July 2006 - Posts

• Go Do The Robot

  People doing the Robot...if nothing else, check out the video and watch the crazy kid in the orange. No way he is human... I know the video isn't new, but its still cool ;) Posted Jul 31 2006, 05:23 AM by Bob with 2 comment(s)

• Media Player Ate My Codecs

  Anyone else having trouble getting Media Player to work with any of their codecs in 5472? They all seem to install just fine, but then I still don't see the video. Posted Jul 31 2006, 01:22 AM by Bob with no comments

• "Microsoft Knows Best" or Why I Can't Choose Leave Local Copy

  A coworker found this and I guess I have to give him credit since I dont know who else to give credit to. In VSS 2005, Microsoft decided we should no longer be allowed to have a different version of a file on our machine than is in sourcesafe without checking out the file. I understand their reasoning in this, but it is really impossible to make such a blanket move. What if you have a custom web.config on your machine for some additional tracing/debugging that you specifically are working on etc? Anyhow, here is a copy and paste from the readme for the file, basically it includes a hacked version of the ssgui.dll that re-enables this functionality. ----- Copy and Paste ----- *********************** Background *********************** Microsoft has removed the ability to leave a local writable file when you are doing a Get Latest in VSS 2005.  Presumably this is to keep you from inadvertently screwing things up, even though people have been doing this for the last 10 years with VSS and are aware of the consequences. Anyway, this Google thread describes Microsoft's reasoning behind the change and a (presumably unsupported) for bringing the option back. http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.vstudio.sourcesafe/browse_thread/thread/3dd74f26ae23a249/da82c006193f8f1d?lnk=st&q=sourcesafe+get+leave&rnum=1&hl=en#da82c006193f8f1d The hack involves using Binary Editor to change the ssgui.dll so that the option is available again.  I have already done this and the hacked ssgui.dll is in the same VSS project folder as this readme. *********************** WARNING!!! *********************** This is a true hack that involved cracking open the binary and editing the bits by hand.  Any service pack updates to VSS could overwrite this hacked DLL or cause VSS not to work, so make sure you keep a backup copy of the original ssgui.dll just in case. *********************** Installation Instructions *********************** 1. Shut down VSS 2005 2. Make a backup copy of the ssgui.dll file in your VSS installation directory 3. Replace the ssgui.dll file with the version in this VSS2005Hack folder When you restart VSS 2005, you should see the "Leave" option available. ----- End Copy and Paste ---- Another interesting tid bit my coworker was able to figure out before me, if you notice in the new sourcesafe, besides the pretty new colors, when you click on the Add Files folder thingie, you know longer just get a list of the files that are not already in Source Safe. NO...THAT WOULD BE TOO EASY AND USER FRIENDLY. Fear not, fellow Source Safe User. If you hold shift and click add files, you will get the previous behavior. You can download the readme and the hacked dll here. Posted Jul 30 2006, 09:15 PM by Bob with no comments

• Crazy MSDN Download

  So. I had vague recollection that there was a way to speed up MSDN downloads and after hitting google, wandered over here and applied the fix. Short copy paste below. In the hosts file on the machine doing the downloading (%windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) add an entry for the Microsoft server: 207.46.252.185      global.ds.microsoft.com Then, in Internet Explorer, add https://global.ds.microsoft.com in the list of trusted sites under Tools > Internet Options > Security > Trusted Sites. Also, under the privacy tab click the 'Sites' button and enter https://global.ds.microsoft.com so that microsoft.com is a trusted domain. He and others, this isn't something new, have gotten pretty decent speed bumps doing this, but I didnt have real high hopes. And I never expected this. Granted I don't think I would see this during the week anyhow. It was looking like a 7+ hour download before the change. It is still running strong at over 600 KB /sec. I love the internet. Posted Jul 30 2006, 07:46 AM by Bob with 1 comment(s)

• Sysinternals

  Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. It seems like Microsoft bought Winternals, makers of the coolest systems tools ever. Posted Jul 19 2006, 09:00 AM by Bob with no comments

• Why I Moved to a Hosting Company

  This is basically a cut and paste of a message to my host ASPNIX. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Let me preface this by saying for the most part, ASPNIX has worked well for me. Having said that, let us look at why I chose a hosting solution at all instead of continuing to host myself. Mainly, I did not want to think about my servers. I didn't want to check on them everyday etc. This is where ASPNIX has let me down. I understand servers needing rebooted, or servers being down for upgrades et al, but don't post it in a forum I have no interest in reading. *Send us an email, if I wanted to have to check on my servers everyday (or check their status in a forum) I would have continued to self host* Posted Jul 16 2006, 09:05 PM by Bob with 3 comment(s)

• Johnny Cash

  I wouldn't call myself a Johnny Cash fan, hell, I didn't even know he was dead. Having said that, I seem to find myself digging this remake of NIN Hurt he did right near the end. Go Johnny! Posted Jul 16 2006, 07:50 AM by Bob with 4 comment(s)

• Favorite Songs This 5 Minutes

  Godsmack - I Stand Alone Pantera - 5 Minutes Alone Posted Jul 10 2006, 01:13 AM by Bob with no comments

• Collaboration Never Looked So Good

  Wow. This is simplistic in its design, but I could see it truly rocking for off site work. Basically it lets you stream video onto your desktop in a semi transparent way without interfering with clicking on what you are actually using. My first thought was 'I can watch Channel 9 while I work!', the I read more of their article and they started talking about using it for video to video collaboration for people who are remotely seperated. Their idea is better :P Anyhow, I borrowed their picture and placed it below to give you a better idea. Go check it out, the source is even available! Posted Jul 10 2006, 12:32 AM by Bob with 1 comment(s)

• Using Using in C#

  I decided today to try the using statement in C#, and I decided it sucks. using ( SqlMembershipProvider membershipProvider = new SqlMembershipProvider ()) {       membershipProvider.ApplicationName = "Name" ;       membershipProvider.Description = "Description" ;       membershipProvider.EnablePasswordReset = false ; } What the hell is this crap? I don't see why this couldn't be: using (newSqlMembershipProvider()) {       .ApplicationName = "Name";       .Description = "Description";       .EnablePasswordReset = false; } This seems much cleaner, more readable and just less damn stuff to read/type. Is there some hidden craziness I am missing of why this would be the evil? Posted Jul 08 2006, 12:36 AM by Bob with 5 comment(s)

• Mars Rovers

  Damn if they aren't still going. Over 2 years of operation off a planned 90 day mission. Saw this while reading about the successful shuttle launch (yeah NASA!) Posted Jul 05 2006, 10:28 AM by Bob with no comments

• Tailored Music

  Sarah sent me an email awhile back for a music site called Pandora, but I just had time to really check it out. Very impressed with the concept. It lets you pick a favorite band as a starting point, and plays music it considers similar based on various criteria. As it plays songs, you get the chance to 'tweak' what it thinks you like by either voting for or against the current song. If you have varying tastes, you can manually add artists to the station to get a differnt kind of music in the mix. The site is free by default, supported by ads on your radio page, not that I ever notice since that window is always minimized, except when I flip to it to vote a song up or down. One downside to the free version, you can only skip so many songs an hour, so once you get over that very low limit (4 I think) you are stuck listening to the song whether you like it or not, or you can switch to a different station. There is also a pay option that is $36 for a year for unlimited streamed music, which I assume means you can skip as many songs as you like (I am verifying this, I will probably pay if it is the case). The stream quality already sounds very good, I would say close to CD quality, I don't see any statistics on their site confirming this. Verdict? Very cool site. So far it hasn't gotten real close to my taste in musc, but it does seem to be improving over time, there are more songs I am voting up than down after a short period of time listening, and I have found a couple artists I really like that I had not heard of before. The free part is really nice, but come on, for unlimited ability to skip songs, I will pay $36 a year. There is also an option to add a link to your playlist on your blog. I will probably do this once it is slightly more tweaked. Posted Jul 05 2006, 07:42 AM by Bob with 1 comment(s)

• Wii

  Ok, I admit it, I am getting a Wii. I have not had a console since the Atari 2600. All of my gaming since then has been on a computer, from the awesome Commodore 64 up to my current PC. What is funny is the main reason I am going to get a console is I have *less* time lately for playing games, not more. I think a console work well with that for many reasons. 1. With the Wii, the cost is very low, rumored to be well under $200, and the games look to be more affordable than the current crop coming out for the PC. 2. My current PC is getting a little long in the tooth, the CPU is ok, but the Radeon 9700 Pro is definitely in need of replacement. I can get the Wii for less than a new video card. 3. Most (not all) console games are more immediate. Turn it on, bang on the buttons for awhile , maybe save and turn it off. So it seems financially the Wii is a good move, as well as filling a niche for a quick jaunt into a game and back out when I need a stress relief break from whatever it is I am doing. Granted, the graphics probably arent much better than the 9700 Pro I already have, but the Wii advantage there is that the new games are designed with that in mind. New PC games are designed to push newer cards, so can get really laggy on my aging card. Now, I just wish Nintendo would go ahead and release it, I hate having to wait once I make up my mind about something... Posted Jul 05 2006, 06:57 AM by Bob with no comments

• YouOS

  If you haven't already seen it, go check out YouOS. I fiddled with it for a few minutes, and I guess it is a nice proof of concept but I couldn't see it replacing or even supplementing anything. File Explorer took about 50 seconds to 'initialize' and after closing that, my OS session crashed. Navigating out of the desktop and back in seemed to unlock it, maybe that is the Windows equivilent of rebooting ;) Anyhow, fun to play with for a couple of minutes, but nothing most of us would take seriously. If I need my desktop away from home, Remote Desktop can be exposed through a browser as well... Some people are looking at this concept as a threat to Microsoft, I say, if anyone from Microsoft has seen this yet, they just chuckled and said 'Heck, our prototype is way better than this'. Posted Jul 05 2006, 06:10 AM by Bob with no comments