What I hold in my hand today, is a fresh copy of CCS 9.0 (actually, this is one box of four that are part of the release). After years of enterprise development, I never actually got a official box of software. Most of the software I built, or was part of were enterprise application built to provide services to clients, not to be bought off the shelf. I think back to the early 90's and reading my first review in a software magazine about software that I built in a team of three and how excited I was at the time. Those were the days, writing UI code in APL is nothing like WPF today (we are so spoiled nowadays). Sometimes not having to write a slider control with a box-line and mouse move events take all the fun out of it. Hummm... I better stop thinking about the "good-old-days".

If I am correct with the numbers, almost 200 people were involved building and testing this release and almost two years from conception to RTM. Of course, you won't find this sitting at Best Buy on the shelf next to Norton Antivirus, but you get the point.

I rushed home to tell my wife of my excitement, and I got a look of "great another thing to overflow our shelf that you don't actually use or read". Oh well, I think deep down she knows how cool it is... well at least that is what I tell myself.

Moving to .NET 2.0 based blog system BlogEngine.NET.

I am using Vista for a while now and have not upgraded to a new DVD burning software. The one built in for burning files appears to work fine, but I can't burn ISO's from MSDN. Here is how to get around this:

 

use CDBurn.exe that is included in the Windows Server 2003 Support Tools.

 

ISO CD-ROM Burner Tool (CDBurn) is a command-line tool that allows the user to write (burn) data images from image files located on the hard drive to compact disc (CD) recordable (CD-R) and CD rewritable (CD-RW) media. The data image can be any kind of data, even raw data. This tool can also be used to erase CD-RW media.

 

Example: Burn a CD From an Image File When a Drive Letter is Assigned to the CD Burner. Type the following at the command line:

 

cdburn.exe d: c:\dotnet_usa_3678.IDS_x86fre_srv.iso

 

Press ENTER. Output similar to the following is displayed:

Number of blocks in ISO image is 3d1d6

| 25.6% done

/ 45.2% done

/ 55.3% done

- 68.9% done

\ 89.3% done

- 100.0% done

Finished Writing

Synchronizing Cache: burn successful!

 

Notes: The drive letter assigned to the burner in this example is D and the image file being written is located at c:\dotnet_usa_3678.IDS_x86fre_srv.iso

The default burn speed for this tool is 4x. The maximum burn speed is limited by the maximum speed of the burner. Use the speed parameter to set the burn speed. The max parameter sets the burn speed of the CD burner to maximum.

To debug Visual Studio Errors, use the /log switch in Visual Studio. This will write out a ActivityLog.xml file with more detailed information about what's going on inside VS. You can find this file in the user's Application Data directory (Application Data\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0).

The proof of concept project was a success! We have a go as of today to begin work on building the application. Will take most of 2007, but will be a great project to work on. XAML, WPF, WCF and WF... Can't be on more cutting edge Microsoft technology. I have to say that the PoC that we did really shows how this new technology takes a very difficult assignment and make is more reasonable for the rest of us to code these complex solutions. Will really allow us to focus on the business needs of the system instead of spending all of our time trying to figure out technological hurdles.

Starting my next project using .NET 3.0 Beta - Windows Presentation Foundation WPF, Windows Communication Foundation WCF , Windows Workflow Foundation WF. The project will be to do a proof of concept and budget for a2D / 3D application used in the builder services industry. Should be a lot of fun to do.

Just completed a large project for the Houston Texans NFL Team. It was a lot of fun to write and a great exercise in teamwork. The Houston Texans' new staff decided to build a new Scouting system to manage their professional and college prospects. I spent the last three months over at Reliant Stadium and enjoyed managing a Catapult Systems team of 7 (up to 12 involved) over a short time period to be ready for the 2006 NFL season.