Sun Reference: Web Services Interoperability Technologies

This link is incredibly useful for understanding the current state of Java/.NET web service interoperability.

http://java.sun.com/webservices/interop/reference/tutorial/doc/index.html

Why VISTA is WOW!

Alot of articles slam the new Microsoft OS.  I've been an early adopter and found my self explaining to people why Vista is really worth upgrading to.

I just found this article which is the best explaination I've found of why Vista is so superior to XP, yet why there is a real ground breaking single feature for an end user.  The whole package is vastly superior to XP, yet each area the user touches has only minor improvements. 

The superiorority of Vista is what can be built on it.

Here's the article that describes the difference pretty well.

Upgrading Cruisecontrol.NET from .9.2 to 1.2.1.7

Yesterday I was asked to upgrade our CruiseControl instances from 0.9.2 to 1.2.1. 

They said: "Its easy!  Just stop the service, overlay the cruisecontrol build and restart the service!"

"Are you sure?" I said.

"Yeah!  We read all the release notes it will be no big deal!"

 

Well, I don't trust it!  So I took a more conservative approach: I started a new directory, added cruisecontrol 1.2 to it, then copied over the ccnet.config and all the project state files.  I set cruisecontrol to a new port, and registered the service ("%system root%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\installutil.exe ccservice.exe /servicename="cruisecontrol instance name").

I tried starting the service in console and quickly found errors - specifically I had 2 different issues:

1) VSS Projects - no longer need to be quoted.  Most of our VSS paths have spaces, some have special characters.   Previously we had to include quotes for these.  Including quotes in ccnet.config for project paths breaks cruisecontrol.

2) pathFilters  are used for continuous integration builds to indicate what files will not cause an automatic build to occur.  For example our build process checks in an updated assemblyinfo file so that the compiled DLL will contain the correct version, however we do not want a second build to occur just because we checked in assemblyinfo.  Previously pathFilter allowed any number of pattern nodes to be included.  Now each pathFilter can have only 1 node.  But you can have as many pathfilter nodes as you need.

<pathFilter>
        <pattern>$/Application Code/My Application Directry Build/**</pattern>
</pathFilter>

Seems to be working now that these 2 issues have been corrected for every entry in ccnet.config.

Installing Outlook 2007 at the office

At the office the corporate standard is actually Thunderbird, not Outlook. There is no exchange server. Calendar functionality is from Corptime which is now Oracle Collaboration Server.

To preserve my sanity (and to sync with my i730) I run outlook using oracle's connector for outlook. Its not wonderful, and using it to do any more than viewing my calendar is a horrible (it will create duplicate meetings at the same time as the original meeeting with all the same people invited - randomly - if I try to accept or reject meetings). Email works well, and I just fire up the Corptime calendar tool (standalone application) to create and accept meetings. As a standalone connected calendar, the standalone application has some nice features.


So today I finally got around to installing Outlook 2007, a coworker has been running it for a month or so. I have been using it at home for some time, but since its now in full release it was time to leverage it for some real work (I received over 10,000 email messages at work - not counting spam, mass mailers, or vendor messages).

On installation I hit similar issues to Scott Hanselman . I followed the same debugging process he mentioned, and found the beta software to be "Compatibility Pack for the 2007 Office System (Beta)".


I removed it and the install went fine... until I launched Outlook, where I was greeted with this friendly message:




A hop, skip, and a jump through google had me try to run C:/program files/Microsoft Office/Office12/scanpst.exe against all the *.pst files involved in the upgrade (after backing them up again of course).

This allowed me to successfully launch Outlook, however there was only archive folders - it hadn't brought in my account settings. Before I could go to fix this, a dialog popped up to tell me it had detected a new email account and would I like to import it? I said sure, just for giggles :)

It then created connectivity to the imap server, and set me up with my inbox, sent items, and 60 (yes 60!) RSS Feeds folders (RSS Feeds1 ... RSS Feeds59).

There is no easy way that I am aware of to mass delete folders, so I manually deleted 59 of the RSS Feeds folders.

Note: start at the bottom of the list - it will auto select upwards, then Ctrl-D with the left hand, and a click with the right hand (cursor staying put over the "yes" button) seems to be the fastest I could achieve.

This left me with a pretty good inbox/archive situation, until I clicked calendar. Sweet no meetings! Wait, that can't be right.

Sure enough the import of the new account decided I had access to a standard IMAP server with no calendar component.

I then deleted the IMAP account via Tools->Accounts, and manually entered the oracle outlook connector information.

This seemed to work, however with in 1 minute Outlook stopped responding. Thanks to a well timed phone call, I even gave it more than 5 minutes to figure itself out. I was thinking it was trying to download my calendar - but according to this link I needed to reinstall the outlook connector.

I subsequently reinstalled the connector, to no avail. I then tried an older version, also to no avail. I even tried the Oracle Connector for Windows Mobile to try to pump calendar directly to my phone upon syncing.

At this point Outlook 2007 is working great for email, but no calendar for me. Turns out my coworker doesn't have calendar working either.

Home Computing Upgrades

2 weeks ago I upgraded my home PC to an AMD 64 X2 4600+ (dual core processor). This made a noticeable difference over my AMD Athlon 64 3600+, amazing really for an inexpensive drop in upgrade.

The difference was so significant I ordered the upgrade for Jess as well.

At the same time I finally became upgraded to a true dual-monitor solution at home, instead of just using Synergy between the desktop and the Sager 9860. I purchased a 22" Samsung widescreen, which I ended up trading Jess for. Jess was using a 19" and a 21.3 inch in dual monitor, but the 22" widescreen is almost exactly the same height as the 19". So I know have two 21.3" monitors running at 1600x1200. Its beautiful.

This past weekend Jess's processor arrived. The upgrade was nowhere near as smooth as mine. The biggest problem is the way the heatsink connects to the motherboard. After 4 hours of futzing with a very akward plugin location, fixing bent processor pins, and a slightly damaged heatsink clip her computer was up and running on the new processor.

From there I went about upgrading both machines to Vista. I tried going to x64 Vista, but I couldn't get a few things to work properly (sound, belkin N52, and Logitect g15 display). This was a much better experience than XP64, but I was concerned enough I quickly gave up and ran back to x86. The installs went very smoothly, though I am frustrated by the peripheral vendors lack of Vista drivers. All in all the upgrade went well on both computers and everything is working (as far as I know).

I am frustrated with the vendors Vista support - Vista's readiness to hit the market has been very well communicated by Microsoft and there has been plenty of time to work with Vista to be ready. Logitech for the g15 even says XP or Vista is required, yet there is no Vista support information or driver downloads (the XP drivers and software do work).

Gaming performance seems slightly reduced, however I'm expecting Nvidia will be releasing new drivers that will be more optimal for Vista. Additionally while not too slow, upgrades for my Geforce 7800GT and Jess's Geforce 7600GT are likely on the not to distant horizon.

Useful Links

Prototype is a robust javascript library for doing nifty effects. I am using it in my site redesign (which I realize is taking forever), however there is very poor documentation. That is, until now.

Why Media Center (included in Vista Home Premium) is the killer app.

Also from Coding Horror, "The Economics of Bandwidth" is a good read. I always use a train or truck full of hard drives to explain latency, but this is interesting to describe cost of transfer.

A teaser about Taglocity has me curious...

Luncene.NET 2.0 Final is released.

This looks interesting: Wfetch not sure how it differs from Fiddler though...

Free Fonts - lots of them

Fundamental Computer Investigation Guide For Windows SysInternals Microsoft TechNet

Windows Mobile Device Center 6 Now Vista ready.

Time to laugh: The Vista Upgrade Decision Flowchart

.NET links - openWYSIWYG and Cheat sheets

Found these 2 good links:

openWYSIWYG - rich editor for the web (similar to FreeTextbox)
.NET Cheat Sheets - handy cheat sheets for working with .NET