After installing this cool new Windows Media Center plugin, "Movie Browser", I noticed that its data store uses a proprietary XML schema, so I wrote a quick and dirty console app to generate the XML data file based on a common directory structure containing MyMovies.xml files used by My Movies and many other plugins. Of course, the developer has said he will eventually support the MyMovies.xml format, but until then...

The app was written in .NET using Visual C# 2008 Express Edition (using LINQ and other 3.0 stuff if you're a developer type). You can download a copy of the source or the .exe directly. It requires .NET 3.5. And the usual disclaimer...the app was only tested on my machine using my movie collection. It is not supported, it may hose your machine, YMMV, etc....blah, blah, blah.

To run the app, open a cmd window (run as administrator on Vista) and type something like the following. It will create a backup of the output file if it already exists.

MovieBrowserMetadataTranslator.exe "C:\\MovieCollection\\" "C:\\Windows\\ehome\\MovieBrowser\\Recent.xml"

Enjoy!

I have been using MS Outlook and some form of a synchronized PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) to manage my calendar for a long time (probably since Office 95 and the original Palm Pilot).Recently my wife expressed an interest in moving to a digital based calendar.Since she didn't have a strong preference for what type of software to use, I began exploring a solution that would provide her an easy transition while allowing us both to view each other's calendars.My exploration led me to here, here, and here.I eventually arrived at the following setup.We first setup my wife with Google Calendar.It provides a very nice, easy to use, Web 2.0 user experience.

Since I use Outlook to manage my calendar, I needed the ability to view her Google calendar.Outlook 2007 has very nice support for Internet Calendars.I used the Internet Calendars tab under Tools/Account Settings to add a subscription to my wife’s Google calendar using the URL provided by Google under Calendar settings/Private Address.This process is further described here.Using the ICAL format, Outlook can consume a Google calendar and display it in side by side mode or overlay mode as seen here and here.

The next step was to provide access to my Outlook calendar from within Google calendar.It appears that only options Outlook provides for sharing calendars are through publishing to Office Online and publishing to a WebDAV server.Since my current hosting provider doesn’t support WebDAV and I didn’t want to manage my own, I looked at publishing to Office Online.This seems to be a nice solution for sharing a calendar with other folks on Office Online, or if one wishes to provide public access to their calendar.Since I only wanted to share my calendar with my wife and preferred a solution that better integrated with Google calendar, I tried Nagarro’s SyncMyCal product (hint – if you’re installing on Windows Vista, make sure you use the “Run as Administrator” option to avoid the .NET PolicyException).SyncMyCal uses the Google calendar APIs to provide synchronization services between Outlook Calendar and Google Calendar.I created a Google calendar for myself and setup SyncMyCal to automatically upload my Outlook calendar to it periodically.Since my calendar is now in Google, my wife can use the Google sharing features to view our calendars side by side or overlaid (very similar to Outlook’s features). This seems to work pretty well so far.Now, my wife can view my calendar side by side with hers using Google calendar and I can view her calendar side by side with mine in Outlook.

As others have noted, I was surprised that, with as much technology that exists today, there is still so much implicit knowledge required to get this solution to work.

I just installed the Windows Live Search for Mobile app on my T-Mobile MDA. It is VERY cool. It appears to do pretty much everything Virtual Earth Mobile does, but also adds map integration with its generic web searching. So I can finally use my phone to search for something and then get an interactive map to locate it.

Microsoft's Virtual Earth now has some interesting "3D" (really 2 1/2 D) features.  Pretty neat.

I totally agree with Chris Sells regarding phone support.  I was quite pleased with my Pocket PC phone, which at the time I purchased it, was running the Windows Mobile 2003 OS.  After some time (probably a few months), Microsoft released Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition.  Naturally, I wanted to upgrade my phone to the new OS release, which had major usability enhancements.  I would have no problem spending more money to purchase the OS upgrade (assuming it was reasonably priced, ie. cheaper than buying a new phone).  I totally ran into a brick wall with all of my attempts to upgrade.  The phone's hardware manufacturer directed me to the cell provider, and the cell provider directed me to the manufacturer.  With phones increasingly becoming more like PCs, a better support model is much needed.

The Windows Live Mail team just released support for Firefox 1.5.  The AJAX-style UI is very snappy and very slick!  I'm really lovin' it.  Now I just need to find a Windows Live gadget for Yahoo mail so that I can see all my mail in one place.  I wonder what Windows Live Desktop Mail beta will really be like?

Microsoft has put the Consolas font family out for download.  These will be some of the fonts used in the next version of Windows (Vista).  They look really nice!  Note that they are ClearType fonts (you must have ClearType enabled for them to look good).

Lutz Roeder's tool, Reflector, now supports reading local variable names from PDB files.  Awesome stuff!  Get it here.

I know, I know…it’s a two year old dinosaur, but my Pocket PC Phone Edition still meets my needs and T-Mobile has yet to come out with their next Windows Mobiledevice.

I am still overall very pleased with the functionality of my handheld.  Things I like:

• Great synchronization with the Windows platform
• Expandable memory with SD/MMC cards
• Great for listening to podcasts (using Windows Media Player)
• The phone works well
• I always know what traffic is like
• I always have access to my RSS feeds

The only complaint is that since its Internet access is built on GPRS technology, it can be a bit slow.  Hence, the purpose of this post.

I’ve gotten into RSS and have been reading a collection of RSS feeds for about a year now.  I did some research and tried out a number of RSS reader apps built for the Pocket PC platform.  Many of them required heavy use of a network connection, some required a subscription fee and others just plain stunk.  And then I found Bloglines.  Aside from their main site, Bloglines has a fantastic site tailored for a handheld sized web browser.  Not only is the web interface easy to use, it is lightening fast!  Their PDA site is, by far, the quickest loading site I’ve used over my GPRS connection which makes navigating my feeds quite nice.

I’ve been using RSS Popper to ready my RSS feeds in Outlook, which advertises synchronization with a Bloglines account.  I tried it out and the synchronization is weak.  In fact I didn’t really find it useful at all.  RSS Popper is not to blame though since the Bloglines web services API is not very rich.  So I use RSS Popper as my primary feed reader and then when I’m done reading all my feeds I use a .NET command-line process that I wrote that tells Bloglines (via HTTP GET) to mark all feeds as read (can’t seem to find the code around, so I’ll try to post that later).  At any rate, the system is definitely not perfect but it works fairly well and allows me to read my feeds wherever I am (or at least wherever T-Mobile has coverage).

Interesting analysis of popular music patterns and what makes "good" music.

Thanks to Aaron Stebner's post, I was able to easily get Visual Studio .NET 2005 to provide IntelliSense (based on XSD) for custom XML files. The best approach seems to be dropping a new schema catalog file along with the referenced XSD file(s) into the %VsInstallDir%/xml/schemas/ directory. It appears that VS monitors this directory for changes. This approach is nice because it doesn't involve updating any of the default VS installation.

Anders has a good article on how to exclude generated .NET code from code coverage analysis using a tool called IL Merge.  This solution apparently is not supported in VB.NET.

Wow!  This year's BCS championship Rose Bowlgame was one of the best I've seen in a while!  Flashbacks to FSU's Charlie Ward in the early nineties came to mind as I watched Texas' Vince Young tear it up and almost single-handedly beat the Trojans.  If you like football, that was a great one!

Check out the new "Bird's Eye" photography in the new beta of Windows Live Local.  The resolution is amazing and the ability to change the viewing angle is very cool.  It seems like the drag/drop functionality should automatically move to the next frame, but it is still in beta afterall.  Ah...home sweet home!

Finally, someone got it right...

Since I typically spend most of my time during the day on a computer and I spent time in college studying the field of ergonomics, I'm naturally a big fan of ergonomic keyboards.  I bought an ergonomic keyboard from CompUSA about 6 years ago that I really liked...of course 6 years later when the time to replace the keyboard is long past overdue, I surprisingly had a lot of trouble finding an ergonomic keyboard that I liked with all of the keys in the correct places.  Instead of retraining my hands to adjust to new key placements, I held out for one that was comfortable and used all the standards, and I'm glad I did.  I've been using Microsoft's new Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 for a couple of weeks now and I must say that I'm impressed.  It's got a soft wristpad and a bunch of keys at the top that I probably won't use but overall I really like it.

I first heard about FolderShare from Scott, but was busy (planning a wedding, you know) and didn't have time to look at it.  Yesterday, Brenton reminded me about it and so I installed it.  I must say I was impressed...the install was quite smooth and it worked very well!  I was a bit apprehensive at first about the security implications, but I'm starting to get more comfortable with it since it appears to be a true peer-to-peer solution.  It will be interesting to see what Microsoft ends up doing with it.

It's also a nice solution to the age-old "synching internet bookmarks problem" that I'm sure all web users have had in the past (I had been using ActiveSync with two computers as a solution).  I really like the idea of using it as a common place for family members (mine happen to be in various geographic locations across the country) to upload their digital photos.  Now, if I can only get my wife to use it :)

OK, I've finally got a chance to blog about my really exciting news.  So hear it is...I am now a married man!!!  I married Lindsey Nicole VanderWoude on October 15, 2005 in her home town of Birmingham Alabama.  She is an incredible woman!  The wedding was awesome...meaningful ceremony, fun reception and adventuresome honeymoon.  Hopefully photos will come soon (trying to determine the best way to present them).  I am excited about the journey ahead.

Today at work I came across some new APIs in Whidbey that I found to be quite useful when dealing with generic types.  System.Type.IsGenericType and System.Type.GetGenericTypeDefinition().  Have you ever wondered how to reflect if an object's type is a specific generic type definition (wait...is that any oxymoron :))?

Suppose we have some generic code:

class Foo {}

staticvoid Main(string[] args) {
  System.Collections.Generic.List<Foo> fooList =new System.Collections.Generic.List<Foo>();  
}

and now we want a method of determining at runtime if the object, fooList is a generic list:

static void Main(string[] args) {
  System.Collections.Generic.List<Foo> fooList =new System.Collections.Generic.List<Foo>();
  Console.WriteLine(IsObjectGenericList(fooList));
}

static bool IsObjectGenericList(object o) {
  Type t = o.GetType();
  return (t.IsGenericType && t.GetGenericTypeDefinition().Equals(typeof(System.Collections.Generic.List<>)));
}

I found these APIs useful when working with various generic types in my system.  For more information on this subject, look here.

So I went to the Coldplay concert last night in Atlanta at the Philips Arena. I was impressed with the way they sounded live compared to their recordings. Since the lead singer was on mostly on the piano, it wasn't as entertaining as other concerts I've been to, but it was still cool nonetheless. I used my phone to record the last couple minutes of the finale song and I thought I'd post it for fun, so...here it is.  Enjoy!

I'm pleased to announce that I'm officially a homeowner!  I bought a townhouse in the Vinings (Sminings) area of Atlanta.   I closed the deal last Monday and moved in this past weekend.  The move was rough (isn't it always), but I'm really excited about living there.  Here are some photos of Lindsey and I looking at it before we decided to buy.

Wow, it's finally here!  Stereoscopy brought to an LCD display with NO GLASSES!!!  It looks like Sharp is now selling autostereoscopic displays (for the 3D layman, this is like watching a 3D IMAX at home without the use of glasses).

I would love to have the opportunity to check out one of these and see how good it really is.  It's just a matter of time before someone will be selling a 3D digital video camera that integrates directly with the software and the display.  It now looks like my custom-built 3D camera and viewer has already become obsolete.  Wow, this technology could really revolutionize the world of multimedia.

Insightful article on Java Generics from Ken Arnold.  I like the idea of a "complexity budget".  I have certainly been involved with projects where I wish the design complexity could have been quantified and budgeted.  As far as generics go, my own view is that there are a limited number of use cases for writing generic code.  Generics may possibly help simplify some complex design pattern implementations.  I can only see, at least for now, a limited number of common patterns expressed generically.  Trying too hard to leverage a "one size fits all" approach to programming will lead to the production of more complex and sloppier code.  To developers who are considering using generics - please use sparingly!

Well, I ran my first road race with Lindsey on Saturday.  It was the GA-400 Road Race which is a four mile loop through the heart of Buckhead (quite hilly I might add).  I haven't been running long, in fact this was only the second time I've ever run four miles (I did run five miles once...I usually just do 5Ks).  We actually did quite well.  We finished the race together in 35:17 (which averages just under 9 minute miles).  This was a personal record for me :)  I had such a good time I may actually consider doing it again sometime.  I was also very proud of Lindsey.  She finished 50th of all the women registered (about 500 I think).  She's a fantastic running partner!

I'm posting this from my favorite local coffee shop. I love resting on Sunday afternoons!

This is big news!

Recently I posted about password management and proposed PasswordMinder for managing your passwords.  The current gap I mentioned in my post is that my passwords are not available on my PDA (without a decoding app which I probably won't develop). 

I discovered another solution which I think may trump PasswordMinder (at least for web apps).  Nic Wolff has a neat solution that generates a password based on an MD5 hash of a master password (similar to the concept in PasswordMinder) and a site name (note that this is a one-way hash so the master password cannot be derived from the site name and the generated password). 

The neat thing about this solution is that it is javascript based so any device that supports javascript can generate passwords using this technique.  I've copied the script to my server and as an off-line .html file on my PC/PDA so that I can effectively get at my passwords from any device (whether connected to the web or not).  The other beautiful thing about this solution (if you're a Firefox user) is that it is available as a Greasemonkey script and a Firefox extension, which provide great browser integration.  Since the majority of the applications I need passwords for are web-based, this is likely the solution that I'll adopt.  Now all I need is seemless integration for Windows apps...hmm...can you say PasswordComposer.NET?

I've finally upgraded my blogging engine to dasBlog 1.7.5016.1.  I must say the upgrade process was very straightforward and I am quite pleased with the new features in this version.  At some point I am planning on upgrading the look and feel of this site.  The themes and templates in dasBlog are pretty slick and I've found it very easy to create new themes (CSS mostly).  I have yet to find any good dasBlog theme libraries on the net, so I will publish some of the ones I've created (for other blogs).

These new human-powered hydrofoils look pretty fun.  It's interesting how more and more renditions of the hydrofoil keep showing up in this next generation of water sports.  If you don't read the article, at least check out the video.

For those of you [non-geeks] (I am not one since I saw it on opening day) who are planning on seeing Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith but are in need of a refresher (because it has either been too long since you've seen the others or you just plain forgot what is was about), you can find a humorous one here.

I really like the design behind Keith Brown's PasswordMinder tool for managing the plethora of passwords one needs to survive in today's dangerous digital on-line world.  Has anyone ported this to the Windows Mobile platform?  I'd really like to have secure access to my passwords on my PDA/phone.  This may end up being the app that finally brings my development experience into the .NET compact framework world.

From the Pluralsight tools page:

[PasswordMinder is a] Utility for securely managing, generating, and retrieving passwords on your machine. Protected by a central password, this utility simplifies using good passwords in all websites and applications that require them.

I needed a tool to manipulate file names and ID3 tag data on mp3 files.  I found ID3-TagIT which did exaclty what I needed.  It's free and written in .NET.  Very nice.

A few folks have asked me about my home recording setup so I've finally got around to posting about it.  I should note that this is a very old setup but has worked quite well for me over the years (hope to upgrade my home setup soon).  Most people think you need high-end hardware to get a good quality recording on your PC...not true.  Arguably, the most important component in PC home recording is a good sound card with a good analog to digital converter (ADC).

Here's a link to a schematic I put together.

Specs:

• AMD Athlon 900Mhz
• 256M RAM
• 60Gig Hard Drive
• Win2k Pro OS
• Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card (18 bit ADC / 20 bit DAC)
• Mackie Micro Series 1202 12-Channel Mixer
• Fostex 3-piece speakers (w/sub)

Four members of the Microsoft CLR team (Brad Abrams, Jason Zander, Kit George, and Claudio Caldato) have come to Atlanta this week to visit customers, gather feedback, promote the .NET community and share vision and direction.

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet these guys and I must say that they are all a class act. These guys are not only very cerebral, they are very cool as well. I want to thank them for caring about the users of their work and being willing to be open and giving of themselves. Thanks for coming guys...keep up the great work!

For those of you living in Georgia, I would highly recommend checking out the Georgia Navigator website.  It has been nicely updated since I last visited.  It allows you to customize your view of the areas you're interested in including updated camera views, signs, accidents, trip times, etc.  Another bonus feature...customized email traffic updates.  I used my T-Mobile SMS email address and I now I receive the updates on my phone.  I'll let you know how it works out.

I'm almost ready for a home media server.  When I have more time I'm going to evaluate Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (ie. talk to Michael Earls) or consider building one myself (I admin it...I'm a geek).

I've just discovered (thanks Glen) that Georgia Navigator has a PDA version of their site.  Now I can get live traffic updates wherever I am (using my T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone and its GPRS capabilities)...woohoo!  Here's a sample of the realtime traffic cameras.

I agree with Aaron Skonnard's thoughts on the contract-driven approach to SO development. I especially enjoyed Joel Spolsky's comments on leaky abstractions. He's right that in some sense, being a proficient programmer is becoming more and more difficult (especially in terms of troubleshooting/debugging) with the increasing number of leaking abstractions we're building on top of.

I've often struggled with how to address all of the various abstraction boundaries when I've taught programming classes (ASP.NET being the king-of-abstractions). How many layers down do the students really need to grasp in order to become good developers (really all the way down to the TCP/IP stack, but there's never enough time).

Anyway...Aaron, nice comments on the much belabored "contract-first/code-first" debate.

Check out some of the videos of one of my software heros, a distinguished engineer at Microsoft, Anders Hejlsberg.

Here's another one of the crazy videos.  The end makes it worth it :)

I wanted to share this quote I recently came across from poet and professor Stanley Wiersma (good Dutch name ;):

"When you are too sure about God and faith, you are sure of something other than God: of dogma, of the church, of a particular interpretation of the Bible. But God cannot be pigeonholed. We must press toward certainty, but be suspicious when it comes too glibly."

I did it...I finally got engaged!  I asked the girl of my dreams to marry me.  We took a trip to Miami to visit my parents and I asked her to be my wife on the beach.  Here are the photos.  Enjoy :)

I've been playing with Whidbey (VS.NET 2005) for a couple of days now and just found this new feature.  I must say I'm quite impressed.  Microsoft has made it so easy to debug code that now we really have no excuse for writing bugs into our software :)

Have you ever been at a place in life where you've felt so fortunate and blessed to the point where good stuff is piled on top of other good stuff, higher and higher?  I've found myself in a similar place recently and I have been doing some reflection about that.

Some of the things I'm enjoying in life right now are somewhat an indirect result of some good decisions I've made and some hard work on my part; but when I really stop and consider and reflect upon the origin of how I was able to achieve these things, my thoughts continue to turn to a mysterious divine being.

I'm not one who subscribes to the prosperity gospel's idea that if you do X (have enough faith, give money, follow all of the rules) then you will get Y.  Please don't get me wrong...I believe there are general truths and principals at work in this world that, in general if followed, result in pre-determined outcomes.  But life experience tells me that this is not always the case.  In addition, it is just plain cruel to tell a person suffering from a terrible disease that if they only had enough faith, then they would be healed.  Sometimes bad things happen and there is no valid explanation.

I'm all for enjoying the good things that come along in life, but when the good things are really good, things that greatly exceed your expectations...in fact things that are better than anything you've hoped and dreamed for...what then?  How come these things don't truly satisfy?  Why is there a hole in my soul that doesn't ever seem to be fully satisfied by attaining great stuff in life?

So my thoughts turn to the divine.  A God who is good...who I reach out to in faith...believing that this supreme being has the answer to my questions...that this person has what it takes to fill the hole, to provide true, real meaning in a world that tries to tell me that nothing is real, that nothing is absolute and that truth does not exist.  A God who provides ultimate comfort and security.

My heart is filled with gratitude as I look to the one who is good, full of love and longs to provide good things to His people.  I can only hope to take good care of the things I have received knowing that when I die I cannot take these things with me but they are important enough now to be entrusted to me.  I am grateful.