You've reached the internet home of Chris Sells, who has a long history as a contributing member of the Windows developer community. He enjoys long walks on the beach and various computer technologies.
Sunday, Apr 27, 2003, 9:09 AM
Killer Apps Share A Common Thread: Hacker Geeks
Here. Tim O'Reilly pulls out four trends worth watching: Amazon.com web services, ubiquitous 802.11, h/w hacking and online gaming. I'm not sure how far h/w hacking will get us, but the other three I see being big deals. [slashdot.org]
Sunday, Apr 27, 2003, 8:44 AM
Software Legends
Here. From Spencer Harbar: a nice site featuring the usual suspects! - but wasn't it don who did the bathtub SOAP talk? :)
Saturday, Apr 26, 2003, 9:39 PM
How Would You Move Mount Fuji?
Here. William Poundstone interviewed me for this book. I'm still waiting for my free copy...
Friday, Apr 25, 2003, 8:01 PM
My First Week @ MS
Here. The one where I list what I learned my first week at the source of all software.
Friday, Apr 25, 2003, 6:42 AM in .NET
Hippo.NET Build Tool Released
Here. From Jan Tielens: Hippo.NET is a tool for streamlining the build process of .NET projects in a team envirionment. It provides continuous integration by monitoring the shared Visual SourceSafe database and starting the build process when changes are detected. An important design goal is to provide a nice and easy-to-use user interface, to monitor builds and trigger the build process when needed. Now you can download a stable version of this tool, with full source code. Current features are: - Client/server model - Trigger build from remote clients - Implements the build process proposed by Microsoft - Automatic build number updates in AssemblyInfo files - Build history information - Current activity information - Fully configurable - Rich Windows Forms UI
Friday, Apr 25, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
My First Week @ MS
Friday, April 25, 2003
After my first week at Microsoft *everyone* wanted to know how it went, both internally and externally. I learned some things:
- I learned that folks at MS will call a meeting for lots and lots of reasons, including at the slightest sign of confrontation or hurt feelings. For a guy that hasn't really attended a meeting in the last decade, this is quite a switch : )
- I learned how to schedule a meeting w/ multiple people and a conference room (listed as "conf room <bld>" in the address book), all with conflicting schedules and all remotely using Outlook Web Access and without a SmartCard (I was pretty proud of that one, actually : )
- I learned that no one uses the phone for anything -- instead, they schedule meetings
- I learned that it's the person that wants something that does the actually scheduling of the meeting
- I learned that it's OK to open your laptop in a meeting, otherwise when would you get any work done?
- I learned that it causes quite a stir when you disagree with the technical lead of one of the major pieces of technology that you're supposed to be taking to the world
- I learned that it's darn hard to find out who to talk to your first week, and that you should take your boss to most of your initial meetings so that s/he can make sure you're getting what you need to get from them
- I learned that you can mix Exchange and POP3/SMTP to keep your new and your old email addresses going, if you use Office 11 and if you are willing to give up calendar and follow up notifications on your POP3/SMTP account (have I missed something?). I also learned that internal MS support doesn't help w/ such things.
- I learned that internal MS support is the greatest support in the whole darn world. These people don't let you off the phone 'til everything works. They're amazing
- I learned that you can volunteer for absolutely anything you think is cool or important so long as you get everything else done, too
- I learned that it's not good to ask for NDA access to super-secret bits for your friends the week before you start working there (OK, I'm pretty sure I knew that before, but I had to try... : )
- I learned that the right folks hanging out at lunch can make all kinds of interesting things happen
- I learned that MS and it's employees is the most charitable company in the country (world?)
- I learned that the internal resources for MS employees are unbelievable. I could work their my whole life and never take advantage of all of them
- I learned that it's important to sign up for your benefits immediately if you're going to be remote w/o a SmartCard for a while, otherwise your son may wake you up in the middle of the night with a hard toothache and when you take him to the dentist the next day, the dentist won't be able to confirm your dental insurance (as one example : )
- I learned that most everyone at MS is very nice (even when they're telling you to f-off)
- I learned that everyone (and I'm no exception) has a hard time fitting in at first. One interviewer told me that his first 6 months at MS were the worst of his life. I pray that it doesn't last that long for me
- I learned that after the initial period that few that survive it would ever think of leaving. I absolutely see how that could be
Thursday, Apr 24, 2003, 2:38 PM in Tools
NAnt 0.8.2 released
Here. From Matthew Mastracci: NAnt 0.8.2 was recently released. Note that this release has support for both the Microsoft.NET framework v1.1 and Mono. See the download link above or the NAnt homepage: http://nant.sourceforge.net/
Thursday, Apr 24, 2003, 10:24 AM
Imax Plugging 'Matrix' Sequels Into Large Screen
Here. It's not that I don't love close-ups of extreme-sized beavers, but this could run a close 2nd. : )
Wednesday, Apr 23, 2003, 8:53 PM in .NET
Programming WinForms with MC++
Here. Sam Gentile and I wrote a piece on building WinForms apps in MC++ using the new designer support in VS.NET 2003. Unfortunately, it acquired some small errors along the publishing path, e.g. STA does not stand for "spanning three algorithm" in this case. However, the errors are minor and C++ programmers interested in the .NET forms engine should definately take a look.
Wednesday, Apr 23, 2003, 8:46 PM
New MSDN DevCenters
Here. I'm sure that this is all over the web by now, but I couldn't help but congratulate my new team on a wonderful revamp of their most important content into Developer Centers (DevCenters) for architecture, web services, VS, VB, VC++, C#, J#, .NET and Windows Server 2003. It looks great, guys. Congrats!
Wednesday, Apr 23, 2003, 9:13 AM
Edgar Codd dies at 79
Here. Mr. Codd was one of the great ones. His ideas will continue to affect us for the as far into the future as I can imagine. Thank you, Mr. Codd.
Tuesday, Apr 22, 2003, 10:09 PM in Fun
"Software Legend" Silliness
Brad Abrams make Jeffrey Richter and me stand in front our of "software legend" stand-up cut outs yesterday so that he could take a picture. I've already gotten crap from my new team at MS for being one of these guys. I assume it's the shock and awe... : )
Brad Abrams
Tue 4/22/2003 10:09 PM
Tuesday, Apr 22, 2003, 7:47 PM
Are You a Koan Head?
Here. The New York Village Voice mentions sellsbrothers.com/fun/msiview. Whoa.
Tuesday, Apr 22, 2003, 12:45 PM in .NET
C# Builder sneak preview
Here. From jt: "Borland is pleased to offer a preview of its premier enterprise solution for C# development on the Microsoft .NET Framework...."
Tuesday, Apr 22, 2003, 9:47 AM
Microsoft XSD Inference 1.0
Here. Because I don't believe humans can know how to write XSD files from scratch *and* remember where their car keys are, I've been dying for an XSD inference tool that can take a bunch of XML files and produce a starting point XSD. Towards that end, I fed the 200+ XML files for Dave's Quick Search Taskbar Toolbar Deskbar (dqsd.net) into the MS XSD Inference tool. The result was good enough to work with xsd.exe to generate C# classes and to impress Glenn Carr (Dave's XML guy). Highly recommended.