Personal
I am on the first stop of the devLink bus on the way to the devLink Technical Conference. It will be a fun ride starting in Grand Rapids at 6:00PM tonight (8/20/08) and getting into Murfreesboro, TN at 9:30AM tomorrow morning. We will have drinks and snacks to keep people going as well as a lot of great conversations about technology, software development and all things geek. Along the way I also think we will watch a few movies. So for the long drive, I think we will have a great time. I am also bringing my video camera...
OK I am trying to get back into ready heavy and bought some new books yesterday. I bought the following books: I thought that maybe a great way to get new book ideas is to leverage the Twitter tribe and get their book reviews they post as Twitter posts. So next Wednesday, I hope people will post to Twitter reviews of the books they are reading or read recently.
The official site for the Ann Arbor Give Camp is now ready for volunteers to sign up and pledge a weekend of development to local charities. Jennifer Marsman, Patrick Steele, Bill Wagner, Todd Bohlen and John Hopkins are the organizers of the 3 day event that pairs up developers with charities to give these charities some needed technology to benefit not only the charity but the people they server on a daily basis. "GiveCamp is a weekend-long event where software developers, designers, and database administrators donate their time to create custom software for non-profit organizations" Want more information...
After many weeks of preparing and delays, my new podcast is up and running with the first 2 episodes. I expect the podcast to improve over the next few months with maybe new theme music and better production. It is a little rough but it is alive. I am going to try to post at least 1 new episode each week. Here are the first 2 episode details: Episode 1 -- Introductions This is the first episode of the new CloudSocket podcast. It covers who the host Chris Woodruff is and what Chris will cover for the life...
I will be leaving this morning for a 2 day speaking tour in Wisconsin. I will be speaking to the Wisconsin .NET User Group in Milwaukee tonight March 11 and tomorrow night March 12 to the Chippewa Valley .NET User Group in Eau Claire. Both talks will cover ADO.NET Data Services (AKA Project Astoria) and the Semantic Web. I am looking forward to both and meeting all the great people in Wisconsin.
I have not dropped away from the Cloudsocket blog. I am just getting prepared for the next month when the Cloudsocket podcast will be released. Stay tuned in!! I have 5 new blog posts being developed for this week and the first podcast will come this weekend.
I have had issues with my Zune 30 ever since I reinstalled Vista 64 and Zune Software 2.3. I could not get podcasts to download through the software and syncing with my Zune 30 would not occur. The software could recognize the Zune 30 and see the contents of the device but it would not sync. I spent many hours trying to find a solution and fix this curse I have had. This morning I came into the office and was determined to find a solution or just give up. I was prepared to give the Zune to my...
My son Spencer who is 7 is always playing Webkinz. If there is a social gathering site for kids it is this site. We have 8 of the animals at the house and I expect more soon. The site is great for teaching kids about the value of money and saving and also for communicating with friends. My son has learned everything he has about computers in the last year from Webkinz. I wish I had thought of this business model. $10.00 to $12.00 for each animal and all the advertisement on the site (which is minimal). My wife gets...
I love my brown Zune 30. It plays video and also the sound is great. I loved the new 2.0 Zune software until this week and the 2.3 update. I had the software do the automatic update and all went well as far as I could tell. I was busy with work so I did not do any syncing with the Zune 30 until yesterday. I first noticed that all new podcast episodes were not downloading but were still in Pending state from the listings in the Collection Podcasts. I then noticed that no new songs or files were being...
I will be in Cincinnati this Tuesday for a Demo2Win training class. The purpose of the class to enable a sales professional to (from the site): "The goal of the Demo2WIN!® workshop is simple: deliver a practical, proven set of skills, tools and procedures that both beginners and veterans can immediately put to use to improve their demo-to-win ratio." The training is for the Microsoft Dynamics line of business. What I find fascinating is that this training will people with the following: Helping with demo mistakes committed during the presentation...
2007 is coming to an end and when I take a look back on the past year it is with a deep breath and open eyes. Did I do everything I was hoping to? No but I don't think any of us do what we think we will or hope to do. Did I do enough to be satisfied? I think so. Here is a list of things I am proud of from 2007 (from a technical and career view). Started speaking again at .NET user groups and developer events like Day of .NET Ann Arbor. Lead...