Posts from December 2002

My wireless ethernet bridge just arrived. Too bad I've got some other stuff to take care of today -- I can't wait to get this thing hooked up to my Xbox and use the Xbox live service. Guess I should use this time to think of a username for the service.

One of my most anticipated gifts this year was Xbox Live. Now the question is "how should I connect it?"

My office shares a wall with our living room, and the wall just happens to be the one that the TV is on, so I could easily run CAT5 between the two rooms. But I've also got a wireless access point in the house. So I set out looking for wireless solutions for the Xbox. Lo and behold, I found this. Now I need to see who carries them locally, and decide if I want to fight the post holiday crowds.

I just got potentially the best present ever -- a ticket for tonight's Power Ball. This is a big deal for two reasons.

1. I don't live in a Power Ball state (or even very close to one).
2. The last estimate I heard was around $300 million.

Thanks Tom!

Heading over to the in-law's now. Won't be back online for at least 24 hours. Boy, these holiday's sure put a crimp in my coding productivity.

p.s. I have learned that I am getting XBox Live and at least one game that supports it. Unfortunately the in-laws don't have a high-speed connection, so the "live" part will have to wait until I get back home.

Don't mind me, I am just tidying up around here. Trying to get all these entries a bit more organized. This doesn't impact links to specific entries, only where they show up when clicking the Category links.

In case you haven't noticed, I've added a new feature to this weblog of mine -- a list of recent entries. The functionality for this is provided by the RecentEntries server control that I just created for my weblog app. I can specify the number of posts to show (default = 10), and I can even tell it to only show recent posts for a specific category. Well, that's about it.

It seems that everything is distracting me from the tasks at hand, which is to overhaul the weblog app. You need not look any further than this website for proof. Instead of working on the weblog app, I've give my personal site a new look.

Hope you like it.

I need to read this article: What Is RSS?. At first glance it looks to provide excellent coverage on the different flavors of RSS, as well as things to think about for the developer building tools to consume them.

Now is the time to let me know what you'd like to see in this app. Of course, it might be hard to tell what it needs, when you've never used it and I don't have a current feature list.

Oh well, if you think of something, let me know. If it is already implemented, I'll say so.

Vacation time is here again, and that means that it is time to overhaul my little weblog app. Busy, busy, busy.

I just finished loading up .NET Server RC2 on my old desktop. Everything went well except that my 4+ year old Netgear NIC wasn't recognized. This is odd, as it was recognized when I installed beta 3 of .NET Server on this same box a few months ago. Oh well. Instead of digging around for a disc I know I'll never find, or looking for the drivers online, I just slapped in a NIC that came with my DSL installation kit. Worked instantly.

So now I am going to play around on RC2. I think I will install the SharePort Team Services and then create the weblog solution web that comes with FrontPage 11.

I am sure it sucks, but I've got to see it. I'll keep you posted.

I just finished watching Minority Report for the first time. I had heard very good things about this movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. This is not to say that it is in fact a great film, just very enjoyable to watch.

Continue reading Minority Report

Well, I just installed beta 1 of Office 11 (I obtained it at the Microsoft booth at XML Conference and Exposition 2002). So far, I've played with XDocs, including designing a form based on a web service, and also a schema. I even went so far as to connect to a database for populating the data for a couple of drop-down lists. Seems very straight forward (at least for the simple things I've tried so far). Based on the little time I've spent with it and the demo at the conference, I can see a lot of use from XDocs for capturing data.

I've also opened up Word and briefly looked at it's XML features, including creating a document based on an XML schema. This didn't seem quite as intuitive, but I need to spend more time with it. My inclination is that Word is not yet ready to be used as an XML editor. For now, we'll stick with XMetaL and XML Spy.

Finally, I opened up FrontPage. I won't go into any of the details of FrontPage other than to say that one of the prebuilt web solutions that it ships with is a weblog solution. Since I have been building a weblog app, I find this interesting. So now I am off to setup the Frontpage weblog solution. More to follow.

As Roy Williams walked off the field at Darrell K Royal - Texas Memorial Stadium, chants rose up from the crowd "STAY ROY STAY!". Maybe he heard us, or maybe he just realizes the potential benefits of coming back for another year -- either way, he is coming back. Right now, he is probably a late first round or early second round pick, but if he can put together a full season playing the way he has over the last half of this injury plagued season, he will likely be a top 5 pick. Here's hoping that he puts it all together.

For those of you that doubted me when I speculated that he would not leave, be glad that you were wrong.

I've been busy attending talks and talking to vendors at XML Conference and Exposition 2002.

The good talks have been few and far between. The one highlight so far was yesterday's first keynote presented by none other than Don Box. It was a nice look inside the world of SOAP and Web Services.

One other highlight was my aquisition of beta 1 of Office 11. I really liked the demo MS had of XDocs, and I can't help but to wonder if the next version of Word might work as an XML editor, instead of having to use something like Epic or XMetal.

I'll be in Baltimore all this week for XML Conference & Exposition 2002. It is a real short notice trip. I went last year, and frankly didn't get a whole lot from it. Then I went to VSLive! in San Francisco back in Feb of this year, and that was supposed to count as my big conference for they year, but then my bosses boss said that I should go to the XML conference when he learned this past Friday that I wasn't going (3 others from my group are already going). So, I spent the rest of Friday nailing down travel arrangements.

I am going to try hooking up with Ken. We've only ever talked via email and IM, so I am looking forward to the possibility. If there is any once else out there that lives in the area or will be at the conference, email me.

I'll be in the Inner Harbor area, so if anyone has suggestions for things to do or places to go, drop a comment here, or email me.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've written a very basic Xml schema for RSS 2.0. It is very basic only because it currently includes only the elements that I use when building RSS files. Within the next day or two, I will flesh it out so that it matches the RSS 2.0 spec.

Additionally, after I had my schema, I then used the xsd.exe utiliy to create a class file from the RSS schema. I am now deserializing XML feed files into a rss object and then using that object within the feed reader included in the weblog app I am building.

I know, this isn't exactly earth shattering, but it is fun doing things a little different from how I am accustomed to doing them.

It seems like I've been working on this .NET based weblog application forever! Truth is, I really haven't done much with it since summer. The problem right now is that it works for me, but I wouldn't be comfortable handing it out to anyone else - but I want to. So the dilemma is finding time to clean things up and finish up some features that are still undone.

Continue reading .NET Based Weblog App Update

Did I mention how thrilled I am for my favorite basketball team? The Dallas Mavericks are now 17-1 on the year - that is the 4th best one-loss start ever! I think the Rockets of 93-94 own the best start at something like 22-1. Mavs and the Lakers, in L.A. tomorrow night - GO MAVS!

In other news, it appears that my Cowboys are trying to make a late season rally for a respectable record. I really wish they wouldn't - better record = lower draft pick.

Well, I tried to skip out on my picture being taken for later use on a christmas tree ornament, but my boss would have nothing of it. Tomorrow we are supposed to decorate our ornaments. That is something I will pass on, unless I can put a Star of David or a menorah on mine. But then, what is the point? I wouldn't want someone making a manger scene as part of my Hanukkah decorations (if I had any).

Continue reading Holiday Update

What is a guy to do when he doesn't share in the celebratory mood of those around him? No, I am not talking about a win by my favorite sports team's arch-rival, I am talking about this holiday season.

Continue reading I Am In A Funk

The Mavericks bid for the most consecutive wins to start a season ended on Thanksgiving. However, they won two nights later to improve to 15-1 on the year. Now...knowing that the longest win streak to start a season is 15, we also know that though they didn't tie or break that mark, they are now tied for the best start to a season after 16 games.

It's that whole silver lining thing -- as if they needed it.