Category Archives: Just Rambling

Variety the spice of life

Just Rambling

I  just sent in my powerpoints for DevConnections and am laughing at how all four topics are completely different:

  • Leveraging SQL Server 2005 Query Notifications in ADO.NET 2.0 and ASP.NET 2.0
  • What’s new in WSE 3.0
  • Customized Debugging in VS2005
  • Demystifying C# for VB Developers

Now I have to prepare a presentation on yet another completely different topic: Virtual Earth, which is one of my 4 (4? what was I thinking! 🙂 ) for Code Camp Developers Gone Wild.

But what I am most excited about is preparing for my Indigo talk at TechEd South Africa.

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Virtual Earth does Ink submitted to PDC Show Off

Just Rambling

I finally learned how to use Camtasia, which is awesome, just to send this in for the PDC Showoff. It was a pain in the rear getting one long video where I didn’t do something dumb. But finally, I got something. We’ll see how it goes. I didn’t record audio over it. And no, I am not putting it on the web – that’s one of the rules.

update : guess I am going to be adding audio to it. That’s worse than trying to record a “hi leave a message” message  on the answering machine.


Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

My travel schedule through the end of the year

Just Rambling

I just wrote down my travel schedule through the end of 2006 all in one place and nearly passed out when I realized what I have done! I thought I would put it here as a reminder to myself.

9/12 – 9/17 – Fly all the way across the country for PDC

9/19 – present at VTdotNET on what I saw at PDC

9/24 – 9/25 – present FOUR talks at Code Camp (stil have to start that Virtual Earth talk 😉 )

10/4 – 6 – travel to Syracuse for a quick visit with my parents and speak at CNYDevelopers.NET

10/21 – 10/27 – travel to South Africa to give 3 talks at TechEd

11/5 – 11/10 – back across the country to Las Vegas for DevConnections

11/10 – 11/15 – a little vacation with my ol’ man

12/5 – 12/7 – (not firm) potentially travelling to Virginia for my first INETA gig and to visit my brother and his family

And to all of you wondering why I am not flying to Seattle for the MVP summit at the end of September, perhaps now you understand why! 🙂

Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Attempting to centralize Katrina Data – and they need programming help

Just Rambling

by way of Rocky Lhotka’s blog where he is also passing on the information:
 
We’re a few local (ATL) ASP.NET programmers who have created a central datastore, collection web interfaces, and processing system for missing/safe person data on people affected by hurricane katrina.
The idea caught on quick… we’ve only got 2 guys working on this full time and a third helping out when he can. Since going online we’ve ben contacted by LOTS of groups who want to work with us. We’re overwhelmed and need help… we’ve got plans for a mobile device interface to our data, and are working with a callcenter fielding calls from disaster victims (the callcenter needs some special enhancements to the interface we can’t get to fast enough.). We’re being listed as the central survivors database on the emergency web terminals being deployed in disaster zones ( http://www.publicwebstations.com/ )
We’ve got people on the ground at shelters trying to gather lists and transmit them to our datastore electronically. We’re also contacting almost 50 other websites which have lists or data collection systems… they are starting to use our MSP file spec and transmit data to us.
If you could get the word out that we are looking for volunteer programmers who can hit the ground running and take ownership of some of the special projects we have WE WOULD APPRECIATE IT.. but there are people out there looking for loved ones who would appreciate it even more.
Current experience we need:
  • .net mobile framework using our data classes to collect and process data
  • string data parsing experience… there’s a lot of data in forum posts we can’t use but could triple our data if we could parse into useful fields
  • Mass emailing system… as our system processes incoming bulk data, it makes matches between searchers and safe persons, flagging them as needed contact via email. We need a system to read from a database table containing these contact requests and send them out
  • any general ASP.NET (we’re using VB) experience to help build special lookups and interfaces
I hate to make such a request on a holiday weekend, but we are swamped.
Please spread the word if you can.
Thanks!
-John
Developer, The Katrina Data Project

email: john at katrinadataproject dot com



Don’t Forget: www.acehaid.org

Funny problem with VPCs and Install Disks

Just Rambling

This one had me scratching my head for a while so I thought I would put it out there.

I have a computer that I installed some software on using an ISO file and therefore had attached it to a Virtual DVD player (Daemon Tools).

Recently I received a newer version of the software on a DVD. I wanted to install this in a VPC and not affect the other installation.

I created a VPC and popped in the disc. The install wizard came up and I went ahead with the installation.

When all was said and done, I went to run the new software but it was not the new version! I bagged the vpc and started again. Same thing.

In the VPC, I browsed to the disc. There were two DVD players both with the same contents. Neither had file dates relating to the new dvd.

I left the VPC and browsed to the disc from the host computer. There were two DVD players, one with the old version, one with the new.

I removed the instance of the virtual dvd player. Then tried to do the install again in the VPC and the proper software installed.

So, somehow, the physical DVD was firing up the AutoPlay but on the wrong disk. Go figure.

I had a VPC that I created on my computer. I needed to install something from a DVD. A prior version

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