Okay, so my Cheese hasn’t so much been moved as replaced with something funky: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dv_vstechart/html/whidbey_csharp_preview.asp .
Hem or Haw?
From: http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,62016,00.html
Snazzy desktops are everywhere at this week’s LinuxWorld. But as developers strive for a user-friendly interface, many roll out products that bear a striking resemblance to Microsoft software. Michelle Delio reports from New York.
What Microsoft has is Program Managers, QA, and testers. And World Class software development. As of now, what Linux does is copy. Linux can’t out innovate Microsoft. It can copy. And if it copies and destroys the innovator, what then? What’s the reward?
Feed set-up – Atom syntax
Blogger’s come through and now my Atom-syntax feed is working athttp://www.ericri.com/blog/ericri-atom.xml. No, it’s not RSS. I imagine that RSS will be around for a while, but RSS is a neat little idea that was powerful but not up to snuff for 21st century web standards.
Trying out atom…
Blogger just turned on Atom for syndicated the blog feed – here goes a test post!
Just Rain
It’s hard to believe just two weeks ago we had a foot of snow on the ground and more on the way. Now it’s just plain wet and mistly and 100% Northwest. The house did great and had no problems with the Thursday big thaw.
Cabin Fever
One thing I’ve gotten used to wrt Northwest snow: it snows, you admire its beauty, and then it melts and you can go about your business. Well, Thursday’s and Saturday’s snow is still here (about a foot’s worth) and the only melting I’ve seen is the ice hanging off of the house. Seeing that I’d have 20 out of 50 miles of black ice to drive in on today, I decided to stay home and continue reading my backlog of .NET material. And now another big snow system is heading our way tonight, but there is a silver lining to this snow cloud: it’s supposed to start raining by midnight Tuesday. In the meantime, we might get one to two more feet of snow.
And I’m getting cabin fever. So, for a late lunch Elisa and I are going to slowly motor up Graham Hill and go to the Safeway and the local Mexican restaurant. We’ll be stocking up for tonight and Tuesday (and heaven forbid, Wednesday). I’m looking forward to the return of the rain. I always wanted to experience a big bunch of snow here in Graham. Check!
Dance Dance Revolution
My new work-out routine: Dance Dance Revolution! Just fire this baby up and I’m bouncing all over the floor trying to tap and stomp my feet according to those arrows scrolling across the screen. I’m still learning and that mat keeps scooting around on me, but I’m getting better (all the way up to a “D” score in game mode! Whoo!). It’s nice to have at least one video game that burns calories vs. time (I swear I sat down to play Halo for just two hours but it was actually four).
Snow snuck up on us…
Snow? Who ordered this? This wasn’t expected. The snow started coming down in the afternoon and by night we had more than an inch (yeah, pretty slow). I grabbed the video camera and took Beau and Bella outside to enjoy them playing around in the snow. I got good video of Bella making a “Bella Angel” as she rolled around on her back in the show. Beau’s poor rear-end is giving out on him little by little each day, but he still was up for playing with Bella in the snow. Oh, and before the snow Elisa and I enjoyed our collards and black-eyed peas. Yeah!
Painter 8
Painter 8 and TabletPC – I’m thrilled. I downloaded a new driver from Wacom and now Painter 8 runs in my TabletPC just like you’d expect: I can draw on the screen and all is great. The pressure sensitivity is not as good as a real drawing tablet but it’s okay for doing sketches as such AND you can draw right there on the screen.
Christmas Eve
Elisa read at our church’s Christmas Eve service Ogden Nash’s “All’s Noel that Ends Noel.” Just find yourself a copy of that and try to read it. Not only did we have to look up some of the more obscure words in the text but we also had to listen to a clip of Nash to try to figure out what kind of accent he had that his rhyming scheme made sense. Anyway, Elisa did a wonderful job reading the poem and bringing it to life. We then had a great time talking to folks after the program. Kyle and Phil movie recommendation: The Lion in Winter.