TactaPad

An interesting revolution in interface design can be had with a TactaPad.

SCC Switch Provider v1.0b2 - Downloads

It's been a while since I looked at the download count for my application: Source Code Control Switcher.

It's currently at: 678

:-)

Visual Studio C++ Macros

After writting a C++ assignment I wanted an easy way to comment my code in 'my' format, so I wrote some macros to do it.

Office 12

There's so much new technology coming out from Microsoft now it's incredible. Here's a look at the new Office 12 and my opinion on the brief preview.

Windows Workflow Foundation

Microsoft has announced what I think is a really cool piece of technology called, "Windows Workflow Foundation". You can download preview bits.

ASP.NET v2.0 Beta Info

Want information on Microsoft's ASP.NET v2.0 Beta?

AJax Scripting

Want more information on Microsoft's upcoming Ajax support then look at project, "Atlas".

Windows Vista Update

Screen shots from the Vista version released at the PDC 05.

DVD - The Ring Two

Watched the DVD, "The Ring Two". I don't know I never saw The Ring but I can't say there was a lot in this movie.

Macromedia - Flash Professional 8

The latest version of Flash, version 8 is now shipping.

A gift ?

If anyone feels like buying me something try: Adobe Messenger.

SyncToy v1.0

Here's and interesting syncing tool for Windows: SyncToy.

Programming: C# and VB.NET -> LINQ

Today at Microsoft's PDC, Anders Hejlsberg did the first public demo of the LINQ Project in the keynote. There has always been a 'disconnect' between programming and querying DBMS. The LINQ project proposes changes to the CLR to support querying a datastore as a first class citizen - meaning you get strongly typed query language and you can query anything from your SQL database, to business objects, to anything thing else the has implement an IEnumerator interface. For a quick overview you can watch this video.

DVD - Crash

Watched the DVD, "Crash". Wow that's a really different and good movie.

Hacking the GoogleToolBar

Recently Google released a version of the GoogleToolBar that allows you to search your Google e-mail. What's also cool about their implementation is the fact that with a simple registry addition you can search any e-mail account (eg: Yahoo Mail, etc.).

Using regedt32.exe or any other registry editor:

1) Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\CustomSearch
2) Create a new key called, "Yahoo Mail".
3) Duplicate the keys under the GMail Key.
4) Modify the keys such that you have:
(Default)
Icon {Use a custom hex .ico file here}
Site http://mail.yahoo.com/
Tip Yahoo Mail
Title Yahoo Mail
Url http://us.f607.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Search?
Find=1&B=1&_p=top&ftyp=A&T=HDRS_ONLY&M=CONTAINS&S={query}
&ymuri=ym&fi=3&order=down&sort=date&pos=0

The only 'tricky' value is the 'Url'.

5) Save your changes and restart IE.

Amazon and WebServices

And under the area of interesting but almost useless I found a web-site where you can type and phrase and it will search Amazon for anything with the text and generate a montage. Here's an example.

Biking

Went biking today. It didn't start well but certainly picked up. Petit-P, Mr. W and I found some new trails. It was good. We did a lot. We started @3:00pm and had a good time. There was the typical sharing problem, but I can't be concerned about this anymore. We all separated [at 6pm] and went our different ways. I had luckily brought my car half way and having no food ended up at the grocery store where there was, "tons" of people. Got home eat some left-overs.

UI Design - I love this stuff

Well Microsoft has finally updated some UI Guidelines for the upcoming version of Windows, Windows Vista. I've been looking for some interface guidelines for years. Though preliminary they are a good start.

Mr. Mexican + Gang

Well Mr. Mexican brought his gang over again. They are very interesting. They seem to fall into this age of knowing something about old video games, NES and Battleship [the board game not this one] but I don't know if it's something they grew up with or are they doing the 'retro' thing. They seem like a great bunch of people. Only I'm not really sure how much they understand English. Most of them seem pretty good. But as with other groups the cool guy doesn't seem to talk a lot. But he's certainly helpfull. There's no organizational problems here. These guys know how to have fun. I think they left @11:30pm or so. It was great. I was easily gvaafe.

Last weekend of entertainment - maybe ;-)

Well Mr. Mexican, Alex, Kevin and P came by. After relaxing at the 'tea' place I went and picked them up at the village. Around 8:00pm. I was expecting Max and Frank but they were doing other things. This was the first time I'd ever met Kevin. He seemed OK. We returned to, 'the' place and everyone gvaafe themselves. Mr. Mexican and P left early [@10:30pm'ish], but Kev and Alex hung around. We watched some DVD and ~@12:30am I drove them home. Alex is cool in these situations.

School: First Day

Today was the first day of school. The usual organizing of courses and schedule will probably take a week or so. I'm glad to be back.

Later @9:16pm Mr. W came by and made me gvaafe.

Petit-P went away for the weekend to his boat but that didn't prevent Mr. Mexican from phoning. He brought over 8+ friends. It was great. I was so, "gvaafe". I watched a DVD, "The Deal" after and didn't understand a thing. Merci.