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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.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Other at 9:04 PM MST
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.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Atlanta at 9:05 PM MST
On this week’s Gillmor Gang, Adam Curry mentioned this link:
http://audio.weblogs.com/
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/
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Podcasts at 1:00 PM MST
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 rouge 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:
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Other at 10:54 AM MST
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.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Other at 9:23 PM MST
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.
’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
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!
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Atlanta at 9:08 PM MST
Sam Gentile recently presented at
’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
’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
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
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.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Other at 8:37 PM MST
Welcome guys:
Are they obsessed http://weblogs.cerkit.com/regularguys/archive/2004/10/11/273.aspx?
It looks like it from here.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Other at 10:30 PM MST
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.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Other at 9:54 PM MST
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.
Posted by Paul Lockwood as Other at 9:36 PM MST
