July 2005 - Posts

• IE won't go down without a fight.

  I just installed IE 7 Beta 1 on my xp test machine about an hour ago and have been playing with it since then...All I can say is...It's about time! The new Beta is clean, lean, and fast. Which, after the introduction of Firefox, is what i demand in my web browser. The interface will seem very familiar if your a firefox user. A small search box in the upper right which allows you to search all of the popular search engines and tabbed browsing is turned on by default. There is also and new rss feed identifier and reader built in to the browser which will notify you of an available feed on the page. Once identified it will allow you view and/or book mark the feed to your favorites. When viewing the feed in the browser it renders the xml to a clean html format for viewing, very similar to feedburner's browser friendly feature. So, the interface is what i expected, but what I didn't expect was the raw speed of the rendering engine. Just after browsing a few sites you definitely got the feeling that this was a new browser, not just an update to the existing IE we all know and loathe. The experience overall was very reminiscent to the release of Firefox 1.0 in that you knew you were using a better browser...I look forward to the release.   Posted Jul 28 2005, 09:13 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Rants, Software

• Panoramic programming!

  I will soon be wielding dual 20.1" dell wide screen monitors thanks to Scott discovering the phenomenal deal currently listed on http://gotapex.com... essentially there are 2 coupons which expire on the 30th of this month, 1 for 40% off dell monitors and 1 stackable $60 buck off a purchase of $500 or more... and, if thats not enough, there is also free shipping! All of that translates to a brand new Dell UltraSharp 2005FPW 20.1" wide aspect LCD monitor with 1680x1050 resolution for $389.40! ...Thats half off the regular selling price and about $175 less than I paid for this same monitor 6 months ago...I'm pretty sure you would have to be taking crazy pills to turn down that offer ;) Posted Jul 26 2005, 10:15 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Hardware

• What's MySpace is theirs?

  << The Truth About MySpace After talking with Hamaze about MySpace, I decided to check it out for myself. Funny thing is, the first thing I came across was how shady their privacy policy is...Basically, they own (and list as company assets) all content associated with your space and can sell it to a third party (which they did) with a related or unrelated policy at any time!. They may also use the content as they see fit and reserve the right to change their policy at any time...ouch!...Now, as the article points out, there are actually a few free sites and services on the net that have similar policies though I don't believe any of the others are as broad. So, in other words, I won't be creating a MySpace anytime soon. I would definitely prefer that my words, photos, and music remain my property and not someone else's. I just hope that News Corp. (the new owners of MySpace.com) does not abuse the existing customer base by exercising some of those shitty policies in a bad way. Posted Jul 20 2005, 10:53 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Personal, Rants, Software

• The ReSharper 2.0 EAP has begun!

  << Page Updated : ReSharper:Download For those of you who don't use ReSharper, then it sucks to be you ;) Its been very difficult struggling my way through VS 2005 without ReSharper so I can't wait to get started. Now, since this is the first release in the EAP (early access program) there are bound to be some issues and it is noted on the site that this release is not feature complete...but as far as i can tell, you really have nothing to lose. On a side note, JetBrains will also be introducing their very own .net IDE which, supposedly, should be available for EAP sometime soon. I don't know how it will fair vs VS 2005, but I look forward to checking it out. Posted Jul 20 2005, 12:29 AM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Software

• And make it a PvP server...

  If you play WoW, you will find this video very amusing. The very end got me laughing out loud...check it out! http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=wow-general&T=4007445&P=1 Posted Jul 19 2005, 11:08 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Gaming

• Quote of the day

  Rule #75, quit whining and play like a champion! Vince Vaughn - Wedding Crashers Posted Jul 19 2005, 07:43 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Movies

• What to do the Goa'uld, the Wraith, and the Cylons have in common? Nothing, except...

  Sci-Fi Friday! Tonight, my favorite shows on television premiere (with the exception of Survivor ;)! Stargate: SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica all begin their new seasons (9, 2, 2 respectively) tonight at 8PM on the Sci-Fi channel. SG-1 looks to be the most interesting for tonight because there have been some major changes in the cast. Both Ben Browder and Claudia Black from Farscape have joined the cast as well as Louis Gossett Jr. Farscape was one of the best and most original sci-fi shows of all time so I really look forward to the new cast additions! I don't see how this season could go wrong and I see no reason why they couldn't continue to do the show as long as the story stays compelling. The only disappointment for me is that Richard Dean Anderson is being phased out of the show. I read it was his decision but the character will definitely be missed...I mean a space McGuyver for christs sake...can't beat that! Atlantis is a great show in its own right and last seasons finale left with quite the cliff hanger so I'm really looking forward to that as well. For this season, I do hope they can make some minor character adjustments though because I just don't know how much more i can take of the Rodney McKay character played by David Hewlett. I like the character and the actor but they just need to tone him down a bit..I mean, if the viewers can't put up with him then how the hell do his co atlantians ;) Galactica had a crazy last season which doesn't appear to be letting up this season at all. The story seems solid so far so I'm really looking for them to start filling in the plot for the shows main villains, the Cylons. Their agenda seems like its starting to become apparent (if that makes sense) so I hope they jump right on that with tonight's episode. I know they will because that was some cliff hanger! Adama shot by Boomer 2, Boomer 1 is pregnant, and the army of Boomer's was destroyed by Boomer 2...wtf did I just say?? You'll have to watch to find out! Posted Jul 15 2005, 10:53 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Personal, Rants

• Real Men of Genius, except for the Bud Light

  << Real Men of Genius These are some damn funny commercials and I had no idea there were 79 of them! I've listened to about 5 of them so far and was laughing out loud. Check it out... Posted Jul 12 2005, 09:47 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Beer, Rants

• Useful beta 2 links and feeds

  Since .net 2.0 documentation is not the easiest to find, i just wanted to post some links that I've found very useful. The feed links below are also a great way to get the latest and greatest coming out of msdn. MSDN Asp.net Beta 2 Developer Center Official Visual Studio 2005 documentation Visual Studio 2005 Developer Center Beta 2 Go Live license .Net Framework downloads and resources What's new is c# 2.0 Asp.net 2.0 client call back Asp.net Data source controls Feeds http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/rss.xml http://msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/rss.xml http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/rss.xml Posted Jul 11 2005, 09:17 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Software

• FeedBurner and Wookie blog extension

  I finally checked out FeedBurner after a few friends recommended it to me and I was pretty impressed by it. So impressed that i replaced all the feed links on this blog site to now point to my burned feed. The service itself is free and once signed up you can add all sorts of content to your re-syndicated feed as well as keep track of basic feed statistics and even a premium stats service if your willing to pay (which I'm not). Ultimately, the best features is that your feed becomes truly portable. If I were to shut down my blog site tomorrow and start using blogger.com, all I would have to do is change a setting on FeedBurners web site; no subscribers of the feed would be affected by the change over. Theres a lot more so check it out for yourself, pretty cool stuff... And since my feed and site will have some new features, it prompted me to make some more changes to my little blog extension project. So, the so called final release i posted a couple of days ago I'm now calling RC1 and this new build will be the final...for serious ;).. for the change log, check out the announcement in the forums. And heres a couple of new screens; I basically just cleaned up some stuff and added a few new features. Configuratin Publicize Tab Edit Entry stand-alone mode w/ new options Posted Jul 08 2005, 11:33 AM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Software, Wookie

• Hello, Consumers? My interweb is down...

  + Google Invests in Power-Line Broadband   fsterman writes "ZDNet reports that Current Communications Group has received investment money from Google, Hearst, and Goldman Sachs for their internet over broadband ventures. The Wall Street Journal reports that the three companies invested roughly $100 million in the start-up. Current Communications and Cinergy Broadband said they will create one joint venture to bundle broadband and voice services for Cinergy's 1.5 million customers. Current also has plans to use the new investment money to I wish I could find the article but I just read a while back that broadband over power lines was basically dead due to major technical hurdles and poor QoS. If Google seems to think there is still an opportunity there I say go for it...I would love another alternative for broadband access and I just don't see wireless as a viable and reliable alternative yet, especially for my hosting and up time requirements. The only tried and true solution for telecommuters and small business in my area is still DSL. Cable just cant match the speed and reliability that i receive with my current service. Posted Jul 08 2005, 01:27 AM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Hardware, Rants

• Farm that ***!

  << MMORPG Sweatshops That is some crazy ***! people should definitely think about that the next time they order up 300 gold on a farm site. I remember reading a while ago that sony was going to begin embracing the sale if in-game goods for real currency but i'm not sure when; I believe it will be for Everquest II and others. For me, farming has definitely become noticeable on the WoW server i play on; cost for items has literally gone up 4-500%. For example, I recently sold a high level epic necklace for a reasonable price of 100g, but i noticed immediately after my auction ended that it was re-listed for 400g. So the farmers are purposefully inflating the economy in an effort to sell more gold! It may sound like a minor problem but its becoming a real pain in the ass. Posted Jul 07 2005, 12:44 AM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Gaming, Rants

• IBlogExtension Interface

  public interface IBlogExtension {    // Name of plug-in, suitable for display to a user     string DisplayName { get; }        // return true if plug-in has configuration settings     bool HasConfiguration { get; }        // Return true if an editing GUI will be shown to the     // user when BlogItem is called. In this case, the     // aggregator will not display its own editing UI.     bool HasEditingGUI { get ; }        // Display configuration dialog to user, if applicable     void Configure(IWin32Window parent);        // Post item to weblog. If plug-in is going to show a     // GUI for editing, it should return true to HasEditingGUI().     void BlogItem(IXPathNavigable rssFragment, bool edited); } Posted Jul 06 2005, 10:36 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: .Net, Blogs, OpenSource, Coding, Software, cSharp

• dotNetWookie Blog Ext Final

  Well, as final is its going to get anyway. A lot of stuff has changed since beta 2 so you can check the complete list of changes as well as the download links in the blog extension forum. This new version fully supports posting blog entries and articles from any IBlogExtension enabled RSS aggregator to Community Server 1.1 and .Text .95. I've personally only tested with the dotNetWookie CS blog site but it should work with any installation once configured properly. It's also been a while since I've tested the .Text implementation but the code is a replica from the original plug-in so it should work just fine. I was also going to add metaweblog api support to this but I just didn't have the time to implement it right now, besides, I'm probably the only one using this damn thing anyway ;) Heres are some screen shots from RssBandit: Context Menu Configuration Dialog Edit Dialog in Design Mode Edit Dialog in Edit Mode Edit Dialog Template List RSS Fragment Dialog Spell Check Dialog Posted Jul 06 2005, 09:49 PM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Software, Wookie

• If you can't shoot em', sneeze on em'

  << 'War' Blasts Off to $77.1M Debut Weekend (AP) I saw it over the weekend and overall it was a pretty good movie. The acting was solid and the effects, especially the sound, were top shelf. My only problems with the movie were the scientific plot holes. I mean, how could this advanced race which planned invasion for a very long time, have overlooked a simple immunity to our planets microscopic organisms?? if they were truly planning on consuming our air and water supply during invasion they would have certainly analyzed both before putting troops on the ground. I suppose you may just have to chalk that up to old school science fiction, given that the story was written 100 years ago, it just seemed a little far fetched to me. The fact is, everyone was going to die and there is nothing anyone could have done about it...but that would have made for a shitty ending ;) After all, if a disease can't kill them, then a computer virus implanted in the mothership on july 4th certainly can! Posted Jul 06 2005, 03:21 AM by Chris Kirby with no comments Filed under: Personal, Rants