RossCode Weekly #038?- 03.01.2006

After putting this together, and ripping it to MP3, I realized a few things. First, I never talked about the Office "12" announcement. It's Office 2007, and the home edition doesn't include Outlook - presumably because of Windows Live Mail and the proliferation of web-based mail clients. I think I may have missed other stories too, but that was the big one. The other thing I realized is that I sat too close to the laptop, which is extremely loud when recording (the fans kick up). I'll try to get farther away next time!

Intro - 0:00
Download this episode -?26:53 /?12.9 MB
Subscribe to RossCode Weekly

Previously On RCW - 1:10
iTunes hits 1,000,000,000 downloads
Google releases Desktop 3 for Enterprises

News & Views - 2:09
Apple's "Fun New Products" : Mac Mini Media Center and iPod Hi-Fi
CBS launches mobile video alerts
NBCOlympics.com to make $5,000,000 profit
DirecTV to offer downloads via DVR
Google Pages
Google News goes mobile
Vista February CTP Released
30 Boxes API released
Feedburner turns 2
Technorati Favorites

The Cold Wars - 9:16
Access Linux Platform
Windows Live street level view
Windows Live Expo launches
Edgeio launches
RIM not shut down - yet
Final Patent Rejections for NTP
Google testing Videa AdSense
Google and Earthlink team up for WiFi in SF
AOL charges same for dial-up and broadband
PS3 delayed a year?
AACS finalized; Blu-Ray and HD-DVD ready to roll
Blu-Ray to launch May 23rd?

The Grapevine - 16:09
Microsoft Origami Project
Windows Live Mail Desktop coming soon?
Six Vistas
4 Vistas on one Disk
Microsoft's Relerank
Google Calendar, Part 2
Google Payments
Google Voicemail?
TiVo considering 100% subscription model

Odds & Ends - 22:40
Jeeves gets the pink slip
KFC likes TiVo
Newspapers to syndicate blog content

Bonehead Of The Week -?24:01
NBC shuts down SNL promotion

Outro?- 25:19
TiVo ammouncement coming March 2nd

Contact / Feedback
weekly @ rosscode . com
206-424-4729 (4RCW)

Production Notes
Background music provided by Chronos (Introvert 4) and the Podsafe Music Network.
Hosting of RossCode Weekly is provided by OurMedia.org.
Would you like to sponsor RossCode Weekly? Contact me at sponsor @ rosscode.com.

Technorati Tags: RCW | Podcast | Google | Microsoft | Yahoo | Technology | News

Version 0.6 of thinktecture's WSCF tool has been released, and it now supports .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005! Very nice.

If you're unfamiliar with WSCF, you should be. It stands for Web Services Contract-First, and allows you to build your web services by first defining the contract that the server and client will agree to. Now, I'm not a complete contract-first guy, but I do like the tool because the client proxy class generation is much better than the default proxy generated by Visual Studio - at least it was in VS.NET 2003.

Oh yeah - I'm not sure what version it was introduced in, but it now supports command line operations, so it can now be included in your build process, right next to all of your codesmith generated code!

One day, I want to develop a database, and have code generators do the rest...

Technorati Tags: WSCF | Visual+Studio

James Avery put together a nice screencast demonstrating how to effectively use CodeKeep, a tool that I've mentioned in the past. If you're not sure about the value of CodeKeep, but don't want to spend the time to download and install the add-in to evaluate it, you should definitely check this out!

Technorati Tags: VisualStudioHacks | CodeKeep | Screencast

Dave Donaldson, the maker of the wonderful site CodeKeep, has released an add-in for Visual Studio 2005. Since I am doing all of my development in .NET 2.0, I hadn't been using CodeKeep as much as I could have been, but having the add-in again will be helpful.

Oh yeah. If you're using CodeKeep, why are most of the code snippets private? Isn't the point to be able to share? And if you're not using CodeKeep, why not?

Technorati Tags: CodeKeep | VS2005 | Utlities

A few nights ago, we launched Tourneytopia.com. If you watched closely last week, you might have noticed that the Tourney Logic Match Play Contest was hosted on Tourneytopia. Well, that was a pre-release, and the main site still just redirected to Tourney Logic's website.

But no more! Tourneytopia.com is your place to go for your pool needs. We provide the hosting, but it's completely customizable for your needs! We've added a ton of new things this year, and we're extremely excited to get this rolling!

So what's new? Glad you asked:

• All new look and feel. We're almost finalized, and?I think it looks very good - a clean, uncluttered interface. We're still working with our design team to finalize the look and feel, but even without that, the pool looks good!
• Edit your picks! Every year, people ask if they can change their picks ("What was I thinking picking Southwestern College of Indiana over Duke!?!?"), and until this year, we had to say no. Now, right up until games start, you can change your picks. And yes, I know, SWCI is not a real school. And if they were, no one would pick them over Duke!
• Private labeling: March Madness is huge, right? Everyone gets involved. If you're a business, why not make a promotion out of it? For a solid month, you'll get poeple coming to your pool all the time to see how they are doing. That's awesome exposure for your company! Not only that, but this year, we've come up with an easy way to include sponsors, so get a few sponsors for your pool's prizes, and they get the same exposure you do!
• Easy management. Once you get it set up (we'll talk about that in a minute), that's it. The pool is self-updating. We provide the results - there's no data entry on your part!
• What-If Scenarios. Ok. So the tourney is down to the final four. All week, you're wondering if you're going to win the pool. How do you normally figure it out? "I picked Duke, and if they win, I get 11 points. Steve didn't, and I'm behind Steve by 3 points. I'll beat him. But what about Mark, or Jim, or..." Well, no more. We show you the 8 possible scenarios, and who'll win each one! We had this feature last year, but it was an add-on after the tourney started.
• Your data is your data. We collect information about every user - and you can even define what extra information you want to collect - but we don't do anything with the info. But the data is yours. You can see reports and export them to a PDF file or to an Excel spreadsheet. Do you run a contest and your legal department says you have to have a record of every user's picks? No problem. That data is available too, with the same export options.
• Scoring options: We've revamped the scoring a lot. Want to reward people for picking upsets in the first round? Well, first give the round a value. Then, you can have the seed added or multiplied by that value. Don't want that bonus in the fourth round? Then for round four, set it to No Bonus. Each round can be scored completely different - and that What-If stuff I talked about? It's based on your scoring method!

So the pool's pretty feature rich, but it has to be a pain to set up, right? Wrong! We've made it extremely simple to get started. You simply register (we need you to have a user account so you be the first administrator), pick a Pool Id and a Title for your pool, and you're done. If you want to be. If you don't want to be done, you can change the default messages and scoring, but you don't have to.

So, what are you waiting for? March Madness is right around the corner!

Technorati Tags: Tourneytopia | Tourney+Logic | NCAA | March+Madness | Pool

Unfortunately, I'm just too busy this week to do it - plus, I had an incident with the latest FeedDemon beta - I lost all of my news bins, and since everything went so flawlessly in the other upgrades, I got cocky and didn't back up. Well, I came across most of the stories (I think), but there isn't a lot to cover, so I'm going to skip this week. Plus, I'm pretty busy with the Tourney Pool Manager (I warned you, didn't I?).

Anyway, I may try to make it up Friday, but we'll see. If not, then I'll be back next week.

Technorati Tags: RCW

RossCode Weekly #037?- 02.15.2006

Intro - 0:00
Download this episode -?34:44 /?16.7 MB
Subscribe to RossCode Weekly

Previously On RCW - 1:52
FeedDemon 2.0 Beta 2 released
Google Talk in Gmail

News & Views - 3:20
Congressional hearings on China
100Mb broadband coming to UK
NBC Universal Olympic coverage
Office Live Beta launches
Halo 2 on a PC near you
Yahoo open sources their Javascript libraries
iTunes 1,000,000,000 download countdown
Google Maps will show ads

The Cold Wars - 11:07
Google buys MeasureMap
Google porting windows apps to Linux
Gmail for your domain
Google Desktop 3 launched
HarperCollins to offer Ad-Supported Book online
Disney trades Al Michaels to NBC
Technorati adds authority weighting
RIM shows blackberry workaround plans
RIM workaround could cause other patent disputes
T-Mobile, Cingular, Vodafone getting push email
Microsoft to compete for Blackberry users
Microsoft purchase Motion Bridge
Windows Defender Beta 2
Garmin suing TomTom
HD-DVD delayed because of copy-protection issues

The Grapevine - 22:50
File transfer coming to Google Talk?
Office 12 branding coming Feb 16th
Free Ad-Supported version of Office
Intel hiding CPU features
Yahoo offering incentives to use Yahoo Search
A "real" iPod Video

Odds & Ends - 27:42
Video gamers are better thinkers

Bonehead Of The Week -?28:34
Olympics bans Olympic bloggers
RIAA bans re-selling of pre-filled iPods
RIAA is doing you a favor letting you use your iPod
HBO wants to stop all recordings
Remember to log out of Yahoo! Mail

Listener Homework - 32:06
Enter the Tourney Logic Match Play Contest

Outro - 33:14
Listener voicemail

Contact / Feedback
weekly @ rosscode . com
206-424-4729 (4RCW)

Production Notes
Background music provided by Chronos (Introvert 4) and the Podsafe Music Network.
Hosting of RossCode Weekly is provided by OurMedia.org.
Would you like to sponsor RossCode Weekly? Contact me at sponsor @ rosscode.com.

Technorati Tags: RCW | Podcast | Google | Microsoft | Yahoo | Technology | News

Tourney Logic is pleased to announce the launch of the 2nd Annual Tourney Logic Match Play Pool Contest. As if that wasn't exciting enough, if you win you'll get a $25 Best Buy gift card!

The Accenture Match Play tournament starts February 22nd. Tee offs usually start around 7:30 AM, so we'll stop taking entries on early that?morning. Feel free to enter as many times as you want!

Last year was a slight let down - there were so many upsets that no one even had a chance by the time we got to the final four - it was over already! Hopefully this year will be a little more competitive.

Now, remember, this is a beta test for us. We will do our best to keep the site up and running, but if we see bugs, we will be fixing them. Depending on the severity of the bug, we'll be releasing fixes. If it's not a severe error, we'll wait until later at night. But, if it is major, we may have to push it out right away - and if you have data loss because of that, I'm sorry ahead of time!

Now, there is a chance that someone will pull out - they have until the 20th at 5:00 PM - but it's not expected to happen. In the even that it does, we'll just draw a winner from all of the entries. Otherwise, it's whoever knows their golf the best (or, most likely, gets the luckiest!).

By the way, here's a link to last year's pool.

Technorati Tags: Golf | Tournament | Pool | Accenture+Match+Play

I mentioned this in the past, but wanted to follow it up. Brad Covelle entered the OneNote power toy contest a while ago, and was told he was a finalist (that's what I posted).

Well, he was recently (Ok. Not recently. I've been lazy!) informed that he was a winner. Congrats, Brad!

See? I told you. NuSoft developers rock!

Technorati Tags: NuSoft+Solutions | OneNote | Power+Toy

A little over a year ago, I posted my (at the time) current list of podcasts. Podcasting was just getting popular, and I was just starting to listen to them. Well, it's a year later, and podcasting is definitely more mainstream now.

And I'm doing my own podcast now too.

So, I figured it would be a good time to update my list and give you a little insight into what I listen to all day. They're in (rough) alphabetical order, but if you read the comments, you'll be able to pick up my favorites (bold ones is a good clue, but the true explanation is at the bottom of the post).

• .NET Rocks. By far, the best technical .NET podcast out there. Carl Franklin gets the top guests and always has great shows. Even when the topic is about something I don't care about, it's still a good show. About 1 hour a week, usually Monday mornings.
• Across the Sound: Steve Rubel and Joseph Jaffe talk about PR.?PR isn't my thing, but the podcast is pretty good anyway. It appears it's going to be undergoing some changes - Steve Rubel is leaving the show, so we'll see how that works out. About 1 hour per week and I haven't seen a pattern of releases yet.
• Daily Source Code: Sometimes I wonder why I still listen to this one, but for whatever reason, it's still bubbles to the top of my queue. Maybe because it's short - I skip most of the music, and since Adam is at the center of the podcasting biz, it's a good listen. About 5 hours per week, usually every week day, although there are random weekend shows and it's not always daily.
• AOL Sports Bloggers Live: The best sports podcast I've come across yet. It's actually on the radio first, and podcast second. I'm not sure where it's on the radio (not locally), but it is somewhere. 2 hours per week, on Tuesday morning and Friday morning. The show is Monday and Thursday nights, so unless you're up late, you don't usually get it until the next day.
• CNET News.com Tech News Podcast: A quick rundown of the daily happenings of the tech world. If you don't have time to follow the big sites, this is a good one to keep up. Less than one hour per week, depending on how many things happen in a week. It's 5 days a week, and most show are 10 minutes or less. Released in the afternoon.
• ESPN Radio Podcast: A highlight clip show from the day in ESPN Radio. High quality, not much flow to the show. It's about an hour and a half a week, in five shows, released weekdays in the afternoon (although, a lot of times, two come out at the same time). Each show is about 20 minutes.
• Geek News Central: I've been listening to this one from the beginning. Todd's gotten a lot better as he's gone along, and he's built quite a following. He's written a book about podcasting so he knows what he's doing. The show itself is about tech stories and tech news (much like RCW, but more analysis of each story, and therefore, less stories). Lately, it's been 2 hours a week, on Tuesday and Friday mornings?- one hour each. He strives for 40 minutes, but hasn't been hitting it lately.
• Gillmor Daily and Gillmor Gang: I'm lumping these together because they're definitely related. Both are creations of Steve Gillmor and are part of the Podshow network (Adam Curry's company). The topics range, but stay in the tech field. Gillmor Daily is random, and shows run anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, and Gillmor Gang is roughly an hour a week, and usually is ready Monday morning.
• Hanselminutes: A podcast mainly for .NET developers. It's from the minds of Scott Hanselman and Carl Franklin. The show is all content and not much fluff. Scott doesn't want to waste your time, so he gets right to the point. It's about 1/2 a week, and is released Wednesday mornings.
• Mondays: The best comedy podcast I've found so far, although, admittedly, I haven't looked for many. The part I think I like the most about this one is that it's geeky comedy, something I appreciate. The segments are pretty good, and Mark Miller absolutely steals most shows. About 1 hour a week, usually Monday or Tuesday.
• Morning Coffee Notes: You could argue this is the first podcast, but then you'd be taking sides in the Curry-Winer wars, wouldn't you? The show is on any range of topics, from politics (where he's well spoken even if you don't agree with him) to technology?- any major event will usually result in a Winer podcast. The show is released completely random, as is it's length.
• Om and Niall PodSessions: A once a week show about the goings-on in the hi-tech world. Om is one of the best tech news analysts I read, and the show is good. My only recommendation to them is to change their naming format for the show: they use the date as the MP3 file name. If any other show did that, and they released on the same date, the shows will collide. Not good. Anyway, it's a once a week thing, usually mid-week, and about a 1/2 hour.
• PodCheck Review: Every time I listen to podcasts, I look at what I have in my queue, and order it. Any time a PCR is in my queue, it's always the first one I listen to. The production quality is top notch.?I'm sure it helps that the one time I emailed Scott Fletcher, he answered within an hour and was very helpful and appreciative. The show is supposed to be once per week, early in the week, but since having a baby, he's been, umm, less than reliable, which, considering we had a baby in April, I completely understand. When he does a show though, it's usually about a 1/2 hour.
• Polymorphic Podcast: Craig Shoemaker does an awesome job with his show. I think his intro is actually done by Scott Fletcher. Anyway, he does a very technical show (the most technical I listen to), and the topics are great. It's also rather random, and the shows are usually less than an hour.
• Radio Go Daddy: It's a decent show. If you're looking for a filler show, this is the way to go. It's light hearted and funny at times. It's actually a 1 hour radio show with the founder of godaddy.com, and then a half hour of internet only content. The show is Wednesday nights, and is 1 and a 1/2 hour.
• Diggnation: Everyone's heard of Digg.com, right? Well, this is with the two founders of Digg (I think) and they talk about the most dugg stories of the week (as well as their beer). It's a light hearted, but informative, show. It's roughly an hour and is released Sunday night.
• Skinny on Sports: It's a great show, and one I've been listening to since Adam Curry mentioned it well over a year ago. They are now part of Podshow, but they've kept their same format: It's a 10 minute show, and divided into quarters, so they talk about 4 main topics, and one overtime topic. They do have some field reports that run longer than 10 minutes, but for the most part, every Sunday you'll get the fastest 10 minutes on your iPod.
• The ASP.NET Podcast: Another technical podcast, done by Sir Wally McClure (for the most part). This show started as the brain child of Jason Salas, but he was too busy to follow through. More than get into the details of code, this show is mostly interviews of some of the top developers in the .NET development community. It's been about an hour a week for a while, but it sounds like it will be down to about two hours a month for the start of 2006.
• The Chris Pirillo Show: It took me a long time to get into this show, but I finally did. I'm glad I did because he has some great guests and is very entertaining. It's a techy show, but not too technical. It's?a three hour show that you can listen to live on Thursday nights, or you can wait and get them one hour at a time over the next week.
• The Web 2.0 Show: A show about, well, Web 2.0. The new buzzword. I can't remember the last show - it's been almost a month - but I do remember that I liked it. Shows I think were less than an hour, and very random (was 2-3 per month).
• This Week in Tech: Another weekly show. It's a discussion panel of?four people and they have some very good conversations. If the show name didn't give it away, it's a show about tech news. It's about an hour, and you usually get it sometime on Monday.
• The Microsoft Show: Another random show about, obviously, Microsoft. It's usually short (10-15 minutes), and lately has only been released when something major happens in the Microsoft stratosphere. I think this is the only female podcaster on my list.

Some may wonder how on earth I can listen to so many podcasts. Adding it up, it's about 24 hours minimum a week, with some weeks bringing in more than that. Well, here's a little secret: I set my player speed to 2x in Windows Media Player. That alone could cut it down to 12 hours. I wish I could find software that can do that for the Pocket PC!?You see, there's certain podcasts that I've deemed worthy to be allowed on my Pocket PC, and those get listened to in the car or at the gym. Only the best ones though (those are in bold above).

Anyway, despite the sheer amount of podcasts I listen to, I find myself clearing my queue early in the afternoon just about every day. So, what am I missing? I'm pretty happy with my mix - I'm not looking to branch out and find podcasts on other subjects, like politics or news. I want to stay in either sports or technical podcasts. So what are your recommendations? And before you say IT Conversations, I've listened to quite a few of those too.?I just didn't add them to the list.

Technorati Tags: podcast | list