Smelser.NET

I walked into a meeting earlier this week, only to find a huge count-down clock projected on the wall. There was no mistaking what this meant... We were going to have time-boxed discussions. I wrote about a similar pattern in my post Your Time is Up, but I've never seen anything quite like this. As it turns out, this tool is called "Big Time" which is appropriate. But the real hidden gem is the voice-over which had a distinct measure of desperation in his voice. As if to say... "I got a Computer Science Degree and THIS is what I am doing?"

With that said, the real credit goes to the my Scrum Master... This worked brilliantly...  Simple and effective... Nicely done Jon. 

Tags: processes

I don't know how I always find these kind of people, but I am glad they exist... Spend any amount of time with someone who enjoys doing this sort of thing and then re-enter the real world and life just seems boring by comparison. I think we need more of them. 

Tags: films

In these hard times, apparently everyone is looking for extra work. This is what I get for walking around London telling people I was a Jedi.

It's times like this that I am reminded about the difference between the Star Wars genre and all the others... The others didn't really happen.

Tags: films

If you are a Dwarfer, then you already know who this is. Say hello Holly!

Tags: films

This really made me laugh.  The other day I was looking for a list of Team Foundation Server (TFS) Widgets.  So I Googled TFS and widget and what do you know, the first hit was exactly what I was looking for.  Ok...  This is really no surprise...  Google is great!  But look at the second item on the list.  

Tags:

If you are not a code writing geek, you probably won't get this. I am not sure who wrote this but it is genious... Enjoy... 

http://www.smelser.net/blog/blog/page/How-To-Write-Unmaintainable-Code.aspx

Tags:

Yes!...  Thats right!... The force is with me... at least it was for a little while.  This was a fun project.  I took a break from the code and decided to go in search of my metaclorine.  I made a small clip just to see what it took to make this type of special effect.  As it turns out, this takes a really LONG! time and a ton of disk space.  With that said, it was a lot of fun and worth looking into if you (a) need a break from the code and (b) are feeling a bit creative.  There are tons of resources online so it should be easy to get started.  After this, I have to say I have a lot of respect for the hard core Star Wars Fan Film producers.

Tags: films

I remember the day when I first saw a TIVO...  Besides being one of the best implementations of Linux I had every seen, I saw an appliance approach that just made sense.  Shortly after that, I was sitting in a Microsoft WinHEC session when I saw Microsoft Media Center for the first time.  It was at that moment I realized what TIVO was missing...  What was it? What every good geeks longs for...  Extensibility!

That right... I could make it do what I wanted.  Microsoft had empowered me.  AGAIN!.  Ok... I admit it... I drank the Microsoft Kool-Aid long ago, and yes I know you can hack TIVO.  With all this new 'supported' power, what did I do? I made a DNR plugin of course.  Microsoft has written a lot about the 10-foot user experience, and Media Center appears to be the embodiment of all that user interface research.  If you have not explored this space, it is worth a look.  Want to know more...  Check out this episode of MSDN TV - http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode.aspx?xml=theshow/en/Episode053/manifest.xml

UPDATE!...  On the 21 Feb 2006 issue of DotNetRocks,  Carl Franklin was kind enough to give me a small mention about seven minutes into the show...  Thanks guys...  You Rock!

Another UPDATE!...  On the 01 April 2006 I completed the construction of my very own media center...  This was a lot of fun and a real challenge...!  Now I will never miss an episode of Good Eats!

Click Here to see some of the construction work.
 

Tags: mce, side projects