After making sure my Windows 7 install was working properly I decided to install the RC of Windows Virtual PC. This will allow me to use XP mode if I need it and also let me work with some of my existing virtual machines that I had setup with Virtual PC 2007. You will have to uninstall Virtual PC 2007 to install the RC, you will also have to uninstall the Windows Virtual PC beta if you had previously installed it. As has been talked about plenty in the press you will also have to have a CPU that supports virtualization. This would be Intel-VT or AMD-V support.

Everything went well with the install. Then I installed the XP mode piece (which is primarily a virtual machine of XP). Again everything worked well.

Now it was time to try one of my existing Virtual Machines and the first problem arose. One of my VMs had a VHD that was split into multiple files with the first two being about 14Gb and the last one being very small. When I tried to use this VHD WVPC could not find the VHD file. This seemed odd since I could see it fine and I could even copy it. When I copied it WVPC could see the file, but when it tried to use it there was a disk error – somewhat to be expected since the name had been changed on the copy. So I figured I’d rename the copy back to the original name and guess what, WVPC could not see the file anymore.

At this point I tried another VHD that was much smaller. This seemed to work fine so I guessed that the split file was causing the problem. VHD’s are split very simply, so I used the tried and true Copy command to combine the files together. This solved the problem and I was able to start up the VM and work with it…problem solved.

Now that it worked, I tried to rename the file back to the original name – for some reason WVPC was still having a problem with the old name. So I renamed it back to the copied name and left it. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

On August 6th the RTM version of Windows 7 was made available to MSDN subscribers. So naturally I had to download it as soon as I could. I decided to try an upgrade on my Dell Studio 17. My Dell was running Vista Ultimate x64 and I figured it would make sense to simply upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate x64. This machine has 4Gb of memory and plenty of free disk space so I didn’t think it would take that long to upgrade.

Well, it took about 4.5 hours to finish the complete upgrade…a little longer than I expected. But I figure I’ll only have to do this once so no big deal.

I was pleased when everything that had been working still worked. I know I have expected everything to be fine, but this is an upgrade so anything was possible.

The only thing that had real problems was Trend Micro Internet Security’s firewall.

Odd things:

• The Camera software from Dell was a bit flaky (but it was always a little flaky)
• Selecting both minimize on use and Hide when minimized in Task manager caused it to always be shown in the task bar.
  

One thing that pleasantly surprised me was the AT&T wireless card. it worked without any changes. The other thing I noticed was that the fingerprint reader seems to work better (maybe my hands are cleaner…).

There are still plenty of things I need to check, but so far it is working flawlessly.

We had a good turnout for the hands on lab this month. Bill Wolff started the evening by getting everyone to sign up for a Bing API id. You can get one here http://www.bing.com/developers/createapp.aspx. He then went on to build a simple web search page using the Bing web service and lots of CSS code. He has the source on his blog.

I followed by going a little lower tech. I wanted to show some jQuery code that would allow you to connect to Bing using Ajax. I started with a simple HTML page that used the URL method to search Bing and have a callback routine run – all in JavaScript. I then modified the code substituting jQuery calls for the straight JavaScript.

The final step was to convert all the JavaScript into code that would rely on the jQuery library and show that it could be done with less code than straight JavaScript. I also added some extras to the final output just to show how it could be done.

The files can be found on my SkyDrive or by clicking here. You will need to signup for a Bing API id to make them work. You will also need the jQuery library to make the second and third files work. You can get the jQuery library from http://jquery.com 

These examples are to show jQuery and Ajax, so they aren’t pretty from an end users perspective – but you can do that on your own so play with them and see what you can come up with.

And if you have questions about what we’ve shown or have ideas of what you would like to see in the future please leave a comment.

At the latest Philly.Net Hands On Lab we tried to create an example using the ListView and an RSS feed. The ListView example was taken from the demo that Joe Stagner did here. Unfortunately his site was not working for the demo so we switched it to my blog.

If you want to see the final ASPX page you can get to it here.

Remember you can find more jQuery information at jQuery.com.

At the previous regular meeting of Philly.Net

I also gave a short intro presentation about jQuery. If you would like to have the presentation you can download it from here.

I hope these presentations helped you get started. Let me know what else you’d like to know about jQuery by leaving a comment.

Thanks.

Since the Beta of Windows 7 was released I figured I would try to upgrade my Dell from the PDC release to the Beta. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough disk space on my 16gb SSD to accommodate an update so I decided to simply blow away the existing build and start fresh.

Before I got started I checked for any BIOS updates. I had previously updated to A03 but I found that another update was available  - onward and upward to A04.  The BIOS update worked flawlessly and I was ready to begin.

I decided to boot from the external CD. Since there are no dedicated function keys on the Mini I had to hit the zero key. Of course, this is an exercise in timing since it is only available to hit for a limited time.

Once the install disk booted I blew away both the main partition and the 200mb partition that is created by windows 7.  I then created a single partition but and told the install to use it. Windows still wants that 200mb partition so it repartitioned the disk and began the install.

Expanding the files took the longest – about 20 minutes. The entire install took about 45 minutes.

I did get the wireless hotkey to work by downloading the battery Meter/Wireless Switch for the Mini 12 (for vista). This installed fine on the 9. Thanks to the myDellMini website for the information.

So far the beta is working well – it is responsive and shows no signs of being a beta.

I purchased a Dell Studio 17 and it came with Vista Home Premium 64 bit on it. This was the way it came from Dell, it does have 4Gb of memory so the 64 bit version is useful.

I wanted to upgrade this to Vista Ultimate. Normally I wipe a new machine and start fresh, but this computer had very little in the way of bloatware so I figured since all the drivers were loaded and working I might as well try the upgrade.

My first attempt was running smoothly until it got to the second to last part and gave me an error saying it could not configure one or more system components.

I thought it might be something special on the laptop, perhaps the fingerprint reader or bluetooth or maybe the WiFi. I decided to go to the Dell support website and upgrade the drivers. I upgrade the BIOS, the fingerprint reader, and the WiFi. As it turned out, upgrading the WiFi was not the right thing to do…

Still the upgrade of Vista would not work. So I tried removing Daemon tools ( a software DVD drive) – no luck.

I finally tried the web (I should have started there). I found some posts on the technet forum that seems to address the issues. So this is what the recommendation was:

Go into Control Panel/Programs/Programs and Features. click on the “Turn Windows Features on or off” link in the left panel.

• Uncheck XPS view under ms .NET framework
• Uncheck Remote Differential Compression
• Uncheck Windows DFS replication Service

After doing this the upgrade worked. I’m not sure why Windows doesn’t know how to do this but I’m just glad it worked. I was only left with one problem. Remember that I upgrade the WiFi card, well Windows could no longer see it. I had to use the driver disk that came with the machine and reinstall the driver for the card.  After that all was good…

I picked up a Dell Inspiron Mini 910 and decided to put Windows 7 on it. This has been done by other people with apparent success. The only difference was that I got the Mini with Ubuntu preinstalled (it’s cheaper that way).

I knew I might run into driver issues but figured if all else failed I would reinstall Ubuntu and be back to where I started. The Mini did come with a driver disk that appeared to have all the XP drivers loaded. They were in self extracting ZIP files.

After running the install for Window 7 I was left with very little in the way of network peripherals working. I tried to load the XP drivers that came on the CD. Extracting the software was not a problem, but they also tried to run a setup utility which did not recognize Windows 7 as a valid OS.

I grabbed an external USB drive and went to my workstation in the hopes of finding some drivers on the Dell site. There I found some new drivers and an update to the BIOS. I loaded all the drivers from the site onto the USB drive and headed  back to my Mini.

First I updated the BIOS since I would have done that anyway. Then I started to load the drivers from the site. After a few I found the wireless driver and it installed….at least part way. It did have some errors but I figured I’d just try to get connected…and it worked!

After getting online it found some newer drivers at the windows update site for the network so I installed them. After that all the network peripherals were found and I was up and running.

After I got everything working I loaded the blue badge application to turn on all the extras for the 6801 build.

So far Windows 7 is running without problems on the Mini although there are still a couple of devices that are unknown.

The Mini came with 1GB of memory and a 16GB SSD. After installing Windows I was left with a little less than 6GB of disk space.

I have since upgrade my memory to 2GB. This was not because the system was running slow, but because a 2GB chip was only $25 - tough to pass that up.  I am also looking into upgrading the SSD. Runcore has a 32, 64, and 128 model out which are supposed to increase performance. They also have mini USB ports on them for easy transfer of disk images. The 32GB model is going for around $120.

The other day I opened my laptop and woke it up form sleep to find that it was running a little sluggish. When I opened task manager I found that the taskeng.exe application had over 900 entries in the process list. I tried killing them but they continued to startup. Clearly something was amiss.

I'm running Vista so getting to the task scheduler is pretty easy, just hit the windows key and start typing task... Once I got into the task scheduler I still could not see anything wrong. Going into Task Scheduler Library showed only one task and it was not running.

I had to click on the view action item in the right pane and select Show Hidden Tasks and there it was. It was the RSS synchronization task that was the culprit. Apparently it kept failing when it was starting up (I could see this in the history tab). Now that I had found what the problem was, I was at a bit of a lose as to how to fix it.

Doing some searching revealed this post by Karl Foley. It was about vista 64 but it sounded like the same problem. Following his advice I was able to get everything back to normal.  I also learned about a new application - msfeedssync - I didn't realize this existed nor did I know that it was responsible for getting my RSS feeds in IE. I tried to find any help on this application but I came up empty.

BTW - I was able to easily kill all those runaway taskeng processes by using Powershell and the stop-process command.

Unlike the CMD prompt, PowerShell will process commands in one of two ways. It does this by first looking at what you've typed and deciding if it should interpret it as a command or an expressions. The two modes are called Expression and Command. Command mode works just like the way CMD works,what you type is interpreted as a command. If the text is a valid command it will be executed. Expression mode allows PowerShell to take what you type and interpret it as values in an expression. For example, If you type 2 + 2 the result (4)  will be printed on the next line. If you enter some text in quotes (like "Hello world") , then the text will be printed on the next line.

So far this seems pretty simple, if you start a line with a number or a quote PowerShell will be in Expression mode. But what if you want to assign a value to a variable? PowerShell understands that you are referencing a variable because you enter a $ - so entering $a = 2+2 will assign the value of 4 to the $a variable. Entering just $a will print its contents on the next line.

We can now see that numbers, quotes and the dollar sign will put PowerShell into Expression mode. There are other characters that PowerShell will interpret as expressions, most characters that could be used by a mathematical expression are interpreted that way - so Period, Plus, Minus, and Left Parenthesis all put PowerShell into Expression mode.

A character that won't appear to do anything is the octothorp (you may know this as the number sign or pound sign). The reason this doesn't appear to do anything is because it is used to indicate a comment so PowerShell ignores anything after it.

Now lets say you've put the string "get-process" into a variable called $a. How would you get PowerShell to execute that command?  The Ampersand (&) character can be used to tell PowerShell to interpret the contents of a variable and then pass it on to be executed as a command like this &$a. This means that the Ampersand actually causes PowerShell to use both the Expression and Command modes.

PowerShell also has to be able to understand files and directories. Because of this, PowerShell has a small quirk in the way it handles the Period and the Backslash. Both of these characters will work similar to the Ampersand. If you were to enter .$a instead of &$a from the previous example the results would be the same - the listing of the currently running processes would be displayed. The Backslash has its own way of handling the command. If we simply replace the ampersand with the backslash we will get an error, but if we replace the $a with the command in quotes (\"get-process") we will get the process listing. These two characters work this way so you can execute script files with spaces in the directory or file name. It is mentioned here only to notify you of a potential side effect, you should not use these characters as a replacement for the ampersand.

I was at the Philly.Net user group last night. I actually had to be there because Bill Wolff was out in the holy land of Redmond, WA. We had two great presentations - the first one being how to use ASP membership in SharePoint. This is something that I and many of the people I work with have looked into from time to time but we just haven't had the time to get it done. I'll be looking through the material that was handed out before the end of the weekend.

The second presentation was not as high tech but just as useful if not more so. It was all about configuring Visual Studio. The presenter was Steve Andrews from RDA and you can get a hold of his e-book called Tame the IDE at his blog Platinum Bay. It is chock full of useful time savers on VS.

One of the things he mentioned was changing the fonts in VS. I've done this before, the only problem I've had is that I don't like courier and I also have a problem with proportional fonts when coding so many of the existing fonts are a compromise. He mentioned that there are fonts available online for VS. So I figured I'd look for some today. The first hit I had was for a font from Microsoft called Consolas. This is a fixed width font designed for VS and optimized for ClearType. Consolas is a very easy to read font (even though I have to up the size to 11 - getting old is a bitch). The install (which is cleverly named Setup) will set the default font in VS for you to Consolas.

For you Vista people, before going out and downloading it look on your system. It should already be there.

Software development is a combination of science and art. You have to create something out of nothing while keeping it within the confines of a platform or language. It is a process that is a lot like traversing a maze or herding cats. You have to take an idea and turn it into something real. Sometimes the process flows like a river from beginning to end seemingly willing itself to be. Other times its like climbing a mountain, you know it can be done, you just have to find the right path.

In almost every case you will have a constant companion, failure. Not the complete breakdown type, but the little blind alleys or rabbit holes that you go down trying to solve a problem. An idea that doesn't pan out or a process that is simply misconceived.

These failures are helpful on two fronts. First, they allow you to understand and better define the problem you are trying to solve. Second, they help you to understand more completely the nuances of the framework/language you are working with. It helps you avoid the same mistakes on the next project and makes you a better developer.

The real problem with failure are the managers who do not understand the positive benefits of failure. I'm not laying this all on mangers, we setup a confrontation by being overly optimistic about our own capabilities. But failures are a part of the process that managers just don't understand. They don't get the spectrum of failure possible - for them life is a pass/fail black/white proposition, if you fail you cannot pass/succeed. Managers live in a mostly static world; little if any change occurs. For them, you either know how to do something or you don't.

A developers world is more like riding a surf board. You can see the people ahead of you and you can learn from their mistakes and successes, but your wave will have it's own hazards that you have to conquer. You may make it to shore, but you will probably fail. So embrace your failures and do something that all good developers do, learn.

I finally broke down and subscribed to music service - Yahoo Music. I have to say that I like the ability to download as much music as I want all for one set price. Sure, it's not like actually buying the music, I can't burn it to CD but then I don't listen to that many cd's anymore anyway. The selection is pretty good too.

I do have to get some sort of music player though, carrying around my laptop full of music is getting to be a bit much. I like the Dell because of the price, and I like the iRiver's because of how they look and the color screen.

I've also started to experiment with video Skype. This could be a killer for applications like Microsoft's live meeting or Webex. You can connect up to 200 people in a meeting (although you can only see 8 at a time) and you can also share your desktop. The beta can be downloaded from www.vskype.com. It is still in the beta stages so there are a few glitches, but overall it fits nicely into the Skype model

For Christmas we got our son a Dell Pocket DJ. This competes with the iPod mini in size and space. Well, I noticed he wasn't using it and When I asked him about it he said it had broken. The funny thing was that he didn't want to tell me because he thought I would be upset with him. Well I was upset, but more for him not telling me, after all, the device was under warrenty so the quicker I found out about it not working the better.

I called Dell, was on hold for about 12 minutes and then spoke to a representative. Although this person did not speak English natively I could still understand him. He stepped me through a few things to try to get the dj working again but nothing worked. He then setup for a new one to be cross shipped to me. This entire processes (including hold time) was only about 20-25 minutes. Assuming everything works out it was time well spent. I have to say that this was about the most painless experience I've had with a hardware vendor.

As for the DJ, It sounds like the hard drive failed since it makes a noise when it is reset.

We had a great turn out for Code Camp in Philadelphia. As the person in charge of the hands on Labs I spent most of my time in the lab rooms (there were 2). For all those interested in the labs we had for ASP.NET and Window Forms they will be put up on the Philly.NET website soon.

The Community College of Philadelphia has a beautiful computer facility and the staff is very helpful.

Next up, we will be starting our study group soon. In about a month or so we should have some people ready to become certified professionals.

I had some discussins with a friend of mine the other day. We are both geeks from way back - the first computer we worked on had only upper case letters (seriously). He was talking about HTML e-mail and how it causes problems with various software packages. He is much more Unix oriented than I am and deals with the problems of Windows interacting with Unix. I agree that HTML can cause problems in e-mail, but I also believe it isn't as big a deal as he believes it is.

I think the real problem is that the Internet and e-mail has become consumer items, they are not the relm of the geeks anymore. I know, an obvious statement, but the ramifications are that  the geeks of the internet do not carry the same sway as they used to. In the early days it was much easier to get a concensus of what was technically correct. Now we have to deal with what people will use - not whether it is the best solution.

As the Interenet became easier to use the focus shifted from information exchange to communications. We bascially want to communicate with peoplel as easily as possible and we don't want people working to understand us. It started with the web, more and more people started to use better layouts and colors. The same thing has happened to e-mail. The problem is that no one created an e-mail version of HTML that will allow for good communicatinos but won't overstep itself by allowing scripting or cookies to be included.

Maybe that's all we really need - how about calling it eHTML. It can allow for fonts and other typographical conventions, but will focus on keeping the e-mail small and nothing will "run" on the recipeints e-mail client.

I've had an Oki laser printer for about 7 years now. It was a demo deal so it wasn't very expensive (relativly speaking). It could connect up to the network directly - not very usual back then. it has worked flawlessly since, but it has a broken cover latch and the paper is starting to get stuck.  I thoguht it would be a good time to get a new printer - but I also wanted to retire a few other devices so a multi-function printer seemed to be the best bet. I didn't need color (I have a nice color printer).

Looking around I found the Dell 1600N MFP. This is a laser printer as opposed to those inkjet mfp. When I ordered it I could get it for under $350 - not sure what the price is now. I have to say that I am impressed. It took very little time to setup and the software allows me to scan to any of the computers on my network. It is a little on the large size, but I had plenty of room for it.

It can print postscript or PCL 6.

We are gearing up for Code Camp in Philadelphia. Anyone in the area is welcome although there are a limited number of seats. The code camp will be held on April 23rd and 24th.

If you are insterested in attending, check out www.phillydotnet.org/codecamp

I have a problem with red light cameras for a couple of reasons. The first is that the entity being fined is really the car. But since the car doesn't have any money, the owner of hte car is fined. The person targeted is not necessarily the person who commits the crime.

The second problem I have is that there aren't any rules for yellow lights. There isn't a minimum time that a yellow light stays yellow. It could be yellow for a second or for 15 seconds so how do you know which it is?

My solution is that Yellow lights need a minimum time and there needs to be some indicator telling the driver that if they pass a certain point on the road they will get through the light before it turns red.  A simple line on the road far enough back from the intersection so a driver going the speed limit will have enough time to stop if they haven't reached the line before the light turns yellow.

Drivers need enough information to make informed descisions when driving...