Tag Archives: Musings

reboot

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I have restarted my The Mobile Minute series tonight after a very sparse year of posting in 2009, and am nearly complete overhauling my blog (there may be some unavailable content/broken links this week).

I decided to pick up TMM right where it left off, and have decided upon a thrice weekly, minimum, publishing schedule.    I also have some other limited posting series in the works, and I’m looking forward to getting those published.

I’m sure that some folks are wondering why or what happened. In sum, the last few years have been a tough balancing of priorities, and I’m now able to put community involvement  back in the mix. I look forward to getting back into the community and sharing knowledge, which is something I truly enjoy.

2008 Goal Recap

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So here’s the score from what I set out to do in 2008 (and yes, the post date on that entry is off due to my blog migration):

Improve my health

  • BMI of 24.9 or less  – fail. I’m around 28.2 right now (better than the 29.8 I started with). I started the year around the 250 pounds mark and now am at 230; need to drop another 30. Most folks can’t tell, though. I suppose it is because I’m a few inches over 72.
  • Improve cardiovascular conditioning – fail. The idea to do C25K came and went.
  • Build my core and improve my posture – fail.  Posture is minimally better, but that’s it.
  • Get a minimum of six hours sleep every night – fail. I was pretty lucky to get four hours some nights.
  • Lower my cholesterol to a healthy level – done! I’m under 200 and my LDL/HDL numbers are better, too.

Simplify

  • Reduce my online presence – partial-fail. I deleted my MySpace account, but re-activated Twitter. The social interactions I have had via Twitter and the great people I have met in the community via Twitter outweigh the noise (and blocking and unfollowing help minimize noise, too).
  • Reduce my home IT demands – um, fail. Still working on this and hope to have greater success in ‘09.
  • Purge the house stuff we don’t use – not much, still working on this, albeit more aggressively this year as we’re planning on moving in the next twelve months.

Community Involvement

  • Re-engage with the online mobile community – not as successful as I had planned. Still working on this. Work took over my life again, so this and the blogging got back-burnered.
  • Make it to more CINNUG meetings – Yes, I did make it to more meetings in ‘08 than I did in ‘07. Although it was still a poor showing as one of the group directors.
  • Regular blogging and writing – not so good here either.

Improved personal/professional balance – Fail. No other way to say it.
Given the crazy work schedule I have had this year (particularly April through October), achieving balance has been tough.  Unfortunately, the next release cycle for this project (now through May) is shaping up for more of the same. I’m certain that I have had some growth out of the experience, but I think I’m still too close to the project to ascertain what it was.  Funny (sad funny?),  the better part of the last 5 1/2 years I have had a crazy work schedule with lots of OT. Hmm.

That said, I’m still determined to work on the balance issue and get more life in my life.  Uncertain of what I need to do to do that; may need something ‘extreme’.

Going to get my 2009 goals up this weekend; again hoping that the public statement of them helps with my accountability.

TMM reloaded, jogging strollers, and other notes

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My The Mobile Minute series, like much of my blogging, has been rather spotty for oh, the last year or so as I have come to deal with a new responsibility while still attempting to do everything I was doing before that new responsibility.  That has worked out pretty well, eh?  Meh.

At one point, I was thinking about killing TMM (although I’m certain many folk already assume it to be dead), one reason being was that, despite 160+ posts, I still had not felt,well, comfortable doing it.  I still had not.. ‘gotten in the groove’. Odd, but that’s where I was. I was also thinking about how much of an echo it is (is it?).  Anyway..

I’ve decided to change the format a bit, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m committing to one TMM daily during the week, and at least one, longer, non-TMM, technical post per week as well.   Let’s see how that goes.

Oh, and for those wanting an C25K update, here it is:  It’s not going.  I haven’t made the time for it (or the walking).

On that note, we’re looking for a jogging stroller. Not that we necessarily jog (although I plan to, and this is a great way for me to get out with him after work and on the weekends), but regular strollers just suck when they’re not on a complete flat surface (i.e. walking the mall). I was looking at the BOB strollers (which you can find some nice deals for on eBay) – any other suggestions?   My wife has mandated a feature of swivel wheels (lockable, of course) to make it easier for her to push it around.  The other requirement we have is that the handles need to be high enough for tall people (she’s 6′, I’m 6’4″).  Anyone have suggestions for a ‘regular’ stroller that fits this last requirement as well?

Lately

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I’ve been a bit spotty the last few months on the blog and in my usual newsgroup and forum participation as well.  What’s up with that? In a word, work. I just rolled off of a project that was, in some respects, like no other. It had a very aggressive schedule (not so rare), had a large and diverse team from different corporate cultures (made things…interesting), and posed some rather difficult and interesting technical challenges.

 It has been nine or so months of a lot of hard work, and there is a bunch more work to do, but the foundation is laid (we did good, CoreArch).   If you make it to MEDC 2007, check out a session entitled Building Windows Mobile Applications for Large Scale Deployment and see what I spent my time on (sorry, won’t be me presenting, but I’m sure Jay will do a good job).  For the curious, I was the technical architect (and dev lead) on the core architecture team. I would like to give a shout out to the folks who I worked with on this project, in particular some folks I worked really closely with - Ryan, Ryan, Rabi, Megan, Shawn, and Evan – thanks [for so many things],  and I hope our paths cross again. 

So, as I was saying, the months of late nights, long weeks, and even shorter weekends put anything that wasn’t work or family on the back burner (ok, family hit the back burner a few times – sorry, dear).  You might say I have some catching up to do.  I’ve already started hitting the newsgroups again, and the blog will be picking up shortly as well (there ought to be a few posts before Monday..). I certainly have plenty around the house to do to…and that isn’t the half of it (we’ll get to that). 

This week, I’ve been on vacation, or, rather, taking_a_week_off_of_work_to_catch_up_on_all_the_stuff_I_neglected_for_the_last_nine-ish_months. It’s been a very busy week. I think I need a vacation [from my vacation]. Meh.  I’m doing training next week (primarily for my MCPD EA cert – mandated completion by July 31 for work), and then [had to cancel on the Summit]  I’ll be in Seattle for the MVP Summit. I’m really looking forward to the MVP Summit – I’ll get to see many of my fellow Device Application Development/Embedded/Mobile Devices MVPs, meet other MVPs, chat with the product teams, and hopefully take in a little of Seattle, a city I enjoy. And not a bad way to earn a few thousand miles (and w00t, I made Delta Gold Medallion on my project).

After I get back from the summit, I’ll soon start my new project – which will be local (finally!), and I’ll get to work with some really great guys I haven’t worked with in a long time.  Unfortunately, due to timing  issues, I will not be able to attend MEDC this year. Most unfortunate, but worth the sacrifice. You can bet I’ll be at MEDC 2008. While this next project is not of the mobility sort, I’ll be getting my hands on some ASP.NET and .NET 3.0 goodness, and it has a sane schedule. That will allow me plenty of time for writing and blogging and a number of mobility-ish things I have in the queue.  And, I’ll be local – which is important.

Important because v2.0 [Ahem!] is currently compiling and should finish in July (25). Frankly, it has been a challenging road for us to get to this point; we’ve had some builds that broke and some builds that wouldn’t even start, but now it looks like we leveraged the right technology and we’ve got a good one – just taking it day by day.  As a result of the upcoming release of v2.0, I’ve got even more things to do around the house to prepare for its arrival (you can bet this is fodder for future blog entries). One of these things is that my office is getting moved to..um, tbd (basement, formal living room?). Regardless, I have a finite deadline to move it somwhere else in the house and prepare that room for 2.0. That said, 2.0 (hmm, Two-oh, how about that for a name?) has [finally] made me change some of my priorities, which is a GoodThing. ..and I’m not getting any younger, either.

Stay tuned and enjoy the ride.

My laptop transmogrifies into a hair dryer and other Vista installation tales

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After I rolled off of my last project, I decided that it was time to flatten my laptop and start anew as it was getting a bit crufty (and, if for no other reason, to rid me of the evil known as ClearCase). I decided (as evidenced by the title of this post) to go with Vista [Enterprise] instead of another WinXP install. So, I made the usual preparations and then updated the BIOS (required for running Vista on this model) and set the boot device to the optical drive.

I then put in the DVD, rebooted and subsequently reformatted the drive, exorcising the demons from my laptop (or so I thought).  After installing the OS and OS components (e.g. IIS, MSMQ, etc), I disabled UAC.  I did so because some applications (Exhibit A: Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK) will silently fail otherwise.  The next thing I did was join the laptop to the corporate domain via VPN. After a few failed attempts and subsequent research, I discovered that I needed to make the registry edits described in this KB article for RPC.  That done, I started down my list (yes, I maintain an ordered list (I have OCD, what did you expect?!?)) of items to install which numbers around 100 entries. This includes applications, utilities, SDKs, service packs, and patches.

..fast-forward several hours...   My installations complete, I re-enabled UAC and then logged on with my domain account (which does not have adminstrative privileges – my choice).  Think I’m crazy?  I ran as non-admin on WinXP for years – doing development, no less. Yes, really. Am I masochistic, you ask? Perhaps. I happen to think that it is the RightWay to do things. 

As I’m getting things tidied up in my profile and letting Outlook rebuild its .ost file, my CPU gets busy. As a direct result, the fan gets busy too.  Unfortunate, but it is to be expected.  After this was complete and my machine was at idle, it had somehow transmogrified into my wife’s hair dryer.  Yep, the cooling fan was screaming and I was ready to flip out. As friends and family can attest, I’m an absolute freak when it comes to quiet and computers (more on that in an upcoming post).

A quick digression: On my last XP image, I installed the Toshiba PowerSaver utility craplet. Worthless. Caused my ears constant discomfort. I even brought my Targus ChillHub into work (which was an extra pain in the ass because ‘work’ was in another state and that was one more damn thing I had to haul around in my bag/on the plane). Not much help. I finally uninstalled that and instead installed the excellent SpeedSwitch XP utility. Life got much better very quickly.  Ok, back to the story…

Clearly, something was driving the CPU hard which triggered the fan to create such a ruckus. So, I opened Task Manager and then selected show tasks from all users (which as non-admin with UAC trigged an elevation prompt).  Task Manager goes away and then reappears (this is both disconcerting and annoying) displaying the processes from all users. Sorting on CPU reveals our serious offenders [in order]:

SearchIndexer.exe, SearchHostProtocol.exe, Outlook.exe, and MsCam32.exe

Well, well.  Vista was indexing – like a file clerk who just did an eight ball.  Outlook was..busy (hrmph). And MsCam32 was being stupid (and with no cam connected -wtf?!?). I then broke out three more tools from my toolbox: Process Monitor, FileMon and RegMon as I wanted to see _what_ these processes were doing (note: As noted by Grant in the comments, ProcMon replaces FileMon and RegMon. I realized that soon after I opened up the three but I still blogged that I opened all three – and yeah, I haven’t spent much time with ProcMon, yet).  These are three excellent SysInternals utilities (get the troubleshooting suite).  In the process of sorting this all out, I found another soul who was experiencing similar pain: read Mike Fullerton’s post. I agree with Mike, I would like to schedule SearchIndexer.

Ok, so Vista wants to index; let’s let it be.  I broke out the ChillHub (why not try to help out the cooling fan?) and sequestered my laptop to another room for the night.  When I returned to it in the morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find my laptop much quieter.  Still, the volume level of the fan was higher than, oh, near silence, so I was not yet happy.  

I then went to Control Panel > Power Options > Edit Plan Settings and selected ‘Change advanced power settings’.  This opens the Advanced settings dialog. In which, I located the ‘Processor power management’ entry. I changed the minimum and maximum processor states (I ended up doing this a few times over the course of several days to get it to where I was happy). This helped a bit more. If you change these, don’t forget to edit these for _all_ power plans, although you may wish to maintain different values for each power plan. 

While I am pretty happy where things are from a noise perspective when my laptop is plugged in (and not being stressed by say, lengthy compilations in VS2005), when it is on battery, I’m less than happy and I haven’t yet found the magic formula.  Still tweaking and trying to avoid being on battery.  And yes, I did install the PowerSaver utility for Vista. Again, worthless, but I tried.

I’m still searching for the magic formula to keep the fan quiet while I’m on battery; I’ll update this post if/when I do. Part of me thinks that I should be grateful that I can even run Vista on my M3; the other part of me is bitter about the fan noise.  Someday, I might actually have a laptop whose fan I won’t *** about. Right. Not bloody likely.

Update (200703150850): I found Notebook Hardware Control, but all I get is a blue screen (noting Reference by Pointer).  Oh, and did I mention that Speedswitch XP does not run under Vista?

USDA – Making organic well, not so much

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Earlier this year, I finally got it through my thick skull that I need to take better care of myself and have made a number of changes to that end. One way I am doing this is by changing my diet[1]. As part of changing my diet, I buy/eat organic food when possible.  It is simply a much healthier way to eat.

In the US, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has established a “USDA Organic”  label as part of their National Organic Program (NOP).   Last Friday (2007/06/22), saw (via Treehugger), that the USDA has green-lighted a proposal which would allow thirty-eight (38) non-organic ingredients in products bearing the “USDA Organic” seal.  So, your “USDA Organic”-labeled food may not be as organic as you thought. This is not an acceptable decision, in my opinion.

What can be done?  Take advantage of the 60-day public comment period to send a letter to the USDA.  The Organic Consumers Association has made this easy to do with their petition.

For those of you who have the “hippie-treehugger eating twigs and berries” perception of organic food, take a look around the next time you are at the grocery store.  For example, organic Oreos (I first saw them at Kroger, in the cookie aisle). Yes, yummy Oreo cookies made with organic flour and sugar. These are the best-tasting Oreo cookies I have ever eaten. Period.   Yes, they are more expensive[3] (not by much, Oreos aren’t cheap anyway) than conventional Oreos, but it is about quality, not quantity (portion control is an important component of one’s diet, too).  Of course, I enjoy my organic Oreos with a glass of cold organic [low fat] milk.

This post is a bit different from my usual fare, so if you’ve read this far, thank you. 

 

[1] Not as in the typical (IMO) bastardized way Americans think about diet (i.e. ‘dieting’), but as a more permanent change to what I eat.

[2]http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?navid=ORGANIC_CERTIFICATIO&parentnav=AGRICULTURE&navtype=RT

[3] Organics don’t have to empty your wallet. See http://www.startribune.com/1244/story/1269320.html (via the OCA)

 

Visiting the mothership

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I’m heading to Seattle on Tuesday (2006/09/05) for some project related meetings at Microsoft (buildings 117, 119) Wednesday and Thursday. I’m hoping to meet up with some Avanade folks and [hopefully] some additional Microsoft folks while I’m in the area.  I’m looking forwarding to this trip; not only for some of the folks I’m going to be meeting with (Microsoft and non-Microsoft) in my scheduled meetings, but just to being back in Seattle.  Did I mention I’m looking forward to getting to the Microsoft campus? Yes, this will be my <gasp!> first trip there.

I’ve decided to take Friday as a vacation day, so I’ll have all day Friday to, well, do whatever (I’ll see if I can make it to Cafe Vendi, Jim).   Hopefully, that will include meeting some folks and seeing more of Seattle before I jump on the red-eye home.

-Nino

This blog post created and posted from Windows Live Writer (beta).  Not too shabby; definitely gives BlogJet a run for its money. I need to experiment a bit more before I decide if I dump BlogJet.

Four things meme

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I see that James has tagged me with the four things meme, so here we go:

Four Jobs I’ve had…

  • Grocery Bagger
  • Grocery Stocker
  • Data center backup operator
  • Software Developer

Four movies I can watch over and over…

  • The Usual Suspects 
  • Clerks
  • It’s a Wonderful Life
  • Snatch

Four TV shows I love to watch…

  • CSI (Las Vegas)
  • Mythbusters
  • Battlestar Galactica
  • Good Eats

Four places I’ve been on vacation…

  • Honolulu, Hawai’i
  • Pawley’s Island, SC
  • Hilton Head, SC
  • Portland, OR

Four favorite dishes…

  • Buttermilk Pancakes (The Original Pancake House)
  • Seafood Broccoli wood-fired pizza (Pomidori’s)
  • Gnocchi
  • Zabaglione (ok, it’s a dessert…deal.)

Four websites I visit daily:

Four places I’d rather be…

  • O’ahu’s North Shore
  • Portland, OR
  • by an ocean
  • out to dinner anywhere with my wife

Four bloggers I’m tagging:

-Nino

Where’s Nino?

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It’s been a while since I’ve blogged (and blogged regularly at that); where have I been?  I’ll give you one guess.  Starts with “w” and ends with “k”.   Did you guess “work”?   Well good for you; you are correct.

For the last three (more?) months, we’ve been putting in some serious hours driving hard towards an early December milestone.  Lots of work to do, functional changes along the way, and interesting technical challenges popping up just when you think you’ve got everything nailed down. 

So, yes, work has pretty much consumed me, and any free time (um…) I’m spending with family.  So blogging (and reading blogs) has been backburnered as has newsgroup participation any thing that is, well, not work. 

If I’m so darn busy, where did I find time to write this?  I’m on the plane, headed back to DC.

Why am I writing this post?  Well, some folks have dropped me some notes (via my blog) in which they pretty much have inferred that I’m a “typical lazy-ass MVP” and I “cut and run” once I got my MVP award.  Feh. Let’s break it down (the anonymous and not-to-be-named cowards have raised my ire)…

1) That’s an insult to all MVPs (and do I detect a hint of jealousy?).  Lazy MVPs?  I’m sure they exist – statistics says they must. It is unfortuante that this individual had a poor experience interacting with a MVP; however, one bad apple does not a bushel make.  MVPs are a hard-working bunch – writing, presenting, participating in community forums and newsgroups, and helping to flesh out early betas and such – on top of a full-time job.  Hopefully the process will filter out the ‘bad apple’ that this individual had a negative interaction with.

2) [in response to the cut-and-run comment] Timing can be an interesting thing. Right around the time I was awarded an MVP (April ’06), I was staffed on my current project (I started on April 17, to be exact (yep, just finished Week 27)).  Since late summer it has been full_speed_ahead driving hard to our early December milestone focused on delivery (Delivery, delivery, delivery!). Will we make it?  Failure is not an option.

In sum, I did not “cut and run” once I got my MVP award. I was staffed on a very challenging project with a tough schedule (delivery and travel).  The little time I am not working (my little corner of a weekend), I spend with my family.   Everything outside of work I have back-burnered (my wife might argue that she falls into that category, too). I don’t have time for it. Unfortunate as it is, that’s the deal.  Additionally, I am very appreciative to Microsoft and to my peers for my nomination and

I’m doing what I can when I can for now and should get a bit more responsive in November when we’re in the ‘fix’ phase.  After November, things should get back to normal…

We’ll see.  Thanks for your continued readership.

A few observations…

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A few observations (er, rambling rantings)..

  • 14+ hour work days are not conducive to regular blogging or newsgroup monitoring
  • IE7 (b3) is swell. I’m now using it for most of my browsing instead of Firefox.  Too bad its extensibility is not to the level of Firefox (or the same level of ease).
  • Rational ClearCase is evil. Oh, the ClearCase client for VS2005 behaves very badly if VS.NET2003 is installed on the same box as VS2005.
  • The new “puffer” machines (aka GE EntryScan ion tracking portals) in the security area at CVG really b0rk  the whole security process. Rather, the process around them is b0rked. If you’re flying out of CVG, give yourself extra time.  Another viewpoint on them at a different airport.
  • The TSA needs to look up the word “consistency” (I came to this conclusion a long time ago).
  • I really need to get more sleep. On the next project.. er, wait, I said that last time..

Update
I’m working to get some sort of balance given my challenging schedule; however, I clearly violated the “Don’t blog tired” rule…