(A screenshot of HP Connected Backup running with a mock UI)

With the launch of Windows 8, HP has developed a more consumer-friendly version of the former Autonomy / Iron Mountain Connected Backup software, called HP Connected Backup. This is just one of the areas where HP is taking advantage of Autonomy’s technology and infrastructure, despite all the acquisition hoopla of late. I was closely involved in the implementation of the UI rewrite. The original Connected Backup software used a Java-based UI and was mostly offered for business and enterprise customers, and the user interface needed to change to be more consumer-friendly. As it happened, someone else made the decision that the UI should be implemented in WPF, still my favorite UI software technology stack. My involvement started when it became clear that the nature of the work was more complicated than the team working on the product had enough experience to pull off.

I had just finished work on another product that ended up only shipping via HP’s support website (called HP Quick Start, a tool for Windows 8 similar to Samsung’s S Launcher, now apparently renamed to Quick Starter; incidentally, there’s a really interesting story about why HP Quick Start didn’t ship, but that needs to be told in 10 years or so, not now). A colleague and I went to Austin, TX to meet with the Interaction/UI design company so I could learn about the amount and kind of work to be done. Their technical team had already started working with the HP development team in the Boston, MA area, and I got set up to work with them remotely as well. Some time after getting my feet wet in the codebase that had already been built (with a great M-V-VM foundation), and working with the Boston team over the phone, another colleague and I visited the team in Boston to start our collaboration for real. We stayed for about a week and got a few things done while we were there, but more importantly, we got to know the people on the team, and they got to know us a bit.

After returning from Boston, the real work began. I participated in daily stand-up meetings via phone. Because of the three hour time difference, I then had a few hours of opportunity to work while the remote team was available for questions and collaboration, and then I would continue working on my own, mostly from home. At the end of my day, I’d have the codebase pretty much to myself, so I didn’t have to worry too much about conflicting code check-ins.

Apart from looking at deliveries from the design house and making sure that everything from them was working as expected, I also built and customized many of the key UI components that were needed for the product. Let me run through just a few.

The tab control for the settings UI

The tab control work was mostly a job of cutting apart the Photoshop files from the design firm and fitting them into a styled TabControl/TabItem combo. The trickiest part was adjusting the transparency of the photoshop layers to make the transitions from tab to tab look right.

The UI that indicates file version numbers in the backup set

This control is based on heavy customization of the stock WPF DataGrid control with intricate interception of routed events and some complex visual tree trickery to get the interaction with the checkboxes and expansion/collapsing just right. Not to mention the view model construction, mapping the data to the actual backup information from the cloud (the data model).

The “accordion” control for the main UI

The accordion control is based on the WPF toolkit from February 2010, which contains an experimental implementation of such a beast. It was difficult to customize because it isn’t well documented and has a bunch of built-in behavior that we didn’t want. Not only did this require customizing the toolkit accordion’s styles, I also ended up building custom templates for the way the elements in the headers needed to switch appearance between the expanded vs. collapsed state. This was one of the last things to be finalized on the product. It was a very look-bound control to begin with, and it had a few bugs that were impossible to fix easily by modifying the source code.

The top header with the promotional offer

The offer header wasn’t too much work, except in the area of making it appear and disappear under the right circumstances (you don’t want it to show once a customer has subscribed, but you want it to show up again some time before a subscription expires). If I remember correctly (it was a while ago now), I even dug into writing some of the necessary async cloud client code that could retrieve the offer information from HP’s Connected cloud services. Because the final design deviated from what was delivered by the design firm, I actually ended up iterating on the visuals quite a bit with our Product Owner to arrive at something that was acceptable.

The “spinner” control and assets

Many parts of the UI are dependent on fetching information from the cloud, which can take a while. In these instances, it’s common to display a form of wait indicator to let the user know that something is happening. We had a control for such a wait indicator from previous products, so I didn’t need to create it from scratch, but the visuals for this control were, of course, new. Since the control uses a “flipbook” animation style (it renders a new image rapidly enough to give the impression of movement), I needed to create all the rotated snapshots for the flipbook to go through. This involved using Image Magick and a bunch of command-line scripting to automatically rotate and crop the original source image. Since we needed three different sizes of the spinner, I actually ended up modifying the existing control somewhat more than I thought, and created multiple sets of flipbook images via the Image Magick scripts I created.

The scrollbar assets

During usability studies it became apparent that our design firm had been – let’s say – “optimistic” on the size of the scrollbars that the UI needed. It turned out they were too hard for people to notice and use (i.e. too small). So I had to modify the underlying visual assets (Photoshop files again) without their help and adjust the scrollbar styles to accommodate the new, bigger parts.

Templates for dialog boxes

As part of being responsible for the overall translation of the wireframes and visuals from our design partner firm into real code, I needed to make sure our various dialog boxes were presented with a consistent style. Since there were too many dialogs for me to work on directly, I created sketches of guidelines for the team to use when they needed to work out a new dialog.

Quick Tips usability aid

I mentioned earlier that we conducted usability studies on the product. By the time we had enough of the product ready for testing, we found that the accordion design of the main UI was not as usable as we had hoped. Even with lots of tweaks to the original visual design cues/clues, people found the two panels of the accordion too difficult to use. I had toyed with the idea to integrate a tutorial of sorts into many of the products I’ve worked on in the past, but never seemed to have an opportunity to do something about it. Well, this time, I decided to take the time. I started implementing the idea and showed prototype screenshots to our usability lead. He liked the concept, and helped me work with our Product Owner to incorporate the idea into the final, shipping code, even though it was close to shipping time. We ended up naming this “Quick Tips”. WPF’s ability to layer UI elements on top of each other made the implementation relatively simple. One part that I’m quite proud of having been able to incorporate into Quick Tips was the ability to operate the UI from code, using WPF’s UI Automation framework. This was something I had wanted to work with ever since I attended the first sessions on this when WPF was unveiled as “Avalon/WinFX” at Microsoft’s PDC 2005. I was quite impressed with the capabilities of the platform in this area. It was relatively straightforward to open and close the accordion as needed to have tips pop up in the right context, etc. The only thing that was a bit tricky was to open up the help context menu and have it stay open with the “Quick Tips” menu item highlighted.

This is just a quick tour of a part of the work that was involved in creating HP Connected Backup. I’ve focused on my work, since that’s what I know best. The larger team worked on many, many more aspects of the product, not the least of which is, of course, readying the backend infrastructure for a consumer-level product and creating a UI for entering subscription and billing information. A part of the product I haven’t touched on at all is the subscription wizard, a standalone app that brought other UI challenges with it, and that walks the customer through the steps of creating an account on HP’s cloud systems and preparing the local system for backup of the customer’s data. This app required quite a bit of tweaking from the original design.

WPF riding into the sunset?

During the work with the accordion control I took a look at the WPF toolkit, since it had such a control in an “experimental” stage. “Experimental” – yeah, no kidding! After much fighting to get it to look the way it needed to look (the WPF toolkit accordion control is not “lookless” like most WPF controls), it became obvious that the version of the control in the “binaries” was different from the version in the source code, so modifying the source code to fix certain bugs was impossible. So I had to resign myself to re-styling much of the control and creating ugly, hacky workarounds for bugs I found.

And this is where my swan song for WPF starts. It seems pretty clear that Microsoft has completely de-invested from carrying WPF forward through their past community efforts. Yes, there’s been a lot of investment in WPF 4.5, but that seems to be about the end of the line. The WPF toolkit was supposed to be a vehicle for taking feedback from the community, developing something in response, refining it, and eventually integrating that into the platform. I think that’s how the calendar control in WPF came about, as well as many other things. The last release of the WPF toolkit was in February of 2010, almost three years ago. Apparently, and I’m guessing here, the work on Windows 8 took a lot of the “steam” out of WPF. The focus was put on developing the XAML platform for Windows 8 “Store Apps”. And it’s been quite detrimental to WPF. From my perspective, WPF’s problem lies in the fact that many of the visionaries behind the original concept are no longer involved in the product. It may very well be that WPF is a mature technology by now (although some people see it as not having fulfilled its promise by a long shot), but leaving it in maintenance mode seems to me to be stopping before you’re really “done done”. Such a pity to see a platform with such incredible potential being wasted for whatever reasons.

Windows 8 XAML

Finally, a small rant on Windows 8 XAML: Compared to WPF, the Windows 8 XAML platform is clearly a “V1” product. It’s almost embarrassing how much of the power of WPF is missing from the Windows 8 XAML platform. I can only point to a few things off the top of my head, but I’m sure you can find many references elsewhere. There’s no tiling Image Brush. No Radial Gradient brush. A lot of the built-in controls are laden with “fast and fluid” behavior, such as built-in transitions, that are very cumbersome to remove or alter. The data binding mechanisms are primitive compared to WPF. Having worked with this new platform for a little while now (a topic for another post, perhaps), I think I can say that I’m disappointed. It’s hard to live up to the power of WPF. I hope Microsoft will get there eventually and I hope WPF will come back “from the dead” now that Windows 8 is here.

One way to do this is to use a PowerShell script (I found one here, based on this).

Last year, I just used the script as it was. This time, I’ve modified the  the script code so it also creates a “sidecar” file with the session title and summary:

 1: cd "C:\build2012"

 2: [Environment]::CurrentDirectory=(Get-Location -PSProvider FileSystem).ProviderPath

 3: $a = ([xml](new-object net.webclient).downloadstring("http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/RSS/mp4"))

 4: $a.rss.channel.item | foreach {

 5:     $url = New-Object System.Uri($_.enclosure.url)

 6:     $file = $url.Segments[-1]

 7:     $file

 8:

 9:     $linkurl = New-Object System.Uri($_.link)

 10:     $session = $linkurl.Segments[-1]

 11:

 12:     $descfile = $session + " - " + $_.title + ".txt"

 13:     $descfile = $descfile.Replace(':', '_')

 14:     $descfile

 15:     $_.summary

 16:     if (!(test-path $descfile))

 17:     {

 18:         New-Item -ItemType file -Name $descfile

 19:         Add-Content -Path $descfile -Value $_.summary

 20:     }

 21:     if (!(test-path $file))

 22:     {

 23:         (New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile($url, $file)

 24:     }

 25: }

As before, you may not want all the videos. So you can do this with the string in line 3:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/RSS/mp4?t=windows-phone

The available filters (for the t parameter) are:

.NET
Advertising
Analytics
Application-Lifecycle-Management
ASP.NET
C/C++
C++
Cloud
Contracts
Data
Design
Device-apps
DirectX
Gaming
Graphics
Hadoop
HTML5
Internet-Explorer-10
JavaScript
Keynote
Kinect
LightSwitch
Line-of-business
Localization
Media
Microsoft-8
Microsoft-design-language
Networking
Office
Performance
Reading
SharePoint
Shopping
Team-Foundation-Server
Testing
Tiles
Touch
TypeScript
User-Interaction
UX
Visual-Studio
Windows-8
Windows-Azure
Windows-Phone
Windows-Phone-Apps
Windows-Runtime
Windows-Server
Windows-Store
Windows-Store-app
Windows-Store-apps
WinJS
XAML
Xbox

If you’re just interested in the slides, use a query like this:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/RSS/slides

In general, the query can be constructed like this:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2012/RSS/

[type]?t=[tag]&term=[free text]

Where [type] can be one of: wmv, wmvhigh, mp4, slides

You can add multiple t arguments.

That’s me holding up my phone, and in the background the emulator running the app. Incidentally, this picture was taken at the Silicon Valley Windows Phone Meetup, where Tom and I gave a short talk this evening about the app and the support we’ve received from Microsoft while developing it.

The Marketplace section of windowsphone.com.

And that’s the Zune Apps Marketplace page, which I gather has just been disabled, so I was really lucky to get this screenshot at the last minute.

Fun stuff! Please check out the app, and also my other two apps, “Open ” and “Countdown”, which I see just got a five star rating from a kind soul for the latest version. My friend Tom has another app in the Marketplace as well, called “Good Morning” aka. “GMSV EzReader”. A great little app that makes reading the Good Morning Silicon Valley blog from the San Jose Mercury News really nice on Windows Phone.

As I’ve previously written (in February of 2008), there are some computer systems out there that have trouble retaining the functionality of the sound device when Windows comes back from sleep/hibernate.

Since my article from that time is one of the most popular here on my blog, and I was quite fed up by the lack of a driver-based solution, I decided to write a little app to at least put a band-aid on the problem.

This little WPF 3.5-based app, Sound Reset,  lets you reset the device without having to go to Device Manager to disable and re-enable the device. If your device has a different identifier, you can enter the id into the provided text field before clicking the button.

After you download from the link above, unzip the file (for example, using the excellent, free 7-zip) to get the Windows Installer file (SetupSoundReset.msi) and double-click it to install the tool. Let me know if you have any suggestions for changes to the app.

Enjoy!

Over the years I’ve come to realize what it is about agile that makes it work. Agile is basically a mitigation strategy/technology that addresses the human tendency to fail at communicating effectively. Let’s look at this from the perspective of a model I learned about in high school from my language arts teacher – the basic human communication model. This model comes in various forms, but I like the one from my high school years. It’s one of the few things that have stuck with me from that time:

The Sender and Receiver in this case are people (although this model applies to pretty much any communication situation and is used in computer-communication model discussions as well). The Context on each side is complex. It’s made up of a person’s knowledge, cultural upbringing, state of mind, experience, financial situation, family circumstances, and many, many other factors. The Sender intends to convey a Message to the Receiver and the only way to do so is by Encoding the Message (in a way that the Sender hopes the Receiver will be able to Decode) and to pick a Channel for transmitting the Message. The Sender’s only way to verify if the Message reached the Receiver is by some Feedback mechanism, which actually just reverses the situation of the diagram. There are lots of ways that the communication can break down. For example, the Sender might pick an Encoding the Receiver isn’t able to Decode; the Channel might garble the Message so it becomes unrecognizable; or the Receiver might be in a Context that prevents the Message from being Decoded properly. Other communication breakdowns involve the Sender making unstated assumptions about the Receiver’s Context, the Sender picking a Channel that is inappropriate for carrying all the meaning necessary for Decoding the Message, or the Receiver not being receptive to the Message coming through the Channel.

When building software, the central thing we do is to turn ideas in our head into instructions for a computer to execute. If this were a solitary exercise, there wouldn’t be much of a problem: you have an idea; you think about how to translate it into something the computer can do, taking into consideration your skills, the computer environment, your choice of software technology stack, programming language, experience, etc., etc.; you sit down for a few hours, weeks or months to design, write code, test, deploy – and you’re done! In terms of human communication there is none, so the model doesn’t really come into play.

The trouble doesn’t start until you’re working on something that takes more than one person to accomplish in a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, most things undertaken in software these days are of this nature. This means several things. One, there will be human communication going on! Two, the kinds of communication will take many different forms and concern many different topics. And now we’re squarely in the domain of the communication model.

Just thinking of the number and kinds of things that will need to be communicated between people can make your head spin:

• How many features will the software have?
• What are the features?
• How will we know that a feature is done?
• What technologies will we choose to implement the software?
• What computing systems will we support?
• How will we construct the software so it is robust enough, yet easy to change in unforeseen ways?
• What are the major parts of the software?
• How will the parts communicate?
• Will the user be able to understand it and use it as intended?
• Will we be able to deliver the software on time?
• What does on time mean?

And these are just some technical questions. There are others as well, more business related:

• Will the software have value to customers and users?
• Will the customer pay for it?
• How much will the customer pay?
• Will the customer be made mode productive by using the software?
• How will we deliver the software to the customer?
• How will we know if we’re building the right thing?
• How will a customer be able to provide feedback on the software?

Pulling off almost any kind of software effort requires answers to these questions, and more. The nature of software development is one of producing ideas and mental constructs that can be turned into instructions for a computer to execute. If more than one person is involved in this activity, those ideas and mental constructs have to make their way from one person’s brain to another’s, so the people can collaborate to get the software built within some time limit. Agile software development methods bring to this process more formal opportunities for people to interact, increasing the likelihood of this communication happening  regularly and at varying levels of complexity, timescale and team composition.

Let’s take Scrum as an example. Scrum sets up a framework for communication and feedback like this (from high level/long timescale to low level/short timescale):

• At the Sprint level (usually every 2 weeks these days, but Scrum originally used 30 days) –
  Sprint planning/review meetings and Sprint retrospectives. These provide opportunities for medium-term communication and feedback on the production of a usable increment of software functionality.
• At the Backlog grooming level (usually at least once a week, but not specified by Scrum) –
  An opportunity for communication and feedback about user story details that concern upcoming sprints.
• At the Daily Scrum level (every day at the same time) –
  What happened yesterday, what will happen today, what’s getting in the way? This is an opportunity to quickly gather feedback and communicate about nitty-gritty day-to-day details.

Scrum’s official rules (found in the Scrum Guide) were recently updated (in July and October of 2011) to allow for more freedom in selecting practices and experimenting with new things. So, as of the latest edition of the Scrum Guide, Release Planning is no longer part of the official Scrum rules. If it had been, I would have argued that Release Planning and the Release Retrospective provide the highest level of overall communication and feedback loop that Scrum puts in place. Since many people still use Release Planning as a tool, I think the point still holds.

Many people mix in good technical practices as well, which add things like:

• Pair programming –
  Instant, real time communication and feedback on the construction of ideas and expression of those ideas in code.
• Continuous integration –
  Feedback on code quality, feature readiness, etc. on a daily basis or more often.
• User story estimation (part of Sprint planning) –
  Feedback and learning about what a software feature is supposed to do, how it will be implemented, what its acceptance criteria are, etc. Often summarized by a relative size called “story points” based on the Fibonacci series of numbers, which are useful because people are somewhat better at judging relative sizes than absolute sizes.

Human communication tends to break down in unexpected ways. Agile software methods give people plenty of opportunities to communicate and get feedback, helping to mitigate the breakdowns that occur in the complex context of team-based software development.

After much spare-time work, I’ve finally gotten approval to publish a tool that helps you install the TouchSmart 4 software on previous generation hardware. It’s currently available through the  TouchSmartDevZone.com site. You can find it here in the downloads section. HP had previously published a similar tool, but pulled it from their website after about a month or so.

This tool is unsupported by HP, so use it at your own risk. It did receive some testing, both by HP and a few customers, so I have reason to believe it will work properly for you. Also, in order to use it, you have to accept the license agreement that is displayed when you first run it.

Why write a blog post about it? I want to give a little detail on what it does in case things don’t go as smoothly as they’re supposed to.

The tool basically does these things in order:

• Check that all prerequisites for TouchSmart 4 are fulfilled, including hardware checks
• Installs the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 if needed (a few hosted apps need this)
• Downloads all officially published softpaqs from the HP support website
• Installs the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 if needed (the TouchSmart “shell” needs this)
• Installs all downloaded HP TouchSmart 4.0 software components

Should Windows indicate that a reboot is needed “right off the bat”, clicking a corresponding button in the tool will make sure that the tool is automatically restarted after the reboot. The tool will also automatically restart after potentially installing .NET 3.5 SP1 and .NET 4.0. No reboot is necessary after the remainder of the software has finished installing. If User Account Control is enabled on your system, the tool will prompt for permission to run each time it is launched.

Here is a sequence of screenshots that show the tool in action (captions beneath pictures):

Installing .NET 4.0

Installing the TouchSmart 4.0 “shell”

Preparing to install other softpaqs

Removing older versions of Music/Photo/Video apps

Installing softpaqs

Install progress after third softpaq install

Hosted app registration happening during install

Once all software is installed, the tool gives you an opportunity to burn the downloaded file to a DVD, along with the upgrade tool itself. This will speed up install on other systems a little, since installing from DVD may be faster than downloading from the Internet. Most people probably don’t need this DVD, but it may come in handy, should you want to rerun the upgrade in the future (after a system restore, for example.)

All software finished installing

After clicking the button to prepare a DVD

Windows Explorer window opened with files ready to burn to DVD

Notification that files are ready to be burned to DVD using the Windows Explorer window

The only thing I’ve seen go somewhat awry from time to time is that the download of a softpaq may get to a 100%, seemingly, but not finish. I think this might be caused by the server(s) that hosts the downloads, but I’m not sure. Since the tool is written to perform its operations to full completion at each step before going to the next, it may get stuck and not allow you to close it in this situation. Should that happen, you can hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard while clicking the red button with the little “x” in the upper right corner to close the tool. This will terminate the incomplete download and delete the partially downloaded file. When you run the tool again, the downloads will resume with the not completed download first, and hopefully complete the downloads this time around.

Depending on your Internet connection speed, downloading an installing everything can take several hours, so it’s best to do this when you have that kind of time available.

I hope this tool is useful for some of you.

From the Whole Earth Catalog October 1974, actually titled “Whole Earth Epilog”, Page 324. Founded by Stewart Brand.

Mentioned by Steve Jobs in his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005.

TouchSmart 1, aka SmartCenter, aka LaunchPad (January 2007)

The first version of TouchSmart was not called that. It was named SmartCenter and shipped with the very first modern all-in-one touch-enabled PC, the HP TouchSmart IQ770.

This machine was one of the so-called “Dream PCs” for Microsoft’s introduction of Windows Vista in January of 2007. I’ve written about this version of SmartCenter before, so I won’t repeat much of that here.

Touch-first [+Win8]

Of course, the main point of even embarking on a project such as the SmartCenter software was that Windows wasn’t even remotely ready for touch interactions. Every app on the Windows Desktop requires the precision that the mouse pointer provides. Fingers and touch can’t hit the tiny controls accurately enough. So SmartCenter was designed with that in mind, and as a result had large targets all throughout its user interface. Here are some sample screenshots:

Note that all buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, scrollbars, etc. are large enough to be easily tapped with a finger. Note also that, for example, the on-screen keyboard that is used for entering a ZIP code in the Weather app defaults to the correct layout, i.e. the numeric one.

Live app data in shortcuts [+Win8]

This idea wasn’t really all that new, of course. Snippets of live app data displayed in a mini-view of sorts had been introduced with Windows Sidebar gadgets and other widget-like UIs on other operating systems, but SmartCenter was the first to use live data as part of the shortcut that launches an app. You could say the shortcuts were more like mini-versions of the full app. Live data is of course hard to demo with screenshots, so here is a small video clip of the SmartCenter home screen (or start screen, if you will), showing shortcuts that update their information as time passes:

This major version of the SmartCenter software was delivered with four total releases: 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.4. Towards the final delivery of version 1.0, it became clear that a standardized way of getting the live information from the apps was needed. This became a major area of investigation and investment for the next major version of the software.

TouchSmart 2 (June 2008)

The second generation of TouchSmart software, 2.x, was introduced with IQ500/IQ800 series hardware. These two hardware models marked the beginning of the monitor-like appearance of the TouchSmart PCs. The IQ770 was a “multi-volume” chassis – these new models had a “single volume” design, supported by the “easel” style feet that were used in the follow-on generation as well.

The 2.x series of software was released in three versions: 2.0, 2.5 and 2.8.

Fixed layouts for apps [+Win8]

With SmartCenter 2.0, we introduced the concept of fixed sized layouts for the TouchSmart apps. We initially picked three: small, medium and large. You can see two of the three illustrated by this screenshot:

The Tutorials, Canvas and Calendar apps are shown in medium size, while the remaining apps are shown in small size. By tapping on an app, you would go to the large size:

This layout is purposely not called full screen, since there is a reserved area at the top of the screen for navigation, app name/time and music playback controls.

Tiles concept [+Win8]

In order to make it clear that the app representations in SmartCenter were not just icons, we decided to call them tiles, or rather “live tiles.” This term was used in the developer documentation that was produced to help other people plug their apps into SmartCenter, and so we had “small tiles,” “medium tiles” and “large tiles.” For each tile size we gave guidance about how to use it appropriately. We introduced the term “layouts” to suggest that each tile size should use a different layout of basically the same content or information. As you notice from the screenshots above, when the Weather tile is small, it shows only basic information. In the large tile, the information is more full-featured and also provides access to settings for the Weather app. The medium tile for Weather looks like this:

As you can see, this layout for Weather includes only the current conditions and the forecast for the day.

With TouchSmart 2.0, a big investment was made to produce media consumption applications: Music, Video and Photo (often shortened to “MVP”) as well as a WebCam and DVD app. The screenshot above shows other apps that were published later (Netflix and Recipe Box, for example), but that just goes to show that following development guidelines has benefits: newer apps can work with older SmartCenter versions…

Other changes from the 1.0 version include the top and bottom row of “tile scrollers” and the music playback control set (aka. “media plate”) that I already mentioned. The tile scrollers had two different behaviors, depending on how full they were. If enough tiles were present, the scroller would become an infinitely looping container. If not enough tiles were present, it would have “snap-to” endpoints.

The TouchSmart 2.0 software was unveiled at a big press event in Berlin, Germany. Several of my colleagues were invited to attend to make sure everything went smoothly from a technical perspective. The most nerve-wracking part was that the TouchSmart IQ500 was to come out of a pedestal on stage after sitting inside said pedestal for an extended period of time before its unveiling. People were not sure the thermals were designed to handle as little exchange of air as this posed. Here’s a video from the introduction to give you a better idea of what I’m talking about (skip towards 1:18 or so to see the pedestal and the TouchSmart lifting out of it):

As you can see, everything worked out pretty well. This was the biggest introduction ever made for a TouchSmart PC line. No event after that had that much effort put into it.

TouchSmart 3 (October 2009)

With the third generation of SmartCenter, we piggybacked onto the 600/300 series of hardware. The enclosures still used the easel stand design with three feet for support, and the exterior was tweaked a bit along with the screen aspect ratio (now 16:9 instead of 16:10).

Generally, though the concept was largely the same, except for the software. A big investment was made to produce more apps for the TouchSmart software suite, and this brought us apps like Canvas, Twitter, Hulu, Live TV, Link, Movie Store, Recipe Box and a bunch of others. The TouchSmart software development guidelines were augmented with more of a proper SDK with app samples, installer samples and more guidance.

New layout

SmartCenter 3.0 introduced another layout that we called wide-interactive. You see, in SmartCenter 2.x there was no way to interact with the medium sized tiles in the upper tile scroller (except for in the browser, but that’s a small detail). In this version we wanted to provide interaction with the app in the upper scroller. In order to do that properly we needed a bigger size tile and a new layout to have enough space for interaction to make sense. Here’s a screenshot of 3.0 (running on a 16:10 screen, not the aspect ratio it was designed for – so circular elements are “squished”):

In SmartCenter 3.0 the touch scrollers no longer “looped” infinitely, but each had a “snap to” end regardless of how many tiles were present; each wide-interactive tile was given a colored title bar to add a little splash of variety and visual interest. In addition, the “media plate” and other control elements on the home screen were redesigned to appear a bit lighter than before. Also, standard button glyphs were introduced for closing and minimizing SmartCenter. Oh, and the clock was moved around and given a day of the week display. Phew – at least the Personalize button stayed almost in place…

The final big change was that tiles in the bottom scroller no longer used the small layout. They were simply icons to launch the app into large layout directly. This was done to improve performance and load less stuff at the startup of SmartCenter.

TouchSmart 4 (September 2010)

Okay, so here we are, almost at the last chapter of this brief history (which is turning out not so brief after all…) TouchSmart 4.0 was introduced with the TouchSmart 310 (and 610) series of hardware. These departed from the easel-type stand and went to a single-foot design (I know there’s a better term for it, I just can’t think of it at the moment).

TouchSmart 4 didn’t see much investment in new apps, but focused on new capabilities provided by the SmartCenter framework.

Infinite Canvas [+Win8, sort of, on the Metro Start screen]

A major goal of the SmartCenter framework software had been to provide an almost limitless space for apps to live in. With SmartCenter 4.0 that goal was finally realized. Not only did the framework provide for an infinitely expanding space for hosted apps to live in, it also did away with the upper tile scroller and let the apps be positioned freely on the canvas. This is what TouchSmart 4.0 looks like after initial startup:

And once again, things were moved around on screen: The clock from lower left to lower right (and it was given a function: click to show a mini-calendar), personalize from lower right to lower left (and the word personalize removed). The “media plate” music playback controls were removed and put into the music app instead. The volume control was separated out from the media plate and put in the upper left. The bottom carousel was redesigned and had the infinite looping re-introduced (to allow for a bit of visual and interactive playfulness). Tapping a tile launches the corresponding app:

Apps can be moved around freely and the carousel shows a colored highlight for each running app:

If you look at the above shot closely, you’ll notice the Weather app in what looks like another layout. What’s happening there is not a new layout, though. It’s simply the wide-interactive layout, shrunk down to an “inactive” size. Thus we called it “shrunk layout” or “shrunk view”.

The button next to personalize in the lower left can be used if the app you’re looking for in the carousel is hard to find: QuickLaunch is sorted alphabetically:

Parallax background [+Win8, sort of, on the Metro Start screen]

Scrolling the canvas (or panning it, if you prefer) is done by grabbing empty space (with mouse or touch) and moving from side to side. To add a little visual interest to this, and to demonstrate the departure from the 3.0 tile scrollers, we added a parallax effect to the background to give you the illusion of looking into the distance on your screen. Several sets of parallax backgrounds were developed for variety’s sake, to be picked in the personalize area.

Magnets

Another major feature of SmartCenter 4.0 was the introduction of something we called “magnets”. These represent active content that originally came either from an app or from SmartCenter itself (in the case of Graffiti magnets). Magnets eliminate the need to start an app when you want to enjoy a favorite piece of content, be it a photo, video or some music you want to keep handy for quick enjoyment. Here are a few magnets placed on the canvas (they can be “pinned” so they always stay visible or “unpinned” to scroll with the canvas):

Here’s what it looks like after panning a bit (while playing the fireplace video):

You can see the pinned magnets haven’t moved and the background looks slightly different (the islands have moved at different paces to give the illusion of depth as they’re moving).

Okay, let’s see what it looks like in action:

TouchSmart 5 (September 2011)

And that brings us to the latest generation of SmartCenter (as of this date), i.e. 5.0. This version of the TouchSmart framework software was brought to market with the just recently introduced 520/420/320 series of TouchSmart PCs. The exterior of the machines has been updated once more to keep up with design trends, but otherwise the single-volume enclosure is still the chosen form.

Integration of Windows apps, desktop icons

The biggest change in SmartCenter 5.0 regards the blending of the two environments that were previously separated: SmartCenter and the Windows Desktop. This means you no longer need to exit the SmartCenter environment when you want to run Windows apps. Here’s a screenshot of SmartCenter 5.0:

Note that the Windows 7 taskbar is fully visible and that you can use it for launching apps and seeing what apps are running. The SmartCenter app carousel now has the icon highlight turned on permanently and only shows a short animated starburst as an app is launched. You also see all your desktop icons represented on the SmartCenter canvas. As you can see, the magnets overlap the desktop icons, which can be a bit of a clutter issue. No worries, you can turn off the desktop icons via Settings, if you don’t like them on the canvas. Or you can rearrange your magnets so they occupy different space:

In general, SmartCenter 5.0 attempts to bring the touch-first environment of past generations together with the traditional, mouse-centric desktop. That’s a value-proposition you don’t have in Windows 8, which is most likely not available until sometime in late 2012 anyway…

Automatic panning/scrolling

One additional thing SmartCenter 5.0 does is automatic panning of the canvas/desktop whenever an app is launched. This removes the need for you to have to rearrange app windows frequently when you want to switch from one app to another. The canvas pans automatically to make more room for every app you start. To return to an app, you just click on it in the taskbar or the app carousel. Another video might explain it a bit better:

This behavior can be turned off in Settings as well, in case it’s not useful to you. There are many, many areas that I haven’t touched on in this post, such as all the personalization and customization aspects that SmartCenter contains and how they changed over time. Or the fact that you can make your own parallax backgrounds (not documented anywhere, unfortunately, but pretty easy to figure out for enterprising souls). Or the easter eggs, oh yes…

Let me make some general remarks about the last four generations of SmartCenter: Any apps written to observe the guidelines of SmartCenter 2.0 are able to run on SmartCenter 2.0 through 5.0. A nice compatibility feature. Of course, older versions of apps needed updates as new SmartCenter functionality was introduced (or removed, as with the media plate removal in 4.0), but as you’ve seen, the Netflix app (which was published with SmartCenter 3.0) runs just fine in SmartCenter 2.0 and 5.0 as well. What’s more, if you know what you’re doing, you can have all the versions of SmartCenter 2.0 – 5.0 running on the same system. That’s how I was able to collect screenshots and videos for this post. Oh, and the technology underlying all these versions of SmartCenter is Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0. The various apps were written in anything from compiled-to-native-code-Python to WPF to Adobe Flash. The software development process used since about SmartCenter 2.5 is anchored in Scrum, an Agile software development framework.

This concludes my brief history of the TouchSmart software. As you have seen, Windows 8 definitely picked up a lot of the features that the SmartCenter framework pioneered: Live tiles, fixed layout sizes for apps, parallax scrolling with an expandable space and touch-first design. Until Windows 8 is available, the TouchSmart 5.0 software suite is most likely the best alternative for touch – combined with new thinking on how to add something more to the the desktop environment – that you’ll find on an all-in-one PC anywhere.

One way to do this is to use a PowerShell script (I found one here).

Here’s the script code in case you don’t want to follow the link:

cd "C:\build11"

[Environment]::CurrentDirectory=(Get-Location -PSProvider FileSystem).ProviderPath

$a = ([xml](new-object net.webclient).downloadstring("http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/RSS/wmvhigh"))

$a.rss.channel.item | foreach{

    $url = New-Object System.Uri($_.enclosure.url)

    $file = $url.Segments[-1]

    $file

    if (!(test-path $file))

    {

        (New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile($url, $file)

    }

}

One problem with this might be that you don’t want all videos. So you’d have to filter the RSS feed that the script pulls down. There’s no documentation on how to do that, but a little experimentation shows that you can do this:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/RSS/wmvhigh?t=.net%2Bframework

The available filters (for the t parameter) are:

.NET%2BFramework

Access%2BControl

Applications

ASP.NET

Assessment%2Band%2BDeployment Kit

Async

C#

C++

Certification

Charms

Cloud

Compliance

Continuous%2BAvailability

Data

Database

Debugging

DirectX

Drivers

Elasticity

Expression%2BBlend

Files

Games

Graphics

HTML5%2Band%2BJavaScript

Hyper-V

IHV

Keynote

Manageability

Media

Metro%2Bstyle%2Bapps

Metro%2Bstyle%2Bdevice%2Bapps

Networking

Odata

OEM

Parallel%2BComputing

Performance

Power

Pre-Recorded

Printing

Remote%2BDesktop

REST

Roaming

Scalability

Security

Sensors

Silicon

SQL

Storage

Touch

UI

Platform

User%2BExperience

Virtualization

Visual%2BBasic

Visual%2BStudio

WCF

Web

Windows%2BAzure

Windows%2BPhone

Windows%2BRuntime

Windows%2BStore

Wireless

Workflow

XAML

If you’re just interested in the slides, use a query like this:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/RSS/slides?t=.net%2Bframework

In general, the query can be constructed like this:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/RSS/

[type]?t=[tag]&term=[free text]

Where [type] can be one of: wmv, wmvhigh, mp4, slides

You can add multiple t arguments.

So if you’re interested in slides related to “client” topics, this might be your query:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/RSS/slides?t=async&t=charms&t=expression%2Bblend&t=files&t=games&t=metro%2Bstyle%2Bapps&t=metro%2Bstyle%2Bdevice%2Bapps&t=touch&t=ui%2Bplatform&t=user%2Bexperience&t=windows%2Bphone&t=windows%2Bruntime&t=windows%2Bstore&t=xaml

My interest in Windows Phone 7 development grew partly out of my experience with writing a simple app for WebOS and partly out of conversations with a friend at work who was really excited about what at the time was the “forthcoming” new mobile OS from Microsoft. I hadn’t paid much attention to Microsoft’s moves in the mobile space, since I’d always been a fan of Palm PDAs and didn’t own a cell phone for a really long time. I figured I was reachable either at my desk or at home most of the time, so why carry a phone and pay another monthly bill on top of all the other ones?

A long conversation on a BART ride got me curious, though, so I checked out the announcements and demos Microsoft gave at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona. All I can say is – I was hooked. The user experience presented by Microsoft made sense to me, the user interface was clean, simple and fresh, and the development toolset / technology was something I was pretty familiar with (Silverlight being the close cousin to WPF, which I’ve worked with intensively over the last few years as part of creating the TouchSmart software UI framework.)

Since I had already gotten my feet wet writing a simple app for WebOS, I thought it would be fun to write the same app (more or less) for Windows Phone 7. I had to wait a while for the tools to come out, though, so I had some time to read and learn more in the meantime.

My friend at work heard about a group that was forming around some people from the Silicon Valley Bay.NET user group who wanted to study and learn Windows Phone 7 app development. He had already joined the group, which had its first meeting on June 15, and encouraged me to join as well, so I did, somewhere around late June 2010. The group was incredibly useful in pointing out resources, encouraging people to follow a sort of curriculum and generally keeping one’s spirit up. Not to mention getting to know the Windows Phone 7 developer evangelists in Silicon Valley, William Leong, Kenny Spade and Doris Chen. Without the group, I’m not sure I would have stuck with it.

When I started work on my app, I took advantage of what I had done on the WebOS predecessor. As it turned out, Microsoft’s phone app templates use a close cousin to the WebOS Model-View-Controller pattern that’s very familiar to WPF/Silverlight developers: Model-View-ViewModel. Transferring some of the business logic (the Controller) was relatively straightforward. But because of the differences between C# (the language initially supported by WP7) and JavaScript (the WebOS business logic language) I decided I could do better with my data model than I had done in JavaScript. Ah, the joys of a typed language with excellent tooling support (Visual Studio 2010 Express)! So I rewrote most of the business logic and added a proper unit testing project to my solution. Producing the user interface was an entirely different matter, of course. On WP7, the UI has to be built in either Silverlight or XNA Game Studio. I went with Silverlight, since I already know WPF quite well.

Unfortunately, the version of Silverlight on the phone (version 3, “plus”) leaves out lots of good stuff from WPF, so I couldn’t do some things that I would have liked to do. One thing that I had come to appreciate in particular from WebOS were “editable” text blocks, where the normal mode of operation is that the text is simply displayed without any adornments, but when you tap on the text, it turns into an edit box, where you can change the content. I liked this control so much, I just had to write my own version of it. The Silverlight limitations on WP7 (I can’t remember at this late stage if it was lack of style inheritance or something else) made the result not quite as elegant as it would have been with WPF, but it ended up working well enough. Mobile apps are all about removing clutter and unnecessary steps, so eliminating the need for an edit screen seems to be a good choice, even if the control that enables this isn’t a “standard” control everyone knows about.

On the WebOS app, I didn’t have to worry too much about application lifetime management, in other words I didn’t have to write much code to save and restore the state of the app. WebOS provides multitasking abilities for apps; Windows Phone 7 on the other hand only provides for a single app to run at a time (at least Silverlight apps, “native” apps have more advanced capabilities, including the ability to do things in the “background”, but non-OEM developers can’t currently write “native” apps [Microsoft will remedy some of this with the now final “Mango” update]). Writing the required “tombstoning” code was some extra work, but Microsoft had provided good sample code at a free developer event that I attended. Part of that sample code also included methods that make it easy to work with “isolated storage”, which is what used for storing an app’s data. Thankfully, I didn’t have to resort to using typeless JavaScript objects, but could use fully typed first-class objects with methods and persist them in isolated storage without having to write my own translation code like I had to with WebOS.

After I had made good progress bringing the Open app to the same level of functionality that my WebOS app had, I noticed that there was a Bing Maps control available from Microsoft, and thought it would be interesting to see what I could do with that. The Open app allows the user to enter a store address. Wouldn’t it be nice if the app could draw you a map to the store, and based on the route’s duration tell you if you can get to the store in time before closing or if the store will be open by the time you get there? Certainly! It was surprisingly easy to use the Bing Map control (except for one thing that I’ve blogged about before), and I had the new feature implemented in a matter of hours. I think what took longest was to get my API key to actually be approved/deployed by Microsoft.

After testing the finished app and checking it against Microsoft’s publishing guidelines, I proceeded to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace (now called AppHub) to start the publishing process. Because of my involvement with the peer learning group hosted at Microsoft, I had gained access to the second wave of “early access” certification for Windows Phone developers. This meant that I was able to work through the submission process before it was open to the public. I had a few hiccups getting that far, eventually got approval to start submitting my app for certification.

Publishing an app is probably about the same amount of work for both WebOS and Windows Phone. I get the impression that Microsoft’s testers are quite thorough, at least they were when I went through the process. They’re also pretty fast. After preparing all the required materials (several app icons, background image for the Phone Marketplace, marketing text, etc.) and submitting the app, it took about 3 days to get it approved, if I remember correctly. According to my xap file timestamp, I produced the 1.0 version on October 18, 2010 and it was released on October 21, 2010. The awesome folks at wp7applist.com (thanks Luigi!) helped me track down that it was among the first 2000 apps submitted, at #1983 or so. [Incidentally, I published a second app, called Countdown, which also took 3 days to get approved (submitted on December 26, 2010 and published on December 29, 2010; it was #5123 in the Marketplace).] When I updated one of my apps to version 1.1, I got a failure report back (I hadn’t tested tombstoning well enough) and was impressed by the quality of the report. It really helped me find and reproduce the issue quickly.

I have not had time to update either of my apps any further since publishing version 1.1, but perhaps some of the new features in “Mango” will encourage me to do so. A live tile for the Countdown app has been requested in the reviews of the app, for example, and producing that functionality without Mango would require me to create and host a web service, not something I’m willing to pay for at the moment. With Mango, the app itself will be able to update its tile…

Speaking of payment, you may wonder if this venture has been worth it from a monetary perspective. I would say “not quite”, but since I haven’t spent anything on promoting my apps I don’t know if it could have gone better. Open is $1.99 and Countdown is free. Open has a trial version, which is ad supported and Countdown is free with ads. I’ve sold 5 copies (at this point) of Open and made perhaps fifteen dollars in ad revenue from both apps (so no payouts on either front yet). I was lucky enough to get my $99 Marketplace fee refunded due to publishing two apps by a certain deadline for a Microsoft promotion. But figure in the time I spent on creating the apps, and this definitely has been an exercise more for the sake of learning and personal enjoyment than for the sake of financial gain.

Finally, since this is part two of a series on mobile development, I need to comment a little on the two experiences of doing WebOS versus Windows Phone. To me, the phone/OS experiences on the two come pretty close. WebOS is similar to the HP TouchSmart 2.x/3.x concept of an app carousel and works beautifully. I like WebOS a lot from a user perspective (I just REALLY wish there was a WebOS phone model closer in size to the iPhone or my current LG Quantum or the Samsung Focus), but developing for WebOS is hampered (for me at least) by the relative lack of good development tools. Windows Phone provides a unique user experience, hampered a little by the lack of multitasking, but absolutely SHINES in the area of development tools. Microsoft also invests a LOT into the developer ecosystem, as evidenced by the evangelists participating (on their own time, no less) in peer learning groups, such as the one I participated in. They use this as a vehicle to give people early access to phone hardware for testing and to keep the energy and motivation up among developers. I’ve not been aware of such support existing for WebOS.

After Phil McKinney announced a WebOS app development contest at HP’s internal technology conference, Tech Con ’10, I was somewhat drawn to trying my hands at this unknown “beast” (lure of the prize? Maybe.) In a conversation with Jon Rubinstein on the first evening of Tech Con I had mentioned how Microsoft’s tools provide incredible developer productivity and I asked if Palm’s toolset provides something similar. Jon mentioned project Ares and encouraged me to try it out. More on that later.

Over lunch that last day of Tech Con, I mentioned in a conversation with my colleagues that I was going to develop an app that helps you keep track of store opening hours. After lunch I had a little bit of time before my flight back to California, so I rudely ignored my fellow travelers and started downloading and installing the “regular” Palm WebOS tools: Java, VirtualBox, Eclipse, the SDK toolset, Google Chrome and the Aptana Studio plugin for Eclipse. I didn’t start writing code right away. I had just finished installing stuff when it was time to get on the shuttle for the airport.

My next steps were to read up on the overview documentation that Palm provides at http://developer.palm.com and to start running the emulator and toolset. I’m no stranger to (D)HTML/CSS and JavaScript. One of my first projects at HP was developed almost entirely using that combination. Admittedly, that was quite some years ago. I’m a little surprised that someone would build a mobile platform based on technology that old, but I guess the rationale is sound: anyone who can develop a webpage can now develop mobile apps. (I’m not entirely sure I’d want just anyone who theoretically can do it to actually do it. Sorry. Little digression.) So, I’m no stranger to the technology, but I still needed to brush up. So I went off to www.w3schools.com to check out the JavaScript references (in particular the Date class docs) etc. Part of the journey also took me to a few articles at Linux Magazine (WebOS is based on Linux – another decades old technology stack, hmmmm – but then, so is the Windows Kernel and a bunch of other pieces of software) where some of the details around data persistence were explored. I knew that I’d have to store the data locally, since I couldn’t possibly support running a web/cloud service anywhere. Some other detours led me to the JSON website and the Prototype framework.

My first tentative steps were to get the app from the Linux Magazine articles up and running, which didn’t take too long. Then came experimenting with my “business logic”. Palm apps are nicely partitioned according to the Model – View – Controller software pattern, so trying out some “Model” approaches was worthwhile. During all this, I kept bouncing back and forth between the Linux Mag articles, the SDK documentation, Palm’s developer forums and the JavaScript documentation at w3schools.

After working with the TimePicker widget for a bit (store opening hours are central to the app, after all), I settled on using Date as the main “Model” for the app. Unfortunately JavaScript can’t store Date in the local persistence layer of WebOS. What can be persisted are object primitives (strings, integers, lists, arrays and such), and Date is not one of those. The persistence format in WebOS is JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), which is a string representation of a JavaScript object that the JavaScript interpreter can “rehydrate” by calling “eval()” on the string that’s retrieved from storage (or a web service call). Date objects don’t persist well, so I had to work out a way to “dehydrate” and “rehydrate” my Date-based data model. I’m sure there are better ways to do it than what I came up with, but my method is basically to “dehydrate” by calling Date.getTime() and storing that away. “Rehydration” is the reverse: construct a Date object from the stored getTime() value (which is the number of milliseconds since the “epoch”, Midnight on January 1, 1970).

After settling on the data model, I started some work on the business logic. I figured out the rules for determining a single day’s open/closed status and did debugging on that. This is where one of my frustrations with the toolset started to surface. Debugging is pretty painful on WebOS at first. It seemed that all I had at my disposal were “tracing” statements in combination with looking at log files in the emulator. To do that, I had to connect to the emulator running the app by using Putty (an SSH client that’s included in the toolset) to localhost port 5522. And every time I made a code change, I had to re-deploy the app, etc. It wasn’t until the end of my project that I discovered the semi-standalone log viewer from palm, hosted at http://ares.palm.com/AresLog and the corresponding debugger at http://ares.palm.com/AresDebug. The unfortunate thing, of course, is that these two only work if you have a live Internet connection. The other unfortunate thing is that my data model is an object that none of the tools know how to “Visualize”. By that I mean that even though AresDebug can show me my Date object, it can’t show me the various interesting “parts” like the Date, Month, Year or Day.

After making progress on the logic for one day of opening hours, I worked my way toward the logic for a whole week of opening hours. This meant starting to work with arrays of objects and that made the debugging situation worse. Now I had to trace a set of Date objects seven times in order to make headway. Seeing the log output from that was really messy.

In parallel to the business logic work, I started sketching out the UI flow and settled on four scenes/cards to use in creation/editing of store opening hour information. Most of these scenes were easy enough to come up with. The main problem was aligning items in list widgets so their placement was “pleasing to the eye”. That sometimes required padding and using tables in the HTML code along with general CSS tinkering. While using <div> elements with certain palm CSS class styles (“palm-group” in particular), I discovered that using a self-closing <div /> element could create issues with rendering the UI properly. I had to use opening <div> and closing </div> elements to get the correct rendering. Another thing I found a bit maddening was that I had to resort to padding in list rows to get items centered vertically. The style inheritance tree was just too much for me to wade through. I tried a couple of times, using the Palm Inspector, but it didn’t get me very far.

After most of the UI was settled, I had to finalize the business logic. This took the bulk of my development time, and was quite frustrating because of the difficulties of debugging/tracing/seeing traces using the Palm log tool via SSH. I ended up spending all of Memorial Day weekend on this (except for a few hours on Sunday where I got away to spend some quality time at a pool party). Memorial Day was another full working day where I thought I had finalized all the business logic…

Alas, I discovered in preparing my app for submission to the Palm site that there were still bugs lurking and that I needed to tinker a bit more with the UI. So I added a few images, twiddled icon sizes around, wrote up the required “marketing” text, etc. Each morning and evening I tested the app only to conclude that there were still calculation bugs.

Finally I convinced myself that it was time to formalize my testing efforts, so I put together a table on paper, sketching out various valid and invalid/tricky test data scenarios. I then coded these up in some “unit tests” (really just part of the app’s logic, but the tests only run if a certain flag is set in the startup code).

Other finishing touches included making the store opening hours definition less repetitive/labor intensive, adding a splash of color here and there, making it possible to delete the entire database and enabling two buttons in the UI based on conditions related to the store data the user enters: If a phone number is entered, enable calling up the dialer app to make a quick call to the store – if an address is entered, enable a button to take the user to a map of the store using the built-in mapping app. And with all those things in place, I finally submitted the app to the Palm catalog on June 4, 2010.

You’ll notice that I didn’t mention the Ares development tool yet. That’s because I didn’t use it much. Once I started on the path of using the SDK tools, I was unable to “round-trip” the app between Ares and the SDK toolset. I could upload the app just fine, but the App UI didn’t show up in the Ares environment. So perhaps I should have started out using Ares, but then I would have been limited to developing only while having a live Internet connection. Not something I find very comforting.

How much time did I spend on this adventure? Since I didn’t keep a log, I can only make rough estimates, but here’s the breakdown from memory:

Reading SDK docs
2 – 4 hours

Download and install tools
2 hours

Reading other articles
1 – 2 hours

Reading JavaScript docs
4 – 6 hours

Coding
6 – 8 hours

Debugging
30 – 40 hours

Refining UI, testing
8 hours

Preparing for submission
2 – 4 hours

So that’s somewhere between 55 and 74 hours. A lot of effort for a simple app? Probably. Worth the time, considering the value of the prize? Perhaps not. Great value in learning the ins and outs of a new platform and having some serious geek fun? Absolutely!!!

Why the big number on Debugging? This is where I get back to the productivity question/issue I posed to Jon Rubinstein. Debugging was so painful and time-intensive because the tools just didn’t provide what I needed. What I would have wanted was an environment that provides a coding and debugging experience that helps track down bugs in a matter of minutes. Variables should be easily inspected, breakpoints set / made conditional, etc. etc. The Palm Ares debugger provides some of this, but there is still lots of room for improvement.

All in all, it was great fun writing a WebOS app and learning about the platform. I highly recommend you do it yourself, if you are so inclined.

Old and new campus land

New campus building

New campus aerial shot

New campus aerial shot

New campus aerial shot

New campus view

New campus view

Landscaping current

Landscaping future

Campus view

Trees current

Trees future

New campus view

New campus building details

New campus statistics

New campus view

New campus view of cafeteria

New campus aerial view

Thoroughly impressive. Wow.

I keep all my “data” on a separate physical hard drive so that in theory it’s easy to swap out the OS drive or upgrade it without too much fear of losing information. This also makes it easy to migrate the data to a bigger drive when I inevitably run out of space. Some time ago I did just that, switching to a 1 TB drive from a 500 GB model.

It had been running well for about a year (I think), when I looked at the SMART data and saw that the reallocated sector count was dangerously close to the limit value. I didn’t think I needed to worry about it quite yet, so I left it alone.

But a few days ago I got a call while at work: “The computer is saying something about a hard drive going bad, and I don’t know what to do.” Oh boy. So I dropped everything after finishing up a meeting and bought a replacement drive (1.5 TB this time), ready to deal with the worst.

As it turned out, things weren’t in too bad of a shape. Windows 7 itself seems to be doing a much better job at monitoring SMART status than Windows XP did:

Just for kicks, I started eventvwr.msc and looked at the System events. Sure enough, there were a couple of entries mentioning disk issues:

For more detail, I looked at SpeedFan’s output:

Yup, the reallocated sector count had reached its limit.

Since Windows 7 ships with the excellent Robocopy command line tool, I decided to use this to copy everything from the failing drive to the new one. I thought I could use a USB-to-SATA adapter I had lying around the house, but after some time I concluded the adapter must be flaky. From time to time the drive connected to it would act funny when looked at with Windows Explorer. Folders wouldn’t refresh when asked to and sometimes folders that were supposed to be on the drive didn’t show up in Windows Explorer. Also, the copy process seemed fishy when looked at with Process Explorer:

Looking at I/O Bytes History, I saw big initial spikes of traffic, then a weird drop-off, followed by a long period of inactivity between each file copy operation. Too bad I don’t remember when I bought that USB-to-SATA device, because it definitely needs to go back for a full refund or replacement.

Anyway, I ended up hooking the new drive up to a free internal SATA port inside the computer, and from then on the copy went quite smoothly. The I/O traffic pattern looked much more evenly distributed.

After finishing the copy, I checked the drive manufacturer’s website to see if the drive was still in warranty. Their online systems couldn’t tell me for some strange reason, even though I typed in the model and serial number correctly, and even the failure code that their test tool spits out. A quick call to their warranty department confirmed that it was still within warranty, and so I initiated the exchange for a fresh drive.

The final step in this was to erase the content of the old drive, just to be sure nobody could get to it, should the manufacturer’s promises of destroying the drive not come to pass. For that I used Eraser, a free tool that has many, many options for overwriting the entire drive with random data patterns, making it pretty much impossible to recover anything.

It’s always a bother when hard drives go bad, but sometimes it is possible to avert complete disaster. Windows 7 is much more proactive than its predecessor XP in terms of early detection of problems. This gives you time to move important data in time.

Of course, should a head crash happen, this would be useless, so I also have an alternate backup. No longer at Mozy, though. With my amount of data and their recent pricing changes, I decided to go with CrashPlan, partly because of their option to ship me a drive for the initial backup so I don’t have to wait for months to upload everything. The other part is that they still offer unlimited storage. And I need that.

Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/07/hps-touchsmart-610-and-9300-all-in-ones-tilt-and-twirl-on-out/

CNet: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20030815-17.html

Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/technologybrierdudleysblog/2014154942_hp_unveils_reclining_touch_pc.html

ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/hp-announces-new-touchsmart-all-in-ones/5027

FT.com: http://blogs.ft.com/fttechhub/2011/02/the-reclining-hp-touchsmart-610-video-review/

PCMag.com: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2379438,00.asp

TFTS: http://nexus404.com/Blog/2011/02/07/hp-shows-off-new-line-of-touchsmart-pcs-hp-touchsmart-610-and-9300-emerge-offer-high-power-in-a-high-concept/

AllBusiness.com: http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/company-structures-ownership/15479504-1.html

Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20110207/tc_yblog_technews/hps-unveils-new-sliding-touchscreen-pcs

ChipChick: http://www.chipchick.com/2011/02/hp-touchsmart-610.html

Windows7News: http://www.windows7news.com/2011/02/07/hp-launches-touchscreen-desktop-market/

VentureBeat: http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/07/hp-designs-a-cool-reclining-touchscreen-display-for-star-trek-style-experience/

GamesBeat: http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/07/now-this-is-the-way-to-play-touchscreen-games-video/

TrustedReviews.com: http://www.trustedreviews.com/pcs/news/2011/02/07/HP-Announces-Two-New-TouchSmart-All-In-One-PCs/p1

TGDaily: http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/53980-hp-touts-uber-cool-swivel-pcs

EWeek: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/HP-Spruces-Up-Image-with-New-TouchScreen-Desktop-PCs-883622/

EWeek slideshow: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Latest-HP-PC-Lineup-Goes-for-Cool-with-Colorful-New-TouchScreens-182412/

Yeah, vanity post.

Instead I got error messages, followed by a rollback of the uninstall I was in the middle of.

Why did I need to uninstall QuickTime and iTunes? Because after finally upgrading my last Windows XP machine to Windows 7, iTunes wouldn’t start properly.

I searched the web for a while to see if I could find good information about the problem, but all I found was useless, generic “use control panel to uninstall” stuff and google-spam-gamed links advertising some complete uninstaller tools.

So I decided to take matters in my own hands. I fired up an elevated command prompt and regedit and dug through the registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Uninstall) to find the uninstall string for removing iTunes. I ran that, and – to my surprise – it worked! All I had to do now was uninstall QuickTime, so I found the uninstall string for that, and kicked it off. I got a warning about uninstalling my Pro Key and confirmed that I wanted to do that. Things seemed to progress nicely, but then the rollback happened. Ugh. So I fired off the uninstall once more, this time adding logging:

MsiExec.exe /I{E7004147-2CCA-431C-AA05-2AB166B9785D} /l*v log.txt

It failed again. Good, now I had a log of the failure. Digging though the log, I found this error:

DEBUG: Error 2769:  Custom Action RemoveQT7ProKey did not close 1 MSIHANDLEs.
The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2769. The arguments are: RemoveQT7ProKey, 1,
Action ended 13:58:03: RemoveQT7ProKey. Return value 1.

“Okay, so if that action causes issues,” I thought, “let me see if I can remove it”. To do that, I looked back in the log for the cached MSI file that the uninstall uses:

MSI (c) (F0:B4) [13:57:50:043]: Package we’re running from ==> C:\Windows\Installer\100f740b.msi

I then changed the security descriptors on that MSI so I could modify it and used Orca to drop the row that invokes the custom action that attempts to remove the Pro Key:

MSI (s) (84:6C) [13:58:00:119]: Doing action: RemoveQT7ProKey

I saved the modified MSI, ran it again, and lo and behold – QuickTime uninstalled properly!

I’m talking about a control (actually, a Widget in WebOS) that initially looks like a regular text label, but when you tap on it, it turns into a text box that lets you edit the contained text. WP7 does not have anything like this out-of-the-box. So I decided to create my own.

I made a UserControl that consists of a TextBlock and a TextBox. The TextBox is normally Collapsed (Hidden doesn’t exist on WP7, you’d have to use Opacity=”0″ instead). When the user taps on the TextBlock, it is collapsed and the TextBox is made visible. Once the TextBox loses focus, the reverse happens, and the text from the TextBox is transferred to the TextBlock. Since it can be useful to be able to style the TextBlock and to provide InputScope, I’ve also added a few DependencyProperties to enable that. The code is a little “smelly”, perhaps, because it could be refactored into a proper CustomControl, but what I have so far works well enough for me.

If you want to use it or just have a look, feel free to download the source code for TextBlockEditable.

1. The Location type on the Phone has no constructor that takes 2 parameters (the Desktop version does). You’ll have to construct a Location object with the default constructor and then set the Latitude and Longitude fields separately.

2. LocationRect also has no constructor that takes 2 parameters. Here you’ll need to do a little more work and assign the North, West, South and East fields appropriately after constructing a LocationRect object with the default constructor.

3. MapLayer has no static function called SetPosition that lets you map Location objects to something appropriate for a MapLayer. Use the regular instance member MapLayer.AddChild() instead.

With these changes, you can make the Desktop sample on the Bing developer site work on a Windows Phone 7 device.

Only a little vanity post; a collection of links to stories and other potentially interesting tidbits.

These were some of the first mentions of the HP TouchSmart 310 with HP TouchSmart 4.0 software, unveiled on September 20, 2010.

Most of these have no real reviews yet, they just “wordsmith” the press release or other people’s “wordsmithing”. But that won’t stop me from highlighting “good stuff”.

CNet: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20016921-1.html

The new case is graceful enough, and the $699 starting price for its low-end AMD CPU and 20-inch display is fair, but the biggest news for this new all-in-one may lie in its software. [My emphasis]

First, HP has tweaked the main TouchSmart software interface to streamline the way you access and organize media and applications using touch. In addition to organizing applications in a carousel layout, now you can also "pin" apps and individual media files to a more dynamic background featuring various parallax-animated environments. HP says this design lets you organize your touch software in a more natural manner, akin to how you might organize a desk.

In addition to the new background, HP has also updated the specific touch applications to the TouchSmart suite, most impressively with a new Marvel Comics streaming service, from which you can buy touch versions of more than 8,000 titles from the Marvel library. That number dwarfs the 500 Marvel titles available from Apple’s iPad application. The Marvel app and the entire TouchSmart suite, dubbed TouchSmart 4.0, will also be available for download by owners of current TouchSmart all-in-ones.

Hot Hardware: http://hothardware.com/News/HP-Debuts-Omni-100-And-TouchSmart-310-AIO-PCs-Along-With-New-tm2-Notebook/

ZDNet “The Toy Box”: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/hp-rolls-out-omni-100-touchsmart-310-all-in-one-desktops-20-hd-widescreens/18143

VentureBeat: http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/20/hp-launches-fancy-touch-based-desktops-and-an-app-store-for-touch-apps/

The latest software transforms a user’s boring Windows desktop into a “magic canvas,” which appears to be an overlay on top of the computer screen. You swipe your hand across the display to move the transparent overlay. You can drag applications, music, photos, videos and other web content directly onto the overlay. HP refers to these objects as “magnets” since they are just like the magnets you put on your refrigerator with notes attached to them. You can pick multilayered wallpapers to bring the illusion of 3D depth perception to a screen. You can also browse through material via the carousel at the bottom of the screen — all with the touch of a finger.

You can use existing TouchSmart apps such as Twitter, Hulu, Netflix, Recipe Box and the HP Music Store powered by Rhapsody. All of those apps can be started and used via finger taps on the touchscreen. You can use the webcam to film a personalized video message and post it directly to your friend’s Facebook wall.

The HP TouchSmart Apps Center has a small collection of apps available now. You can access them via a TouchSmart Carousel. Some of the apps contain a lot of content, such as the Marvel Comics app and the Cartoon Network app. The Marvel app gives you access to more than 8,000 comics. You can tap on them and read them page by page on a a beautiful high-definition display. The Cartoon Network app offers news updates on shows and characters.

PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369352,00.asp

The TouchSmart interface is much more advanced than the competition, including Sony, MSI, and Gateway.

TG Daily: http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-brief/51618-hp-launches-new-much-cheaper-touchsmart

HP has rebuilt its TouchSmart software for the 310 model, making it easier to organize and play back media from the touchscreen, as well as adding enhanced everyday computer applications as well. When the first TouchSmart computer debuted, its touchscreen technology was more of a novelty than anything else. Since then, gadgets like the iPad have made touch more relevant and important than ever, and have shown everyone that it can be a powerful computing tool.

Also added with the new TouchSmart announcement is a deal between HP and Disney to offer digital Marvel comics. TouchSmart users will now be able to stream special versions of classic comics, and then literally thumb through them with on-screen controls. More than 8,000 Marvel titles are available, which HP says is the most extensive digital collection ever offered from any content partner.

HP is also launching a new "app store" interface for touchscreen programs and games, making it easier for developers and consumers to take advantage of the PC’s touch capabilities.

Existing TouchSmart users will also have access to this and the other enhancements being made for the 310, with the release of a sweeping software upgrade. TouchSmart 4.0 will be downloadable for anyone who owns a legacy TouchSmart computer from HP.

Softpedia: http://news.softpedia.com/news/HP-Releases-Three-New-TouchSmart-and-Omnio-PCs-157124.shtml

TechConnect: http://www.tcmagazine.com/tcm/news/hardware/30503/hp-intros-touchsmart-310-and-omni-100-all-one-pcs

Geeky Gadgets: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/new-hp-touchsmart-310-only-699-20-09-2010/

Waleg: http://www.waleg.com/techgadgets/archives/020976.html

Electronista: http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/09/20/hp.intros.omni.100.touchsmart.310.all.in.one.pcs/

Digital Trends: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/hp-touchsmart-310-pc-offers-improved-touch-based-software/

IC Tech News: http://ic-technews.com/laptop/1493-hp-touchsmart-310-priced-at-price-just-699-a-complete-software-redesign

Chip Chick: http://www.chipchick.com/2010/09/hp-touchsmart-apps-center.html

Product Reviews: http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/09/20/new-hp-touchsmart-310-review-specs-and-release-date/

Financial Times: http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2010/09/touchsmart/

Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/20/hp-announces-touchsmart-310-and-omni100-all-in-one-pcs/ [Love all the trolling and spewing of prejudices on this one…]

SlashGear: http://www.slashgear.com/hp-touchsmart-310-omni100-and-touchsmart-tm2-get-official-20103191/

[Update]

GottaBeMobile: http://www.gottabemobile.com/2010/09/22/hp-touchsmart-software-gets-more-touchable/

The Touchsmart’s UI is much more fluid and touch applications are no longer required to run in full screen, offering a little breathing room.The Touchsmart’s UI is much more fluid and touch applications are no longer required to run in full screen, offering a little breathing room.

[…]

The new revision of the software looks like a big improvement compared to what’s on my TouchSmart 600xt, which my wife and I use as our bedroom PC.

eWeek (with Slideshow): http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/HP-Omni-TouchSmart-310-TouchSmart-tm2-Unveiled-175093/

Tom’s Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/TouchSmart-Omni-HP-All-in-Ones-AIO-touchscreen,11332.html

DesktopReview: http://www.desktopreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1222&Review=HP+TouchSmart+310+Multitouch+all-in-one+First+Look

HP has what appears to be an ingenious solution. After a program is launched, a couple of fingers swivelling across the screen automatically shrink the application into a cube and paste it onto the TouchSmart’s background. The background itself can then be scrolled through, just by touching it anywhere on the screen.

One really cool aspect of engineering the software like this is the parallax effect that HP added to the wallpaper. As you scroll through the desktop, items in the foreground move at a different rate relative to items in the background.

While we didn’t see it demonstrated, an HP rep also mentioned that the TouchSmart will ship with software to generate these movable backgrounds with pictures that customers take. The effect won’t be as strong as the ones included by HP, but being able to customize it even that much is a nice bonus.

Windows Experience Blog: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowsexperience/archive/2010/09/21/hp-updates-their-touchsmart-software-amp-all-in-one-pc-lineup.aspx

To couple the new hardware, HP is revving their TouchSmart software to offer a number of new capabilities.  They’re saying that with it, the desktop transforms into a “Magic Canvas” where users can easily drag apps, and content – even web content – directly onto the desktop.  There’s also a new multi-layer wallpaper that gives the machine a lot of depth.  I haven’t had a chance to work with these new features directly, but I have seen a demo and it looks really nice.

[/Update]

A little promo video of the new TouchSmart 4.0 software:

Product Marketing Manager Ken Bosley presenting the TouchSmart 4.0 software on YouTube:

The HP Video channel with tutorials:

http://h30429.www3.hp.com/?fr_chl=ce319b479b9d330ec6ef5a60bd25d2567c423f97&rf=bm

For developers:

TouchSmart 4.0 SDK: http://www.touchsmartdevzone.com/download/3369/HP-TouchSmart-SDK-4.0-English/

And I may have some details to add myself if and when I find the time…

Along the way, I discovered that the lab exercises solution files show a different icon in Windows Explorer than the ones I create using VS 2010. The reason is that the lab exercise .sln files contain the following line:

# Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone

which results in this icon (see the tiny phone next to the “10”?),

whereas the ones I create contain this line instead:

# Visual Studio 2010

which results in this icon (no tiny phone)

When I open a .sln file with the former line in it, the Express version of VS2010 runs. When I open a .sln file with the latter line in it, the regular version of VS2010 runs. Strange. It seems that the line is just an innocent comment, but apparently not quite. Either way, after repairing the toolset both solution files allow me to work in the XAML designer.

[Update 2010-05-05: I originally wrote this for the CTP that worked with VS2010 RC. Now that an updated set of tools has been released to work with VS2010 RTM, the folder name has changed. It is now called 30319.31 as far as I can tell. That is likely to change again for future releases, so just be aware of that. The steps should still work.]

If you have several machines that you want to install the Windows Phone 7 Series developer tools on and don’t want to have to wait for the download on each machine, here’s a little tip for how you can make yourself an “offline” installer:

1. Start with a clean Win 7 machine.

2. Download the web installer (vm_web.exe) from Microsoft and save it to a folder of your choice (let’s say C:\WinPhone7). Start the install.

3. Let the download happen, but when the install itself starts, temporarily cancel it (you can let it finish after step 5).

4. Go to %Temp% using Windows Explorer.

5. Copy the folder 30128.39 to your folder of choice from step 2.

6. Create a Install_WP7_Tools.cmd file containing the following:

xcopy 30128.39 %temp%\30128.39 /I /E
vm_web.exe
pause

7. Copy the folder of choice to a USB storage device.

8. Use the Install_WP7_Tools.cmd file on your other systems. The tools should install and skip most of the downloads quickly.

If you don’t start with a clean Windows 7 machine, the files that the vm_web.exe tool collects in the 30128.39 folder may not contain all the files needed for the install, so you may see a few things extra get downloaded while using the .cmd file on other machines.

On my clean 64-bit Windows 7 machine, I got the following files as part of the toolset:

C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\Ixpvm.exe
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\dotnetframework\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\help\HelpSetup_x64.exe
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\mtpack\NetFx_DTP.cab
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\mtpack\NetFx_DTP.msi
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\rdbg\vs_expbsln_x64_enu.cab
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\rdbg\vs_expbsln_x64_enu.msi
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\silverlight4\Silverlight.4.0_Developer.exe
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\silverlight4\Silverlight4_Tools.exe
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\silverlight4\silverlight_sdk.exe
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\vcruntimes\x64\vc_runtime_x64.cab
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\vcruntimes\x64\vc_runtime_x64.msi
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\watson\dw20shared.msi
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\windowsphone\sde_xde64-enu.cab
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\windowsphone\sde_xde64-enu.msi
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\windowsphone\vs_sdeprolightup-enu.cab
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\windowsphone\vs_sdeprolightup-enu.msi
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\windowsphone\WindowsPhoneDeveloperResources.msi
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\windowsphone\WindowsPhoneExtensions.msi
C:\WinPhone7\30128.39\1033\VM_EXP\wcu\windowsphone\XNAGS40_setup.exe

A total of about 320 MB.

Anyway, according to this article at installsite.org, you can embed transforms into an MSI in a way so that Windows Installer will automatically apply them according to the system language when your MSI is loaded. This is the undocumented feature. If your MSI is simple enough that you don’t need dialog boxes/UI, but you just blaze through a default install, yet you want the few messages that show up by default to be localized, what I’m about to describe might be enough for you.

Here’s what you need: WiX (Windows Installer XML toolset), MsiTran.exe and some sample MSI scripts from the Windows SDK, and finally some custom-written scripts to glue the whole thing together.

I’ll assume you already have WiX installed (possibly in conjunction with Visual Studio), and that you have a simple, single-language WiX project handy.

You can get the Windows SDK from Microsoft as an ISO image (this one is for Windows 7). You can then mount this image using Magic Disc, Daemon Tools Lite or some other ISO-peeking utility. If you don’t want to install the entire SDK just to get the MsiTran.exe and MSI script samples, open the ISO up using your tool of choice and find the folder Setup.

To install just the tools package that will give you the MsiTran.exe, run WinSDKTools\WinSDKTools_x86.msi. MsiTran.exe will be found in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Bin after this. I suggest copying this file to your WiX installer project folder.

To get the script samples, run the MSI WinSDKSamples\WinSDKSamples_x86.msi. Once you’ve done this, you’ll find the sample scripts in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Samples\SysMgmt\Msi\scripts. Out of all these scripts you only need WiSubStg.vbs and WiLangId.vbs. I suggest copying them to your WiX installer project folder.

You should know ahead of building the original WiX project which languages and how many languages you’ll end up needing. Your original installer needs to list all of these in a comma separated list in the Summary Stream (and the list can’t contain 0). In WiX that looks like this:

<Package 
  Compressed="yes" 
  Description="My Installer"
  InstallerVersion="200"
  Comments="My Software Installer"
  Languages="1033,1031,1028,2052,1030,1043,1035,1036,1040,1041,1042,1044,1046,1034,1053,1049,1055,1045,2070"
/>

Once you’ve built the single language MSI using WiX, you run a script for each language you need your MSI localized in that does the following:

• Copy the original MSI to a new file
• Modify the newly copied MSI so it contains a different ProductLanguage using WiLangId.vbs
• Create a transform that captures the difference between the two MSIs using MSITran.exe
• Embed the transform in the final master installer using WiSubStg.vbs

Here’s the script that does it (I call this CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd):

set MsiName=%1

set lang=%2

set langcode=%3

copy %MsiName%.msi %MsiName%_%lang%.msi

cscript WiLangId.vbs %MsiName%_%lang%.msi Product %langcode% > CreateLangTransform_%lang%.txt

MsiTran.exe -g %MsiName%.msi %MsiName%_%lang%.msi %lang%.mst >> CreateLangTransform_%lang%.txt

cscript wisubstg.vbs FinalMasterInstaller\%MsiName%.msi %lang%.mst %langcode% >> CreateLangTransform_%lang%.txt

cscript wisubstg.vbs FinalMasterInstaller\%MsiName%.msi >> CreateLangTransform_%lang%.txt

All you have to do as a post-build step (either in Visual Studio or as part of your build engine of choice) is call this script once for each language you’re interested in (I call this CreateLocalizedInstallerAllLanguages.cmd):

if not exist FinalMasterInstaller md FinalMasterInstaller

copy MyInstaller.msi FinalMasterInstaller

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller da 1030

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller de 1031

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller es 1034

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller fi 1035

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller fr 1036

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller it 1040

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller jp 1041

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller ko 1042

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller nl 1043

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller no 1044

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller pt_br 1046

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller sv 1053

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller zh_cn 2052

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller zh_tw 1028

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller ru 1049

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller tr 1055

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller pl 1045

call CreateEmbedLangTransform.cmd MyInstaller pt_pt 2070

You’ll need to look up additional language codes in Microsoft’s documentation if you need more than the ones listed above.

Note that I’ve modified the scripts above from the ones I’m actually using to make them a little more generic, and I haven’t tested every aspect of them, but they give you the gist of it.

Here are the script files zipped up.

Linchpin is at its core a self-help book. It’s meant to help you realize that if you want a shot at being indispensable, in whatever human realm (but mostly at work), you have to make some hard choices in your life. The reasoning for this takes you on a brief tour of economic systems, psychology, neuroscience and societal systems, including the education system.

You’ll read about Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Adam Smith and how a system is emerging that leaves an opening for a new role in economic systems: so-called “linchpins,” people who don’t need access to capital in the traditional sense, whose contributions are difficult to make interchangeable/replaceable and who make these contributions for the sake of contributing, not for the sake of making money. Making money, argues Godin, comes as a byproduct of the contribution that a linchpin makes. In a way, part of this book is about how the emerging global economic situation is made up of Communism and Capitalism remixed. And the best (perhaps the only) way to get by in this emerging system is to become a linchpin - an artist who gives of his or her creativity, ingenuity and humanness freely without desire for reciprocation. Linchpins are intrinsically motivated.

The self-help aspect of the book is that Seth is trying to convince you that this is the kind of role YOU want to play, because doing otherwise is a dead-end in the system that’s now emerging worldwide. Seth’s reasons for wanting you to become a linchpin are well-meaning and honest. He’s attempting to give you the best advice he can, based on the way he sees things unfolding right now. It’s hard to accurately summarize what the book says constitutes the behaviors and attitudes of a linchpin, and it would probably diminish the experience of reading the book. There are plenty of examples and inspiring stories in the book, and they make for really interesting reading.

At times it feels like the book is a collection of somewhat distantly related blog post blurbs, woven together loosely by a few underlying threads. It’s a little hard to follow at times, keeping up with the jumps and turns, and maybe this is just a logical consequence of Seth frequently sharing a lot of his thoughts in blog post format. It’s become his style. That doesn’t make the underlying threads any less important, though.

In a way, the case for the linchpin idea is made with a hermetically sealed argument. If you want to argue that the idea won’t work for you, the book has the counter-argument ready that this is your “lizard brain” speaking. It is the most ancient part of the brain (speaking in terms of evolutionary age), the part that is most concerned with survival and basic biological functions. Given the chance, your lizard brain will win over the more developed, more “recent” parts of your consciousness. It takes hard work and tricks to overcome the resistance that the lizard brain represents. The book takes a long, hard look at all that. In fact the book says that your lizard brain hates it when you read books like Linchpin.

I have no doubt that the book is spot on in saying that we don’t need more things cheaper, faster and more average. We’ve lived in a system focused on that for only a short time (a couple of generations), but it seems like forever (we have bad memory). We’re ready for getting back to outstanding things. Art that moves us, makes us feel connected, builds us up, helps us form new tribes. We’re hungry for real, human interactions, ready for forming new bonds with people in whatever way that might happen. We’re tired of the simple exchange, the transaction that leaves us distanced from each other. We look for ways to get more involved, to matter to each other. Linchpin shows us how, by encouraging us to bring all of ourselves into each part of our lives, at work and at home (but it’s mostly about work).

That being said, I don’t think everyone can be a linchpin. All large systems (ecosystems, societies, companies) have hierarchies and layers. Ecosystems, for example, have tons of species that are needed “below” to feed the outstanding species at the top. I think it’s similar in the workplace. And in a way, the book has an answer for that. Nobody is a linchpin all the time. Even the most successful people spend most of their time doing ordinary things. It’s the moments of extraordinary acts that make them linchpins.

I also think that the road to becoming a linchpin is long and hard. The “resistance” can’t be overcome “suddenly.” It’s a slow learning process. In fact, the book argues that the best way to beat the resistance is to slowly try to build a platform that looks “harmless” to the resistance, so that when you’re finally ready to take the leap, you have a network of “friendlies” that are ready to see what you have to give. A lot of the arguments the book makes depend on an assumed network that supports linchpins. For example, you shouldn’t be afraid of getting fired for breaking rules, because it will be obvious to others that you have linchpin characteristics, and they will hire you in a heartbeat. This requires that you’re well-kown. The hard part is getting noticed. The Internet accelerates the “race to the bottom” (outsourcing, standardization, commoditization) and at the same time makes it harder to be remarkable because you have to stand out among a vastly bigger crowd. Seth says you don’t have to be an outlier (probably in the Malcolm Gladwell sense) to become a linchpin, but it seems to me that somehow you do, at least a little bit. Maybe not an outlier in a “global” sense, like a world-famous movie star or musician, but certainly in your local environment.

Linchpin encourages everyone to contribute “art,” saying that it’s the only thing that is hard to commoditize. I wonder if a flooding of the marketplace with “art” won’t commoditize it somehow anyway. Another question in my mind is how today’s megacorporations can become more human, more remarkable? It certainly isn’t going to happen overnight. There’s a lot of inertia in big systems. I suppose the only thing to do is to focus on “art” that’s within your grasp, and slowly build from there.

My own attempt at this (giving things away through this blog) have so far been – how do I put it - interesting. Interesting in the sense that I have given things to people without expecting anything in return, and in specific instances where personal contact was involved, haven’t even gotten back a “thank you.” Maybe what I’m capable of giving away online is not “art” enough. Maybe I have made it too hard to receive.

To me, Linchpin is a perfect specimen of a self-help book, because you really have to do it all yourself. Nobody can help you. Want to make artful gifts, as the book argues linchpins do? You have to figure out what your art is. Want some help figuring it out? Sorry, there is no map (not entirely true; there are seven characteristics a linchpin exhibits, but you still have to figure out how to apply them to yourself or how to develop them). Hesitant to start? That’s your lizard brain holding you back.

 
Proof that it happened. 100024 views.

Daily stats leading up to 100000 views.

  
Weekly stats leading up to 100000 views.

Blog stats all the way from the beginning to 100000 views.

People usually reflect on what got them to 100000 views. I guess for me it’s been my involvement with the community site that is connected with the TouchSmart PC. I’ve posted some things here specifically in response to stuff that happened on the community site. As you can see from the dip above, my blog is not particularly popular just for its own sake. It’s usually when something big happens around a release of TouchSmart that people start looking.

Here’s a list of the top posts in case you are into that kind of stats:

For some reason people like to read about my experience with Crossloop. Whoda thunk?

Anyway, no matter what prompted you to pay a visit – thank you!

And Merry Christmas!

If you see me at PDC, say hi, and I may be able to hand you one of these puppies. I only have a limited supply, though. 15 to be precise.

Check out the pictures:

Front of the card

Back of the card

Back of the card with USB memory stick flipped open/out

Front of the card with USB memory stick flipped open/out

Today HP is announcing a new Software Development Kit for helping you write apps that play well in the HP TouchSmart “shell” environment. The new SDK still contains the general guidelines that outline both what makes a good app that’s optimized for touch interaction and the general rules you have to play by in order to “fit” into the HP TouchSmart shell.

But this time around there’s more: For the first time there is also documentation for a WPF library that you can use to more quickly write an app that heeds all of the rules that need to be followed. This library has actually existed for a few releases already, but it was not documented until now (for HP TouchSmart 3.0).

There are also two sample applications. One that demonstrates the basics of the WPF library (and that shows you what the shell does to the apps on a pretty detailed level – it’s great for seeing what registered messages are sent to the app, how the app gets sized, etc.) and one that’s a little game. To round out things, there’s some skeleton sample app code as well, so you can get started quickly with your app idea.

Here are a few screenshots of the two sample apps:

“Hello world” Wide-interactive tile

“Hello world” Large tile

Notification with CircleX icon

Notification with CircleCheck icon

“Hello Mole” Wide-interactive tile

The documentation is provided in two forms: PDF for easy printing and reading offline as well as in Windows Help format for easy searching and looking at class library details.

You’ll notice that most of this only applies to WPF development. If you’re not using WPF yet (why aren’t you? – it’s a great platform), the general guidelines still apply and work. The shell is actually technology agnostic, since all it cares about, really, is the window (handle) your app produces. As long as your technology stack produces a Win32 window, you can “play”. The essence of that is something I’ve talked about before.

So where can you get this newfangled contraption? Head right over to http://www.touchsmartdevzone.com/download/file/2074-27 to start downloading. There’s still a license agreement in the installer (to make the lawyers happy), but I believe you can now download the thing without having to consent to the agreement first.

(Update 2010-02-05: The “shell” has been updated from 3.0.32.0 to 3.0.35.0 on HP’s support site. I’ve updated the link here as well)

I can’t get into every detail of the upgrade process (how to install Windows 7, drivers, etc.), but I thought I would list the HP TouchSmart software applications that are currently available for download and suggest a good order of installation to you. This is all just interim, personal information until something official is made available.

So what’s currently up there on the HP support site? Here’s the list (as of the time of this post) in the order that would be good to follow when installing (again, this may differ from whatever official guidance may come out later; it’s my personal take on it as of right now):

• HP TouchSmart 3.0 itself (the “shell”/the “foundation”), called the HP TouchSmart Application Update 3.0.35.0 (15 MB)
• Music/Photo/Video 3.0.2.3228 (158 MB)
• Notes 3.0.3462.28879 (19 MB)
• Calendar 3.0.3476.32189 (6 MB)
• RSS 3.00.0006 (5 MB)
• Browser 3.00.0008 (3 MB)
• Clock 3.0.3572.25998 (2 MB)
• DVD 3.0.1.3123, called HP MediaSmart DVD (not sure why) (64 MB)
• Weather 3.00.0001 (3 MB)
• Webcam 3.0.1.1903 (61 MB)
• Netflix 1.0.29.0 (4 MB)
• Hulu 0.9.7 (4 MB)
• Twitter 1.0.3541.23899 (6 MB) (new 2009-11-05)
• Live TV 3.00.1924 (46 MB)

Note that the Live TV application only works with a certain set of TV tuner models. I snagged the links in this post (which may get outdated over time) from the updates page for the IQ527. Since your model may be different, the Live TV app may not work for you. That’s partly why it’s listed last.

So there it is, a refresh to work with Windows 7 for all the original applications that came with the IQ500/800, plus three new ones (Netflix, Hulu and Live TV.) A total of 390 MB of new software. All for just the cost of download bandwidth and your time to install everything.

Direct interaction / tile size: The biggest change is that the top row of tiles is much bigger and wider in 3.0. This enables direct interaction with the content of the tiles, something the 2.x software didn’t allow for most tiles. This means that you can no longer scroll the top row of tiles by just touching them anywhere and then moving your finger. To scroll you have to use either the colored bar at the top of the tile or the semi-transparent border around the tile.

Resource usage: In order to let you better manage resource usage while running the TouchSmart software, tiles that are placed in the bottom row no longer present any live data as they did in 2.x. So if you find little use for all but two tiles, for example, put the ones you don’t use much in the lower row. That way only two apps have to run (each tile corresponds to an app) and the computer will have more resources available for other tasks.

Tile states: TouchSmart 3.0 still has the concept of two app states: the state a tile is in when it’s in the top row (called “wide-interactive”) and the state it’s in when you “launch” it (called “large”). The difference is more academic in 3.0, since you can now interact with tiles whether they’re wide-interactive or large. In 2.x you could only interact with “large” tiles. To “launch” a tile to the large state, you tap on the colored bar or the semi-transparent border around the tile. Tiles in the large state have access to more screen area, and thus may present more functionality in that state than they do in the wide-interactive state (Canvas is a good example of this.)

Speedy scrolling / “throwing”: One of the more fun interactions in TouchSmart 2.x was the ability to “throw” tiles, giving them momentum with a quick flick of your finger, and letting them spin until they came to rest. You could do this in the top row and the bottom row. TouchSmart 3.0 still lets you “throw” tiles, but now there is a beginning and an end to the row; things no longer just spin. That should make it a little easier to find a tile you may be looking for. Also, a “throw” will now take you to the next “set” of tiles and will always center on a tile. If you’re about to go past the end of the row, a snap-back effect will indicate that there are no more tiles in that direction. This snap-back effect is most pronounced in the lower row, since a “throw” there will take you “further”. None of the tutorial videos actually show these “throw” effects, so play around a bit to experience them for yourself. I think they’re fun, anyway.

More apps, more features: TouchSmart 3.0 introduces a whole bunch of new apps: Canvas, Link, Live TV, Netflix, Recipe Box, Twitter and Hulu. You can read much more about these on the HP TouchSmart product page.

Also, the “main” apps (Music/Photo/Video) have been improved substantially, allowing for home network discovery of media files (support for USB/network/Media Server locations) as well as providing access to Pandora and Rhapsody Internet music services.

Personalization: An area that got a major overhaul in the “Shell” application (branded “HP TouchSmart” proper, but really named SmartCenter by the developers) is Personalization. The introduction of the colored bar at the top of each wide-interactive tile enabled bringing in lots more “color”. Let’s take a more in-depth look at the personalization screens:

On this screen (Manage My Tiles) you can pick a tile to customize in the list on the right (hitting a letter on the keyboard takes you around the list quickly). Then you can choose a color for the tile’s bar on the left, using the various buttons or the rainbow color picker (with an optional RGB color input field for access to all colors). You can also delete a tile. If you do that, and the tile was one of the TouchSmart apps, you can get it back via the Create Tile button (pick the button called HP TouchSmart Program).

You can create a new tile using the Create Tile button:

Creating a Windows Program tile looks like this:

You can choose from a list of programs found on your computer (the list is filtered a bit to suppress irrelevant programs) or use the Advanced button to define everything “by hand”:

Here you can name the tile, type in the full path to the executable (exe) and define any command line arguments in the Parameters box. You can also pick an icon (if the exe has a suitable icon you can use it, or you can pick from a list of icons provided by HP TouchSmart.) If you find the list of icons too limiting, you can place icon files of your liking (best to use 256*256 PNG files with transparency) in the folder %LocalAppData%\Hewlett-Packard\TouchSmart\SmartCenter 2.0\Icons and they should get added to the list [This is for all you fellow geeks out there.]

Creating a Website tile is quite similar, except here the list is made up of Favorites from Internet Explorer:

Typing in your own URL (aka website address) also works.

Tapping the Delete button for a tile just brings up a confirmation screen:

If you delete a TouchSmart Program tile, you can recover it later via the Create Tile button by choosing the HP TouchSmart Program button as mentioned above. That will look a little like this:

TouchSmart 3.0 comes with a lot more choices of background pictures as well. You can select one from the Choose Background screen in Personalize (see the three buttons towards the top: Manage My Tiles, Choose Background and – on the far right – About):

You may not have all of these since my screenshots are from a custom install on a test machine. To add your own background pictures to this selection screen, just copy some pictures to the “HP TouchSmart” folder in the Public Pictures folder of Windows 7. Sadly, the ones I managed to get included in 2.x are now gone

The last area of Personalize is the venerable “About” screen. Here you’ll find the version number of the SmartCenter program itself as well as a “build” number (in parentheses, here you see “build” 32):

I hope you enjoyed this little guided tour around the TouchSmart 3.0 “shell” and learned something new in the process!

If you’re a developer and want to know how you can add your own apps to the 3.0 “shell”, stay tuned. More information on that will be coming out soon.

P.S.: Here’s a list of direct links to some more TouchSmart 3.0 tutorial videos:

General
Canvas
Demo
Recipe Box: Overview
Recipe Box: Headset
Recipe Box: Add a recipe
Recipe Box: Voice control
Recipe Box: Troubleshooting
Touch Tips
Live TV: Setup
Live TV: Watch and Record
Video: Make Videos

Not only is more “happy” coming with Windows 7, as Kylie is fond of saying, if you buy an upgrade, it also brings you a lot of “shiny”.

Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Agile Open art by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Conference center stage

Open Space Framework

Theme for 2009, Art by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Marketplace of topics Thursday

 
Marketplace of topics Friday

 
Session art 1 by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Session art 2 by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Session art 3 by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Session art 4 by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Session art 5 by Elizabeth McClellan

 
Session art 6 by Elizabeth McClellan

Conference Center at Fort Mason

Sunset outside Fort Mason

Sunset outside Fort Mason

HP TouchSmart 600 Desktop reviews – CNET Reviews

HP ushers in third wave of TouchSmart desktop all-in-ones  Windows 7 Insider – CNET Reviews

HP TouchSmart tx2, 300, 600 and 9100 get Windows 7 multitouch – SlashGear

HP TouchSmart 600 Desktop Review – PC World

HP TouchSmart 600-1055 PC – At A Glance – Reviews by PC Magazine

HP TouchSmart 600 Review Multitouch Multimedia Mogul – Hp touchsmart 600 review – Gizmodo

Video Demos of New HP TouchSmart Apps, Touch Interface  GottaBeMobile.com

HP TouchSmart 300 and 600 bump the software to the next level, tx2 comes along for the ride

HP TouchSmart 300 and HP TouchSmart 600 Do Twitter and Hulu Out of the Box

HP Adds A Touch Of Genius To The Touchsmart  Voxy.co.nz

HP’s Touchsmart A PC, maybe, but cooler as a TV  Between the Lines  ZDNet.com

HP revamps TouchSmart PCs with Windows 7; starts $899; will you ditch your desktop PC, HDTV The

New HP TouchSmart PCs get touch-enabled Hulu, Netflix and Twitter

PCMag.com:

This third-generation TouchSmart PC is boosted by Windows 7′s gesture support, but HP’s custom multitouch software is even more impressive.

But as with the earlier models, on the TouchSmart 600 it’s HP’s custom software that really shines. Version 3.0 is a significant upgrade, offering touch-friendly versions of Hulu, Netflix, Twitter […]

And the HP apps now multitask, letting you hop back and forth by sliding them around with a fingertip. The interface is responsive, and is the benchmark for upcoming Windows 7 all-in-one PCs from Acer, Asus, Dell, Gateway, and MSI.

 Engadget:

[…], but more important is what HP is doing with its own TouchSmart application. It’s added panes for Hulu, Netflix, Twitter and an HP Music Store powered by Rhapsody, which work in nicely with the rest of the touch-friendly apps onboard and a bit of underlying Microsoft technology keeping things humming — like a nice big handwriting pane for quick Rhapsody searches. There’s also a voice controlled recipe app that can capture recipes from popular recipe sites and read them out loud to you, and the photo app can hook up with a phone over Bluetooth and pull off photos.

Gizmodo:

But to really take advantage of the system, you’ll want to use the TouchSmart interface and the wonderful, custom apps.

The one downfall here is that HP has designed TouchSmart to run all of the bundled apps at once. You’re truly multitasking, and that means stacking HDTV, Hulu, Netflix, photo editing, a browser, Twitter, and even more video playback. The system generally handles itself admirably, but the TV tuning definitely tips the scales on occasion (just watch the video for interface stutters). If I were to use the system as my DVR on a regular basis, I’d probably cut down the fat on HP’s apps and buy myself some resources.

I want to love the TouchSmart 600, but I just really, really like it a lot. The functionality is all there; no one can question the full media suite of apps, like Netflix, Hulu, and Twitter, let alone the full Windows 7 OS sitting right behind HP’s optional software. It’s the light performance hiccups coupled with a less than 100% touch interface that stop me from screaming at the top of my lungs, "YOU SHOULD BUY THIS RIGHT NOW OR GIVE UP ON LIFE COMPLETELY."

CNet.com:

While HP has clearly borrowed from Sony in its wall-mounting and video input capabilities, the software designed for its touch interface is unique and just as compelling.

As promising as we find HP’s new touch programs, Recipe Box in particular, we found the touch interface unresponsive at times, and the main touch software carousel can be slow to load.

Neither Sony nor Gateway have put as much effort into their respective touch software as HP has.

You might also appreciate the numerous video tutorials included with the system to help you navigate the new touch software.

Howtohackstuff.com:

HP continues to put its TouchSmart user interface on top of Windows 7 and it is one of the best I have seen. The new stuff comes in the way of applications; there are now loads of new third party applications, including Hulu, Twitter and Netflix. The interface is as smooth as a baby’s bottom and the main set of tiles fan across the screen and you can easily flick to toggle them. Again, check out the full review of the TouchSmart 600 to get a glimpse of how it really works. HP may just have a method to its touch madness.

Laptopmag.com:

Not only is the touch interface on the refreshed tx2 much better than anything else we’ve used on a notebook, HP is adding cool new apps like Twitter and Hulu, with more to come.

What makes the “new” tx2 stand out is what it does with touch.

Unlike the very limited MediaSmart software HP bundled previously, this machine has HP’s full TouchSmart treatment, which means it has the same slick tile interface and nearly all the same applications. These include photos, music, weather, notes, games, a touch-friendly Web browser, and more. Just like on the desktop, you can move smaller menu items to the main menu by dragging the tiles up, or vice versa.

ChipChick.com:

HP has released two new TouchSmart All-in-one PCs and these latest models come preloaded with an  impressive, and very much improved upon set of built-for-touch applications.

GottaBeMobile.com:

HP’s new all-in-one TouchSmart PCs come with an improved touch interface and some new apps. I really like Recipe Box, an application that organizes all of your online recipes. The application can be controlled with your fingers or through a Bluetooth headset. I rarely cook, but I’d probably be willing to spend more time in the kitchen if I had something like this.

The new TouchSmart PCs have a touch interface that’s a lot more lively than previous versions.

The new TouchSmart PCs come with touch applications for Hulu, Netflix and Twitter. Consumers may have fun with these applications, but I found the business applications HP had on display much more compelling.

Edit [adding more stuff just because]:

CrunchGear:

I will hand it to HP and Sony: their interfaces are gorgeous. The HP interface I saw last week has a number of simple tools – a recipe box, for example, that can take recipes from the web and import them into a private database – as well as the standard stretch’n’drag photo and note-taking applications that make touch actually compelling.

I’m sure there will be more, and there will be more criticism too. Developing software is always about trade-offs, and sometimes customers want other trade-offs to be made; that’s why software is never “done”.

But these first few reviews make me feel it was worth the time, working on the TouchSmart software. And yes, the “shell” that hosts all the various applications is still written in WPF. WPF rocks!

• Create a Windows app using any technology you please (C++, MFC, VB, WPF, Flash, Air, whatever)
• Do not use DirectX exclusive mode
• Make sure the app produces one Win32 window (and only one window) and does this quickly
• Make sure the window has no “chrome” whatsoever (no borders, resize grips, close/minimize/maximize buttons, system menu, etc.)
• Make sure the window can still be resized by WM_SIZE and moved by WM_MOVE messages (and make sure it does so very responsively)
• Make sure the window content is touch friendly

That’s it. If you know how to produce a program that does the above, you’re all set. No need to learn any interfaces, new programming models, technologies, nothing. I’ve actually had partial success at getting apps designed for Windows 1.0 to run inside the HP TouchSmart environment.

Now, if you want to improve on things, here are some more things you could do:

• Make sure you have a black background for your window
• Support the three “layouts”/sizes that HP TouchSmart uses as the user interacts with the UI (small, medium, large)
• Take into account that the user can only interact with your window in large layout/size
• Present something useful/informative in small and medium layout/size
• Provide a beautiful, large icon

And to make it really great:

• Use the notification mechanism that the environment provides (if your app needs to notify the user of anything)
• Use the mechanism for launching IE that the environment provides (if your app needs to put the user in a full web browser experience)

Finally, use the RegisterSmartCenterApp.exe registration mechanism (described in the document linked to above) in the package you deliver for installing your app. You need to do that so program you’ve developed can be integrated into the HP TouchSmart UI.

If you’ve climbed the WPF cliff, the latest version of the HP TouchSmart software (2.8) includes a library that you can use for even closer integration. Leave a comment if you’d like more information about that. I don’t consider that part of the “nutshell”, since it ends up binding you to a specific technology stack.

Sorry about the bad scan quality (it’s from today’s newspaper – yes, dead trees, and yes, I still read newspapers). It says:

80% of Toyotas sold in the last 20 years are still on the road today.

Is it any wonder that it’s hard to make any kind of change on environmental impact? Not just for cars. Think, for example, about the inefficient lighting systems installed in millions of old houses (that aren’t well insulated, have old, inefficient furnaces/air conditioners, etc.). Things like these have a habit of lasting long and they weren’t designed with environmental impact in mind.

With information like this, it’s harder and harder to stay optimistic, wouldn’t you say?

If the user account you’ve created contains the ampersand character (aka. “and” symbol: &), the Notes application can’t save the “sticky” note kind. To-Do list notes are not affected by this problem.

The symptom is that you draw on the sticky note and then tap the Done button. Now the Done button will gray out, but the note won’t be saved and the creation surface won’t disappear. Only a tap on the Cancel button will make the creation surface go away (and without saving the note).

A workaround, if you want to use that Note feature, is to create a new user account that does not contain the ampersand (&) symbol. Renaming the user account is not enough, since the initial creation sets up certain things that can’t be changed later on. (After creating the new account, most of the user data needs to be copied from the old account to the new account so documents, pictures, etc. are available under the new account. For example everything from “c:\users\old&problem” needs to go to “c:\users\new-no-problem”.)

Until a proper fix can be developed and published, this is the only known workaround, unfortunately.

(Someone was cleaning up a bunch of old floppy disks at work. I happened to come across them because I needed a floppy for updating the BIOS of a really old laptop.)

Just an interesting little factoid for your geek trivia…

You may never have heard of ACCU, the Association of C and C++ Users as it was originally called. It is a volunteer organization, consisting of programmers who care about programming. The ACCU publishes two magazines, both devoted to raising the standards of programming everywhere: C Vu and Overload. On top of that they organize a conference every year, where some of the top names in C/C++ programming (and many other software development fields) come to speak and mingle with programmers from all around the globe.

I was introduced to the ACCU several years ago, when I first came to Silicon Valley, and still renew my membership every year, even though I don’t attend the local ACCU-USA events anymore. Yes, there is a local “chapter” of the ACCU in Silicon Valley, and they have monthly events that you can attend for free. I had the good fortune of hearing Bjarne Stroustrup speak once (plus going to dinner with him and the rest of the attendees afterwards, and even getting to exchange a few words with him in private.)

At one time I also co-hosted an event for the ACCU, and I think it is this personal connection that has kept me going as a member, even though I’ve not been much directly involved since. What keeps me hanging on now are the two excellent journals, which are largely ad-free and contain almost nothing but passionately written articles and code samples, demonstrating how to become a better programmer.

If this is something you strive for, I highly recommend checking out the ACCU and encourage you to become a member. Even if you live in the United States or elsewhere outside the UK.

Obviously this is from before I started my current job… One of the benefits of my current job is being able to verify soon after RTM that the Windows 7 bits you can obtain “out there” have not been messed with. Anyway, let’s see how it looks:

There’s no display driver for this system’s ancient ATI Rage Mobility M1, so it runs in standard 800*600. Thus the black frame inside the physical bezel. On to the desktop:

No sound driver, either. I think it’s an ESS Maestro 2 or something. I haven’t really spent a lot of time looking for drivers. This system used a Xircom RBEM56G-100 multifunction Ethernet/Modem CardBus card for network connectivity, and as you can see there’s also no driver for that (“x” over the network icon in the notification area.)

Okay. On to some system specs:

A 450 Mhz Pentium III. 256 MB RAM. Naturally, Windows 7 wouldn’t normally install on something as low end as this, but there are ways around that. They involve making a bootable USB drive, copying the Windows 7 install files onto it and then messing a little with a hex editor and winsetup.dll.

Now the most interesting part: actual performance of the system:

Not too shabby. Only 28 processes and it’s able to run with 256 MB with 87 MB Available. The processor curve looks pretty normal too. Mind you, this thing probably won’t be able to run much else than a browser, but since I didn’t look for network drivers I don’t have Internet access from this system anyway.

Well, there you have it. A really old laptop, running Windows 7. Pretty cool. Great job, Microsoft!

I was going to try this on two other systems I have lying around (collecting dust) as well, but one of them failed with an ACPI Stop error 0x000000A5 (0x0001000B, 0×50434146,…) which, after some digging, turned out to mean that the BIOS on this system didn’t follow the ACPI specs of the FACP table. More digging into the BIOS showed that the length entry in the table (and the table length itself) is supposed to be longer than it is, although it actually is as long as the table entry says. The other system is so old that it doesn’t have the ability to boot from USB, and the CD drive is unable to read CD-R discs, so it’s more trouble than it’s worth. It’s only got a PII 400 MHz and 192 MB RAM, too. That would be really interesting to see running Windows 7.

So, maybe Windows 7 really can breathe new life into old hardware. This may be a little extreme, but anything from within the last five years should probably do just fine. If it follows the ACPI specs and can boot from USB or CD/DVD, that is.

My computer runs backups over night (I use MozyHome), which shouldn’t be a problem, really. But as part of the backup, a volume shadow copy snapshot is made, and this step caused the blue screen error.

In addition to adding a SATA controller, I had also bought a bigger hard drive to hold my ever expanding collection of pictures, vacation videos, etc. When I installed it, I cloned the old drive (which was a PATA drive) to carry all the information forward onto the new drive.

Apparently, after you install a cloned a hard drive, some information is retained on the system about the old drive, and this affects volume shadow copies.

I had to go to Device Manager and turn on “Show hidden devices”:

Then, under Storage Volumes, I had to delete one in particular that seemed to have gotten a corrupted name (something like Generic Volume□□□ [not shown in this screenshot, since it’s fixed now]):

Just for good measure I deleted all of them (although they didn’t seem to really disappear), ignoring the request to reboot after each prompt to do so.

When I was done, a couple of reboots of Windows recreated the necessary information about these volumes from the (old and new) hardware. After that the volume shadow copy snapshots no longer failed and I was able to run my backups without blue screen errors.

Credits for this find go to the folks in this thread: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic94820-2.html

Check out the program page and download the new version.

Now Microsoft has published special early upgrade pricing to entice people to rush out and get Windows 7 “while supplies last”. And they’re at it again. Guess what the upgrade price for Windows 7 Ultimate is:

Yup.

$219.99!

Sorry to shout there. At least this time there’s no promise of “Extras”. Only BitLocker and Language Packs (in addition to the Professional features). Not sure that’s worth $120 over the Professional Upgrade or $170 over Home Premium (even considering XP mode.)

Oh, and you can’t do an edition “downgrade” from Vista to 7. You can buy the upgrade package, but you’ll have to use it to do a “custom install” (i.e. clean install) and then reinstall all your programs and data. Despite that inconvenience, I’ll go for the Home Premium upgrade, thank you very much. I’m done being an Ultimate customer. Or is that Ultimate fool?

(And just for the record, Windows 7 is a fantastic product in my opinion. I hope Paul Thurrott is right when he says it may be the next Windows NT. Unfortunately he also seems to be right about how Microsoft can mess things up with their pricing)

I’m trying to block the IP address range that has been causing this, but I have no idea when my host will unilaterally decide to shut my domain down again (I suppose it isn’t nice of me to turn it back on without telling them, but they didn’t tell me they would shut it down either.) Apparently it is my responsibility to monitor the access logs and detect excessive activity and deal with it. I’m not aware of any tools they provide that help me do so, nor do they provide any kind of alerts that would help me be more responsible (if you can call finding yourself in a situation that you didn’t cause and dealing with it being “more responsible”.)

Of course, they’re in the clear, because the terms of service state that they can do whatever they want if my site causes problems for other customers on the shared web server box.

I’ve contacted Microsoft’s abuse email address and sent them access log “greps” that prove the problem. I’ve also tried to find access logs for other addresses the host claims have caused issues, but those logs seem to have been deleted by now. So now I’ve embarrassed myself with an abuse email to an ISP without having the ability to back up my claim. Nice.

Anyone have any advice on what else I can do?

If you author a type 50 custom action that runs an exe on the system, based on a registry app search in combination with a type 51 action for example, make sure you don’t put quotes around the property that defines the exe path in the type 51 custom action. In other words, don’t author it as “EXEPROPERTY”, but just EXEPROPERTY.

You may think you need the quotes if your exe path has a space in it somewhere, but you don’t.

Now, if your type 50 action uses an ExeCommand and part of that has spaces in it, that usually needs to be quoted.

Looks inconsistent to me, but I guess the ways of the Windows Installer are inscrutable and mystical at times.

My type 50 action actually ended up as 1138 or something because of deferred execution and no impersonation, but basically the same idea applies.

Check out how you can help make sure that our dwindling water reserves last longer:

http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/transparency/web/trans0309walkthisway.html

http://www.good.is/?p=16356

Check out Good’s post on the topic as well (some provoking videos in there).

A recent neighborhood sunset. Points for anyone who can guess where this was taken. Looks different when posted using Windows Live Writer. Wonder why that is?

Part of the meltdown was the ARM mortgage reset:

At the beginning, the income covers the payment. At the reset, the payment becomes bigger (unfortunately), the income is the same and doesn’t cover the payment. Because of higher home value, a loan can be taken out to cover the gap in payment. Over time that loan becomes pure debt. When there is no more of the loan left, the only way out is selling the house. At that point, the value of the house has dropped and is below the amount of the mortgage. In addition there’s now another pile of debt to pay off. The result: great Pain.

I’ve since then learned that someone did a much better job of visualizing the story, using animation and wonderful design. That someone is Jonathan Jarvis, and the illustration is at www.crisisofcredit.com. Worth seeing.

The one thing that I don’t think anybody is shining a light on, however, is this part of my own drawing:

If indeed the whole thing starts with the Global Pool of Money doubling in about six years, and that money was “looking” for a safe return of three to five percent, then isn’t the crisis just as much to blame on what caused the doubling of the Pool? According to the NPR show transcript (PDF)

How’s the world get twice as much money to invest?  Lots of
things happened, but the main headline is all sorts of poor countries became kind of
rich making TVs and selling us oil: China, India, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia. Made a lot
of money and banked it. China, for example, has over a trillion dollars in its central
bank, and there are office buildings in Beijing filled with math geniuses-real math
geniuses-looking for a place to invest it.  And the world was not ready for all this
money. There’s twice as much money looking for investments, but there are not
twice as many good investments.

The keywords here are “making TVs and selling us oil”. TVs of course stand for everything that no longer is made in the U.S.: toys, computers, radios, cars, you name it. So not only did the “highly inventive” American banking system contribute to the collapse, regular consumers actually kicked the whole thing off, in a way, with an enormous appetite for cheap consumer goods. Food for thought, I would say.

I’d like NPR to do a story on that doubling of the global Pool of Money. Would go right with my little bent for “voluntary simplicity”, which I haven’t really written about in a long time. If we all weren’t chasing the dream of bigger – faster – more, maybe we wouldn’t be hurting so much right now. Maybe we’ll learn about the value of “enough”. Check out the links in the sidebar for plenty of reading on the subject of “enough” and “voluntary simplicity”. It’s something I struggle with every day.

I thought I would give a few more details on this update, mostly for developers and other technically minded people.

• The shell is now DPI/screen resolution independent, in other words it should display correctly no matter what DPI and resolution the computer uses.
• Memory usage has been reduced by eliminating two previously needed processes.
• The minimize command line argument now also minimizes a hosted application in large layout.
• In Personalize, an option is now available to pick a background image.

This version reports itself as 2.5.3238.28760 and as version 2.5.312 in Add/Remove Programs.

I’ve included a few photos in the pack that I managed to have included in the Spring 2009 software for the HP TouchSmart PC. They’re in the Personalize – Background area, should you be interested in finding them. Here’s one you may recognize:

While I didn’t put this one in the Theme Pack, I did pick a similar shot of downtown Seattle. Come to think of it, maybe this post will be inspiration for doing a “picture of the day” type of thing. Hmm. Been wanting to do that for a while.

All I can do now is hope the size of the pack (12 MB or so) won’t blow my bandwidth allowance…

Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo

Go get it at www.crayonphysics.com.

Perfect for the HP TouchSmart PC, by the way!

[Shameless plug: Looking for an easy way to comprehensively caption/comment your digital photos? Try Simple Photo Tagger, the fast and efficient solution for working through piles of pictures.]

And let me tell you, it’s a big mess! To illustrate, let me use the WIC query notation for metadata that Microsoft uses and list which program uses what locations to store “caption” (and “select” other) information:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 Organizer
/app1/ifd/{uint=270}
/xmp/dc:description/x-default
/app13/irb/8bimiptc/iptc/Caption

Windows Live Photo Gallery 12.0.1347.718
/xmp/dc:title/x-default

Google Picasa 3.1.0 (build 70.71, 0)
/app13/irb/8bimiptc/iptc/Caption

Microsoft Pro Photo Tools 1.0
Title
/app1/ifd/{uint=270}
/xmp/dc:title/x-default
/app13/irb/8bimiptc/iptc/Object Name

Headline
/xmp/dc:description/x-default
/app13/irb/8bimiptc/iptc/Caption

Adobe Photoshop 7.0.1
Caption
/app1/ifd/{uint=270}
/xmp/dc:description/x-default
/app13/irb/8bimiptc/iptc/Caption

Title
/xmp/dc:title/x-default
/app13/irb/8bimiptc/iptc/Object Name

I actually used Simple Photo Tagger to discover these differences, since it will query most of the above locations and display any that have data “in them”. The ones that don’t have data, will not be shown.

So if you want to make sure that no matter which tool you use to work on your digital photos, they will pick up your caption properly, use Simple Photo Tagger. It will make sure to write your caption to as many locations as the various other tools out there seem to use.

I’ve been looking for a program that will help me work through commenting on thousands of my digital photos. I haven’t found anything that’s focused solely on this one task that I consider essential for adding value to my collection. So, like any developer not finding what he/she wants, I rolled my own.

I’m making the result available to you, in case you’re interested. It’s written in WPF 3.5 SP1, in case you’re curious about such details. I’m looking for testers and feedback, so for a while I’ll waive the nominal charge for a license key.

1. Close down the HP TouchSmart software completely. You may have to go to Personalize – TouchSmart Settings first and uncheck the QuickLaunch option to ensure everything closes down completely. If the QuickLaunch option is checked, the Close button behaves more like a standby function in that it hides the HP TouchSmart UI but keeps things running in the background for faster re-opening.

2. Start Windows Explorer, for example by using the Win+E keyboard hotkey combination, or by using the Vista Start Menu to open the Documents folder.

3. Type %LocalAppData% into the address bar:

(4.) and then press Enter on the keyboard.

5. Now navigate into the Hewlett-Packard folder:

6. Now navigate into the Weather.exe_Url_* folder (the cryptic letters after the _Url_ part will be different on every system, on my system it looks like above):

7. If you have two folders as shown above (particular folder names are not that important), delete the one with the smaller version number. In the above example it would be the 1.0.3106.17497 folder. Alternatively you can rename it to start with anything but a digit.

From now on any setting changes you make in the Weather tile should be remembered properly.

Support claimed I had a “custom” PHP install, which I think is not the case. Anyway, I had to copy the 64 bit PHP CGI binary from their system location to my blog location, update a pointer and now everything is good again.

Apologies all around for going “dark” for a while.

THAT’S WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPENED. Apparently the speech recognition software turned that phrase into a command and proceeded to empty the nine page paper of all content without hesitation. On top of that, the undo feature of Word seemed to not have noticed the command (or been bypassed somehow), so she couldn’t get the document back via undo either!

This all happened while I was in a meeting at work right before lunch. When I got back to my desk I had several panicked voice messages. Luckily, five pages from the day before could be salvaged because my wife had the presence of mind to close the document without saving, which let her recover all but the about four hours of work that had gone in before the disaster struck.

I went home over lunch to see if I could salvage any more. I decided that I needed support from Microsoft. Well, the call with Microsoft Product Support was less than pleasant (as support calls usually are) and didn’t get us the four pages back, either. Best I could tell nobody had ever reported such an issue before.

I’m surprised this glaring problem escaped all testing at Microsoft. One of the cardinal rules of software development was violated in this case: “Never, EVER, lose the user’s data.” I can’t believe there was no prompt to confirm if she really intended to delete everything in response to the phrase “delete document”. I can’t believe there was no undo possible.

I just can’t believe it. Yet, it’s true.

http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=399

The parts for developers are mostly in the first 15 minutes. I have some PDF slides that might illustrate things for people who are just looking for a quick visual and not a whole lot of depth. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll post them here.

This is something we addressed with what we called a “Touch Optimizer” on the IQ770 (our first TouchSmart series). On the IQ500 series we initially left this program out of the factory configuration (the reasons would bore you, trust me.) Now we’ve brought it back as an update that you can get at the HP Support website: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=pv-66423-1&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&os=2100&product=3752240

This utility will increase several “non-client metrics”, as they’re called in Windows developer lingo, to sizes that make things easier to hit with your finger. If I remember correctly, the tool increases scrollbar, close/minimize/maximize buttons and taskbar quicklaunch icon sizes. It also turns on single click for desktop icons so you don’t have to double-tap to launch programs from the desktop anymore.

Until Windows 7 arrives with better integrated touch in the whole OS, try this tool and see if it doesn’t get you 60% of the way there. Maybe even 80%.

So far, a search on Google has yielded few usable results. I hope this post will change that, yielding at least one useful thing.

The Exception message tells you that you’re trying to write data to a property that doesn’t exist in the file. Microsoft has a tool called WICExplorer that can show you the metadata like this:

The above shows an image in WICExplorer directly after coming off of my digital camera. Notice that there is no “XMP Reader” node, which would represent XMP metadata. So if you want to put new XMP metadata into the picture, you need to know two things: how to create a new metadata node and what the correct syntax is for doing so.

What helped me figure those two things out were these pages:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/wpf/thread/8f297b11-99ba-459c-b085-1ff3ae526487/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb643802.aspx

The first one showed how one can create new metadata objects using WIC, the second showed the needed syntax for some of the queries.

So here’s an example of how to create XMP metadata in an image that doesn’t have XMP metadata embedded yet:

   1: string file = "C:\Temp\IMG_1687.JPG";

   2: BitmapCreateOptions createOptions = BitmapCreateOptions.PreservePixelFormat | BitmapCreateOptions.IgnoreColorProfile;

   3: Stream originalFile = File.Open(file, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite)

   4: BitmapDecoder original = BitmapDecoder.Create(originalFile, createOptions, BitmapCacheOption.None);

   5: BitmapMetadata metadata = original.Frames[0].Metadata.Clone() as BitmapMetadata;

   6:  

   7: string q = "/xmp/exif:UserComment/x-default";

   8: if (metadata.ContainsQuery(q))

   9: {

  10:   metadata.SetQuery(q, comment);

  11: }

  12: else

  13: {

  14:   metadata.SetQuery("/xmp/exif:UserComment", new BitmapMetadata("xmpalt"));

  15:   metadata.SetQuery(q, comment);

  16: }

The keys are in line 7, where the initial metadata query is shown and in line 8, where the code tests if the metadata is already present. If not, line 14 shows how to create a new XMP metadata node, which then gets populated in line 15. The writing of the data can be done using a JpegBitmapEncoder according to Robert Wlodarczyk’s blog post (without the InPlaceBitmapMetadataWriter piece.)

After running code like this, you’ll now have the metadata in the file, as shown by this WICExplorer screenshot (I added “App0 Reader” metadata to this image as well):

Hopefully this is useful to some folks out there. Enjoy!

At around 45 minutes in the keynote, Steven mentions UAC and, as far as I can tell, pauses deliberately for a second or two to get an audience reaction. If you weren’t in the room at the time, it’s hard to tell, but there was a collective groan and some chuckling at that point.

I think it’s the closest attempt at trying to apologize for a design blunder I’ve ever seen Microsoft make, albeit without words. I found it to be a brave move for someone like Steven to make, and I wager that it put a more human face on the large, often faceless corporation that is Microsoft. It certainly did for me.

If nothing else it gave me the impression that there is someone at the helm of Windows development who is not afraid of acknowledging when things go wrong and who will try to make up for it. I find that very refreshing.

Go get it at http://www.touchsmartcommunity.com/download/60/HP-TouchSmart-Software-Developer-Guidelines/

There’s a license agreement you need to read and agree to before you download. Please read it carefully.

The document is not what I would call a “proper” SDK, since there are no “header files” or anything of that kind. The nice thing is that our “interface” is at the hWnd level, so pretty much any way you want to write a touch-optimized windows app should be able to work in the HP TouchSmart environment.

One more thing: you need to also download the update to the HP TouchSmart software itself, otherwise you won’t have the ability to “register” your application with the TouchSmart UI. That update is available here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=pv-66420-1&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3752240&os=2100&lang=en

[Edit 2008-11-20: The update was taken down for a while, for fixing an issue that was found after initial release. This is the new link.]

[Edit 2008-12-07: Looks like the link moved once more. Hope it stays for a while now. The SP number is sp40894]

So there you go, have fun writing some apps, and show them off through the community site. No need to wait for Windows 7…

The PDC keynote this morning was amazing to me. It felt like the HP TouchSmart PC was utilized for about half of the entire keynote by Steven Sinofski and Julie Larson Green. Four machines on stage, front and center.

Since the HP TouchSmart doesn’t have VGA out, there was a camera guy up on stage during the demos, which I thought worked out really well, sort of bringing the audience up on stage with Julie.

Naturally, the machines had been wiped clean and had a Windows 7 build with the new taskbar installed (6933, the build on “The Goods” is 6801 and doesn’t have it). NextWindow, the people making the touchscreen, are making a Windows 7 compatible driver available so you can start developing for Windows 7 touch today, using the TouchSmart. Of course, I’d rather you develop something for the HP TouchSmart UI that we’ve created, and you’ll be able to download some documentation for that soon, from the community site TouchSmartCommunity.com.

But I digress.

If you ever doubted that .NET and WPF were ready for “prime time”, doubt no longer. According to Scott Guthrie’s keynote, Visual Studio 2010 will have its user interface migrated to WPF. That almost blew my mind. Microsoft transitioning their bedrock developer tool to WPF – they wouldn’t do that lightly. Here’s a shot of how WPF in VS 2010 will enable useful visualizations and hookup to external tools:

Scott, too used TouchSmart for his keynote:

And Tesco used it for their demo as well:

And the machines that were all covered up tightly in the big room yesterday:

Yup, all TouchSmarts, ready for Multi Touch hands-on-labs:

The Windows 7 booth had one:

The WPF team did too, although I don’t have a picture of it.

The coolest “giveaway” of PDC 2008 has to be the Sensor development kit from the Windows 7 team. It’s got a hardware board from Freescale with a bunch of sensors, accelerometer and LEDs, all powered via USB, and accessible via the new Sensor APIs in Windows 7. Here’s a shot of the booth:

I can’t wait to play with it.

What a day. Not sure it gets much better than that.

Windows Azure (hmm, hard to pronounce for non-U.S. people, wonder if they ever consider things like that). Ozzie was great, knew his material, delivered well! Wonder what they’ll charge once it’s ready. Red shoes on the dev team, nice touch.

Best presentation, HANDS DOWN: Surface! Cool technology, excellent demos, super easy SDK. One word: wow! Sorry, no pics. Sure you can find plenty elsewhere.

Biggest surprise for me on a personal level: Meeting Nathan Dunlap from IdentityMine (Hi, Nathan!). Seeing their components demoed, running on HP TouchSmart, no less: fabulous.

Other HP TouchSmart sightings: DevExpress demoing their wares on TouchSmart too. More sightings to come tomorrow after the Windows 7 keynotes.

Handed out about three handfuls of USB drives with TouchSmart development guidelines (to some that might be an SDK, but it really is just a document with some high level guidelines). In other words: yes, you can write your own programs for HP TouchSmart and yes, this will be available for download some time soon (pending a software update that is needed for the IQ 500 series, IQ 800 series should be good to go as-is). If you’re not at PDC – sorry, you’ll have to wait a little longer to get it. Someone from Microsoft said it was the nicest USB drive he had seen so far.

My OpenSpace session on TouchSmart development happened, sort of. I just didn’t get to talk much with anyone completely new to HP TouchSmart with an interest in developing for it. Was nice to see some familiar faces, though (Hi, Mark, in case you read this!)

Check out my photos on Flickr.

We’ll have two of the HP TouchSmart software developers attending, so if you see them, don’t be shy. Please come and say "hi".

If you do, we’ll have some stuff to share that should make people who have commented on some of my previous posts a little happier, I think. Again, I can’t say any more than that now.

Oh, and we’ll have PDC badges to hand out. Here’s a sample:

We have five different ones, but only a limited supply.

Oh, and we may do an OpenSpace session, although I’m not sure we’d be in "compliance" with the rules. Let’s see.

I’m definitely looking forward to PDC 08!

I’ll be wearing my geek tie (recently "upgraded", too). Hope to see you there!

To tie a bow on it, this is what I did to get things to work in a "WordPress MU subdirectory" configuration: In the wp-config.php file, add a line like this

define(‘COOKIE_DOMAIN’, ”);

In a subdomain configuration it probably won’t work.

This is something that has come back in popularity in my family recently: Boomerang, the audio magazine for kids aged 6-12. It’s a really interesting concept, in that it tries to introduce kids to "big ideas" through all kinds of interesting angles. Here are some of the topics they cover in their productions:

• Natural Wonder (fanciful musings about something in nature)
• Widget and Whack (taking things apart, with a comic slant)
• Money
• Weird Words
• Mystery
• American Journey
• Schmave’s Elevator (stories about the 50′s and 60′s)
• Jokes
• The Count (counting to ten in foreign languages)
• Book Beat (a children’s book author reads from their book)

Each "magazine" is about an Audio CD’s worth long, i.e. about 70 minutes. You can download each issue, buy a bundle at 40% off or subscribe to have a physical CD mailed to you.

There is a weekly podcast available, and you can download and listen to a sample. Give it a try and see how your kids like it. I’m pretty sure they will.

Boomerang, it’s granola for your ears.

It’s a simple experiment to do with your kids when they ask what the gears on a bicycle do. You’ll need:

• A bike with gears
• Sidewalk chalk
• A measuring tape or stick
• Paper for keeping a table of measurements

I started by making a schematic drawing of the two gear assemblies, front and back (we had a 21 speed bike) and numbered them. Then I made a table with a corresponding number of rows and columns and labeled them.

We went out on our low-traffic street after dinner and drew a starting line close to the curb. Next was getting the gears into the first position: smallest wheel in front, largest in back. Then I explained that we would put the front wheel of the bike right on the starting line and make sure the pedal was in its top position (easy to remember). I asked one of my kids to get on the bike and make exactly one whole turn with the pedal, while I held the bike steady during travel (don’t forget the bike helmet!) We then marked how far the front wheel had traveled and labeled the mark with the gear number combination. Now we changed the gear and did the whole thing over until all gears were covered.

During all this it turned out that holding the bike steady was too much work, and we had to be careful not to "coast" without treading the pedal. So I ended up holding the bike myself, turning the pedal while trying to walk alongside, half on my knees. Plus, we had to speed things up because it was beginning to get dark.

Here’s a picture of our markings (from the next morning):

Just by looking at the markings, we could tell that sometimes you can go approximately the same distance with several different gear combinations.

When we were done with all gears and markings, we got out the measuring tape and measured how far each mark was from the starting line. That resulted in the following table:

We then entered this table into a spreadsheet and turned it into a graph:

Sorting by distance, it looks like this:

This is shows that if you want to go smoothly from the lowest speed to the highest, you have to do a lot of shifting. Some steps aren’t doable without shifting both front and back gear, so in essence you won’t be able to go up smoothly.

Anyway, a fun experiment for after dinner or a weekend afternoon.

We bought a JanSport backpack three years ago or so for use at school. A few days ago a buckle broke, so I contacted JanSport via their customer service web page. I explained the situation of the buckle breaking and not having a receipt and asked if that would be a problem if I’d like to have a repair done. I got a very friendly reply by email the day after, telling me the service center would send me a new buckle if I just gave them my shipping address. I replied back with my address, but also talking about how I wasn’t sure how to thread the buckle back on, could they include some instructions, please.

Well, today I got the buckle with a handwritten note, telling me how to put the buckle back. Not only that, but the buckle in the package had two pieces of webbing threaded through, held together with paperclips to show me how to thread properly. Brilliant!

Thank you JanSport for showing that customer service still exists in this day and age of outsourcing and automation!

CNet News.com posted something about how HP is trying to do an "end run" around Windows. The post seems to quote a BusinessWeek article from last Friday (online edition) and I wonder if anyone did any fact checking.

Now, I’m not about to dignify the speculation around what the future may hold, especially with regards to operating systems and "end runs", with a response, but I can’t stand to see factual inaccuracies about past product development, especially since I was personally involved. You could say this is a matter of personal and professional pride (for better or worse.) The post says this:

HP isn’t confirming the report, but had previously been open about the formation of a new group within its Labs that developed the touch-screen technology and special software used in its TouchSmart PC. The software lets users get around certain features of Vista to do certain multimedia tasks more easily.

Just to be clear: The software came out of the group that designed and developed the HP TouchSmart PC, the Consumer PC division, in conjunction with a few outside partners. Also, the software very much builds on top of things in Vista and couldn’t have been done on XP or any previous Microsoft OS. While it may be true that the software does so, it was not purposely built to let "users get around certain Vista features to do certain multimedia tasks more easily". It was built to provide the user an environment optimized for touch interaction, while providing interesting experiences and useful features at the same time (and yes, we can debate both the word interesting and the word useful, as lots of people have already done.)

CNet, did you check your stories and go back to the sources before posting something like this?

regsvr32 "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Live\Photo Gallery\PhotoViewerShim.dll"

This information is brought to you courtesy of winhelponline.com

To make a long story short: Even though I’ve mentioned in the past that it’s a good idea to monitor your hard drive’s SMART status to detect potentially impending doom, sometimes that’s not enough (in my last post on the topic, I replaced a drive based on SMART data.) You also need to look into the Windows Event Log to see if Windows silently is logging read errors (but not telling you in so many words, like “Hey, I can’t read your hard drive. Get a new one before this one goes all disc grinder on you!”)

My new tale involves a drive that didn’t show any signs of bad SMART data, didn’t report any trouble when analyzed with the manufacturer’s tools, but caused trouble anyway. Over the course of several months my main workhorse computer developed an annoying habit of booting slowly, sometimes to the point of freezing up entirely before getting all the little background programs loaded that I’ve amassed over about three years without reinstalling the OS.

I suspected the motherboard to be faulty at first, so I switched that out, with the result that I had to re-activate XP, which was annoying. I thought that had worked, but no, things kept being bad. Then I figured that I’d have to somehow test whether the hard drive controller on the mobo had gone bonkers. Well, since I have two other drives on the same chip, that didn’t seem possible.

Next, I thought “How about doing a benchmark on the hard drives?” So I found this pretty cool free (for personal use) benchmarking program called HD Tune (which, incidentally, also reports SMART data), and guess what – it would sometimes abort the test with a “read error” message. And sometimes the benchmark graphic would look like this:

Believe me, you don’t want it to look like that, blue and yellow all over the place like a shiner! What you want is something more like this:

A nice and steady drop-off in speed (blue) and increase in access time (yellow).

Anyway, the read error prompted me to check the Windows Event Log, and sure enough there were disk read errors quietly reported regularly over the past several months. So I decided it was time for another hard drive replacement. What I learned from that is “meat” enough for another post. Good thing I keep all my data on a physically separate drive (and online at Mozy).

The moral of the story is: “Check your hard drive’s SMART status, but be suspicious anyway!”

The TouchSmart Has Improved–But Not Enough

I’m surprised at how relatively positive the article is. Thanks Mr. Mossberg!

I’d like to write a little about things that may not be well known yet. Yes, there is actually limited “dual-touch” in the new software. You can resize the upper row of “tiles” using two fingers. You can scroll using two fingers once you’ve gone into the “Browser”. Due to how the touch screen works you need to make sure your fingers are a certain distance apart to get it to work right. It’s “limited” dual-touch because of the natural laws of time and resource constraints on the development team: we ran out of time to do more.

Oh, and nowhere in the HP TouchSmart software do you need to “double tap”/”double click”. If a single tap doesn’t do it, the touch screen saw too much movement of your finger during the tap and turned it into a move action instead. That’s the challenge with using optical technology that sweeps just above the glass. It sees your finger a little before you actually touch the screen. (Think Vincent Cassell in “Ocean’s Twelve” or Catherine Zeta-Jones in “Entrapment”)

We’ve had feedback from users in the past, asking for tutorials around the software. I’m personally really happy that we managed to put two tutorials on the system for this new incarnation of HP TouchSmart. And they are available right from the lower row of “tiles”. Here’s a small taste of how the tutorials were created:

As you may be able to see, there’s a lot of work that goes into even such a small thing as creating tutorial videos. I certainly had no idea how involved the process is before I had the chance to help out with the production in a (very) small way. I feel lucky to have worked with and met so many great people. You can find the tutorials here, starting with the basic one in English.

For those of you who read this blog because of the WPF topics I’ve touched on in the past: yes, central parts of the software were created using WPF. I don’t mean to be a fanboy, but I’ve said it in the past, WPF is powerful stuff. The ability to have separate people working on styling the software while other people work on “business logic” is incredibly valuable. At the end you get full visual fidelity of the design for virtually no added work.

Before I close (and this gets much longer), let me put a question out there for software developers. If it were possible to write software that could end up as “tiles” in the TouchSmart software, would that be interesting to you? If not, why not? Don’t take this question as any indication or promise of what the future may hold. I’m just curious about your opinion. Comment away, please.

And for those of you who just stumbled upon this by chance (or dug through the sea of noise out there) and are curious about certain aspects of the new HP TouchSmart PC or the software, I’ll try to answer questions within certain limits in the comments as well.

The rest of this post is mostly a collection of links I gathered on the day of the announcement, with a little added commentary for myself. What a splash!

HP TouchSmart PC gets slick upgrade (Slashgear, Promo pics)

HP TouchSmart- bringing touch to the iMac form (jkOnTheRun, Promo pics)

HP TouchSmart PC gets refreshed, unboxed (Gearlive, unboxing [http://www.gearlive.com/gallery/category/C67])

HP’s TouchSmart 2 in the wild (Engadget, Promo pics link)

HP Touchsmart IQ506 Brings New Interface, Bigger Screen (Gizmodo, tutorial video embedded, press blurb)

Preview- HP TouchSmart IQ500 Series PC (Hardwarezone Australia, prototype pics, specs)

HP updates TouchSmart with TouchSmart IQ504 and IQ506 PC (Krunker, promo pics, iMac comparison quote)

HP Touchsmart IQ506 and 504 Touch PC (Techfresh, promo pic)

HP launches TouchSmart all-in-one PCs (TechChee, promo pic)

HP Touchsmart IQ506 and 504 Touch PC (HawtGadgets, promo pic)

HP TouchSmart IQ500 hands on PC (Five.TV, promo pic)

HP Launches new touch-screen PC (Nudjit.com, Stage pic, embedded tutorial video, showing the precise touch action needed to avoid accidental “moves”)

HP TouchSmart update tackles iMac, Gateway (electronista, Promo pics)

http://www.kickstartnews.com/2008/06/hp-announce-new-pcs-and-laptops.html (Promo pic)

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2008/080610xb.html?mtxs=rss-corp-news (HP press release)

http://blogs.msdn.com/mthree/archive/2008/06/10/touchsmart-2-061008.aspx (MSDN, Promo pics, link to PC Mag article)

http://hpcorp.feedroom.com/?fr_story=1a61d0307fcbf0b5a167dd7e419f65b157125a75&rf=rss (HP video site, fingerprints video)

HP Connecting Your World Keynote – Live (Gizmonews, LiveBlog from the Berlin event, lots of stage pics)

http://blogs.yankeegroup.com/2008/06/10/hp-wants-to-be-touched-but-not-groped/ (Promo pic)

http://vantan.org/archives/2008/06/hp_launches_tou.php (Vanessa Tan, lots of Berlin stage pics, one YouTube video)

http://site-designer.blogspot.com/2008/06/news-hp-targets-wider-market-with-new.html (Mostly a press release rehash)

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9963859-1.html?part=rss&subj=Crave (Crave, Promo pics)

http://techdigest.tv/2008/06/hp_unveils_touc.html (One promo pic)

http://hdtvprofessor.com/HDTVAlmanac/?p=705 (Promo pic)

http://stuff.tv/News/HP-slims-down-Touchsmart-allinone/10203/ (One promo pic)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9964073-7.html?part=rss&subj=news (One promo pic, link to gallery of all HP products launched)

http://xzx.g8online.net/2008/06/10/wow-hp-touchsmart-to-redefine-home-computing/ (Promo pics)

http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2008/06/10/hp-touchsmart-pc-causes-finger-frenzy/ (Small promo pic)

http://www.gadgetusers.com/hp-touchsmart-iq506-and-504-touch-pc/ (Promo pic, link to ubergizmo gallery of promo pics)

http://www.livemint.com/2008/06/10142732/HP-targets-wider-market-with-n.html (Mostly press release)

http://www.lowyat.net/v2/latest/touchsmart-to-redefine-home-computing.html (Promo pics, seems there’s no original content here)

http://gadgetsaddict.com/hp-touchsmart-pcs/ (Promo pics)

http://www.blog4it.com/index.php/hp-brings-touchscreen-to-pc.html (no pics, very short)

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2319417,00.asp (One small promo pic)

http://www.gottabemobile.com/Introducing+The+New+HP+TouchSmart.aspx (One pic)

http://news.cnet.com/2300-1042_3-6241247-3.html?tag=ne.gall.pg (Picture)

http://news.cnet.com/2300-1042_3-6241247-4.html?tag=ne.gall.pg (Picture)

http://blip.tv/file/979499/ (Richard Walker demo)

http://blip.tv/file/979518/ (Joan Jett ad)

http://blip.tv/file/979452/ (I could defend the problems you see in this video with operating the touch screen, but I think that would be futile, so I’ll just leave it. Trust me when I say it takes a little getting used to, but it works pretty well after that. We did lots of usability studies on this puppy.)

http://www.tweakup.dk/readmore/11757/ (In Danish)

http://www.sickofgadgets.com/hp-launches-touchsmart-all-in-one-pcs/ (One promo pic)

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/ian/archive/2008/06/10/video-of-hp-s-new-touchsmart-system.aspx (Promo pics, good quality video of Richard Walker demoing)

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/ian/archive/2008/06/10/hp-connecting-your-world-keynote-from-berlin.aspx (Voodoo, event pics)

http://www.notebooks.com/2008/06/10/hp-touchsmart-why-cant-i-have-this-interface-on-my-tablet/ (Seems to be down temporarily)

http://venturebeat.com/2008/06/10/hp-launches-50-plus-consumer-products-in-berlin/ (Promo pics)

http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208403180&subSection=All+Stories (No pics)

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/06/10/hp-touchscreen-pc-tech-pers-cx_bc_0609techhp.html (No pics, but look at the headline. Wow.)

http://blog.laptopmag.com/hp-wants-to-bring-multi-touch-to-notebooks (One promo pic, discussion of software for laptops)

I’ve noticed that a few bloggers have been invited to the event, which I think is pretty cool. There’s Sierra Modro from gottabemobile and Ian Dixon from thedigitallifestyle.

When you look at the agenda for June 10 on the event page, you’ll get a hint at what will be shown. It’s pretty darn cool, even if I have to say so myself, but I think you’ll agree. I hope the main page will be updated with live videos and such, like it claims. There’s also a blog (by Waggener Edstrom it seems), a Twitter stream and an RSS feed. Seeing all this for the first time as I dig into it, I wonder why there doesn’t seem to be more buzz around this whole thing. Still too buried I guess.

I’m a little sad that I’m not going, but personal plans got in the way. My boss and a colleague are there, though. The breakout session poll is also a little disappointing right now, with the “HP: A Touch Different” session lagging the field at around 15 – 16 %, far behind “The Evolution of the Mobile Lifestyle” with 30%. I don’t think there have been too many votes, though, since my one vote moved the session from 15 to 16 % just now. (Actually, as I’m writing this, the poll for Touch moved to 23%, and now 29%, now 46%, what’s going on there? Maybe someone is gaming it?)

And just for the record, before everyone starts speculating, Microsoft had no involvement whatsoever in what we came up with this time around, for better or worse.

Oh, and I think there’ll be at least one VERY interesting mobile product shown as well (via fredshouse and eBay), but that’s just speculation on my part:

Guess we’ll have to share the stage…

Anyway, this is really just a post to test whether my hosting company has the right stuff in place to allow scheduled posting, so I can queue up posts and have them show up when I mean to (and not a minute sooner). Sorry to bore you with this one. Move along, nothing to see here, move along.

It would have been nice if they had updated the website with this information. That could have saved us burning all that gas, just to turn around and go back home.

If you’re going, my guess is you should arrive right when the doors open in order to get a spot.

Or even better: take public transportation.

One side benefit for the local economy from this somewhat “wasted” trip: we spent some money at a local German butcher on the way home. Mmm. Delicious German sausages!

—

One of the really unsettling events before the launch of the TouchSmart PC was that Engadget somehow got a hold of some pictures that had been prepared for the launch in early 2007 at the Consumer Electronics Show. It was billed in the first sentence as “AMD’s sweet new rig”, which was a little bit of a slap in the face, since most of the real work fell outside of AMDs realm. I remember the team meeting when our program manager came in and told us about the “leak”. He had heard it from Microsoft just a few moments before joining the meeting. The mood in the room instantly turned. People started feeling both mad at the leaked information (and the leaker) and depressed about the potential impact this would have on our launch at CES. Microsoft especially was disappointed, since the TouchSmart PC represented a big investment on their part, carrying some of the Vista messaging. The TouchSmart PC was to be billed as one of a few “dream” PCs at CES. Having gone through an experience like that, I now always think about how the people involved must feel when I see “leaked” information about upcoming products. It’s not fun to have it happen to you.

On a happier note, the TouchSmart PC seemed to make quite a splash at CES. At the last minute I was asked to attend the show to help with technical support on the show floor. This was my first time attending CES and going to Las Vegas, and I quite enjoyed the experience. I ran into quite a few of the people that had worked with us on the project, and it was fun to see the crowds milling about the TouchSmart PCs at the HP and Microsoft booths. Having backstage access was a unique thing, but it involved a lot of walking around, helping the people doing demos by making sure the software was installed properly.

Since then, the HP TouchSmart PC has received numerous awards (including spot number seven on PC World’s list of most innovative products of 2007) and for a short while even had a fan website, the HP TouchSmart Owner’s Club.

—

This is the tentative end of the series. If you’re curious about other aspects, let me know, and if I can talk about it, I’ll see if I can accommodate your curiosity.

—

The guiding principles for HP SmartCenter and the other touch-optimized applications were to provide quick, “transactional” experiences, to have the applications be as intuitive as possible to use, and have them look polished and clean. HP SmartCenter was to be the “home page” for touch-based interactions with the PC. It had to easily give the user access to key Media Center experiences (TV, music, games) as well as two other touch-optimized programs HP was developing (HP SmartCalendar and HP Photosmart Touch). Finally the user had to have the ability to add access to a certain number of programs of their choice.

To enable some of the quick, “transactional” experiences using a touch screen, HP SmartCenter had to have large “target” areas that are easy to hit using a finger. This requirement helped making decisions about the layout of the “tiles” that the user touches to “launch” something.

We wanted to highlight a few of the key features of the TouchSmart suite of software. We decided that three tiles would be larger than the remaining ones, and that those three would be able to show more details from the underlying program than the smaller tiles. The calendar tile, for example, will pull three upcoming events out of the calendar program and display key information about those events right within the calendar tile. The Photosmart Touch tile will look for pictures in the My Pictures folder and display five of those in a rotation. The weather tile will display high and low temperatures expected for the day as well as the current temperature as reported by the weather service. The analog and digital clock tiles will display two additional clocks (probably configured for different time zones) in text form, in addition to the main clock, which is shown in a larger, graphical look.

The three user configurable tiles would be able to either start a program on the system or a web page, using Internet Explorer. We settled on only having three configurable items, since there was an overall limit in the graphical design at nine small tiles plus three large tiles, and we wanted to encourage people to stick with tiles that didn’t take you out of a touch-optimized / touch oriented environment.

Beyond picking a software development technology (WPF), our other challenges were the many changes in both Windows Vista and WPF as both matured. WPF introduced “breaking changes” several times in our short cycle, and we discovered numerous problems with the integration of WPF and Windows Media Center. We worked closely with Microsoft to get these addressed. But a few problems remained, one of which is that every time you start one of the programs we developed, the computer screen will go black for a few seconds. It gives you the unsettling feeling that something went wrong, but it’s actually a consequence of the interactions between certain software components that are controlling the graphics card (DirectX, WPF and Media Center). As much as we didn’t like it, we were out of time to address these problems by the time our shipping date came.

—

That’s a wrap for part 3. Next time you’ll hear about the reactions from the team when information about the TouchSmart PC was leaked to Engadget way before the actual launch event, and I’ll also talk a little about the launch at CES 2007.

Update (2008-04-30): Part four is now posted.

—

I hacked together a very simple first version of HP SmartCenter (then codenamed LaunchPad, which still is the name of the executable, incidentally) in HTML and my colleague Maguy added some rough graphical elements to give our design firm an idea of what we were looking for.

My quick HTML mockup

Improved graphics

From about February 2006 until April 2006 we then iterated with our design firm on the GUI and user experience design. Towards the end of May 2006 we took final delivery of the work from them. I was to turn their beautiful work into a living application with page navigation, drag-and-drop functionality, configuration options, and settings persistence. They had provided a solid foundation to build on, including well thought out namespaces, classes, animations and navigation design.

But there was still a lot of work to be done during the next three to four months. In addition to the application itself I was also responsible for delivering an installer, a supporting “touch optimization” program, and integration with our factory PC build process, including dealing with the “sealing” process that prepares the master hard drive for replication.

We participated in Microsoft’s early adopter program for Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Vista, which gave us access to builds of the WPF bits, with a seemingly never-ending stream of Community Technology Preview versions. Windows Vista was in a similar state of flux, and I had my hands full, wiping out and reinstalling test machines and updating my developer machine to keep up with the changes.

At the same time I climbed the learning curve for WPF (which Simon Middlemiss once described as more of a cliff), trying to figure out how to get the mostly fixed-content XAML pages that the design company had delivered turned into malleable components and re-configurable layouts.

The initial design from the outside company included two components that pull information from the web: weather and stocks. We had to drop the stocks piece for business reasons early on, and had big challenges working out the business issues for the weather feed integration. We wanted our own high-quality images to illustrate the weather conditions and had to get approval from the owner of the feed data. I thought several times that the weather feature was dead, but stubbornness overcame pessimism, and we pulled all the right people from several companies together to get our images approved within 24 hours before the final code submittal deadline. I remember pulling a work-at-home weekend to fine-tune the weather feature where I had to stop working because I was hit with the flu. I was out for three days. After something like that happens you don’t give up a feature without a fight.

One benefit of being part of the early adopter program for WPF and Vista was that Microsoft arranged for training and troubleshooting sessions. I made two trips to Redmond under this program, once to get more in-depth training on WPF and Vista, and once to get help with troubleshooting performance issues we had run into. That’s when I learned that there is such a thing as a “managed memory leak“, which can be introduced in WPF without the programmer necessarily realizing it. Towards the end of the program three of my colleagues and I got to spend a couple of days with Microsoft again, this time at their Platform Adoption lab (Building 20), going over some last minute design and performance questions with their WPF developers one-on-one. This especially helped with getting HP Photosmart Touch into better shape for final release. We got a lot of tips and strategies for dealing with images, collections and containers in these sessions.

—

That’s it for part 2. Next time I’ll dig a little more into the guiding principles that were used for the implementation of HP SmartCenter, as well as some of the challenges and problems I encountered on the way.

Update (2008-04-30): Parts three and four are now posted.

My involvement with the HP TouchSmart PC began in about December of 2005. The decision was made to invest in software that would be best suited for the touchscreen that the unit would have. One of the results is HP SmartCenter as seen here (screenshot from my developer machine, not necessarily representative of the final product):

We had tight deadlines. Our final bits would be due in about six months, around June / July 2006. Our product marketing folks decided they wanted the touch application to provide quick access to TV and music as primary features. Windows Media Center was our software of choice for delivering TV and music experiences, and so we made HP SmartCenter run within Windows Media Center. This helped to avoid waiting for Media Center to start up when the user wants to watch TV or listen to music. In other areas the choice created lots of challenges. The initial one was picking a software development technology.

I had just attended PDC05 and was pretty excited about Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and the speed I could sense it would give developers and designers for rapidly creating exciting software. I had learned that Media Center in Windows Vista would support WPF, and my recommendation to use it for our apps to make the deadlines while delivering a polished user interface was accepted.

An interface developed in HTML would not have had the same quality (read: look-and-feel). Using the Media Center Markup Language (MCML / SplashFX) was not an option, since that was not going to be revealed in any useful detail until about March 2006, way too late for us to learn how to use it and produce a product.

At PDC05, it had been mentioned that a well-know design company had worked on some XAML styles for the show. We approached them to help out with the application design and asked them to deliver their stuff as working XAML / WPF code. They were pretty excited about the idea and signed on.

—

That’s it for now. Check back soon for the next installment of this mini-series, where I’ll show you a few screenshots of very early prototypes.

Update (2008-04-30): Parts two, three and four are now posted.

Anyway, he performed a song I hadn’t heard before (although it’s over a year old by now). It’s a commentary on the state of elementary education in the U.S., and it hits the nail right on the head, if you ask me.

Check it out at www.tomchapin.com (to download and pass along) or watch the video below:

Anyway, here are a few pictures of a kind of unboxing. It’s really more of a series of pictures of the packaging/parts, since I had already unboxed the thing by the time I took these.

Simple cardboard packaging and plastic bags for protection

All parts arranged on the open box

Front of welcome brochure and power brick

The OLPC itself with the two random color elements that make it “unique”

Back of the OLPC, with battery removed

Battery and welcome letter

Inside of welcome brochure

Back of welcome brochure

The battery actually came mostly charged, which was a nice surprise. Turning the laptop on for the first time took me through a simple naming step and then right to the “hub”/home screen. It took a while to get there, but it was really, really simple. No series of screens that ask for all kinds of information, like on regular PCs.

My initial exploration of the software took me around to the Journal, Webcam app (called Recorder), Paint, Measure (seemed to enable you to analyze / show the sound from the microphone), wireless setup, Browser and a few other things. Looks very interesting so far.

Both my kids have expressed interest in fiddling with it. Should be a lot of fun.

If, for example, you have a home network server with a caching proxy feature, try turning the proxy feature off. That helped me with MediaError(1400) problems, anyway.

If your ISP has a caching proxy, see if there’s a way around it, too. It may be a source of problems.

Unfortunately I’ve been so swamped with work (really exciting new stuff, too) that I haven’t been able to prepare at all. In other words I still have no idea about what sessions to go to. Argh. To add to that frustration, the SD West website doesn’t make it really easy to plan your days for maximum efficiency. Double Argh.

Here’s how I like to plan my attendance: I have an idea at a high level about what kind of sessions I’d like to focus on (in my case .NET and People, Process & Methods mostly). So I need to be able to filter all sessions by those high-level criteria. Next, I need to figure out which sessions in those high level tracks are available at what time and how they may conflict relative to how interesting they sound to me.

The information provided on the SD West website provides some ability to filter and search for sessions, but it doesn’t help you with detailed planning.

So I decided to spend a little time pulling down all sessions as an Excel sheet (which the site allows, thank goodness), and started to shape and mold the sheet to my needs. The result is available for you to use as well, in case you’re as late as I am: sdwest08_all.xlsx (update: rename this file to have an .xlsx suffix after downloading, WordPress changed the extension on me).
(I think I have all sessions in there, but I noticed that one session seemed to not be fully downloaded (a session with quotes in the description), so I added it back by hand. Maybe there are others missing too, but I think that was the only one.)

You’ll see all sessions sorted by time, color coded by time slot/event type (keynotes, birds-of-a-feather), color coded by track, and with filters on each column. I also added a priority column at the beginning to perhaps help making decisions if you change your mind while at the event.

And, yes, I will most likely be wearing my Geek Tie at the event (it has a Red Verbatim Store’n'Go USB memory stick and a gray CaseLogic case at the end).

If your computer has performance problems and you can’t quite explain why (you’ve ruled out startup items, spyware and such ilk), it may be worth looking at how your IDE controller manages hard drive data transfer. It should be using (U)DMA, unless your computer and hard drive is from the stone ages.

To check, go to Control Panel – System:

Click Device Manager and expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers node:

Now double-click on a Primary or Secondary IDE Channel and go to the Advanced Settings tab:

If the Transfer Mode combo box doesn’t say “DMA if available”, you can change it, then restart the computer. That should switch Current Transfer Mode to (Ultra) DMA Mode (X) if your drive supports it, which it should.

But what if Current Transfer Mode doesn’t say (Ultra) DMA Mode (X) after that? What if it stays in PIO mode no matter what you set the Transfer Mode to and no matter how many times you restart? That’s what happened to my system. And it was slow as molasses starting up, since my boot/system drive was in that mode.

It turns out that Windows keeps track of the transfer statistics between your drive and the rest of the system. If Windows encounters a lot of transfer errors, it slowly dials the transfer mode back. So it can go from Ultra DMA Mode 5, to Mode 4, Mode 3, etc. all the way back to PIO mode. If Windows encounters DMA transfer timeouts, it will immediately go back to PIO mode. According to this support article on Seagate’s web site, those errors will be logged in the Windows Event Log, but I guess it happened so long ago on my system that the entries have been lost in the meantime.

According to the same Seagate article, the solution is to delete the corresponding IDE Channel device from Device Manager, restart Windows, let the system re-detect the device, reinstall the driver and restart one more time. Now DMA transfer mode should be back, and your system should perform much better.

You still might want to investigate why the mode got switched back to PIO. Look through the event log using Event Viewer, filtering by Event source type “disk”. Also, check the ribbon cable you use to connect the hard drives. It may have come loose, or it may not be of the right kind (it has to have 80 conductors, not 40) or quality. Using ribbon cables with too many hard drive changes can cause loose/broken connections between the connector pins and the cable.

After this exercise I installed SpeedFan on my main machine as well, and found that I have another hard drive that’s not too healthy. So I may have to go out and get another replacement soon.

I also found a monitoring tool called ActiveSmart, which costs money (unlike SpeedFan, which is free), and can alert you via email or network messages when a drive is beginning to deteriorate.

While I’m on the subject of hard drives, another handy tool is DTemp, which shows you the temperature of your hard drives in the Windows notification area (and can show S.M.A.R.T. data, too). Keeping the temperature of your hard drives as low as possible is important to make them perform optimally and make them last as long as possible.

I was at the local Fry’s yesterday, buying a new hard drive to replace one that’s about to go bad, and on my way out I stopped by the magazine racks. Imagine my surprise when I saw this on the cover:

How cool to see the product you worked on so intensely be recognized with a magazine cover photo! If you look closely, you can even see one of my photos to the left of the big red circle in the little photo stack.

I’m still pinching myself a little just to make sure it’s not a dream.

The HP TouchSmart PC came in at number 7 on the top 25 innovative products. Not too shabby, I think. And I’m glad to see that the OLPC took third place ahead of it. I’m still waiting for the OLPC I’m supposed to get with my give-one-get-one donation, but I hear it will come any day now.

Here are some more pictures from the magazine:

[Update 2 2008-11-29: I think I may have found a package that solves my particular problem. I've put the computer to sleep several times now, and each time sound came back properly after waking it up again. The thing that seems to have done it is something called a UAA Bus driver. I got it directly from the HP FTP site here: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33501-34000/sp33867.exe There's also an article around the SP file here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericSoftwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=ob-47284-1&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en. I'm not sure this will help your situation, but it helped mine (so far, keeping my fingers crossed, maybe I'll run into other issues with it.) The article says it's for XP, but it seems to have worked on Vista SP1 as well.]

[Update 2008-11-29: I've looked around a bit more. The chipset used in the HP laptop is of the "Waikiki" Conexant HD audio variety, according to this forum post. Apparently there is an online petition, asking for HP  to release an appropriate driver, since some of the notebooks that use this chipset were marketed as "Vista Capable". The "Venice" chipset variant, apparently, is covered by updated drivers.]

[Update 2008-07-24: This is now one of the most popular posts on my blog. Seems to me that a lot of people are having issues like this. Unfortunately there only seems to be a solution for Sony systems; look through the comments to see it .]

I have a laptop that has an issue with properly restarting the sound subsystem after Vista resumes from sleep. Microsoft brought out a hotfix about 6 months ago that supposedly fixed issues like this. On my system, the problem persists, even after installing Service Pack 1! I let the computer go to sleep, and when I wake it up again, there’s no sound. The sound device is listed in Device Manager as “High Definition Audio Device” and has the following Hardware IDs:

HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_14F1&DEV_5047&SUBSYS_103C30A5&REV_1000
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_14F1&DEV_5047&SUBSYS_103C30A5

I’ve tried just restarting the sound services (as admin: net stop “Windows Audio”, net stop “Windows Audio Endpoint Builder”, net start “Windows Audio Endpoint Builder”, net start “Windows Audio”), but that doesn’t work. Restarting the computer works, obviously, but is too slow to be a proper solution.

One thing I can to do to get sound back without restarting is remove the “High Definition Audio Device” from Device Manager and then Scan for Harware Changes. But it’s still annoying to have to do this. Since there’s no crash involved (no Windows Error Reporting possible) and no “yellow bangs” in Device Manager, I’m not sure how I would report this to Microsoft. They probably wouldn’t do anything about it anyway. They’d say it’s a driver issue. Talk to the driver vendor. Nice idea. Trouble is the laptop is older (it scores a 3.2 Windows Experience Index, not half bad) , and the vendor probably won’t bring out Vista drivers for it. So it looks like I’m stuck with a broken package.

Maybe a kind soul (at Microsoft?) will read this at some point and get in touch to help me troubleshoot the issue.

Oh well. Feels good to get it off my chest, though.

Microsoft undoubtedly knew they could never afford to release a Server version in the state the code was in at Vista release. Corporations running mission critical things on Server would never adopt anything not rock solid. So Microsoft took the time they should have put into the “Client” version to finish things off properly for Server. Hindsight 20/20 and all that.

What can be expected of Windows “7″ after this? My guess is Microsoft will cave to market pressure again and release something not quite ready for the consumer market. With Vista, part of the reason for releasing too early was that Windows XP seemed to be getting too old. For Windows “7″ part of the reason will likely be a perceived need to catch up with Apple’s OS X.

With Vista, Microsoft was incredibly open about providing early builds to lots of people in order to get the quality right. And yet it wasn’t enough. It also seems that the biggest “achievement” that came from the openness was that people weren’t much impressed when the final product came out. In my view that’s a bit of a shame, because there are lots of truly great innovations in Vista (one of which is WPF). Microsoft will probably be more tight-lipped about Windows “7″ as a result. They might take a more Apple-like approach and keep things secret until the last minute. Surprise the world when they release Vista’s successor.

The problem is that Microsoft doesn’t seem to understand what it is about Apple’s offer that makes it so compelling. It’s not OS X. It’s not iLife or iWork. It’s how it’s all wrapped up in an end-to-end package. Beautiful, well performing hardware; good OS; good everyday software with features that people find useable and useful, integrated with revenue generating .Mac Internet services. And all because Apple has control of the entire chain, from hardware to software and services. Heck, they even control the retail experience.

Microsoft doesn’t have an answer for that. They play a different game. They play in many arenas and with many, many different partners. The ecosystem Microsoft provides the basis for is much, much bigger than Apple’s. Microsoft can never be Apple. And I don’t think they should even try to be.

I’m hoping that Microsoft will not cave in to market pressure but chart their own course for Windows “7″. Perhaps kick off work for another “NT” project (from the Dave Cutler/NT 3.x days) and focus on creating an operating system that is focused on the total consumer experience. Throw away all backwards compatibility in the consumer market, if needed (ironically, sort of like Apple did for OS X.) Provide backwards compatibility through virtualization or by keeping a separate line for corporate mission-critical applications. But mainly chart a course that doesn’t look too much at Apple or Linux or anything else, but follows new visions for what can be done with software running on ever more capable hardware. They have enough smart people to lead the way. There’s no need to follow anyone.

Anyway, if you’re having trouble with .NET 3.5 on Vista x64, try uninstalling the KB110806 update. I’m going to assume you know where to do that if you’re reading this.

A Triggers’ EnterActions or ExitActions don’t seem to get fired when a UserControl is constructed. If you want, say, an animation in your control to start on a property change, you can put a BeginStoryboard element into a Trigger’s EnterActions and a reverse BeginStoryboard into the ExitActions.

But for the control to start out right at initialization you also need to have the right Setter element on the Trigger to set initial states (in addition to setting the opposite initial states on the elements to be animated/initialized.)

Here’s a tiny example:

 1 <UserControl> <!-- Namespaces omitted for brevity --> 
 2   <Grid> 
 3     <ToggleButton x:Name="Toggle"> 
 4       <ToggleButton.Template> 
 5         <ControlTemplate TargetType="{x:Type ToggleButton}"> 
 6           <Grid> 
 7             <!-- Initial opacity is 1 for the initially unchecked ToggleButton state. A trigger changes it to 0 for an initial checked state. --> 
 8             <Grid x:Name="HideMe" Opacity="1"> 
 9               <TextBlock Text="Hidden"/> 
10             </Grid> 
11             <!-- Other parts of the control go here --> 
12           </Grid> 
13           <ControlTemplate.Triggers> 
14             <Trigger Property="ToggleButton.IsChecked" Value="True"> 
15               <!-- This setter hides the desired element when the ToggleButton's initial state is checked --> 
16               <Setter TargetName="HideMe" Property="Opacity" Value="0"/> 
17               <Trigger.EnterActions> 
18                 <BeginStoryboard> 
19                   <Storyboard> 
20                     <DoubleAnimation BeginTime="00:00:00" Duration="00:00:00.05" Storyboard.TargetName="HideMe" Storyboard.TargetProperty="(UIElement.Opacity)" To="0" /> 
21                   </Storyboard> 
22                 </BeginStoryboard> 
23               </Trigger.EnterActions> 
24               <!-- ExitActions go here to make the Grid with the TextBlock visible again --> 
25             </Trigger> 
26           </ControlTemplate.Triggers> 
27         </ControlTemplate> 
28       </ToggleButton.Template> 
29     </ToggleButton> 
30   </Grid> 
31 </UserControl>

The ToggleButton contains a TextBlock in line 9 that I want hidden when the ToggleButton’s IsChecked state is True. The animation in line 18 takes care of doing that when the user interacts with the control, but when the control is initialized, I need the Setter in line 16 to hide the TextBlock initially if the ToggleButton is checked by default (through data binding, for example.)

Merry Christmas!

I can see where these people are coming from. I use plenty of free software myself: Windows Live Writer, Audacity, WinMerge, Process Explorer, PowerMenu, WiX, Notepad2, Firefox, Reflector, JAlbum, Gallery, Linux (contribs.org), Paint .NET, etc. etc. etc. Many of these are essential for productive work and I’m glad they let me accomplish things.

In October 2002 I attended a talk by Richard Stallman, where he was spreading the gospel of free software, which is often equated with open source software, or OSS. It wasn’t the first time I’d started thinking about the implications of OSS, but his comments sparked further puzzlement: Is it really possible for programmers to make a living on open source software? Seeing the comments on Jeff’s blog brought back that question.

It seems to me that a lot of the more successful open source projects out there had their origin in the world of what I want to call the free-conomy, or perhaps the carefree-conomy. It’s the world all around us consisting of people who do not have to worry about real-world problems connected to making a living: Students, living on their parents’ money or borrowed money; programmers employed by large corporations (that have other means of generating income that enable them to pay the programmer to work on free software); professors in tenured positions at universities, contributing as part of their research. You get the idea.

I’d be curious to know how many of the commenters to Jeff’s post fall into that category. I’d also be curious to know how all the people who contribute to open source, or free software make a living, or how they sustain themselves. These are honestly things I’m curious about. If you’re one of them, please tell me.

I think once you transition from the free-conomy to the reality-based economy (“real life”?), your perspective changes. You start realizing that you need an income to pay the rent, clothe yourself and your family, buy food, utilities and transportation. You begin to see that if you don’t pay for the music you like to listen to, the programs you like to use, the books you like to read, the movies you like to watch and the games you like to play, the people who produce those things will not be able to support themselves, and thus there may come a time when you will no longer have that music, those programs, those books, those movies or the games.

So all the hassles that the producers of software or other digitizable content make you go through to access their creations begin to seem like a small inconvenience to pay for the privilege.

Of course, you can still debate what a fair price for such creations is, but that’s a topic for a different post. You can also debate the principles of “fair use” of the creations you may have paid for. That’s also a topic for another post.

What’s your perspective on the implications of open source software for people who make a living at software programming/development?

So head on over to the CardSharkV page and take a look! I think you might find the program useful, if you like keeping your digital photos organized right in the file system and not just in some photo management program.

If you have any comments on the program, I’d like to hear them.

It’s a bit of an experiment, and I’m looking for some real-world “beta” testers. My plan is to try my hand at charging for the program. But to see if word will spread, I’m planning to give out 50 or so licenses without charge while I work out any kinks that might be in the program.

If you’re interested in trying it out, download the program, install and run it, and then click the “Request License” button.

Read more about it on the CardSharkV page.

Update (2007-11-25): CardSharkV depends on the .NET Framework 3.0. It’s thus meant to be installed on Vista systems only. If you have XP and the .NET Framework 3.0, it should still work. Also, since I posted the whole thing Saturday night after a whole day of re-shaping my first, never published version, I didn’t test the install too well. I’ve since had a little time to test and found some issues, especially with the license mechanism. I’ve posted version 1.0.2.0 to correct those issues and to improve the installer as well.

Deprecated features

The following features have been deprecated:

• Hosting for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) browser applications (XBAPs).
• The Triple-tap/Soft-keyboard ActiveX control for hosted HTML applications.
• Support for using alternative shells to run and host HTML applications.

The reason I’m surprised is that Microsoft announced the support for WPF based extensibility apps at PDC05 with some fanfare.

I guess interest among developers just hasn’t been there for WPF-based Media Center apps, and Microsoft needs to make judgment calls on where to invest in their extensibility platform. The rest of the deprecated features seem to have been made for the same reason: limited interest among developers for these features. In addition I think there might be issues of an architectural nature that just make the three things that got dropped too expensive to maintain or improve.

I’m sad about this development, mostly because I still don’t see a great set of development and design tools around for MCML. WPF seems to me to have a whole lot more momentum than MCML (WPF has the Expression suite of tools and has been billed as the “GDI for the next 20 years”), but who knows what may be coming for Windows 7, or even an earlier interim update for Media Center?

[Update 2010-01-20: It looks like the calls to MsiGetShortcutTarget() and MsiGetComponentPath() only work correctly on Windows 7 if you make them from a thread that has STA apartment state. So if you do a lengthy operation like iterating through the entire Start menu on a background thread, make sure to use the Thread class for that (remember to call SetApartmentState() before kicking it off) and not BackgroundWorker. BackgroundWorker threads are taken from a thread pool and are always MTA (they can't be forced to STA in any way). Thanks to the folks on stackoverflow for discussing and figuring this out, especially Arnout.]

This is a problem that’s been bugging me for about a year and I finally found time to dig in and work on how to solve it. A big thank you goes to Aaron Stebner for pointing me in the right direction. Thanks Aaron!

Anyway, for various reasons I’ve wanted to display a list of applications the user has installed on the computer. Getting at the All Programs folder in the Start Menu is not too big a problem. You can get parts of it via Environment.GetFolderPath(SpecialFolder.Programs) and other parts of it (for all users) via a bunch of P/Invoke incantations that I’m not going into here. Iterating through all subfolders and picking out the .lnk files is not a problem either.

What is a problem (at least it was for me) is what to do with those .lnk files that you can’t get parsed correctly via WshShell.CreateShortcutFile() after adding a reference to the Windows Script Host Object Model to your project. The .TargetPath will usually return something down in a C:\Windows\Installer\{GUID} directory.

I had noticed that the Windows Installer XML 3.0 project creates shortcuts like that, and since Aaron is involved in that project, I asked him about it. He graciously told me that those shortcuts are “advertised” shortcuts, a kind of Windows Installer shortcut that enables putting a link in the Start Menu (or elsewhere) while not necessarily installing the whole product that the link points to. So I started digging in with Google. A CodeProject article contained a comment about two functions that can be used in combination to find the real target of and advertised shortcut: MsiGetShortcutTarget() and MsiGetComponentPath(). After some more digging, I had P/Invoke declarations for both of these from this SourceForge project.

I ended up with this bit of code, which I use first on any shortcut file I need to interpret; then if it returns null, I use the WshShell way instead.

public static string ParseShortcut(string file) { 
 StringBuilder product = new StringBuilder(MaxGuidLength +1);
 StringBuilder feature = new StringBuilder(MaxFeatureLength +1);
 StringBuilder component = new StringBuilder(MaxGuidLength +1);
 MsiGetShortcutTarget(file, product, feature, component);
 int pathLength = MaxPathLength;
 StringBuilder path = new StringBuilder(pathLength);
 InstallState installState = MsiGetComponentPath( product.ToString(), component.ToString(), path, ref pathLength);
 if (installState == InstallState.Local) 
 { 
 return path.ToString();
 }
 else
  {
 return null;
 }
} 

If you’re interested, you can download the class with the rest of the needed declarations.

The one story that made the book worth reading for me, was Erik Richardson’s story “The Economics of Time”. He lays out how lessons of economics, such as scarcity, opportunity cost, diminishing marginal utility, depreciating assets and investment versus consumption relate to the ideas of simple(r) living. Here’s just one paragraph from it:

By spending your time – from the declining bank account – on something other than just making more money, or getting more “stuff”, which translates into the same thing, you are investing in an asset that is becoming more and more scarce every year. That’s the very essence of a good, profit-maximizing investment. We don’t need to switch to some different way of thinking; we just need to do a better job of following through on the type of thinking that’s already built into our modern way of life.

I really appreciate how he ties together traditional economic principles with the principles of simpler living. It’s probably the best argument for simple living I’ve read. I wish I had come up with it myself.

If you have the slightest bit of interest in these kinds of ideas, I recommend to you to read this book. It’s published by Easton Studio Press for Simple Living America, and the companion website is www.getsatisfied.org.

Here’s part of the lunch line from the second day:

Of all the sessions I attended, I’d say the top four were the introductory LINQ talk by Beth Massi, the Architecture talk by Kim Greenlee, the Project talk by Jeff Atwood and the UI Designer talk by Uday Gajendar. This picture is from Ujay’s talk (a bit fuzzy, sorry):

The talk on what makes agile projects succeed by Chris Sims was not a traditional presentation, but a highly interactive workshop, where Chris introduced us to the Nominal Group Technique; a way to brainstorm while making sure nobody gets to dominate the process. I think this was the session I enjoyed the most because it was so different and engaging. In that session we got a glimpse of the soon to be released XO laptop (one laptop per child), and later in the day, I got to grab a hold of it for a few minutes. It’s a very well made product. Check it out at www.laptop.org (or www.xogiving.org, if you’re inclined to be charitable and help out a child in a developing country.)

I had quite a bit of fun trying out a new toy, too: a digital sound recorder. I used it to record a few of the sessions I attended. If the speakers permit it, the recordings might get placed on the Code Camp Wiki over the course of the next few days.

To give you a bit of an impression of what it was like to be at Foothill College early on a Saturday morning (9 AM), here is a picture:

I have a sound recording to go with it, too. The dog in the picture is Milo. How do I know? Listen to the recording.

I can recommend going to Code Camp next year, if you can make it. It’s worth it trying to step out of the typical programmer “introversion” and talk to people. It’s hard to overcome that initial shyness, but once you do, you’ll have a much better time. I’ll need to do more of that next time. Barring any serious scheduling problems, I’ll definitely be back next year.

Thanks to Peter Kellner and all the other people who supported the event. Also a big thank you to all the presenters, especially the ones I got to hear (Chris Sims, Kim Greenlee, Jeff Atwood, Uday Gajendar, Peter Kellner, Deborah Kurata, Beth Massi, Wesley Chun and Mathias Brandewinder.)

Imagine what a difference this would make in so many U.S. cities. In the San Francisco Bay area there are two main highways to get from San Jose to San Francisco, 101 or 280. On the rare occasions that I need to go to S.F., I always pick 280, because it has no billboards. And because it goes through one of the most beautiful landscapes around here:
 

101 is a mess of billboards and ugly urban sprawl. 280 is a fresh breath of open space and rolling hills.

I hope that Sao Paulo can become a model for cities in the U.S. who want to improve on their physical environment.

 
Repainting an old HP/Compaq/Tandem building. From white to gunmetal gray.

More of the old building. Very brown.

Signs are up already.

Big dump trucks on the street.

 
An old Tandem building.

Another old Tandem/Compaq/HP building.

And another.

During Beta 2, I dutifully sent the crash reports to Microsoft, and even contacted their support email address once, hoping the problem would be addressed with Beta 3.

It wasn’t. Live Writer Beta 3 still crashed on me after the splash screen.

So I started digging into why it crashed. Luckily it’s a .NET app, so Reflector came in handy. So did Deblector. I finally tracked it down to a registry key that contained a setting for a blog at work, where the HomePageUrl was a path of the form /some/path. I deleted the entire tree for that blog, and now Live Writer finally starts up properly.

The key I deleted was a subkey under this:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live\Writer\Weblogs

I think Microsoft needs to fix this before shipping the final version.

This post on my blog has been the single most visited post for an amazingly long time and has sent many, many people to crossloop. I make no money off of this post, and I'm not in any way affiliated with Crossloop, their business model or any other aspect of their operation.
End update]

I spent about three hours with my mom today. I helped her pick out photos from a trip we’d taken together this summer for a little presentation she’s going to give to her local community, printed out some information from the web and helped her burn the photos onto a CD. Not an unusual thing for a son to do for his computer-challenged mother, right?

Except my mom lives about 5400 miles away. How did it happen?

Crossloop. A free remote assistance program that even my mom can figure out. I helped her download it, and it worked beautifully. I ran Picasa, MSN Messenger, Internet Explorer, Email and even the installation of the .NET Framework 3.0 for her.

If you’ve been disappointed with the built-in remote assistance programs in Windows XP or Windows Vista, give Crossloop a try. It works very well, almost no matter what kind of firewalls and proxies are between the two computers that are trying to connect.

Highly recommended.

The first issue:
I uploaded new versions of my files several times, but every time I attempted to download the refreshed versions, no matter which computer I tried it on, all I got were old files. Ctrl+F5 in IE didn’t make a difference. Clearing the Internet Explorer history, cookies, temporary files didn’t make a difference. I even contacted my web host to see if they have any caching issues on the server side. In the end I stumbled across my installation of Fiddler, the HTTP debugging proxy. I looked at the raw HTTP dumps, and then I saw the issue: I’m behind an active caching proxy on my home network. The proxy was giving me old files all the time.
First issue solution:
Clean out the cache files on my proxy server. It happens to be squid, so this did it:

service squid stop
echo “” > /var/spool/squid/swap.state
service squid start

The second issue:
During the troubleshooting of the first issue I had started suspecting the ClickOnce caching system to be at fault. So I used “mage -cc” and “rundll32 dfshim CleanOnlineAppCache” to clean out the cache. No change. Then I started manually deleting files from the cache location on the hard drive. Bad mistake. Now I got weird deployment errors, talking about COM objects not being available, and “interesting” HRESULT errors: The referenced assembly is not installed on your system. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800736B3). I uninstalled the .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0 and reinstalled them. No change. Luckily I found an article on the MSDN forums that pointed me to a registry location to check out: HKCU\ Software\ Classes\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Deployment. I checked it out and found a bunch of registry keys that I remembered seeing when I cleaned out the cache files before. So what would happen if I deleted all those keys? Maybe it would “reset” ClickOnce completely? Luckily it did.
Second issue solution:
Clean out both the ClickOnce cache files [C:\Documents and Settings\(User)\Local Settings\Apps\2.0] by hand (completely), and also clean out the registry keys under Components, Marks, PackageMetadata, StateManager\ Applications, StateManager\ Families and Visibility underneath HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Classes\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Deployment\ SideBySide\ 2.0

Caution! Your Mileage May Vary. Deleting registry stuff is dangerous! Make a backup first.

There is a workaround, if you really need UAC elevation, which you shouldn’t. But at a high level, it works like this. You create your ClickOnce app like you would normally. To go with it, you create a helper app that you equip with an embedded elevation manifest. You then add a test to your ClickOnce app to see if it’s running elevated. If it isn’t you make it call the helper app. It will cause a UAC elevation prompt and in turn launch the ClickOnce app anew. Since the helper got elevated, the ClickOnce app now runs elevated too. Of course, by doing this you might end up with users not accepting the elevation request. But from what I’ve seen real users do with those elevation prompts, it won’t matter much. Anyway.

The trick is getting the helper app included in the regular ClickOnce app. There may be better ways, but here’s one I’ve spent quite some time on to work out. Maybe it will help someone out there save time, like I’ve saved time by reading posts on elevation checks using managed code. So here are the steps I’ve followed to make this work:

1. Modify your ClickOnce app’s entry point to include elevation checks as described at http://www.itwriting.com/blog/?p=198. If the app is not running elevated, make it run the helper application and exit. The launch looks something like this:

   ProcessStartInfo

   psi = new ProcessStartInfo(“Helper.exe”);
   psi.UseShellExecute = true;
   Process.Start(psi);

   The UseShellExecute flag makes sure the UAC prompt will happen.

2. Create your helper application with an elevation manifest (the process for that is at Catherine Heller’s blog) and have it launch your app with something like this:
   
   string appExe = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Programs) + @”\YourClickOnceApp\ClickOnceApp.appref-ms”;
   Process.Start(appExe);

   As you can see the whole scenario only works if you let the ClickOnce app create a Start Menu entry.

3. Build and publish both applications, making sure they use the option to rename the published files to .deploy extensions. This helps tremendously with web deployment.

4. Find the published helper .deploy files and copy them to the folder that contains the ClickOnce application’s .deploy files.

5. Open the ClickOnce application’s .exe.manifest file using MageUI. Go to the Files section and click the Populate button to include the helper app and its manifest in the fileset for the ClickOnce app. Save and sign the manifest. I used a stored certificate for the signing.

6. Open the ClickOnce application’s .application deployment manifest using MageUI. This is probably in the directory above the .deploy files. Open the Application Reference section. Click the Select Manifest… button and browse down to the manifest you modified in step 5. Save and sign the manifest. I used the stored certificate from step 5.

7. Now you have all the needed files packaged for uploading to your web server.

This is what will happen when the user downloads the app for the first time: A verification window shows briefly, followed by a download warning, followed by a download progress window. Now the UAC prompt will come, and if accepted, another verification window. Then the app will show.

On subsequent launches of the app the user will see the verification window, followed by the UAC prompt, followed by another verification window. Then the app will show.

It’s not pretty, but at least it works.

If you try these steps out and they don’t work, I’d appreciate an opportunity to correct them.

————————————————-

P.S.: The manifest generation step looks like this for C# projects:

“$(DevEnvDir)..\..\VC\bin\mt.exe” -manifest “$(ProjectDir)$(TargetName).exe.manifest”  ?outputresource:”$(TargetDir)$(TargetFileName)”;#1

The .exe.manifest for the helper needs to look something like this (you can leave out the commented parts):

<?

xml version=“1.0“ encoding=“utf-8“ ?>

<assembly xmlns=“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1“ manifestVersion=“1.0“>

<assemblyIdentity version=“1.0.0.0“ processorArchitecture=“msil“ name=“Helper“ type=“win32“ />

<description>Helper</description>

<trustInfo xmlns=“urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3“>

<security>

<requestedPrivileges>

<requestedExecutionLevel level=“requireAdministrator“ />

<!–<requestedExecutionLevel level=”asInvoker” />–>

<!– <requestedExecutionLevel level=”highestAvailable” /> –>

</requestedPrivileges>

</security>

</trustInfo>

</assembly>

Then the phone rang. Someone wanted to talk to my wife. She was in the process of reading a good-night story to my older daughter. The caller couldn’t wait. So I volunteered to read another chapter of the story.

When I got back, Windows was at the logon screen. Dammit, the Windows Update had gone through with the restart, with me not there to dismiss the countdown dialog.

And Windows Live Writer hadn’t saved a draft.

Both programs violated two cardinal rules for software: Don’t ever do something the user didn’t ask for, and don’t ever, ever, ever lose the user’s data. It’s worse than what Jeff Atwood talked about recently, since there were no crashes involved.

I’m so mad I’m not even sure I’ll want to re-write that other post. It has the potential to help out a fellow developer. Maybe I’ll do it. But right now I hate Windows Update. Or Windows Live Writer. Take your pick.

But.

Aluminum?

Yes, it’s recyclable. And it’s highly desired by recyclers.

You know why?

Because it’s one of the most energy-wasting metals to extract from the ore. The more recycled aluminum you can get your hands on, the more money you can make.

And now they make the entire iMac shell out of the stuff? Ugh.

So Steve touts the recycling aspect in his presentation, making everyone think “Wow, Apple is doing a great thing. Great for the environment.”

They’re not doing a great thing. And it’s not great for the environment.

But of course they don’t tell you that.

See my previous post for more details on how much energy goes into making aluminum, illustrated by soda cans.

Now, this is about the only bad thing I have to say about the new stuff that came out of the buildings down the street today. Everything else sounds and looks fantastic. One of these days I’ll have to break down and get one of these JesusMachines.

This is a great resource for people who are finding themselves dissatisfied with the life they lead and who wonder if there is more to life that living paycheck to paycheck and chasing after the latest new shiny object. Without resorting to religion, that is.

If that resonates just a tiny bit with you, head over to www.getsatisfied.org and look around. I think you’ll like what you find.

They started playing, and at some point one of the strings on the harp made a strange noise that threw her off. She stopped playing and her teacher said, no problem, let’s pick it up again at such and such measure. Well, since she hadn’t learned the music, she couldn’t find the place and they had to start from the beginning again. This happened a couple more times. My daughter said afterwards: “That’s why I don’t like playing duets.”

This got me thinking about how making music together is a lot like writing code together.

It’s usually not too difficult play a piece of music by yourself. You’re going at your own pace and can stop and make corrections as you go. But as soon as you have another person involved, things get more complicated. You have to stay in sync somehow. One way you can do this is by following the beat of the music, and practicing until you can play together without mistakes. Another way is to improvise together in the style of great blues and jazz musicians, but it takes years and years of experience playing together to get to that level. When you have more than two people, things get even more complicated. At some point you usually need a conductor to keep it all together.

Here’s how that works when writing code:

You can write a piece of code by yourself pretty easily. You know what you want to do, and you can correct mistakes you make as you go along. But as soon as you have another person involved, things get more complicated. Now you have to agree on all kinds of stuff, and you don’t have a musical beat to help you. Who works on what? How do things interface? How do you keep the code in sync? You can’t really practice this, since most code-writing is coming up with new stuff. You can agree on a common language (patterns or idioms) to communicate, but that takes time to learn. When you have more than two people, things get even more complicated. Now you need to agree on source control procedures, more frequent synchronization and communication. At some point you usually need a technical lead to keep it all together.

How you go about doing all this when the people writing the code are not in the same physical location is quite astonishing to me.

Imagine trying to make music together when half the people are 12 hours away from you.

I bet that wouldn’t sound very good.

Talking About The Weather, Part One

Talking About The Weather, Part Two

I’ll have to go back and read these one more time. Fascinating.

We had a large trailer that was much bigger than needed for the TV. We filled up the space by putting a shelf and a closet on there first. Later we pushed the TV up against those things to stabilize it on the trailer. Lesson: You need to think about a little bit of scaffolding/infrastructure before you start the real work.

We couldn’t find the rope we needed to tie everything down for the drive, so we had to go buy some half way through the process. Lesson: Sometimes you need to take a detour to get all the tools you need to do the job. You may not have all the tools you need when you start out.

There were only two of us to get the TV out of the house and on to the trailer. We had to get across two sets of stairs and lift the thing up onto the trailer by ourselves. Lesson: The beginning of a project can be challenging if you don’t have quite enough people.

We lifted the TV up onto the trailer by ourselves once we had rolled it out from the house. It was only just manageable, but we “lucked out”. We tied everything down with the rope we had bought.

During the drive it looked like the TV was going to roll off the trailer a couple of times, even though it was tied down well. We had to slow down in the curves to make sure nothing went wrong. Lesson: Adjust your strategy as you encounter changes in your project or the terrain you find yourself in. Sometimes you need to slow down in order to “get there”.

When we got to the destination, we realized we wouldn’t be able to lift the TV down from the trailer with just two people (by now our arms were more worn out). Lesson: Stop and re-evaluate your progress and strategy from time to time.

My friend had arranged for another helping hand, who arrived after we did some other jobs of moving things around. After the arrival of the third helper (and a lunch break), we went about discussing how to get the TV down without any of us breaking our backs. Lesson: Be prepared to ask for more help if you find the job too big. There’s no point in working so hard that you can’t work anymore tomorrow. Eat and relax together.

During the discussion of how to get the TV down, we explored several tactics, and changed our plan for lifting several times. Lesson: Get together and talk things over when you’re not sure how to solve the problem.

Our final approach involved lifting half of the TV down and setting the edge down on the ground, leaving one end on the ground and the other on the trailer. It looked a bit like this:

We were pretty sure we’d be unable to lift the other end down, since that would have involved lifting both ends to move the TV clear of the trailer. We were stuck for a while. Then one of us suggested instead of trying to lift both ends and move the TV away from the trailer, that we just lift the end that was still supported by the trailer and roll the trailer out from under it. Then we could lower the other end without having to lift both ends. Lesson: You never know who may contribute an idea that solves a problem the rest of the team can’t figure out, even when the solution is pretty much right in front of them.

We went to participate in the costume contest. My younger daughter dressed up as Ginny Weasly, hair colored red and all. Alas, she didn’t win anything. We thought her costume was pretty creative. Nothing store-bought. All materials found around the house.

Anyway. On with the pics:

 
Line around the corner

Getting the books from storage to behind the counter

Yes, the line goes all the way to the left side of the picture.

People were standing in line for wristbands that gave you a specific time window after midnight to come back in. When we left the wristbands were for a 5 AM slot. We’ll just wait until later in the morning when things will have died down a bit, presumably. Yes, we’re hooked too…

It was a perfect time to check out the AT&T store across the street. No line for the iPhone today… I had plenty of time to really check out the iPhone’s UI and user interaction. I found several things that bugged me after just a little while. But I also found several things that are pretty cool. Not worth $1200 over 2 years cool, though.

We hung around after the costume contest for a bit, and ran into a family sharing Potter Puppet Pals videos from YouTube on their Apple laptop. My daughter had made friends with one of the girls in that family during the costume contest.

My wife said it was one of the more bizarre things she’s experienced. I wouldn’t go that far, but it was certainly interesting.

I’m tired of them. Very, very tired.

Yes, PCs get loaded with software that the “experts” do not want. And they all keep talking about it. Can you say “echo chamber”?

Let’s see. Where else in life do you find things you didn’t ask for but got as part of the deal anyway?

Buying processed foods at the supermarket? Check. No mention of health risks.
Getting a BigMac from McDonald’s? Check. See above.
Getting married? Check. No mention of hard times and fights.
Going to the movies? Check. Advertisements for half an hour before the show.
Watching TV? Check. Commercial breaks every 15 friggin’ minutes.
Credit cards? Check. Rude awakening after three years of paying the minimum payment.
Buying a car? Check. Pushy salespeople and immediate depreciation of what you just bought.
Surfing the web? Check. Google keeps tabs on you.
Listening to the radio? Check. See watching TV.
Driving on the highway? Check. Ugly billboards in your face, rude drivers everywhere.
Sitting home alone quietly reading a book? Check. Telemarketing calls.

Get the picture? It’s everywhere. Things you didn’t ask for. Why complain so much about software on computers when the rest of our lives are so full of crap that we probably don’t want?

Even when you install just the bare Windows operating system you get tons of stuff you probably don’t want. On Vista you have User Account Control prompts, a neverending stream of updates, WordPad, Solitaire, Purble Place and ”services” running that you don’t know about. Yes, it gives you the impression of being clean, but then why was there such an outcry over the bundling of Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player way back when?

I don’t have a solution for any of these problems. But I’m tired of the whining and moaning.

There are so many other areas of life that are in more desperate need of fixing.

Start there, please.

The most amazing thing was that we got to experience the solitude and majesty of the canyon all by ourselves. Here’s how you might be able to do it too: Drive to Point Imperial such that you arrive a half an hour before sunset. We arrived right at sunset, so we missed the best light for taking pictures. If you stay half an hour to an hour after sunset, you may find that everyone else leaves because of the lack of picture-taking opportunities. You’ll hear the wind rush through the trees, see bats and swallows flying about to catch insects, and you’ll be able to sit down on a bench quietly and just be.

And you can get some nice pictures, even after sunset:

You know how people who give you blogging advice say that you need to post at least once a day, maybe even twice or more? I don’t like that. When I see the number of “unread” posts since my last reading session, and it’s over ten, I’m very turned off and feel like it will be a chore to get through that many posts. So I skip it.

I’ve unsubscribed from a few blogs that went totally nuts and posted five or six items per day. With those blogs, if you stay away for a few days you have a mountain of stuff to go through. No thanks.

So what I do now most of the time is check blogs in this order:

1. People I know personally
2. People I’ve at least met
3. People I’ve read for for a long time
4. People who are “well known” (A-list bloggers?)
5. People who blog about things I don’t know much about, but want to learn

Everything else just piles up until I feel that I really have a lot of time. I think I need to unsubscribe more.

This reminded me of something one of my literature teachers in high school used to illustrate how we know what we know about people who lived in times past.

How is history recorded? Think back to the middle ages or even some hundred years later. How do we know anything about this time? From artifacts that survived. From documents that survived. Who produced those documents? Probably the top 1% of the population at the time, who were wealthy enough and powerful enough to be educated enough to write and had money to spend on producing documents. So history is necessarily skewed in a certain way. We can’t possibly know exactly what the general population was thinking and experiencing. We only know about the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Now the potential is there. Publishing your thoughts is as easy as going to the library, opening a free blogging account at one of the many blog hosting companies, and starting to write. You can be more sophisticated and buy your own domain name, have your own computer to do the writing on, or perhaps even hosting your own server on your high-speed Internet connection at home. But it’s not necessary.

We have the potential of learning about the bottom of the iceberg, and yet it seems like only few people are embracing the idea (at least according to the statistics above.)

And maybe it’s for the best. I personally have enough trouble following the thoughts recorded on about a hundred blogs, reading the newspaper, following a few TV shows (time-shifted, of course) and reading books. I couldn’t possibly be a productive person at work if I were to do any more, and even with my current load I feel a bit overwhelmed. The trick is picking the right mix of “tip of the iceberg” material.

One way to accomplish this is installing low-flow shower heads and installing drip irrigation systems instead of the sprinkler systems that are so ubiquitous around here. That got me thinking about how we can contribute to saving 10% of our water consumption. We already have low-flow shower heads installed. So the only thing to do extra there is turning off the water while soaping up, which should be doable.

But what about the watering system? We’re renting the house we live in, like so many people here in this hyper-priced area. We could ask our landlord to upgrade the system, but why should he? There’s not really anything in it for him. We pay the water bill, not he. It would only cause hassles. And cost him money. You can imagine how this plays out for other areas where it would be a good idea to improve the house to lessen your impact on the environment. Double-paned windows, attic and wall insulation, light fixtures that allow for energy efficient lighting to be installed (our house has the first two already, luckily). Usually there is no reason whatsoever for someone to make these improvements to a rental house.

This line of reasoning extends to a lot of other areas as well. Think about what we consider a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (and global warming) - cars. There are millions and millions of cars on the streets that spew out tons and tons of carbon-dioxide, but work just fine, thank you. Ours does (so far, knock on wood.) There is no incentive for people to suddenly sell their old car and buy a new one. And imagine what would happen if everyone wanted to do that at the same time, owing to some miracle. Due to the enormous supply of cars, the price you could get for your old car would plummet. That would make it even less attractive, even if everyone had a change of consciousness suddenly.

All if this leads me to believe that one of the large problems that has to be solved politically to work on environmental issues is how to deal with the “installed base” (to use a software development term.) I have no idea how to do that without using taxation. It’s not like you can just push down an update over the Internet. And I know very well that talking about taxes in the U.S. is almost the same as committing political suicide. So if you are concerned about issues like this and have some bright ideas that don’t involve taxes, let’s hear them!

Today, we have no idea how our actions impact the environment or society around us and far away. Machines powered by fossil fuels enable us to extract as many natural resources as we want, crave or desire from the planet. Industrial processes turn those resources into “stuff” for us to buy and use, and often use up and throw away. And machines transport our waste away from our communities.

Most of us are completely disconnected from the natural world by using money to buy stuff. All we know is that this widget or that gadget costs X.

We don’t know how much energy was used in making it. We don’t know what raw materials went into it. We don’t know how the raw materials were transported. We don’t know how production affected the environment. We don’t know how much the people working on it were paid, and whether that was a fair payment. We don’t know how discarding it will impact the environment.  

We don’t know anything except the price. And very often the people making the gadget externalize lots of costs. Especially the costs of throwing it away and how that contributes to slowly making our planet a pigsty for us to slowly suffocate in our own waste. Along with all other living beings. Everything we use and throw away still stays on the planet. It may not be in our neighborhood because it gets transported “away”, but it goes somewhere. We don’t know exactly where. We don’t know exactly how.

Since money is all we know, money seems to be the only answer to modifying behavior. That means that if a society wants to influence the way its members behave, the only way to do that is through taxation. If buying gas for your car causes the atmosphere to heat up, tax it some more to make people think of other ways of getting around. If buying a computer will cause toxic chemicals to leak into our water supplies once it’s discarded, tax it some more so people will think of other ways of accomplishing what they think they need a computer for. And use the taxes to support responsible re-use and final disposal, to support research into ways to design products with re-use in mind, to support mindsets that encourage living sustainably and lightly on the earth.

I know that lots of people bristle at the idea of taxes. It just seems to me that we as a society don’t understand anything but money, so we need to use monetary means to get to societal ends. The biggest of which is our obligation to future generations of the human species to enjoy life as we enjoy it right now.

Kathy Sierra most recently posted about it here. Keith Ferrazzi’s book “Never Eat Alone” is all about giving without expecting anything in return. Hugh MacLeod at gapingvoid uses cartoons he’s “giving away” on the back of business cards to promote Stormhoek wine. Guy Kawasaki showed how he made a photo-diary using iPhoto, Comic Life and Skitch. The Simple Dollar is all about sharing tips on money management and how to get out of debt, and there is a TON of good information there (I don’t know how that guy gets anything else done, he posts so much it makes my head hurt).

I’m just amazed that there’s so much great information out there, free for the taking. I hope to be able to contribute just a little in my own way as well. So far I’ve got a few posts out on Windows Presentation Foundation where I talk about some things I’ve learned.

I’m still struggling with one problem, though. How do you find time to write good posts with trying to read over a hundred blogs on all kinds of topics, distilling some of the things you learn into something useful? There is so much good stuff to link to out there, but would it provide value if I linked as well? How would that provide value? I like the link posts from Steve Rubel, but there are almost too many links in each post to really follow. I used to almost be unable to keep up with the Scobleizer’s posts, but he’s calmed down a bit recently. His link blog I don’t even try to follow for fear of suffering a breakdown from information overload. Oh, and I have a “real life” as well. Can’t spend all my time reading blogs and writing my own rants.

Something to keep working on, I guess.

Today I repeated my search – and Google found a site that mentioned the same problem: http://west-wind.com/WebLog/posts/9849.aspx

The solution was given by Matthijs van der Vleuten in the comments of that post: Remove the ProcessExplorer registry tree. You’ll have to reconfigure everything in ProcessExplorer afterwards, but that’s a small price to pay for getting the tree view back.

I wrote up a support ticket with DreamHost and got a reply back mentioning something about too much memory being used by my site and that this is usually due to badly written plug-ins.

So I dug around the log files, searched the DreamHost support area, searched the WordPress support area and finally typed this into Google: “WordPress 2.1 internal server error”. That led me to http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2006/12/site-down-36-hours-how-i-fixed-internal-server-errors/. There I found a description of exactly the same problem, and how it was solved by restoring the default configuration for wp-cache and then leaving it turned off. That’s what I did, and now the blog is back up and running again.

I never suspected wp-cache to be the culprit, especially since DreamHost encourages you to turn it on right away after installing WordPress to improve performance. I think this is something that should be looked into, DreamHost!

Imagine my surprise when I was greeted with only this message after typing in the Product Key from the box I just bought this morning:

!

We’re sorry, the following error(s) have occurred:

No Offer Found

Bummer. I guess I won’t be spending another $100 for my two extra copies.

Even more curious is that there’s no way to contact Microsoft about problems with the order page. Maybe they don’t want my money?

————————–

Call me a fanboy all you want. I went out to a local Best Buy this morning and got myself a copy of the Vista Ultimate Signature Edition. I figure Vista put bread on my table, so I need to give back a little. And no way am I going to do that without getting something a little out of the ordinary.

I got to Best Buy a little after ten and checked the shelves. No Signature Editions to be found. Luckily I went to the service desk to ask, and just as I was doing so, they brought out the four boxes they had at that store. Two got put aside by (for?) the employees, and I grabbed one of the remaining two. Talk about good timing. I think I also picked a good store to go to. It’s fairly new and people don’t seem to know it’s there, so there was very little “competition”.

Here are some unboxing pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Box front

Open back

System requirements on the side

Feature comparison list on the back

Other side

Outside cardboard box and inside plastic box

Inside plastic box front

Inside plastic box back with Bill Gates comments

Plastic box side

Opened plastic box with DVD / media holder

Leaflets inside media holder

CD order information

Back of media holder with key sticker

Take a wild guess at how much of the energy in the gas you put in your car actually goes towards transporting you. Don’t be afraid to lowball it. Write it down.

How did you go about it? Did you use the fact (which is fairly common knowledge) that car engines are about 30% efficient? Good. But 30% is not the answer. Did you pay attention to how the question is worded? “Towards transporting YOU”?

How about idling, energy lost in the driveline, energy lost on powering accessories in the car? With all that, about one-eighth (12.5 %) of the energy reaches the wheels. Around half of that heats the tires, road and air that the car pushes aside. That leaves about 6% or so applied to moving the car forward. When you figure in that your mass compared to the car’s mass is about 5%, that leaves less than one percent of the energy in the fuel for transporting YOU. Let’s be generous and say it’s actually one percent. Here’s a little visual of that number for you:

That’s a scary waste in my book.

Here’s more to make you think: A friend of mine, Stan King, did some calculations based on a discussion we had at a recent simplicity circle meeting at our house. I had wondered how bicycling compares to driving in terms of energy efficiency. He took on the task of figuring it out. When you convert the amount of energy needed to bike a mile and convert that to the car’s miles-per-gallon equivalent, riding a bicycle has a “miles-per-gallon” of about 650. That number makes hybrid cars pale in comparison.

When you consider that 99% of the energy in the gas is wasted on things other than transporting you, the passenger, riding a bicycle has a “miles-per-gallon” of over 6500.

Compared to that, hybrid cars seem almost like stone age technology.

This is the thinking behind our family’s decision to stick with one car, even though it creates some inconvenience. It’s also why I bike to work practically every day.

And just so you won’t think I pulled these numbers out of thin air, there’s a Wikipedia article that states a 653 mpg for bicycling, which matches Stan’s number well. The calculation on the efficiency of cars can be found in this article by Amory Lovins from July 2006. The journal this was published in can be downloaded here (3.17 MB PDF).

It’s this:

Almost every result talks about how much energy is wasted when you don’t recycle a soda can! It’s the equivalent of filling the can halfway with gas and pouring it out. If that idea won’t make you think more about recycling aluminum cans, maybe this calculation will:

Half a soda can is 6 oz. A gallon has 128 oz. So 21.333 empty cans thrown away equal a gallon of gas wasted. My car has a tank capacity of about 15 gallons (I think). So it would take 320 non-recycled cans for me to waste a tank full of gas. My car can travel about 300 miles on a tank of gas. I certainly don’t want to waste energy like that. Especially energy coming from our dwindling oil reserves. We’ll need that oil for lots of other things besides burning it for transportation. For example, most plastics are based on oil, and I wonder how many cool and wonderful gadgets and gizmos (needing plastic enclosures and parts) we won’t be able to produce in the future if we run out of oil. Pardon the digression.

Anyway, now I’ve used my illustration and even given it a little surprising Google story to go with it.

I had set my system up according to Tim Sneath’s post on the perfect WPF developer system, including VS 2005 SP1 and the beta version of the Vista extensions for VS 2005. I was running VS “as administrator”.

As it turns out there are some technical details around starting XBAP debugging sessions from an elevated VS process that cause this behavior if you already have another instance of IE running when starting the debugging session.

Thanks to Tim Sneath and Chango Valtchev at Microsoft for helping in tracking this down!

Moral of the story: If you want to debug an XBAP from VS 2005 under Vista, run VS non-elevated, or make sure you have no other instances of IE running when you start the debugging session.

When I mentioned my “plug” (that I worked on the SmartCenter software), he said “Congratulations. Well done.”

Thanks Dwight! I appreciate it.

And, by the way, I can relate to your sentiment about the bloghaus. I had some great and interesting converations (with Graeme Thickins, Hans Veldhuizen, Sparky from gearlive.com, Jason Fields from  snap.com, Kristopher Tate and Thomas Hawk from Zooomr, Dave Alpert and Chris Coulter from PodTech), and overall I really, genuinely enjoyed the bloghaus. But I didn’t quite feel “cool enough” either. I guess that’s what can happen when you visit a gathering where there are lots of ”blogebrities”.

http://beta.zooomr.com/photos/geektieguy

The iPhone looks really exciting. I can’t wait for it to come out to play with it. It sounds a little pricey, but considering it’s a full iPod as well as a revolutionary phone, I guess it’s not too bad.

I’m really impressed with the bloghaus. There’s food, conversation, bandwith and tons of geeks. Thanks to Podtech, AMD and Seagate for sponsoring this thing!

I was flabbergasted. When I first saw it, I blurted across the room to Karsten Januszewski “Hey, there’s one of the things I’ve worked on!” (during the development phase I had some good help from Karsten.) Turns out Microsoft and AMD had arranged for a unit to be unboxed at the BlogHaus after Bill’s mention of it.

Being the geek that I am, I mentioned to Scoble that I worked on one of the applications on it (yup, I work for HP). He says, “Does everyone here know about that?” I say, “No”. So he tells everyone, and next thing I know I have lights, cameras and microphones in my face and am awkwardly talking about the product and the program I was involved in. Scobleized!

There’s something about lights and cameras that makes you very uncomfortable when you’re caught off-guard like that. Still for some reason you agree to being interviewed and showing off the software you’ve worked on. I guess we’re all drawn in by whatever “fame” can come out of being on camera.

Anyway, I hobble through four or five of these nerve-wracking question-and-answer sessions feeling incredibly self-conscious and cotton-mouthed. By the last one I think I finally said something coherent, and I’m sure the guys who got me first are now regretting it.

I’m still all mixed up about this. Can’t sleep. Oh well, whatever happened happened. Can’t change it now. It’s on tape. I thought all that would happen this evening would be Bill Gates talking about the PC, and me getting a little conversation starter out of it. Oh boy was I wrong!

But it’s good to finally be able to write about this thing that I’ve been a little part of on since before PDC05.

So I’ll leave it at that for now. Let me know how much of a fool I made of myself once you see footage. I don’t even remember who all I talked to. I guess Google will be my friend.

Oh, and one more thing. I think this was the first time I’ve seen a “connector” in action. One loud sentence from Scoble into the room started it. And then he just slid back (and watched me make a fool of myself, I’m sure). That’s a connector for you.

Thanks for my 15 minutes of fame, Robert! Let’s see what happens next.

I tried getting into the Bill Gates keynote, but didn’t make it. What a waste of $20 on cab fare. Robert Scoble even told me before I left that there would be streaming video of the keynote at the bloghaus. I guess since the product I worked on for so long is going to be featured in Bill’s note, I wanted to be there.

Anyway, it should be exciting to see the product unveiled along with whatever Bill is going to say about Vista.

I got my first glimpse of “The Strip” on my way back and forth to the Venetian, and even saw a little of the Bellagio fountain show.

Well, the keynote should start in about five minutes, so I better get this posted.

True.

Then he goes on to saying that all the new Vista DRM technology will form the basis for selling us the same stuff once more, but this time protected from piracy.

I would add the following: The original “re-sell” happened to work because we saw value in going from analog to digital. No more worrying about scratches on the records and deteriorating magnetic tapes. We got better sound and picture quality to boot. Deep down though, I think, we wanted to make sure that we got content that would survive “forever” and be ours “forever”. Well, the transition to digital accomplished that.

So what can possibly drive this next wave of reselling us the same stuff? High-definition digital video (I think Robert Scoble said something like this a while back too). It’s the last chance the studios have to resell us the same stuff once more. And this time they want to get it right: no piracy, hence all the DRM technology.

I can’t wait for the mass market to wake up and find out how buggy, error-prone and restrictive the whole high-definition-with-DRM thing will be. It may not happen until it’s too late. I’m almost hoping that things will be so bad that everyone will just say “I don’t need to own those stinkin’ movies or the expensive equipment to play them. I’ll just invite some friends over and we’ll make music together or tell stories”.

Nothing beats the high-definition of your imagination.

And maybe we should worry less about “owning” hollywood-generated content. Maybe we should focus more on generating our own.

——————

The free market economy of boundless growth is unsustainable, since we live on a planet with finite resources.

Future generations have just as much a right to enjoy life as the current generation.

Future generations have just as much a right to enjoy a life of the same quality as the current generation.

Conspicuous consumption, as demonstrated by American consumers, will destroy our natural resources if adopted by countries such as India and China. A lot of people in India and China are already aspiring to the lifestyle of American consumers.

The only way to change things in the world is by changing personal behavior.

Once you’ve changed your personal behavior for the better, get others to follow.

The only chance you have for getting someone to do what you want, is to demonstrate that you do it yourself.

Voluntary Simplicity is about living more purposefully with a minimum of needless distractions.

People who practice Voluntary Simplicity realize that more material possessions do not equal increased happiness in life. Often, the opposite is true. More material possessions can actually diminish happiness in life.

Voluntary Simplicity does not dictate how or how much you simplify your life. Only you can decide when you’ve reached the point of “enough” in your life.

Voluntary Simplicity is not about depriving yourself, living in poverty or lowering your standard of living. It is about living more consciously, focusing more on “inner life” than “outward appearance”.

By practicing Voluntary Simplicity you can become a role model for a new lifestyle that will enable future generations to enjoy life.

By practicing Voluntary Simplicity and spreading the word you can help change America’s conspicuous consumption philosophy. You can help people in other countries see that there is another way to live besides consumerism.

——————

To find out more about Voluntary Simplicity, check out the links in the sidebar on the right, and also take a look at these links:

• Excerpts from the book “Voluntary Simplicity” by Duane Elgin (http://www.awakeningearth.org/books_bvs_excerpts.asp)
• Soulful Living (http://www.soulfulliving.com/voluntarysimplicity.htm)
• The Northwest Earth Institute (http://www.nwei.org/)
• Simple Living America (http://www.simplelivingamerica.org)
• The Simple Living Network (http://www.simpleliving.net)
• Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska (http://www.simplelivingtv.net)
• Simple Living Resource Guide (http://www.gallagherpress.com/pierce/index.htm)

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 60% Hulk 50% Robin 47% Superman 45% Supergirl 45% Catwoman 40% Iron Man 40% Batman 35% Green Lantern 35% The Flash 30% Wonder Woman 25%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the “Which Superhero am I?” quiz…

Well, I since I work as a software developer, I’m somewhat naturally drawn towards high tech toys and software development topics. I’m a nut for tech toys, though I’m usually too cheap to buy them – working for a high tech company has its fringe benefits in that department. It’s easier for me to write about things from that sphere, since I know at least a little about it. So that’s where I started.

But one of my other big interests in life is limiting my impact on the environment and help make sure that our planet remains a viable habitat for my kids, their kids and so forth. I believe in picking up my own trash and making sure it goes into the proper waste stream. I believe in trying to limit the amount of trash I generate, so the waste stream becomes as small as possible. I believe that keeping my business as local as possible is important for reducing my impact on the environment. I believe that the only way to make a difference in the world is through personal action, meaning I have to do something. If I don’t do it, who will? And if I don’t do it, how can I get other people to join me?

I’m sure you can see that these things don’t mesh very well: a fascination with software, computers and high tech toys paired with an interest in reducing my impact on the planet. Let me just say that I struggle with this paradox a lot. I’m going to explore the notions of “voluntary simplicity” in addition to my ramblings about software and tech toys. Maybe you’ll enjoy it, maybe you won’t. Whichever way, I’ve now enabled “unregistered” commenting. So please comment away. I invite you to a conversation.

• A light that shows when the Roomba hits a virtual wall, so I can place the wall in just the right spot and at just the right angle to block the robot’s path. My house is full of door-less openings that would make the machine run out of juice if not stopped by virtual walls.
• A “wall following first” mode, so I could be sure it has done the edges of the room before embarking on it’s normal “random” cleaning pattern.
• Detection of area rugs. So far the Roomba gets stuck on our rag rugs and the Christmas tree skirt. Putting up virtual walls for these would be almost impossible.
• Seeing the model of the room that the robot builds up somehow. Also, how much of that model it thinks it has covered and how often.

Other than that I’m pretty happy with this high tech “toy” worker so far.

So with all those problems, we decided to take a different approach for our WPF XBAP applications. We put all our strings into a standalone XAML file, producing a ResourceDictionary. This way our application can pick up strings using Text=”{StaticResource strXYZ}” for XAML markup and/or use Application.Current.FindResource(“strXYZ”) for codebehind. We name the file “Strings_en-US.xaml”. We can localize this file nicely, and name the resulting set appropriately: “Strings_de-DE.xaml”, “Strings_fr-FR.xaml” and so on. These files can then be included as resources in the application. They can also be added as “loose” XAML files, so we can add languages or make corrections after compilation.

The string resource file looks something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ResourceDictionary 
  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
  xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
  xmlns:sys="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib" 
>
  <sys:String x:Key="strButtonOK">OK</sys>
  <sys:String x:Key="strButtonCancel">Cancel</sys>
</ResourceDictionary>

At application load time, we look at the CurrentCulture and attempt to load the ResourceDictionary object like this:

ResourceDictionary rd = null;
System.Globalization.CultureInfo ci = 
     System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
string langCountry = ci.Name;
string languageFile = 
     string.Format("/Resources/Strings/Strings_{0}.xaml", langCountry);
try 
{ 
  rd = (ResourceDictionary)Application.LoadComponent(
                              new Uri(languageFile, UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute)
                                  );
}

You can imagine this with some catch {} fallbacks for when a specific language-country combination doesn’t exist. We’ll fall back to a file that’s only language specific, and if that doesn’t work out, we’ll fall back to en-US.

We’re not using CurrentUICulture, since that seems to be tied to the UI language of Vista, and we want our apps to follow what the user sets in Control Panel. CurrentCulture seems to work for that.

To load the strings into the global resource dictionary, we just do

Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries.Add(rd);

To load loose XAML files that are not part of the application’s resources, we do something like this:

ResourceDictionary rd1 = null;
string languageFileLoose = string.Format(
         "pack://siteoforigin:,,,/Resources/Strings/Strings_{0}.xaml",
         langCountry
      );
Uri uri = new Uri(languageFileLoose, UriKind.Absolute);
System.Windows.Resources.StreamResourceInfo info;
System.Windows.Markup.XamlReader reader;
try {
  info = Application.GetRemoteStream(uri); 
  reader = new System.Windows.Markup.XamlReader(); 
  rd1 = (ResourceDictionary)reader.LoadAsync(info.Stream); 
}

Again, we extend this with catch {} blocks to fall back to a file that’s only language specific. We do the loose XAML loading after we’ve loaded embedded resources, so we can rely on a basic set of languages and strings, but can add languages, fix string translation errors or make improvements in the loose XAML after compiling things.

It may work for you as well, but ymmv.

Update: Changed the first Uri to UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute

I went to see “An Inconvenient Truth” a while back. I remember seeing a show on television many years ago that tackled the same topic. I don’t remember much about it, except for the illustration it ended with: It said that the amount of warming going on in the atmosphere was equivalent to the heat of one atomic bomb going off every 30 seconds. So they showed footage of just that every 30 seconds for about two or three minutes. Now, I was quite young when I saw this show, and I realize with time gone by that the images were manipulative, but it stuck with me.

As a result I’ve always had a very adverse relationship with cars. Not only do they pollute the atmosphere with particles and noxious gases, they also contribute greatly to global warming. Around the time I left high school I vowed that I would not buy a car until I at least was 30. Well, I never kept that vow, since I got married and had my first child at 26. Still, the car we bought was small and we used it as little as possible, going shopping using a bicycle trailer, using buses as much as possible and so on. Even today, I refuse to buy more than one car. Yes, that means you have to plan your trips more, and it makes it hard to do things independently, but I just can’t bring myself to getting another one.

After seeing An Inconvenient Truth, I was compelled to do more. We’ve already replaced all the lightbulbs in our house with compact fluorescent ones, where possible and practical. We use the air conditioner as little as we can and keep the house relatively cool in the winter. I was going to sign up for being trained on Al Gore’s presentation, but it turned out to be too much of a commitment to be practical for me. So I decided to go “carbon neutral” instead. I visited http://www.nativeenergy.com/ and put my data into their carbon calculator. It spit out a number of carbon emissions I needed to offset, and I did so by supporting projects that nativeenergy.com works on. Here’s my certificate:

I don’t think there is any doubt that global warming is happening, and since there are no other intelligent beings on the planet that can do something about it, I think we humans need to act. Even if it is just to make the planet habitable for our children. I’m sure life in general will survive, even if we do nothing. I just don’t want my kids to have to live in a world as envisioned in An Inconvenient Truth.

If your ntldr goes missing, here’s one way to fix it:

• Boot from your Windows XP SP2 CD.
• Choose the “R” option to repair using a recovery console.
• copy ntldr and ntdetect.com from the i386 folder on the boot CD to the windows hard drive root.

• Double check that the boot order of the hard drives in the BIOS is still how it should be (for some reason my order was messed up, so the system tried to boot from the wrong drive, which puzzled me quite a bit.)

That last point messed me up for a good twenty minutes this time around.

But now everything is good again.

After a few years of service, I got a new machine and decided to put the old one to work as an Internet gateway server hooked up to my cable modem. I used an OS which was known at the time as “E-Smith”, a derivative of RedHat Linux, cut down to essentials and hardened to make a secure access point to the Internet. E-Smith has since been renamed “SME Server“, and my system was running the 5.5 release for about 5 years nonstop (okay, with an occasional reboot). It had 64 MB of RAM and a 4 GB hard drive to start out with. On that, it faithfully provided firewall, email, web, ftp, samba and ssh services.

I added a 20 GB drive at some point to have more room for music files, thinking I would use the machine as a central repository for a network jukebox. It never really took with the rest of the family, though, so that pretty much went unused.

Recently I started having problem with the box locking up and not providing Internet access any more. I looked into the logs and saw some attempts at hacking passwords. At that point I decided it was time to upgrade to version 7 of SME Server (for better security), and at the same time retire the old hardware.

I had a spare box prepared for just this purpose, got it out of the garage and upgraded the software to version 7 (I had prepared it a long time ago with version 6). Then I swapped out the boxes, did a little work and was up and running again. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that smooth, since I messed around with my wireless router and various other things at the same time.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the retired server “in memoriam”.

UPDATE: Since upgrading to version 7 of SME Server, my spam email count on the domain that server hosts has gone way down. This version has built-in spam filtering at the server level. I just hope normal emails go through. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve had a normal email come through yet. I’ll have to double-check that.

Anyway, I found that the in-box drivers for an “Atheros Wireless Network Adapter” seem to do the job.

Here’s the drill: Start Menu – Computer – Right click – Properties – Tasks: Device Manager – Find the device in the list - Right click – Update driver – Browse my computer… - Let me pick from a list… - Find “Atheros Communications Inc.” and pick “Atheros Wireless Network Adapter”.

What I’ve been waiting for is also ready: the ability to request a key for your Vista development system. I’ve got mine and am writing this from Windows Live Writer running on my shiny new Vista Ultimate work laptop. Yay!

At this late a stage in a product’s delivery cycle it is common to make very few changes to the code in order not to create more bugs than one fixes. Ideally each change should be peer-reviewed and thouroughly tested before getting checked in (like with Windows Vista and the contortions people have to go through in the “shiproom” to get a bugfix approved). Too bad for me that I’m the only “peer” on the project (i.e. I’m the only developer). There’s nobody I can go to for a review.

And in the last few weeks I’ve broken the “as few changes as possible” rule a number of times. Why? Because I’m confident in the features that WPF provides. And because I do tend to run extensive tests before I check stuff in.

So what kinds of changes have I put in at the “last minute”? I’ve shuffled buttons around on the page, I’ve added code for drawing the user’s eyes to input fields containing invalid data, I’ve added data-bound and data-driven UI elements.

WPF has given me the confidence to be able to do this at the last minute. The fact that moving buttons around is a simple XAML markup change, for example, is just great for last minute UI adjustments.

But I’m not exactly proud of doing it. Oh well. So far everything seems to have worked out.

They mention several times that most software writers don’t work in “HighTech” jobs. The ones who really do the “HighTech” stuff are the people who write the compilers and development frameworks or come up with other new technologies. I tend to agree.

I’ve long joked to my manager about giving up writing software and asking if he knows anyone who will take me on as a “carpenter’s apprentice”. This happens especially when I get stuck on hard-to-solve problems or when I find more bugs than I care to report in Microsoft’s platforms. And of course when the people who contract for us on software turn in one more drop in which old bugs re-surface.

But I realize more and more how what I do is actually more software “carpentry” than it is “HighTech” work. Seriously. I mean, it takes effort to learn about the latest technologies, such as WPF/Avalon, sure. You have to wrap your mind around how some other people want you to write programs. And you have to do it quickly, so your project can get done on time. But in the end it really comes down to being able to handle a set of tools that someone else makes. Handle them expertly, yes, but they’re someone else’s tools.

So that’s what I’m going to consider myself from now on. A software craftsman. Perhaps even an expert or master craftsman (depending on who I compare myself to or how I’m feeling when I consider it). But just a craftsman.

And I take a certain pride in the work I do. Like all real craftsmen do.

If you have an XBAP WPF application that tries to access files at the location identified by CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA (Environment.SpecialFolders.CommonApplicationData in .Net 2.0/3.0) they need to be marked with Read/Write permissions for ”Everyone”. Otherwise File Virtualization kicks in and Vista creates copies of the files in the VirtualStore.

This shouldn’t be a problem per se, but if you have data integrity issues with your application reading/writing files it’s nice to eliminate the virtualization for troubleshooting.

Also, if your application needs to share the same data among users you don’t want virtualization, since that is a per-user thing, and you’d end up with one set of data files for each user.

If you’re installing some default data files for the application using Windows Installer (which will run elevated), you need to make sure you change the permissions on the data files so “Everyone” gets read/write permissions. This can be done using the LockPermissions table of Windows Installer.

I’m going to properly uninstall these add-ons so they’re completely gone and then I’ll be a happy IE 7 user!

Thank you Peter G for getting in touch!

Not good. Looks like I’m going to stick with IE 6 / Firefox for a long time.

Uninstalled.

It got me thinking about my own experience with offshore software development outsourcing. Grossly simplified, what I see as the biggest problem is that the engineers you outsource the work to are good a cranking out code once they have a stable and very detailed requirements specification. But when it comes to testing and independent, creative work they fall quite short on what may be desired. If you don’t have detailed requirements, but loose goals, you’re in for a very bumpy ride in my experience.

Add to that the challenges of communicating clearly across time zones and cultures and you usually end up with delays and projects going over budget. Not to mention quality issues. It seems as if some coders don’t take responsibility for the initial quality they produce, but rely on testing at receiving end.

I’ve seen this personally in the last few months, and I’ve had reports from people I work with who have experienced pretty much the same thing. I know of several projects where the outcome was much much worse than expected.

I’m not saying that offshore outsourcing in general doesn’t work, but my experince tells me you need to be very very careful about who you pick as your contractor and you need to be even more careful about tracking the work on a week-by-week basis, possibly even a day-to-day basis.

I hate this tactic of attempting to get customers. 

I’m sure some unsuspecting people would think this is something they signed up for and have to pay. I know it says on there that it’s a solicitation, but making it look so much like an invoice is sure to fool some people. Which is what weasel companies like this count on. I mean, it even has a “Customer Number” on there for crying out loud.

Don’t be fooled. Don’t do business with these weasels.

That may actually be the case, since, as far as I understand it, RC2 is built from what’s called the “RTM branch” in the source control system Microsoft uses to keep their code neat and orderly.

The thing about the way Microsoft uses source control is that they create “branches” of source code at certain points in time. This is documented at http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix-win2000/invitedtalks/lucovsky.ppt. Granted, this presentation refers to Windows 2000, but I doubt the principles have changed much.

The point that I want to make is that the RC2 source code (from the “RTM branch”, according to http://www.istartedsomething.com/20060901/windows-vista-beta-features-vs-content/) may have been branched off from the main trunk some time after the RC1 branch, but may not have had some of the RC1 code integrated back into it. Some code from the RC1 branch may not make it into the RTM branch at all, if it’s judged to be of dubious quality.

Judging by the fact that what Microsoft terms the “RTM branch” started with build numbers at 5700, and that RC2 has a build number of 5744, calling it “RC2″ is a bit of a misnomer, really. It would more accurately be called an “RTM preview”, but since lots of folks have been screaming for an “RC2″, that’s what Microsoft probably decided to give them.

It would be interesting to hear some Microsoft folks comment on that news.com review or my little commentary here.

I paid off my student loans with a balloon payment today. It was the last loan in my life so far. I don’t have a mortgage (rent the place we live in), the car (our one and only car) is paid off, and the only other thing you could describe as debt is what I run up on the credit card, but I pay that off every month.

It’s a truly liberating day! Now on to FI.

My last two projects before starting on WPF were built around hosting IE in “something”.

The first “something” was an exe hosting IE and adding a bunch of window.external functionality. I took the lead in moving a somewhat old, pretty static UI infrastructure for presenting internet-updatable content to the XML/CSS/XSLT age. That involved a lot of using dynamic expressions to enable reflowing of the UI for different monitor sizes (the app was a fullscreen app). Towards the end of that project I started hearing about an XML-based application development thing coming from Microsoft, and I remember thinking “How cool! No more need for the mess of HTML / CSS / XSLT and JScript/dynamic expressions to glue it together.”

 The second “something” was an application for Windows Media Center, which at the time only offered hosted IE as its application development model (with a bunch of window.external functionality thrown in to get at the Media Center stuff, similar to how our exe had worked). Three of us wrote a pretty interesting little application that shipped for about a year and then was discontinued when circumstances changed on us drastically. Around the time this happened, the XML-based app development thing from Microsoft, better known then as “Avalon”, took more shape.

I was lucky enough to get to experience the energy that Microsoft projected at PDC05. It felt like an explosion of enthusiasm around the newly re-christened “Windows Presentation Foundation”. My eyes were popping at Greg Schechter’s talk. Manuel Clement’s talk was chock-full infectious excitement. I wanted to work with this new stuff.

Luckily the project(s) we were given to work on next required a level of “polish” that I doubted we could achieve using HTML, WinForms or any other technology we were proficient in. I advocated strongly for using WPF, and for some reason management went along. One of the requirements for one of the projects was that it had to run under Vista and more specifically under Media Center to get a great user experience. The level of “polish” that was required pretty much ruled out using HTML. We could have done all ActiveX controls, I suppose, or an HTML/Flash hybrid, but none of us had the required expertise to implement that, and the time frame was extremely tight to begin with.

To me the only way to solve the problem was using the incredible leverage of WPF to “get things done”, even with the steep, steep initial learning curve. I worked on some throw-away applications just to show my manager that this new platform had incredible potential and that I would be able to pick it up quickly enough to work with it seriously. He liked what he saw. The rest is material for another post. Let me just say now that the devil is in the details, and we had lots of challenges on the project overall. Once it’s out there I can talk more about it, but not yet.

Here’s a guy who gets it regarding office space for software developers. But you kind of figured that, didn’t you? I mean, it’s Joel Spolsky.

I used to work for a startup that had an open office space for eXtreme programming (specifically pair programming), and I just loved working in that environment. It was easy to walk over to someone else’s desk, yet at the same time quiet enough to get work done. And there was space, ah wonderful space.

Big corporations don’t seem to get it. We’re about to move into another building where I work, and it looks like we’ll have less space than where we are now. I remember III talking about how personal space for software developers is the number one productivity enhancer miles ahead of anything else.

Sigh.

It tells you about crashes that happened in the past, applications that installed or uninstalled with failures, hardware failures, windows failures and so on, and then it compiles all that data into a nice visual to give you an impression of how stable your system is / was.

If you click on a graph point in the past, you get a report of what exactly happened on that day. In the graph above, I was playing around with getting OneNote 2007 Beta 2 TR installed after I had upgraded an Office 2007 Beta 2 install that didn’t include that particular component originally. I had lots of installer crashes and app crashes that day, and it shows in the dip in the graph.

Of course, the Performance graphs are not too shabby either:

It finally includes a hard drive monitor as well, not just CPU, memory and networking!

You can find it in Performance Information and Tools – Advanced Tools (or by typing “rel” into the Start Menu Search Box):

XAMLPad (from the Windows SDK [Full ISO|Express Web Download])
Snoop (from Pete Blois)
Perforator (from the Windows SDK) (Don’t forget to turn on the required debugging setting in the registry - mentioned in the article)
CLR Profiler
.Net Reflector (from Lutz Roeder)

If you’re a designer / developer you also want:

Microsoft Expression: Interactive Designer
MOBIFORM Aurora XAML Designer
Electric Rain Zam3D

And of course the staples:

.Net Framework 3.0 September 2006 CTP (I usually pick the complete installer to avoid download problems – it’s hidden a few paragraphs down under a link that says “for x86″)
Visual Studio 2005 / Visual Studio 2005 Express
“Cider” / “Orcas Preview for WPF”

Did I miss anything?

There’s been a big problem with e-coli infested spinach lately. Apparently this was tracked to a big company in California, which markets pre-washed, bagged spinach to a lot of supermarkets. I’m not sure if the FDA has pinned down exactly what the root cause of the problem is, but Andy, one of the farmers of the CSA we are a part of, says it may have a lot to do with the industrialized processes they employ to get the product out there. That, and the bags make a nice little greenhouse for the bacteria to grow in. For full details read his article on the matter. If you belong to a CSA, particularly twosmallfarms.com, you don’t have to worry about things like this.

The CSA farmers make sure that your food is grown organically and delivered to you in safe condition. One more reason to bypass big, industrialized processes and go small and local.

Go find a CSA near you (Search engines are your friend) and say goodbye to worries about food safety.

Unfortunately the machine I had this problem on didn’t have the secpol.msc file on it (I still don’t know why), so I dug some more and found that there is an equivalent raw registry key:

HKLM/System/CurrentControlCset/Control/LSA – LMCompatibilityLevel

It’s 3 by default on Vista RC1 (NTLM2 only) and I had to change it to 1 (LM & NTLM, NTLMv2 if negotiated).

I’m afraid that this will bite some other folks like me who have “unorthodox” network setups at home. I hope Microsoft has a good reason to ship with this default setting, but I’d advocate they change it.

Update: A friend at Microsoft helped me realize that enabling LM & NTLM can be a potential security risk. Passwords can be stolen when using LM and NTLM. Vista uses NTLM2 by default to guard against the known vulnerabilities of NT & NTLM authentication.

In my personal situation I’m not that worried about changing the setting, since my computers stay isolated on my home network, but it’s probably not for everybody.

I found some instructions using Google (https://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=181082&SiteID=1) and here is the gist of what needs to be done (to spare you from having to read the whole thread):

Run a command prompt as Administrator and do the following:

BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot

Then run Ghost 8.x like this:

ghost.exe -fdsp
or
ghost32.exe -fdsp

I tried this with two hard drives (once with a test drive, then with the real one), and it worked beatifully.

With Vista, not only do you get the .Net Framework 2.0 (much improved over the previous versions) in the box, but also the amazingly powerful Windows Presentation Foundation (which is what I’ve worked with), Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation (two pieces I know nothing about yet).

This will lower the barrier to entry for applications developed using these powerful tools to zero. As long as you’re writing your application for Vista you can be sure the basic requirements are there.

There will be issues with certain features of WPF (rendering in software vs. hardware, especially for 3D), but the framework helps you detect these issues and makes it possible to adapt your application to lower its “flashyness” (RenderCapability.Tier, remember this needs to be shifted down by 16 bits if you want to use 0, 1 and 2 as the human readable values).

To me Windows Presentation Foundation is the most important technology to come out of Microsoft for a long time. I’ve never written too much actual Win32 or even MFC/ATL UI code for client applications, but I’ve done a lot of HTML / CSS stuff and pure business object stuff (COM/ATL). More about that in my next post. I don’t want this to get too long.

System.Windows.Media.RenderCapability.Tierreported a wrong tier (zero) after I upgraded my Windows XP dev box’s .Net Framework 3.0 installation to the RC1 release. My card used to be a tier two and I had just upgraded the drivers, too. I contacted Microsoft about it and they said this is a known issue with the RC1 release and that it will be fixed in the upcoming RTM release. The problem is only with this particular API and only happens on Windows XP. All the actual rendering is still done correctly based on the capabilities of the hardware. So the only problem is if your WPF application is built to behave differently based on the value of this API call.There is a workaround that has to do with changing the value type of a certain registry entry (the video memory size) from Binary to DWORD. I’ll point to more details once I get a URL from Microsoft to point to.

I had several UIElements that each had the Rendering event hooked up, and the code in the event handler would do next to nothing most of the time, since the animation only was kicked off on a mouse up event. I modified the code, so that the event hookup doesn’t happen until the mouse up event comes in, and also so that an unhook happens when the animation is finished. This promptly took down the CPU load to the typical intermittent 1-2%.

One of the airlines that picked up the service was Scandinavian Airlines. They charged $29.95 for Internet access during transatlantic flights.

Gee, let’s do some math: The flight from Seattle to Copenhagen probably takes about 12 hours. So that’s about $30/12 hours = $2.50 per hour. If you pay $46 for high-speed access at home per month (an expensive average, perhaps?) that’s $46/720 hours = $0.063888 per hour, or about 6 cents per hour (taking a month as 30 days, 24 hours a day). Even if you make the comparison a bit fairer by admitting that you don’t use the service 24 hours a day, but perhaps only four, that still is $46/120 hours = $0.38333 per hour.

Who at Boeing thought that people would be so hungry after in-flight Internet access that they would pay between six and forty times more than they do at home?

This quote tells you there seems to not have been much thought behind the whole thing: “Over the last six years, we have invested substantial time, resources and technology in Connexion by Boeing,” said Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Jim McNerney. “Regrettably, the market for this service has not materialized as had been expected.”

If you’re writing a Windows Presentation Foundation app that has just a little bit of complexity to it, you may do things like hook up UI Elements to event handlers. This could be for navigation, reacting to data changes, timers etc.

An important thing to remember is to unhoook those event handlers when your UI Element is unloaded. Otherwise the event handler hangs on to the visual tree and the garbage collector will not let go of it. This results in memory consumption “problems”, which is a nice word for a “managed memory leak”.

So if you do something like this:

public MyElement()
{
  InitializeComponent();
  Loaded += new EventHandler(OnLoaded);
}

public void OnLoaded(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  myTimer.Tick += new EventHandler(OnTick);
}

Don’t forget to also hook the Unloaded event and do this in it:

public void Unloaded(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  myTimer.Tick -= new EventHandler(OnTick);
}