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07/10/2005 Moving On - Part DeuxOK, I think I've gotten the bugs ironed out on my new site now. If you tried to get over to http://www.prilliman.com/blog/ before (and couldn't), it was probably because I fat-fingered the hyperlinks in my original post. I have corrected the links and also fixed (I think) the path resolution problems I was having with some of the web controls. So give it a try and let me know what you think - please leave a comment for me over there so that I can be sure it's working right, or leave me one here if you are still having any weird problems. 05/10/2005 Moving On...I'm afraid that the time has come for me to quit MSN Spaces. It's not because of blogger burnout though. I am just fed up with the poor quality of service, the total lack of control over content, the number of teeny boppers, and the fact that you have to sign in with a passport just to leave a comment.
That said, I have decided to run my own webserver down in my lab to be the new home for Hopelessly Aporetic. It's all about the control, baby. So while I am moving on from Spaces, I hope you will join me over at my new digs. Please bookmark my new address and come visit me over at http://www.prilliman.com/blog/ - I'll leave the lights on over here for awhile to help you find your way (and while I backfill all my posts into my new server).
This Space For Rent
See ya on the web, kids.
[Update] - Ooops! Upon further review from the geek in the booth, when looking at the new space from a remote PC this morning, it is obvious I still have some "localhost" paths in my configuration so the stylesheets and graphics aren't working right. Looks like I have some work to do when I get back home. In the meantime, please forgive the butt ugly appearance, it is only temporary and I promise to get it fixed ASAP. Guess that's what I get for not testing it thoroughly.
 27/09/2005 Mark Takes the Red PillMy friend and co-worker Mark has announced that he has been assimilated into the b0rg. I'd congratulate him if I didn't think he was nuts. Of course he is quite a bit younger than I am, so the lure of the red pill was a lot more attractive to him than it is for me. I suppose if I was still 33, getting a job with Microsoft might seem more like snagging the brass ring on the software developer merry-go-round to me as well (that and the fact that I'd never trade my current gig to become a small cog in such a big machine).
Seriously, Mark will make a good little 'softie, and they are lucky to have him. He will be joining the Visual Studio Team Architect team as a program manager next month. Good luck Mark, we'll miss you around here.
1st request - go over to the MSN shack and rattle their cages re: QOS.
 17/08/2005 Droppin' a LoadIt's not what you think - get yer minds outta the gutter for cryin' out loud.
What I am talking about here is a web site called "Dropload". It's a pretty cool little idea too. In a nutshell, this site will allow you to upload any file (up to 100 MB in size), and then you can get the file "delivered" to someone else by simply providing their e-mail address. The service will send an e-mail to the designated recipient and they will then have 7 days to download the file. It's a very cool way to transfer files to folks who use email services that prohibit large attachments and don't have ftp storage locations.
Uploading files does require you to register, but no registration is needed for downloading. Registration is free though; all you have to provide is your name and a valid email address (you'll have to verify it before you can login). They even give you the options to be notified when your recipient downloads the file, and can also have all files you send or receive scanned for viruses.
Very slick - check it out sometime. 12/08/2005 Insanity CheckGeek post to facilitate my short term memory. For those of you uninterested in Windows Vista and WinFX, class is dismissed.
While I was sequestered in my hotel up in Redmond earlier this week, I took the opportunity to hack around with some of the new beta goodies provided by the folks at Microsoft. I am particularly interested in the new development tools that target user interface applications built for Windows Vista (Avalon/WinFX), but I had been having a devil of a time getting these things to all play nice together until today. Then I found this post over on Sam Gentile's blog that seems to have done the trick. I am reposting the guts of his entry here for my own benefit, as well as for anyone else who may have been running into similar problems.
In a nutshell you must install the tools in the following order for them to behave nicely together:
Now that I have uninstalled and reinstalled everything in the prescribed order noted above, the Avalon samples and projects do seem to be working correctly.
Thanks Sam! 08/08/2005 Back on CampusMy vacation ended Sunday with me hopping a plane to Seattle. I am attending a Software Design Review session at Microsoft to discuss plans for the next version of their ADO.Net data access API's (the version after the .Net 2.0 stuff that they will be releasing later this year). It's very cool to have been asked to participate and I am one of only 10 Microsoft "outsiders" that were invited to attend.
There are some very interesting plans in the works but since it's all top secret stuff I can't really share any of it here (sorry but it's all under NDA protection). The highlight so far though, was having dinner with some real heavy hitters from the Microsoft distributed architecture team. The star at our table was none other than Don Box himself.
Talk about your geek envy - my propeller beanie is definitely working overtime tonight... 28/07/2005 First Post From IE 7I am such a geek. If Windows Vista wasn't enough geek overload for me, then playing with the new IE 7 beta for Windows XP that hit the MSDN subscriber downloads this morning should drive my happy little propeller right through the roof... 27/07/2005 Windows Vista Beta 1 Shipped TodayMicrosoft has posted some screenshots from the upcoming Beta 1 release of Windows Vista over on their Virtual Pressroom this morning.
As I anticipated, the first pass looks a lot like a hopped-up version of XP Pro. Still can't wait to get my grubby little paws on it next week though. I guess it's time to dust off that old laptop I've been using to serve up mp3's in the boudoir and get it ready for some repaving fun...
**Spins propeller on beanie**
[UPDATE] - The download is already available to MSDN subscribers. It really is a great day to be a geek. Sorry, but I think I just wet myself.
**Goes to change under-roos while File Transfer Manager eats corporate bandwidth**
*snort* Apparently the name change didn't quite make it in time for the Beta 1 build. Cool - still "Longhorn" for one more rev. Guess I'll go "Escape Yesterworld" some while it finishes downloading... Avast there ye' scurvy dog. Arrrrr.I was skimming the Inside Microsoft pages over on the BNC this morning when I saw this headline:
Which begged me to ask, "Microsoft cuts off pirates' - what, exactly?" So I had to read the story.
While I'd hoped they were referring to the pirates' private parts (and how's that for some illiteration [sic]), I wasn't too disappointed to read that it was actually about Microsoft making an official announcement that Windows Genuine Advantage validation will now be required to get software updates from the Windows Update, Microsoft Update, or Office Update sites.
Whoa. You mean people will actually have to BUY the software in order to be allowed to upgrade it now? What a concept.
I'm cool with that. I actually ran face first into it the other day but didn't comment on it because I already thought it had been publicly announced (see my recent post on what can happen if your neighbors find out you know something about PC's). As a software professional, I have no sympathy for those that get pinched stealing our products. I'll bet the M$ bashing crybabies over on /. have a field day with this one though. I can just hear it now...
"WTF?!?! I can't seem to patch my stolen version of Winblows anymore. Don't those fuX0rz over at M$ realize that's a huge security risk? M$ should be required to fix security holes regardless of whether I paid for my software or not. Buncha monopolistic, profit-taking, capitalist bastards. [Blah blah blabbity blah]..."
You are visitor number 25/07/2005 Talking about My Virtual Earth Scratch PadWanna see a birds eye view of my house courtesy of MSN's Virtual Earth?
Home Sweet Home
Thrilling eh? It's obviously a pretty old image of the neighborhood, but I think it's pretty cool nonetheless (I'm a geek remember?).
Note to self: No more nude sunbathing.
22/07/2005 Windows Vista???Microsoft announced this morning, that the official name for their next generation of the operating system we all know and love, will be "Windows Vista" (formerly known by the codename, "Longhorn").
The OS formerly known as "Longhorn" Huh? I can only imagine the size of the marketing machine (and budget) that was created to come up with the new name, but it sure seems to me that their internal product development codenames are always way more cool than the ones that end up on the retail boxes.
Oh well, I guess "Windows Vista" is quite a bit better than "Bob."
Microsoft Bob I'm looking forward to working with it despite the lame-ass name, and Beta 1 should be in my grubby little hands by August 3.
19/07/2005 Work Work WorkI've just completed spending a week "technical handholding" with customers and vendors. Representatives from our largest customer (the ones that have their name on a football stadium in Florida) and an even bigger vendor (based in the Pacific Northwest), were visiting our offices to begin a "technological analysis" of the software system we develop where I work. As we were doing the introductions at our first meeting last Monday we were all asked to describe what our respective functions would be for this engagement. Me, being the official corporate S.M.A.R.T.A.S.S., proudly informed them that I was in charge of emerging technologies around here, and that the only reason I was participating in these meetings was because I failed to respond to an email on the subject in a timely enough fashion to beg off.
Don't get me wrong, I am pretty good at doing this sort of thing, it's just that I am growing very weary of trying to do highly technical presentations for some folks who have been working with this system for 8 years and still just don't get it. This week was actually more for the techno-weenies from Redmond though, and fortunately they do have a bit more on the ball when it comes to software development that the folks from Florida will ever hope to. I just hope that someone took good notes. Just frustrating to backburner a bunch of way more interesting projects for a week and a half to prepare and present this stuff.
Speaking of techno-weenies and Redmond. Yours truly has been invited to attend a top-secret design review for the next generation of Microsoft's data access technologies in August. Pretty cool to be recognized in the industry as someone that can provide feedback to the architects and developers at Billy Gates' little software shop. I always enjoy getting to go out to the campus and have the opportunity to mingle with some of the top experts in the software development community.
I have another geek trip scheduled in September to attend a nerd convention in LA. The Microsoft Professional Developers Conferences are always something I look forward to, even though the topics presented at them are generally two or three Microsoft years down the road from actual release. It's a big part of my job to stay on top of the changes that loom on the Microsoft horizon and these events are the best way I can imagine to gain this kind of early exposure. I'm getting a bit tired of it always being in LA though, this one will make 3 in a row. What was so wrong with having them in Orlando or San Francisco or Denver??
Time to pack my beanie.
Me And My Big MouthNever. Ever. Let your neighbors find out you know anything about computers.
About 2 weeks ago, as I was chatting in the front yard with my next door neighbor, she innocently asked if I knew anything about computers. I was caught a little off guard, probably due to being slap in the middle of my 2nd Margarita of the evening, and blurted, "Sure, I know computers, it's what I do..." before my internal computer n00b early warning system kicked in. Too late.
She proceeded to describe a variety of "issues" she was having with her PC and that she was having a devil of a time trying to get it to work right anymore. "Running slow, virtual memory problems, programs that won't run, programs that won't stop, programs that won't uninstall, blah blah blabbity blah..."
Me: "Do you use any antivirus software?"
Her: "Yes, but I can't get online to run it." Me: [slaps forehead] "Assuming you could get online, what do you use?" Her: "AOL has a thing." Me: [slaps forehead again] "I see. Do you ever run any anti-spyware checks?" Her: *** [blank stare] Me: [sigh] "Would you like me to take a look at it for you?" Before I could blink again she was back with her 10 year old Compaq Presario mini-tower in hand, and this kitten at the dumb friend's league adopt me look in her eyes as she handed it over. "Could you please look at it for me? I'm just ready to throw it away."
On hindsight I probably should have let her. But being the nice guy I am, I decided there really wasn't any harm in just having a look, was there? So I told her I'd take it down in the lab and see what I could do.
So I took it downstairs and fired it up to see what I was dealing with. Right out of the chute I can see the CMOS battery has decided to depart this mortal coil as it booted up into Windows XP Pro and let me know that it thought it was Dec 31, 1996. That was a pretty good New Year's Eve for me if I recall, but it wasn't a real confidence builder as to the overall state of this PC's health. I opened up the device manager dialog and was pretty astounded to find I was dealing with a 300 mhz Pentium 2 with 256 megs of RAM. Holy crap, I didn't even think that XP Pro would run on less than a P-III, obviously an upgrade. Big ol' honkin' 20GB hard drive too, but only about 350 MB of usable space left. Hmmmm, gonna have to clean up some of the garbage before I can reset the virtual memory to use more than the 128 megs that it had been hardcoded to. That disk was thrashing around worse than a clothes dryer with a bag of rocks in it too - whatever was on there was really partying on during the boot sequence.
OK, first things first, I'm going to need to find a replacement battery for the system board clock before I get too carried away here. Pop open the case. Holy crap! Looks like the the motherboard is the same kind that powered the Titanic - I haven't seen a daughterboard set up in years. Shoot - no ethernet card either, will have to use a spare, but I'm not planning on connecting to my network until I can disinfect it first anyway. Pull out the daughterboard and hunt for CMOS battery. Crap! Hard soldered in and not designed to be replaced, means I have to look for a P-2 plug for backup power supply - yesss, conveniently located where I'll have to disconnect all the disk drive cables to get at it. Just needs a 4.5v alkaline backup battery - fairly common back in the PC stone age but have you tried to find one lately? Not happenin' in Denver my friends. But Google is my friend, only $13 with free shipping from a specialty battery place in Utah. Who knows how long that'll take? Guess I'll just start cleaning it up and keep setting the clock manually until it gets here.
Boot into safe mode and plop in a dvd that has a bunch of utilities on it that I keep around for just such occassions. Some a/v software, some anti-spyware stuff, HiJack This, etc., just typical geek toolkit crap. Crap! No dvd drive, just cd rom. Eureka! This antique actually has a USB port - if I wasn't afraid of what might be running on there I'd just plug in one of my external drives and do the installs from there. Nah - too scary. I did have some extra 128 meg flash memory cards that I'm not afraid of wiping if I had to though. So I spent the next few hours uninstalling some of the obvious crap to make room for the diagnostic installs that I copied from my trusty USB keychains (doesn't everyone have one or two?).
First I Installed a 15 day trial of Norton's Internet Security Suite knowing it would do a pre-install virus scan. Now we are talking - the preinstall only found 26 viruses and about 400 spyware entries. Cleaning that stuff up required a reboot. Crap! Clock says 1996 - Norton says trial has expired (I guess it calculates plus or minus 15 days) - Norton won't run even after I reset the clock - it has determined I have been messing with system time to try to bypass the internal install timebomb I guess. OK, no biggy - blow it away and install AVG free home edition and run that. Then I install and run Spybot S&D and Adaware for kicks and grins. They team up to find another 3 or 4 virus files and another 100 odd spyware entries in the system registry (including, oddly enough, some things that Norton Internet Security thing left behind after I uninstalled it).
These scans gave me a good enough level of confidence to go ahead and plug it into the internet (but only after I isolated the rest of my gear from the cable modem). Ran Trend's Housecall and a couple of the other online malware checkers until I got clean reports from all of the apps (ran everything in my arsenal at least twice). w00t! This box is finally clean - 30+ viruses detected & a shade under 600 spyware entries blown the heck away. Freed up about 6 gigs of disk space in the process (she gave me permission to blast all of her teenage son's games and Kazaa shares as he is now forbidden from Mom's PC).
Now I can go ahead and upgrade all the MS service packs while I'm at it. Plug in the SP2 CD that I have in the lab - gets to the evaluating system configuration step and halts with a nasty message box informing me that this machine is not using a valid Windows XP license key. WTF? They are using a pirated copy of Windows and they have the balls to give it to "Mr. Microsoft" to try to fix it? Crap! But I'm a nice guy, and I do have some free Not For Resale copies of XP Pro that I have accumulated over the years, so I decide to donate them a valid key. A reinstall would help clean up the rest of the leftovers in the registry too.
Ever do a Windows XP upgrade install on a Pentium 2? Man, do yourself a favor, start it before you need to go read War and Peace, or take a short vacation to Bora Bora, and it might be done by the time you get back. The good news is that your new CMOS backup battery will be waiting in the mailbox by the time you are done too. Install the battery, reset the clock, rerun all the diagnostics one more time to be sure, make a couple of final passes through the Windows Update site, set a system restore point proclaiming this is a clean machine, and go fix yourself a much deserved drink.
I swear, I felt like washing my hands after being exposed to this much crap. If I had an award to give for the most FUBAR machine I have ever laid my hands on, this one would get it running away. Next time I think I'll start with fdisk though. "Sorry Mrs. M., I'm afraid it was terminal."
Her first question when I gave it back: "So, what do you think of AOL as an internet provider?"
Me: [slaps forehead] 28/06/2005 WooHoo!The new Rich Text Box Editor for Spaces ROCKS! See the details over at Scott's Place. No more Edit It! or JScript hacks for me.
*spins propeller on beenie* 15/04/2005 Public Service AnnouncementIt has come to my attention that there is an inordinate amount of MSN Spaces that are authored by teenagers. You've all seen them, they are impossible to avoid if you ever surf the Updated Spaces links. MoSt Of tHeSe ArE JsUt TeRrIbLe! In fact, nearly all of them can be condensed to the following 4 sentences: "I totally love my girlfriend/boyfriend, but today she/he sux. School sux. My parents sux. I think I will kill myself when I get back from the mall." For this reason I have decided to post the following tutorial to help the teenie-weenies learn how to correctly post to the internet. Pay attention kids. Note: To start the movie move your mouse over the middle of the area below. It's a pretty big download, so those of you who are bandwidth challenged - please be patient, sorry, but I think you'll see that it's worth the wait. Lights please.
How to Post to the Internet The preceding message has been brought to you by the: Thank you for your support. [UPDATE] - LMFAO, the best part of this post was snooping in the stats to see how many teens might have seen it. One of my afternoon session pupils was apparently using something resembling her attention span. She is 13 and definitely a Spaces n00b, but she did manage to use the terms ignoranus, whorewaffle, and f*cktard in their correct context in her one and only very first "I Really Don't Understand..." post. No nasty jpegs yet, but she's just getting started. Step to the head of the class »¨ßřıtŧa₪y'š Spācз¨« (I kid you not, I just can't make all this stuff up). 13/04/2005 Local GoogleA while back Google launched Local Google as a beta that will allow you to search for things in your local area. On Tuesday they also launched another version of this tool for mobile device users called Local Mobile. Will be a good thing to know when you find yourself in unfamiliar territory and have a hankering for a pizza. Very cool.
07/04/2005 Live SpacesMany of you may have noticed that MSN Spaces officially went "live" last night. Seems a little ironic that its going "live" meant that it was "dead" most of the evening as they were moving stuff around. There are a number of new themes and too dang many ads. They have tripled photo storage to 30 megs and now allow hyperlinks in comments. But the best feature yet? No more length limit on comments. There are bound to be a few more hiccups before things get settled down but I am glad they are starting to make some much needed improvements. I didn't really feel that I was getting my money's worth before.
PS - The newest version of MSN Messenger also came out of Beta yesterday. I have been using the Beta version since December and I really like it. It has some very nice integration features for folks with Spaces. 06/04/2005 Windows Blue Screen Of DeathA little video for those that feel that the operating system on their Apple PC's is much more stable and secure than Windows. [WARNING] - This video gets an R rating for language. The term "fucktard" is used here; could this be the real origin of Cheezmo's current favorite term?
NOTE: This video is in WMV format, so it probably will not play on non-Windows machines. Coincidence? Perhaps. I'm going to look for a free wmv to mpeg converter so that maybe I can present it in a browser agnostic format; but in the meantime, if you would like to download this video file you can get it here (right click, save as). 30/03/2005 If You Show Me Yours, I'll Show you Mine...[Update] Mizz Moxie is back, her space mysteriously dissappeared and she's got a brand new one now. Go check it out. Happy Computer Surroundings Day. Tip of the hat to Mizz Moxie for having such a great idea. She will eventually be posting a list of others who chose to share some photos of their respective nerd nests, go check it out. Since I am a certifiable computer geek, I am having a bit of a hard time with this. It's not that I don't know how to describe my stuff; it's just that I really don't know where to begin. This is due to the fact, that at any one time we might have up to 7 computers and 2 Xbox Live consoles running on our home network here. That said, I guess I'll just start in the basement and work my way up. The Lab This is actually our game room, but it also serves as "Command Central" for our home computing infrastructure. On the far left is my Dell laptop with which I have some sort of weird symbiotic relationship, as it tends to follow me wherever I go. Obscured by the 20" Dell flat panel are the Comcast cable modem, Packet8 voice over i.p. telephone hub, 802.11g wireless router and LAN switches that provide the network connectivity for the whole house. The three mini-towers at the far right are configured as follows:
Above the servers are my flatbed scanner and a DVD/CD storage device that holds up to 100 indexed disks and makes them easy to locate from any PC in the house. Also in this room, but not pictured are: a massive Canon i9900 printer capable of producing 13" x 19" prints, and an Xbox and PS2 connected to a 27" flat panel TV. For some reason we seem to spend a lot of time down here... The Family Room ...or here. This is our family room on the main floor. In addition to being our home theater, we use an Xbox with a Media Center Extender kit to serve up our various stored media files to the big screen and surround sound audio system. The Xbox is connected with an HDTV adapter kit to the 42" wide screen Panasonic Hi-Def rear projection TV, and uses a Toslink fiber optic cable to connect digital audio to the surround sound receiver. This combination means that not only are we able to use the Xbox to serve up stored media files, the games kick butt in HD & surround sound. The chest of drawers underneath the statue of the King, is jammed full of DVDs and Xbox games. The a/v rack in the corner includes (from the bottom up): 2 dual tuner Dish network receivers with DVR that provide the satellite TV feeds to the entire house and allow me to time shift (TiVo) programs I don't have time to watch; on the second shelf is my Kenwood 6.1 channel surround sound receiver and a JVC DVD player; finally we have my Stanton STR8-80 turntable that lets me play trax on wax when I'm in the mood - or I can connect it to my laptop and rip LPs to MP3s when I am so inclined. All of this stuff is programmed into the one remote to rule them all, my Philips Pronto TSU-3000, so that all the other individual remotes can stay in the drawer of the a/v rack. When this stuff is all fired up and used in anger, it flat out ROCKS the house. Time to go upstairs. My Bedroom The sole function of my "retired" laptop is to serve up the mp3s on the file server in the basement so I can play them through the stereo system in this room. A cool little side effect of this is that I can also view the Windows Media Player visualizations on my TV at the same time. And yes, that is a little Pioneer "all in one" home theater unit next to it, so I can watch movies in bed without suffering surround sound withdrawal. Robert's Room This is the headquarters of Robert E. Lee (yes that is his real name). I built Rob's PC from spare parts and a few off the shelf upgrades. Not terribly fancy, but extremely functional. The 1.8 ghz P4, 1 GB Ram, ATI 9800 vid card, and surround sound handle most of the games pretty well, so if the screamer in the basement is busy you'll find him in here. Christopher's Room Here is Christopher's gear perched in front of the Rocky Mountain thunderstorm his daddy painted on the wall (phosphorescent paint, lightning and clouds glow in the dark, he also has a summer sky star map painted on the ceiling - coolest room in the house). Chris, being the youngest, got all the hand me downs. His is an oldish Compaq with a 1.2 ghz Celeron but I upgraded to an nVidia graphics card, Sound Blaster for 5.1 channel surround, and maxxed out his memory, so that he gets by fairly well for all but the newest generation of PC games. So, I guess that's about it for the tour. The pics are all in the photo album if you want to see the larger images. Next time we'll do the garage. Thanks for coming by. 27/03/2005 Playing Music on Spaces[Fair Warning] Sorry Cheezmo, this is a geek post, but it's a lot less complicated than that news aggregator thing I subjected you all to last week. Lots of folks are playing music on their MSN Spaces these days, and plenty of others (well at least one biker chick) are wondering how to do it too. This is really not terribly difficult to pull off. The only real trick to it is to have a place where you can get to the music source using an internet accessible address (i.e. "http://myplace.com/music/my_cool_tune.mp3"). Once you have that, it is a simple matter to create a post that will play your song for you automagically. You will have to first have access to the HTML editing capabilities provided by the Edit It! hack for IE, or by using a non-IE browser like Firefox. From the HTML editor you can then insert an <img> tag with a "dynsrc" attribute that points to your music file, similar to the way you can insert pictures larger than that crappy thumbnail MSN gives you at the bottom by default. Example: <IMG height=0 dynsrc="http://myplace.com/music/my_cool_tune.mp3" width=0> That's really all there is to it. The <img> tag has a number of other attributes that will let you annoy the hell out of your readers by repeating the song over and over and over and over, but I'll let you look up that annoying feature on your own. There are other mechanisms available, like using an <embed> tag that will allow your readers to choose whether or not to play your song of the day, or not, but I think I'll save those lessons for another day. I think this is the easiest solution for a quick and dirty way to add a tune to your Space. One warning though, only use one of these guys per page or you can get some really interesting, spontaneous "Battle of the Bands" results. Rock on kiddies. Class dismissed.
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