CodePrairie .NET

Idea: Reducing the “Apple Tax” for developers

I Hate Linux — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:10:10 GMT

There are two primary reasons I do not own an iPhone today, both relate to my not being a typical user: AT&T Wireless is unwilling/unable to port my current South Dakota number over to their network (and I’m not about to give up my existing number). The ‘Apple Tax’ involved in getting to develop for it. ... well that and my not being hip and trendy. Even if my number were portable... or I was willing to get a 425 area code number I’d still run into a bit of an issue as with any kind of smartphone...(read more)

UPS: Ruiner of vacations

I Hate Linux — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:38:30 GMT

I still need to post a full write up of the glorious vacation I had back in November... however I pause to say that UPS has effectively ruined the vacation and cost me dearly as a result. While back in South Dakota hunting I was successful in taking two deer and left the meat of at a local (to where I was hunting) market back with instructions to ship it out to me once complete, something they did back on 12/15 and with an ETA of 12/19. Given the date I made it a point to stick around the house that...(read more)

Redmond on the first day of spring

I Hate Linux — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:37:03 GMT

That’s right. You heard me... yesterday, December 22nd was the first day of the spring! Says who? Says Joe Soucheray, Grand Poobah of The Royal Order of the 21sters . Who are they? We are a group of people who have willing surrendered normalcy so as to engage in psychological delusion to stave off the the darkness and chill of winter that affects you normal people. To quote Joe on Sunday : We are not astronomers, climatologists or meteorologists. None of the scientific disciplines for us. We are...(read more)

Seattle area weather haiku

I Hate Linux — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 03:52:47 GMT

The Seattle area has had some issues with snow over the last few days and due to a less than favorable plow-to-person ratio (tm) 2008 Brendan Grant (yes I hereby trademark in text that phrase I’ve used for quite some time (including during my Microsoft job interview at least twice)) the area has more or less shutdown. Roads are near empty with mostly just 4-wheel drive vehicles out and about (I’ve yet to see a single Prius on the road), the Microsoft Redmond campus is nearly deserted between some...(read more)

What's wrong with calling home?

I Hate Linux — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:48:55 GMT

We've all heard how'd evil it is for an application to call home. Sure there are evil things out there like adware, spyware, and other such bits... but what about basic usage reporting? For years web analytics tools such as AWStats , Google Analytics , SiteMeter and many others have been created and used to allow web developers and site owners insight into who is using their web sites and how. It occurred to me a while ago that there is no good way for the average desktop application developer...(read more)

A warning about "Marley Valdez"

I Hate Linux — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:39:37 GMT

While this has always been a 'personal' blog, I have often times refrained from posting about various personal subjects, this post, along with the possibility of one or two more on this subject will break from that tradition. What follows is a cautionary tale of my having been nice to someone a few months ago and how one "Marley Valdez" (like the coffee she told me), (aka MarleyV, Marley_V, marleyisme) who accepted my generosity and took me for a ride and now cannot even bother...(read more)

Laptop woes and wahoos

I Hate Linux — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:56:36 GMT

What’s worse than having your 5 year old POS of a laptop die on you midway through a 2+ week long out of state vacation? To have the much needed bag of screws that I collected when I was disassembling the laptop in my uncles living room in North Dakota while trying to troubleshoot the problem (turned out to be a short due to a frayed monitor cable) go MIA after I finish putting back together the LCD assembly after the needed replacement parts arrived! I remember seeing the bag of screws yesterday...(read more)

Proof that global warming has ended?

I Hate Linux — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:35:49 GMT

This evening while sitting in the living room of an aunt and uncle in Bismark North Dakota and discussing the news of the pirates who attacked, captured and are ransoming a Saudi owned super tanker I got a thinking of the following graph which is a well known part of Pastafarianism : Could it be… that the increase in piratical activity around the continent of Africa is a sign that global warming is at last at an end and as a result of the upcoming decline in global average temperatures, rum, eye...(read more)

It’s time for a change: Universal Clothing

I Hate Linux — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:42:24 GMT

Given some of the various ideas from this years presidential candidates ( socialized medicine from Obama and socialized housing from McCain), as well as near socializing of US banks ( not to be out done by British banks ). I believe that there is one more important area that we must focus on socializing... education is already there and nutrition is probably soon to follow (without three square meals a day how can anyone ever be healthy enough to go to the doctor?) it’s time... for universal clothing...(read more)

Future of my Add-ins

I Hate Linux — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:14:24 GMT

Traditionally most companies are fine with their employees making a buck on the side or donating their time or services just so long as doing so doesn't conflict of interest with the their day job either through causing ones work quality to go down or otherwise compete with the company. Microsoft is little different. Should I decide today to write a useful add-in or two for... Windows Live Messenger or Internet Explorer... so long as I don't use any inside information, am doing it on...(read more)

New Palin Conspiracy Theory

I Hate Linux — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 02:24:23 GMT

What does a guy do when he’s going to take a break from some work for the evening? Sit down, watch a bit of TV and come up with conspiracy theories of course! They are all the rage right now aren’t they ? So I was going through tonight’s episode of Hannity & Colmes in preparation for the Sarah Palin speech later this evening and when responding to a question from Alan Colmes, Karl rove said in part: You cannot do anything about her fundamental record as somebody who stood up on the city council...(read more)

Must resist urge to spend money...

I Hate Linux — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 05:51:40 GMT

My favorite Microsoft product (Windows Home Server) is made successful not only through great software, but also through the availability of inexpensive massive hard drives (and plenty of them) and last month when Seagate announced their upcoming 1.5 terabyte disk ... there were quite a few smiles to be seen as it was another sign of the importance of disk storage and how important a product like Windows Home Server is with effectively using it. <side note>... I really need to stop listening...(read more)

Time for a potentially career limiting move?

I Hate Linux — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:04:08 GMT

After a (sarcastic) discussion last week about how soon everyone would be work for me one way or another I came to realize that I've come to learn much at Microsoft, and in that time have seen gaps that I believe only I can properly fill and as a result I think it is time to lead... not just a small group of developers, a team or even a division... but the entire company... something that if unsuccessful will almost certainly be a career limiting move. With that in mind, I am announcing today...(read more)

200

I Hate Linux — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:26:07 GMT

...or "Two century club" ...or "longest 8 lbs ever!" My long running weight loss campaign has hit another milestone today with the scale telling me I'd reached 215 lbs, 200.2 lbs down from where I'd started back in May of 2006. Believe it or not... I don't mind it taking ~2 years to reach this milestone. I mind the fact that 3 months to lose the last 8 lbs to bring me to this point from the 2 year in blog post back in May . Why'd it take so long? Two reasons I...(read more)

Maybe this state isn't so bad

I Hate Linux — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:13:39 GMT

Those who know me know I haven't been overly thrilled with the Seattle area and what I've seen of Washington in general as it's just too big/crowded/busy of a place. The news last week of the Washington Governor being refused entry to a bar because she didn't have an id on her I had to have faith... yesterday though I saw/heard awesomeness. Back in South Dakota it was not uncommon to walk out of my house and hear cows mooing in the distance... this evening after I walked out of Building...(read more)

Ooo what a savings

I Hate Linux — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 03:10:07 GMT

The laptop I use today is a rather slow Gateway M275 tablet device which is really only useful to me as a remote desktop client to the faster PC in my second bedroom and when I got an email this evening advertising a great deal on a laptop I was interested... only to click to the page and find: And after clicking on Special Price we see that price to be... Ok... maybe that's not the stellar deal they think it is... I think I'll pass this time around....(read more)

Dead 360

I Hate Linux — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 05:15:34 GMT

Grrr. Yesterday my Xbox 360 started to have some issues with 3d rendering (2d and overlays were still fine) when playing Call of Duty 4. This issue also manifested itself when testing with Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and Halo 3 and quickly manifests itself even after a restart of the console. Today during some additional troubleshooting I removed the hard drive and found my console consistently giving me an E 74 error with a bit of text in 11 language telling me to contact Xbox support and now the console...(read more)

Not wanting to keep me as a customer

I Hate Linux — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:47:57 GMT

Since starting at Microsoft I have found myself spending more time on email than ever before... so much so that I now find myself wanting a way to check my work email anytime/anywhere... the perfect job for a smartphone... so the hunt has been on and thus far I've encountered at least one company that just doesn't want to keep me as a customer. Having been with one particular wireless carrier for the last 6 years so figured I should give them the first chance to serve my needs... and after...(read more)

“I’m not at liberty to answer that question”

I Hate Linux — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 07:19:41 GMT

Like many I wish our politicians could just get along and when they fly off the handle I too often times just shrug and wish I could vote them out... last night though I heard something that got my blood boiling and that couldn't be ignored. Last night when driving home I heard a clip from C-SPAN from that day when Congressman Bill Delahunt (D-MA) was asking questions of David Addington (chief of staff to the Vice-President) about "enhanced interrogation techniques" and waterboarding...(read more)

When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions

I Hate Linux — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:18:07 GMT

Last weekend I ran across an episode of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions and was... awestruck, completely and utterly dumbfounded... even as I (slowly) write this blog post I have to do so only during the commercials because the footage is incredible. I've seen plenty of old NASA footage... but some of this material is just... unbelievably beautiful. If you've got even a passing interest in the space program and access to the Discovery Channel (or Discovery HD (oh how I wish I had it...(read more)

Using the find command to find non executable files

chrisortman — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:18:23 GMT

I had a bunch of dll's I had checked out of a subversion repo that needed to have the execute bit set on them.

Enter the find command.

I have never had a great grasp on how to use find, but finally my laziness got the best of me such that I not only figured out how to use it to find the files I wanted, but also how to send them through xargs to make the change.

So here's the command I used:

find . -name '*.dll' ! -perm -a+x -print | xargs chmod +x

And here's the breakdown of the arguments . Is the directory we start our search from -name Says that the next argument is the name of the file we are searching for '*.dll' Is the pattern of the file we are looking for. In this case we are looking for *.dll or any file that ends with a .dll extension ! Says to negate the next argument -perm Says that the next argument will be some type of expression that qualifies the file based on its permissions -a+x There are multiple parts to this. The first - says that any permissions can match, if that wasn't there then the match would need to be exact? a+x (see man chmod(1)) is a way to specify permissions. It goes [user or group][operator][permission] so in this case it says ll(user, group, owner) [+]have e[x]ecute -print To be honest I'm not sure why this is needed, but all the examples I found with find and xargs seemed to use it

Then the point of xargs is to take the output of the previous command and pass it as input to the command (in this case chmod +x)

Power Pack 1 and Tab Manager

I Hate Linux — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 22:13:17 GMT

With the recent public release the Release Candidate of Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 it is imperative that any users of Tab Manager take special care when upgrading to avoid being incessantly nagged . Problem Due to changes in the way the Console in Power Pack 1 loads tabs and the way I hid tabs from the pre-PP1 tab loader, some add-ins may cause Tab Manager to crash on startup as well as see duplicate tabs within the console. This situation is especially likely if any Microsoft tabs were put...(read more)

Multiple-Voices

I Hate Linux — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:41:53 GMT

What's worse than hearing multiple voices in your head? Trying to speak with multiple voices. The time has come to split my blogging as I now find myself having two separate voices... Brendan Grant, Software Development Engineer on the Windows Home Server team at Microsoft... and Brendan Grant who also happens to be a Software Development Engineer on the Windows Home Server team at Microsoft. In the first case it's a semi-official voice complete with @microsoft.com email address... while...(read more)

My new git alias

chrisortman — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:54:39 GMT

git alias's are very handy and powerful.

Frequently I want to look through the log and have a quick view of who did what, so I created this alias

git config --global --add alias.who-did-what 'log --pretty="format:%an - %s"'

the output of which will be something like

chriso - Fixed bug 145
matt - Added some neat feature
wes - fixed one of chris's bugs

...

Enjoy

Technorati tags: git

Using ruby to syncronize some files

chrisortman — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:16:17 GMT

eCRM uses several open source projects.

When the open source project changes I need to get those changes, build the code on my machine and then copy the new dll's into eCRM's DependentFiles/<ProjectName> folder.

I have this somewhat automated using ruby (more specifically rake)

Here is a simple class called LibCopy

class LibCopy

  def copy(lib_files, lib_build_dir)
    libs_in_use = lib_files
    libs_in_use.each do |lib|
      puts "Check for " + lib
      lib_file = lib_build_dir + "/" +  lib.pathmap("%f") 
      if File.exists?(lib_file)
        puts "Found " + lib_file
        cp lib_file, File.expand_path(lib.pathmap("%p"))
      else
        puts "lib not found:" + lib_file 
      end
    end
  end
end

And then the way I use this is like so

task :castle_to_ecrm do
    dest_castle_libs = FileList['./ecrm/DependentFiles/Castle/*']
    LibCopy.new.copy(dest_castle_libs,CASTLE_BUILD_DIR)
end