Starting in October and running into mid-December, MSDN will have a whole slew of Infopath webcasts going on. One of Office 2003's best kept secrets (and that is not necessarily a good thing), this program provides a powerful front end to designing, creating and using XML forms.

Title	Presenter	Date	Time
Best Practices for Designing InfoPath Forms	Scott Roberts	Tuesday, October 05, 2004	9:00 AM-10:30 AM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259531&Culture=en-US
User Roles in InfoPath 2003	Josh Bertsch	Tuesday, October 12, 2004	9:00 AM-10:30 AM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259537&Culture=en-US
Building Advanced Dynamic Solutions in InfoPath 2003	Jun Jin	Tuesday, October 19, 2004	9:00 AM-10:30 AM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259110&Culture=en-US
Business Logic in InfoPath 2003	Yuet (Emily) Ching and Prachi Bora	Tuesday, October 26, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259112&Culture=en-US
Using Managed Code and Visual Studio to Build Solutions	Willson Raj David	Tuesday, November 02, 2004	1:00 PM-2:00 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259539&Culture=en-US
InfoPath in End-to-End Enterprise Solutions: Integrating InfoPath with Siebel and SAP	Hagen Green	Monday, November 08, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259542&Culture=en-US
Digital Signatures in InfoPath 2003	Mihaela Cristina Cris	Monday, November 15, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259544&Culture=en-US
Creating Custom Controls for InfoPath SP-1	Andrew Ma	Monday, November 29, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259546&Culture=en-US
Programming Workflow into InfoPath Solutions: Using InfoPath with BizTalk Server 2004 and Human Workflow Services	Rick Severson	Monday, December 06, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259548&Culture=en-US
Database Connectivity in InfoPath Through ADO.NET DataSet Support	Mikhail Vassiliev	Tuesday, December 14, 2004	11:00 AM-12:30 PM
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?EventID=1032259550&Culture=en-US

All times are Pacific Daylight Time (UTC–07:00) until Oct 31, and Pacific Standard Time (UTC–08:00) on and after Oct 31st.

Last week while I was out, Microsoft released a new tool on their downloads site called SSL Diagnostics Version 1.0, which aids in quickly identifying configuration problems in the IIS metabase, certificates, or certificate stores.

x86 and ia64 versions are available. The download contains a document called the SSL FAQ that is a great resource for people wanting to learn about SSL from the beginning, as well.

Recommended for anyone who might need to deal with web servers, certification authorities or SSL certificates for any reason.

Microsoft's TechNet has released a useful set of step-by-step guides to help people learn, understand, plan, deploy, configure and maintain Active Directory infrastructures on Windows 2003 domains.

From the AD Step-by-Step Guides page, the following individual titles are available (see the main page for more information about each):

• Installing Windows Server 2003 as a Domain Controller
• Installing a Windows XP Professional Workstation and Connecting It to a Domain
• Setting Up Additional Domain Controllers
• Managing Active Directory
• Understanding the Group Policy Feature Set
• Using the Group Policy Management Console
• Enforcing Strong Password Policies
• Using the Delegation of Control Wizard
• User Data Management and User Settings Management through Group Policy
• Configuring a Dial-Up Remote Access Server
• Building a Site-to-Site Virtual Private Network Connection
• Using the Encrypting File System
• Digitally Signed and Encrypted E-Mail
• Active Directory Sites and Services
• Active Directory Bulk Import and Export

My first real job, and the profession for which I went to college, was photojournalism. One of my heros of the trade, Eddie Adams, died Sunday from Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS).

I've since moved on to other work, a decision I sometimes ponder when I am feeling especially creative without an outlet. But the extreme importance of the trade, which Eddie Adams personified, has stuck with me over the years.

Adams was probably most famous for his picture of a Viet Cong officer being shot in the head in the streets of Saigon, Vietnam in 1968. But his contributions to photojournalism and bringing the world closer to all of us went much further than that. He covered 13 wars, worked many years for the Associated Press and Time-Life, and photographed presidents and other heads of state during his extensive and colorful career.

In his own unique way he took the trade as seriously as anyone, realizing the power and responsibility of the lens and film. Writing about the famous picture from Saigon in '68 in Time Magazine, Adams said:

"The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?'"

If a picture was worth a thousand words, Eddie Adams' images are worth a million. He taught new photographers the trade, and passed his talents and values on to many.

I never met Eddie Adams personally, so I can't say I knew him, but I can say that he helped me to better know myself when I was learning the trade and craft of photojpournalism. Thank you, Eddie Adams, for always making me think, and for making life a little more real while you were here with us.

You may have seen the Robosapien toy robot for sale at your local Frys or other electronics store. It's fun to play with and remarkably more advanced than anything that was made when I was a kid. Our local store sells it for about $68.

Well, some guys over in Germany that are studying robotics decided it would be fun to make the Robosapien robot autonomous - in other words, program it so it could do something on its own, using its own "senses," if you will. They successfully hacked their little robot with a Pocket PC, Microsoft Embedded C++, an IR remote control program for the Pocket PC, and a CF-card camera. Now it will "watch" for an orange pole, and if it "sees" it in its field of view, it will run toward the pole. Pretty darn cool.

But even better than just showing they can do it, they have released their Robosapien API so that you, too can play with robotic hacks. You're not limited to making mad dashes at orange poles - that is just the default program that ships with the API. You can write your own instruction sets for your autonomous robot, and make it interact with whatever it can "see."

I am starting to think I need to pick up one of these, find that old Pocket PC that's lying around here somewhere, and see what can be done. It looks like they had to chop off the lower arms and part of the original robot's feet - probably for weight reasons - which is too bad. Their notes also state that the weight and center of gravity/balance are important to allowing the robot to move correctly under its own power. So, a really light-weight PocketPC would certainly be a good place to start. 

(via Engadget)

"You are unknown to me.
Your camera's memory card was in a taxi; I have it now.
I am going to post one of your pictures each day.
I will also narrate as if I were you.
Maybe you will come here and reclaim this piece of your life."

This is (Ooops... better make that “was”) one of the more interesting/strange blogs I have seen in some time. The author found a digital camera card in a taxi, thought of an idea, and the rest is (ongoing and made-up) history. The blog, "I Found Some of Your Life," merges the real-world with a made-up one. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this site compensates for the pictures with it's fictional guess-at-a-story commentary. You should start with the introduction entry and then work your way though the chronology, to get the full effect.

I can't wait til the owner discovers there's a web site with his pictures on it. That should be very interesting. (EDIT: Not sure exactly what happened, but apparently someone got wind and was not too happy)

From the introduction entry describing the blog and how it got started:

In my possession is one (1) memory card from a digital camera. This memory card was found in a taxi in New York City. I have no idea who the owner of the camera is.

The pictures on the memory card were taken over the course of exactly one (1) year in this person's life, starting July Twenty-Fifth, Two Thousand and Three (07-25-03) and ending July Twenty-Fourth, Two Thousand and Four (07-24-04).

I am going to post one (1) picture here each day. As there are two hundred and twenty-seven (227) pictures, there will be two hundred and twenty-seven (227) posts. The pictures will appear in chronological order according to the timestamp accompanying each image.

As the images add up, I will attempt to assemble an identity for this unknown person. Each day's new picture will be a fresh addition to this photographic life-documentation. Only with the unveiling of the final picture (the two hundred and twenty-seventh (227th)) will we finally have a full understanding of this person's life over the past year - at least as far as these pictures will allow us to infer.

Further, in an attempt to present this pictorial information in a more personal manner, and also to better allow for some artistic license, I am going to pretend that I am the owner of the camera. I'll call me Jordan, because that's the name on my birthday cake (you'll see).

Enjoy.