Windows 7 features

There's a super cool blog on windows 7 (the one after vista) that I read. Sometimes the posts are too technical for my audience here (primarily my family). Today's post, though, should be of interest to all of you.

It's about the windows 7 taskbar, and how window opening and switching is changing in windows 7. I, personally, am super excited to get my hands on win7.

Check it out: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/11/20/happy-anniversary-windows-on-the-evolution-of-the-taskbar.aspx

We call it nap time

Courtney just sent me a transcript of an exchange between her and Mik:

Courtney says:

"Mommy, my eyes keep closing."

Courtney says:

"That's okay"

Courtney says:

"But, I can't keep them open."

Courtney says:

"That's okay, sweetie, just close them."

I’m a geek. I know it

Today's reason that confirms my geekhood:

We got word today that we get to switch to Visual Studio 2008 (off of VS 2005), and the .NET Framework 3.5.

I'm all giddy with excitement. I can't wait to start working in VS 08 tomorrow.

 

See, geek.

Flashing the BIOS is not fun

I recently sold my motorcycle, and decided to spend a bit of cash on upgrading my PC. My PC was pretty beefy already, but I had skimped a bit on my processor, getting a 2.2GHz core2duo. This processor was a huge upgrade from my 3.0GHz P4HT, but it was still kinda old.

Newegg.com had a great deal on a 3.0GHz core2duo, so I jumped. I also bought a huge cooler for the processor, so I can overclock it, I'm hoping to see close to 4.0GHz.

I read a really great, geeky blog of a guy named Jeff Atwood. He is very passionate about hardware, and building excellent pcs, so I generally look to his blog when it's time for me to pick components or upgrade. I was reading an entry of his, and it talked about how he bricked (ruined) his pc by flashing the BIOS, and having that fail, due to a software bug. Here's the link: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001102.html.

Anywho, I got the new processor, dropped it into my motherboard, spent way too long dealing with the huge heatsink and fan, then turned on the pc. Nothing. Crap, I thought, the CPU I got was dead. This is the first item I've gotten from newegg that showed up defective, so I contact them for an RMA. While I'm waiting, I decide to stick my processor in my sister's new computer (which I'd just built a couple of days before), to see if maybe the processor was ok, but something else in my system was the problem. It booted fine, she showed the 3.0GHz, and it ran like a champ.

Something tickled in my brain, from the article Jeff posted. He had to flash his BIOS to support the newer proc. So I visit Asus' website, and sure enough, support for that series of processor was added in a BIOS version about 6 newer than the one I had. Yay! I should be able to have the PC up and running in an hour, I think to myself. Download the BIOS file, read all the directions, I'm good to go. After reading about Jeff's problems, there's no way I'm going to try the software that runs inside windows; that failed for him, and he had to get a new motherboard. I'm pretty sure my motherboard is not under warranty, so I'm going the safer, slightly more complicated route. I read the directions from Asus, and it says to put this file on an USB drive, then reboot the machine, and go into the BIOS screens. They have an ezflash utility in their BIOS that will handle the upgrade for me.

EZFlash works a treat. It finds the file, does some preprocessing, shows me some progress bars, and announces that the upgrade was successful, and the machine will reboot in 5 seconds. All the lights turn off on the computer, the hard drives spin down, and the monitors go black. Once I'm sure the process is over, I remove the usb drive, and wait semi-patiently for the BIOS screen to load, and show me my shiny new processor. Nothing happens. So I wait another couple of minutes (this should have taken 30 seconds, max). Still nothing. Oh crap, I think. I'm afraid to turn off the power to the computer, since every site I could find on BIOS updates said turning off during the update would fry your motherboard. But, the sign said the upgrade was complete, and successful, and the mobo rebooted itself. So I cycle the power to the PC, and wait some more. Still nothing.

At this point, I'm literally sick to my stomach, cause I'm certain that something went wrong, and my mobo is trash, and I'm going to have to buy a new one, since I'm sure mine is out of warranty. I go to sleep for the night feeling sick, and determined to call Asus in the morning. I get tech support on the line, and they tell me almost immediately that the bios update failed, and I will need a new bios (most likely requiring a new motherboard). The wonderful tech support lady, though, asks me to look for a socket near my southbridge (this chip thing). Turns out some of Asus' motherboards have removable BIOSes. Mine is one! Hallelujah! They can ship me a new chip (with the most recent BIOS already installed), I can swap them, and I'm back in business. $15 for 3day shipping, or $20 for overnight? Overnight, please.

Right now my chip is on a fedex truck, in my town, on it's way to my house. I'll let you know how the BIOS chip swap goes, and how the new processor works out.

[Edit] I got the bios chip, installed per the instructions, and still have nothing with the new processor. I called Asus back, and they're shipping me another bios chip, with the previous bios on it. The one they sent me is the most recent, which says it has a bug fix for newer processors. The one they're sending me now is the one before that, which is where they added support for my new processor to start with. We'll see if this fixes it. I sure hope so, not having that pc available sucks.

Asus

I really want to take my hat off to Asus. My motherboard is a couple of years old, and they could have easily told me I was out of luck, and to buy a new one (many companies would have, I'm certain). Instead, they are shipping me a free BIOS chip, asking only that I pay for the shipping. Their tech support staff was incredibly friendly and amazingly efficient; I went from first contact (after hold) to having my bios in the pipe to ship in literally 10 minutes. I received an email and a phone call following up on the order, and the email even came from a real person, with a real return address. Thank you, Kara, and all of the other folks at Asus support. You folks totally rock.

I've bought several boards from Asus, and always been happy with them. This experience has made me even happier, and has certainly cemented me as an Asus customer for life.

How much is time worth to you?

There are a lot of grandparents that read this blog (most of my readers are my kid's grandparents :) )

How much do you think it's worth to spend a day with your grandkid?

If you had to pay $100 (in gas, or lost wages, or whatever) would you do it?

What about $200?

$300?

Personally, I would pay nearly any price in gas or lost wages to get to see my kid more. Obviously not all parents and grandparents feel this way, though. How much is time with your family worth to you?

Yet another reason

Today, there was a fairly heated email exchange about parents, and working or staying home. Several folks got all in a tizzy, cause there was one guy that said 'the wrong thing'. I happen to disagree with his point of view, but that's not my point here.

Check out this response, honest, thoughtful, from one of my (20,000 +) coworkers (who I've never met before, btw).

practice with working with opposing views will make Microsoft a better place to work, make our strategies more thorough and our products better

These are the kinds of things that make me really love working at Microsoft. They're small, but they happen every day, reaffirming my decision to take this job.

Follow the leader

First, some disclaimers.

1. I work for Microsoft, on Microsoft Office Live
2. I do not work on C#, VB.Net, or even in Developer Division (DevDiv)

Ok, on to the point. Jeff Atwood recently posted about some frustration he's dealing with regarding the differences between C# and VB.Net. Here's the article: C# and the Compilation Tax

I noticed something when I worked at GeoAge (How's that for link love to the company that had to lay me off?). We were a VB.Net shop, and I'm pretty sure they still are. I was a C# dev at heart. One thing that I hated about using both languages was that Intellisense was a lot better in VB than in C#. Autocomplete in particular saved me thousands of keystrokes a day at work.

Then I started playing with VS 2005. Turns out that in 2005, C#'s intellisense seemed to take a huge cue from VB, and we had equivalent completion, and intellisense.

I've developed a theory. The VB team focuses a lot of energy on making developing code easier, while the C# team devotes time to making the language more powerful. I think the C# team then capatilizes (one version back) on the work from the VB team. Probably under a lot of pressure from their customers, since they see how much more productive VB devs can be.

So, I expect that in the next version or two of VS, we'll see background compilation in C#, and see the My namespace make it into C#. Those are my predictions.

Just hold on Jeff, and hopefully the C# team will make you happy. Of course, by the time they do, the VB team will have some new thing that makes their devs more productive, so you'll be wanting more from the C# team. It's a vicious cycle, but I think it makes C# a better language, and the .NET platform stronger. If you can deal with being a cycle back in productivity.

Funny SR71 Blackbird story

Someone sent this out on the MS pilots alias today. Go read it, it's short, and pretty funny.

http://www.jumbojoke.com/the_king_of_speed_844.html

Office Live is having a contest! Win $10K

I'm not eligible, of course, even though I'm an Office Live customer, and own a small business. Guess that's just the price of being a MSFT'ie.

Anwho, here's the info on the contest:

Enter the Capture More Customers Sweepstakes - $10,000 Grand Prize
Can potential customers find YOU in the Internet jungle?

Enter the Microsoft Office live Capture More Customers Sweepstakes and instantly receive a $50 Microsoft Office Live adManager* credit toward launching your first search campaign – PLUS have a chance to win these great prizes:

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$10,000 in cash for your business
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Enter today!

Need a Web site? Click here to learn more about the FREE Microsoft Office Live Web site offer.

If you're planning to use us an excuse to visit the Pac NW, better hurry

Courtney and I made a deal about a year ago. When we decided to take the job at MSFT, we agreed that we would site down one year later, and have a conversation. This conversation would revolve around whether or not we were happy living in the Seattle area.

Moving out here was a big change for us, and a particularly tough decision for Courtney, since she's never lived farther than 45 minutes away from her parents and grandparents. Obviously, we're more than 45 minutes away now.

A couple of weeks ago, the weather here changed. The sun came back out. You wouldn't believe the difference I noticed in Courtney's happiness level. I'm sure she saw the same in me. It's not like either of us was really pissed or anything, but we were both less cheerful than we're used to. This prompted us to start our discussion a couple of weeks early.

We've decided that we don't like living in the Pac NW, and that Microsoft isn't enough of a reason to stay here. It's actually a really tough decision for us, because both of us really enjoy working for MS (me more than Courtney). Both of us really miss our family and friends back in Florida, too, though.

Not to mention the financial burden of having a household in Florida and here, and our total inability to ever afford a house here (450k for a condo, anyone?). So, we're moving.

I'm trying to work a deal with my current team to let me work remotely, from Florida. This poses some challenges, not insurmountable (we do have a team in India and one in China, after all).

We will be moving no later than December, and we're hoping to move closer to August or September. It all depends on what happens with my current team, and with the feelers I put out for jobs at other teams in MS and other companies.

I'll keep you posted.

Look ma, MSBuild is writing about me!

Check out this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/msbuild/archive/2007/04/13/recursion-and-itemgroups-inside-targets.aspx

That's all me, again.

My current 'coolest reason to work at Microsoft'

So, I've done something new. I caused a feature to be added to a shipping Microsoft product. One that almost all my friends use on a daily basis.

We had a meeting with the MSBuild team a while ago, before we started converting our existing build system over to use MSBuild. In that meeting, we told the guys (Dan & Vlad) that we were wishing for a particular thing during our conversion. We were wishing that it was possible, in MSBuild, to know what directory we had called MSBuild.exe from. There are a lot of things you can tell in MSBuild, like the directory of the current project, and a bunch of other well-defined directories. But, you couldn't tell what directory you called msbuild.exe from.

I present to you a new property. I wish it was called the Cullen property, but it's not. They're adding it to the 'Orcas' MSBuild, which is shipping with .NET 3.5, whenever that ships. I think they called it MSBuildExecutionDirectory or something like that.

I didn't even know they were adding the property, I happened to see an email on an internal alias that said something to the effect of "We added this cool property cause the guys on Office Live asked for it". That was me!

Now, when my friends start using the next version of VS, they will be using something that I asked for, and was put in the product basically just because I asked for it. What other company can you work at and do that?

Endurance

I was watching Walk the Line again today. When I turned it on, something stuck me. It's amazing to me that a guy could have written songs 40 years ago that still appeal to people now. I *love* all of the music in that movie. Johnny Cash wrote some great songs.

I know there have been other artists that have written songs that stuck around a long time, but my impression, at least, is that most of them are still appealing to the people that heard the music when they were young. Generally, the music doesn't appeal to those people's children.

I certainly don't expect that Mikayla will be a fan of Rage Against the Machine when she's 29. I doubt she'll even understand what the songs are trying to tell her. Not so with Johnny Cash's music. I still get his message, and still hear his voice in the music.

Amazing.

New computer goodness

I just bought a bunch of new stuff for my computer. Well, I actually only got two things, but it's going to make my home pc feel like a new machine.

I got a smoking hot new video card. This is the first video card i've had that's 'top o the line'. Well, almost top of the line. Top of the line was like $900, and I don't care about my computer that much anymore. It's an nVidia 7950GT. Like that means anything to my readers, right?

Here's the deal: Games have these sliders all over the place, which let you specify what level of detail and visual goodness you want in the game. Currently, most of my sliders are way to the left (little detail), and I run games at a low resolution (1024x768) compared to what I have my desktop set at (1600x1200).

Tomorrow, assuming the new card arrives, I'll be able to pump up my resolution to 1600x1200, and turn ALL the sliders all the way to the right. That means I'll be seeing sweat bead, and flies buzzing when I'm playing. yay for me!

I also got a new motherboard, since this new video card wouldn't work with my existing one. Luckily, I found a motherboard that supports my current CPU, so I don't have to get a new processor. The mobo also supports the newer Intel chips, though, so when I'm ready (next year's tax return, maybe), I can get the new quad processor chip from Intel, and more than double my computing horsepower. I'm totally stoked, and can't wait until tomorrow.

Disable Aero for better game perf in windowed mode

I've finally made the full switch to Vista. At work, at home, everywhere. Well, except for my crappy work laptop, which dies when it thinks about running Vista's eye candy goodness.

I had to wait a lot longer than I wanted to fully switch over. VS 2005 wasn't fully supported on Vista until recently, and at work, we have a critical piece of internal software that doesn't work on Vista.

That's actually a good lesson, and one that Raymond Chen would push for us all to learn. Don't use undocumented APIs* in your app, because they may go away in the next version.

So, one thing I've noticed is that Aero really slows down framerates of games, if you play in windowed mode. I personally notice this a lot with World of Warcrack, and I've heard on some internal aliases about people experiencing the same thing with their XNA apps.

Here's the fix: right click on your game executable, and select properties. Then go to the compatability tab, and check the box 'Disable Desktop Composition'. That's aero. Now, when you run the game, Vista will switch you to Vista basic, and then execute your game. When you exit the game, aero comes back.

This has been working for me for quite a while now, but there was one thing that was bothering me. Every time I switched off Aero, I got a windows alert that the color scheme had been changed to Vista Basic. I hate getting toast, and I have this compulsion to click the 'x' on toast messages. I found myself racing WoW, to click the x before the game loaded. No more! If you click in the body of the toast, you get another window, with the option to hide the toast message forever! I feel liberated. Really, I do.

Why does Aero affect frames per second (FPS) in games? I'll tell you why. Or at least, my theory why. Aero uses DirectX. Most games use DirectX. That means that when you have aero running, it's competing for resources with your game. More consumers = less resources for each one.

Normally you don't notice this, since normally, you're not using your graphics card to it's full extent. Throw in a modern 3d game, though, and your graphics card starts sweating a bit. Aero on top of the game will kill your framerates. I've seen/heard of drops of 20-30%.

So, disable Aero for better perf in games tha tyou run windowed mode.

We have job openings

If you're interested in working on cutting edge software services, drop me a line. We need testers (SDE/T) and devs (SDE). Contact me at cullen DOT waters AT Microsoft DOT com

Marine Christmas Poem

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,

I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.

My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,

My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,

Transforming the yard to a winter delight.

The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,

Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,

Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.

In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,

So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,

But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.

Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,

Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.

My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,

And I crept to the door just to see who was near.

Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,

A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,

Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.

Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,

Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear,

"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!

Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,

You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,

Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..

To the window that danced with a warm fire's light

Then he sighed and he said "Its really all right,

I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night."

"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line,

That separates you from the darkest of times.

No one had to ask or beg or implore me,

I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.

My Gramps died at ' Pearl on a day in December,"

Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."

My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ' Nam ',

And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,

But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.

Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,

The red, white, and blue... an American flag.

I can live through the cold and the being alone,

Away from my family, my house and my home.

I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,

I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.

I can carry the weight of killing another,

Or lay down my life with my sister and brother,

Who stand at the front against any and all,

To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,

Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."

"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,

"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?

It seems all too little for all that you've done,

For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,

"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.

To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,

To stand your own watch, no matter how long.

For when we come home, either standing or dead,

To know you remember we fought and we bled.

Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,

That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

[Edit: I got a comment, supposedly from the author of this poem, asking for attribution. I obviously don't have any way to verify his identity, but I also don't want to steal anyone's limelight. So, here it is.]

The poem is actually entitled "A Soldier's Christmas" and was written by Michael Marks on December 7th, 2000. The works of Mr. Marks have been featured in the Washington Times, hang in the Titan Missile Museum, and are featured on the International War Veteran's Poetry Archive at http://www.iwvpa.net/marksmI know, because I am Michael Marks. LCDR Giles simply forwarded my poem long ago and had his email signature appended at the bottom, later misinterpreted as an authorship attribution.Could you PLEASE edit this post to include "Michael Marks, copyright Dec 7, 2000" before the kind comments by LCDR Giles, as the error gets copied and sent along. Thanks for helping me clear this up!Warmest regards,Michael Marks

[End Edit]

PLEASE, would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many

people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our U.S. Service men and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we

owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who

sacrificed themselves for us.

LCDR Jeff Giles, SC, USN

30th Naval Construction Regiment OIC,

Logistics Cell One

Al Taqqadum, Iraq

Great training class

For the last day and a half, I've been attending a class on threading in C#.  The class is taught by Jeffrey Richter, one of the partners at Wintellect.

This is an amazing class.  I feel much more prepared to write asynchronous code now.  I've been taking a lot of notes, and will be posting a few new posts on how to do multi-threaded programming.

Stay tuned!

Are you a code mercenary?

Last week, there was some discussion on blogs about what motivates developers to work.

Rob Walling presented the argument that there are things he values more than money.

Today, Dennis Forbes presents his argument that he's definitely in it for the money, and so are most of us.

I proclaim that I am a mixture of both points of view. Money is important to me, obviously, or I wouldn't ask about salary when I get new jobs.

I would say that money is not the only thing that is important to me, or even the number one priority, though. I've got data to prove it, too.

I can't share the data with you, however. Give me a call if you're curious.

The funny thing about lists

In my family, we have gotten tired of having no idea what to buy each other. All of us, spearheaded by my beautiful wife, signed up at this cool site, TheThingsIWant.com, and created gift lists.

This way, everone else knows a bunch of things that we want, and can basically pick something at random off the list, and be assured that we will enjoy the gift.

I don't know about other people, but I don't put anything on my list, unless I really want it. So, literally, anyone who knows me can pick an item completely at random from my list, and I will like it. Even if they think the present is boring, I will enjoy it.

It's funny, though. No one seems to want to use my list. Luckily, they contact my wife, who always has great gift ideas. Certainly makes me wonder why I spend the time putting things I want on my TheThingsIWant list, though.