New header image

April 11, 2005
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I think the new header image on my blog does a pretty good job of setting the stage for Summer. Don’t you agree?

Sigh. Ski season is over.

March 29, 2005
Skiing, Uncategorized
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I had planned on this being an epic ski season. I hurt my back in the fall (burst disk S1–L5, bulge in L4–L5) and thankfully avoided surgery. I vowed to get my core in shape so I’d have a great ski season. I busted my butt at the Pro Club…I even did a bunch of cardio. We went to Colorado over Christmas and I got 9 good days in. Then ONE at Steven’s Pass (where …Continue reading →

My flickr.com photos

March 24, 2005
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Given all the photos we took in Alaska last week (488 between Kevin & I) I decided to actually try out a few of the latest online photo sites. I tried both smugmug.com and flickr.com. Besides allowing you to store your photos online, these sites encourage community around photos by supporting simple metadata tags on the photos and the ability to share and group your photos with others. After playing with both, I decided I …Continue reading →

Back from Heli-Skiing

March 21, 2005
Skiing, Uncategorized
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What a great trip. We went with www.valdezheliskiguides.com. There were some technical difficulties (we were grounded for 3 days due to an “incident” having to do with a rotor blade striking a sign), but in the end I got a ton of amazing, very steep, powder skiing in with my good buddy Kevin and saw some of the most beautiful terrain in the world. And I made some new friends. Here’s some more pics. Yes, …Continue reading →

Heli-Skiing

March 15, 2005
Skiing, Uncategorized
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I’m currently near Valdez Alaska, heli-skiing in the Chugach mountain range. All I can say is Wow. Two pictures to illustrate. My buddy Kevin took both of these.  

MCE Controller 1.0.4 Released

February 27, 2005
Coding, Smart Home, Uncategorized
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I’ve released an update to MCE Controller that fixes a bug where it would prevent Windows logoff and shutdown. Head over to http://www.kindel.com/products/mcecontroller to download it. MCE Controller allows the Media Center application of Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) to be integrated into an advanced control system by enabling programmatic control of the user interface via a TCP/IP connection. To put it simply, MCE Controller, allows you to simulate a press of any button on …Continue reading →

I want my ‘Road kill’

February 25, 2005
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An MSNBC article says animal lovers are all up in arms over this stuff. I think it’s just about the funniest thing I’ve seen recently and I want some! “It sends the wrong message to children, that it’s OK to harm animals. And that’s the wrong message, especially from a so-called wholesome corporation like Kraft,” said society spokesman Matthew Stanton. What a crock. Next thing you know they’ll be complaining about standard gummi bears, cinnamon bears, …Continue reading →

Steve coins a new phrase: DVR Clog

February 24, 2005
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In The Furrygoat Experience: DVR Clog Steve coins a new term that I like: “DVR Clog”. I love it! DVR Clog. The state of affairs when your digital video recorder is full of shows you want to watch, but don’t have the time.  

Chris Gray – Building your own home server

February 24, 2005
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Chris talks about his home server on Channel9. “Let’s go to my white board…here’s a diagram of my home network…” He’s actually a pretty good artist. And I thought he was just a great developer. Chris’ office is basically across the hall from me. Let’s just say it’s rarely quiet.

Great Windows Media Center videos

February 24, 2005
Smart Home
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Check out these great Channel9 videos on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). If you’ve ever wondered what all the fuss over MCE is watch John Canning and Charlie Owen expose it all. Media Center exposed, Part I Media Center exposed, Part II There’s about an hour of video here, but if you really want to understand this amazing product it’s worthwhile to watch it all.

Quenching your printer’s exotic thirst

February 17, 2005
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This news.com/NYT article sure hit home. I didn’t say so in my post last night about needing a new printer, but the whole reason I discovered my printer wasn’t working was my daughter had an emergency with her science fair project. Her display board required a few items printed out on tabloid sized (17×11”) paper and my Epson Stylus Ex is the only printer in the house that can do that…

Dell 24" LCD for $1,199

February 17, 2005
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Ohhhh… check out the new Dell 2405FPW Wide screen LCD that ExtremeTech just reviewed. I am such a sucker for big, high-resolution displays. I was one of the first on the block to have an NEC 6FG back in the day; I still have the hulking monster too! Right now I have a Dell 20” 2100FP 1600×1200 LCD in front of me and at work I’m lucky enough to have TWO of them in a …Continue reading →

I need a new printer

February 17, 2005
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My trusty old Epson Stylus Ex printer has died. Looks like the black print head died and I’m skeptical getting it serviced would be worth while given its 5 or 6 years old… Actually sounds like a great excuse to buy a new gadget! Our other printer is an HP G85xi mutli-function. Does a fine job of photos for kids projects, scanning, faxing, etc… It’s upstairs by the kitchen where my wife & the kids can …Continue reading →

MindManager feature request

February 17, 2005
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Here’s a feature request for the team at MindJet responsible for the fantastic MindManager X5 product I wrote about last week; presented as a mind map of course!

Bluetake BT500 Bluetooth mouse and Windows XP SP2

February 16, 2005
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I have a Dell Insipron 8600 laptop with built-in Bluetooth support. The touchpad is not bad, but when I’m doing heavy work in MindManager I am moving the cursor around a lot. I wanted a mouse I could take with me to meetings and the road… For a while I carried around a tiny USB mouse someone had given me as swag but it was corded and the wire was always in the way. Then I bought a Microsoft …Continue reading →

Mapping your mind with MindManager X5

February 9, 2005
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A few months ago a I happened to glance over at a co-worker’s laptop during a meeting. He had some app running that was showing a wild looking spider like diagram that I had never seen before. I asked him what the app was and he said “MindManager. I use it for keeping track of my thoughts and ideas. You can download a trial from www.mindjet.com”. I followed his advice and my life changed as …Continue reading →

Blobservations: Windows Server, Home Edition

January 24, 2005
Smart Home
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Rick Hallihan presents a really nice vision of what a Windows based home server would look like in Blobservations: Windows Server, Home Edition. At my house I use Windows Server 2003 to manage all of my client PCs. For example I can easily change all machine’s IE security settings (and prevent my kids from changing them back) centrally via Group Policy. Today there are some problems with this in the home, namely some really cool …Continue reading →

Shadow copies – a peek under the hood

December 15, 2004
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Adi Oltean talks about one of my favorite Windows technologies: VSS in Shadow copies – a peek under the hood. Amazingly powerful stuff. He also talks about the command line interface for VSS and bunches of other really good Windows internals stuff on his blog. Such good stuff that I’ve added him to my blog roll.

Bluetooth GPS, Smartphone, Channel9, Oh My!

December 13, 2004
Coding, Smart Home
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Channel9 has posted a wicked-cool video of Alex Kipman demoning using Visual Studio to write slick SmartPhone app that talks to both the GPS and MapPoint via a web-service. Who says Microsoft can’t innovate? What other platform provides anywhere near the richness and integration across devices?!?! I purchased my Pharos GPS reciever as part of buying Microsoft Streets & Trips 2005. I bought it at the Microsoft Company Store for a silly low price (you …Continue reading →

W2K3 SP1 and XP Pro x64 RC1

December 7, 2004
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Today we (Microsoft) released the release candidate 1 (RC1) of Windows Server 2003 SP1, which you can download here. Being in the Windows Server group I’ve been runing interim builds of W2K3 SP1 for a looong time. I even have it running on all of my servers at home. In addition my main workstation at work is an AMD Athlon 64 machine running Windows XP Pro x64 Edition which is derived from the same code tree. …Continue reading →