It seems many people are unaware that Microsoft is hosting a free Mobility workshop this week. Details are here:
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032259748&Culture=en-US
Blogs from other cities that just had the roadshow are positive. This should be great event.
Deja-vu?
http://go.netdesk.com/CommunityDays/Welcome.aspx?RSVP=ISVFREE
Enhancing Your Applications with Windows Server 2003
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Marriott Atlanta Midtown
35 14th St NE
Atlanta, GA 30309
This is the same day as the Mobility Road Show + and is roughly the same part of town. After the last ISV Community Day event it is pretty likely I won’t be attending. It does look vaguely interesting though, it would be useful to learn what is new in 2003 Server.
On this week’s Gillmor Gang, Adam Curry mentioned this link:
IT Conversations had a good interview with Adam last week. For those that grew up in a cave (or Europe like me) and don’t know who Adam Curry is – he was the VJ on MTV in the 80′s with big hair. Apparently he is quite the budding Steve Wozniak type.
First weekend after the mobility group kick-off meeting I intend to get an iPod wired into up to my car’s audio bus. For anyone else with a post 2001 3 series this is how to do it:
http://m3.madrussian.net/diy_ipod.shtml
Probably I’ll hook into the bus via the trunk (where the CD changer would go) to save ripping the dash apart
Post 2001 cars can also do BlueTooth: http://www.golilm.com/DIY/Bluetooth/
There are some great free tools over at http://www.sysinternals.com/.
Get them now before someone like Computer Associates buys the company and starts charging for them.
Personally, one tool in particular called ‘FileMon’ helped solve a tricky file locking problem on a recent project. FileMon showed the massive amount of files opened/closed by our software. A little analysis identified the few files that were not being closed. Stepping through code using debug mode and watching FileMon made it easy to see which chunk of code was opening the file. Five more minutes of work rewrote the complex file opening/closing code and the bug has not been seen again. Before using FileMon I had wasted a full working day try to track down the rogue code.
Thanks to ‘Writing Secure Code’ for mentioning these tools. Michael Howard recommends them for discovering why applications fail to run as non-admin users.
FileMon In Use:
RegMon is very similar, but watches registry access:
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Probably everyone already does this, but if not it is incredibly
easy to create a DTS package that will do a nightly backup of your blog. The
only semi-tricky part is realizing you have to start the Windows Service SQLSERVERAGENT.
My Domain server is on 24×7 and it is comforting to know every evening it makes
a backup of these jottings.
On a related note, does anyone remember seeing this on my
blog:
A blog matching the
location you requested was not found. Host = [dotnetworkaholics.com],
Application = [blog]
It was due to two domains pointing to the same IP address. For an
as-yet-unknown reason the primary alias changed once in a while. Luckily it only
took about five minutes to download the .Text source code, make a quick
modification and upload recompiled dlls. If anyone
sees the error again please let me know.
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With the seemingly constant bombardment of .Net acronyms and technologies, few seem to bother about how we plan, design and build
software anymore. When starting my blog such subjects were to be the main
focus, but heck I’ll bow to the fashions and won’t bore people too often about
non-sexy buzzwords. This post is (of course) an exception.
Atlanta’s
Agile (ex eXtreme Programming) user group is highly enjoyable, and good
opportunity to hear from seasoned experts in software development. Attendees tend
to be in their late 30’s and 40’s but there is little stuffiness that you may encounter
at other expert-heavy groups in town.
The last meeting was a presentation by Jim Highsmith who
wrote the book on ‘Agile Project Management’ – I even won the book which is
always a bonus. The presentation was very enjoyable and informative; anyone not
there missed a treat. Keep an eye on this group’s agenda,
they sometimes get geek superstars like Martin Fowler to present.
Not to labor on, but if you currently work in a chaotic environment,
try to attend a meeting or two, it may bring a little more order to your dev
life with little extra effort. The next meeting should be an introduction to
Agile Development: http://xp.thatatlantasite.com/index.html
Meetings are at the ISS
Building in Dunwoody – I
know it is getting cold but don’t wear a Black Hat in their building, I hear security
will march you out!
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Sam Gentile recently presented at Boston’s Code Camp II: http://samgentile.com/blog/archive/2004/10/17/12235.aspx.
Most importantly he posted slides to the best Mobile Dev Presentation I have
seen yet – even though I have only read the slides, most of them make a lot of
sense and summarize important ground.
Very soon I may just email Sam and ask very politely if he
will permit some of the material to be re-used in Atlanta’s first Mobile Dev SIG meeting.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been scouring the web
for information on Mobile Development. There is a lot of interest, but the
space seems littered with blogs of people who were once very enthusiastic, but
suddenly went silent. Can one assume they found non-mobile related work, and
feeding one’s family wins over love for small shiny devices?
My own view is that more large companies will soon start integrating mobile devices with their Enterprise systems.
WeRock247 (http://www.learn247.net/werock247/)
demonstrates the amalgamation of many Microsoft technologies to integrate many
classic business problems. It does what many companies don’t yet achieve
(certainly not seamlessly): taking the software to remote information workers
such as warehouse pickers and delivery guys. I am leaning towards presenting
their ideas at our Mobile SIG. There should be much excitement to come in this
arena, take RFID (ignore privacy issues for now) – just think how it will
improve supply chain management. Today tech firms are struggling with where to locate RFID readers and the timing of synchronizations; what if every
employee carried a Mobile device that included
such a reader? Using a little P2P magic (like FedEx/UPS do) and the central
server should have a good real-time picture of where the
company’s inventory is. Maybe I read too much SciFi as a child, but I’m on this
bus.
Welcome guys:
Are they obsessed http://cerkit.com? It looks like it from here.
OK, so you don’t like DNR for whatever reasons. Try it again, Rory’s humour will really grow on you (please don’t leave the show Rory!) + heck the show is so informative any developer would be a fool not to listen. I mean what else do you do while commuting?
If you really don’t like DNR; then try this site:
http://www.itconversations.com/
Last week I commuted with Steve McConnell, Joel Spolsky and best of all Steve Wozniak. Steve tells the story of his childhood thru college thru starting Apple, all of which was fascinating. Many of us will relate to his childhood, but perhaps not that minor starting a world leading company bit.
Macintosh users are a unique breed, I truly admire their devotion. Most of my Mac friends freely admit to being addicted, spending huge sums of cash on Macs with little justification other than their devotion for the brand. They are good products, but those ‘Mac-is-my-Nirvana’ adverts are a little unbelievable… well balance in the force is now established:
http://whitehathouston.com/mac.wmv
The video was referenced on Fritz Onion’s DNR episode and after stopping laughing I had to post.
