Here are a few Vista features and my thoughts after a few days of use.

Instant Search (Thumbs Up)

The first thing I noticed with Vista is that stuff wasn't where I expected it to be.  This is not Windows XP, that is for sure.  Immediately after I set up Vista I needed to see the Device Manager and I had no idea where to look.  I have since found it by the way.  But what I learned early on is that you can easily search for installed programs as well as files.  You can see in the screen shot that I typed "Device" and as I typed the search started.  The top item was "Device Manager" and it was highlighted so I could hit enter and it opened.  That was easy.  I have been using this to start most programs so far.  I just finished installing IIS.  I couldn't find the admin tool so I just typed IIS in the search bar.

Lots of Windows Security Warnings and Prompts (unsure)

I heard about this but didn't realize what it was.  Every time you do certain things you get a security warning.  So, for example, if I open the IIS Manager Vista prompts me with "Windows needs your permission to continue.  If you started this action, continue."  I am sure there is a way to disable these messages but I have to admit, I feel more secure.  We'll see how long it takes before I get frustrated.

Lack of Control over Defragmenter (Thumbs Down)

My friend Gary from work has been showing me the ways of a sys admin.  He taught me to use partitions for various files.  He also likes to defragment the drives after making big changes.  I've been following his ideas lately but found a snag with Vista.  The Disk Defragmenter is pretty lame!  You options seem to be (after you get past the security warning): a) Run defragmenter on a schedule or b) Deframent now.  That is pretty much it.  I don't know what happens when you choose b.  There are no options and no status update.  Is it defragmenting all of my drives or just one?  I assume it is doing all of them.  I tried running it on a schedule but I don't know if it worked.  It was scheduled for 1 AM but my PC was asleep at the time so I think it skipped it.  This morning I tried to run it manually.  So I kicked it off and went to work.  I came home to find out that the PC went to sleep and never finished defraging.  This is pretty lame.  I have heard that Vista manages the defragmenting for us now so I shouldn't have to worry about it.  I am not so confident in this.

No More "My Documents" (Thumbs Up)

Windows XP had a folder for each user within the folder Documents and  Settings.  Inside each user is a folder for My Documents and inside that My Music, My Pictures, etc.  I like to re-direct my "My Documents" to a different drive and that was easy to do.  But you didn't have a lot of control over the other "My" folders.  It was all or nothing.   Vista introduces a Users folder.  Inside that, each user has a folder, in my case it is called "Andy".  Inside that folder you will find folders named Contacts, Downloads, Documents, Music, etc.  No more "My"...I like that already!  Then I found out that you can easily re-direct any of these folders to a different location.  So I put Documents, Downloads, etc on my D drive and I put Music, Pictures, and Video on my M (media) drive.  And I can still use the shortcut on the start menu.  I click "Andy" and I see all of my folders, even though they are located in different locations.  This is very cool.  To learn how to re-direct the files, read this post I found on Ed Bott's blog (I don't know him, found it with Google).

So I finally got my copy of Vista.  It took a while, but that is another story.  I've got Vista Ultimate and my PC is pretty new, I built it myself.  Here are the specs that I think are important regarding the Vista install:

• Motherboard:  ASUS P5ND2-SLI Socket 775
• Processor:  Intel Pentium D 840 3.2 GHz (Dual Core)
• RAM:  1 Gig
• Video:  EVGA GeForce 6200LE 128MB (OR SO I THOUGHT)  You can probably guess where this is going.

Before I continue I should be clear.  I am a programmer, not a systems guy.  I can usually find my way with this stuff but I'm no expert with hardware, that is for sure.

The Install

I ran a Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor and I passed so I figured everything would be all cool (did I miss a warning or fine print somewhere?  In hindsight, I wonder).  I popped in the Vista DVD and proceeded.  By the way, I was warned to stay away from the upgrade and just do a full install.  So I did.  Vista installed really quickly so I was excited.  In 15 minutes or so I was up and running Vista...sort of. 

Windows Experience Index

I played around for a few minutes, everything looked different then XP so I was pretty curious.  And then I thought to myself, "Where is all that cool Windows Aero stuff?"   Hmmm, I am not getting the good stuff here.  After some research on the web I found out how to check my Windows Experience Index (Control Panel > System and Maintenance > System.  Then click the link for Windows Experience Index).  I figured this test would inform me about my problem. Instead I got this error "Cannot complete assessment.  The assessment or other operation did not complete successfully.  This is due to an error being reported from the operating system, driver, or other component."

Nice.  You'd think they could have narrowed it down and told me why it didn't work.

Device Problems

After checking my device manager, I found that there were 2 devices that Vista did not like.  One was the SM Bus Controller.  The second was "unknown device".  I called Asus.  I was able to get some information from them and was told to check out the NVIDIA site to download the driver for the SM  Bus (System Management Bus).   After the install, I was down to the one unknown device.  I found some information by viewing the details page of the the driver properties window.  The hardware ID was ACPI\PNPB006.  Thanks to the magic of google, I determined that this was probably a GamePort or MidiPort that is not supported anymore with Vista.  So I disabled it via the BIOS.  Now I have no bad devices.  I was feeling proud of myself for getting this far so I re-ran the Windows Experience assessment and... get the same error.  Nice.  My ego was really not doing well at this point. 

Since the error was rather vague, I spent some time upgrading various other drivers.  I figured one would save the day.  Upgrade a driver, run the assessment tool, upgrade a driver, run the tool.  Yada yada yada, still no aero glass.

Video Card

I called EVGA.  Turns out, my card does not have 128MB ram.  The box said "Supports 128MB".  While I was on the phone with them I opened my PC to get the part number and found a tag that says 16MB on it.  Uh oh, what is this?  The guy on the phone could not explain to me why the box says "Supporting 128MB" or even what that means (pretty sad, huh).  I later learned that it shares the some memory from the system but it doesn't really have 128MB.  The bottom line is that it does not have enough video memory for the advanced features of Vista. 

Luckily, it is pretty easy to get hardware quickly.  I hit Tiger Direct and ordered the card:  XFX GeForce 7600 GS with 512MB DDR2.  My biggest worry was that I'd get the card and find out I had some other problem.  Two days later the card was delivered and installed.

My New Experience Index: 4.4

 

(click to enlarge)

I wasn't sure if I should be excited or not.  I had it in my head that my rating would higher.  But, this is enough to run all of the cool Aero Glass features of vista.  Oddly enough, my cool new video card is the lowest scoring item.  Do I need to increase my ranking?  Supposedly a rating of 4 or higher is all I but now I admit I have rating envy.

My Complaints/Lessons Learned 

In the end the fault was mine because my video card was lousy.  But here is what bothers me: the error "Cannot complete assessment".  Why not?  Why couldn't Vista tell me what the problem is?  Maybe not specifically, but why not tell me there is a problem with my video card or driver or something more specific.  At least I learned enough to ask the right questions before buying a graphics card.

Did I mess with those device for nothing?  Would it all have worked if I didn't disable the GamePort?  I guess it doesn't matter and I learned a bit about devices from the experience.

Sold Out

If you haven't registered yet for Philly.Net's Code Camp 2007.1 you are out of luck.  This event is full!  I am not surprised it didn't take long for registration to fill up, there is a great list of presentations. 

A swag mans job is never done!

For those of you who are registered, you'll be glad to know that I've been working hard to make sure we have lots of door prizes.  Many companies have been very generous with prizes for this event.  It is really awesome that we have their support.  Here is a sneak peek at some of the companies and prizes we'll have.  This list is unofficial and will change.  Hopefully I'll be adding more.  If you have any ideas for swag, please contact me.  I'll try to keep this list updated as things change.

 

*Updated on 5/26

Contributor	Contribution
Microsoft	1 Zune, 1 license Office, 1 license Vista, & 1 license Expression Web
New Horizons Learning Centers	Breakfast
RDA Consultants	Lunch
Apress	Books
Cizer	1 Full License for Drop In Reporting for every attendee!
Component Art	1 Web.UI for ASP.NET Subscription License
Diamond Technologies	$25 gift card, Memory Sticks and other swag
Dundas	1 Dundas Gauge, several licenses for Dundas Calendar for RS, a Dundas Software hoodie and other swag (pens, bags)
Google	T-Shirts
JetBrains/ReSharper	5 personal licenses for ReSharper
O'Reilly	10 Books
Red-Gate Software	A copy of the brand new version of ANTS Profiler and two copies of SQL Refactor.  Plus pens, t-shirts, memory sticks, etc.
Sams/Addison-Wesley	Books, t-shirts, bags, pens, quick reference cards.
WROX	50 Wrox books, t-shirts

A few friends have asked lately about pasting code into blog posts from visual studio.  When you do add code, you want to retain the syntax highlighting features from VS so the code is more readable.  This is a snap with Windows Live Writer.  Live Writer is still considered Beta software but it seems to work pretty well for me.

All you need to do is go to the Live Writer Gallery and check out the cool pluggins that are available.  In this case, I am using the pluggin called "Paste From Visual Studio".

Just install that and in a snap you go from this:

 

public void dosomething(string anArgument)
{
//this method doesn't really do anything.
string message = "hello world"
DateTime date = DateTime.Now;
}

To This:

    public void dosomething(string anArgument)
    {
        //this method doesn't really do anything.
        string message = "hello world";
        DateTime date = DateTime.Now;
    }

It couldn't be easier!  Now I just need to add some posts to this blog that really use some pasted code!  Check out this other post I wrote about some other cool features of Live Writer.

When I started this blog I continually went to Google to see if I came up in the search.  I did some research and found that you can "register" your URL with Google.  You can go to Google's Add URL page and do the same.  I am not sure if it worked or not.  It could be that Google's spider just reached me on its own.  They make no guarantees that a URL added to the list will even get added to their search.  Also, you can go to Google's Webmaster Tools section.  There you can see when the spider hits your site, find out what queries people use to find your site, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

In my research I also found tips saying that I should include a lot of links in my blog posts.  And also TrackBacks from other blogs would help my ranking with search engines.

I can't tell you if these tips worked specifically.  But I do know that my posts are coming up in Google searches (and other engines too) and I am happy about that!  By the way, some of the other search engines have similar tools to Google.  But you'll have to do a little research on your own to find them.  Don't forget to be a little patient.

Philly.Net is hosting Code Camp on May 19th.  Registration is now open!  This event will most likely "sell out" so register here  now before it is too late.  This is a FULL DAY, FREE event!

Bill has already arranged a great group of speakers with a wide variety presentation topics.  While they are subject to change, here is the list of topics. 

ASP.Net/Sharepoint Internet MOSS InfoPath AJAX Dev Testing Sharepoint Workflows Content Types .NET 3.0/Orcas WCF Intro XAML, Silverlight WF WCF LINQ SOA/WCF

Coders Framework Development Enterprise Library Unit Testing Aspect Programming NHibernate CAB/Validation SQL MDX Data Mining DataFlows Schedule Performance TSQL SSIS Scripts

Utilities RSS XNA Tools Powershell Licensing Compact Framework

Sponsors:  In addition to all of the knowledge you will get, there is free food too!  Morning refreshments are provided courtesy of New Horizons Learning Centers. Lunch is sponsored by RDA Consultants.

Door Prizes/ Raffles (aka swag)  But wait, there is more!  We'll have lot's of prizes to give away at the end of the day.  This is my department (they call me the "swag man")!  I am currently working on getting door prizes from as many companies as possible.  If you would like to provide a door prize of any kind, contact me!  This is a great opportunity for any company to reach a great target audience: .Net developers in the Philadelphia area.  We've already got some great stuff to give away and looking for more.  Can you provide software,  books, hat, shirts, gift certificates, travel mugs, thumb drives, or anything else that would make a cool door prize?  Please contact me for more information.

 We were back again at SEI in Oaks, PA for another great Philly.Net meeting. 

 mark your calendars for the following upcoming events:

Wednesday May 16:  Philly.Net Pub night. Marc Ziss has set up the second pub night at the Great American Pub in Conshohocken.  Once again, Human Capital Management is coming through to sponsor the night.  Last time was a lot of fun.  Don't miss this chance to have a beer or two with other members of Philly.Net.  No topics, no presentations.

Saturday May 19:  Code Camp is back!  Code Camp is a great way to learn a lot.  A whole day (8:30-5:30) including about 30 sessions on a variety of topics.  Bill is taking volunteers now for speakers.  Don't miss this...you can't beat this free event!

 

My Disclaimer:  The following is my summary of the presentations from the evening.  Hopefully I got the facts right.  I've included as many links to the topics as possible.  Check out the presenters blogs and websites for the most accurate information.  I'm happy to correct any mistakes. 

Note:  I'll add the slides and content to this post as soon as I get them from the presenters.

 

Presenter:  Peter Laudati, Microsoft

Topic:  Windows CardSpace

Peter Laudati is the NY/NJ Developer Evangelist.  Since that job has been a vacant in the Philadelphia market for a while, Pete has been helping us out and supporting our user group.  Check out his blog for lots of information including postings about Microsoft events in the NY/NJ/PA area.  Pete started off with a quick overview of the different pieces of the .Net Framework 3.0.  CardSpace, formerly known as InfoCard, is one of those pieces.  To get the 3.0 Framework, you can download it from MSDN and run it on Windows XP or 2003.  But if you have Vista, it is already included.  CardSpace is part of a system that provides a digital identity designed to solve authentication issues that users experience.  It is meant to solve security issues on the internet such as phishing, fraud, password fatigue, and the multitude of authentication systems we must use.  Microsoft worked with several partners to create this system and they developed the Laws of Identity.  You can learn more about the that at:  www.identityblog.com.  Some of the key features they planned included consistent experience across contexts, it should be available on multiple platforms, and should have minimal disclosure for a defined use.  CardSpace is the client side identity selector piece that is implemented within applications.  The system includes self-issued (you create them yourself) and managed cards (such as credentials issued by a bank).

He showed a demo using CardSpace to login to the website www.sandbox.netfx3.com.  He also showed us an example in code of how to implement CardSpace.  Since there are only 4 key tasks to complete, implementation doesn't look too difficult.  Peter also brought some great prizes to include in our raffle...Thanks Pete!

 

 

Presenter:  Robert Green, MCW Technologies

Topic: Using Windows Workflow Foundation to Build an Order Processing System

Rob started out with a little background.  He has two blogs.  The code samples will be on this blog but his more active blog is here.  He started out giving us the basics of Workflow Foundation.  After a few minutes he left the slides and jumped right into Visual Studio.  That's a good presentation from my perspective!   In VS2005 he started dragging workflow items out of the toolbox, wrote a little code (yes, "Hello World") , and showed just how quickly you can create a simple workflow.  He then explained the difference between a Sequential Workflow (basically, the steps all occur sequentially) and State Machine Workflow (the workflow does something, saves its state, and then waits for something else, maybe an external event, to happen).  He then walked us through a more complex example with a State Machine workflow.  This was a pretty complex sample with several steps and events.  But in spite of its complexity, Rob made it seem pretty easy to accomplish.  He summarized with his thoughts on the current State of Workflow.  To paraphrase, he really likes workflow but the tools through Visual Studio need some work but he is hopeful that it will all be resolved with the next version of VS code named "Orcas".

 

Meeting Sponsor: 

   Provided excellent hoagies!  

Additional Door Prizes courtesy of:  ,    and Microsoft

Nope, this is not a commentary on my employer, just a review of the last movie I saw.  Netflix continues to be an easy way to get our movies.  With our terrible weather on Sunday, a movie was the perfect distraction.  I've been pretty lucky and enjoyed almost everything we've watched lately.  Blood Diamond was a pretty exciting tale of the civil war and illegal diamond trade in 1990's Sierra Leone.  I don't think this specific story is true but the overall background story is true and pretty upsetting.  These rebels are crazy.  They kill and/or torture innocent civilians.  They kidnap, then brainwash men (mostly young men) and hook them on drugs in order to "convert" them to their way of thinking.  The official army is corrupt (at least the group in this movie) too so the whole situation is pretty bad and it is never really clear who the "good guys" are in some scenes.  Leonardo DiCaprio has another good role here and I think he does a nice job with this complex character.  One of those gritty bad side with a decent heart underneath it all. I am not a fan of Titanic but I liked him in Catch Me If You Can.  Djimon Hounsou put in a great performance as a local fishermen who gets kidnapped and forced to work in the diamond mine which ends up driving the whole plot.  I recognized his face but didn't know his name.  I looked him up on IMDB, he has been in a lot of stuff but I think this is probably his biggest role.  His character has a lot of emotion and rage which he delivers well.  He is the true hero in the movie, doing anything and everything to rescue his family.  Jennifer Connelly is in there too.  I guess they needed a love interest to bring out Leo's character's softer side.  The story is confusing in the beginning but if you stick with it, it makes sense.  Be prepared for a lot of violence.  And the ladies will look at their diamond rings in a whole new way.

Hopefully you have noticed that I changed the style for my blog. Hopefully you like the results.

I am planning to install Vista on my home PC. While I am really excited about it, I keep hearing about "little problems" that people are having and it is making me nervous.

Peter Laudati has a good post on his blog about the Microsoft on-line mapping service.  I really agree with the point he makes.  I don't know what the mapping service is really called but you can check it out here.  I've used this service before.  If you haven't used it, it is Microsoft's answer to MapQuest or Google Maps.  The product is pretty slick and the aerial photos on it may be the best on the web.  And it has some great 3D features.  But I am not going to debate the pros and cons of one mapping service vs another.  The biggest problem with the Microsoft service is the name.  The website says "Live Search" at the top and "Microsoft Virtual Earth" at the bottom.  And the URL is any of the many url's that you used to find the site. So which is it?  And what does Live Search mean?  How would I know that has anything to do with maps?  Plus they changed the name a bunch of times including local.live.com (or was it live.local.com?  Who can remember?) and maps.msn.com, etc.  You would think a monster company like Microsoft would have a better idea of how to brand products properly.  No one has to wonder what "Google Maps" or "MapQuest" means. 

In my opinion, this is not the first similar mistake Microsoft has made.  I am a happy C# developer and I love .Net, but I hate the name!  .Net???  What were they thinking?  What does that mean?

There is definitely a lesson to be learned here.  I hate to say it but no matter how great are code is, without good marketing guys we are screwed!

Philly.Net hosted its second Center City meeting on April 11 at Structured Hosting. Just like the last meeting in NJ, we had a capacity crowd again. I think these new meetings/venues are a success! If you missed the meeting (or if you need some details) here is my synopsis.

My wife Rebecca and I just got back from a great trip out west!  We took advantage of her spring break to head out to see some of our great  National Parks.  The trip was awesome.  I had been to Arizona before so I had seen some desert landscapes.  And I had been to Utah before but that was for skiing.  But there is no preparing for the beauty of these parks.  They were unlike anything I had seen before. 

You can read the stories below, or just look at the pictures included, all of which were taken with my camera.  If you click them, they get bigger!

 

After spending a quick night near the airport in Las Vegas, we hopped in our cool rental,  a blue Chevy Malibu.  In about two hours we arrived at Zion National Park.  Our first stop was the campground to find a place to sleep.  We got a nice spot with a fantastic view!  It was March 31 and Zion's official season started on April 1.  That meant it was the last day that cars are allowed on the scenic road through the park.  So we decided to take a car-tour of the park.  We stopped at the Court of the Patriarchs, Weeping Rock, and a few other stops, eventually making our way to the Temple of Sinawava.  The sites were great all along the way.  Dinner was Rebecca's famous (well,  famous for us) Campground Pizza cooked on the open fire.  The next morning I made us omelettes with fresh bell pepper and cheese (on the camping stove) and we headed out for Angels Landing.  This is a great day hike (1500 ft climb in 5 miles, about 4.5 hours including a 45 minute lunch break).  A lot of people tried to scare us off this one saying it was too scary and dangerous.  That's because the last 1/2 mile is a steep hike on narrow cliffs.  There are permanently anchored chains to help you hold on.  But in the end we didn't think it was too scary at all.  That didn't take away from the fact that it was an amazing hike.  After an exhausting hike up the steep lower portion of the trail we got to the even more steep "Wiggles" which brings you to the first great scenic overlook.  This is where a lot of people end their day but we continued on the true peak.  Scrambling along the rest of the way with the help of the chains was a lot of fun.  And the view from the top was well worth it.  It was a great place for our lunch.  Not a good place to be if you are scared of heights but otherwise great.  The hike down was much quicker but pretty tough on the knees!

 

  Our second night was fun, we had an easy dinner... mac and cheese.  The sky was again very clear with an almost full moon.  The next morning after pancakes we were off for Bryce Canyon National Park.  Bryce is hard to explain, you just have to see it.   Bryce is full of Hoodoos, these crazy rock formations that.  From a distance, you'd swear must have been man made.  After once again pitching our tent on an incredible camp site, we headed off to the scenic drive to check out the awesome vistas.  After an early dinner (I made sauteed chicken and red bell pepper with couscous on the camp stove) we headed back to Inspiration Point (I kept thinking of Ritchie Cunningham..."I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill") to watch the sunset.  After a "chilly" night at around 30 degrees, we   went out for a day hike of the "Figure 8", an 8 mile (I think) combination of three trails:  The Navajo, Queens Garden, and the Peek-A-Boo Loop.  It goes right through the heart of the park's natural "amphitheaters".  On this trail we got to explore the Hoodoos that we had admired from above on the previous day.  The sun was bright and hot, it was hard to believe  the temperature was only in the 50's all day.  Also, we have learned that the key to solitude in these parks seems to be the longer day hikes.  You start out with a lot of people but if you hike out a little bit the crowd thins as most people don't do the 4-6 hour hikes that we like.  So we did have some quiet, peaceful time out with the Hoodoos.

After another night camping around the freezing mark, we packed up and headed down to warmer climates at Lake Powell in the Glen Canyon Recreation Area.  Since the lake was about 1/2 way to the Grand Canyon, we figured we'd spend a day there.  After a quick stop to check out the Glen Canyon Dam (a pretty cool dam) we pitched our tent at the campground overlooking the lake.  Since the previous parks did not have showers, we figured this would be a good time to wash up.  We grabbed a handful of quarters and hit the "pay" showers.  All cleaned up, we were off to the town of Page for lunch.  Unfortunately, we quickly discovered there wasn't anything to do in Page and the Lake didn't offer much entertainment without a boat.  Uh oh, time for a change of plans... we are outta here.  We decided to bail on this stop and head for the Grand Canyon.  This would give us an extra 1/2 day there to explore.  There are really only a few decent hotels near the Grand Canyon in Tusayan (I knew the ones inside the park itself were already sold out).  I called all 5 of them and got lucky on the last one, getting a room for the night.  By the time we checked in there were no vacancies left in town so I think we got lucky!  (We changed hotels the next day to the one we had booked previously) From here on out, we are no longer camping.  Hotels, restaurants, and climate control!

 

  Our first view of the Grand Canyon was from the Eastern entrance by the watch tower.  Of course we  had big expectations and the Grand Canyon did not disappoint.  It is huge. It is beautiful.  It is amazing.  There is no question why it is one of the 7 wonders of the world.  We stopped along the way a few more times to check out the vistas (it is a long drive into park) and before long it was near dusk so we stopped one last time to check out the sunset.   We spent our first full day at the Grand Canyon hiking the South Kaibab trail (6 miles round trip, very steep, no available water).  Unfortunately we planned this trip too late so we could not get a permit to hike to the bottom and camp overnight.  But the Kaibab trail was a great way to go part of the way down into the canyon for a short while.  It was pretty crowded until the first rest area where most people quit.  We pushed on and made it to Skeleton Point where we could see the Colorado River for the first time.  We had lunch and relaxed before the hard part, the hike back up the canyon.  That evening we caught  up with Rebecca's friend Shaine and her husband Brett who drove in from Colorado to spend  some time with us at the Canyon.  Brett used to guide hiking and rafting trips in the Grand  Canyon so spending the day with him is like having a personal tour guide.  It was very educational and a lot of fun for me since I like a lot of facts.  Since they have a four-month old baby Rosie, we were limited to the rim trails for the next day but the views were incredible and we saw a lot of the canyon, staying now mainly to the west side of the park.  We also had the treat of several California Condor sightings. 

 

The next morning we headed back to Las Vegas for one night before our flight home on Sunday.  But I'll write more about Vegas, it deserves its own post.

Once again Rebecca and I had great adventure.  We met a lot of nice people along the way, saw many, many incredible sights, and had a lot of fun together.   I am already looking forward to our next trip (which has yet to be planned)!   Also, I am planning on posting some more pictures on the web soon.