Changing jobs! My contract with Amway ended with 2009. So now I’m looking for work. Technology spending is down in West Michigan so this might be the dark at the end of the tunnel. I’ve had a few leads and lets hope that something lands soon. Otherwise…goodbye Michigan!

www.banditsportal.com - Side project that I’m hoping to deploy in the next few weeks. What is it? In a nutshell…facebook for goalies. Its a silverlight site that is a central community for hockey goaltenders. As many of you know, I’m very passionate about hockey. This project was a way for me to connect my love for silverlight with my obsession for ice hockey. Screenshots and stuff later this Spring, following launch.

www.drillshare.com - Another side project thats been shelved for far too long. I have a great Flash based drill drawing utility on there that I would love to convert to Silverlight 4 this year. Again…hockey site combined with Flash, Asp.Net and a ton of JavaScript.

www.hawkhockey.org - My son’s hockey organization. I volunteer a lot of my time there. Its a great father-son activity and has become an identity point for our family.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danwoolston - My flickr photo page. I yearn to be a better photographer. I’d love to move into wedding photography, goaltending photography (yes its different from typical hockey photography) and portrait work. Check out the flickr page to see the progress I’m making. So much more to learn, but thankfully I have a network of very talented peers that can help get me to the next level.

And yes….I may be writing a third book this year. More details to come, if indeed the publisher accepts the proposal. Thats another post for another day.

Skills to add this year:
More Silverlight - as always.
Lightroom  proficiency - primarily photo workflow.
PHP - Its come up way too much when talking with potential employers. I’ve played with it before and maybe its time to come back to it.
.Net 4.0 - Its new, so therefore I must have it. Shiny.
Entity Framework - Need to get deeper. Nhibernate has been a delightful distraction, but I need to come back for some EF goodness.

Well thats about it for this post. Will keep writing as the year moves on….

Here’s a few hide and seek things to find in the picture:

Hellboy action figure
Chumby
Wing Nut Hat
Einstein action figure
Battlestar Galactica Lunchbox
Red Swingline Stapler
Darth Stewie
Wall-E action figure
Various speaker badges on lanyards
How many Cartmans are there?

Well anyway…theres my little corner.

I’ll post more images of the other areas of the room, including the makeshift robotics lab, the sci-fi toy stuff (including a boat load of Alf stuff) and eventually my classic arcade machines.

Number 1:

During file transfer, the icon in the taskbar will show the current progress of the transfer if the window is not in focus:

My pc to pc transfer at 30%.

 

Also…tomorrow is the big day for MSDN subscribers. Windows 7 RC made available for download!
Looks like I’ll be restaging the netbook soon. Details to follow. 

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off to bed now. time for my brain to be ‘abooted.’

 

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So yeah.. sidebar app launcher at the ready, until TODAY! Not sure if an Auto Update or UAC killed it or if it just got peeved and left. Hell, for all I know, it could be part of an elaborate April fools joke that I was unable to recover from with proper dignity and well being. Regardless….it was gone like Wozniaks cool factor after his dancing career successfully drained every nerd-worthy point from his otherwise illustrious career. But I digest.

So how do you fix a disappearing sidebar?  You in the back? “Buy a MAC?”…oh you’re so damn funny. You know that joke got old back about, oh I don’t know, forever ago when Abel told his brother Cain to buy a Mac. And we all know how that turned out.

So heres how I fixed it..maybe it works for you, maybe it doesn’t. Either way, back up your registry before you start as I won’t be held responsible for your inability to follow instructions and the pending disaster that you’ll be weaving by f’ing with regedit.

I found this on another website, not sure where and don’t really care cause it worked:

If you have Windows 7 Beta installed with UAC disabled you might run into problems while trying to load gadgets onto your desktop.You can enable the UAC in order to use Sidebar.But if you don’t wanna turn on that nagging UAC and still love those tiny useful gadgets you can bring them aboard by following these steps:

* Click on Start button, type regedit in the search box and hit enter.
* In regedit, go to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Sidebar\Settings

* In the right pane,right-click and select DWORD Value from the New menu.
* Rename the DWORD Value to AllowElevatedProcess. Double-click on it and type 1 in the Value data field.

* Close Registry Editor and try to load the gadgets.They should work.

 

You may or may not need to restart your computer.

I realizing that rebooting your computer may drain you of the precious 3+ minutes that you would otherwise spend chasing some goblin wizard thingy in Warcrack, but it might just fix the sidebar problem.

 

 

The site is updated often, so if you enjoy ‘corporate humor’ you’ll want to check it out for yourself.

I don’t subscribe to the New York Times and they certainly shouldnt have my credit card number.
But wait…. Oh yeah. I did install the NY Times application on my iPod:

 Its a free app. I’ve tried to use it on occassion, but its so slow and bonky that I recently deleted it.
So how is it that I downloaded a free app, but I’m getting a hit on my credit card from NY Times?

And notice that the small hold is from NY Times Digital and NOT ITunes. Those charges (the itunes purchases) always list properly and I’ve come to expect them.
So how is it that the New York Times has access to my credit card?

Apple: Did you release my financial information to an unapproved vendor without my consent?
Sure looks like it to me.
I must investigate further.

Nick and I on the news from Dan Woolston on Vimeo.

Second:

Seriously Twitter…checkboxes on list items! Throw a select all at the bottom and the usability of this craptastic page jumps about 20%. How does a site have so much potential, yet possess an insane amount of suckage when it comes to usability and GUI? Step up and make this thing work.