Geek With Opinions

Windows 7 is due out by the end of this year. Visual Studio 2010 is due out next year. Does this all sound a bit familiar? It should because there was a similar situation with the release of Windows Vista and Visual Studio 2008. I have always liked going to Microsoft events and drinking the Microsoft “Kool-Aid”. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! We all assume that there will be events for Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010 because Microsoft has a track record having events for their major releases. Well, it is my understanding that this time is no different.

At a recent developer event, I happen to catch up with a few developers from Microsoft and asked just what is going on. Here is what I know. The Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010 events are in the planning stages at Microsoft. They will more than likely be like the “Heroes happen {here}” events for Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Vista. And lastly, the event will more than likely happen next year.

Nothing I was told is set in stone and is all likely to change 10 times in typical Microsoft fashion. And just so there is no confusion, I do not work Microsoft. I just ask them questions. 

Tony.

I decided to try out Google Analytics over the weekend. My web host’s web stats leave something to be desired. Since Google already knows everything about me and my site already, I figure it was a safe things to do. With a WordPress blog, it is very easy to set up. Here are the steps.

1. Sign up for Google Analytics
2. Added a bit of JavaScript to footer.php
3. ???
4. Profit!

It literally took five minutes to set up.  Google Analytics has some very cool features.  For example, it keeps track of return visitors vs new visitors. It is pretty neat.

Google Analytics comes with a free side effect! The stat tracking requires the client to have JavaScript execution enabled. What this means is that clients without JavaScript enabled do not get tracked. So if you have a lot of users that disabled JavaScript, this could be back. However there is a an upside, Spam bots do not run JavaScript! I know this because Google Analytics only tracked me for the first day that I had it installed. However during that same time frame I had ~20 spam comments caught. I am happy about this because I get a more accurate view of the visitors to the blog.

Tony.

So I was getting my oil changed today. While I waited I took advantage of the free WiFi. I had to download Adobe Reader because of the new install of Windows 7. Below is a screenshot of one of the new features of the task bar. It appears applications can change the button on the task bar. The screenshot is of the progress bar for a download in IE8. I think it is pretty cool and will be more useful than flashing that task bar buttons to get my attention.

The Problem: What to do with all those aging home videos that are on VHS (or other analog) format?

The Answer: Buy some new toys and convert the analog video to something modern like DVDs!

My parents, like many, bought a home video camera in the late 80s. Since then my family has accumulated hours upon hours of home movies. There is a lot of family history on those VHS tapes. That is a lot of family history many do not want to disappear. The real problem is most (none technical people) do not realize that tapes do not last forever and VCRs will not be around that much longer.

I was pretty much going into this blind. There are a many possible way to get analog video converted to digital video. Since I didn’t want to screw this up or waste money on anything that yielded problems or poor quality, I made sure to do my research. VideoHelp.com has proven to be a great resource for all things video. There is a ton of information on the site but be warned, VideoHelp.com has a large community of professionals so it is hard to get a clear answer for the hobbyist.

I started my research with exactly how to get the analog video from the VCR to my computer. There are tons of ways to convert analog video to digital video. There are a number of hardware to software and internal and external solution to do this. After reading the net, it becomes clear the easiest way to get video from analog to digital was to use a GrassValley ADVC110. The ADVC110 takes in S-Video or Composite connectors. It will do the conversion from analog video to digital video in the unit and outputs the video from the device over fire-wire. The video that is output from the device is DV-AVI and runs about 13GB/hour.

The next major part of this plan was to find a VCR. There are a lot of options for a VCR too. Finding a VCR proved to be even more complicated than finding a device to do the video converter. It seems that there are a lot of opinions how what type of VCR is better and why. There is a large debate over consumer vs professional VCRs and which one is better. At the present moment in time, there are no companies making standalone VCR players. The options are to buy a used professional or prosummer VCR from EBay or similar place or you can buy a consumer dvd/vcr combo from your local retailer. The main difference between the two options (form what I can tell) is a some of the professional VCRs will have image correct/stabilization in the form of a TBC or Time Base correction device. A TBC will make jumpy video more stable and remove some of the artifacts form the video.

Since I needed a new DVD player for my office, I opted to go with the consumer DVD/VCR combo. I bought a Philips DVD/VHS combo from Wal-Mart for $80 bucks. I figured if the video quality was poor, I would try to find a used professional VCR. After all my research and worrying over what to buy, I finally pulled the trigger and bought the ADVC110 and VCR/DVD player. Last weekend, I hook it all up and started to convert video. I have 13 family video tapes to convert and since then I have done 3 of the tapes. I wanted the DVDs to look as good as the VHS tapes when being played on a TV. I can say that with my current set up the digital video looks better than the VHS tapes. It is all really easy to use too!

Set Up of the VCR and ADVC110 is very easy and easy to work with. The hardware set up consisted of connecting the VCR to the ADVC110 and the ADVC110 to my computer. To capture the video being pushed from the ADVC110, I use a free tool called WinDV which is very easy to use. Once the raw DV-AVI video is captured, I have been using Windows Movie Maker and Windows DVD Maker to create movies and DVDs. Both are straight forward to use. They are not very robust but they get the job done to my needs.

I am open to question just remember I am by no means an expert on this subject. Here is a very small example of raw video that has been converted from on of the tapes. The clip is what my bedroom looked like when I was little.

Tony

Neal Ford has a series of post about SOA and how it is being sold to developers. While the post had some pretty good points on the topic, He talks about something he calls the Rubick’s Cubicle anti-pattern. The pattern as stated from the post is:

If the presented problem isn’t complex enough, developers will figure out ways to make it complicated and therefore challenging.

Shortly after reading about the anti-pattern, I had a meeting to attend. It becomes apparent pretty quickly how true the anti-pattern is as I sat in listened in this meeting. This got me to thinking about problems and solutions of everyday life.

The first thing that comes to mind is how we communicate. Back when cavemen walked the Earth communication was nothing more then pointing and grunts. Fast forward to Today where we have E-mail, Twitter, Cell Phones, signal fires, and video conferencing. One could go on for a pretty long time one just the number of different ways we interact with others these days. Anther fine example of complexity with communication is that forms of interaction that were not suppose to be instant are being treated as such. I can not count the number of times I would get an e-mail from someone and an hour later get a phone call or another email asking if I had received the first one! I know make it a general rule to ignore my email when I am being productive.

This quote has actually got me thinking about my problem solving abilities. I have noticed that I am guilty of taking the more complex rout because it would be more entertaining and/or challenging. It actually has me concerned. I don’t want to write complex code because I can! I have added a step to my problem solving process because of this quote and realizations. When trying to solve a problem, I make sure to stop and ask myself if there is a less complex way of solving the problem. Sure there may be an easy way to solve the problem, however easy does not mean simple. We have all seen a “fix” that was one line of code but was confusing as hell.

Stack Overflow is a Q&A wiki site for programmers. People can post questions, answer questions, and search for questions. Question and Answers get voted up or down based on what the community thinks of them. As people ask and answer questions, karma is gained. As karma is gained by a user they can do more on the site like editing, voting up, and voting down.

The site is fairly popular among developers. The 100,000 question was recently asked with many added everyday. The community looks to be pretty strong and oddly mature. I say oddly mature because it is the Internet after all.

Stack Overflow is programmer crack. I find myself setting at the questions page hitting refresh over and over again waiting for new questions to be asked. Its fun to see what roadblocks other programmers are stack at. It is also a good feeling to get voted up on question and/or answers on the site. The ultimate joy is when your question is accepted as the answer. It some how validates you as a programmer when one of your questions get marked as an  answer or is up voted. Stack Overflow addicting nature is what keeps me coming back day after day to see what has been posted.

Stack Overflow is currently working out great for many people. Questions (depending on complexity) will have answers or suggestions shortly after posting because the community seems eager to help. And yes the answers are normally helpful in someway, shape, or form. In the end Stack Overflow comes highly recommended from this developer.

Tony.

First off some administrative business. I was planning on doing a weekly post about stuff I learned this week. However on my first week I decided that was not such a good idea. With the items I had lined up to talk about, I would have to have written a short novel in order to cover it all.

Alright time for something a little more useful. Lest week, Microsoft hosted Mix09 last week. While there were a lot of the run of the mill sessions on WPF, Sliverlight and ASP.NET, there was also a few hidden gems on other topics. One of the topics was a short session on Copyright.

“Copyright Laws for Web Designers and Developers”
Presenter: Jonathan Zuck
http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/B03M

The session covered examples of what is considered copyright infringement and what is not. It also cover what is considered fair use. Jonathan did a good job giving an overview of what  copyright is, the DMCA, and what fair use is in just under 22 minuets. It was just long enough to get a taste of why copyright is important but short enough to keep your attention through the whole thing.

Here is some of the more important notes that I picked up for the session recording.

• An individual can break copyright even if he/she do not profit from the act.
• A parody on its own is not covered by fair use. A parody must also include criticism (bad or good) of the original work for it to be covered by fair use. A parody alone is a copyright infraction.

Overall it was worth the 22 minuets as a catch up on why Copyright is important for any developer or designer.

Copyright is broken here in the states. The rules look to be taken advatage of. For example one can not say a name of a major NFL event in public with out fear of the NFL because the name of the event was not properlly licenced from the NFL. It has getting to the point where it is so bad that it becomes laughable.

Anywho, check out the session and other sessions from Mix09 at http://live.visitmix.com/.

using System;
class HelloWorld
{
    public static int Main(String[] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");
    }
}

Hello! Yes I am yet another person with yet another blog. I have gained much knowledge during my life as a professional geek and now I have an outlet to pass on my opinions and know how to anyone that is willing to read.

Now that I have typed a little about why I started this blog, I guess it is time tell a little about myself. I am Software Engineer with a BS in Computer Science. My wife, if asked, well say that I am a professional geek and she would be correct. I love technology, always have. I like to learn as much as I can. While my severe Dyslexia slows my learning a bit, it does not seem to affect my ability to be a developer. Because of the Dyslexia, don’t be surprised to misspellings or ramblings. The picture at the top of the site is my dog. The picture has become known as RawrDog. As proof to my geekyness, my dog’s name is nOOBert. Yes that is his name and yes that is how it is spelt. I am sure there will be some posts about him sooner or later.

My goal with Geek With Opinions is to be an outlet to share what I learn, my experiences and opinions. I also hope this will help with my English skills as English as taken a back seat to the other languages that I work with during my day to day life. C# has become my primary langue.

Hello and Welcome to my piece of the internet
Tony