I have been trying to find time to spend with whidbey, so I decided to resurrect my plan for a vm on my laptop with whidbey.  After a couple hours of installing, I'm almost ready to go. 

One thing that really bugs me about vpc, though, is when the window doesn't have priority vpc decides it should drop its usage to like nothing.  Although I see the reasoning behind this, I think this should be controlled via a set of options, as I'm sure it must be in virtual server.  This would at least let me use the other 10 or 15% of resources that are left for doing things like typing this post.

So after a couple minutes of thinking, I saved the state of my vm, rpc'd back into my box (thanks 2k3), and started up my VM again.  Result, VM taking all the resources it wants, while I'm free to use the rest.  Of course theres the overhead of the second desktop, but the overhead seems pretty minimal. 

Was scanning scoble's link blog (I think I may be asking for trouble subscribing to that, but I'll see if I can keep up), and found very comprehensive list of sites that maintain lists of blogs. 

I run this blog on a non-syndicated server, and have gone through my share of trying to get the word out.  Looking through my logs, I feel as if I have done at least a decent job, but can always use more inward links.  I will certainly be submitting to all of these this week.

Check it out here

I have been testing a gmail panel for a friend of mine, and things are going well enough that it looks like he is ready to release some early bits.  If you use desktop sidebar, and gmail, this is a natural fit.  It has replaced the gmail notifier for me, and is working pretty well.

Basiclly, it shows your inbox much like an outlook panel, including showing the first few lines when you hover over a message. 

Check it out here

After working with both lookout and desktop search for a couple days, I uninstalled lookout.  Desktop search definitly suits me better, although it's still not perfect. 

My desktop search has my whole hd indexed, code and all (including a pretty big number of open source projects).  The entire database is around 80 megs, which isn't really bad when you consider how much code is actually indexed.  Searching through emails and code is very simple, and very fast.  I also much prefer the desktop search ui for displaying the results to lookout.  Lookout was great for email searching, this really fills in the rest of the gaps.

A few complaints still, though.  The indexing process took a very very long time.  It may be because it was pushed to a back thread a number of times, but it really took about 2 days of normal for the whole index to be updated.  Of course I could have let it sit overnight one night, but what kind of test would that be?

Also, the search app hogs is a bit slow sometimes, and can be a memory hog at times.  This would be expected, though, considering all the work its doing, so I can live with it.  The trade off is well worth it.  Also, outlook idles about 30 megs less after uninstalling lookout, so desktop search may actually take less persistant ram. 

So far, though, I am very happy with the desktop search.  I love searching through code cause yes, I am just that geeky.  Also what prompted this post was actually finding an email from months ago with a code snipplet I needed by the sender's last name, and the word “filter”, and it was the 5th email down.  Sweet.  (of course the time I saved in looking for the email, I used twice writing this post  :)

I think we have hit the infamous invisible wall with VB.Net.  It's still a bit early to be looking for solutions, but the solution is having more and more problems.  Vbc.exe errors, general vs.net errors, and interesting times when the IDE doesn't error, it just stops working the way you want anticipate. 

I may be a c# guy stuck in a vb.net world, but I have gotten used to some of the “features” the ide gives us for vb.net.  When they just stop working, it really does make it more difficult to code.  Plus restarting the IDE 5 times a day certainly doesn't help my productivity (isn't vb the “productive” language?  :)  I'm trying to analyze to see if I can put together patterns on when it crashes, but so far it does seem pretty random.  I started a spreadsheet this morning to try to help with that though.

I will probably do some searching this weekend (since I probably wont be checking in and out all weekend like I thought (teamsystem was only tested with 3 physical machines?!  I guess it is an early beta)).  Has anyone gone through this before?  This is a pretty big solution, but it's certainly not a 10k lb gorilla. 

I have been using lookout for a while now, and it certainly meets my needs for searching my non gmail mail.  Today, though, I saw a post from The Unofficial Microsoft Weblog about an app that cpernic has just released that aligns itself as competion.  Well, I'm a sucker for something new, and figured I would give it a shot. 

So far so good.  As with Greg, I like the idea of being able to search without outlook open.  It also seems to handle file searching more “naturally” then lookout (as it is now indexing a couple ebook pdf's that I have on my desktop).  I haven't used it nearly enough to decide if I will be uninstalling lookout, but will re-post when I have a better idea of how this thing will work out. 

Original Post
Link to product site

A few people have posted this already, but it's one I've been waiting anxiously for.  New bits with Team System up on MSDN.  If you don't know what team system is yet, then stop living under that damn rock.  If you do, then you have probably been waiting like me. 

Of course this has to come when I'm busy (really busy) at work, and on a holiday weekend.  The wife will be really happy as I nerd out all weekend checking things in and out over and over again.  Ok maybe it needs to wait until next weekend  :) 

Get it on msdn (subscriptions only)

Well, my blog got hit with the first bit of spam, and it's an odd one at that.  I just quickly went to my referrer logs for my lunchtime checkup, and I found pages and pages (probably 4 or 5 pages straight) of referrers from a site in the .uk.  The referring url was a CV (resume) of someone overseas.

If this is a way to get his url out, it worked.  I followed it and looked at his resume.  I then made sure to email him and let him know that I will match the CV against every application I review, and make sure we do not hire a spammer.  If for some odd reason he thought I was a point of employment for him, a comment from my blog would have been MUCH more appropriate.

Maybe I'm off base here.  Maybe next time I am looking for employment, I should spam my resume url to a number of blogs and cross my fingers.  I think I'll end up on the higher road, though.

Couple things on gmail.

First, go vote for what you want in gmail.  Its an independent site for gmail users, and hopefully the votes are taken into consideration.  I voted what what I'd like to see.  Check it here

Also, did you know your gmail can accept “alias” mails.  Send something to

gmailusername+sometag@gmail.com

Interesting.  So I'm guessing this could be used to setup filters based on diff “aliases” that are added to your address.  Wish I had know this when I started the account, maybe I would have tagged everything without a + to be spam, and only qualified aliases would hit my inbox.  On well.

Since it was just my 100th post, and I have a few spare invites, the next two people to leave a comment on this thread or off the contact page asking for some gmail invite luvin will be emailing from a fresh new gmail account, complete with the new gmail account smell.

Been using mine for a couple months now, and I don't think I could go back.  If you've been wanting to check it out, let me know.

Sorry no more invites.

If you have ever worked through a vpn using vss, you know the pain it can cause.  I still have a bald spot from where I hit my head on my desk one to many times waiting to check something in.  Something like a 1 line change, where you wonder how it could take literally minutes. 

So after some searching, I found a little app that seems to be working extremly well.  Vssconnect from VoxCode software has server bits that runs as a service on the VSS box, and client bits.  Server is pretty simplistic, and offers a couple options over the normal vss server, but nothing to cheer about.  The client, on the otherhand, is a very fresh perspective on vss.  Make to look like vss with a facelife, the ui does everything the normal vss ui does and a few extras.  It also seems much faster then the normal ui.

The best part, though, is it does what it promises.  I have been checking in and out all day long, and its so fast.  As fast as being at my desk, and it even seems faster sometimes.  Get latest still takes a bit, but much less then without the addin. 

I didn't setup the server, but that part seemed to go very quickly.  The client setup was cake, and the integration into vs.net is done behind the scenes, so you still deal with the same vss dialogs. 

I did have 1 minor complaint though.  I was having some networking issues at the time.  I was connected to the VPN, but was unable to get to a specifc vlan via tcp (although I could get there \\server).  I had the client installed, and it took over vss in the IDE.  VSS normally talks over netbios (forgive me if my protocol is wrong, been a while  :) so I could get to the DB from the vss ui, but I couldnt ping the machine, and thus I couldnt connect to the vssconnect service.  I searched for a way to turn off the plugin so I could at least use the old integration, but coulnd't find one.  Figure I would have had to uninstall.  Fixed it with a static route, and all was well, but I would have liked a way to “disable” vssconnect.

Anyway, check it out here

[Edit] Oh and I forgot to mention.  At 30$ a developer, it's very reasonable also.

Google released a nice little tray app for gmail.  Very simple, shows when you have new mail, double click to open a new browser to gmail.  Just under 3 megs of ram.  Sounds like a done deal to me.

Check it here

Was looking around sourceforge and found a couple things I wanted to play with.  One of them was immediately useful, and just a great find. 

DaBCoS works a little like SQL Compare by Redgate.  Now don't get me wrong, SQL Compare is a FAR superior product, offering a ton more functionality, and is well worth the coin.  If your needs are a bit less, though, this little app might just have you covered. 

Ran it against a few databases I have and it quickly gave me an idea of the differences.  It has a synchronize function that I haven't played with yet, but I doubt I would use it for that anyway. 

Checked the authors homesite, and looks like he has some ideas on the next version.  Can't wait.

Check out DaBCoS here
Davide Mauri's Home

Got my bag of crap yesterday.  Was like x-mas, kinda.  It was very much as described though.  I got

Some desk puck for holding paper
Some crappy non-amplified tiny polk speakers (nice for my desk tho, thinkpad on full blast, cant here it outside the cube)
Some wierd “lock” for a bag that is supposed to protect your bag. 

What fun.. I would certinaly try again tho..  From what I gather a few lucky people got some nice stuff.

My hatred for VSS grows daily.  I can't wait until the day I get the ok to move to subversion, at least until we can evaluate team system. 

Once again, a nuance in VSS bites.  We use labels heavily here at work, especially in the Database Project (I talked about a DB project before, again, fantastic way to manage your DB scripts.).  Part of my job is to run it daily, make sure it builds, and label it to the current assembly version.  Well, today's failed.  No problem, I've got a label from yesterday. 

Well, there is a problem.  And it's been a problem.  And how the hell could 6.0d ship with an issue like this that was identified in 6.0c?  C'mon.  When you run analyze (which if your not doing it daily with a decent sized project, your crazy) vss copies out the labels, and, well, just never copies them back.  So without these files, you can't get an old label. 

Now, compound this with the fact that analyze will bail if you have anything in it's “backup” directory, and you have a very good recipe for useless labels.  WTF.

Old post that pointed out the error in 6.0c, and fixed it today for 6.0d

Thought you might be interested in that topic.  Emailed an old friend of mine after I dug up an album from a band he was in a while ago.  Found out that he is helping publish a book, so I wanted to give him a shameless plug.  So go buy his book, I know I will.  They also have a blog talking about the process of publishing the book.  Interesting stuff here.

Link
Blog

Chin Music Press Inc. announces the release of Kuhaku &
ther Accounts of Japan, a collection of essays and artwork
that takes an unblinking look at life in Japan. Kuhaku will
be available at select bookstores in the US and Japan and
online at Chin Music’s website (www.chinmusicpress.com)
for ?29.50 from the end of August.

Kuhaku consists of 24 essays, two works of fiction, dozens
of pages of artwork and a unique glossary of Japanese
terms that provides readers with opinionated, personal
and often humorous insights. The collection includes
works from 24 talented writers and artists on topics as varied
as taking out the garbage to cheating on your spouse.

There are by some estimates more than a million weblogs. But most of them get no visibility in search engines. Only a few "A-List" blogs get into the top search engine results for a given topic, while the majority of blogs just don't get noticed. The reason is that the smaller blogs don't have enough links pointing to them. But this posting could solve that. Let's help the smaller blogs get more visibility!

This posting is GoMeme 4.0. It is part of an experiment to see if we can create a blog posting that helps 1000's of blogs get higher rankings in Google. So far we have tried 3 earlier variations. Our first test, GoMeme 1.0, spread to nearly 740 blogs in 2.5 days. This new version 4.0 is shorter, simpler, and fits more easily into your blog.

Why are we doing this? We want to help thousands of blogs get more visibility in Google and other search engines. How does it work? Just follow the instructions below to re-post this meme in your blog and add your URL to the end of the Path List below. As the meme spreads onwards from your blog, so will your URL. Later, when your blog is indexed by search engines, they will see the links pointing to your blog from all the downstream blogs that got this via you, which will cause them to rank your blog higher in search results. Everyone in the Path List below benefits in a similar way as this meme spreads. Try it!

Instructions: Just copy this entire post and paste it into your blog. Then add your URL to the end of the path list below, and pass it on! (Make sure you add your URLs as live links or HTML code to the Path List below.)

Path List
1. Minding the Planet
2. Luke Hutteman's public virtual MemoryStream
3. JayBaz_MS blog
4. Aaron Junod's Blog
5. (your URL goes here! But first, please copy this line and move it down to the next line for the next person).

(NOTE: Be sure you paste live links for the Path List or use HTML code.)

Original Post

I've tried to cut down on the number of posts that just point people to other posts.  This is one I have to propogate, though.  Winbeta notes thats Trillian 3 is on its way, with a beta expected soon.  I have been a diehard trillian user for a few years now, and can't wait for a new version.  Not that there is anything wrong with this one, but I can't wait to see what they have up their sleeves. 

Check it out here