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.
Thursday, Oct 9, 2003, 11:18 PM in The Spout
What Is An RSS Feed?
Here. The one where I describe RSS to the world's youngest mutual fund manager and my Mom.
Thursday, Oct 9, 2003, 9:44 AM in The Spout
Nice WinForms Reviews in the Blogesphere
Here. I've noticed that lots of folks have nice things to say about "Windows Forms Programming in C#". I thank you and my publisher thanks you. If you do post a review, you'll likely get an email from me asking you to post it on Amazon.com. That's because Amazon has noticed that it's the number of reviews of a product that determines whether something sells better than it's competitors, not the rating of the reviews (although feel free to say nice things... : ). I'm posting this here to a) warn you that a review on my book is likely to get you an email from me and b) because Scott Galloway's Contact form is busted ("You must enter a search term"), so I needed *some* way to ask him to post his review on Amazon. Thanks!
Thursday, Oct 9, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
What Is An RSS Feed?
As a deadline nears and I spend an increasing amount of time avoiding the work I should be doing, I find a finance geek acquaintance of mine asking what an RSS feed is after I implored him to add one to his web site. This is a 20-year old that's owned stock since he was 11, read 12,000 company reports in 2002, earned 155% on his money is the last 11 months and recently been given his own $35M mutual fund to manage (becoming the youngest ever mutual fund manager). If this guy doesn't know what an RSS feed is, then I'm guessing at least some of my readers don't know either (yes, I'm talking to you, Mom). When he asked me what an RSS feed was, this is what I told him:
An RSS feed is a thing of pure beauty. If you've ever been to a web site with an orange XML or RSS button, clicking it will yield a page that looks something like this:
<channel><title>Marquee de Sells: Chris's insight outlet</title><link>http://www.sellsbrothers.com/</link><description>Thoughts that Chris Sells has about whatever interests him that day</description><dc:language>en-us</dc:language><dc:rights>Copyright 2002-2003, Chris Sells</dc:rights><dc:creator>csells@sellsbrothers.com</dc:creator><item><title>The Wedding Toast</title><dc:date>2003-10-10T04:17:02Z</dc:date><guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/topic866</guid><link>http://weblogs.asp.net/yosit/posts/31385.aspx</link><dc:creator>Chris Sells</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><comments>http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/showTopic.aspx?ixTopic=866</comments><wfw:commentRss>http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/commentRss.aspx?ixTopic=866</wfw:commentRss><wfw:comment>http://www.sellsbrothers.com/news/commentApi.aspx?ixTopic=866</wfw:comment><description>Don and I send out a video of a toast to a newly married couple. We get back their reactions via video. Not as nice as real-time, but I don't get overseas much, so still very cool. You gotta love the Internet!</description></item>
...</channel>
While RSS is fairly unreadable for normal humans, computers eat it up. For example, if you read the RSS feed from my site on a regular basis, whenever I make a new post, you'll see a new entry in the RSS feed. RSS feeds aren't useful for you, but when fed to an "RSS reader" program, you can keep up to date on literally hundreds of web sites without having to browse to them manually. The RSS reader will check each RSS feed to which you subscribe, letting you know when something new on a web site has happened and showing you what it is, giving you the option to follow up or ignore the new thing. Thousands of sites have RSS feeds, letting me keep up on a bunch of things:
- My friends' writings
- Global and financial news
- People talking about topics of interest to me, like my favorite technologies or my latest book
- My favorite comics strips (I need my daily Dilbert!)
- The latest product and articles releases from Microsoft
- Practically anything else I care about on a regular basis
I keep up on all of this without ever visiting the web sites themselves them 'til something of interest catches my eye.
There are a bunch of RSS readers in the world, but my favorite is SharpReader. If you install this program and start it up, SR will check all of the RSS feeds that you subscribe to on a regular basis in the background while you work, notifying you of something new by changing it's icon from blue to yellow. If you decide to install SharpReader, your next stop should be NewsIsFree.com, where you'll find all kinds of RSS feeds in any number of categories. After subscribing to a few of those, you'll want to stop by Tapestry, where you can find RSS feeds for tons of daily comic strips. If you want to get fancy, you can go to GoogleAlert, where you can subscribe to searches so that whenever Google finds something new on your search topic, your RSS reader will let you know.
If you find the ability to track hundreds of web sites without surfing to each of them manually, RSS is for you. If you find my instructions intimidating, ask a computer friend to help you out (I'll be home for Christmas, Mom).
Friday, Oct 3, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
My 9-Year Old Has a Cell Phone
Friday, October 3, 2003
Tonight is Friday night, which means the Sells family generally has pizza and a movie at home. However, since we've been through most of Blockbuster's catalog and the boys aren't quite old enough for most of my DVD collection (9 is a tad young for things like Fight Club...), we thought we'd take in the new Jack Black movie School of Rock. Kids-in-Mind.com gives it a 3.3.3, heavy on the poop jokes (which my sons like) and heavy on the irreverence (which I like), so it seemed like a winner. However, as most movies start between 7-7:30pm and I just noticed it was 6:30p but Melissa wasn't home with the boys, I started the calling. First was her cell, but I remember her telling me it was out of batteries. Then it was her sister's house, where she had been, but she had left for a friend's. Then the friend, but no answer. And then I remembered my son and his cell phone.
My son is 9 years old. He's been into computers and gadgets of all kinds since before he was 3. A few months ago, he was digging around and found my old Nokia cell phone. It had some cool games, so he charged it up and started carrying it around with him. Then, he wanted minutes so he could make his own calls. So we finally found our way to the local AT&T wireless place (which wasn't really very local at all) and he spent his allowance money on pre-paid minutes ($10 for 20 minutes). After less than a week, he was down to 8 minutes left. He's most just calling his friends from our car (where I have my cell in my pocket w/o unlimited monthly minutes) or from our house (where we don't have long distance, but we do still have a land line), but it's his phone and his money and it gives him pleasure.
It did, however, freak my wife out. "A 9-year old doesn't need a cell phone!" she'd say. I'd explain that it was his own money. "A 9-year old doesn't need a cell phone! Drug dealers have cell phones!" She and I both have our own cell phones and besides the occasional glass of wine, we don't even *use* drugs, let alone *sell* them. And while no amount of reasoning with her stopped her from being upset, she didn't say he couldn't have a cell phone, so now he does. That he keeps charged. And that he carries. And that he spends his own money on minutes for. And that I just called because he was with his mother:
"Hello?" said my 9-year-old son on his very own cell phone, surprised but pleased to get a call.
"Can I talk to your mother?"
"Sure."
"Hello. Sorry. My cell phone ran out of batteries," she said.
"Aren't you glad that John has a cell phone?" I asked, not bothering to keep the smug out of my voice.
"Hmphf," she said, not bothering to keep the annoyed out of hers.
I think I may pay for his next batch of minutes just so I can keep calling her on his phone. : )
Monday, Sep 29, 2003, 4:11 PM in The Spout
Creating Doc-Centric Apps in WinForms, part 1 of 3
Here. This 3-part series really belonged as a chapter in my WinForms book, but after doubling the estimated size of the book (not to mention the amount of time it was supposed to take to write it), my publisher was anxious for me to stop writing. For those folks accustomed to the document management support in MFC or for anyone that needs to build document-centric WinForms application, I think you'll like this series. Part 1 discusses the basics of document management in SDI WinForms apps. Part 2 discusses MDI apps and deeper shell integration. Part 3 wraps most everything up into a reusable component, turning the construction of document management features in .NET largely into some drag-n-drop and some property browser settings. The resultant FileDocument component is available in the latest Genghis sources (although not yet in the release zip) @ http://www.genghisgroup.com Enjoy.
Monday, Sep 29, 2003, 1:46 PM in The Spout
A *royalty* check from Pearson!
Here. Whoa. I just got a royalty check from Pearson today. Right now, it lists my advance for the WinForms book (which may turn into positive money some day), but also includes money from ATL Internals (which I'm still proud of) and Windows Telephony Programming (which I can't believe is still selling!). I won't be able to put my kids through college with the money. In fact, I can barely put them through a car wash with that money, but it's still nice. : )
Sunday, Sep 28, 2003, 7:54 AM in The Spout
Men Extinct Soon -- Only 125K Years Left
Here. As well as women would do without us, it's clear to me that the two sexes have evolved as a pair, although whether that'll be enough to make saving us worth the trouble, I don't know. For example, my wife may well decide to replace me with a footstool to reach things on the high shelves and call it good. : ) [boingboing.net]
Saturday, Sep 13, 2003, 8:25 AM in The Spout
Google is Scary Smart, or Just Scary...
Here. The one where Google is enormously useful and enormously scary at the same time.
Saturday, Sep 13, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
Google is Scary Smart, or Just Scary...
Saturday, September 13, 2003
When I was a kid, the source of universal knowledge at home was
the set of dusty encyclopedias that my Mom inherited from somewhere. Today, it's
the Internet, via Google. That in itself makes Google the fulfillment of most
sci-fi novels' description of the the-store-of-all-human knowledge (I wish the
text of all books were up, but that'll happen in time...).
Anyway, it
didn't hit me just how comprehensive Google was 'til I typed in '"Joe Grammer"
wife' yesterday (I was calling and wanted to be prepared to address his very
nice wife by name in case she answered the phone). In 0.39 seconds, Google gave
45 results, the 3rd of which contained Joe's wife's name! It was Joe himself
who'd mentioned his wife's name in a mailing list post but still, that's pretty
damn scary...
Friday, Sep 12, 2003, 5:26 PM in The Spout
"Move over Petzold, Sells is here."
Here. I'm sure it won't last, but the WinForms book has broken 1000 (908) and has an average 5-star rating with three reviews, saying very nice things like: "This book rocks! ... All chapters are brilliant." "The localisation and resource usage in the managed world are clearly described and you won't lose hours trying to access resources in your code anymore!" "I stayed up all last night reading Chris' new book... I enjoyed every single page." And, of course, the quote that makes my life complete: "Move over Petzold, Sells is here."
Friday, Sep 12, 2003, 9:33 AM in The Spout
Respect for Marketing
Here. The one where I take a look at all of the things that the typical marketing guys has to balance and thank goodness I just get to think about developers. : )
Friday, Sep 12, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
Respect for Marketing
Even in my short time at Microsoft so far, I've have already learned a *ton* from marketing. Of course, I'm working with lots of marketing folks as we get closer to the PDC. Because of my role, I have to worry about what's good for the developer. Marketing guys, on the other hand, have to balance that with what's good for the administrator, what's good for the user, what's good for the company, what's good for the shareholders and what's good for a bunch of other folks I don't even know about. And, they have to do it for all of the streams of information coming out of the company, which now includes lots of informal streams like newsgroups, message boards, user group talks and blogs. Anyone that can balance all of these folks and still get developers what they need has my unabashed respect.
Thursday, Sep 11, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
Let us pause on 9/11...
My
8-year old was proud to remind me that today was the two-year anniversary of
9/11. I was surprised that he knew and grateful to his school for taking the
time to discuss it. He then went on to tell me how cool he thought the
explosions were, which left me less pleased with his school. When I told him
about my own experiences that day and how many people died, it immediately took
all of the "coolness" right out of the day for him.
George Bullock, a
colleague at MS who's birthday happens to fall on 9/11, has also had the
"coolness" taken out of the day for him and sent around a mail that starts this
way:
"Let us pause on 9/11 to remember and honor the thousands killed, maimed, put out of work, and traumatized two years ago; also to honor the heroic, living and dead, who rose to the occasion on that terrible day. May God rest their souls and keep and protect their loved ones. May God also keep and protect our men and women serving here and abroad. Yes, there is much difference of opinion about what's happening in the world today; nevertheless, I think we all support the men and women of our armed forces and wish them a safe return home. They sacrifice a lot to serve their country."
Personally, I try very hard not to let the terrorists get to me. Unfortunately, they have. Even time I get the anal probe treatment at the airport or a personal freedom is taken away by the Patriot Act or my sister-in-law is afraid to fly (and flat out refuses to fly on that day), they win. More subtly, ever time a US politician uses "terrorism" to push their own agenda, they also win. Please don't let them win. Have courage. Try to understand what it was that drove them to terrorism to attract our attention. Compare their lives to ours. But don't let them win. Don't let them take the right to the pursuit of happiness out of our lives.
Friday, Sep 5, 2003, 12:00 AM in The Spout
"Your enquiries frustrate the hell out of me"
Friday, September 5, 2003
I would classify my style of communication as "get to conflict sooner rather than later." A radio DJ once classified engineering abilities as a series of personality flaws that are accidentally useful in today's IT industry and, arguably, he's right. For most folks that have to work with me, it's generally hard at first, but eventually you either love me or hate me (and I continuously work to tip that percentage towards the former : ).
However, it's the rare individual that can see past someone's personal communications style and still pull out the value. Alan Cooper is one such person. I was reading one of his books and was so lost that I called and blamed him and his parents. He straightened me out by letting politely me know that he book wasn't even trying to solve my problems and therefore it's not surprising that it didn't. Further, he ended his email like this:
"PS. Your enquiries frustrate the hell out of me. That's why they are good and I want you to keep making them. If I growl at you, well, that's my problem. Not yours."
I don't know if other people would appreciate Alan encouraging my behavior, but it's still cool to know that such tolerance exists in the world. : )
Tuesday, Sep 2, 2003, 9:25 PM in The Spout
Holy Cow!
Here. Apparently my book has sold out on BookPool.com already. Cool...