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.
Monday, Mar 7, 2005, 7:06 PM in .NET
Day of Indigo Videos from VSLive
Did you miss the Microsoft's Day of Indigo at VSLive? Have no fear -- you can trade your personal details for free access to the entire day of videos from the FTP web site, including:
- Keynote: Introducing Indigo, Eric Rudder, Senior VP of Servers and Tools
- Programming Indigo, Don Box and Steve Swartz
- Building Secure Services, Doug Purdy
- Building Reliable, Asynchronous Services, Shy Cohen
- Orchestrating Service-Oriented Apps With Indigo and BizTalk, Michael Woods (Microsoft) and Curt Peterson (Neudesic)
- Indigo Upgrade and Interoperability, Steve Swartz and Anand Rajagopalan
- Building Service-Oriented Applications Today, Rich Turner
Enjoy!
Thursday, Mar 3, 2005, 9:22 AM in .NET
MS Survey: Partial Trust and Code Access Security
As Microsoft gets nearer the gate on the .NET Framework 2.0 and ClickOnce, we want to make double-sure we understand if and how you're using/would like to use partial trust and code access security (CAS). It would be a great help for anyone building .NET applications, whether they're web or Windows, whether you're using partial trust and/or CAS or not, to take this survey so that we can make sure that we've got your needs covered. With ClickOnce, we've come a long way from my initial set of No-Touch Deployment complaints, but that doesn't mean we're where we need to be. Thanks for helping!
Wednesday, Mar 2, 2005, 1:09 PM in The Spout
IT Industry's Own Jobs Training Program
My brother graduated from college with a BS in EE in 2000 and was, predictably, unable to find a job competing with certified, experienced engineers willing to work for the same money after the bubble burst. He was fortunate enough to be able to move into his Mom's basement and get an interest-free loan for an MS in EE that lead to a wonderful job, but if you're not so lucky (hey! I've got next dibs on my Mom's basement!), then check out TechEngage:
"TechEngage is a community-based non-profit organization founded to provide unemployed and under-"employed technical professionals with an affordable opportunity to obtain the high quality training they need to be competitive in today's tough job market."
Wednesday, Mar 2, 2005, 10:17 AM in Fun
Super Friends + Office Space == Hilarity
What could possibly be better than a snippet of the old Super Friends cartoon with dialog from the movie Office Space? Life is good. : )
Tuesday, Mar 1, 2005, 4:24 PM in .NET
Clemens Weekend with Indigo
Clemens Vasters, international man of mystery, has given up his normal weekend activities of partying and espionage to give us three pieces exploring Indigo:
- A Weekend With Indigo. Part 1: Simple Messaging
- A Weekend With Indigo. Part 2: Fun with Messaging and Explicit Addressing
- A Weekend With Indigo. Part 3: Hard-Core Messaging. Duplex Conversations.
Thanks for helping to make the world safe for messaging, Clemens! : )
Tuesday, Mar 1, 2005, 8:34 AM in Fun
Tom's a Big Thinktecture Fan
Here.
I don't know how Tom ended up with this shirt...
Tuesday, Mar 1, 2005, 8:20 AM in Fun
Tom's a Big Thinktecture Fan
My #2 son, Tom, is apparently on the road to independent consulting... Mama's, don't let your babies grow up to be computer boys...
P.S. I do not dress my children and, in this case, I don't know how he even ended up with this shirt...
cell phone picture
Monday, Feb 28, 2005, 3:56 PM in .NET
Let MS make sure your .NET 1.x app run on .NET 2.0
Assuming you don't have the luxury of dipping the machines your .NET 1.x applications run on in Lucite, you are going to have to make sure that your apps run under .NET 2.0. Normally, that means testing your applications under .NET 2.0 and making changes. However, right now, Jay Roxe at Microsoft is beefing up the .NET 2.0 compatibility test suite, so if there are compatibility problems in your apps, there's a good chance* that MS will actually apply fixes to the .NET 2.0 framework itself instead of requiring you to make changes to your app.
Jay's especially interested in "corporate-scale" applications, but I'm sure he'll consider whatever you've got. Don't be shy! Get your apps into consideration for the .NET 2.0 compatibility test suite today!
* "good chance" == chance > 0, no guarantees, some restrictions apply, void where prohibited, use at your own risk, blah, blah, blah...
Monday, Feb 28, 2005, 3:39 PM in .NET
2D and 3D Chess for Nov. '04 Avalon CTP
Valentin Iliescu has updated his 2D and 3D Avalon Chess for the November 2004 CTP. Enjoy!
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005, 10:51 AM in The Spout
On Being Socially Re-engineered
Here. The one where, despite my best efforts, the lame "High Risk Driving" course actually changes my driving habits.
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005, 12:00 AM in The Spout
On Being Socially Re-engineered
I do not consider myself weak-minded. For example, even though I've tried to let it happen, I've never been able to be hypnotized. Also, I'm often considered to be close-minded (although I do change my mind when valid arguments are presented, but most folks don't argue very well, I find). So, why did a terrible "High Risk Driver" course change my driving habits?
The course started as you'd expect: a room full of 18-25 year olds that did not want to show up anywhere on a Saturday morning, least of all at the local level 1 trauma center for 8+ hours of lecture. The main instructor was a high-energy trauma nurse that professed an vast personal experience with all things alcoholic. The traffic cop drove a motorcycle, which he made great pains to point out was the most dangerous vehicle to drive, and told a story about how he let a friend of his drive while they were both too tired in spite of his personal expertise in all matter of influence while driving, e.g. alcohol, drugs, cell phones, sleep deprivation, etc.
Of course, there was the obligatory "Faces of Death" presentation through-out the day, but they were slides, not videos, so didn't compare to the movies I saw in driver's education class at age 16. Even the stories of the people in the pictures, while sad, seemed as much about capricious bad luck as about actual bad decision making. Some of the people from the stories even came to speak to us in their wheel chairs (except one guy that came in a suit and passed his business card around), but by far the most convincing and articulate of this bunch got his injury from a diving accident (that's diving not driving).
The crowning event for the day was the tour of the trauma center itself. It was filled with people who'd suffered traumas, but the vast majority of them were there for non-traffic related injuries (unless you count the guy that rode a sled into a parked car on the one day we had any snow this year). How looking at the new, state-of-the-art MRI machine or seeing nurses drink coffee on a raised platform in the middle of the room helped us learn to drive more carefully, I have no idea.
And yet, despite my best efforts to avoid engaging with the materials of the class, I find that I am driving more carefully. I was always good at keeping my eyes on traffic and watching for kids and animals on the road, being quick to slow or swerve when necessary and rarely getting mad at the other drivers for bone-headed moves (unlike my wife, who curses every 3rd driver : ). However, now I find myself nearer the speed limit more often, sometimes under but always within 5 or 10 miles. And now, while I do still change lanes, it's most often when I'm behind something large that gets in line of sight and not to get ahead a car length of two.
So, what changed my habits? It wasn't the lame course as a whole, but it might have been one or two moments. It might've been when the traffic cop, when asked for the most dangerous driving habits, listed speeding and aggressive driving, which I'd previously considered the least dangerous.
It might've been the statistics. It's not like they showed many convincing statistics at all, but the mere fact that they had been giving this lame course 4-6 times/year for the last 17 years spoke to me about the need for some kind of intervention. Obviously, the sponsors of this course thought it was having some kind of effect, else why continue it?
Or it might've been the company. I mean, their were some real losers in the room, including a 16-year old that admitted to a long list of bad decisions right out of your favorite gang movie. Frankly, to be lumped in with this crowd was just plain embarrassing.
However, when all was said and done, I think it was the math. The traffic cop timed himself doing his 10-mile commute going the speed limit and going 15 miles over the speed limit. The difference w/ zero other traffic on the road? 2 minutes. Do I really need to engage in what are considered the most dangerous driving habits, risk my insurance, my car, my license, my life and the lives of the people around me for 2 lousy minutes?!? That's a bet I can only lose.
Tuesday, Feb 22, 2005, 12:30 PM in Interview
Scott Hanselman's Great .NET Developer Questions
Scott Hanselman has posted a set of questions that he thinks "great" .NET developers should be able to answer in an interview. He even splits it up into various categories, including:
- Everyone who writes code
- Mid-Level .NET Developer
- Senior Developers/Architects
- C# Component Developers
- ASP.NET (UI) Developers
- Developers using XML
Am I the only one that skipped ahead to "Senior Developers/Architects" to see if I could cut Scott's mustard?
Monday, Feb 21, 2005, 6:54 PM in .NET
The Convergence of Documents Media and Application
Ron DeSerranno, founder and CEO of Mobiform, a company that's been busy building Avalon and XAML tools since the October 2003 PDC, is giving a talk on how "Avalon in conjunction with XAML will revolutionize the user experience on the web and in desktop applications. XAML and Avalon provide a powerful framework that can provide 2D and 3D graphics, fixed document format, animation and multimedia in a single markup language."
The talk is at the TechVibes MASSIVE 2005 (clearly named by marketing folks : ), March 30th in Vancouver, BC. Drink a pint for me, eh? : )
Saturday, Feb 19, 2005, 8:37 PM in The Spout
I'm with Shawn -- Constantine was Good
Here. After a movie dry spell that's lasted since Thanksgiving, I agree with Shawn and was pleasantly surprised with Constantine. I liked it enough that I'd see it again. It's not great, but it's good and the guy playing Satan is fabulous.
Friday, Feb 18, 2005, 7:51 AM in .NET
Building a Tabbed Browser with Windows Forms 2.0
Wei-Meng Lee shows you how to take advantage of the new web browser and control support in Windows Forms 2.0 to build a tabbed browser using Internet Explorer.