Is it just me, or is there something inherently weird about dragging an AC-powered flat panel display into Starbucks to hook up to your laptop at one of those little tables, when your laptop already has a flat-panel display? /me rolls eyes...

Microsoft has filed the new Sender-ID email spec with the Internet Engineering Task Force. The spec is a hybrid of Microsoft's "Caller ID for E-mail" and the competing-but-similar "Sender Policy Framework" (SPF).

Security Pipeline: "The new specification, called Sender ID, proposes that organizations publish information about their outgoing e-mail servers, particularly IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, in the Domain Name System (DNS) in XML. If adopted, Sender ID would serve as an e-mail authentication system that verifies the message actually originated with the purported address."

This will be a hot item over the next year or so. Expect to see this actually happen. The merged specs that were filed allow verification that the sender domain is legitimate and not spoofed on two layers, and the concept of sender-authenticated email is picking up a real head of steam.

If it flies, the bad effects of all those phishers and spammers will be significantly reduced (at least until they figure a way around that, too...).

UPDATE: Bill Gates' announcement about the new technologies and anti-spam roadmap is viewable on the web. I received the "executive email" from Microsoft a couple days after posting this original entry.

Sounds like Roy Osherove's a little bit disappointed he has not received more entries to the "Most Useful VS.NET Add-in/Macro Coding Contest," for which there are some pretty nice prizes.

Since I'm not nearly talented enough to even think about doing this, and since I know a number of people who are, I figured I should post this reminder. Submissions will be accepted only through the end of June, so hurry up! Only new (not re-used) code need apply.

Go here and read the details. I mean, just look what you could win:

1st prize:

• Essential Suite by SyncFusion (1,295$ !)
• C# Refactory by Xtreme Simplicity(99$)
• CodeSmart 2003 pack by AXTools  (299$)
• XTra Grid suite by DevExpress (399$)
• Book: Coder To Developer by Mike Gunderloy  (21$)
• Book: Inside Visual Studio.Net  signed by One of the authors (Craig Skibo)  (34$)
• Book: .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 (44$)
• Book: Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .Net (33$)
• XDN Pro Membership by Xtras.Net (99$)
• A tour of MS Offices in Redmond (if you can get there by yourself) (priceless)
• Total Value: $2,323

2nd prize:

• CodeRush for VS.Net by DevExpress (249$)
• LLBLGen Pro  - by Solutions Design  (210$)
• XDN Pro Membership by Xtras.Net (99$)
• Book: Coder To Developer by Mike Gunderloy (21$)
• Book: Inside Visual Studio.Net  signed by One of the authors (Craig Skibo) (34$)
• Book: .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1 (44$)
• Book: Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .Net(33$)
• Total Value: $690

3rd prize:

• XDN Pro Membership by Xtras.Net (99$)
• Book: Coder To Developer by Mike Gunderloy (21$)
• Book: Inside Visual Studio.Net  signed by One of the authors (Craig Skibo) (34$)
• Book: .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference Vol 1  (44$)
• Book: Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .Net(33$)
• Book:Build Your own ASP.NET website (45$)
• Total Value: $276

Bonus:

the most crazy and innovative add-in (not necessarily useful!) will get a special prize from me:

• CodeSmart 2003 for VS.Net by AXTools (189$)
• XDN Pro Membership by Xtras.Net (99$)
• Book:Build Your own ASP.NET website (45$)
• Total Value: $333

Many are not aware that in PowerPoint 2003 (and 2002/XP) there is a feature available called Presenter View, which allows you to use your computer's multi-monitor capability to better control your presentations.

In order to use presenter view, your computer must meet the following requirements:

• The computer must have multiple monitor capability - check with the manufacturer about this if you're not sure. Usually desktop computers require two video cards in order to have multiple monitor capability; laptops often have the capability built in.
• The computer must be running an operating system that supports multiple displays, such as Windows 98, Windows 2000, or Windows XP (or later).
• Multiple monitor support must be enabled by setting the display options. In Control Panel, click the Display icon.
• Presenter view must be turned on in PowerPoint.

Basically you just set up your second monitor in the display settings and check the "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" box. Then in PowerPoint, follow the menus to set up the slide show (Slide show... Set up show...), and in the multiple monitors section, choose the extended monitor (your projector output) as the device on which to place the slides, then check the box to indicate you want to use the presenter view.

There you have it: One monitor with your notes and controls, and the other for your audience with just the slides. Cool stuff.

Thanks to Alwin Hawkins (who has a blog I read regularly), I'm a Gmail user now. He had a couple extra invitations (you can't just sign up, someone has to invite you), and was kind enough to share.

Okay, so there are certain things about Gmail that are kind of cool. I like the idea of being able to organize content by conversation and applying multiple labels (think of them as virtual folders) to a single conversation. Add the fairly advanced searching features, and you've got a pretty flexible email system.

It's definitely not Outlook on Exchange, but then again not much is. Besides, this is 100% web-based. You get a gig of storage space, which is nearly obscene. For a person who needs a free and flexible Internet email account for personal use, it's not too darn shabby.

Robert's playing mind games! He's right though - pretty amazing that such a large company can keep things secret:

Another quiet launch coming?

In the .NET show Jeff Sandquist says that the days of the quiet launch on the blogosphere are probably over. Oh yeah?

There's some really cool stuff coming next week that hasn't been leaked yet. It's really shocking that Microsoft can still keep a secret. But my fingers are itching. Twitching. Convulsing.

Damn, it's hard to keep a secret. Especially this one (I've been keeping it for a couple of months under threat of career ruin). No, it's not about blogging or RSS either. Well, see ya next week.

Quiet launch? Oh, sure, just between me and my closest friends. Get the Slashdot-compliant server ready.

Comdex has been canceled this year. It may come back in 2005.

"MediaLive [the company that organizes the show each year] is forming a corporate advisory board for Comdex that will include representatives from Microsoft, Oracle, Dell and other tech giants. Executives from those companies, who have already been approached by MediaLive and expressed an interest in participating on such a board, will help reshape Comdex to make it more relevant to IT decision-makers..."

Too bad, but here's your alternative: Gnomedex 2004.

Microsoft has received a new patent, issued June 22nd, for personal areas networks and "the methods and apparatus for distributing power and data to devices coupled to the human body."

So, Microsoft owns me? It's an interesting patent (for real), but the sarcastic side of me begs to ask the question: "If the devil now owns my body, is the soul next?" But I digress...

Personal area networks are not a new concept. I remember discussion around the term dating several years back. What Microsoft has done here is protected the use of the human body as the apparatus used to communicate the information.

Excerpt: "The human body is used as a conductive medium, e.g., a bus, over which power and/or data is distributed. Power is distributed by coupling a power source to the human body via a first set of electrodes. One or more devise to be powered, e.g., peripheral devices, are also coupled to the human body via additional sets of electrodes. The devices may be, e.g., a speaker, display, watch, keyboard, etc. A pulsed DC signal or AC signal may be used as the power source. By using multiple power supply signals of differing frequencies, different devices can be selectively powered. Digital data and/or other information signals, e.g., audio signals, can be modulated on the power signal using frequency and/or amplitude modulation techniques."

via Compendium/Adam Gaffin

"FeedDemon won PC World's editor's pick in their recent roundup of RSS readers, beating out NewsGator, Bloglines, Radio Userland and 15 other RSS readers."

Nick Bradbury's software (all of it) is great ... Each one of his creations represents a great example of a software designer building products that work, fit and behave in a way people can appreciate without having to work at it. He knows his audiences and has a true ability to design for the target crowd.

I use FeedDemon exclusively as my RSS aggregator. If you've ever used HomeSite (now a Macromedia product) or TopStyle, you've experienced Nick's quality software before.

If you are in need of a top-notch RSS/Atom feed reader with all the bells and whistles, but which is still easy and comfortable to use, download a copy of FeedDemon and give it a try. Once you've used it, I think you'll be hooked.

Congrats, Nick.

If you work with Windows XP Professional on a Windows 2000/2003 domain and you use Group Policy, this is for you.

Microsoft has released an updated version of their spreadsheet that lists the full set of Group Policy settings described in Administrative Template (.adm) files shipped with Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 Release Candidate 2. This includes all policy settings supported on Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003. The spreadsheet includes separate worksheets for each of the .adm files shipped, as well as a consolidated worksheet for easy searching. Using column filters, the spreadsheet allows simple filtering by operating system, component and machine/user configuration, as well as regular text search of keywords through Excel.

Essential for network admins planning a move to SP2 when it's released later this year - so go get it.

NOTE FOR DOMAIN ADMINS AND GPO GEEKS: The .ADM template files associated with Win XP SP2 can be found on your XP computer after you apply the service pack. Search for *.ADM or browse to:

   %SYSTEMROOT%\inf\

Or, extract them from the service pack CAB files if you're feeling adventuresome.

In other words, this works just like any other set of ADM files. Once you've applied the template files to your group policy objects on a domain controller, you'll see new options for lots of things like the Windows firewall and other nifty new GPO features.

IMPORTANT: Note that applying the ADM templates to your DC does not modify the group policy data in existence - it just opens up the new policy fields. However, you should carefully test the new settings, probably in a test OU with the proper ADM templates applied. In reality, you should not test these on a production domain until you are familiar and comfortable from testing on a lab or test domain system. Also remember that as long as SP2 is in beta, nothing is guaranteed, so it's all at your own risk.

Paul Allen and partners came significantly closer to winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which will be awarded to the first team to send a spaceship carrying a pilot and the weight of two passengers to an altitude of 100 kilometers twice within two weeks.

SpaceShipOne successfully launched just barely into outer space today after taking off under the belly of a larger aircraft. Rocket engines pushed it and its single pilot just outside the Earth's atmosphere, and then it fell back to earth, gliding the last part much like the space shuttle does.

It's fun to see private enterprise making this kind of thing happen. Certainly having someone like Paul Allen to bank-roll the project helps a lot, but ultimately it's great to see a non-government project get off the ground - literally.

The private space race has a number of teams actively competing for the $10 million prize.

He received an email this morning and comments on it:

"Fix your piece of s--- program! I upgraded to FeedDemon 1.10 and it crashes with 'Win32 device error.' Did you even test this s---?"

I've actually received a number of emails (and one forum post) about this bug, but I have no plans to fix it. Why? Because the error message only appears if you upgrade a cracked version of FeedDemon 1.0. This is a deliberate error message that FeedDemon 1.10 displays when it detects that you upgraded from a specific cracked version of FeedDemon 1.0.

That's right, people who use a pirated version of FeedDemon are emailing me for support.

Once again we see the sizable overlap between stupid and dishonest. In my years as a police officer - a previous career path - I saw this over and over. Not only are thieves and cheaters not very smart, they'll often make it all-too-easy to catch them.

Read Nick's blog entry - it's worth the time and the resulting laugh. And good for Nick, taking action to protect his intellectual property. I buy his software, not only because it's great, but also simply because I use it. Not to mention because it's the honest, good and right thing to do. This is an important conversation to have.

Delorme has a great and relatively new GPS device out called the Earthmate GPS Receiver. The name's not new, but this version runs off USB power, so none of the separate power cords like their old stuff used to require, and no more serial ports to fight with (for that matter, my new laptop doesn't even have a serial port).

What's so special about it? Well, for starters you plug it in, along with the Street Atlas 2004 USA software that comes with it, and you're pretty much instantly listening to your computer give you turn-by-turn directions to wherever you want to go. Plus, you can talk to your computer, verbally giving commands like "Next turn?" or "Where am I?" The computer answers your questions.

So, that sounds pretty neat you say, but so what? Well, on a recent trip to California, I spent a weekend with a friend in a rental car, traversing the southern part of the state. Everywhere we went we used the laptop with the GPS device, and we were able to find things that otherwise would have been pretty difficult, we always knew where we were, and ultimately we were able to quickly plan routes and get to places. We did a lot in a few days, and had fun in the process.

There's a bunch of new fancy GPS devices on the market, selling for over a thousand dollars. If you have a laptop and want great functionality, don't spend the money on the expensive stuff. Try this first.

I want to write something about my dad. Nothing flowery, nothing earth-shattering. Just that I love him, that I am proud to be his son, and that I hope he has a great Fathers Day.

He's been there when I was at my worst, and for that I am grateful.

So - Thank you, Dad. And by the way, I can't find your cell phone number again, and I tried you at home and work. Call me, why don't ya.

Fathers Day is a hard one for me. I am happy for my dad and my relationship with him, and also sad for other reasons on this day each year. But for both of the people on my mind this day, I am truly grateful for those relationships and the time I have been privileged to spend.

I'm also lucky to have good friends who think about me on days like this. They dropped off a card while I was out this evening. On the face it reads, "Those we hold most dear never truly leave us." I believe that.

Days like today are important. They give us pause, to thank those who have meant so much, and to remember those who have gone before us.

Happy Fathers Day.

As a homeowner of a house and a few acres in the Middle of Nowhere, I've become very well acquainted with the Home Depot over the past couple of years. I love Home Depot. Here's a few reasons why.

1. Even though I hate credit cards, I got one from Home Depot. They have regular promotions (meaning almost all the time) that allow you to charge any purchase over $300 with no payments and no interest for 12 months. Granted, it gets expensive if you don't pay it all off before time runs out, but that's not a problem in my case - I always pay it off each month. If you have issues with charging up credit cards and getting into a world of Financial Hell, just skip this part completely, you'll be happier.
2. Internet-only specials. For example, this weekend they have a special for Internet purchases only, not available in the store, for price reductions on a variety of items, including two power tools I have been considering buying. Needless to say, they got purchased today.
3. Free shipping specials. Right now if you place an order for more than $49, they'll ship it for free, as long as its not something super heavy or huge. What counts for huge? Well, not 12-inch compound miter saws or 10-inch portable table saws, if that gives you an idea. Granted, it's ground shipping, but hey - it's free.

So, I saved $55 on the tools, got free shipping, and no payments and no interest for 12 months. I'll pay it off next month, but it's nice to know I have the option to spread it out if I want to.

Plus, they're everywhere and easy to find. They're also easy when it comes to returning items that don't fit or don't work or that you don't like or whatever. I can go there and learn stuff in free classes on the weekends.

The only complaint I have about Home Depot (if you can call it that) is that their concrete floors are so darn hard, and the stores are so darn big, that by the time I'm done shopping my feet, legs and back are killing me. Of course, Costco has the same problem. Put down some of that nifty hard rubber floor material you sell, and I'll stick around a little longer each time I shop. Maybe you'll sell more stuff.