Shut-Up and Smile

… when the Internet is just the best. It’s Friday night. I’m working on some code to program Hyper-V (more post to come on this). As I’m working, I’m channel surfing the television. I end up on CBS about 1/2 way through a show called Flashpoint. The show sucks me in. At the end of the episode, The Fortress, there’s a song playing. I like it. Naturally, I start searching to see if I can figure out who sings it, etc.

Sure enough, the song is called "Weightless (Who is to Say)" by a band called Black Lab. The song is on their album Passion Leaves a Trace (warning: album cover might not be safe for work). Visit their site to have a listen to a 90 second clip.

Thank you Internet for working tonight just the way I want.

End of line.

It’s here. In my hands (OK, it’s really next to me since I am typing). In all it’s glory. I’ve got the previous four editions. I know I’ll love this one as I did those before it. It’s big and hard bound. 1,232 pages including the index. You can get it from amazon.com for $44.09.

Sadly there’s a little cloud with my joy. The impending release of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 promises to make the book a tiny bit obsolete. But that’s OK. I’ll still really enjoy digging in tonight and beyond.

Thanks Mark and David (and Alex). You’ve ruined any free time I was going to use for more sleep. But again, that’s OK.

End of line.

While the calendar says July 1, 2009, meaning we’re six months from a calendar New Year. I’m happy to report that Microsoft has renewed my MVP status. I appreciate the honor and look forward to another great 12 months working with the VSTS Team and other VSTS MVPs. The next 12 months will be particularly exciting with the forthcoming release of Team System 2010. I can only hope it ships before next summer!

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Last week (March 24 to 27), I was in London for DevWeek. During the week I had dinner with three friends: Ian Griffiths, Matthew Adams, and Felix Corke. During dinner the conversation naturally turned geek. Specifically, WPF. As dinner progressed, the discussion happened about how hard would it be to create a good WPF control library to make it easy to display data based upon dates. Basically, a sort of time line control.

Turns out I’m working on a project (more as it later) that requires such a control. After a bit of taunting (by me), I convinced all three of them to help me build this control library. And once we get a bit along, we’ll look to sharing it out on CodePlex. We’re going to use VSTS, Expression and whatever tools Felix needs to build it. We want it to be both functional as well as good looking. We plan to blog about how we’re getting this going and ultimately the good and bad of building the control. Should be a ton of fun. More to come.

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Recently, Scott Hanselman went to South Africa. When he arrived he ran into passport troubles.

Sadly, I did too back in August of 2008 on my way to South Africa also. I was flying LAX to LHR on United Airlines (UA) and then LHR to JNB and on to DUR on South African Airlines (SAA). Unlike Scott, I had to spend the weekend in London so I could visit the US Embassy to get pages added. Unlike Scott, SAA would not let me get on the plane from LHR (turns out UA should have check also). According to SAA they can get fined for this kind of thing—don’t know if it’s true but that’s what I was told.

Turns out my passport only had 4 blank “squares”. However, SAA said I had to have two blank “pages”. And according to them, the Visa Amendments pages are a no go. Unlike Scott, I was unable to talk my way out of it. Since it was Friday afternoon in London, the US Embassy was already closed so I had to wait until Monday. In doing so I got to Durban, South Africa for Tech Ed on Tuesday at mid-day which messed up a bunch of my talks at Tech Ed South Africa. Sadly, I had asked the folks in South Africa what I needed and they told “a valid passport”. Well, sometimes it’s more than that.

So, a word to the wise: understand a country’s' passport requirements before you go. For example, when I go to speak in Australia, I know I need a business visa. That however is easy since UA does it for me on the phone.

Now the thing about getting pages added is you can do it three times! So if you don’t want (or have time) to get a new passport, you’re good to go. When it is time to get a new passport, one of the cool things you’re allowed to do is request that your old passport is returned. I’ve done this once and it’s a great keepsake.

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Especially if you’re a developer. Larry Osterman wonders why people complain about issues with a server OS when they try and run it as a client OS.

Well Larry, there are logs of reasons.

Well ONE big reason for developers want to do it is that they need to develop server features and only have ONE great/good machine to do it on. Not everyone is lush to have both server dev boxes and client dev boxes.

TWO, some server products, such as SharePoint, have super poor dev experience from the client.

THREE, Hyper-V on Win2K8 is viewed by many to far superior to Virtual PC/Virtual Server for running virtual machines.

It's not such a crazy idea when you live in a world of compromise.

End of line.

Someone asked today so I thought I'd share it here too.

November 24, 2008 Edit
* The SP1 Update should show 1.1.629.0, not 1.1.653.0 as I incorrectly posted earlier.

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Microsoft opened up the kimono today on Press Pass.

The next release of Visual Studio is Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0.

In addition, if you go down the page here, you find some juicy goodness:

"Better Together – Visual Studio Team System Development Edition and Database Edition
In recognition of the increased need to integrate more of the lifecycle members together, we will provide a unified Development and Database product in Visual Studio Team System 2010. Beginning October 1, 2008 Development Edition and Database Edition MSDN subscribers will have access to both products."

Great news!

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One of my passions is virtualization (esp. in the MSFT world).

In July, I did a .NET Rocks show and talked about Hyper-V and more.

Later I also did a Run As Radio show also on virtualization.

Finally in August, Martin Woodward and I did a Team System chat.

Enjoy.

Cross-posted to my Plurslsight blog.

End of line.

On MSDN Subscriber downloads.

A quick look at the Microsoft.com downloads site and I don't see it yet for the .NET Framework 3.5 but I imagine soon.

Update:

.NET Framework SP1 is here.

VS is here .

Thanks to Paolo Barone for the links.

And now TFS is showing up too here.

Wahoo! Congrats from (Tech Ed) South Africa.

As of now it's not on MSDN subscirber downloads.

And as of now the eval is not on Microsoft.com.

But soon baby, soon.

Update: bits are on MSDN Subscriber downloads!

I have a few SanDisk Cruzer USB sticks. One thing that annoys me is the U3 app. I appreciate what they're trying to do ... OK ... wait ...maybe I don't.

 No, really, I just want it off my stick.

Go to SanDisk's site and get their U3 Launchpad Removal Tool.

Happy removal!

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No, not time for He-Man, just time for a mobile hardware upgrade.

I spend a good portion of my time working with virtual machines. And in doing so, I'm always looking for more power when I'm on the road.

This week I was able to make three great updates to my Lenovo T61p.

First, I upgraded my RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB. I had no issues. Just removed the old RAM and installed the new, rebooted and there it was in all its glory. FYI, you won't find 8 GB listed as an option on Lenovo's site yet or on many of the 3rd party RAM sites. However, just about any laptop using an Intel chip that truly supports 4 GB of RAM and uses the Santa Rosa platform or newer should support 8 GB just fine (YMMV).

Second, I upgraded to a new hard drive, Hitachi's 320 GB, 7,200 RPM monster. I always go for the fastest drive, then size. Watch when you go to upgrade your own. Some of the larger drives out there now are 12.5 mm, not the more common 9mm size used in most laptops.

Third, I installed a fresh copy of Window Server 2008 x64 and the RTM version of Hyper-V. Hyper-V is Microsoft's next generation virtualization technology (I'll blog more about it soon and why you care).

Now I just need to upgrade my VSTS VPC to Hyper-V and I'm ready to go.

I got my RAM from Kingston (FYI, it's on sale right now).

I got my hard drive from OWC (Currently has a $30 rebate)

So, get out there and pump some coin into the economy and feel the power.

 End of line.

Cross-posted to my Pluralsight blog.

Yes, it is July 1, 2008. and while it's not the traditional New Year, for me it is for two reasons. First, Microsoft has decided I didn't cause too much trouble over the last 12 months so I get to continue being a VSTS MVP. Thanks! Second, Microsoft starts their new fiscal year which means there's work to get busy on, now!

Speaking of new work this, I'll be doing a VSTS pre-con at the PDC this year in Los Angeles. Over the next few weeks, I'll expand on what I'm going to be talking about so if you're not busy on Sunday, October 26, come on down!

Also, I'll be flying down to South Africa for Tech Ed so if you're going to be in Durban, stop on by and say Hello.