Monkeys are very furious

Many to Many Dimensional Modeling

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:43:47 GMT

There is a great paper on Many to Many Dimensional Modeling, recently released by Marco Russo over at sqlbi.eu. I was lucky enough to get a hold of a pre-release version a few weeks ago, and it really helped me get up to speed on some of the more advanced aspects of dimensional modeling. Marco was even kind enough to acknowledge my review of the paper - not that I did much.

So, if you are looking for a great primer on M-t-M modeling in SQL Server Analysis Services 2005 - this is the first place I would go.

In fact, I am going to re-read it now that it has been officially released.

DVD-RW stuck in PIO mode...

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:53:19 GMT

So, I was burning a DVD the other day, and my DVD-RW was acting weird, and working really slowly, and causing my system to work slowly. I ended up figuring out that it got put into PIO mode instead of DMA mode. PIO mode is the old, lame way of doing things - and DMA is the newer, better way of doing things.

Anyways, I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to put it back in DMA mode.

Then I happened across a posting that explained what you have to do - go into the device manager and uninstall the drive, and then uninstall the IDE channel it was in. Then reboot. Apparently windows re-detects the hardware, and puts it back in DMA mode.

And now things run like they used to.

Weird, voodoo. You would think it would be easier to do.

New Laptop Time (Tablet PC)

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:45:35 GMT

I am doing some pretty demanding stuff these days, and my 3 year old Acer C300 is starting to be a bottleneck. So I just placed an order for a new Toshiba Portege M400 Tablet:

Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2700 (2.33GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB)
2048MB PC5300 DDR2 667MHz SDRAM (1024MBx2)
12.1" Diagonal SXGA+ Wide View Angle Display (1400x1050)
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 128MB (Vista Ready)
100GB HDD (7200rpm, Serial-ATA)
Ultra SlimBay DVD SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) drive
Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG (802.11a/b/g)
Bluetooth® Version 2.0 + EDR
Li-Ion Battery (6-cell, 4700mAh)
3 Years Standard Limited Warranty

Mmmmm, dual core lovin, with a GPU that can handle Aero Glass in Vista, and runs in a nice native resolution.

I was contemplating waiting for Core 2 Duo (Merom) tablets to start to sell, but from all the benchmarks I have seen we are talking about an at best 15% increase in performance. Also, there is a chance that I will be able to upgrade this laptop to a Core 2 Duo - supposedly all it will take is a BIOS update from Toshiba.

BackgroundWorker and InvokeRequired

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 17:42:54 GMT

There is a great feature in .NET 2.0 that vastly simplifies multithreading or asynchronous tasks...the BackgroundWorker object.

It is pretty straightforward, and for a lot of developers, not nearly as scary as creating Threads (though honestly, .NET has made that very easy as well). All you have to do is instantiate a BackgroundWorker, create a DoWork delegate, and call RunWorkerAsync(). The code in your DoWork delegate gets run asynchronously in its own thread.

One thing a lot of Windows Forms developers still don't understand, though, is that when dealing with Windows Forms controls, you have to be sure to only touch them from the same thread they were created in. This is why all Windows Forms controls have the InvokeRequired property, and the Invoke method. If InvokeRequired comes back as true, then you need to use the Invoke method to marshal your call to the correct thread.

So...if you are using BackgroundWorker, and have code in your DoWork delegate that touches controls, you need to be using InvokeRequired.

Now, there is another aspect of BackgroundWorker that simplifies this issue a bit. If you set WorkerReportsProgress to true, and create a ProgressChanged delegate, and only touch Windows Forms controls in that code - and not in your DoWork code - then you can safely ignore the whole InvokeRequired/Invoke methodology.

Here is a pretty decent article on the subject or BackgroundWorker.

Business Intelligence

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 04:56:30 GMT

I have been immersing myself in the SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence tools (Analysis Services, Integration Services, Reporting Services) and it is all very very cool stuff. I have been cramming for the last few weeks preparing to kickoff a 2 week Data Warehousing proof of concept session at the MTC (Microsoft Technology Center) in Reston. I am heading up there this Sunday, and won't be back for 2 weeks.

Anyways, learning about OLAP is very enlightening - now that I know what it is, I can see that in several past projects I have actually attempted to implement my own kind of OLAP...so it is one of those times when you realize that in the past you have re-invented the wheel due to ignorance.

I have been working on a couple of other things as well:

Working on a web application vulnerability assessment. It is simultaneously lots of fun and frustrating. It is fun because, well, trying to break into things is fun. It is a little frustrating because this particular application seems to have been well designed and implemented, so apart from a couple potential XSS (Cross Site Scripting) vulnerabilities, I have not had much luck breaking into it. At this point, I am pretty much just hoping to run accross an implementation error - because their design seems solid. I will try to post a bit more about later on.

I am also setting up a website to sell photos. I am going to try my hat at being a sport shooter. I took some pictures at a flyball show a month ago, and several of the people from the event that saw my pictures said I should sell them. It actually takes a lot of effort to sell photos online (if you want to do it right, have decent quality, and not get ripped off by the service you use). I will try and expound on this later on as well.

PRTG also Rocks

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:19:23 GMT

So, my friend Charles and I got to hang out the other day, and he showed me something pretty cool: PRTG. If you know what MRTG is, then this is its highly polished commercial cousin. All I had to do was enable SNMP on my router, change the public/private community strings, and point PRTG to my router (WRT54GS).

With the free version, you get 3 sensors, but I only saw a point in monitoring the WiFi interface and the WAN interface. Here is an example of the kind of graph it produces:

That is my WAN link (everything going in/out of my cable modem). I have a lot of BitTorrent stuff running at the moment - mostly seeding since 8AM (red is IN, green is OUT).

If you happen to have a WRT54G/GS, the default interface names are kind of non-sensical, so here is a description of what they are, so you can pick what you want to monitor:

vlan0 is the wired ports (4 LAN ports)
vlan1 is the WAN interface
br0 is the whole network switch (vlan0 + eth1)
ppp0 is the PPPoE interface (if enabled)
eth1 is the Wireless device
eth0 is the hardware device the VLAN's are created from.

QoS Rocks

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 17:02:02 GMT

I know, the technology has been around for a while...but, I never thought I had reason to set it up on my router until I got a VoIP phone (and only then did I set it up after a call got messed up my other traffic) - but QoS (Quality of Service) really rocks. I should have set it up long ago, before I ever got a VoIP phone.

If you don't know what QoS is - it is a technology that allows you to prioritize traffic going through your router. My setup is like this: VoIP packets get the highest priority, followed by HTTP/HTTPS, followed by everything else, with lowest priority going to BitTorrent and POP3. My reasoning is simple - I prioritized by my expectation of interactivity and responsiveness. I will really notice if my VoIP calls get interefed with, followed closely by web pages loading slowly. I won't notice AT ALL if BitTorrent or POP3 traffic gets slowed down occaisionally.

The end result is that I can have my BitTorrent client MAXed out running full throttle, and web pages still load quickly. Before, I would have to throttle BT down to something like 40-60K/sec to make sure the web was still responsive.

Wireless Defender

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:48:03 GMT

So apparently woot.com had a special not too long ago where you could buy a pack of 2 Wireless Defenders - which are another brand of the "Wireless PC Lock" devices that I wrote UsbWiSec for.

Many of the wooters were unhappy with the OEM software (as to be expected), and some of them found UsbWiSec and told the others. Well, apparently the Wireless Defender brand of devices use a different hardware ID from the "Wireless PC Lock" brand, so UsbWiSec didn't work out of the box for them.

So, one of them setup a website, WirelessDefender.net, and they have been helping each other out and hacking on the code.

Anyways, I thought that was very cool.

Port of Antwerpen, Belgium

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 23:42:28 GMT

I must be watching too much Mind of Mencia, because today when I was doing some testing, I ran across the port of BEANR, and I laughed.

Television's version of ATS

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Sun, 21 May 2006 00:23:32 GMT

I don't usually watch the show numb3rs, but my parents told me that last weeks episode dealt with Container Security, so I had to download it and watch it. I know that any time a movie or a TV show attempts to portray a specific niche that the people who really are experts in that niche find the portrayal humorous, if not aggravating. This portrayal of Custom's Automated Targeting System is no different. :)

I have cut together a small video montage of all the juicy bits (fair use, yo!).

ATDI gets talked about in CIO magazine

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 16:53:44 GMT

There is a very cool article in CIO magazine that partially discusses the project I am working on. Customs Rattles the Supply Chain. If you scroll a little more than halfway down, to the part titled "Customs ACE in the Hole", that is where they talk about the Advance Trade Data Initiative.

I love this particular quote:

It would take 20 supercomputers chained together just to go through the data from Target, Wal-Mart and Sears," says Laden, who left Target last May to start the consulting firm Trade Innovations. (Bush says the system will work but declined to discuss specifics, citing national security.)

Heh.

ILMerge released on MS Download Center

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 00:19:31 GMT

So, this is a tool that was born at the Microsoft Research Center over two years ago, by Michael Barnett. It allows you to collapse multiple assemblies down to one assembly. It was just recently updated (february 7th) and placed on the Microsoft Download Center.

Anyways, this is a pretty cool little tool - one that I honestly had never heard of before.

I am about to use it to collapse a winform client I wrote into a single executable, rather than 1 EXE, and 2 DLLs.

Novell Linux Desktop

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 23:08:56 GMT

Wow, Novell has apparently been doing some cool stuff with Linux. Here are some demo movies showing off some enhancements they have made to the linux desktop, using XGL and a composition manager called compiz.

Very very cool looking. They pull off multiple desktops as a 3d-cube, with each desktop as a surface of the cube. They show something like expose. Really nice composited opacity. Interesting animations for minimizing and maximizing. And some "wobbly window" effect when you drag a window around.

Get a free USB Wireless Security Lock

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 19:21:32 GMT

You can get a free (after rebate) USB Wireless Security Lock from TigerDirect. The rebate is good until 2/28/2006. With tax and ground shipping, you are looking at only paying about $7 for the device.

Thanks to Scott for instant messaging me "duuuude!" about this :)

Of course, once you get the hardware, go get the software Scott and I wrote that makes it worth owning in the first place.

Vault 2.0.6 has issues with VS2005

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 04:43:05 GMT

So, Vault is a really great product. I won a 5-user license copy at a .NET user group meeting over two years ago. I started using it immediately and have been an evangelist for the product ever since. There are a handful of companies using the product now because of me.

It does have some maddening drawbacks - like side-by-side installation. If you happen to need to connect to several different Vault servers - they had all better be running the same version, as you can only install one instance of the client.

For this reason, I am stuck at the last version of the 2.x series - 2.0.6. It seems there is a bug in Vault 2.0.6 relating to .NET 2.0 and VS2005. Eventually your local cache is going to get messed up due to changes in serialization from 1.1 to 2.0. See, when the Vault libraries get run by VS2005, they are run inside the 2.0 framework - so when the cache files are messed with, they are serialized using the 2.0 serialization mechanism. When you run the Vault client standalone, it is run using the 1.1 framework, and it barfs trying to deserialize the cache files written by the Vault libraries executed under 2.0.

So, my workaround is to modify the VaultGUIClient.exe.config, and tell it to load up using the 2.0 framework. You can do this by adding the following to the config file.

<startup>
<requiredRuntime version="v2.0.50727" />
</startup>

So now, the Vault 2.0.6 standalone client will execute under the 2.0 framework, and can read the cache files that are written when Vault is being run under VS2005.

Obviously this is somewhat risky, and surely an unsupported configuration. But it seems to work fine.

Thanks to Scott Hanselman for giving me the idea to try this after reading his blog entry about the Logitech IO2Pen having issues after installing the 2.0 framework - even though I did the exact opposite of what he did in that article.

.NET developers are in top 5 for demand

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 16:34:12 GMT

I suspected this was the case due to the increase in volume of recruiter email and calls I have gotten recently - even without having recently updated my resume.

From CNN Money:

"Two tech jobs in high demand these days are .NET (dot net) developers and quality assurance analysts.

Developers who are expert users of Microsoft's software programming language .NET can make between $75,000 and $85,000 a year in major cities when they're starting out. If they pursue a job at a company that seeks someone with a background in a given field (say, a firm looking for a .NET developer experienced in using software related to derivatives) they might snag a salary hike of 15 percent or more when they switch jobs.

Those who work in software quality management, meanwhile, might make $65,000 to $75,000 a year and be able to negotiate a 10 percent to 15 percent jump in pay if they switch jobs."

RoadRunner 15Mbps for $15

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 17:19:22 GMT

So, watching TV the other night, I saw an advert for RoadRunner that mentions you can get 10Mbps for an extra $10, or 15Mbps for an extra $15 - assuming you are a "Digital Combo Plus" subscriber - which means you get RoadRunner, Phone, and Digital Cable.

So, I decided to try it out - all I had to do was call them up, and they flipped a switch - didn't have to get a new cable modem or even really wait longer than about 30 seconds for it to take effect. There was a little bit of confusion since my HOA pays for the phone and basic cable - so they didn't think I was a "Digital Combo Plus" subscriber at first - but they quickly figured it out.

So far I am very happy. Various speed tests indicate a massive improvement in bandwidth. The nicest speed test I found is hosted by speakeasy.

13,970/1,529 (in kbps)
13.68/1.5 (in Mbps)
1.71/0.187 (in MB/sec)

So, if you have RoadRunner, I suggest you check this out. As far as I am concerned Verizon FIOS can go get bent. They have been taunting my neighborhood about FIOS for the last year, but every couple of months I call and they say service will be available soon. As far as I am concerned, RoadRunner just pwned Verizon.

Now, the new RoadRunner package is about $10/mo more expensive than the equivalent FIOS package...but I am pretty sure that to get FIOS you have to have a verizon phone line - and I am not sure how the overall package of Internet + Phone compares between the two companies. Now, for the price of a small monthly car payment, you could get 30Mbps/5Mbps FIOS...

Ted's Band has a CD! (from Scrubs)

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 00:24:53 GMT

If you like Scrubs you have no doubt seen at least one episode involving the acapella sounds of "Ted's Band". Well, they are a real group - called The Blanks. They have a website. They have a CD coming out. And they do an acapella cover of the shows themesong Superman.

Equally excellent is their rendition of Charles in Charge.

Tricky issue with NUnit and VS2005

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 01:00:56 GMT

I am new to NUnit and Test Driven Development, in fact, today was my first time using it. So, imagine how much head-banging ensued when I could get the NUnit samples to work, but as soon as I tried to make my own simple ones, NUnit could not find any of my tests!

Well, you see, the new default in VS2005 is to not automatically define as class as public. NUnit was not able to find the non-public tests.

So, anyways, hopefully that helps someone. It wasted about 15 minutes of my time.

Ask a Ninja

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 16:47:18 GMT

Ask a Ninja is perhaps the funniest Ninja-related comedy to hit the Internet since the Real Ultimate Power website was published. It is some guy, nay, NINJA, which produces a video blog answering people's questions about Ninjas.

Coming up for air...

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 22:54:55 GMT

I have been busier in the last 4 weeks than I ever have in my life. The primary thing I have been working on is new geospatial functionality for the Greenline application - showing vessel routes and schedules, and displaying the visual route of a given shipment and its container(s). Very cool, and complex stuff. We examined everything from ESRI, to Google Earth, to Virtual Earth. Right now we are using ESRI ArcIMS.

I am also starting work on Operation Safe Commerce 3.

I may be writing some whitepapers about network security data fusion for the DoD.

Our horse, Mandi, is due to foal anytime now. And we just sold the last baby, Twiggy, to someone that will be showing her a lot, and at some large shows. If she does well, then this baby could be worth significantly more.

Mike Metzger wrote a plugin for USBWiSec that will allow it to control the DND feature of your Asterisk phone system. That is just so very cool. Greenline is getting some packet8 voip phones for everyone, so I will have to see if I can do the same thing - except maybe have it FWD calls to my cell between business hours if I am not at my desk.

And now I am getting ready to go to DC for a week. :)

Parkour - Real life Prince of Persia

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 04:23:40 GMT

More crazy Google Video. These guys move just like the Prince of Persia. Pretty impressive. It is a French "sport" called Parkour.

German Forklift Training video

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 00:45:32 GMT

Words cannot do this video justice.

The only thing that could make it better is if it included a cameo by der uberdeutsche, The Hoff.

Congressman John D. Dingell...

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 05:45:13 GMT

...is temporarily my new hero. I don't know much about the guy, what he stands for, or his voting record - but in the wake of all this talk about the War on Christmas, he came up with a pretty snappy poem which he recited on the house floor when there were talks about House Resolution 579, which expressed the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected.

Blackberry 7100i

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 03:54:01 GMT

I really loved my Nextel/Motorol i730. It is a freaking workhorse, and more than a phone - it was my very valuable and trusted guide for when I travel (using it's built in GPS and the TeleNav service).

Well, a buddy of mine recently got a Blackberry 7100g (Cingular's version of the 7100-series) and it became very apparent how useful the Blackberry service is. This is a guy that was constantly cursing his last cellphone - but as soon as he got his Blackberry he was in love with it.

So, when I found out that these Blackberries have GPS capabilities and that there is a version of the TeleNav software for the Nextel phone, I had to get one. Since I use Nextel, that means finding a 7100i.

It was difficult to source one in DC - apparently they are in hot demand. I called around, and found one store that said they had it in stock - but when we drove out there I found out the person I talked to was just stupid, and they didn't have any. Unhappy and slightly pissed off, I talked to the manager of the store and she called around and found a store that had a few. 20 minutes of travel later I had one.

Whoo, the version of TeleNav for the 7100i is a major improvement to what I was used to. It makes very good use of the increased screen real estate, as well as an increase in available data bandwidth.

Though, If I didn't use the hell out of TeleNav, I would probably get a Treo instead.

A white christmas

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 02:54:17 GMT

So today is the halfway point for my latest trip to DC. Here is a brief recap:

The monday morning flight ended up becoming an afternoon flight due to a hydraulic leak in the plane. I was supposed to get to the office around noon, but ended up not even getting to the rental car until 5PM. So monday was a complete wash, and I spent all day either in an airport or in a plane. At least TPA has free WiFi now.
Due to a hotels.com snafu I ended up having to get a room directly with the hotel - and I am basically staying in an apartment. It's pretty nice.
It has snowed twice so far. It makes for very pretty scenery, but it sucks scraping ice off the car in the morning.
We had the GreenLine holiday party on Friday at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. It was fun, and we had great food. A few people were, shall we say, overserved.
I got a Blackberry 7100i to replace my i730 (more on this later).
Jaimie got pictures of our dogs with Santa, they are really cute.

New NIST Patch Management publications

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 21:34:27 GMT

NIST just released 2 new special publications dealing with Patch Management. I am a little excited about this because PatchAdvisor was acknowledged by NIST as providing valuable feedback.

NIST SP 800-40v2, Creating a Patch and Vulnerability Management Program
An updated version of NIST SP 800-40, Procedures for Handling Security Patches, which was originally published in August 2002. The new publication provides guidance on creating a security patch and vulnerability remediation program and testing the effectiveness of that program. It describes the principles and methodologies that organizations can use to manage exposure to vulnerabilities through the timely deployment of patches. Although the primary emphasis is on designing and implementing a patch and vulnerability management program, the document also contains guidance for technical staff responsible for applying patches, deploying patch and vulnerability management solutions, and disseminating related information.

NIST SP 800-83, Guide to Malware Incident Prevention and Handling
Provides recommendations for improving an organization's malware incident prevention measures through several layers of controls. It also gives extensive recommendations for enhancing an organization's existing incident response capability so that it is better prepared to handle malware incidents, particularly widespread ones. The guide focuses on providing practical strategies for detection, containment, eradication, and recovery from malware incidents in managed and non-managed environments. The recommendations in the publication address several forms of malware, as well as various malware transmission mechanisms, including removable media and network services such as e-mail and Web browsing.

Scoble checks out Coding4Fun

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:30:53 GMT

Robert Scoble interviews the Coding4Fun managers, Dan fernandez and Brian Keller, where they demo a few of the projects from the articles - the USB Wireless Security project gets demoed about 6 minutes in to the video.

I'm very flattered by some of the comments in the Channel9 post:

"that wireless secutiry identity thing is the most radical thing i have ever seen. period."

"That wireless security thing is awesome!"

I'm glad I decided to mess around with the product, and that Scott Hanselman thought it was cool enough to write about and hack on it with me.

The project is still in active development (sourceforge project) - we just got 2 new developers from Italy - professors from the Universita di Pisa that have made some significant enhancements to the app. (New release will be forthcoming).

BrilliantPhoto auction on eBay

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 16:58:24 GMT

A little over a week ago, I read on Eric Sink's blog about a micro-ISV selling its assets on eBay. BrilliantPhoto is a photo management application developed by Jim Lamb. Eric found the use of this sales channel fascinating, and highlighted that the BrilliantPhoto acution was clearly inspired by another auction - in which a search engine (which no-one had ever heard of before) sold for over $100,000.

So today, I finally have some down time, and I check back with the auction to see how much it sold for. Well, the auction was ended early. Apparently the bidding levels never got about $10k.

This was the last update to the auction page prior to it being ended early.

"Based on the current bidding level, I'm planning to end this auction early. If you are seriously interested in BrilliantPhoto, you can contact me directly at jim@brilliantlabs.com with any questions you might have. If I see a substantial jump in the bidding in the next 24-hours, I'll let the auction run its course."

But, wait a second. This was a no reserve auction. This was not a mistake on Jim's part either, because he says that it is a no-reserve auction in the first sentence of the auction description. There are only 4 reasons for ending an auction early:

Item is no longer available for sale
There was an error in the starting price or reserve amount
There was an error in the listing
The item was lost or broken

None of those reasons applied, and yet the bids were cancelled, and the auction ended early.

I think this is pretty lame - you take a risk when you try to sell something NR (no-reserve) on eBay (and you enter into a contract, as well). Obviously $10,000 is not what Jim had in mind - he was probably hoping for the same outcome as the jux2 auction, if not better. The sad part is all this auction has done is devalued the idea of using eBay as a marketplace for these kind of items.

I wonder if the highest bidder at the time the auction was ended could sue BrilliantLabs for breach of contract.

PDC '05 Powered By...

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 22:19:50 GMT

Boobs (NSFW link)

SGI Octane 2

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 17:40:07 GMT

Ever since I first used an SGI Indy, I have wanted one of my own. In college I took a lot of Digital Art classes, and by far my favorite was 3D Design using Alias|Wavefront, and later, Maya.

So I decided it was time for me to get one - but instead of an Indy or an O2, I was able to get an Octane 2!

Now to find a license for Maya that will not cost an arm and a leg. Worst case, I can use Blender.

MS buys FolderShare

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 23:59:05 GMT

I am a big fan of FolderShare, and Microsoft just bought them. Now with the resources of MS, hopefully they can add some much needed features:

Ability to exclude sub folders. I would like to simply share My Documents between my various machines, but exclude certain sub-directories like the Visual Studio projects folder (hint: it fucks up my source control).
Ability to share folders in different libraries. Again, I want to share My Documents between my machines, but share a particular folder inside of My Pictures with a couple friends.
Plugin architecture. Something to sync Outlook across machines, Trillian logs, etc.
Version control. If they could add this, they could take over the market that Mirra has catered to.

Oh, and I wonder how long it will take for MS FolderShare to switch from PHP to ASP.NET.

Channel9 Screencasts

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 20:53:11 GMT

Just wanted to pimp the Channel9 screencasts. They are quick little 3-7 minute videos, captured using Camtasia, of people doing specific tasks.

Here are a few of my recent favorites:

They are an educational way to blow off 10 minutes here and there.

VS2005 and SQL2005 on MSDN

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 07:03:24 GMT

Ahhh, the day has finally come! Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 (developer edition anyways) are completed, and available on MSDN Subscriber downloads!

Here are some instructions on how to clean your system of the various betas, CTPs, etc. There is a link on that page to a tool that will automatically uninstall pre-RTM VS2005 and pre-RTM SQL 2005.

You should check out your local auctionhouse(s)

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 01:06:50 GMT

Short version: If you wanna do something different and fun some weekend, find an auction and go to it.

A little less than a year ago, we were getting ready to sell our house and wanted to buy some cheap furniture to "stage the house" for our open houses. On a lark we went to an auction. We didn't end up getting the cheap furniture - but it was a neat experience. If you like eBay, you will love a real live auction - even better deals, and none of the online scams.

I just went to one this morning - we went because my GF has a clothing business, and they listed that they had garment racks and industrial sewing machines. Here is the list of my haul:

Circular garment rack (like you see in a retail clothing store) WITH random female clothes. $35. We actually gave the clothes to a couple we befriended at the auction.
Lot of probably 15 mannequinns. $105. We then sold a few of them to the runner up bidder for $25. We only need a couple of the mannequins, so we will sell the rest on eBay for probably $20-50 a pop.
Lot of about 10 garment racks. $25. Again, like you see in a retail shop.
Box of Symbol scanner equipment. $5. I bought these to develop against for my upcoming inventory management software. Box contains 3 symbol LS2000 barcode scanners, their bases, cables, and 1 keyboard wedge decoder (Master BB+). The bummer is that one decoder can only run 1 scanner. The upshot is that the box of equipment is probably eBay-able for like $150-200. The Master BB+ decoder wedge alone costs $200 new.
Table-top Galaga arcade cabinet. $45. (Similar to this) They said up front that it powers on but you get no picture. I plan on restoring the cabinet. I figure I will either be able to fix the original guts, or replace it with a MAME box.
2-drawer file cabinet. $2.50. Nuff said.

You do need to be careful though - another reason I went was because they listed they had a bunch of networking and server gear. It was all old and crappy. The auctioneers have no idea what they are talking about. Alot of the systems were gutted and basically just empty cases. You have to watch out for junk like that and be a smart buyer...sometimes auction houses deal in junk.

What I have been up to...

bryan@patchadvisor.com (Bryan Batchelder) — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 02:35:47 GMT

I spent the last week in Washington, DC - got to see Greenline's new office space in Crystal City (right by Reagan Int'l and the Pentagon) - huge officespace on the 11th floor of a big tower. It felt good to see such progress in a startup company that I have been with practically from the start.

I spent the week working on a geospatial visualization system - utilizing software from ESRI. We are going to use ArcSDE and ArcIMS. The idea for now is to be able to show the path around the world that a particular shipment or container took to get to the US - and visually indicate it's risk.

Then I had to work through pretty big problem - try to find a heuristic to take the wealth of information we currently have, and come up with a way to infer the missing information. It is complicated and messy - but the end result is very cool - being able to put together the entire picture of where a container has gone, and even knowing to some degree when we are unsure about the information (so we can indicate that the information may be incorrect). One thing that has helped me greatly is that I have just been reading this book: How to Solve It: Modern Heuristics. It is a good book for anyone that has to solve difficult problems and are not given a starting point on a silver platter.

I ate Bison burgers at Ted's Montana Grill (mmmmm, yum), emailed the company to recommend our waitress for a scholarship, and found out that Ted Turner will be at the restaurant on the 21st.

I inadvertantly met Shawn Carpenter as he and his wife visited Greenline's new officespace. I was never told his last name until the next day. Man, I would have had a great conversation with him. Oddly enough, that same night my friend Jeff was talking to an ex head of DARPA who is writing a paper on Titan Rain (and Carpenter) that will be briefing people at the Whitehouse. I was talking to Jeff about it on Friday and we did not understand some of the technical inacuracies in many of the articles. Jeff's girlfriend refused to take any part in the conversation because she knows some classified information about that whole deal, but she can't recall what is classified or not - so her solution is to not talk about it to anyone unless they are cleared to talk about it. Heh.

And to cap off the week, on Friday we went out drinking. Jeff and Chris told me stories about all the weird crap they encountered in Japan - the worst, in my opinion, was being goaded into eating grilled fugu sperm and frozen squid blood by Joi Ito. Looks like there is a good chance I will be going to Japan for a week or so in Nov or Dec.