Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous
I've spun up a shiny new blog over at MSDN Blogs. Please update your subscription to http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen
Time will tell what I do with this blog. I'll probably mirror content for a little while until the search engines catch up with my new location.
See you at MSDN!
-Chris
Day one at Microsoft is done! The people are great and the
amount of internal information available is amazing. Imagine it's
the first day of classes and each of your professors has handed you a
textbook filled with details that would be extremely helpful
for you to know *this very moment*. Then add a healthy dose of
meetings and events to attend. Oh, and save a little time
for your wife and kids, too.
Drinking from the firehose, but I'm
looking forward to more tomorrow. There will be plenty of
events, initiatives, and technologies to tell you about, so stay tuned!
-Chris
Our local New England Developer Evangelist slash Super Star, Thom Robbins, has made it official that he’s accepted a new role within Microsoft. This is obviously fantastic news for him and I know he’s going to do well in his new position. Of course it is sad that he will be leaving New England to work in Redmond, but he can leave knowing he’s done a great job of improving and strengthening our local development community.
Congratulations and best of luck to you, Thom!
-Chris
Based on my earlier post, I had a request for the steps I followed to get Windows Live Writer working with my DotNetJunkies blog. Here's the process that worked for me:
- From Windows Live Writer, choose Weblog->Add Weblog Account...
- "Choose Blog Type" Screen
- Select "Another weblog service"
- "Weblog Homepage and Login" Screen
- "Select Provider" Screen
- Set Type of weblog to "Community Server"
- Set the Remote post URL for your weblog to http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/metablog.ashx
- At
this point, I get an "Unable to Download Template" error, meaning the
Windows Live Writer editor won't display my post using my blog's
style. However, everything else still works and, once posted, the
site shows the post with the correct style.
- "Weblog Configuration" Complete Screen
- Click Finish, leaving the "Switch to this weblog now" option checked.
Also
note that I've been having to open the post's Properties in WLW to
enable the Date/Time checkbox in order to avoid a date-related error
when I try to publish.
Hope this helps,
-Chris
Huge congratulations go out to my friend and co-author Jean-Luc David for joining Microsoft as a Developer Evangelist! Jean-Luc mentioned things were in the works during TechEd, but nothing was official yet. So Jean-Luc, I'll raise a beer in your honor later tonight. :)
Jean-Luc is a fantastic guy and incredibly passionate about Team System and the Microsoft developer community. I'm sure he's doing to do very well in his new job! Noah Coad (also a great guy and co-author) has more details on his blog.
-Chris
Summer vacations and time with my family have kept me away from my blog for too long. To test the waters again, I'm trying out the Windows Live Writer beta to help create this post. It took a few Google hits to find the secret recipe for getting it to work with the particular Community Server install at DotNetJunkies, but it seems to be working now.
If you can read this, then Live Writer did it's job. :)
-Chris
I pointed out the obvious in my last post that I haven't been posting much lately. Partially, the holiday season was to blame, but there is a bit more news than that...
Many of you know me as Lead Architect for Monster. Well, after 6 1/2 years there, I decided to move on. It wasn't an easy decision, the company and people are still top-notch and I wasn't unhappy there, but it came down to the fact that it was time for a change.
As of two weeks ago, I am now still wearing my Architect hat, but now at VistaPrint (http://vistaprint.com) in Lexington, MA. This page explains what VistaPrint does better than I can, but the essence is that we offer low-cost custom graphic design and printing services over the web, all based on the .NET Framework. I'm enjoying the change of industry, moving from software-based services to creating real, hold-in-your-hands manufactured goods. The commute is a little longer for me, but it isn't terrible at all (besides, the Lexington area has many more restaurants than Maynard.)
Look for continued posts from me on architecture, Team System, ASP.NET and local New England events, but as I'm focusing on learning the ropes here, it may take a few weeks for me to get back to normal blogging.
-Chris
I'd like to think I've been rather patient with the issues with the .NET Junkies blog engine, but enough is enough.
I've been waiting since Donnny first started posting about the site upgrade early this year. Now it is many months later, the upgrade is still supposedly imminent, and comment spam and SQL issues as frequent as ever.
While I do appreciate being hosted here and enjoy the .NET Junkies community, I can no longer wait for these issues to be resolved. I'm going to give this until after TechEd, then I'll have to consider other places. Here's to hoping I won't have to.
-Chris
I just returned from the Microsoft East Region Architect Forum in Washington, DC and enjoyed the trip. There was some excellent content, but equally important was seeing some old friends and meeting fellow architects from other great companies all along the eastern seaboard.
One subject that (all too briefly) came up during a discussion was that one company has been effectively using mailing-list based technology discussion groups. The key to their success was that by using email, people didn't have to context-switch over to another place for discussions, such as a forums application. Having seen my share of discussion ideas start with a bang and fizzle out from lack of use (forums, intranets and internal NNTP groups,) I clearly understand the value keeping discussions front-and-center with employees' daily routines.
The problem with this approach is that mailing lists have no memory. You send an email and it either gets deleted or squirreled away in various recipients' private folders. A new employee comes along, has a similar question and has to send a repetitive email.
What I need is the ability to set up distribution lists that have the ease-of-use of email, but where messages get stored for all users to access at any later point and, more importantly, are searchable.
Have you seen anything that would enable such a scenario? Configurations of or additions to Exchange? Applications of SharePoint? Are there any third-party forum packages that support posting & reading entirely via email?
-Chris
My wife and I just returned from a trip to London to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We had a great time!
We actually ran out of time, but did manage to do quite a bit:
- British Museum - I find it amazing that they still only request donations for admission
- Fish & chips... Beer...
- Tate Britain - Absolutely fantastic museum. Also donation requested admission.
- Reduced Shakespeare Company performance at Piccadilly Circus
- Bangers & mash... Beer...
- Big Ben, Parliament, London Eye, Westminster Abbey - Be sure to sing Monty Python's “Oliver Cromwell“ in front of his statue.
- Ate at a restaurant that is much too fancy for us - I'm glad I only have to pay this much for dinner once every 10 years.
- Tower of London - It is worth joining with a Beefeater-led group tour, exploring the other areas after.
- Chicken pie... Beer...
- Saw Noel Coward's “Blithe Spirit” at the Savoy
- Shakespeare's Globe - I'm a bit of a Bard buff, so this was a pilgrimage of sorts.
- Found (uh, lots of) Cadbury chocolates - My favorites are the Wispas, but I “settle” for Flakes and Twirls.
- Obligatory shopping at Harrod's
- Found Devonshire Arms, a pub my wife used to go to when she studied in London
By the way, if you do find yourself heading there, we were very impressed with our stay at The Landmark London. A beautiful hotel with a great fitness facility and pool. It is connected under a canopy with the Marylebone tube station, so it was very easy to go anywhere (in Zone 1, at least.)
But, it is very nice to be home again. Now I've some catching up to do with blogs, articles and shows that SageTV recorded...
-Chris
I've been trying to use my (free) Brinkster account to host images for my blog, but they seem to discourage direct linking from any pages not on your Brinkster site, so I searched for (free) alternatives.
Luckily, image hosting is also a large concern for the many people who use online auction services. I found a very good resource for picture hosting, each with summaries and rankings at Auction Orbit:
http://www.auctionorbit.com/freeimagehosting.htm
The one I went with is http://photobucket.com. They allow direct linking, up to 2500 MB/month bandwidth and 100 MB of storage. Did I mention the price was... zero? Very hard to argue with that. They'll even remove the bandwidth and storage space restrictions and give you access to FTP upload if you support them with a donation (as little as $5.)
Another interesting one was http://www.imageshack.us. You don't even need to create an account. Just upload an image and they'll display a link you can use to reference that picture. It will stay active until one year has passed without any hits. You can also create a free account, which will allow you to manage your pictures, view statistics, upload multiple pictures with a .ZIP file, etc.
Walagata (http://walagata.com/) also offers free image hosting, but only allocates a set number of free accounts per month. It looks like the window is currently closed for free accounts, but there will probably be more in a few weeks.
-Chris
Channel 9 has recently published some interesting videos.
The first is of Don Box giving a tour of the Indigo team's building (42.) Very interesting and insightful. It's great to visualize the facility, put more faces to names and to hear about what they've historically done at Microsoft before coming to Indigo:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=18088
The other is with Zoë Goldring and Gretchen Ledgard discussing the interview process at Microsoft and giving a tour of the normal interviewee's experience. This is actually split into two parts (the first is the more informative):
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=18472
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=18718
If you want to see Zoë's and Gretchen's blog (where Gretchen explains the shirt she is wearing in the video,) head to:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog
-Chris
In my 5 years at Monster, I've probably interviewed at least 75+ candidates. So, here's an insider tip if you're going to interview for an engineering job at Monster:
If I ask you a question, it probably isn't because I need to know the answer, it's because I need to know if YOU know the answer.
It astounds me that people will throw the worst kinds of manufactured answers at me, presumably with the hope that I won't know better. What are these people thinking? In most cases, that is immediate disqualification. Please, just say "I don't know" or "I haven't had a need to work with that yet" - ANYTHING except lying. It can be difficult to admit not knowing something, especially under the pressure of an interview, but believe me, you will be far better served by the admission than by trying to fake it. None of us can know everything; I do not expect "omniscient" to be listed as a skill on your resume.
Sorry for the rant. I feel much better now.
My typical role in the interview process is technical “griller”. I have a cheat sheet I typically bring along with me that highlights common questions/topics I might ask candidates, which I select from according to their stated experience. Er, no, I'm not going to post it and no, none of the questions come from “How Would You Move Mt. Fuji?” :)
I find that by having a common set of starting questions, I can more easily compare the abilities and experience of multiple candidates. I rarely resort to whiteboard coding, I find that discussion is generally enough to discover strengths and weaknesses. I'm also not a fan of asking the logic puzzle questions (though I personally find them a fun challenge.)
Do you interview candidates? What works best for you?
-Chris
My previous post against my stack of unread magazines has brought another matter to mind.
The sources of my technical information have shifted substantially in the past 18 months.
Previously, my sources of technical information were fairly evenly divided between browsing technology sites like CodeProject, GotDotNet, MSDN, ASP.net, etc. and reading magazines and books.
These days, I first turn my blogroll to get pointers to articles, news and books that could be of interest. Periodically, maybe weekly, I visit the portal sites like TheServerSide and MSDN, but often I’ve already read the articles that interest me because they were called out by blog entries. I turn to books for in-depth tutorials and reference. Magazines, simply because I have no time left, come in last.
The first shift for me is that much of the time I used to spend reading magazines is now invested in reading blogs.
Some magazines, like MSDN, have adapted well and offer their content freely on the web (and as Stephen Toub points out, you can even read MSDN on your PDA.) I enjoy MSDN, having been a reader through the days of Microsoft Systems Journal and Microsoft Interactive Developer. I plan to continue subscribing because they consistently produce quality work and I want to support that. There also remains an undeniable convenience in having a portable, pre-printed and colorful version of articles delivered to your mailbox. Yet the fact remains that today I need to be more selective in choosing how much of that content I will read.
Another shift has been that the role which some technology sites play of being pointers to other sites and articles has been eclipsed by blogs. I subscribe to the blogs of people working in the same areas I do and consequently, their posts lead me to the very same articles I would have clicked on had I been browsing the web myself. Sites such as TheServerSide and CodeProject continue to hold their value because they are sources of content, not just pointers to other places. I no longer rely on web sites to point out content for me, I have a community of like-minded people who do that very well.
Have many people experienced similar shifts? Are there other sources of information you rely on? Have blogs made magazines less relevant for you? What technology sites still hold their value as sources of information, and not simply as lists of pointers?
-Chris
I love listening to .NET Rocks while driving in my car. The problem is, I finish each episode in a single day.
About a year ago, I wanted to see if my other commuting and lawn mowing hours could be spent tackling my "to read" list (see also my "Stack" post.) I experimented with available Text-To-Speech (TTS) tools to see if they would be useful for converting technical articles to MP3's so I could listen to them on my Pocket PC.
I wasn't satisfied with the available tools at the time, which often resulted in miserable quality and generally required use of multiple tools to render to MP3. Now, I'm ready to take a look at the current crop.
Some searching has turned up a decent number of TTS applications:
ReadPlease
ReadPlease has a helpful feature that allows you to add custom pronunciations (e.g. “.NET= dot net“) but seems to lack an option to render to MP3.
TextAloud MP3
I liked TextAloud MP3. The interface is a bit, well, VB4'ish, but it gets the job done. I wish I could customize it like ReadPlease, however.
Alive Text to Speech
Alive Text To Speech is decent as well, but I don't think the voice synthesis is as good as TextAloud.
Aye Text to MP3
I also liked Aye Text to MP3. It has a nice clean interface and “just works.“
SayPad
I probably didn't give SayPad enough time, but I quickly realized it wasn't something I really wanted to use. It might be a good program, but I only used it for a few minutes.
2nd Speech Center - EDITOR'S CHOICE :)
I liked 2nd Speech Center the most. The interface is good, speech quality is superior, you can add custom pronunciations, choose between many voices and record to multiple MP3 files with one click. You need to register it to avoid having a nag tag inserted with your MP3 (but I suppose it would be trivial to edit it out.)
Of course, these tools work best when the text has very little code ("...public int three two computesome left parenthesis right parenthesis left brace...".) I'm willing to "listenread" an article and go back and review the code when I'm in front of a computer again, but only to a certain extent.
While most of the above tools are good for simple book text, they all seem to have problems when too many acronyms are present or try to make letters that should be pronounced individually into syllables of words (e.g. MSBuild as "muzzbuild".) Not to fault to programs - it is a very hard scenario to detect with code - however, the end result is still quite annoying. Being able to program custom pronunciations is very helpful, but given the large number of buzzwords and acronyms we have in the .NET world, it would be impractical to add all but the most common.
Any better tools out there? Is anyone using TTS for technical content? Please chime in if you have any tips!
-Chris
Perhaps you know this feeling.
They're over there, standing by... waiting. They call to you, gently at first, then more insistently, a hint of desperation in their voices. Without moving, they tap you on the shoulder, reminding you of their presence.
You can understand their needs. Each passing day further diminishes their importance, even their very right to exist. Like pictures, they are frozen in time - as the world eagerly moves forward with changes, they are unable to keep up.
Of course, I speak of The Stack. It started innocently and slowly at first. That MSDN I was sure I'd finish in a couple of days, I'll just set it here. Ah, what's this? The new CoDe magazine? Uh oh, now a ComputerWorld, eWeek, Mass High Tech... now another MSDN!
If you're a developer or other type of technology person, you've probably been visited by The Stack as well.
I've decided today to make the resolution to battle The Stack until The Stack no longer exists. I look forward to that glorious day when I can again see that little 8.5“ x 11“ spot of my desk that has been denied its daily dose of fluorescent light for far too long. It may be a fleeting glory, but it is a worthy goal indeed.
Join me in the battle! Fight onward against those who dare say you cannot keep up with the flow of information!
Be ever vigilant, else The Stack may return...
-Chris
P.S. The Stack has a perhaps even more fearsome brother, The Bookshelf. The Bookshelf is a much more difficult problem to address, often requiring many trips to Starbucks to solve. More on that battle later...
After reading other people's blogs for close to two years now, I'm finally doing something about my shameful lack of blogging. Many thanks to dotnetjunkies.com for providing hosting services for my blog!
I'll post a longer “About Me” post later on, but for now, here's a brief version:
I'm currently Senior Architect with Monster Worldwide, Inc. (aka Monster.com) where I lead the .NET Architecture team. We're responsible for guiding the organization through the process of migrating to the .NET platform from ASP/COM/VB. We also define .NET development standards and practices for the company and publish a variety of tools for internal developer usage.
My current areas of interest are Test-Driven Development and Continuous Integration