A Bad Week to Travel

I'm on the road this week, in Seattle for the PASS Community Summit conference and in Redmond for meetings and such. Normally I love this trip, because the food is great[1], it's a beautiful area and it's a chance for me to get face-to-face time with more members of my team.

But this week I really wish I were at home, and the reason may not be obvious. It's because I'm going to miss the rollout of the New Xbox Experience. Yeah, I know that's geeky[2] but I've been looking forward to this major overhaul of the Xbox platform ever since it was announced a few months back. Not only does the Xbox UI get a complete makeover, but I will also be able to stream Netflix content directly to my Xbox 360 for instant video gratification.

And it's going to be released this Wednesday, November 19th. And I'm going to miss it until I get home Friday night. And yes, I've been looking forward to it enough to resent those two days enough to blog about it.

Is it Friday yet?

[1] Yes, I'm going back to Elemental@Gasworks this week ;-)

[2] And not like "developer geek" but more like "end user geek" which is a lot less cool-sounding

Holy VHDs Batman!

Ok, color me impressed. I'm watching today's PDC keynote and just saw that Windows 7 can natively:

• Mount VHD files as disks
• Create fixed size or dynamic VHDs
• Boot from Windows 7 VHDs

Holy crap. That last one totally blows me away - the ability to natively boot from a VHD file to test a virtual machine (and the software it runs) without a host OS sucking down resources. Oh yeah!

Now if they just expand the mounting support to also include standard ISO images, I'll be the happiest geek on the block.

it's not BI, but I'm darned excited!

A Free Font of Wisdom

One of my Facebook friends (hi Julie!) posted this morning asking for advice on where to find good free fonts. I replied pointing her to one site where I have found many good fonts, and another friend responded with three more. Here's the list:

• http://www.dafont.com/
• http://www.1001freefonts.com/
• http://www.1001fonts.com/
• http://betterfonts.com/

I know that this isn't BI-related, but I'll bet I'm not the only person who looks for cool and interesting fonts from time to time. And even if I am, now I know where to find a list of links. ;-)

Two Down, One to Go

Microsoft today announced the release to manufacturing of Windows Server 2008[1], which means that of the three products being "launched" at the end of the month are actually done. Only SQL Server 2008 remains.

Of course, this news is all over the Internet already. And people don't read this blog for generic launch news. (I assume.) But I'm posting this news as an excuse to try out Windows Live Writer. Quite a few people have recommended this to me lately, and since I was setting up a new computer anyway, I figured I'd try it out.

And it seems to work very nicely. Maybe now I can blog on the plane without typing into a Word document and pasting it into a browser window at the hotel. Time will tell...

 

[1] Yes, and Windows Vista SP1 as well, but that's less exciting, I think.

Multi-Monitor Goodness

Do you use multiple monitors?

Do they have different resolutions?

Have you ever wanted to display different wallpaper images on each monitor, or to have the same image displayed appropriately (without cropping or stretching and the like) on both monitors?

Well, welcome to DisplayFusion (http://www.binaryfortress.com/displayfusion/)!

DisplayFusion is a free software utility that lets you quickly and easily manage multiple monitors. It does more than just give you control over the desktop wallpaper (although this is all I'm using it for today) - there's also a nice list of features related to managing window position across monitors with global hotkey support.

And did I mention it's free?

So if you answered yes to any of the questions above, you should download DisplayFusion and give it a try.

Strike While the iRon is Hot...

Yes, that is the opening line from Manowar's classic heavy metal anthem "Brothers of Metal," and no, I didn't capitalize it like that accidentally. It's all deliberate, you see...

Anyone with an internet connection knows that Apple has just revamped its iPhone and iPod product lines.

Wait a minute! Matthew, I thought you were a Microsoft guy? I thought your blood was blue and you drank the kool-aid at every meal?

Well yeah, I love Microsoft. Their database and developer tools are second to none, and I've built my professional life (and, sort of sadly, most of my hobbies) around them with lots of enthusiasm and no regret.[1]

But I love my iPod too. I've owned a half dozen or so different MP3/media players over the years, and and nothing even comes close. It's easy to use, works great and basically does everything that I want it to. It is so nice that I can even get over my general distaste of Apple (engendered primarily by their Mac operating system and secondarily by the holier-than-thou attitude that their cult of personality fosters in their "faithful") and enjoy using it whenever I'm away from home.

So anyway, there's a product line refresh, right? They're integrating the nice wide screen and touch-sensitive UI from the iPhone into the new iPods, right? Super duper cool, says Matthew! I've traveling a lot for work[2] lately, and have started watching movies on my iPod on those long flights where I just can't read, write or code for one more minute. And having a portable 80 GB (like my current iPod) movie player with a nice wide screen should would be nice. I might even blow another few hundred bucks to get one, and hand my current iPod to my wife...

But no! They only have the nice movie-friendly screen on the pathetic flash-based iPods that hold a maximum of 16 GB. WTF? I dislike a lot of things about Apple, but I don't generally accuse them of screwing up when it comes to marketing and product placement. This is usually where they embarrass the competition. But not today.

And now we come to the motivation for the title of this post: what is Microsoft going to do about this? Here's my advice for the Xune team:

Strike! Attack! Pounce! For the love of all that is holy, go for their throats and give the world a better media player, with huge capacity and a big wide screen!

And by Odin's balls, don't make it brown this time.

So Apple has blown it this once, but I don't see Microsoft paying attention to the blood that's been spilled, and that's a damned shame. I bet I'm not the only one with four or five hundred dollars burning a hole in his pocket wishing he could give it to someone other than Steve Jobs.[3] Come on guys - impress us.

[1] And any time I stray into the worlds of Oracle, Java and MacOS, I'm reminded just how much Microsoft kicks ass.
[2] Honestly, far too much, but that's another story...
[3] The best thing that's come out of this press frenzy around the iPod/iPhone debacle is my discovery of "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" - a blog written by the actual real Steve Jobs, just pretending he's someone at Forbes so he can actually speak the truth without getting turned on by his minions. Really.

I knew there was a reason I had a Windows Mobile phone...

This may well be the coolest thing that I've ever seen as far as mobile apps are concerned: an interactive map of the Orlando convention center (yes, where I will be next week at TechEd!) that uses the camera of your Windows Mobile phone. Basically you use it to take a picture of one of the "signposts" that they will have up all over, and it shows you where you are and what sessions are going on near you. Check it out:

http://bmarb.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!91B9647DD75C91F9!446.entry

If they integrate it in with individual attendees' schedules (so I can see not just what sessions are going on, but which of the sessions I've added to my schedule are going on) I might lose it because it's too damned cool.

Wow.