After reading an article about “Project Space Planes”, High Altitude Ballooning (HAB) has piqued my curiosity. Further researching led me to Robert Harrisons Icarus projects and seeing some of his amazing pictures, I was hooked and amazed at what he could do with such simple, relatively inexpensive technology.  After reading his diary,  I said to myself, I can do this.   I’ve always been fascinated with embedded programming and this will give me a chance to explore that further.  I won’t be the first and most likely, the best, I may even fail, but what an exciting way to learn technology and see the world from a whole new angle.

So my journey has begun.  There’s a lot of research required to begin a project like this.  I’m sure it’ll take some time (possibly years) so hang with me as I go.  I’ll try and document as much as I learn about this endeavor and post it here, reviving this blog for a little bit.  Now to come up with a catchy name for my project…

Hold on tight  (no that’s not the name).

Solved a very frustrating problem with Visual Studio 2008 today thanks to a post from Arian Kulp.  My problem started when I installed the MS Office 2010 release a few days ago, although I didn’t know that until I saw this post.

My problem was with the ASPX designer in Visual Studio 2008.  For the last few days I’ve noticed that when I switch from Source view to Designer view Visual Studio would work for a second and then lock up.  There was no way out of it.  I was getting quite frustrated since I needed to get some work done and I wanted to use the designer along with the source code.

So I turned to Bing and started to do some searches.  After a few failed attempts I came across Arians post and also the referenced post by Martin Hinshelwood about Office 2010 issues with the Web Authoring Component.

http://ariankulp.com/archive/2010/03/02/web-form-designer-lockup-in-visual-studio-2008.aspx

http://geekswithblogs.net/hinshelm/archive/2009/07/19/office-2010-gotcha-2-visual-studio-2008-locks.aspx

I hope these links help you as much as they did me.  Thanks Arain and Martin!

Enjoy!

Wow.  This is going to be an amazing product. Hey Steve, can your iPad do this?

The Digits blog at the Wall Street Journal has an article on an expansion (very large expansion) of the HP TouchSmart technology.  It’s entitled “HP Testing a Touchless “Wall of Touch”  It’s a good read, but the video below gives the details and shows the cool technology.

“… an interactive touch screen wall comprised of up to nine 43 inch to 46 inch, 1.5 inch thick panels with a resolution of 1080p. Driven by an HP Z800 workstation”

Enjoy!

5 steps to organizing your household documents

That link will lead you to an interesting article from HP (FYI… my employer) that shows ways to move you toward a more paperless household.  Is that possible? Business have been trying to do that unsuccessfully (why else does HP sell so many printers) for years.  However, the article peaked my interest because, I’d never really thought of that before.  Can I use my computer to capture electronic versions of my documents and eliminate some of my files?  Hmmm.  If your like me, the first things that come to mind are the usual questions. 

What about backup?  Well for a few years I’ve been trying to improve my home backup strategy.  I’ve taken some insight from Scott Hanselman in his post about Losing Data and a Family Backup Strategy.  Good advice, although I’m not quite there yet.  I have installed a Windows Home Server and am actively backing up all of my home machines nightly.  But when you begin to place all of your documents in electronic form you need to make sure that your backup plan is robust.  Even to the point of documenting it as Scott has done. Especially if your planning on being completely paperless and having electronic copies of all, or most, of your documents.  Something else to consider, if your a techie, like me, your electronic file backup plan is probably more robust than your non-electronic one.  Does that mean that it would be safer to digitize your documents?  Hmmm.

What about legal documents?  I suspect that there are some things we’ll never be able to fully digitize.  I see things like certified (and stamped) documents that have watermarks, or other markings on them for security purposes, will still need to be maintained in paper form.  Also identifying documents like birth certificates, passports, drivers licenses, etc. should probably stay in paper form, at least for the foreseeable future.

What about security?  Is storing things digitally really that secure?  Very good question(s).  How about this one.  Is your current document storage method secure?  Mine is probably not as secure as I think it is.  I believe that placing some of my paper into digital form, may make our lives easier, but it’s important to do it with caution.  Starting small with things that are already digitized may be a good idea.  How about your electronic statements, do you download them and keep them electronically or just print them and stick them in a file cabinet?  Should you? 

Does technology make this easier? There are a lot of new consumer wireless all-in-ones available now that provide for scanning, printing and faxing.  Could these machines enable us to move to a more digital world?  If these machines provided a simple way for you to scan in a document and place it on your PC/home server, would you use it?  I think it is possible.  I can picture a person getting their mail from the mailbox opening the bill/letter, walking over to their wireless scanner and pressing “scan”.  After the document is digitized I can see the printer prompting for some information about where to store the document. and then saving the file for you.  Sounds pretty easy.  I think the technology is pretty close to being there (possibly even there already).  The question is whether consumers are ready to accept the technology and embrace it for this.

There are likely more concerns and questions floating around in your head and mine, but I think this sparks a discussion about something I’ve never really considered before.  I will continue to ponder this and even begin to move myself toward a more paperless household.  I think, done right, (and with the right technology) it could provide a lot of convenience without adding more work.

That’s all for now.

Some self-paced trainings from Microsoft

Windows Azure - http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Azure/

Windows Server HPC - http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/HPCLearningCourse/

Identity Developer Training course - http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/IdentityTrainingCourse/

Office 2010 Workshop - http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Office2010/

SharePoint 2010 Developer - http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/SharePoint2010Developer/

Silverlight 4 Training Course - http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/

Visual Studio 2010 & .NET Framework 4 - http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/VS2010/

Windows 7 Online - http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Windows7/

Windows Server 2008 R2 Developer Training - http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/WindowsServer2008R2/

I received this in an email from the folks over at HP Learning.  I like free, how about you?

Enjoy!

Note: This post is number Four in a series of posts about Microsoft’s MSDN.  Take a look at some of the other posts in this series and learn even more about the MSDN web site giant designed by developers for developers.

MSDN Developer Centers

The primary purpose of the MSDN web site is to provide developers with up to date information on how to develop applications for the Microsoft platforms.  If your even a slight bit familiar with developing applications, you already know that there are about as many ways to develop applications for Microsoft platforms as there are Microsoft Millionaires (ok, probably not that many, but there are a lot).  There is Windows, Web, Office, Server and Database development.  You also have the Windows client and mobile tools and the ASP.Net or Silverlight platforms.  And you can’t forget the .Net platform and it’s numerous languages and API’s.  It’s enough to make your head spin thinking about it.  So, what is a developer to do?  How do new Developers get started?  Where do experts go to get up to date information?  I think the answer lies in the “Developer Center” section of the MSDN web site. 

Developer Centers is an approach that Microsoft has taken to help seasoned and new developers find up-to-date and relevant MSDN information based on their particular development bent or preference.  Think of it as a way of slicing up the information found on MSDN into different views or angles, giving the user access to…

“ …content and resources around specific products and technologies. They connect you to code samples, community sites, technical articles and documentation, upcoming events, and much more.”

Most of the commonly used Developer Centers can be found through links directly on the MSDN home page.  They've broken then down into sections to help you find the right center for your needs.  There are sections for Developer Tools and Languages (VB, C++, C#, etc),  Windows and Web development, even sections for just Architecture or Data.

When exploring these sections don’t just limit yourself to one, but think about all of the areas that you might develop for and use several of them to broaden your knowledge.  You might even use one of them to expand your skills into a new language or technology.  In my opinion the developer centers really help reduce a lot of the noise you could encounter when trying to navigate all of the information found on a site like MSDN.  You should also make sure you look at all of the Develop Centers, because that list on the main page, is only a small shadow of the many centers available. 

Free Developer Software

Ok enough lettuce talk on the developer centers, let’s get into the meat of the sandwich and explore one of the centers that new developers should be aware of The Express Editions (note in Microsoft speak “Express Edition” means the free limited featured versions)  WAIT!!!!!  don’t tune me out yet just because you saw the words “Limited” and “Feature” in the same sentence. These free products are not your fathers type of free.  There is a ton of functionality packed into them and you can do amazing things for relatively free. 

This developer center is different than most and is a complete web site on it’s own.  From here you can explore the express editions by interest or by product.  Are you a Web, Windows, Game, or Hardware developer?  Do you want to develop using Visual Basic, C#, C++?  Not sure where to start?  Try the “Explore by Interest –> Windows” and start learning how to develop applications for Vista or Windows 7.  Use this area to help yourself focus on what type of development you would like to pursue.  Depending on what type of development you prefer they will direct you to a set of Express Edition software and tools to help you.  Then move toward the “Explore by Product” section of the web site and learn about the different editions of Visual Studio. 

Finally “Get the Software” by downloading and installing one of the versions of the Express Editions and use the Samples and Resources to give yourself a quick start or Coding4Fun section to find some cool, fun things to write applications for.  Wow, There’s a lot out there.  I’ll make it a point to write another post on this with more detail.

We’ll I’ve probably wasted another several minutes of your time that will never be recovered.  Hopefully you have learned something new and are now better equipped to work and solve problems through simple interactions with the MSDN.  Till next time, enjoy the day!

TTYL!

Enough said.  More to come...

Yep it’s a new year.  I’ve had the last few weeks off so let’s start of with a fun re-post (thanks Steve Clayton) of a neat, but hidden, feature of Windows 7.  By adding a folder to your desktop called Expert Mode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} and double click you’ll see a list of all Control Panel options on one page.  This uses the “Category View” text not the “Icon” text.  Here’s a screenshot showing this mode next to the normal control panel in “Category View”.

Note, the text in front of the class id (that cryptic code inside the brackets) can be what ever you want the icon name  to be.  So you could also call it Omnipotent Mode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} .  You can also create this “folder” anywhere in your system, not just the desktop.  I’ve created it on the desktop then copied it to my quick launch bar or just “pin” it to the task bar.

Very Cool.  Thanks again for all those that posted this.

Enjoy!