Source Control

March 23, 2004
Coding
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Tonight I moved my source code out from the under the control of Visual Source Safe to Source Gear Vault. Even though I’m a single developer I really like having all my source stored in a source control system. It allows me to have “undo”, to be able to go back and build/update old versions of products, and ensures I have everything in a single place that can easily be backed up. VSS is a …Continue reading →

Spring

March 22, 2004
Uncategorized
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It’s the time of year again for the sun to start showing here again. That means fun yard projects! Man, do I have a list of things to do this year: Get the sprinkler system up and running again. I started this today. I fired it up (my in-lake pump got bumped around during a storm in November so I was a bit nervous about it’s condition…it worked!), and replaced a few broken heads and …Continue reading →

Web based photo gallery using SQL

March 10, 2004
Coding, Uncategorized
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In an entry last November I noted that I was enjoying ADO.NET and ASP.NET so much that I’d have another go at writing a web based photo gallery app that stored the images in SQL. I had most of it working by the end of the year, but my cat ski trip to Canada gave me the perfect excuse to actually work on it. It’ now at the point where I can actually use it. …Continue reading →

Cat Skiing

March 4, 2004
Skiing
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Wow. My cat skiing trip was amazing. This was the 6th year I’ve done it and while the conditions were not as good as they had been in the past, the experience was still unbelievable. Now I have the task of updating my Revelstoke web site with all of the pictures (145+) and movies (45+ minutes) we took. I caught a bit of a cold and have been going to bed early so haven’t been …Continue reading →

Powder Skiing

February 25, 2004
Skiing
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This week I’m in Canada on my annual Cat Powder skiing trip. My buddy Erik and I have been doing this (along with a bucnh of other guys) for 6 years. We go to this place called Cat Powder Skiing (www.catpowder.com/indexcatsi.htm) in Revelstoke, BC. It takes us about 8 hours to drive directly from Seattle to Revelstoke, but this year we stopped first at Mt. Baker on Tuesday, and I’m writing this while sitting in …Continue reading →

MCE Controller v1.0.1 Released!

February 23, 2004
Coding, Smart Home, Uncategorized
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Today I released the first public version of MCE Controller. MCE Controller allows the Media Center application of Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) to be integrated into an advanced AV 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 the MCE IR remote control by sending a text command to a TCP/IP port on …Continue reading →

Why do I do this to myself?

February 12, 2004
Uncategorized
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I had my Crestron system talking to Media Center just fine. I had written an MD5 implementation required by the Girder iserver component, and although the solution was a bit of a hack, it worked. And well. But noooo. I have to make it work right. So I set about writing my own app that listens on a TCP socket and controls the ehshell.exe app (MCE Controller). “It will be a great excuse to do …Continue reading →

I’m a hardware geek

February 12, 2004
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Well, actually, I’m just a geek in general. If it makes noise, has to do with moving lots of electrons around, or involves code I’m into it. And even though I’m mostly a software guy in terms of the things I create, I love learning and knowing about all kinds of hardware. There are a ton of really great resources on the web for someone like me. Here’s a sampling of my favorites: Tom’s Hardware …Continue reading →

Quick Reivew Creative Labs “SoundBlaster Wireless Music”

February 12, 2004
Uncategorized
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I purchased a Creative Labs “SoundBlaster Wireless Music” (the product name is in quotes!) to play with.  $249 from Creative’s website. Creative’s website on this is here: http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=119&subcategory=121&product=9192 Summary: The SoundBlaster Wireless Music (which I will refer to as SBWM below) is an 802.11b (only) “digital audio receiver” or DAR that includes a bi-directional RF (not 802.11b based) remote control for UI. Time from opening the box to when I was playing music wirelessly, using the …Continue reading →

Quick Review of Linksys EFG120 Network Attached Storage/Print server

February 12, 2004
Uncategorized
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I purchased a Linksys EFG120 Network Attached Storage/Print server device to play with. You can buy these online for $675 or so (e.g. http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=56-124-001&depa=1). The Linksys page describing the product is at: http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=35&prid=555. Summary: The EFG120 is a expandable 120GB NAS device with a built-in print server. It includes drive bays for 2 removable IDE hard drives; one is occupied by a Maxtor 120GB drive (6Y120L0). Installing a 2nd drive gives you either double the …Continue reading →

MCE Controller

February 11, 2004
Coding, Smart Home, Uncategorized
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In my post on XMLSerialization I mentioned that I was working on an app to enable control of MCE remotely over a TCP socket. I call this app MCE Controller and it’s basically done. Here’s what it does: Runs as a taskbar icon and allows you to view a log of what it’s doing by double clicking on the icon. Supports 45 commands. These include all MCE keyboard shortcuts (equivalent to all of the remote …Continue reading →

XMLSerialization

February 11, 2004
Coding, Uncategorized
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XMLSerialization absolutely rocks. I am blown away by the flexibility and richness it provides and how easy it is to use…once you get past the initial learning curve. I implemented it for a tool I’m writing that allows me to control Windows Media Center Edition remotely via a TCP based protocol. My home AV control system uses Crestron and I need to be able to have Crestron be able to control MCE. For various reasons …Continue reading →

Check constraints in SQL Server

November 25, 2003
Coding, Uncategorized
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This goes in the “here’s something I learned today” bucket. I was working on my ASP.NET based photo gallery sample/experiment and realized that I needed to ensure that the names of images I stored in the database couldn’t contain illegal filename characters. This is because I allow the user to specify a path like http://imgsample/P51.jpg and I use URL rewriting to translate this to http://imgsample/ViewImage.aspx?name=P51 or http://imgsample/ViewImage.aspx?ID=12&size=med. Not being a database guy (yet!) as I …Continue reading →

Heros

November 25, 2003
Leadership
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Speaking of heros… This got me thinking about who my heros are. I actually have quite a few, and I think I can categorize them: Real Life My father. Duh. Geeks Jim Gray Ray Ozzie Anders Hieldberg Chris Guzak Leadership Bob Muglia Ronald Regan Abrhahm Lincoln

Ray Ozzie on WinFS & Longhorn

November 25, 2003
Coding, Leadership, Uncategorized
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One of my favorite industry visionaries, Ray Ozzie, has written a great note in his blog on WinFS titled “640KB ought to be enough for everyone“. Interesting read. He references Jim Gray (another of my geek heros) and points to an old but topical presentation on the trends in storage. Jim gets it.

Problem installing VS.NET 2003 on Windows Server 2003

November 17, 2003
Coding, Uncategorized
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I’m cranking away on really learning ASP.NET by building my own photo gallery component (primarily for my ’95 BMW 540 M-Sport (www.kindel.com/bmw) registry). Even though I know it won’t perform as well I implemented it by writing the images (full size, medium size, and thumbnails) to the SQL Server. Fun stuff. Anyway, I deployed it to another server and wanted to debug. Didn’t have VS.NET installed on that server so debugging won’t work. So in …Continue reading →

Polar Bears Rock

November 16, 2003
Uncategorized
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My daughter’s 10 year-old soccer team (the Polar Bears) is playing for the championship tomorrow! Three weeks ago they started the tournament loosing their second game and going into the bottom bracket of 16 teams (it’s a double-elimination tourney). For the past three weeks they have played incredibly hard and after winning two games today have emerged out of the bottom bracket to face the only team left in the top bracket tomorrow. Because the …Continue reading →

Lego robot solves rubics cube

November 11, 2003
Uncategorized
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Way cool: http://jpbrown.i8.com/cubesolver.html

My Premise to Crestron Bridge is now ready for beta testing!

November 10, 2003
Smart Home, Uncategorized
2 Comments

Head on over to http://www.kindel.com/Default.aspx?tabid=31 for details. The driver is now called the Kindel Systems Premise External Control Processor Bridge. I renamed it because it is actually completely generic and not specific to Crestron at all. It can be made to work with other external RS-232 attached home control processors that support a text based protocol and can be programmed.

My Home Control System Overview

November 7, 2003
Smart Home, Uncategorized
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This post describes the systems in the house we completed in August 2002. I get quite a few people asking me about what I did in the house, and instead of re-typing it yet another time, I’ve decided to write it down completely. [Updated October 5, 2011 with some new details.] The first thing I did before starting this project was to think about my goals. Below are the prioritized goals I used to guide …Continue reading →