Dell 24-inch Flat Panel LCD Monitor

Dell is selling UltraSharp 2405FPW 24-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD Monitor. It sells for just over a $1000. I am trying to wipe the drool from my chin while I write this.

Crystal and laser chandelier.

Over at MoCo Loco they have pictures of an interesting chandelier. I have never seen a chandelier like it before. I not sure what room in my house I should put it. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Best of SQL Server Central Ebooks

Red Gate has released the ebooks 'Best of SQL Server Central' ebooks. The books are a collection of essay and tips from the SQL Server Community. I have done a quick scan of the books there are some really goods tips and tricks in her.

Tech Books

I am always looking for technology books so when I hit the site http://www.freetechbooks.com/. When you normally pay $50 for a tech book the idea of a free sounds great. I just did a quick review. Some of the information is a bit dated but still useful. It looks like I will be spending some time with this site over the next few weeks.

Pragmatic Wiki

First there was the book The Pragmatic Programmer, now there is the wiki Pragmatic Wiki.

The pragmatic programmer is a great book that every developer should read. I borrowed a friends copy, one of these days I am going to buy it. The book is not about programming but about the craft of programming. These are the tools that master programmers have in their tool belt.

Text Editors

I am looking for a good text editor that I can use at home. The text editor must support regular expressions, have a lot of keyboard shortcut, perform syntax highlighting for multiple languages, handle a wide range of files and have a low cost.

If you know of one please let me know.

Here are some text editors that I have so far. I have not evaluated any of these items yet.

• AEdiX - free
• Note Tab - $
• PsPad - free
• TextPad - $
• ConTEXT - free
• UltraEdit - $
• Crimson Editor - free
• EditPad - $
• EmEditor - $
• Syn Text Editor - free
• Edit Plus - $
• Notepad2 - free
• Notepad++ - free

USB Flash Drive

Engadget is running this article about 8GB Mini USB flash drive. I hope this device hits the market soon.

Learning C# the fun way

Microsoft is giving us a way to learn C# and write a video game at the same time. Microsoft what be web casting this series in May.

A little about Generics in VB.NET

I came across this great article 'New Feature in VB.NET - Generics'. It explains in basic terms why I should be interested in Generics: Type Safety, Performance and Code Reuse.

Web Host Provider

Hostoly has a list of web hosting providers. Most the providers listed have rates under $10 per month.

Hybrid Hard Drive

Engadget has a nice article on a new hard drive. This hard drive combines a flash buffer with a hard drive. The theory says that increase speed and reduce power consumption. This is the first step towards creating a solid state hard drive.

Readability Test

Over at Juicy Studio the have a readability test you can ran against your website to help determine the readability of your writing. The site also includes information about the readability and readability tests.

IBM and the Tablet PC

IBM is getting into the Tablet PC business. You can read the InfoWorld article here. A quick search of IBM's website comes with more infomation. WIth IBM entering this part of the market place should help drive price down and increase the feature set.

Update: Goes on sale June 14th with a starting price of $1,899.

Aercoool Cool-Panel

Now there is no reason to climb under your desk to plug in cables.

The Aerocool “Cool-Panel” multi-functional panel is a new extreme “3-module” product comes with multi-slot card reader, thermal indicator LCD and multi I/O panel.

The multi-slot card reader supports: Compact Flash Type I/II, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo Pro, Smart Media, SD, Multi Media Card.

Mashup: Four Tops vs Weird Al

I heard this mashup today 'Ebay I Need Your Lovin'. Weird Al's Ebay song blended with the Motown classic "Baby I Need Your Loving" by the Four Tops. You can find a copy of it here.

This is a great tune. You need to hear it.

Visual Studio Hacks

Following the book Visual Studio Hacks there is a website for Visual Studio Hacks. I can not talk about the book because I haven't read it. I can talk about he website. The site have some good tools. I use several of the tools listed on the site and have started other tools.

Test-Driven Development

A few months back I got hooked on Test-Driven Development (TTD). Over at testdriven.com you can find the article 'Improving Application Quality Using Test-Driven Development (TDD)'. This article covers the basics of getting started with TTD. All the code is in C# and it uses NUnit for the testing framework.

I found unit testing to helpful in learning a new programming language. This sounds a little weird but it really works. I am able the break the new language down into small parts and test results as I go. I spend more time researching the language and less time writing code the doesn't work.

How to podcast

I just came across this article 'How to podcast in three (relatively) easy steps'. The article is rather old as internet time measures it but the article covers the basics at a fairly high level.

Threading in .NET

Code Project is running the article 'Understand Threading in .NET'. The article covers the fundamentals of Threading and gets into some advance topics.

Developer's Notebook Series

O'Reilly has series out called "Developer's Notebook". I think that this a neat series.

"The Developer's Notebook series is for early adopters of leading-edge technologies who want to get up to speed quickly on what they can do now with emerging technologies. If you're a coder down to your core, and just want to get on with the job, then you want a Developer's Notebook. Coffee stains and all, these books are from the minds of developers to yours, barely cleaned up enough for print." - http://devnotebooks.oreilly.com/ website.

Here are a few books in the series.

• Excel 2003
• Hibernate
• Java 5.0 Tiger
• Mono
• SWT
• Visual Basic 2005
• C# 2005

Website on Design

I came across the Denoy.com website today. This site has several articles on design, animation, digital art and photo editing. There is a lot of good information here.

Resources for Add-In Developers

MZ Tools has a great list of recoruces for the Add-In developer. They also have some interesting add-ins. I am going to have to spend some time here.

One more Data Drive you need

It appears that you can combine a USB Data Drive with just about anything.

Flashlist USB Data Drive

Cheat Sheets for IT

Over at SearchSMB.com the have a list of IT Cheat Sheets. I have checked out a couple of the cheat sheets. There is some really code information over here.

More on Learning C#

The C# videos page is where the C# Team puts all their favorite content. I have yet to begin working through the content.

System Configuration Utility for WindowsXP

I got this tip from my friend James. WindowsXP comes with a System Configuration Utility msconfig.exe. You can use this tool to modify a WindowsXP system configuration through a set of check boxes. Two of the tabs that jump right out at me is the Services and Startup. Services tells you what services are setup on you machine and its status. The Startup tab shows the items that your machine wants to start automatically. This is one was of getting rid of items that automatically startup.

For more information visit:
How to use MSCONFIG over at NetSquirrel.com
MSCONFIG over are NetworkClue.com

Scuba Review / Scuba Tune-up

Last night I attended the PADI Scuba Review / Scuba Tune-up class. It has been about 10 years since I was last in the water. This class was a great way of getting back into Scuba. We spent the first part of the class reviewing the dive tables and reviewed safety information. The rest of the class was spent in the pool, we reviewed and practiced several fundamental skills like recovering your regulator, clearing your mask, replacing your mask, proper descent and ascent, removal and replacement of weights, giant stride entry and buoyancy control.

I found the class to be helpful. This was a great way of reviewing the basic skills without slowing down other divers. I am ready to go diving.

Run Defrag from the command line

In WindowsXP you can run the defrag program from the command line. One of the reasons you will want to use the command line in stead of the GUI is that the GUI takes up a lot to resources.

The command line parameters are:
defrag [-a] [-f] [-v] [-?]
volume drive letter or mount point (d: or d:\vol\mountpoint)
-a Analyze only
-f Force defragmentation even if free space is low
-v Verbose output
-? Display this help text

Gathering PodCasting Tools and Knowledge

I am thinking about start a Podcast of my own. I am still working on the details and it may take a while before I produce the first show.

Here is some basic information that I have found so far.

From Jake Ludington's blog
Recording a Podcast - This article talks about using Audacity and the basic tools you need to get started.
Configuring Audacity and Lame MP3 - I don't need to say more.
Publishing a Podcast - Some of the steps that you should do before publishing a podcast

Start Something PC ???

I came across this link http://www.startsomethingpc.com/. The site right now is a teaser to get you to come back. There is a video on the site you can watch but no real clues as to what is coming. We need to check back on the 25 April 2005.

Firefox 1.0.3 is now available

On 15 April 2005, Mozilla has released Firefox 1.0.3. This release includes some security fixes and an improved the update process.

I have installed Firefox on my primary machine and have not encountered any problems.

GIMP 2.2.6 has been release

On 10 April 2005, an updated version of GIMP has been released. The GIMP went from 2.2.4 to 2.2.6 so there is a fair number of fixes.

You can download the new release here.

The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program.

Book Review: Expert One-on-One Visual Basic .NET Business Objects

I just finished reading Rockford Lhotka’s book Expert One-on-One Visual Basic .NET Business Objects. This is a book that every VB.NET developer should own. The book breaks down into three parts. Part one is a discussion of architecture and technology, in which Rocky lays out framework and the tools needed to build the framework. Part two is building the framework using C# and VB.NET. Part three is an example of how to use the framework that was created.

I am a better programmer after reading this book. I now have a better understanding of how to more effectively use tools I have and how to build better tools in the future. I can see myself referencing this book on future projects.

Apress’ website has the table of contents, source code and an Errata for the book. The Errata has a number of items in it. I also found a C# version of the book.

Author: Rockford Lhotka
Title: Expert One-on-One Visual Basic .NET Business Objects
Publisher: Apress
ISBN: 1-59059-145-3

C# Resources

Need an open source tool to help with you C# project? Give the website Open Source Software in C# a try.

.NET USB Library

IC#Code has release #usblib. SharpUSBLib is used for low level access to USB devices.

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

For a guy that has always lived in the mid-west, I have strange speaking habits.

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

10% Dixie

10% Upper Midwestern

10% Yankee

5% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Google and Da Vinci

You just have to love what Google does with its logo.

In honor of Leonardo Da Vinci Google used this logo.

Scuba Gear

Today I picked up my BC and Regulator. I am scheduled for a Scuba tune up class on Tuesday. I can't wait to hit the water.

Enigma Emulator

Over at Code Project there is a neat article on an 'Enigma emulator in C#'. The article has links to some general information about the Enigma machine.

I like this article because it helps me in learning C# by using a neat peice of history.

Free Offer for Visual Basic Users

Real Software has a great offer for Visual Basic Users.

Check it out at http://www.realsoftware.com/realbasic/vb6/index.php?id=KGLMGTQV

Learning C#

I am in the process of learning C#. I came across this neat little chart that compares C# to VB.NET. The chart can be found on the ASPAlliance.com website.

Here is a link to the C# And VB.NET Cheet Sheet