Open folders in a command window quickly in Vista
There is a nice shortcut in Vista that allows you to open a command window with the path set to a specific folder at startup. This can be done by holding Shift and right-clicking on a folder in Explorer. When the context menu appears, you can select "Open Command Window Here". Alternatively, you could use the Application key + Shift followed by the 'W' key. On a related note, you can no longer drag and drop a folder from Explorer into a command window in order to paste the path information.
11/29/2006 4:27:31 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)        Compelling News

SharpLogic Summer BBQ

It has actually been a couple of months since we all got together for some hamburgers and it turns out that some pictures were taken, unbeknownst to me at the time, while we played basketball at SharpLogic Arena.

I am actually quite proud of the first picture because I am able to successfully demonstrate my remarkable ability of holding a basketball over my head.  Notice that both Ezju and Chris are fascinated by my feat.

After a long awkward moment of holding the ball over my head I decided that I should move closer to the basket for a higher percentage shot.  Closer = higher percentage right?

So I moved closer to the basket and boldly lifted the basketball over my head once again.  Unfortunately, I quickly ran into another problem, that being the backboard.  You see, the basket is read-only from this side.  Thanks to Ezju for pointing that out to me.

The highlight of the day came when Ed showed off his force powers as he slowly moved a levitating basketball towards the hoop without lifting a finger.  Notice that Ezju is there to help supervise the action once again.

9/28/2005 12:40:03 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)        Compelling News

Return Me.PortlandCodeCampExperience

Portland Code Camp v1.0 was unleashed July 23 and 24 and I am happy that I was able to attend.  I went to a number of sessions covering the following topics:

•     Visual Studio Tools for Office (VS 2005)
•     Intercepting API Calls
•     ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts
•     SQL 2005 Development
•     .NET Windows Forms Tips & Tricks
•     Extensible .NET Applications
•     ASP.NET Tips & Tricks
•     Forensic Development
•     Versions Gone Wild

Proof I was there (not that anyone really cares):

Now admittedly some of the content was over my head, such as in the Intercepting API Calls session, but that does not mean that I did not take anything away from it.  When security experts or DB administrators start talking about their specialties and glossing over many of the prerequisites, it is not hard for me to get a little lost.  This session could have used more demos, but I understand that the content was in the nitpicky details which take a lot of time to actually show.

Tips and Tricks sessions are always nice because you can cram so much information into a single hour time slot.  These types of sessions are good because they present seeds of information that you can take with you and use later.  Details are not as necessary here, but general ideas on where to start with a given problem can be very valuable.

The Extensible .NET Application session was essentially a case study which focused on a specific solution.  While it would be nice if the entire range of possible design choices could be covered in more detail, I realize that only so much can happen in one hour.  It was nice to get into the details of the code and listen to some of the gotchas that were found during development of a particular solution.

Braindump for other Code Camp related thoughts: donuts, lots of donuts… Seattle to Portland traffic and the reverse = System.OverflowException… Subway for breakfast, lunch, and dinner… Portland has enough bridges…

7/27/2005 1:03:19 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)        Compelling News

Skype (VOIP Internet Telephony) API is available for developers

In case you are unaware, Skype is an Internet telephony (VOIP) application that provides free voice communication, chat, and file transfer capabilities in an easy to use, cross-platform package.  For fee, Skype allows users to call regular phone numbers and allows regular phones to call into Skype.

The popularity of Skype has grown rapidly over the past two years since its introduction for a number of reasons.  Although I do not plan to go into many technical details here, I will say that Skype is a well engineered piece of networking magic.  It takes full advantage of modern decentralized peer-to-peer technology to deliver end-users a highly responsive system for communication.  The user interface is very simple to use and Skype is well known for simply working out of the box with very little configuration.

Skype released an API for the Windows platform at the end of 2004.  This alone sets it apart from a lot of the other big players like MSN and AOL.  As a developer, having an API available with this much power is an exciting thing.  If you are interested in taking a look, check out http://www.skype.com/community/devzone and look for the documentation and example code.

There are a number of third-party applications and utilities that have been developed for Skype.  You can check some of them out at http://www.skype.com/community/devzone/doc.html.  Skype also recently announced a contest for developers and they are calling for utilities, development tools, and other applications to help showcase their product.  After taking a look at their example C++ code I can see why they need some help with developer tools.  Here is a link to the competition.   http://www.skype.com/community/devzone/apicomp.html.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

4/30/2005 12:05:07 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)        Compelling News