Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day

Veterans Day, November 11th

2009-11-10T14:58:00.001-08:00

As a veteran I will be honoring and celebrating my fellow veterans this Veterans Day, Wednesday, 11/11.

Please remember freedom is not free. Freedom is bought and paid for in time and blood by those who have served in the US Armed Forces. Veterans Day is the day of the year for you to remember and thank those who have, or are currently, defending your right to be free.

Thank you. Thank you for all you sacrifice now, in the past and in the future. Thank you for your time, effort and willingness to be the sharp point of the spear. Thank you for your blood, sweat and tears. Thank you to your families who also sacrifice so much. Thank you for defending me, my family and my freedom. Thank you, God bless you and God bless the United States of America…

Greg Duncan
SGT, US Army & California National Guard (1985-1996)

PowerShell your PDC

2009-11-10T09:59:00.001-08:00

Development in a Blink - 25 lines of PowerShell to Navigate PDC09 Sessions

“I find the PDC09 site a bit frustrating to navigate the sessions I want to attend.

So I whipped up this 25 line PowerShell/WPK GUI. Type in the search box to find matching session titles. Click on a title and the browser navigates to PDC session page.

…

”

Got to love the power of people conforming data to better fit their needs (and then sharing that. :)

On a related note as I’ve mentioned, I do wish there was a Microsoft Conference API (ConfAPI) or SDK. The RSS feed is a nice, but it sure would be cool if those of us interested in crafting our own UI to Microsoft Conferences didn’t have to reverse engineer the conference sites/feeds and were instead embraced by Microsoft. Fan “Conference UI”’s, with appropriate disclaimers, etc would IMHO only increase the value of the given conference, spread the word, show off MS tech and would be done for free. Now that’s a deal!

Now I’m not saying the teams that build/built the existing conference sites are bad or anything. Heck, it’s the reverse! They are doing a great job in what I’d guess is a pretty thankless position. Those team(s) are great and are constantly working to improve and adapt.

I just want to make their job easier, I want to do some of their work for them for free! :) lol

But I need them to meet us half way. Give us, your community, a supported API/SDK/Web Service layer that will span conferences (Mix, PDC, TechEd, etc) and I bet you’ll be surprised at what your community will do for you…

Related Past Post XRef:
MonoTouch your PDC

Cool Command line utility of the day: clip

2009-11-10T09:08:00.001-08:00

The Old New Thing - Little-known command line utility: clip

“Windows Vista includes a tiny command line utility called clip. All it does is paste its stdin onto the clipboard.
dir  clip
echo hey  clip
…”

So much that I don’t know…sigh (TG cause otherwise this job would get SO boring ;)

This is a pretty cool Windows Vista/Win7 (and probably post Vista server OS’s too) utility that pipes into the clipboard. If you’ve ever redirected/piped a command line utility into a text file just so you could then easily cut-n-paste from it, then this utility is just for you (been there, done that, got the T-shirt)

So since I’m on a PowerShell kick, I did a quick 5 second search for doing something similar in PS and it’s not quite so easy (kind of, sort of).

Since PS has the power of .Net behind it, you can use .Net’s clipboard goodness to make it happen, Windows PowerShell Blog - Copy console screen to system clipboard. Yet if you look at that code in the post you’ll see it’s not really all the pretty. Not hard, yet not as easy as the clip utility or some kind of more integrated solution.

A much prettier solution is the PowerShell Community Extensions (PSCX) Out-clipboard, shown here, The Endeavour - Manipulating the clipboard with PowerShell

And of course, clip can just be used from PS too… ;)

Related Past Post XRef:
PowerShell Community Extensions V1.1.1 Released

MonoTouch your PDC

2009-11-09T12:55:00.001-08:00

ConceptDev (Craig Dunn's blog) - Another MonoTouch 'conference app' – PDC09

“I'm not planning on making a habit of this, but having spent the time putting together the Monospace conference app and seeing tweets from various Mono people that they were heading to PDC09, I figured it wouldn't take too long to copy some PDC data into the existing MonoTouch C# app 'framework'.

A new view (Sessions), a new icon (Speakers) and a new location (Underground) are the main changes - the rest is just SQLite and graphic tweaks. The source is available for download …

…

UPDATE: to be clear, this app is not available on the AppStore -- it is just an example of the kind of thing you can write in C# for the iPhone using MonoTouch from Novell. If you have a MonoTouch licence then you can download the source (124Kb) and install it on your phone.”

That’s pretty cool and made me chuckle (don’t let Mr. Ballmer see you… lol ;)

Now if I only I had a not-dumb phone… (Santa, can I have a Droid or Verizon WinMo 6.5 phone? I’ve been… mostly good… ;)

(via Miguel de Icaza's web log - MonoTouch application for the PDC)

A Feed You Should Read #11 – The Road to Know Where

2009-11-08T09:39:00.001-08:00

In this week’s Feed, our journey takes us down a slightly different path. Not as dramatic a difference as last week’s, yet still different than most of the past posts.

A blog can sometimes fall into a general category or type. Link blogs, where a post, for the most part, contain X number of links to other blogs. to original content blogs, status blogs, pet blogs, personal story blogs, etc.

There are also re-blogs. A re-blog is where the blogger finds stuff and re-blogs about it referencing and quoting to original content, usually with one re-blog per post. My blog, the one you’re reading, is 98% re-blog.

Today’s feed you should read is a also re-blog, yet with a great deal more to it than that…

The Road to Know Where

Background:

The Road to Know Where is a re-blog mostly focused on Microsoft tech, IT content, with cool and dev stuff thrown in for flavor. But beyond the daily’ish posts of cool stuff found and shared, there is also a great list of free Microsoft software (well actually a number of lists, as you can see above). These are must read lists of free utilities, applications and such that you have to check out…

Blake Handler’s blog, The Road to Know Where, has been going strong since mid 2005 and I’ve been following since nearly then (looks like my first post related to it was Feb 2006) and I’ve not looked back since I found it (I’ve re-blogged him 26’ish times ;)

Blake is a local guy too (as local as can be in the monster-plex that is the Greater Los Angeles area), which is cool. As small as the world has become with the Net, locality is still important.

Why do I like this feed and think you might also?

I dig his posts because his IT POI helps me see beyond my usual scope of interest. His area of interest while mostly Microsoft focused, is scoped very broadly. From Windows Home Server, client OS, server OS, MS mobile, games, system admin utilities, to training and fun stuff, it’s all there and more.

Look, are you using Microsoft tech? Do you like free software? Are you a Dev, IT’er or power user? Then you need to subscribe to The Road to Know Where feed and ALSO check out his free software lists.

This is one of those few blogs that should be at the very top of your daily reading list. One of those blogs that if you don’t have time to read everything you subscribe to, you at least always read this one. One of those blogs where you can almost be certain you catch something new, interesting and useful…

Snap of the latest post:

Blog Information:

Name:	The Road to Know Where
URL:	http://bhandler.spaces.live.com/default.aspx
Feed:	http://cid-70f64bc910c9f7f3.users.api.live.net/Users(8139776703460931571)/Main?$format=rss20
Post Types:	Re-blog of Windows, IT, and cool stuff posts

Paint.NET 3.5 (Final) now available

2009-11-07T07:52:00.001-08:00

Paint.NET - Paint.NET v3.5 (Final) is now available!

“Thanks to everyone who helped out with the extensive alpha and beta releases with all the bug reports, crash log submissions, and feedback. It has all been a huge help in creating the best Paint.NET release ever.

As usual, there are two ways to get the new version:

Preferred: Use the built-in updater from within Paint.NET. If you are using version v3.36, simply go to the Help menu and click on “Check for Updates.” For v3.5 alpha/beta, go to the Utilities menu instead of the Help menu. Or, just wait for the update prompt to come up automatically within the next week or so.

Download directly from the website: http://www.getpaint.net/ . There is no need to uninstall the old version; that will be taken care of automatically.

…

Changes since version 3.36:

New: Refreshed user interface with new icons and visual styling. On Windows 7 and Vista, it is enhanced for Aero and "glass".

[GD: Way to many for me to leach.. click though for all the details]

…

”

You all have Paint.Net, right? One of the must have Windows utilities? No? (–10 geek cred, sorry ;)

All kidding aside, congrats to Rick on his release and for thank you for your outstanding work on this rock’n product!

Let's Paint the town red... Paint.Net 3.3 Released
Paint.Net 3.2 RTW
Paint.Net 3.1 Released
Paint.NET 2.5 RTM
Paint.NET v2.1 Released
Paint.NET 2.0 Released
Paint.NET v1.1 is now available!

Almost everything you ever wanted to know about the MSG (stand alone Outlook Email message) file format but were afraid to ask (Part 1)

2009-11-06T15:59:00.001-08:00

Microsoft Open Specification Support Team Blog - .MSG File Format (Part 1)

“In my previous two blog entries, I’ve focused on becoming familiar with the Compound File Binary Format which we discovered was similar to a FAT file system within a file. With that exercise behind us we’re ready to step up a level in the ecology of file formats. Analogous to ascending from chemistry to simple cell organisms, CFBF has given us the building blocks with which the great variety of application file formats are assembled.

Recently, I took the time to expand my view of application formats by investigating the workings of Outlook’s .msg format. Specifically, I was required to explain how a Rights Managed Email message could be dissected in order to read the contents hidden within. Having only a cursory knowledge of the Outlook message file format (.msg), and that being based of course, on CFBF, I needed only to discover where the critical components of the email message could be found. I will divide this blog into two parts. In part 1, I will overview the message file format described in MS-OXMSG in preparation for part 2. In part 2, I will describe in some detail, including code fragments how to find the compressed email attachment in a rights managed email and how it can be decompressed in order to read it plainly.

.MSG

In this overview section, my goal is to describe the message store structure in a way that will enable you, the reader to recognize quickly the storages and streams in a sample .msg file and understand what you’re seeing. As always, to get the nitty-gritty detail of property names and fields sizes and the like, please refer to the actual documents that I’ll list as we navigate them.

…

”

[MS-OXMSG]: .MSG File Format

This post, and part 2 when it comes out, warrant a much closer look (due to what I do in my “day life”)

Upgrading your OS or maybe moving to a new PC? Don’t have your device driver disks? Double Driver to the rescue!

2009-11-06T10:16:00.001-08:00

BooZet Freeware - Welcome to Double Driver

“One of the main reasons why you would want to collect installed drivers is if you don’t have the Driver CD that came with the computer or they are unavailable online. This comes in quite handy if you purchase a computer and want to backup the initial set of drivers. It can be quite difficulty for example to find drivers for hardware installed in a notebook if the operating system has to be setup again. Luckily Double Driver can now lend you a hand with that and save you a lot of time.

Double Driver is a very simple and useful tool which not only allows you to view all the drivers installed on your system but also allows you to backup, restore, save and print all chosen drivers simply and reliably.

Double Driver analyzes your system and lists the most important driver details such as version, date, provider, etc and offers you the chance to update to the latest version. All drivers that are found can easily be backed up the application and easily restored at a later point in one go.

Double Driver is freeware. Feel free to use and give this program to anyone you know. Your donation or feedback would be greatly appreciated. [GD:Description leached in full, click through for the download link]

…

”

Backup’s are good. Say it with me, “backups are good”.

But when we usually think of backups we think “my files” or system files, or disk image, etc. This is a targeted backup solution that will scan, backup and restore your system/device drivers.

The utility fired up and scanned very quickly on my Win7 x86 notebook. I’ve not tried to backup/restore… And do I need to say that this, should simple and easy to use, should be used (i.e. if you restore) with care and caution?

Still if you need it, you’ll need it. And the price is just right…

(via Scott Hanselman, @shanselman - tweet)

SQL Server 2008 FILESTREAM Best Practices

2009-11-06T09:57:00.001-08:00

MSSQLTips - Best Practices – When Using FILESTREAM Feature of SQL Server 2008

“Problem
In SQL Server 2008 one can store BLOBs (e.g. Images, video, Word, Excel, PDF, MP3, etc) in the NTFS file system rather than in a database file. This can be done by using the new FILESTREAM feature which was introduced in SQL Server 2008. In this tip we will take a look at some of the best practices which a database administrator can follow to get the best performance when using the FILESTREAM feature of SQL Server 2008.

Solution
If you are new to SQL Server 2008 and haven’t used the FILESTREAM feature yet, then I would suggest you start with the following tips.

…

FILESTREAM Best Practices

Some of the best practices which can be leveraged by database administrators when using the FILESTREAM feature of SQL Server 2008 are listed below:
…
”

I’m starting to see a little movement in my day life toward SQL Server 2008 and a little interest in the FILESTREAM feature so when I saw this, I wanted to make sure I captured it for future reference and sharing…

This is a great post which summarizes a number of FILESTREAM best practices I’ve seen and heard about in the last couple years. Both configuration (i.e. turn off Last Updated and 8.3) and usage (what file sizes are best stored where) tips are included.

Visual Studio 2010 Power +25 with PowerCommands 10.0

2009-11-04T07:02:00.001-08:00

FreeToDev - Power Commands for Visual Studio 2010

“Moving to VS2010 felt like a step backwards in some respects as it doesn’t implement many of the great productivity enhancements that the Power Commands for Visual Studio 2008 offered.

The good news is that the PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010 are are now available here.

One thing to note is that after installing the Visual Studio extension, you will probably need to enable it for administrators.

…” [GD:Click through for the simple “enable it for administrators” instructions. If you install it and it doesn’t seem to work, do this…]

Visual Studio Gallery - PowerCommands 10.0

“PowerCommands 10.0 is a set of useful extensions for the Visual Studio 2010 adding additional functionality to various areas of the IDE. The source code is included and requires the VS SDK for VS 2010 to allow modification of functionality or as a reference to create additional custom PowerCommand extensions. Visit the VSX Developer Center at http://msdn.com/vsx for more information about extending Visual Studio.

Enable/Disable PowerCommands in Options dialog …
Format document on save / Remove and Sort Usings on save …
Clear All Panes…
Copy Path…
Email CodeSnippet…
Insert Guid Attribute…
Show All Files…
Undo Close…
Collapse Projects…
Copy Class…
Paste Class…
Copy References…
Paste References…
Copy As Project Reference…
Edit Project File…
Open Containing Folder…
Open Command Prompt…
Unload Projects…
Reload Projects…
Remove and Sort Usings…
Extract Constant…
Clear Recent File List…
Clear Recent Project List…
Transform Templates…
Close All…

Cool…

On a related note, I’m not seeing the mentioned “included source”, but that could be because I’m looking directly into the vsix file. Maybe it’s in the referenced VS SDK? Or am I having an ID-10-T moment? (I’ve asked the question and will update this post when I know more).

VM Workshop – The multifactor, multifaceted, open source, example MVVM app in Silverlight, WPF, WebForms, ASP.NET MVC, Ajax, WinForms flavors (all in both C# & VB too)

2009-11-03T13:19:00.001-08:00

Craig Shoemaker - Learning Model View ViewModel and Presentation Model

“I recently posted details on a new open source project I have started that aims to help you learn the intricacies of using Model View ViewModel and Presentation Model. The project is called VM Workshop and it’s initial offering includes demonstrations on how to implement a simple list/edit/persist scenario using the following UI platforms:

Silverlight

WPF

WebForms

ASP.NET MVC

Ajax

WinForms

Code is available in C# and VB.NET.

…”

Craig Shoemaker - VM Workshop: Model View ViewModel (MVVM) and the Presentation Model Pattern in 5 UI Platforms

“For some reason the family of design patterns that exist around the Model View Controller pattern seem to be an elusive band of characters. The first time I encountered Model View Controller I studied the text hard trying to understand how the Strategy, Observer and Composite patterns worked together to accomplish some goal that – try as I might - remained fuzzy. Somehow I have a sense that I am not alone.

…

Introducing VM Workshop

The VM Workshop is a simple reference application demonstrating the Model View ViewModel and Presentation Model pattern in a number of different UI platforms.

…

…and as an open source project, you are invited to help add examples of how to deal with a myriad of different UI use cases!

The purpose of the VM Workshop is to be a working programmer’s reference, not an exposition in pattern purity. Therefore you may see small details that may not fit the textbook definition of the patterns, but the point is to provide a template for effective pattern use. For instance there is an example in ASP.NET MVC is included in VM Workshop. Obviously the pattern being implemented is Model View Controller, but the construction of a “view model” class is still relevant in this context. While referring to ViewModel class in a ASP.NET application may be technically inappropriate, I use the term “view model” to interchangeably refer to a ViewModel or Presentation Model class for simplicity.

…

…”

VM Workshop

The one and only Craig Shoemaker has done it again, this time with a VERY cool project. He’s podcast before about taking a similar project, building it using MVVM for WPF and then for Silverlight (Hands-On Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) for Silverlight and WPF), but this time he has GONE TO FAR!

He’s taken a similar project and MVVM’ed it in C# and VB for FIVE different platforms.

All I can say is, Wow…

The WPF Starter Kit – A simple, barebones, pick it up in an afternoon, MVVM/Navigation/Commanding Framework

2009-11-03T06:19:00.001-08:00

Knowledgecast - The WPF Starter Kit

“If you're looking to get straight to the code, go here: http://wpfstarterkit.codeplex.com/

…

When I started out with this application I really wanted to use the Model View View Model pattern. Not only because MVVM is the hot new pattern (which it admittedly is) but also because I think MVVM is what MVC always wanted to be. Of course, WPF's brilliant data binding and commanding support only helps. We did evaluate what was then known as Prism (http://compositewpf.codeplex.com/) but found it a little too complicated for a project this size (the application only has about 30 views). Another thing that didn't fit was the large learning curve. Most of the people on the project, while quite well versed with managed code, we new to the WPF way of doing things.

That was when I made the decision to build a up a barebones, simple MVVM/Navigation/Commanding framework that would be easy to pick up in a single afternoon. While it does not have the modularity, complexity or extensibility of Prism, it worked very well for our application.

…”

CodePlex - WPF Starter Kit

“The WPF Starter Kit is a great way to get started building Model View ViewModel based WPF applications. Unlike other MVVM frameworks, the starter kit makes it easy for people new to WPF to jump right in. Here's what the WPF Starter Kit supports:

A simple, easy to use implementation of the Model View View Model pattern

A navigation framework that allows for clean navigation between View/ViewModel units. This framework is based on built-in WPF navigation

Support for passing data between View Models

Support for generic exception handling

Support for long running operations on the UI thread

…”

Simple is good. Getting up to speed on MVVM and Commanding/Command Routing is not DARPA Hard, but it’s not easy either. And if you’re trying to ALSO learn WPF at the same time, well I’ve seen brains leaking from ears… It was not pretty… :o

BTW, there’s a PowerPoint presentation if you help to need to sell “someone” on MVVM…

Note to Self: Learn PowerShell by using it. Do one PS thing a day…

2009-11-03T06:04:00.001-08:00

James O'Neill's blog - You can’t be a 21st century admin without PowerShell

“…

I’ve been saying the same thing in different ways a lot recently. The slide on the left was in the session I delivered at the big Wembley event in October. A few people picked up that I’d said “Everyone should learn PowerShell”, and I’ve since had to explain that this requires a suitable definition of “Everyone”. But it is my firm belief that IT professionals working Microsoft technology are at an advantage if they know at least the basics of PowerShell. …

…

I took the following list from one of the Slides in the Wembley deck: – it is not designed to be complete but to show pre-eminence of PowerShell in the Microsoft world.

In Server-R2 there is:

PowerShell for Active Directory

PowerShell for Applocker

PowerShell for Best Practices

PowerShell for BITS transfer

PowerShell for Clustering

PowerShell for Group Policy

PowerShell for Installing components

PowerShell for Migration

PowerShell for Remote-Desktop

PowerShell for Server Backup

PowerShell for Web admin

Not forgetting that we also have;

PowerShell for Exchange 2007

PowerShell for HPC

PowerShell for HyperV @ codeplex.com

PowerShell for OCS in the OCS Res-kit

PowerShell for SQL 2008 R2

PowerShell for System Center

You can see anyone who says “I don’t do PowerShell” is at a disadvantage, …

…

The successful admin is not automatically the one who knows every possible way to use every possible command in PowerShell. Nor the one who turns their back on GUI to do everything from the command line , but the one who understands the tools available for the task at hand, can select the right one, and can put it to use competently. PowerShell is one of the tools available in so many cases in the Microsoft world, that you can’t meet that definition without it.”

I really want to get comfortable with PowerShell. Like James I feel that not knowing it, not being comfortable with it, is going to put me at a disadvantage.

So I’m going to try something. I, like most of us, learn by doing so I’m going to try to do one PS thing a day. I’m not going to bore you all with posts of my journey, but instead simply try to make PS a part of my day to day life… We’ll see. Worth a try at least… :)

From the I may never need this but it’s still interesting pile: “A literary appreciation of the Olson/Zoneinfo/tz database”

2009-11-02T06:58:00.001-08:00

Jon Udell - A literary appreciation of the Olson/Zoneinfo/tz database

“You will probably never need to know about the Olson database, also known as the Zoneinfo or tz database. And were it not for my elmcity project I never would have looked into it. I knew roughly that this bedrock database is a compendium of definitions of the world’s timezones, plus rules for daylight savings transitions (DST), used by many operating systems and programming languages.

…

What I didn’t appreciate, until I finally unzipped and untarred a copy of ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata2009o.tar.gz, is the historical scholarship scribbled in the margins of this remarkable database, or document, or hybrid of the two.

…

But look at the rules for Feb 9 1942 and Aug 14 1945. The letters are W and P instead of D and S. And the comments tell us that during that period there were timezones like Eastern War Time (EWT) and Eastern Peace Time (EPT). Arthur David Olson elaborates:

…

”

The tz db/file is an acquired taste and one that most will never need to acquire. I’ve known about it for a few years, yet never knew ,or groked, the details Jon provided. Pretty interesting in a academic kind of way.

Given the US time change this past weekend, this quote made me chuckle, “Daylight Saving Time was first suggested as a joke by Benjamin Franklin in his whimsical essay, ‘An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light’…”

(via Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - A literary appreciation of the Olson/Zoneinfo/tz database)

Interesting .Net 4 thing of the day: String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace()

2009-11-01T10:03:00.001-08:00

MSDN Library - String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace Method

“Indicates whether a specified string is Null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic), empty, or consists only of white-space characters.

…

IsNullOrWhiteSpace is a convenience method that is equivalent to calling the Trim() method followed by the IsNullOrEmpty method.

White-space characters are defined by the Unicode standard. The IsNullOrWhiteSpace method interprets any character that returns a value of true when it is passed to the Char.IsWhiteSpace method as a white-space

Module Example
   Public Sub Main()
      Dim values() As String = { Nothing, String.Empty, "ABCDE",
                                 New String(" "c, 20), " " + vbTab + "   ",
                                 New String(ChrW(&h2000), 10) }
      For Each value As String In values
         Console.WriteLine(String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(value))
      Next
   End Sub
End Module
' The example displays the following output:
'       True
'       True
'       False
'       True
'       True
'       True

…”

I love seeing these kind of helper/convenience methods that we all write/re-invent get baked into .Net…

(via William Bartholomew - New Method: String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace() andalso This Week on Channel 9 - TWC9: Asli Bilgin, Halloween, VS2010, and community events)

A Feed You Should Read #10 - Tales from the Road: A Traffic Cop's Stories

2009-11-01T09:42:00.001-08:00

“Now for something completely different”

For today’s feed I wanted to reach WAY outside my usual scope and into the “Real World.”

Tales from the Road: A Traffic Cop's Stories

Background:

It’s sometimes hard to remember that our world, the world of development and IT, isn’t a 100% accurate representation of the “real world” (gee… No way! lol :p ) Sometimes the real world crashes into our lives, yet on average, we usually leave it alone if it leaves us alone. A live and let live mentality.

Yet the “Real World” is out there none the less. And it’s both funnier and uglier than most of us can imagine. Today’s blog is from someone who’s on the front line of the real world and he’s giving a chance to ride along with him.

I’ve been following his blog since its start, as well as his previous blog, Jaded: Thoughts of a Rookie Cop. He’s shared his journey as a police officer, from being a rookie new on the job, to someone who now knows the ropes, been there, done that, yet still has hope and enjoys the good that his does.

Why do I like this feed and think you might also?

His posts are not a reality show, but reality. His feelings and thoughts are real and it shows. More than once the posts of his experiences has made me laugh out loud and shake my head in wonder.

Why did I think you might like it? I don’t know that you will, but sometimes we all need a little real world to remind us of what we have…

On a related note, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, thank God for our cops. You rock. Thank you for helping keep my family safe.

Snap of the latest post:

Blog Information:

Name:	Tales from the Road: A Traffic Cop's Stories - Random entertaining stories of life as a traffic cop.
URL:	http://trafficcopstories.blogspot.com/
Feed:	http://trafficcopstories.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
Post Types:	Personal blog of daily’ish life/work experiences and thoughts

MSBuild & Virtual PC’s – Like peas in a pod?

2009-10-31T09:31:00.001-07:00

Guy Smith-Ferrier - Automating Testing Using Windows Virtual PC

“As promised here are the slides [GD:Click through for all the slide/source links] and source code for yesterday's "Automating Testing Using Windows Virtual PC" presentation at the MVP Open Day. The sister presentation to this one is "Automating Testing Using Virtual Server 2005" and you can download the slides and source code for this one. If you are using Virtual Server 2005 you might like to download both as the Windows Virtual PC presentation is more recent and contain slightly more code that is still applicable to Virtual Server 2005” [GD:Post leached in full]

From the slides;

What caught my eye in this was that the MSBuild Extension Pack was getting some Windows Virtual PC msbuild task love… that’s cool…

For years now I’ve been wanting to see about using virtual machines in my dev/test processes. VS2010’s Lab Management is a huge step in the right direction, but it’s still just one step. The inclusion of MSBuild tasks in the MSBuild Extension Pack (and the Virtual Server tasks in the SDC Tasks) is another…

The thought of queuing a build (or via CI/nightly) and getting a VM out for delivery/testing seems to be too darn cool to me. I know some of you might have been doing this for years already (cough… like Scott Hanselman, who’s chatted about it in his podcasts) but some of us are in environments that have barely graduated to automated builds let alone embrace virtualization (and the thought of the two of them together, well that’s like WAY out there! ;)

Anyway… This will be an area, especially in the VS2010 wave, that I will be keeping a closer eye on.

(via FreeToDev - Automating Testing Using Windows Virtual PC)

The SDC Tasks Projects is alive and well... v2.1.2978 Released
SDC Tasks Project's New Home on CodePlex
MS UK Enterprise Solutions Build Framework (SBF) Updated
MSBuild Community Tasks Project
More on the Solution Build Framework (SBF) (MSBuild Tasks) From MS UK
MS SDC.Tasks, a MSBUILD tasks library with over a hundred new tasks...

“Outlook 2007 Best Practices” – 37 Pages toward email nirvana (well… that might be reaching a little, but you get the idea…)

2009-10-30T14:55:00.001-07:00

Microsoft Downloads - Outlook 2007 Best Practices

“This article is intended to provide users of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 guidance on how to best use the product.

…

File Name: Best Practices for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.docx

Version: 1

Date Published: 10/30/2009

Language: English

Download Size: 607 KB

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From the document;

“…

The purpose of this paper is to provide customers of Microsoft^® Office Outlook^® 2007 messaging and collaboration client with guidance on how to best use the product. Created by the product team who created Outlook 2007, this guide represents our advice on how to get the most out of Outlook 2007. By no means comprehensive, it covers just a few core scenarios.

This guide is intended for people who:

Work for a large company with an IT department.

Receive more than 30 e-mail messages a day.

Spend lots of time every day using Outlook 2007 to send and receive e-mail and to set up and/or attend meetings.

Are using Outlook 2007 with a Microsoft Exchange Server account.

Regardless of your server setup or organization size, this document will be useful to you.

Why an Outlook "best practices" document?

We wrote this paper for the best possible reason: Our customers asked. We designed Outlook 2007 to be used by a wide audience with many work needs and styles. Although there's no one "right way," there are a few ways of working in the program that we know to be easier than others. We hope that by being aware of the best practices, you will have the best experience possible using Outlook.

…

Basic principles of good time management

Outlook 2007 is a tool to help you manage your e-mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks. As such, it is at the center of not only your communications but also your time-management. To get the most out of Outlook 2007, we suggest a few basic principles:

Reduce the number of places where you read e-mail. Filter all of the messages you need to read into one place — your Inbox by using a series of rules.

Let some e-mail messages pass by. Use rules to send the e-mail you need to read into your Inbox and then let the rest flow untouched into distribution list folders (DL folders). You don’t need to read every message sent to you. Only the important ones should go to your Inbox. Remaining messages can be useful to keep — in case you get looped in on an issue, for example.

Reduce the number of places where you manually file e-mail. Reduce the mental tax of filing by relying on search to locate messages.

Process your e-mail by using the Four Ds. When reading your e-mail, decide whether to
    Delete it.
    Do it (respond or file for reference).
    Delegate it (forward).
    Defer it (using categories and flags) for a second review in your task list.

Reduce your to-do list to one list. Use a single to-do list and calendar to manage what you need to do.

Work in batches. Use categories to help you group similar tasks together.

Use good judgment when sending e-mail. Follow the dos and don’ts of writing great e-mail. Review your time and tasks regularly.

…

Many of us use Outlook day in and out yet how many of us use it well?

Personally I’ve achieved the much vaunted goal of the “Zero Inbox”, but it took a while to train myself to get there. How? Mostly by doing step #4 above (i.e. the Four D’s). Given that (and that, or maybe because, I’ve been using Outlook for forever) I still got some good ideas from this document.

Anyway, given how my time we spend in Outlook it seems a good time investment to ensure we’re actually using it smartly.

“Windows Management Framework” is here for Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, 2008 – Remote Admin Power +10

2009-10-29T08:57:00.001-07:00

Windows PowerShell Blog - Windows Management Framework is here!“

“Windows Management Framework, which includes Windows PowerShell 2.0, WinRM 2.0, and BITS 4.0, was officially released to the world this morning. By providing a consistent management interface across the various flavors of Windows, we are making our platform that much more attractive to deploy. IT Professionals can now easily manage their Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines through PowerShell remoting [GD: emphasis added] – that’s a huge win!

…”

Microsoft Support - Description of the Windows Management Framework on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008

“This article describes the Windows Management Framework on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. The Windows Management Framework includes the following:

Windows Remote Management (WinRM) 2.0

Windows PowerShell 2.0

Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) 4.0

Windows Management Framework makes some updated management functionality in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2 available to be installed on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. Windows Management Framework contains Windows Remote Management (WinRM) 2.0, Windows PowerShell 2.0, and Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) 4.0.

WinRM 2.0

WinRM is the Microsoft implementation of WS-Management Protocol, a standard Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)–based, firewall-friendly protocol that allows for hardware and operating systems from different vendors to interoperate. The WS-Management Protocol specification provides a common way for systems to access and exchange management information across an IT infrastructure.

WinRM 2.0 includes the following new features:

…

Windows PowerShell 2.0

Windows PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting language that is designed for system administration and Automation. Built on the Microsoft .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell enables IT professionals and developers to control and automate the administration of Windows and applications.

New features that are introduced in Windows PowerShell 2.0 include the following:

…

BITS 4.0

BITS is a service that transfers files between a client and a server. BITS provides a simple way to reliably and politely transfer files over HTTP or HTTPS. File downloads and file uploads are supported. By default, BITS transfers files in the background, unlike other protocols that transfer files in the foreground. Background transfers use only idle network bandwidth in order to preserve the user’s interactive experience with other network applications, such as Internet Explorer. Foreground or typical transfers are also supported.

BITS 4.0 includes the following new features:

…

.”

Remote Admin goodness for older Microsoft OS’s = Good Thing

Now to see about getting this deployed in-house…

(via ActiveWin - Windows Management Framework Is Here)

Computer Forensics in a Windows 7 (and Vista) world

2009-10-29T08:40:00.001-07:00

SANS Computer Forensics, Investigation, and Response - Windows 7 Computer Forensics

“Windows 7 was released this past week. A lot of work by the SANS community has been accomplished at uncovering digital forensic artifacts from it. First off, Windows 7 is really Windows VISTA release 2. Many of the features that are found in Windows Vista will be found in Windows 7.

…

Here is just a few things we have helped document regarding Windows 7.

User Profiles:

With the release of Vista/Win7, Microsoft significantly changed the folder structure and mechanisms used by the operating system for user profiles. …

Internet Explorer:

The major change within Vista/Win7 that affects us when performing browser forensics is the newly implemented “Protected Mode”. …

USB Key Analysis:

…

USB Drive Enclosure Analysis:

…

Defrag Analysis:

…
Timeline Analysis:

Kristinn Guðjónsson developed and released a full scope timeline creation tool called log2timeline that is able to parse many Windows Vista and Windows 7 artifacts in a single simple tool.

…

Shadow Copy Forensics

Troy Larson from Microsoft has done a wonderful job continuing to discuss the Shadow Volume Copy and ways you can examine them in an investigation. We posted back in 2008 on many of his techniques.

http://blogs.sans.org/computer-forensics/2008/10/10/shadow-forensics/

…

While this post, information and site are focused on computer forensics, that doesn’t mean the average Dev and IT’er can’t use it. ;)

Seen all the PowerShell goodness in Win7? Want to use the same tool Microsoft did to create much of it? Here you go! “PowerShell Cmdlet and Help Designer” (free and source available BTW)

2009-10-29T08:26:00.001-07:00

Windows PowerShell Blog - Announcing: Open Source PowerShell Cmdlet and Help Designer

“During the development of Windows 7, most cmdlet design and help authoring in Microsoft went through an internal tool called the “Cmdlet Designer.”

…

So why blog about it? Because it’s now yours!

We just posted the entirety of the Cmdlet Designer, its source code, design specification, and deployment guide to http://www.codeplex.com/CmdletDesigner under the most permissive Microsoft Open Source license, the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL).
…”

CodePlex - PowerShell Cmdlet and Help Designer

“The Cmdlet Designer makes it much easier for teams to concentrate on the design, naming, and consistency of their cmdlets, while also guaranteeing name registration and collision avoidance across a project.

To sweeten the deal, it offers:

Integrated help authoring

Efficient bulk operations (parameter and cmdlet cloning)

Generation of cmdlet code

Full scripting support

Automatic code-spec comparison and testing

Role-based security, history logging, and more.

Architecturally, the Cmdlet Designer offers a reference implementation to benefit developers as well:

UI on top of Cmdlets

UI extensibility through scripting

Cmdlet / Webservice interaction

Role-based security, with a trusted subsystem implementation

…” [GD: Project Description Leach Level:99%]

From the latest code drop, “Cmdlet Designer Design Spec.docx”;

“

1 Introduction

This document describes architecture and design of the PowerShell Cmdlet Designer. The Cmdlet Designer tool allows users (primarily PMs) to specify all of the metadata required when designing a cmdlet – its name, parameters, validation attributes, and more. Rather than store all of this information in a Word Document, the PowerShell Cmdlet Designer stores its information in a database. By storing all of the spec metadata in a database, these specs now become rich sources of structured information from which we can drive process improvements, and ensure consistency.

2 Assumptions & Limitations

· At a high-level, the PowerShell Cmdlet Designer is designed to enforce consistency and prevent name collisions across Microsoft. Enforcing this is a highly-networked operation. In this incarnation, therefore, the tool must be run from a machine connected to a corporate network. See “Extensibility” for more information.

…

5 Use Cases

· A PM launches the Cmdlet Designer UI. From there, he or she adds nouns, cmdlets, parameters, and parameter set entries.

· The PM sends out a link to the cmdlet for review, which summarizes all of its important characteristics in a read-only fashion.

· A user calls the Cmdlet Designer cmdlets (upon which the UI is built) to script cmdlet-related tasks. For example, they search for all cmdlets that have more than 10 parameters, or update all parameters that have a certain name to use a new name.

The test team uses the cmdlet comparison tool (also built upon the Cmdlet Designer cmdlets) to verify that the spec for the cmdlet matches its implementation.

…”

My feeling is that in the next few years, as more companies move to Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 and the roll out newer server products like SQL Server 2008, and they feel the power of PowerShell there’s going to drive to integrate PS into their products and processes.

By seeing PS in action, by using and living with it, Dev’s and IT’ers are going to “feel the need, the need for Posh”. They are going to see the ROI in not only bolting on PS to their products as an after thought but also in making PS the administration foundation and making the admin UI the after thought.

That’s where I see tools like this one coming into vogue. Tools that help Dev and IT teams construct their own PS suites are going still going to be somewhat of a nitch, but I think it could be a big nitch…

(via ActiveWin - Announcing: Open Source PowerShell Cmdlet and Help Designer)

Bacon! Hosting a Bacon Day How To

2009-10-29T07:53:00.001-07:00

Steve's Tech Talk - How To: Host a Bacon Day

“Christina put up a blog entry about the historical/social aspects of Bacon Day at Atalasoft. I’m going to give you a guide for hosting your own Bacon Day.

For Bacon Day you ultimately need three things: good bacon, good people, and a means to cook, but it also takes some basic organization, so here is a guide to help you out.

At least one week in advance, you should do the following:

…

”

Bacon!

‘nuff said. ;)

There are still seats available for the free Windows 7 Developer Boot Camp being held Nov 16th in Los Angeles

2009-10-28T13:31:00.001-07:00

I just heard today from Lynn Langit (@llangit) and Danial Egan (@DanielEgan) at the Los Angeles/Burbank Windows 7 Deep Drive (BTW great presentation you two, thank you! :) that there are still seats available for the free, as in free, Windows 7 Developer Boot Camp being held on Nov 16th at the LA Convention Center. This is an all day, totally free event which some serious names like Mark Russinovich

For more information, links, etc, please see my previous post, Free Windows 7 Developer Boot Camp at PDC09 (yes, free for attendees AND non-PDC attendees, space is limited).

Guys this is an all day event that’s…um… have I said…um… free? If you’re in the SoCal area, can’t get your boss to money up any funds for training, yet want/need to learn about development in a Win7 world, all you need to do is talk him into letting you out of the cube for a few hours. 8’ish hours of free, in person, training? Dude! That should be a no-brainer…

Free (reg-ware) E-Discovery Reference Guide eBook

2009-10-27T09:03:00.001-07:00

IE Discovery - E-Discovery Reference Guide

“We all have an ethical obligation to stay competent and up-to-date on e-discovery issues. This comprehensive, 135 page reference guide provides everything you need to know about e-discovery…”

From the PDF;

Do you really need be to insert my standard “you need to be ready, EDD/ESI/etc because it IS coming YOUR way” rant here? Really?

(via @complexd - E-Discovery Reference Guide (A Compilation of Published Works) via IE Discovery)

WPF is the future, get over it, post of the day - “Are desktop developers ignoring WPF at their peril?”

2009-10-27T07:54:00.001-07:00

Living in the Tech Avalanche Generation - Are desktop developers ignoring WPF at their peril?

“So is 2010 the year when WPF finally starts to make the big-time? Having spent some time now working with the new desktop framework, I find it unlikely that I will find a compelling enough reason to choose Windows Forms for a desktop UI technology choice again.

So what’s holding it (WPF) back? I have read and listened to a lot of stuff online suggesting it’s so complex that it’s turning people off the idea. So what about the issue of so called complexity? …

…

Here is what I advise: don’t be afraid of the technology. If you ever developed desktop applications in the past and considered yourself capable in designing a good user experience, then don’t buy into the scare mongering and be prepared to jump off the cliff.

I don’t doubt that there will be some small percentage of software teams that will bring on a dedicated designer(s) but I would hate to think that the small development teams out there will be put off venturing out into the brave new world. Yes there is a lot of complexity (particularly in WPF) and the learning curve is certainly not shallow by any means, but nothing good in life is easy.

…”

The title of this post struck me as soon as I saw it. I personally believe that WinForm’s days are numbered, in the many hundreds I’m sure, but numbered none the less.

What I find “interesting” is the resistance to WPF. I’m facing it daily and am having a very difficult time getting the message across as to why it’s important to our professional careers, development practices, applications and users. Sure it’s not perfect, and there’s a learning curve, but that was the same story when we started with WinForms. Get over it! sigh…

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that VS2010/.Net 4 will be the WPF watershed release that I hope it will be.

[Now to step up and try to drive WPF into those small areas where I have a little bit of control… Am I willing to walk the walk? I’m willing to try…]

File Name:	Best Practices for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.docx
Version:	1
Date Published:	10/30/2009
Language:	English
Download Size:	607 KB