lean, manager, XBox 360, Web 2.0, AJAX, terabyte, Orthanc, Windows XP MCE 2005, AMD, Opteron, 64bit, .Net 2.0, C# 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, Office 12.

2006

• New baby!
• I need to spend more time with friends. I had to bail on a major guy weekend in June 2005 due to IVF treatments. I am also having to bail on a guy weekend in January 2006 – not a good start, eh?
• I want to reduce my body fat percentage by 10%. From 25% to 15% and shed roughly 30 pounds in the process.
• I want to ride the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic this year.
• I would like to take the RV out for at least 5 weekends / extended weekends and one 4 – 10 day trip. Stretch goal here is 7 weekend trips.
• I will cancel my WoW subscription in 2006. Mostly to make way for other games and eventually an XBox 360.
• I must do no less than 6 day hikes. 10 would be my stretch goal.
• I must do at least one overnight backpacking trip with a stretch goal of two overnight trips.
• I would like to finish up at least two major coding projects outside of my day job. Stretch goal would be four projects.
• I would like to earn a new Microsoft Certification, MCTS Web. Stretch Goal would be MCPD Web. The completion of this goal requires that I become proficient in .Net 2.0, and C# 2.0.
• I want to convince (or help those that are convinced) at least one of the Phatboyz to get in shape. Stretch goal would be three. The impossible would be four. I’m going to dedicate an upcoming post to this one.
  

My keyword predictions for 2006: Baby!, Colts, (damned) Steelers (again), XBox 360, Boston, TechEd 2005, WinFx, WinWF, google, Agile, Windows XP MCE 2006, Intel, 64bit, .Net 2.0, C# 2.0, MCTS, Office 12, contract-first.

posted @ Wednesday, January 04, 2006 6:13 PM | Feedback (0) |

Antispyware Consipracy

Mark from SysInternals does it again. Awesome article exposing phony antispyware companies. This MUST be illegal.

[via:Mark's Sysinternals Blog: The Antispyware Conspiracy]

Since the release of the first antivirus products many people have believed in a conspiracy theory where antivirus companies generate their own market by paying virus writers to develop and release viruses. I don’t subscribe to that theory and trust the major security vendors, but recent trends show that there’s a fuzzy line between second-tier antispyware vendors and the malware they clean.

posted @ Wednesday, January 04, 2006 4:57 PM | Feedback (0) |

Easier way to add a DLL to the GAC

[via: BIA - The BizTalk Intelligence Agency]

Often in BizTalk you’ll need to add assemblies to the Global Assembly Cache. In the past I had used a shortcut on my Quick Launch toolbar which opened the GAC, then I’d drop the assembly inside, but there is an easier way.

A registry key can be created which allows you to right click the DLL and “GAC it” in one click.

The text for the key is below; simply copy/paste it into notepad and save it as a registry file (.reg). Then double click the file to add it to the registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell\gacutil\command]
@="c:\\windows\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v1.1.4322\\gacutil.exe /i \"%1\""

posted @ Wednesday, January 04, 2006 4:54 PM | Feedback (0) |

Entertainment Center Mods

posted @ Tuesday, January 03, 2006 4:37 PM | Feedback (1) |

MyHeritage.com - cool site

This site is very cool. I think everyone has, by now, heard of Riya (which I’m begging, yes begging to get an invitation to) but until I can play with Riya My Heritage is taking up much of my free time. Here is an interesting experiment I ran:

At 292 pounds I look like John Belushi:

At 250 pounds I look like Colin Farrell:

I ran a bunch more pictures through MyHeritage and the results were very interesting. It really did equate “fat Steve” to heavy actors such as John Belushi while it likened “reduced-fat Steve” to skinny actors like Orlando Bloom, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. I guess I really need to hit my weight reduction goals this year!

posted @ Monday, January 02, 2006 4:07 PM | Feedback (1) |