Though the camera seems to be trained on the speaker and never the screen. I keep waiting to SEE what he's talking about. Maybe someone will notice and do something about it.

Maybe by the time Sahil Malik is on a little later, they'll have it fixed

http://www.ajax.sys-con.com/

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

I was at a party last night and someone asked me “so, have you got an Origami yet? Heh heh.” [Read more...]

[A DevLife post]

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

I have a client who is a programmer with a small company that is creating a really cool on-line product. And I mean kew-well!

His background is very strong in architecture and also he and his team have done a ton with WinForms but his ASP skills hark back to the pre.NET days. But he's doing the app in ASP.NET 2.0 and I am mentoring him with this and a variety of other related things.

Along the way, he was frustrated with some of the limitations of the built in ASP.NET 2.0 controls (a post for another day). Even though I have never used them, I knew that based on the particular tools he was seeking, I have heard such great things about telerik from people I trust, so I recommended that they be on the top of the list of 3rd party controls to check out. Needless to say, the report back from him is that he is now using 3 or 4 of those controls and is so happy that he's (no, not buying the company) but subscribing to their full package.

A few weeks later he was ready to start synching between his development sql server and he online sql server as he got deeper into his tests. Though I have only played with them a little, I am still quite familiar with Red-Gate's tools and also know so many people (that I trust) who think they are awesome. So once again, I gave him a strong recommendation to try them out. A few days later, I got another very happy email from him saying that the Red-Gate tools were fantastic and he is definitely sticking with them.

There's a lot to gain from just knowing what's out there and paying attention to what people say about them (and who it is that's saying them and what the context is) even if you don't have hands on experience with every tool out there.

So thanks Red-Gate. Thanks telerik. (And thanks ASPInsiders, too.)

p.s. no, this is NOT a sponsored post!

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

I want to point the Vermont.NET members to Korby Parnell's blog post which highlights and even enhances an invitation to give feedback in a very explicit way to the usability team.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

I created a scratchpad today using Windows Live Local that has a view of my house (yes my HOUSE outin the boonis in the mountain. You can actually see where my house is (though the photo must be from shortly before it was actually built), the trails into the woods. Anyway, I selected eight points on it for my scratch pad with a title and notes for each one. Then I clicked on the email function and it created an email but the link. Yikes. Was it long and filled with gook. Lori McKinney from the Huntsville .NET User Group sent me a tiny url to get to a scratch pad she created for seeing where their meeting location was, the airport and a few surrounding hotels. That's the way to go. So hopefully down the road, this [very cool application which has come  long way since Virtual Earth's release this summer!!] will enable a cleaner way to share scratchpads without having to take care of that piece of the puzzle ourselves. I sent the link of the scratchpad I created to my husband he told me he deleted it because it was filled with gobbledygook. That is going to be the typical reponse of regular users.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

I was trying to be really skeptical but it didn't work. After poking around Windows Live for about 5 minutes this afternoon - I think it's pretty cool. [Read more ...]

[A DevLife post]

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

It took embedding XML into SQLServer to get Stephen to go public on his love for it. Perhaps all of those digs at Clemens Vasters' choice to store dasBlog data in XML were just a ruse. But now Stephen is not only at one with XML, he is spreading the joy. (Hey maybe I should be a lobbyist, that's pretty good, huh?)

Stephen is coming to Vermont.NET on Monday night, all thanks to INETA to present on XML in VS2005 & SQL Server 2005.

He was also planning to come up for another snowshoing hike (we did Mt. Mansfield last time he was here) but alas, we are expecting rain rain and more rain.

Meeting Date: Monday March 13th
Time: 6:00 - 8:30 pm
Location: Vermont Technical College, Williston Campus
More info and details and directions at www.vtdotnet.org

We also have some great raffles this month! We will be raffling off Sax's CommStudio and Atalasoft's DotImage.

This is a joint meeting with www.VTSQL.org.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Some might say that Doug Reilly is making lemonade from lemons, though I think that his health situation is much more sour than a lemon and the work he is doing is much sweeter and more nutritious than lemonade.

Doug is a fellow developer, and ASPInsider and an author who has been battling a really tough illness for a long time. He has an article out about being responsible about dealing with your clients and your commitments when big things happen in your life. It is a valuable read for anyone in consulting.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Who knows windows development better than Charles Petzold? And and he thinks Windows Forms are definitely going to be around for a long time - even if there are some big gaps in the WPF version.

Charles' post refers to Tim Sneath's excellent post on the same topic.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Maybe just cause I'm a dope and reallllllly stubborn. [Read more ...]

[A DevLife post]

 

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

After the long awaited beauiful dump of snow this weekend and then enjoying the great skiing in the woods, it was time to get some use from our weekday season pass at Mad River Glen yesterday. Another glorious blue sky day.

Most of these are from the chair lift as I was too busy skiing to take pictures.

Rich and I went in the afternoon and headed right to the single which would take us up to the tippy top.

This might be the oldest running chairlift in the country. It was christened in 1949 and is a landmark and a treasure of Vermont ski history. It's the same chair I got stuck in for 2 1/2 hours a few winters ago, but they have done lots of great work on it since then.

We were excited to see some beautiful tracks in the snow below. Granted this photo is of a section of trail that was closed off so yes, it had some nice powder.

The higher you get the better the views are! You have to be willing to swivel around in that little chair though, to see them. First you start seeing awesome views of the Green Mountains behind you but then the White Mountains, further off in NH appear. The view is way better than this photo whenyou get to the top, but I had put my camera away by then.

I took this picture just for Chris Kinsman. The green blob is part of the chair. The rest is a big huge vertical rock with water ice on it. Notice all of the ski tracks going over it. This is why the slogan for Mad River is "ski it if you can".

This is typical too at Mad River. And don't think this is all powder. We were surprised to discover that all the new pow had been skiid off over the weekend and the whole place was just icey! We didn't mind though. We hoped it meant awesome ticket sales for Mad River. They needed it after this dreadful season.

At the very top of the single, a great reward on a clear day - a view of the Adirondacks to the west.

This is something I have always wanted to take a picture of. The top of the chairlift is a winter wonderland after it snows.

A few more. Rich loves skiing in the trees and on this day that's where all the snow was. I have had my magic moments of just going with the flow in the trees but mostly I just get too scared and just slide stop turn slide stop turn. Oh well. It' somethng I need to do many times during the ski season to get my confidence back. But this was the first time I had been in the trees in over a year.

Here's Rich taking off his boots before we headed home. The base lodge at Mad River is old-fashioned, very homey and loved by all.

When I download pictures from my digital camera they are huge. I have to open them up one at a time in PSP and shrink them. The other day, after years of doing this stupid method, Ihad a great idea. I emailed all of the pictures to myself. When outlook asks "do you want to mail them as their original size or shrink them", I choose the "shrink 'em" option. Then I have an email with all of the attachments of the new small sizes. I don't even have to mail them. I can just copy them from the attachment input box in the email and paste them into a folder on my computer. Sweet. Stupid to have to do it this way though. I will have to go look on my Vista box to see if there is a nice function already built in to do that.

Update:Etienne Tremblay reminded me of the Microsoft PowerToys page that has the perfect utility - ImageResizer. There are a ton of awesome powertoys.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

I have noticed when ordering on some sites that the drop down for the year of the expiration date for my credit card starts at 2002. That is just dumb.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

I am ordering vitamins online for my dogs at Puritan's Pride.

They have a buy one get one free deal.

When you get to the shopping cart and you have selected one item, it suggests to Buy 2 Get 3 Free. If ou change your quantity to 2, then it suggests "Buy 3 Get 4 Free". So I kept going to see where this would max out.. I ordered 3 and it suggested "Buy 4 Get 6 Free".  4 then said "Buy 5 Get 7 Free". I kept going up to 20, where it was now telling me "Buy 21 Get 31 Free". I then tried 40, it kept suggesting more. I don't eally need 102 bottles of B-50, but it was fun little distraction.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

In December I bought a pair of new flat panel monitors. I had no idea the journey I would have to take in order to replace my KVM switch functionality which is simple and inexpensive with VGA monitors. [Read more ...]

[A DevLife post]

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Vermont's statewide town meetings are happening tomorrow. This is a day long event where residents of Vermont's towns discuss and then vote on budgets and any local elections.It's a really cool process and a great way to engage everyone in the future of their town. Here's some info on it from the state of vermont website. 

In Huntington, there is a race for the town clerk and town treasurer. There is one woman who has held both jobs for a number of years. There are two people who are challenging her, one for clerk and a different one for treasurer. Because it is so local, to me it's pretty personal. I am friendly with all of the candidates. I am surprised to see placards for one side or the other on people's lawns because it is so personal and a slap in the face. I don't care if George Bush knows that I don't vote for him. I don't attend the same parties that he does. Rich and I didn't wait at his house for the ambulance when Rich cracked his head open on Camel's Hump. I won't see him at the pancake breakfast or spaghetti dinner.

One of my neighbors has been calling me every few days but not leaving messages. I can see this from the caller id history on my phone. I know this means that they are trying to call me to tell me who I should vote for. I already got a few of these phone calls. A woman I know and like a lot who is campaiging on behalf of one side left a 5 minute message on my answering machine. Someone I didn't know called last night who was a little more subtle - encouraging me to vote and then telling me that she supports a particular candidate and hopes I do to.

Am I turning into a curmudgeon? I dunno. But it's definitely aggravating me enough to write about it!

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Bill Ryan is working overtime. He's got so much on his plate - writing a book, training, some secret work for Microsoft and then there is also his day job. What's got him working at this pace? Pure passion? Well, kind of, just not the one I thought. Seems he's saving up for a Porsche. Heh heh heh.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Oh I hate to say this but it's true. When picking up my neice last weekend, her mother and I decided to meet halfway and find a Friendly's which would be amenable to all the kids. So I used Windows Live Local to drill into the general area and then show me all the Friendly's. There was one right in the town we were focused on. Perfect. Then I asked Windows Live Local to map it for me and give me directions. We followed the directions and ended up on the wrong side of town in a totally residential area. Rich and I drove back towards the comnercial area and just asked someone for directions. I had sent my niece the link to those same directions, so they got pretty lost as well but finally found their way.

I tried to have it locate a few other businesses that I saw when I went to the real Friendly's, but WLL puts them all in that same person's back yard.

For comparison, MapQuest couldn't find the Friendly's in West Lebanon, NH though it gives me about ten others in NH and VT. But when I typed in Friendlys (without the apostrophe), it got me there correctly.  Google got it right.

To be fair, I went back to WLL and just typed in Friendly, but again, landed in the person's back yard.

I really like the interface of Windows Live Local. Truly I do. It's very cool, how the directions pop up and you can actually go step by step on the map even. But this next step of mapping software - the sophistication of typing in a business name and expecting perfect directions (whether from Google, MapQuest or Microsoft) is just not quite there yet. I just don't want to get lost.

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org

Ever wonder why your application suddenly can't find a file that is definitely in the right place? There's a good chance that you are relying on the default path and that you opened up a FileDialog window. [read more ...]

[A DevLife post]

Don't Forget: www.acehaid.org