Effective Thoughts

My other blog, The Freestyle Entrepreneur , is now on self-hosted WordPress with an all new, classy theme and platform . WordPress is super-powerful and will serve us well for quite some time. I especially enjoyed this implementation because I learned a ton and I can leverage it for some other blogs I'd like to produce. I encountered some interesting technology challenges I'll post here soon. For now, I'm glad to be done with this phase!

I saw this on Jeff Julian's blog this morning. OK, so I'm a dork but I think this video is hysterically funny. Jeff's a good guy. I met him when he was an instructor for an early TFS 2005 300-level class. That's when I first heard about GWB . He's an MVP, author, and very active in the community.

It really pisses me off when a company nickel and dimes me. You got a good service? Great. I'll pay for it. But don't nickel and dime me. Hilarious (but not...) article on the price of data communication via SMS on AT&T. Someday, I want to find a reasonably-priced media alternative and say 'kiss off' to all the companies like AT&T, Time Warner and Insight that nickel and dime me for cable, Internet and phone. Grrrr.

A fellow blogger recently posted some unformatted code samples on his Blogger blog and...well, it was tough to read to say the least (hey, at least he's posting code). I did some investigation and found: HOWTO: Post Code Code Snippet plugin for Windows Live Writer Update (4/1/2008) : I finally did this. My steps: Download latest syntax highlighting code Expand .rar with WinRAR Uploaded all the syntax highlighting files to Google Pages Followed instructions here to change my Blogger template. (NOTE: remove errant link close tag...it's already closed) Updated above template code with pointers to my code files hosted on Google Pages Saved Blogger template Wrap code with pre tags as described here .

One of the avenues for learning I've leveraged this past year is the Microsoft-sponsored ArcReady three hour in-person, bi-monthly seminar. It's held in a dozen or so cities but mine (Columbus, OH) is coming up on February 4th. Click here to register . [...and before you look at the remaining post and say TLDR : ArcReady is free, there's usually good swag and there are some very cool/smart folks that attend...] I enjoy ArcReady because more than likely, you won't see a line of code. As developers, we're constantly exposed to writings and presentations with lots of code. For the most part, I like that and feel it's the best way to learn about software development. However, always approaching from a developer perspective tends to lose the forest for the trees. My opportunities to code have certainly declined over the years but I enjoy coding and can [gasp] actually read a code book and enjoy it (vs. using it as a reference). However, I'm constantly amazed at ...

My wife kicked into an organizing spree last week purchasing a companion shelving unit to house kid stuff matching one we already have. I took an hour or so putting this second unit together Saturday. I'm one screw away from finishing and...crap, this one isn't the same color. You've got to be kidding. Explicative. Explicative. Explicative. Yep, the new one is "espresso" with the old being "honey". C'mon, get real people. I'm completely pissed at myself for not checking and/or noticing sooner. Taking this guy apart isn't tough but putting it back into the need-to-be-a-packaging-engineer packaging feels daunting. Well, I managed to get it close and re-pack it with some semblance...and off to Easton I go. My wife called ahead and Pottery Barn Kids told us to just have our receipt and pull into a little, nearby driveway. Ok, fine. Well, they've changed the traffic patterns at Easton and it's a PITA to get around; but I finally plunk my...

Hit the Central Ohio .Net Developers Meeting last night. You'll find me there almost every month but last night was especially cool. Mike Wood presented on .Net Workflow (WF) as a rules engine. This is Mike's fourth time in recent weeks delivering this presentation around the Heartland (Microspeak for Ohio, Ky, Michigan, Tenn) District and it showed. The talk communicated the ins and outs of a complicated but feature-rich product with clarity and passion. It was one of the best I can remember in recent months...although I tend to get really geeked out about WF and BPM. I must admit an "ah, ha" moment in approaching .Net WF as a rules engine. (It seems fundamental and a no-brainer that the heart of WF is a rules engine but...) I had always just thought of it as a mostly-graphical (drag/drop) method to lay out a business process...like a mortgage application approval process. Did someone from Credit approve it? Yes, then "route" to Accounting, etc. But WF is ...