Time for everyone to update your RSS readers.  The Atlanta .NET Regular Guys will not be posting to www.devcow.com/weblogs anymore.  We've moved to www.devcow.com/blogs.

Why?

Because the new blogging engine we're using will allow us to host other people's blogs.  We have recruited a few select individuals to blog with us:

• Todd Fine - RDA consultant/Microsoft Regional Director
• Mark Dunn - .Net Rocks co-founder/VB.Net MVP/Training guru
• Eric Thompson - all around bright guy who got in b/c he and Brendon are good friends (I suppose now I'll have to be his friend too)
• Dan Attis - co-leader of the Atlanta Microsoft Professionals User Group and part of the team designing the content for the SharePoint 1, 2, 3! event

Of course, you can continue to expect the same quality content from Brendon and myself, posting together as the Atlanta .Net Regular Guys. Feel free to read the blog's aggregate post or jump directly to the ADNRG blog.

-- Matt Ranlett

Are you a geek?  Let me assure you, if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably a geek.  If you’re a geek of the male variety (the most common variety) you might enjoy geeky things AND scantily clad attractive women.  If so, check out http://geekfantasies.com.  Be warned – this is designed to insult you and is therefore worth looking at.

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet

The installation of the latest service packs for Windows XP includes something for Internet Explorer called the Information Bar.  This is a new feature that provides the user a banner message that tells the user when web content has been blocked based on the settings in Internet Explorer Options.  By default, this info bar is turned on, and can cause issues when you attempt to launch certain ActiveX applications.  The information bar can be turned off by changing the following setting:

 Launch Internet Explorer

            Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced Tab

 In the options under the Security heading, click the check box next to "Allow active content to run in files on My Computer".  Click OK to save the setting and then re-launch Internet Explorer.  The info bar message should no longer appear.

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet

I guess I'm not any more famous today than I was the Friday before.  Still - Scoble did link to me - twice!

-- Matt Ranlett

This is starting to happen with increasing regularity.  I'm using the phone (a Nokia 3650) with the hands-free headset (the wired kind, not a Bluetooth thingy) and I finish my call.  I disconnect the headset but the phone doesn't realize it.  I still have the little headphones icon on the screen and the speakers and microphone don't work.  Effectively, my phone is useless.  The thing still works if I put the headset back in, but I don't always have my headset with me.  Even more annoying, occasionally the phone switches to headset mode when I'm not using the headset - in the middle of the call.  Suddenly I can't hear or say anything!  Occasionally the phone will realize that the headset is gone if I plug and unplug the headset several times.  This morning it didn't work and I since I left the headset at home, I had to run out at lunch to get a new one.  $20 for a new headset.  I must have plugged the headset in and out 50 times before I was forced to buy it.  I get in the car and try 5 more times and the damn phone turns off the headset! 

Anyway - if this keeps up I'll eventually be getting a new phone.  Of course, I want a cool phone, but I'm fighting the forces of brokeness - so I probably won't get what I want.  Damn technology!  Why does it have to be so expensive and yet so cool and desirable?  It's like socially acceptable (albiet geeky) form of crack!  While I was at the TMobile store I asked about fixing the phone.  $70 and they mail me a replacement phone for the one I have.  But $70!?!  That's like half (or 1/5th) of the cost of the phones I want!

-- Matt Ranlett

I spent a good portion of today and I'll be spending more time tomorrow painting the interior of my house.  I'm getting ready to sell it and officially move in with Kim.  The problem is that painting sucks.  Does anyone want to buy a partially painted house inside the Perimeter for about $180K?  I'll cut you a deal if you don't make me paint or clean anymore.

-- Matt Ranlett

I had a great time at the geek dinner.  I started the evening off with great conversations with Glen Gordon, Jim Wooley, Chris Wallace, and Brendon.  Glen was telling me that at MGB they just were going over the sales analogy for the year - winning a race, all teams working together like all the cylinders and pistons working together, the race car and the pit crew, blah blah blah.  Then Mario Andretti came out on stage.  Yup - THE Mario Andretti.  Awesome!

After a while, I wandered off to chat with almost the entire INETA board, who showed up from the MGB conference happening downtown.  I had a great chat with them and ended up pitching them an idea Glen mentioned.  They loved it, Glen loved it, and it looks like we're going to do it.  I'll post more on THE IDEA when we do a bit more planning and it looks like a reality.

I chatted with Shawn and Michael about independent consulting.  Shawn's doing well and Michael is excited about the future.  I'm sure they're both going to do well - they're among the brightest people I know.

I wandered back over to the INETA people and Brendon and I sat there for a while bragging to them about the dynamic and highly active Atlanta user group community.  They loved some of the ideas we talked about with them and they were highly impressed at how much stuff actually goes on here in Atlanta.  I think Brendon and I might have come across as a bit more super than we actually are (they called us Super UG Leaders) but they were impressed by the cohesion of the entire UG leadership team and the dedication of the UG members.  I think that right now INETA is struggling to find it's value for the average UG member, and the board is interviewing the community to find out what we need.

It was also good to talk to Paul for a while.  I've not seen him for a bit as he's been working hard on stuff that actually helps him pay his mortgage.  Paul's a great guy and I hope he manages to work user groups back into his schedule on occasion.  Even if he doesn't, I'll make sure I don't lose touch with him.

Over all, I had a great time at the meeting, even though I never got a chance to talk to Robert Scoble.  Oh well.  I'm sure he's a great guy, he just kept happening to be on the opposite side of the room I was on all night until he left and skipped out on his tab

-- Matt Ranlett

Shawn Wildermuth organized a great Geek Dinner, co-hosted by Robert Scoble.  Everyone shows up and orders overpriced specialty beers and food at 5 Seasons - our favorite Geek Dinner spot.  To keep everyone's order straight with their bills, the waitress takes everyone's card and runs it through to open a tab for each individual order.  At the end of the meal, the cost is charged to the card now on file and everyone just has to sign a receipt.  Every but Scoble, that is!  He managed to leave without signing his slip and b/c his card didn't run through correctly (unnoticed by the waitress at the time) she doesn't even have a card number for him. 

So now Robert owes Paul Lockwood $45

-- Matt Ranlett

http://www.theembassyvfx.com/ - a visual effects company.  Check out the really neat (totally fictional) robot car.

In honor of the historic landing on the moon, the folks at Google have combined high resolution maps of the moon with their Google Maps technology to give you an incredible interactive view of the lunar surface.  Zoom all the way in to see the footsteps!  Check it out at http://moon.google.com.

-- Matt Ranlett

Microsoft has just released version 5 of their Automotive operating system.  Check out this summary news story on Tom's Hardware.  For more details, go to Microsoft.com's press release area and read all about how Windows Automotive will allow connected systems in your car.

-- Matt Ranlett

Author(s): Ingo Rammer and Mario Szpuszta
Publisher: APress
Publisher Link: www.apress.com
Published: February 2005
Categories: .NET, Remoting, Distributed computing, C#
ISBN: 1-59059-417-7
Online Order Links: Amazon.com, BN.com, …

  
Review Date: June 2005
Reviewers Name: Trent Whiteley

Summary:

Although the title of this book, Advanced .NET Remoting, obviously indicates that the designated audience for this book is the “advanced” programmer, the initial three chapters deal with the basics of remoting.  Those already familiar with remoting will, more than likely, be bored with this introduction and will be better off starting off in chapters 4 and following.  The authors present the latest distributed application development technologies available as well as weakness in each technology leading up to the presentation of .NET remoting and justifying its existence.  While not presenting .NET remoting as the Holy Grail of distributed computing, they do provide grounds for using it in most situations over the current distributed technologies.  By chapter three the reader has already learned how to write a basic remoting application and is presented with the basic concepts of .NET remoting.  These concepts are clearly explained with great supporting examples.

After the introductory chapters, the authors delve into a number of disjoint topics covering chapters four through ten.  Some of these topics include security, configuration and deployment, object lifetimes, versioning, best practices, and debugging/troubleshooting.  By isolating these topics in their own chapters, the reader can treat this book as a quick reference when questions arise in dealing with one of these areas.  Again the authors provide excellent examples to support their topics, thus aiding in grasping some of the more difficult aspects of remoting.  The authors also present, from their vast experience, a number of different ways of achieving the same results, after which they reveal the advantages of one method over the others or motivations and scenarios where each method can be used to better advantage.  At times, while reading, it appears that there is no one sure way to write remoting apps properly.  This is exactly what the authors are trying to impart.  There are numerous ways to use remoting, but each one has drawbacks or weaknesses and the authors try to give you a broad range of knowledge to deal with them.  There is no silver bullet to writing remoting apps and this sometimes leads to information overload while reading this book.  The reader will likely find himself returning to this book to gain clarity in resolving design issues.

Finally, in the remaining five chapters, the authors get into the nitty gritty of .NET remoting.  Beginning with the underlying structure of remoting, the authors give the reader a baptism by fire in proxies, dispatchers, sinks, channels and messages.  If none of the previous terms are familiar to you, then you may find this chapter a bit of a challenge.  However, it is an extremely well-written section on exactly how remoting works and reading it is time well invested.  Mastering this chapter provides the basis for proceeding through the remainder of the book with your sanity intact as the proceeding chapters deal primarily with extending and customizing .NET remoting.  The chapters on sinks and developing custom sinks provide the reader with some of the best knowledge for creating custom remoting apps as they are the conduits through which all communication passes between client and server.  Understanding channels allows the reader to customize the transport mechanism through which all communication passes.  After successfully navigating through this book, the reader should be well-equipped to handle a vast array of remoting projects.  This book is in no way for the timid and is a challenging read for all but experienced remoting programmers.  Having persevered through its reading, though, the reader will not regret the time invested and the knowledge gained.

This book is most useful to:

This book will be most useful to those developing multi-tier, distributed applications, webservice developers and C# developers in general.

Recommendation:

Reviewer's Overall Cow Rating: 5 out of 5 Cows

I would highly recommend this book to anyone of moderate to advanced experience in .NET and C# with any degree of distributed application development experience.  While the authors present the foundation of remoting early on to provide a basis for understanding to those new to remoting, the remaining sections of the book deal with far more advanced topics (even dealing with the underlying structure of remoting) which will appeal to the more advanced developers.

I work in a place where we have lots of clients with lots of servers and hundreds of remote terminals.  If you ever have a problem on a terminal while it's in use, it's inconvenient to the users to tell them that you need to take over their teminal for a while just so you can look at the event log.  So you use remote tools to read the eventlogs.  I do this quite frequently, but I thought it might be worth sharing this article someone sent me.

***********************BEGIN ARTICLE************************

Viewing remote Event Logs

By Adrian Grigorof, B.Sc., MCSE

The description of events is not stored in the Event Logs but in Message Files specific to each application. The Event Viewer is able to open remote event log files (binary files with the EVT extension) but not the Message Files. The Message Files (actually DLL or EXE files) are required in order to properly display the description of the event.

For example, assume that computer APPSERVER is running an application called "Smart Application", a service called "smartapp". When the service is started, smartapp generates an application event log entry. Running Event Viewer on APPSERVER on can see the event description as follows:

"The Smart Application service has started successfully."

Running the Event Viewer from the administrators workstation (ADMINWKS) and connecting to the remote registry of APPSERVER, one can see the event description quite differently:

"The description for Event ID (100) in Source (smartapp) could not be found. It contains the following insertion string(s): The Smart Application service has started successfully."

All this means that the Message File specific to Smart Application events is not installed on ADMINWKS or there is no message file defined for that application. In case that there is a message file and if it is desired to display the event properly on the administrator's computer (or on any computer) the Message File dll has to be installed.

Here is the procedure:

1. Locate the dll

All the application event logs messages DLLs are defined under the following registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application

All the system event logs messages DLLs are defined under the following registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\System

So, for example, Smart Application would probably have an entry for its Application-type events like the one below:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application\SmartApp

EventMessageFile (of REG_EXPAND_SZ type): C:\Program Files\SmartApplication\smartapp.dll

All the application event log messages are defined in the smartapp.dll

2. Export the registry keys

Using REGEDIT select the applicable registry keys. In this example:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application\SmartApp

On the Registry menu, click Export Registry File and select a file name (for example,SmartApp.reg).

3. Import the registry keys into ADMINWKS

Copy the SmartApp.reg to ADMINWKS and using REGEDIT import the keys in the local registry.

4. Copy the message file on ADMINWKS

From APPSERVER C:\Program Files\SmartApplication copy smartapp.dll to the ADMINWKS C:\Program Files\SmartApplication

5. The events should display the description properly when viewed from ADMINWKS

In some cases, there is no Message File so the description is not displayed properly not even on the computer running the application. This usually indicates a poorly written application (that is the application is creating event log entries but the programmers didn't bother creating Message Files) or the installation of the application was incomplete or corrupted.

In many cases, one can deduct the actual description by reading just the last part of the message. So for example, from "The description for Event ID (100) in Source (smartapp) could not be found. It contains the following insertion string(s): The Smart Application service has started successfully." one can discard everything but "The Smart Application service has started successfully.". This would work for events that do not contain parameters and sometimes may offer clues even for those that do use parameters.

***********************END ARTICLE***************************

-- Matt Ranlett

We are lucky enough to have one of the keynote presenters from the 2005 PASS Community Summit here in Atlanta for the AtlantaMDF meeting.  If you are interested in SQL Server and want to go to an event, check it out.  This takes place September 27 -30, 2005.

http://www.sqlpass.org/events/summit05/

I bet our own Atlanta Solid Quality Learning (SQL) member, Douglas McDowell, will be going. So make sure you talk to him about the event.

—Brendon Schwartz

Posted with BlogJet

I’m really excited to share this – I’ve been keeping it semi-secret ever since I found out about it.  While I was at Tech Ed, I won a contest sponsored by Microsoft and the Excell Data Corporation.  The grand prize was a portable media center from Creative!  The same model Michael has.  It finally came in the mail last Friday and I’ve been playing with it ever since.

 

 

It’s really a cool device, about a third larger than my cellphone (although it does have a protective case that makes it seem much larger than it really is).  The thing (and case) actually does fit in my pocket, but not entirely comfortably.  Anyway – about the device itself:  think of it as an iPod capable of displaying movies!  It is way more than that, but that seems to get the message across the best.  It runs Microsoft’s Portable Media Center shell on top of Windows CE – which means it turns on and off instantly.  It plays music – both WMA and MP3 (WMA results in a slightly smaller file).  It shows photos (JPG is the only format I’ve tested).  It plays videos (WMV videos, but the process of putting AVI and MPG videos onto the machine encodes them into usable WMV format).  It even allows you to play music while watching a slideshow of your favorite photos!  The 20 Gb drive holds so much stuff that with 465 songs, 173 pictures, and 66 videos (including a full length movie) I’ve only used up 3 Gb.  I took a 2 hour movie (The Missing with Tommy Lee Jones) off a DVD and encoded it down to 318 Mb and put it on the thing.

 

Check out this great review from a Media Center MVP

 

I don’t know if I’ll attempt developing for the device, I’ve got lots of stuff on my plate at the moment and I never have free time.  I’m sure I’ll be randomly posting about what I do with my PMC (like, if I ever write a useful program for it).

 

-- Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet

At least she is when it comes to famous people on TV.  It has happened twice now – once with that movie Be Cool with John Travolta.  In one of the early scenes there is this guy off in the distance and she sees his face for .02 seconds and says that he’s the Rock.  It looks nothing like the Rock, so me and the two other people I’m watching the movie with all bet her money that it isn’t.  We were all wrong and she should have made $15 if we’d paid her.   The second time was while watching the Family Guy.  There was an episode where Death comes to Peter on a golf course.  I swore the voice was Norm MacDonald and she swore it wasn’t.  Turns out that Norm MacDonald did play the character of Death on the Family Guy once, but not in this episode!  It was Adam Carolla.  Can I help it if these two guys sound the same to me?  Anyway, instead of paying money, I now have paid in 2 hours of massage!  My hands are getting tired!

— Matt Ranlett

I took one of those disposable cameras with me to Hong Kong so I wouldn’t risk losing something valuable.  Here are some of the photos I took while in the Far East.  Let me just say in advance that I’m slightly disappointed with the quality of the photos.  Oh well.

The view from my hotel room:

 Nice pool.  Never went in it.

  The sky is indicative of the weather every day I was there – overcast and rainy.

Random shots of populated areas:

 I know, it’s blurry.  This is a photo of the “Ladies Market”, an open air market named after the ladies who shopped here when it used to sell clothing.  Now it’s a free-for-all of thousands of different kinds of products, notably copy watches and handbags.  You can get some good deals here!

 This is Stanley – an area of Hong Kong Island famous for an open air market and the Murray House (the two story building in the center-left).  The Murray House was built by the British in the early 1900s and later moved block by block to this area of Stanley so it’s original location could be used for a gigantic skyscraper Bank of China building.  Now the Murray House is full of restaurants

 Central Hong Kong.  What you can barely see is that between the tall buildings, in the middle of the photo, is a mountain wreathed in fog.  The entire city is built into and on mountains!  Lots of steep hills here.  I’m taking this photo from the dock where the Star Ferry arrives on Hong Kong Island.

 This shot is really grainy, not sure why.  Anyway, the glittering glass tower on the right is the Bank of China building (I think) – the original site of the Murray House.  The city stretches on past what the eye can see.

Lantau Island is home to Hong Kong’s homage to Buddhism – the world’s largest outdoor, seated, bronze Buddha.  Apparently every country boasts that is has the worlds largest Buddha of some sort (standing, reclining, stone, bronze, etc).  This big guy is about 30 feet tall, on the top of a plateau.  To get there you have to climb 261 extremely slippery marble steps.  Underneath the Buddha is an educational museum and vegetarian dining hall.  The project to build this statue was conceived in the early 1970s and finally completed in 1991.

 Standing on the ground, you can get a real feel for the size of the Buddha.  The 261 stairs are directly in front of me.  I’m currently standing in some sort of spirit circle.

   In these two shots I’m climbing up to the top of the plateau.

 

 These bodhisattvas (there are six statues of them at the top of the platform) are shown giving gifts to Buddha.

 Finally the fog cleared for a moment.  Long enough for me to take this photo.

 Looking down from the top.  On the left you can see the spirit circle I mentioned before.  To the right of that is an enormous free standing gateway.  To the far right you can see the dormitories and study area of the monastery.

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet

 

Kim had a really nice SLR style Kodak digital camera that died a horrible death when it met pavement accidentally (not either of our faults).  We’ve been researching new cameras together for a while now, and yesterday before we got home from the lake we stopped into Best Buy to get it.  We were spurred into action b/c we forgot to bring a camera to the lake with us to capture the high flying inner tube action (along with Heidi’s dragboat racing skills).

We picked the Canon S2 IS:

It looks like a great camera with loads of nice features (including a 12x optical zoom) but the reason we bought it is because it passed the moving hand test the best.  Kim’s biggest pet peeve with digital cameras (and Brendon’s too, apparently) is that when you look through the view finder or LCD screen and pick what you want to capture, you press the button and some time later an image is captured.  The moving hand test demonstrates this.  Take your hand and move it in an exaggerated arc slowly from one side to another, in front of your face.  Have the person testing the cameras try to capture an image as soon as your hand is in front of your face.  Most digital cameras will catch your hand way off to one side, if it’s still in the frame.  The ideal camera will catch your hand exactly in front of your face, as it was when you press the button.  Of the half dozen cameras we tried – the Canon S2 IS came closest to this ideal image.

I haven’t really played with the camera yet – I was too sore last night with my sunburn to actually do anything other than whimper.  I’ll test it out later – maybe a shot of how sun-burned my back is or something…  I know everyone wants to see something like that, right?

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet

The last three days I was in Hong Kong, I spent wandering around the town shopping, eating, and generally mixing with the population.  I noticed a few things I found interesting, so I thought I’d share them:

• Toyota cars rule the road, but I did see plenty of other models, including a Ford!  No GM vehicles, but plenty of cars I couldn’t identify.  Lots of the familiar manufacturers were selling models I had never seen before.  All of the taxis were Toyota Crown Comforts – big and boxy.  I didn’t write down the rest, but aside from the ever present Corolla and Camry, some BMW, Lexus and Mercedes cars, there were lots of cars I couldn’t place
• The public transit is so good and so effective, that most of the vehicles on the road were being driven by professional drivers – cabs, buses, and trucks.  Lots and lots of trucks.  The entire time I was driving around (in a bus) I didn’t see a single accident nor a single person pulled over by the police.  Must be nice to not have traffic jams caused by morons and moron rubberneckers!
• If Toyota rules the road, Nokia rules the cellphone market.  Three out of every four cellphones are made in Finland!  The majority of the rest of the phones are Sony Erickson.  I even asked someone about the Nokia phones vs the other phone brands and they told me that no one liked anything else.  Nokia was where it was at.
• Everyone has an MP3 player, even people my grandmother’s age!  When you spend lots of time waiting on buses and trains, you want something to help you zone out, I guess.  The variety is HUGE.  I’ve seen every model Best Buy carries and then some.  My favorite little ones were tiny little cubes the size of a single die (you know, from a pair of dice).  Apple has pretty good penetration here as well, but I think the most popular brand was JVC – they have a cheap little 1Gb player popularly worn with a neck strap.
• It is far more common to tie a strap to your cellphone and hang it around your neck than it is to put it in a belt case.  With all the cellphones, MP3 players, random ID cards, and more hanging from around people’s necks, it made me wonder if their clothes didn’t include pockets!
• The people there were super nice.  Most of the people speak some English, and if they don’t speak enough English to talk to you they go get the person who does speak English.  I only walked into one restaurant where I was immediately given silverware instead of chopsticks b/c I was the Westerner.  Everywhere else I was treated like a native (except of course for the people trying to sell me copy watches and suits from the side of the roads.
• I’ve already commented on how the schools in Hong Kong are starting to minimize the importance of English next to Mandarin Chinese due to China’s booming market.  On my way home, I was pleased to meet two good ol’ boy college students from Alabama who were spending two years in school in China so they too could work with the booming Chinese market.  After ten months in school, immersed in the Chinese language and culture, these two guys were anxious to get home and relax for a bit.  We found a Subway in the airport in Korea and all had subs for breakfast – food they’ve not had since December!  Taco Bell and Chick Fil A were also high on their TO DO lists.  Great guys, we spent time chatting and watching movies during our 5 hour lay-over in Korea.  They were bringing home several pirated movies purchased on the streets of China and we managed to find a plasma screen TV and a DVD player not currently being used.  Good times in Korea!

Hong Kong was like New York City.  You should visit both if you get the chance, but a visit to one of them is a requirement for a fully rounded life.

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet

It’s been a quiet couple of days on the blog as I have been trying to get back to a normal sleep pattern after my visit to Hong Kong.  I’ve generally been falling asleep as soon as I get home from work, which means I haven’t been able to get anything done after hours.  Oh well, the trip was fun and I think I’m back to Eastern Standard Time now.

Yesterday, Brendon and his wife Heidi invited myself and Kim to meet them at their vacation house on the north shore of Lake Lanier.  Ok, so it’s really Heidi’s parents house, but even so…  We took the pontoon boat out for a few hours, enjoying lunch in a relatively quite cove, plenty of slow drifting and conversation, and some inner tubing.  If you’re not familiar with inner tubing, it’s loads of fun.  You attach an inner tube to the back of the boat by a long rope and drag it (with someone in it) at 30 miles per hour across the water.  The poor schmuck inside (usually me in this case) tries to hang on for dear life while the cruel boat driver (usually Heidi) tries their best to dump you out with whip-like turns and ramming you over the wakes of other boats.  I think I rode the inner tube ten times!  It’s exhausting, trying to hang on so hard.  Actually, getting back on the inner tube once you’ve been dumped off is the most exhausting thing.

The lake was great, and I’m hopeful that Kim and I get invited back, but I’ve learned my lesson.  The sun-block I used clearly was not as waterproof as it’s label suggested, and I look like I’ve been boiled!  While I was at the lake, everyone was commenting on how red I was, but I didn’t feel bad at all.  By the time we got near the house, I was forced to stop at CVS to get some aloe vera gel.  Kim and I both got burned, but I’m worse off by far!  Maybe it was all the dragging?  Kim only volunteered to be dragged once.  Anyway, we slathered ourselves with aloe vera and sat around trying not to touch anything for a while before falling asleep from sheer exhaustion.

Good times at the lake.  I’m sorry that the other people who were invited couldn’t make it out.  We spent hours drifting around talking, and Brendon and I only talked about our computers and the .Net community activities for an hour or so of the time.  We did get made fun of by the girls when I opened Brendon’s water bottle for him, but I don’t understand why…?  It’s not like we’re a married couple or anything…

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet

It is funny how you stumble onto one thing, by looking for something else.  I was looking something up on the web for a friend and ran across a blog, guess who it was.  It was our old friend Rusty.  I don’t know how long he has been blogging here, but check his blog out. http://vitaminzrecords.com/blog/default.aspx.  I am glad I found his blog again.

—Brendon Schwartz

Posted with BlogJet

If you are looking for components and want help selecting one, check out this site for How to select guides.  This is for .NET applications and the first article is on PDF components.  There should be more  coming soon.

— Brendon Schwartz

Posted with BlogJet

The Hong Kong Octopus Card is a wonderful kind of smart card where you can put money on the card (and the money is stored on the card itself, not on some central server) and use it like a debit card.  The nice thing about the card it that it works via radio signals or something, similar to the security systems in lots of corporate buildings where you hold a card up to a plate to get through a door.  So you don’t even have to take it out of your wallet or purse.  This payment system is the de facto method of paying for the subway system here, but tons of merchants accept it too.  There are even vending machines that accept it!  All I have to do is press my butt up against the vending machine and I get a soda!  Pretty darn cool!

I know that this kind of thing exists in other places, but I doubt it is as well integrated into the culture as the Octopus Card is integrated into Hong Kong.  The thing is pretty much everywhere, and I love it.  I see that in the US some of the movie theaters are starting this up with a MasterCard type of smart card.  I’ve seen them at Regal Cinemas.  The problem is, in Atlanta, I don’t know where to buy a card and recharge it.  However, it is a great way to give money to someone (I’m thinking of children here) and them not being able to use it for anything other than what you intend them to do with it.  I’m hopeful that this takes off in the US as it’s really really convenient.

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet

Works over for me out here and I’ve got three days of vacation.  I spent one of them yesterday wandering around Hong Kong on my own.  I’m going to compare my visit to Hong Kong to the time I wandered the streets of New York City.

First of all, Hong Kong is actually made up of two islands and part of mainland China.  My hotel and the place I’ve been working are both on the mainland, which they call the New Territories.  The hotel is nice, but it’s way out in the suburbs.  I took a shuttle from the hotel to the edge of the mainland, a place called Tsim Sau Tsui or TST for people who can’t say Chinese words.  Wandering around here was a lot of fun.  I’d compare this to the Times Square area of NY.  Lots of neon signs pointing your way into electronics shops, lots of music blaring from the various CD and movie shops, and lots of little restaurants.  I ate dinner in one of the restaurants here.  You know how they say back in the States that if Chinese people are eating in a Chinese restaurant, it must be good?  Well, that’s harder to decide in China, but I picked on where the Chinese people were forming a line or a queue (crazy Brits and their crazy words) outside waiting to get in.  It was worth it.  I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what it was I ate, but there was chicken, beef, and rice.  I picked it from a picture.  I also got a “special drink” which translated into a kumquat smoothie.  Tasty!  I think I spend a total of 5 or 6 hours walking around TST looking in the electronics shops and the various curio shops (I wish I thought to bring my pedometer – I’m sure I went 5 miles).  I didn’t buy anything, but I did notice that prices vary wildly from shop to shop.  I found that I could save nearly $120 US just by looking in each store.  Of course, that was on the really fancy new cellphone I lust after but won’t allow myself to buy.  Back at TechEd, Glen Gordon showed the i-mate JAM off to me and told me it ran at nearly $650 in the States – I found it for around $520 here.  Le sigh. 

The other thing I noticed while wandering around TST was that I got hit up by street vendors for nearly everything – especially what they call copy watches and massages.  I’ll get into the copy products in a moment, but let’s focus on the massages.  There’s a huge cottage industry built up around reflexology and foot massages here.  I couldn’t walk a single block without being asked at least twice if I wanted a foot massage.  Of course, I also got offers to massage pretty much all the other various bits of my body – including the kind of “massage” where I’d be concerned that I might catch leprosy and have the various “bits” fall off. 

The people I call the “copy people” were very intent – they want to sell me a fake Rolex or something really really badly.  There’s a guy on the street and he’ll show you his watch and ask if you want one by reciting a litany of watch brand names.  I didn’t even recognize all of them.  Should I have said I was interested, they would have taken me to show me their wares somewhere.  Apparently they have rooms inside the tall buildings somewhere.  I didn’t go with anyone to find out.

The only people more intense than both the massage people and the copy people were the tailors.  There’s at least one guy pimping for a tailor shop on every major street, and these guys follow you around trying to talk you into buying a custom made suit or something.  They’re doggedly persistent and they’ll follow for half a block or more calling me “boss”.  Avoiding these guys was half the fun of walking around TST.

I noticed the copy people and the tailors ignored the locals, but the massage people were equal opportunity panderers.  Men got way more focus than women and Caucasian men got the most focus of them all.

After getting tired of TST, I jumped on a train which went under the water to Hong Kong Island and dropped me off in a place called Central.  This is the heart of downtown Hong Kong and was kind of like being in the really nice area of Manhattan.  I wandered into a really large, really nice mall (looking for both A/C and a restroom) and actually got lost on a single floor trying to find the right exit.  Way bigger than Lenox mall back in Atlanta, it also had nicer shops.  It was kind of like the Forums in Caesar’s Palace back in Las Vegas (which I saw when Kim took me to meet her family in Las Vegas), only larger.  There were four floors in this mall, and I only went on one of them.

Central was mostly a high end shopping district and way out of my budget, so I wandered uphill to an area called Soho.  Soho in Hong Kong is exactly like Soho in New York – lots of nice little restaurants and bars.  They close down some of the streets at night for people to walk around on, and I’m sure this is a happening party district.  The problem with Soho in Hong Kong is that it’s built on the side of a mountain.  One lap around this place and I was ready to call it quits.  Those hills were intense!  They actually have built escalators which will take you to the top of Soho so you can wander in a downhill fashion.  I didn’t find them until the end, so I was really done.  I walked back to the MTR train station and headed back to the hotel where I passed out at 9:30 from sheer exhaustion.

— Matt Ranlett

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How many times do you sit down at your computer and think about patches and security updates on your own PC?  Probably not all that often.  Well, make today patch and security update day!

• Go to Windows Update and makes sure you have all the latest critical patches installed.  If you are running without some publicly available security fixes, you DESERVE to have someone take over your machine via a security flaw
• Update your Anti-Virus.  Even if you use an automatic updater, make sure it’s been connecting and getting the latest and greatest stuff.  I personally use AVG AntiVirus – the Free Edition.  Works great!
• Update your Anti-Spyware program.  I personally like Spyware Blaster because it doesn’t run all the time, taking up system resources.
• Download Microsoft’s Baseline Security Analyzer and scan your system.  This great little tool will scan Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 machines looking for configuration problems and missing patches in IIS, SQL Server, IE, Office, Windows Media Player, Exchange Server, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), MSXML, Microsoft Virtual Machine, Commerce Server, Content Management Server, BizTalk Server, Host Integration Server.  Using this I found that I was missing 4 critical Office security updates and that I had too many admin accounts on the box.  I had unnecessary services installed and WAY too many file shares open.  I hadn’t run IIS Lockdown and my SQL Server 2005 Express product wasn’t configured correctly for security.  Lots of holes!
• Check your Windows Security Center to make sure your three critical services are up and running – AutoUpdate, Firewall, and AntiVirus.  If these aren’t set to ON, fix it now.  If you can’t find your Security Center under Start/Program Files/Accessories/System Tools, install XP SP2 (not sure which 2000 or 2003 patches get you this)

Doing all of these things will help make your computer part of the solution to rampant computer viruses and spam instead of part of the problem.  If you administer more than one machine, do these things on EVERY machine you own.  Security is your responsibility and affects many people beyond yourself.

— Matt Ranlett

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Delta Airlines – “Please be careful when opening overhead bins as the contents may have shifted during flight”
Korean Airlines – “Please be careful opening overhead bins as contents may fall out”

I’ve been in New York’s subways and Hong Kong’s subways.  The crush of people are about the same.  In the middle of New York and the middle of Hong Kong, the cleanliness is about the same.  You hear the same mix of languages.  Some slight differences in the food vendors in the stations – I found a Mrs Fields Cookies in Hong Kong…

The cabbies in Hong Kong are even ruder than the ones in New York.  I swear people walking (ok, jay walking, but there are no crosswalks) across the streets have to literally JUMP out of the way.  In NY they’ll stop and swear at you, but at least they stop.  Not here in Hong Kong!

I can’t comment much about the food.  I live in Chamblee, Georgia (that’s Chambodia – Atlanta’s Chinatown, for the non-locals) so I’m not seeing anything unusual.  The people I hang out with have gone out for Mediterranean two nights in a row now, so I can’t say whether or not the Chinese food is good in China.  I have seen from the signs that the stuff that looks authentic in Chambodia is probably authentic.

The people here are all super friendly and all speak English.  This is not true back in the States.  However, English is no longer considered a top priority for foreign languages in schools here.  With the huge Chinese market opening up right next door, Mandarin is becoming the most important language.  This info comes from the mothers of children enrolled in Hong Kong schools.

Most of the people here have picked Western style names so they can better interact with the British and Americans.  I personally know an Alex, Susan, Raymond, Marcy, Vivienne, and Ben.  However, they apparently pick the names out in elementary school.  I also know a Kitty, Pinkie, Fanny, Lit, Bong, Candy, Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury.  Lots of fun, Western style!

 I know that there is more stuff I want to say in this category, but I’ve not yet fixed my sleep cycle so I’m about to fall over.  I’ll post more fun Hong Kong facts when I have a clearer head.

— Matt Ranlett

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http://www.devcow.com/weblogs/Travelling+To+TechEd++The+Day+Before+The+Day+Before+All+The+Festivities.aspx

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet

It’s 4:30 AM in Atlanta as I write this in the Seoul, Korea airport.  I’ve just flown for 14 hours on a Korean Air jumbo jet.  I have to say, the flight was actually not very bad.  I boarded at 1pm and found myself sitting next to an American woman who’s husband had to come out of retirement after the DotCom bubble burst and took their retirement savings.  He’s apparently been in Hong Kong for several months now and she’s flying out to vacation with him for a few weeks.  She and I have been getting mistaken for mother and son while walking around the airport.  It is nice to have someone to talk to though.

Anyway, on the flight I got to watch “In Good Company” with Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace (again – saw it in the theater with Kim).  I also watched a bizarre Korean movie about a crooked cop and a gangster looking for a woman who absconded with a $16 million lotto ticket.  They find her real identity and go wait for her at her home village on some island populated exclusively by some hard working, pot-smoking grandmothers.  The movie was actually pretty funny with some decent physical comedy.  Of course, in the end, the cop straightens out and no one gets the money.  The gangster is reformed and falls in love with the woman they were pursuing while the grandmothers all happily go back to smoking pot.  Like I said, bizarre.

The fed me two meals on the plane, but b/c I specified the kosher meal, they were the exact same meals.  Beef stew, pasta bowties, green beans, gefilte fish with carrot and olives, kim-chi, and coconut jam dessert roll.  Odd combo, but OK.  I don’t keep kosher, but I specify either the vegetarian or kosher meal everywhere I go to ensure I get food I recognize.  I’ll experiment with food when I’m not locked in a metal tube 35,000 feet above the ground.

We flew from Atlanta, up over Chicago and Winnipeg (I thought of you, D’Arcy) and over the Berring Straits, over part of Russia, and back down the coast of China to Korea.  Next up is a smaller plane to Hong Kong itself.  I’ll be staying at the Gold Coast Hotel (no idea how to get from the airport to the hotel).  I’ll figure it all out when I get there.

The Korean airport was nice and the plane from Korea to Hong Kong was the exact same double decker type of plane I took from Atlanta to Korea.  This time I got to sit upstairs.  There is no difference between upstairs and down, except that to go upstairs I had to walk up some stairs.  I got another meal on this flight – salmon and rice with two desserts.  Some kind of whipped cream filled chocolate cannoli looking thing and a piece of chocolate cake.  All pretty good.  The sleeping pill I took hours ago was still kicking so I spent most of this flight unconscious.

I arrive in Hong Kong and find out that there is a shuttle bus that costs HK$88 to get from the airport to the hotel.  That’s about $11.50 US dollars, so I’m cool with that.  I stood outside talking to the airport based concierge for a bit.  It’s really humid here.  Warm too.  I don’t know how close I am to the tropics, but it’s more humid than Florida right now and there are palm trees all over the place.  Good thing I brought a bunch of long sleeved shirts!  I’m clever like that!

So now I’m finishing up this post from my room in the hotel.  I’ve got a small balcony that overlooks some water, but it’s 11pm over here, so I have no idea what the beach looks like.  I can just see lights reflected in the water.  I brought a camera, but it’s a disposable one so you’ll have to wait for me to develop the film to get any photos on the blog.

It’s late and I’m going to bed to sleep as much as I can.  I’ve got to reset my internal clock to HK time so I’m not late for work…which I have no idea how to get to…

— Matt Ranlett

posted with BlogJet (from China)

Saturday – the day after TechEd.  Brendon and I take a cab to the airport from the hotel and get our same driver that took us from the airport to the hotel.  His car had been rear-ended and he complained about not having “his” car until Tuesday.

We get on the plane at 2:00.  Eventually they get everyone loaded and close the doors.  Then there is this knocking at the airplane door so they open the door again.  A bit later the pilot comes on announcing that there had been a mechanical problem but it had already been fixed and all that was necessary now was some paperwork.  An hour later the pilot comes back on the intercom and tells us that the maintenance people had noticed a hole in the plane while loading the luggage and that they’d just now gotten permission to fix it.  A HOLE in the PLANE!  It reminds me of that movie with Kevin Klein and Meg Ryan (French Kiss) where Kevin Klein’s character says “The pilot says there is a crack in the engine but we’ll take off anyway”.  We take off at about 4:30.

Kim picks me up and we meet Brendon and Mark Dunn at a gas station in Alpharetta to get our stuff back from Mark.  At this point Brendon and I are so tired that we just pile back into our respective cars without even saying goodbye.  So much for our plans to go out for dinner.  Kim and I get home, order Chinese food, and dump out all the stuff from TechEd so I can show her what I got.  She’s utterly unimpressed by my branded techie doodads – mostly she just wants me to get them out of the house and give them away at the UGs.  Fair enough.

I do laundry and pass out at 10 and sleep till 7am.  I packed my bags again (but I somehow managed to leave my tablet stylus behind) and head back to the airport.  This time I’ve got a 10 am flight to Hong Kong.  At least, I THINK I do.  I get in the line for international Delta flights.  I stand there for an hour until the clerk at the counter informs me that my Delta flight is operated by Korean AirLines and that I’ve got to go stand in their line!  It’s now 9:10 am.  I get to the Korean Air counter and it’s CLOSED!  so I flag down the next flight attendant I see, who politely tells me that their counter doesn’t open till 9:30 am and that my 10:00 am flight is in fact a 1:00 pm flight.  I apparently can’t read an itinerary.  Oh well, at least I’m not going to miss my flight.

— Matt Ranlett

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