IOpine

My Black Friday Finds

harterjj — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:35:17 GMT

I've been looking high and low for this toy for my niece the last several weeks. It turns out that I've was looking in places that definitely weren't going to have it. Fischer Price finally confirmed on their web site that the "Little Einstein pat pat Rocket" is only available at Target stores so that eliminated the need to search Toy R Us or Wal Mart anymore.

Though I hate to admit it, I did participate in the Black Friday hoopla. I started out at the new local Target where I came up empty handed for the "pat pat Rocket". I decided to continue my quest for this item at other another Target location. While at the second location I found a helpful sales assistant who was kind enough to check their inventory for the item. She told me "it looks like they might have one in the back", ten minutes later she comes out with two of them. Success!, rolling out of bed early Friday morning had paid off.

Later in the day I got online and picked up and Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD player for my parents. It plays HD DVDs and up converts regular DVD as well.

On Saturday I found myself a 80GB Zune at the local Wal Mart. This was really unexpected since they are in very short supply right now. The Zune 80 is very similar to my current first generation Zune 30 (with the 2.0 firmware upgrade). There are a couple of differences though, first the form factor is about half the size of the Zune 30. secondly the screen on the Zune 80 is bigger, and lastly the Zune 80 has 80gb of storage. Currently my Zune 30 is full so I had no room for movies or pictures. The new Zune 80 gives me plenty of "head room" even with my pictures and movies loaded on the device.

I'm a "Cool Nerd King"

harterjj — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 22:34:11 GMT

LINQ Videos

harterjj — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:23:38 GMT

Download ten videos on LINQ from here. Video number one contains an introduction to LINQ.

Tags: LINQ

A call for action - Introducing twhacks.net

harterjj — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 23:19:23 GMT

A friend and coworker of mine just setup a “digg like” clone for all things related to OS and OS hacking. Check it out here , register, start submitting articles, and most importantly start twhacking it!

Tags: OS

Converting Video Content to the Zune

harterjj — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 02:46:41 GMT

I’ve spent several weeks evaluating software to convert video to a format acceptable to the Zune synch. The Zune software itself will convert from a lot of popular formats to the Zune format (WMV). However the conversion from these formats to WMV is extremely slow.

I’ve evaluated several freeware and shareware application that claimed to support the Zune’s native format (WMV) and finally settled on TMPGEnc Express 4. While many of the products did support the creation of WMVs TMPGenc Express made compatible videos every time without any hassles. I was also surprised to find out in ran without any problem on my X64 Vista machine.

Bottom line if you have a Zune and have been struggling to convert video to it be sure to checkout TMPGEnc Express 4 for Pegasus Inc.

Tags: Zune, Video

Crackdown for the Xbox 360 is a blast!

harterjj — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 02:28:50 GMT

I bought Crackdown for the Xbox 360 the other day and I finally got a chance to play it for several hours today and it’s an absolute blast.

The game is similar to Grand theft Auto (GTA) but your in the shoes of the good guys.

I struggled the first couple of hours of playing game because of my lack of “agility” for my character. The ability to increase your agility through finding “agility orbs” is a very key component to the game. After reaching about 20 agility orbs (there are 500 in total) you gain enough height in your jump to climb and jump to the top of most any build. Once you mastered this it makes it easy to move around the city. It’s also very cool to be able to explore the environment by driving a vehicle around town.

I think this is by for the best game of 2007 for the Xbox 360 yet, though the release of the Halo 3 beta is just around the corner.

Tags: Xbox360

Testing BlogJet

harterjj — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 03:05:49 GMT

I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

"Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination." -- Albert Einstein

What software works with Vista RC1

harterjj — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 03:22:00 GMT

I thought I'd provide a list of software that works Vista RC1. The following software has been tested on my IBM X41T with RC1:

1. WinRAR 3.60

2. AVG Antivirus 7.1 (free edition)

3. FeedDemon

4. Flashget (though I had to turn off the protected mode in IE7)

5. Beyond Compare 2 (I recommend using this program for large file copies since I' ve experienced problems copying large files [> 1gb] from machine to machine.)

6. Magic Disk (run this in compatability mode, Windows XP SP 2)

7. Magic ISO (BTW Nero 7.x doesn't work)

8. Advanced WMA Workshop (warning about WM encoders on install but it appears to work fine)

WCF versioning

harterjj — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 12:29:14 GMT

Craig has a post here on WCF that discusses the option you have for version a WCF service.

Vista Build 5456 Rocks!

harterjj — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 03:51:25 GMT

I took the plunge yesterday and put Vista into everyday use. I was curious to see how MCE was progressing so I pulled the two TV tuners cards from my MCE 2005 machine and placed them into a fresh build of Vista (build 5456). I can now report that things went very smoothly with the setup. I had one slight problem with the IR Tranciever feeding the correct “remote codes” for changing the channels on my Dish Network 811 receiver but I was able to overcome that by changing the “remote address” on the Dish reciever.

I was surprised to find out that Vista detected my WIN PVR 150 Hauppauge and my ATI HDTV Digital Wonder cards. Vista even download some compatiable drivers from the internet too.

TIP: Apparently Vista’s build 5456 TV Tuner installation and detection process currenlty only works with default “remote address” of your Cable/Sat receiver.

I’ve watched several shows under Vista MCE today and I haven’t experienced any problems with the live TV, playback, or recording.

I’m now beginning to do some research on the Microsoft Feed API so that I can download my podcasts feeds to Vista and sync them to my iPod. Goodbye iTunes hello Media Player 11.

Wow! This is big news...

harterjj — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 03:47:24 GMT

I just got done watching the keynote video from Virtual Tech Ed 2006 and came across this post:

Scoble is Leaving Microsoft
Yeah, it’s 100% true. Scoble is heading to PodTech.net. This is front page news if I’ve ever heard of it - and half the blogosphere won’t find out until Monday, most likely. Congratulations, Robert. ;) The blogosphere is already abuzz with speculation and discussion:

Robert Scoble leaving Microsoft for a Silicon Valley startup
Scoble Leaving Microsoft - News at 11
Scoble moves
Robert Scoble to Leave Microsoft, Joins PodTech.net
Microsoft’s top blogger Robert Scoble is leaving…
Scoble leaving Microsoft…
Evil Web 2.0 Part II
The Scobleizer calls it quits at Microsoft
Is Scoble leaving Microsoft
Scoble Leaving Microsoft
Is Blogger Robert Scoble Leaving Microsoft
News Flash- Robert W. Scoble Is Leaving Microsoft

To Robert: in your first public statement, you state: “First, I love Microsoft and Microsoft did not lose me â€” at least as a supporter and friend.” One would have to be insane to believe that you’d stop supporting Microsoft, personally or professionally, from this point forward. You were helping Microsoft long before you were working there. You continue: “I just made this decision and it got out before I was completely ready to talk about it.” Once the first pin dropped, there was nothing you could do to stop it (few people had heard of Beet.tv until tonight). Remember when you were first offered a job at Microsoft? Were you ready back then? I told you that you’d be crazy if you didn’t accept the position, and nothing could have prepared you for what was to come. And so, again, I say… congratulations.

breaking news, front page news, microsoft, news, newsflash, podtech, scoble breaking news, front page news, microsoft, news, newsflash, podtech, scoble

I'm a happy Xbox 360 owner

harterjj — Thu, 25 May 2006 02:03:00 GMT

Well I finally took the plunge and bought a Xbox 360 over the weekend. My first impressions of the console are very postive. I really enjoyed the little bit of playing I got to do over the weekend with the console. Right now the killer game for me is the Xbox Live Arcade.

Basically my decision to buy a Xbox 360 came down to seeing the content from E3 or should I say the lack of compelling content from Sony. Sony really has it’s work cut out for them to compete with Xbox 360. The marginally better graphics don’t justify the $200 premium for the Playstation 3.

On a side note; I’ve been a long time Nintendo fan boy. This raises the question; will I be buying the Wii? Absolutely!!!

Team Foundation Server Part 1 - Installation

harterjj — Wed, 10 May 2006 03:11:00 GMT

This is part one of a multipart blog covering Team Foundation Server. We will cover installing Team Foundations Server and Client using the trial versions of the software in part one.

Here’s what you’ll need in order to install Team Foundation Server.

Server Hardware:

Server Requirements for Team Foundation Server

Server Software

I recommend you download and review the Team Foundation Server Install Guide before attempting the installation.

Client Hardware:

Visual Studio Hardware Requirements

After the Server installation is complete you can install the Client Software listed below:

Team System 180 day trial
Office 2003 Standard Edition trial
Team Explorer (located on the Team Foundation Server CD)

Team Foundation Server Slides from St Louis Code Camp

harterjj — Mon, 08 May 2006 13:33:00 GMT

I had a great time at the St Louis Code Camp on Saturday. Below are the slides from the presentation that Mitch and I gave.

Team Foundation Server - Hype, Hope, and How to Be Hip

Agile is not Rapid Application Development (RAD)

harterjj — Wed, 03 May 2006 03:09:47 GMT

I found this to be very interesting.