Tue, Dec 26, 2006 @ 7:01 PM - 0 comment(s) The Hidden Costs of Making Money A lot has changed since TEO was released in the Spring. I’m married now which although it’s a little different, wasn’t that major of a change for me. The big difference is that I also have a son, Jake Einstein. He’s awesome… really smart and getting bigger every day. Being a dad isn’t really as hard as I thought it would be but it has its challenges. The biggest challenge is that every decision I make now will directly affect other people that mean a lot to me. It’s been almost a month now since I started working in New York City on a contract job that came out of the blue. While the commute is not a piece of cake (PHL to NYC and back every single weekday), I do enjoy it. I’m getting out of the house much more than I used to and the lack of TEO sales isn’t weighing on my mind like a ton of bricks the way it has been. I used to worry that if TEO failed, my family would fail. I sorta forgot that there is a real wo... (more)
Sat, Dec 09, 2006 @ 1:02 AM - 0 comment(s) Yeah I haven't posted in a long time. Been really busy. I'm working for the Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan for a short term contract job that should be done soon. But the big news is I am planning to accept an offer from a tiny software company nobody has ever heard of. The only question is, which do I like more, television or Tablet PC's? :) I've got a really tough decision to make. “Go west, young man. Break heads in the new land.”... (more)
Sat, Oct 21, 2006 @ 12:37 PM - 4 comment(s) Dennis Rice sure does look alot like Bill Clinton. You be the judge!... (more)
Wed, Oct 18, 2006 @ 1:53 PM - 1 comment(s) I am really big on consistent user interfaces. I like it when things integrate well with a host and I like when the lines are blurred as to where the host ends and the application begins. That's the approach I took with Tablet Enhancements for Outlook when I went with an Office look and feel for the TEO forms. In version 2.0 it was... eh. But in 3.0 I think I did a pretty good job of mimicking the Outlook forms. Of course, I still have to make it look and feel like Outlook 2007 now, but that's another story. So anyway, while working on a new product, I decided I was going to go for the Vista look-and-feel. Since the application's main interface is supposed to function basically the same as the Control Panel, I used the Windows Vista Control Panel as my inspiration. But in doing so, I wound up with a few useful byproducts. A custom renderer for ToolStrip that nearly perfectly reproduces the Windows Vista toolbar and menus. A base form that lets Aero glass creep into the client area with Vista-looking bac... (more)
Tue, Oct 17, 2006 @ 7:29 PM - 0 comment(s) http://www.apple.com/support/windowsvirus/ What really pisses me off is that Apple doesn't hesitate to place the blame on Microsoft for this. As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it. Hello?? How the hell is this Windows' fault? If a Zune shipped with a Mac virus and it infected thousands of Apple customers, there would be lawsuits filed, bloggers would be in a frenzy, and all of the blame would be placed squarely on Microsoft. But since Apple can do no wrong, we see the same old nerds on ZDNet defending Apple and not much reaction from the bloggers. I think a criminal investigation is in order.... (more)
Mon, Oct 16, 2006 @ 2:39 PM - 3 comment(s) Yeah unfortunately TEO 3.0 just isn't cutting it. Put aside for a moment the fact that I feel like I wasted a year of my life developing it. I would have been alot more successful had I stuck to my original plan and spent the year working on the Sylantro software. But TEO was the product that was paying the bills so it had to come first. It's not that it isn't a good and useful product, just that I lack the ability to properly market it and support it. I wish there were more Tablet PC software companies out there because I'd love to sell it to someone who would give it a good home. So anyway, I'm considering re-entering corporate America, but in the meantime, I am going to open myself to consultation and custom development opportunities which I had previously tried to avoid. So if your company is looking for a talented .NET-focused developer who is up to date on all of the current Microsoft technologies such as Office 2007, SQL 2005, .NET 2.0 and 3.0, Windows Workflow, Vista, etc. I'm your guy. Also, i... (more)
Thu, Sep 28, 2006 @ 1:32 AM - 1 comment(s) (To those not familiar with Guns N' Roses, “Loaded like a freight train“ is the first line of the song, Nightrain, not an indication that I was drunk when I wrote this. :) I am really excited to finally be teaming up with my good friend (and my best protege) Andre de Cavaignac on a new side project called Nightrain. In the few years I've known him since meeting him on Tablet PC Buzz, he's become an excellent developer and is in high demand. I'm excited to have his help on this project. I am not gonna talk too much about it since I learned my lesson when it comes to talking about cool things that people might want to steal. But this is a cool project. I will say it involves mapping and we're gonna try to use this as a demonstration of the power of ClickOnce apps as alternatives to web sites. Also got some help from another developer friend of mine, Jon Person, the developer of GPS.NET and GIS.NET. His components are exceptional examples that all component developers should follow. The thing that... (more)
Sun, Sep 24, 2006 @ 8:46 AM - 1 comment(s) Don't be surprised to hear me say I love OneNote 2007. I was never a big fan of OneNote 2003 because of the fact that ink felt like an afterthought. But I am really digging 2007. Great improvements and it looks and feels alot more polished. I never really saw TEO and OneNote as competitors although sometimes the way you see it isn't the way things really are. You see, people have a finite amount of money they're willing to spend on their Tablet PC and accessories and they have a finite number of uses for it. Some people may find OneNote to be a suitable organizer for them and some may insist on keeping their stuff in Outlook. In this way, they are competitors. However, I see it another way. I use TEO and Outlook for things like calendar, tasks, contacts, etc which is what it was designed for. I take basic notes attached to the Outlook item itself because it's easier to find this way and one less step. I also like more structured notes when I'm logging a phone call or meeting. TEO and Outlook Journal give me... (more)
Sat, Sep 16, 2006 @ 5:55 AM - 0 comment(s) My reputation for good support is really hurting right now. I have been unable to respond to many emails for days and when I can get to my emails, alot of the time I can't do anything about them. I also haven't released an updated TEO build in several weeks. I have been really pre-occupied with repairing several failed Vista attempts. I understand this shouldn't be able to affect my handling of support issues, but sometimes I let my geekiness get in the way of my responsibilities. I am taking steps to make sure that this won't happen again. Feel free to bitch at me via email. I will totally understand.... (more)
Sat, Sep 16, 2006 @ 5:44 AM - 1 comment(s) I've got a very detailed process. This map was developed for Windows XP so some things don't apply to Vista and some only apply to a Tablet PC. But as you can see, I've got alot to install and setup. It is a very delicate process that's easy to mess up (which is why I put it into MindManager). Return to Gallery | Original Image ... (more)
Sat, Sep 16, 2006 @ 5:36 AM - 4 comment(s) Warning - This story does not have a happy ending so don't read this whole thing if you're looking for a heartwarming story or a solution to your corrupt Vista installation. I'm just writing this lengthy post so that search engines will index it effectively so that others with similar problems have some type of comfort and don't waste too much time. I shouldn't be going into this much detail here because I am extremely busy reinstalling all my apps AGAIN. You see, in the last 7 days or so, I have had to format and reinstall Vista RC1 3 times. Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as installing, finding out it didn't work, then installing again. No this really sucked. Here's what happened. First, on my Tablet PC As I may have mentioned before, I recently bought a Gateway CX2724 Convertible Notebook (fancy word for Tablet PC without the all the negative press). This was before Vista RC1 so I didn't bother installing the current CTP because I knew RC1 was right around the corner. I figured I'd set up all my apps a... (more)
Thu, Sep 14, 2006 @ 5:41 PM - 0 comment(s) Okay, here's why Microsoft should just call it quits in the digital music business. They have already betrayed their hardware partners by introducing a new music player, but now they're also betraying their Windows Media content partners and their customers with this new Zune thing. In plain English, Zune will not play music that you have bought on Napster, Yahoo, Urge, Rhapsody, MSN Music, or any other store that sells DRM-protected WMA's. People have bitched about DRM ever since it first came out and I've always defended it because DRM, when done right, gives users and content providers plenty of options and is both fair and secure. But now Microsoft is turning their back on everyone that has ever bought a “Plays For Sure” device or content. They're saying that you can only buy content from Zune's store (or import unprotected content which means CD's you already own or MP3's that you stole) and once you buy from their store, you're locked into the Zune player. They're basically pulling an Appl... (more)
Thu, Sep 07, 2006 @ 9:17 PM - 0 comment(s) Warner Crocker, prominent Tablet PC blogger and MVP, has graciously extended an offer to readers of GottaBeMobile.com to watch his theatre's performance of the Shakespeare play, Othello at no charge. I'm blocking out some time to head to Virginia to see this. Hopefully I'll also get a chance to meet Warner since we have become good “internet friends” but never met in person. (from Wikipedia, possible spoilers follow) Othello, a Moor who has just eloped with the fair Desdemona when the play opens, leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against the Turks on the island of Cyprus, accompanied by his new wife and his lieutenant, Cassio. When they arrive, they find that the weather has destroyed the Turkish fleet. Iago, a standard bearer, repeatedly tries to undo Othello, finally succeeding when he plants Desdemona's handkerchief on Cassio, managing to convince Othello that his wife has been unfaithful with the lieutenant. Othello kills Desdemona out of jealousy, before Iago's wife, Emilia, ev... (more)
Tue, Sep 05, 2006 @ 7:19 PM - 0 comment(s) This is driving me nuts. TEO, while still relatively new on Handango, would be on the front page when sorted by Best Selling if it wasn't for a bunch of off-topic and obviously “spam” listings that have bumped it off the first page. (52 nice fonts, betting exchange ebook trading method, language learning, web site conversion secrets, etc...) I have a feeling whoever is selling these listings (such as “web site conversion secrets”) is buying his own stuff in order to maintain a best seller status. Can something be done about this? It's dilluting the worth of Handango's Tablet PC software listing. ... (more)
Tue, Sep 05, 2006 @ 5:18 AM - 0 comment(s) Do you want Time Zone support in System.DateTime? No, you don't. Trust me. Every now and then I come across a blog posting or article about how Microsoft is investigating ways to extend System.DateTime to meet customer demand for time zone support. Basically, customers are asking Microsoft to make System.DateTime be able to represent a given date/time and UTC offset. This is bad for a number of reasons, but the biggest reason is that time zones SUCK! Maybe you remember my quest to eliminate all of the evil that time zones have inflicted on me by converting my life to UTC while the world around me continued ignorantly using Eastern Standard Time? Well that didn't go over too well because interacting with other people was just too difficult. Fortunately, computers don't have that problem. If you follow these simple rules, you can live a happy pain-free coexistence with DateTime. Never, ever, ever store a DateTime in its local time. By storing all DateTimes in UTC, you guarantee that you can always accuratel... (more)
Tue, Sep 05, 2006 @ 4:26 AM - 0 comment(s) I am really saddened by the death of Steve Irwin. The guy was so full of life and optimism and I envy that. Ever since I was a kid, I've always been fascinated by outdoors and wildlife, particularly reptiles. Long before the Crocodile Hunter had an audience, my friends and I used to spend every day in the woods catching snakes, turtles, or basically anything that couldn't regulate its own body temperature. When I grew up and started working, I lost that sense of adventure and in a way, I lived vicariously through Steve. He made nature fun and exciting and brought wildlife shows to a whole new audience, even if we all did secretly want to see him get bitten every now and then. But really I guess I thought this guy would just live forever and it really sucks that he had to go so suddenly and with one of the least dangerous animals on the planet. I really feel bad for his wife and two kids. He was such a devoted family man and this is going to be absolutely devastating for them. But at least his kids will have ... (more)
Sun, Aug 27, 2006 @ 12:51 AM - 0 comment(s) This was a real pain in the ass to figure out and searching around the internet, I couldn't really find any straight answers. But I finally figured out how to use nested content with an ASP.NET User Control without resorting to a custom control. (Hey I'm a design-time guy.) So let's say you want to do this: <uc1:Box runat=”server” Title=“This is cool!“><p>This would be child content of the box control.</p><asp:Button runat=“server“ Text=“This works too“ /></uc1:Box> In Box.ascx, put this: <%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Box.ascx.cs" Inherits="Box" %><div id="BoxDiv" runat="server" class="box"><h3><asp:Literal id="TitleLiteral" runat="server"></asp:Literal></h3><asp:PlaceHolder id="ChildPlaceHolder" runat="server"></asp:PlaceHolder></div> In Box.ascx.cs, put this: [ParseChildren( true, "ChildControls" )]public partial class Box : System.Web.UI.User... (more)
Sun, Aug 20, 2006 @ 3:20 PM - 0 comment(s) http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/20/hamas.arrest.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories Let me just clear things up first - despite what you may think based on my name, I am not Jewish nor do I have any jewish ancestors that I know of. But I also have no problem with them as a religion. This post is strictly about Isreal as a nation. With that out of the way, I just want to rant right now. Look at the headline on that news article. Isreal arrests senior Hamas lawmaker, an elected official, from his home. Wonder why they didn't say “abducted” or “kidnapped”. I wanna know why this kind of behavior is ok, but they flip out when two of their soldiers are captured. As far as I am concerned, Isreal is just as bad as Hamas and Hezbollah. This double standard that goes on is really pretty pathetic. What defines a terrorist organization? Isreal has murdered hundreds of Lebanese civilians in the past few weeks. Does that make IDF a terrorist organization? I think it does. I... (more)
Thu, Aug 10, 2006 @ 4:52 PM - 0 comment(s) I think the news would sound alot different if they owned stock in some of these airlines. Why do they have to spread so much fear? Now, as you may know, I am scared to death of flying and avoid it constantly. But what I don't get is why people start to be afraid to fly after news of a foiled terrorist plot like this. You should feel GOOD! I mean every day these people are plotting to kill you. This time the good guys won. I don't get it. When it comes to flying, terrorism is the last thing that scares me. It's mechanical failure that I worry about. So when a plane crashes, I actually feel a little bit better because it makes me think the mechanics and inspectors will be paying a little bit more attention than they normally would.... (more)
Fri, Jul 28, 2006 @ 8:46 PM - 3 comment(s) Back in 1996, when I first entered the tech industry, I was 16 and I was working for a company called Infonautics Corporation in Wayne, PA. The whole internet revolution thing was happening although I really didn't understand it at the time. Later on, I started to realize when everybody was coming up with these dot com startups, that a lot of people had gotten very rich, very quickly, without ever actually running a profitable business. As company after company folded and people were being laid off by the thousands, I realized that if I had been born 10 years earlier, I too probably could have been rich. “Oh well,” I thought, “I missed my opportunity to get rich quick. Guess I have to either invent a time machine or make money the old fashioned way.” Fast forward 10 years to 2006 and guess what. I'm 10 years older and the whole freakin' thing is happening all over again. Why am I not rich? Why am I not one of the guys writing some cool web calendar with tags and social networking and ... (more)
Sun, Jul 23, 2006 @ 12:25 AM - 4 comment(s) With all the great posts I've seen around TEO 3.0, I was a little surprised (pleasantly) to see Rick Segal center his post around my customer support. I'm glad that it's noticed because I do try really hard to have a good relationship with my customers and provide one-on-one support. By the way, I am looking for a new remote desktop solution to allow me to remote into customer PC's. Any suggestions? I have been using FogCreek's CoPilot but in the last few weeks it can barely hold a connection, doesn't play nicely with Windows OneCare, and now it's crashing every time I try to connect (even on a completely different machine) so I think I need to find an alternative. Update: I was contacted directly by FogCreek tech support through my blog. That's good customer service! Anyhow, Tyler, the rep, acknowledged the disconnect problem was on their end which have been fixed. As for other stuff, well I was so impressed that I'm sticking with CoPilot and deal with it while they improve the interaction with OneCar... (more)
Fri, Jul 21, 2006 @ 11:36 PM - 3 comment(s) ... (more)
Thu, Jul 20, 2006 @ 10:32 PM - 1 comment(s) It's really here! Tablet Enhancements for Outlook 3.0 is released and available for purchase. I know I didn't get a chance to post about it on my blog yesterday because I kinda did an “extended launch”. Basically I released the product before the web site was completely done. Why? Well for one, the software is long overdue anyway and since the code was done, didn't see any reason to hold it up any longer. Second of all, by putting out the software ahead of time, it would put enormous pressure on me (and the people that developed the AWESOME new web site) to get everything done. There's still a lot of content to add to the site, but for now, all of the features are accounted for, the download page is working, and the purchase page is working. There is also a new support community linked from the new site that gradually I will be moving over to. I will probably redirect JoshEinstein.com there as well. The new forum will be hosted there and I will have all sorts of tips for using TEO and other info... (more)
Thu, Jul 20, 2006 @ 10:00 PM - 3 comment(s) Okay so I didn't win the Student Tablet PC's banner contest. I am a little bummed because I worked on this amazing piece of art for a month. But the winner looks great! Looking forward to the new site! Check out the winner and more!... (more)
Thu, Jul 20, 2006 @ 9:55 PM - 0 comment(s) We defend Isreal's unrelenting and hostile invasion into Lebanon because we say they have every right to defend themselves. Yet, they'll fill up pages and pages of hateful comments about Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage program designed to defend themselves against widespread software piracy and educate the victims. Guess it's cool to kill civilians as long as you don't check their Windows product key. (This is probably the first time someone has ranted about Isreal and Microsoft haters in the same blog post.)... (more)
Mon, Jul 17, 2006 @ 4:42 AM - 1 comment(s) Your typical web 2.0-looking site with your typical web 2.0-sounding name ripping off the MSDN Aggregate feed and re-publishing the articles as their own. Looks like they plan on adding some Google AdSense once they get a good spot in the index.... (more)
Sun, Jul 16, 2006 @ 3:05 PM - 0 comment(s) With all the whiz-bang UI features that Microsoft's AdCenter product has over Google AdWords, the fact is, the experience on Google was far better. That's hard for me to say because I don't really like Google at all. I set up the same ad on both AdCenter and Google AdWords last Thursday and my Google AdWords campaign was up and running in about 1 minute after I completed the setup. It's been almost 72 hours since setting up my Microsoft AdCenter campaign and it still isn't running. I have emailed them twice and got back two canned responses. One telling me that the reason my ad isn't running is because it hasn't been approved yet (duh, the question I asked was why) and the second one (when I asked how long it's going to take to approve) tells me: It’s my understanding that you are concerned with the approval process taking some time. Given the importance of this issue, I can see how this can be an inconvenience, and I will do my best to assist you with this matter today. I assure you that this... (more)
Sat, Jul 08, 2006 @ 5:24 PM - 5 comment(s) When I showed him TEO 3.0, he couldn't put it down. So he begged me to leave my Motion LE1600 with him and who am I to say no to that. ... (more)
Thu, Jul 06, 2006 @ 11:54 PM - 6 comment(s) Yeah I guess I'm going a little overboard. ... (more)
Thu, Jul 06, 2006 @ 7:56 PM - 3 comment(s) I wanna thank Andre for posting the previous two entries for me while I was unable to use .Text from my phone. Here's the first pic, though it's from my camera phone so it's a little grainy. Got it on video too. (Heather made me take down the picture. Sorry.)... (more)
Thu, Jul 06, 2006 @ 12:50 PM - 4 comment(s) Heather delivered a boy, Jacob Tennyson Einstein today!... (more)
Thu, Jul 06, 2006 @ 11:28 AM - 2 comment(s) The baby is coming early! I'm in the delivery room now, so I won't be replying to emails today.... (more)
Thu, Jun 22, 2006 @ 9:59 AM - 0 comment(s) I'll admit, in the past, I haven't thought so highly of Michael Arrington from TechCrunch. I guess I had just assumed that because he is constantly reviewing and reporting “Web 2.0” sites that he must be one of the nuts that think that web apps are going to replace desktop apps and that Microsoft is screwed. But after listening to the latest Gillmor Gang podcast (it's the first one I've ever listened to) I came away with two new points of view: Steve Gillmor is an arrogant jerk who thinks he knows everything. And after reading several of the comments in his past podcasts, apparently lots of people feel this way. Michael Arrington is a lot more in tune with reality than I previously assumed. Mike comes to Microsoft's defense a few times and on more than one occasion said that web apps are not the solution to everything. He's also pretty realistic about Google and how their “because we can” apps have little real world benefit. It's really annoying to hear the way Steve const... (more)
Wed, Jun 21, 2006 @ 1:43 PM - 3 comment(s) I've never given much credit to the idea of psychological disorders. When I was a teenager, I had to take Prozac which I didn't want to do and even while I was taking it, felt little or no change in my behavior. In fact I stopped taking it for several months and nobody was the wiser. But I finally went to the doctor for the first time in about 10 years and explained my attention problems. I had taken several self exams which have all recommended that I talk to my doctor about ADHD and so I figured I should probably do that. So now I'm on medication for it and in 2 to 4 weeks, hopefully I will start to see some changes. Things are really bad now. I “forget” names minutes after hearing them. I miss key details in meetings and phone calls unless I record them and play them back 5 times. I also can't focus on any particular task, no matter how important it may be. It's been a huge time waste for me. In fact, in 2006 I've hardly accomplished anything “cool” at all. Most of my wo... (more)
Thu, Jun 15, 2006 @ 7:46 PM - 0 comment(s) It all feels so wrong. The naming, the callbacks, everything. Also why are they still using IPicureDisp when .NET has never worked well with it. Ugh.... (more)
Tue, Jun 13, 2006 @ 9:42 AM - 8 comment(s) Sorry it took me so long to post this but I had PLENTY of email to catch up on when I got back thanks to a lack of usable internet in the Bahamas. So anyway, Heather and I got married at 5:30PM on Monday, June 5, 2006. Aside from a little spat between my brother and Heather's sister, the blinding sunlight which made me squint or blink in most of the pictures, and the 100 degree temperatures inside a tuxedo, everything went great. The caribbean is a great place to visit, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there. It's very hot, all day long and I burn easily. But I'm glad to be home. The drive back from Florida was far worse than the drive down because we were 1 man down (my brother bailed) and we didn't get back to Florida until 11PM which meant we had been up all day and were starting our 18 hour drive back. But now I'm back, I'm married, and in a month and a half I'll be a dad. Life is good. Now if I could just figure out why TEO won't load on some people's machines I'll be all set. ... (more)
Thu, Jun 01, 2006 @ 1:57 PM - 1 comment(s) Better late than never, the latest build is at www.einsteintech.net and trial functionality is back in so if you don't own TEO you can try it out for 15 days. This one also has built in version checking so when I release the next update you'll be notified. Please let me know ASAP if there are any show stopping bugs because I won't be around tomorrow to fix them.... (more)
Fri, May 26, 2006 @ 3:36 PM - 7 comment(s) Wow what a blatant rip off of TEO's mapping feature. Even the UI is nearly identical. In a rare misstep though, Microsoft really made this look ugly. That's not typical of a Microsoft product but this is an ugly ripoff of TEO's mapping capability. I'm not too thrilled right now. I'd much rather they bought mine. Oh well, guess I just have to raise the bar. (And stop making my betas so accessible... I think I know who may have "borrowed" this idea from me.) UPDATE: As my friend, Andre just pointed out, they even stole my acronym! The installer is called LEO_Setup.exe!!! Live Enhancements for Outlook? Location Enhancements for Outlook? I am pissed. This isn't the first time one of my great ideas wound up in a Microsoft product without any credit to me. Those of you too new to the Tablet PC platform to remember pre-SP2 that I actually created the first in-place floating TIP icon that worked with the SP1 input panel. A few months later, this feature appeared in the “Lonestar” alpha. The les... (more)
Tue, May 23, 2006 @ 3:00 PM - 4 comment(s) Without going into too much detail, Heather was having some problems over the weekend and on Monday as a precaution they admitted her to the hospital. Since one of the hard lessons I've learned is "never leave your woman in the hospital" I decided to sleep in a chair in the room so I have not been able to respond to many messages in the forum. Hopefully she'll be out tonight and I can get to them tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience. PS: Mother & baby are fine.... (more)
Fri, May 19, 2006 @ 1:29 PM - 2 comment(s) It's true. OQO is the smallest UMPC available. Oh and did I mention it also addresses my complaints about fitting in your pocket and having a keyboard? The OQO is indeed a great idea. The only two things holding it back right now (which I also have issue with on the Origami-style devices) is price and horsepower. I don't really know much about how the battery performs on it but I think decent battery life is unrealistic with today's technology on a pocket-sized x86 device. So anyway, if OQO can somehow get the price down, I think it'd be a pretty awesome PDA replacement. (Update: Sorry I should have been more clear. I am fully aware that the OQO isn't Microsoft's definition of a UMPC but it fits my definition and the English language's definition so I am boycotting the UMPC term because it's too exclusive. I'll call any hand-sized PC a UMPC and I'll call the MS defined ones Origami.)... (more)
Tue, May 09, 2006 @ 11:33 PM - 6 comment(s) You're getting screwed by your union. This really goes for anybody working for a union. This isn't the early 1900's. Why are you in a union? You're not going to be forced into 18 hour workdays and you will get paid competitively and you will get health insurance. All your union is doing is bleeding your employer dry and handing over our auto industry to the Japanese. American employees working for Toyota certainly seem happy and they don't have a union. So if you're called on to strike, I say give your union leader the middle finger and report to work. Otherwise you'll be out of a job anyway and you'll screw the country. (Yeah I know nobody from GM or Delphi reads my blog. But it's my blog and I'll bitch if I want to.)... (more)
Sun, May 07, 2006 @ 6:04 PM - 31 comment(s) This is probably going to piss off alot of my fellow Tablet PC bloggers and probably even some at Microsoft. But everywhere people are writing about how unfair the reviews of the first UMPC's are. Here's a few links:http://www.gottabemobile.com/WaltMossbergAndTheQ1.aspxhttp://www.gottabemobile.com/TheMostNegativeQ1ReviewYet.aspxhttp://journals.tuxreports.com/lch/archives/003574.htmlhttp://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=34337http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2006/05/predictable-umpc-reviews.htmlhttp://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2006/05/umpc_scenarios_.htmlhttp://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2006/05/wheres_the_umpc.htmlhttp://wickedstageact2.typepad.com/life_on_the_wicked_stage_/2006/05/another_ouch_re.html The list goes on and on but I don't feel like pulling more links from my RSS right now. My point is, lets face it, how can all the reviewers be wrong? The UMPC is just too far ahead of its time. It was a great idea and I was totally excited about it when I first heard about it but then the... (more)
Wed, May 03, 2006 @ 2:20 PM - 1 comment(s) I've said it before and I'll say it again. I hate ZDNet. Sometimes I don't know who's worse, the trolls leaving comments or the people writing the articles. I have to add a disclaimer that my good friend Marc Orchant writes for ZDNet and I want to make sure it's known that my comments specifically have no applicability to him. He is a very fair and balanced writer and other ZD writers should strive to be like him. But this email notification really chapped my ass. Gee do you think there's any bias here? Firefox gets a nice fresh smelling tweak whereas IE is just a block of moldy swiss cheese. I hate ZDNet.... (more)
Fri, Apr 28, 2006 @ 1:41 PM - 0 comment(s) http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/28/anthem.inspanish.ap/index.html "Oh say can you see?" yeah you can see, but you can see from the other side of the fence. This is a nation of laws and alot of immigrants worked very hard to get in here legally. Border jumpers are slapping those legal immigrants in the face (and undermining our already weak national security) by trying to be above the law.... (more)
Tue, Apr 25, 2006 @ 3:28 PM - 1 comment(s) The simple, geeky, and dare I say *perfect* name for the new windows command shell was MSH. Now they've decided to call it Windows PowerShell. Does Captain America come with it? I've decided Microsoft marketing is incapable of doing anything cool. Isn't that their whole job? To make dorky stuff cool? Why is it the programmers and the techies making the cool names and products and marketing just dirties them up? I am gonna agree with what many have already suggested to Microsoft... get rid of the people you hired to come up with this stuff and let the developers name it. *Cough*, Origami. *Cough*, Avalon. ... (more)
Sun, Apr 23, 2006 @ 12:58 AM - 0 comment(s) Make your own Outlook! That's what I did. Well not really. But I am working on a new project (not TEO, not even tablet for that matter) that requires extensive Outlook UI customization and creating user interface prototypes in Outlook was becoming a major drag. So much code just to create a button or menu. And when you need to start getting hierarchical, forget it. So I took some time writing a dummy Outlook client. It doesn't actually DO anything, but it looks almost identical to Outlook except for a few incorrect icons. But this one is much easier to customize in a WYSIWYG designer and allows me to turn out UI concepts much more quickly. I thought it was cool so I'd post a screen shot. ... (more)
Fri, Apr 21, 2006 @ 6:55 AM - 3 comment(s) The good news is that I have put together a beta registration page where you can now “officially” register for the beta program. The bad news is, I barely got this up in time and had no time to implement trial functionality. So quite simply, this means that until I get a trial version of this built, only registered users can use the beta. Non-customers will have to use the TEO 2.0 trial. Did you do this on purpose to get more people to buy TEO 2.0? Yes and no. Yes TEO 2.0 sales have taken a significant dive since I released the 3.0 beta. This is not the only reason for the dive. Tablet PC Buzz's advertising system also broke down apparently permanently indefinitely (sorry, wrong choice of words) and so I stopped advertising there. Also my posts in the newsgroup have been down so my overall visibility is at an all time low. But, I did really want to get a TEO 3.0 trial mode out because I want to start blasting out notifications. I've spent the last week or so working on a replacement ... (more)
Thu, Apr 20, 2006 @ 8:23 AM - 2 comment(s) I'm aware that the TEO beta expired yesterday. I mistakenly thought it was going to end today but due to UTC offsets and what not, it had expired last night for United States users. Even still, I didn't get finished what I had to get done. So unfortunately, you'll be without TEO 3 until tonight when I release the new beta. I really have to get some sleep right now. But I did finish my new licensing component (so long, Xheo) and the new web site is coming along. So by tonight (remember, my UK/European friends... I am in the US so tonight for me is later than tonight for you) you should be able to register and download the next beta which will have a much longer expiration. But remember, the next beta requires registration.... (more)
Thu, Apr 13, 2006 @ 3:20 PM - 5 comment(s) Man how awesome. A web based calendar. The world is SO in need of another one of these. So cool, I'm sure since Google wrote it, it must be feature-packed. Oh but hey this uses Ajax so it must be better!... (more)
Tue, Apr 11, 2006 @ 1:56 PM - 0 comment(s) Among several fixes too numerous to list, the major points are: Bug when default country not set fixed (this was a big one) Better logging Better recognizer fallback Outlook 2007 working in my test environment (tested on Outlook 2007 Beta1TR). Let me know how it works for you. There is still a glitch in Outlook that the standard Outlook screen momentarily shows. This is as far as I can tell, an Outlook bug. Also did not fully test all features. But forms load and save and toggling back and forth works. No more huge wikipedia.dat. Moved to the web server. Zip code and city/state auto fill enabled. More web services will be coming soon. Let me know how it goes over at http://forum.einsteintech.net Come on we need more activity in there! It's starting to slow down. So what'cha what'cha what'cha want... (more)
Tue, Apr 11, 2006 @ 4:05 AM - 7 comment(s) Am I awesome? Or am I awesome? Got Outlook 2007 working and I'll post a new build shortly. By the way, anybody that wants to come to my wedding you're more than welcome. It's in Freeport, Bahamas June 5th. We'll be staying at the Viva Wyndham Fortuna Beach all inclusive hotel. I don't think I have a whole lot of readers but anyway it'll be a fun time.... (more)
Mon, Apr 10, 2006 @ 9:47 PM - 0 comment(s) I've reinstalled Windows XP + Office 2007 on my tablet and I'm looking into this now. I can already see the biggest problem with Outlook raising a Close event where it didn't in 2003. The 2003 way is actually the buggy one but the fix breaks TEO. That one seems to be an easy one to get around. I'm not sure what's causing the crashes though. I'll see that once I run it under a debugger. So rest assured, I'm working on it.... (more)
Tue, Apr 04, 2006 @ 7:34 PM - 2 comment(s) Well alot of people are using TEO 3 and alot of bugs are being squashed every day. This is really great. I'm really grateful to have such enthusiastic and helpful users. In particular I want to thank Rob Bushway, Ruud, Gordon, Matt, Kev, and anyone else I might have missed. But these guys have been active in the forums and helping me work stuff out via IM too. As a result, I'm finding and fixing bugs I never would have been able to find on my own. Really really great.... (more)
Sun, Apr 02, 2006 @ 2:36 PM - 0 comment(s) I am a keyboard guy. I like to use keyboard shortcuts, I don't like to waste time with the mouse. Especially when I am writing code. Today, for some stupid reason, I found myself making the mistake of hitting CTRL+HOME and jumping to the top of my source file when in fact I was trying to get to the top of a particular function. I'm not exactly sure why my brain started doing this, but rather than retrain myself, I decided to retrain Visual Studio. Of course one of the things I love best about VS.NET is it's incredible extensiblity mechanism. I'm not very skilled with it, but fortunately there are a bunch of sample macros already included. One of which did almost exactly what I wanted -- BeginningOfFunction. I wanted to map this macro to CTRL+HOME. But I also use CTRL+HOME an awful lot when I do want to get to the beginning of the document and I didn't want to retrain myself there either. So I came up with what I think is a great compromise. I made some minor modifications to the BeginningOfFunction macro t... (more)
Fri, Mar 31, 2006 @ 5:27 PM - 8 comment(s) No April Fool's joke here. TEO 3.0 Beta 1 is finally available. This is a very limited time beta. Another build will be released in the next two weeks that has an extended time limit. Please please please read the release notes in their entirety before downloading. Also, I am not going to be replying to any TEO 3.0-specific email for the weekend because I promised Heather that once this milestone was hit, I would take a little downtime. So any questions you have must go to the forum. Anyone who knows me knows I'm going to check in from time to time anyway. Let's get this party started, rrraaaaiiiigggghtt......... (more)
Thu, Mar 30, 2006 @ 11:01 PM - 11 comment(s) Got a surprise for you tomorrow. I'm just too physically exhausted to write about it now.... (more)
Mon, Mar 20, 2006 @ 4:32 PM - 3 comment(s) Who the hell writes this crap? First of all, who thinks any one single company is going to solve the spyware problem. Who thinks it can even be solved? It's just something you deal with like theft, vindictive ex girlfriends, and spam. (Not the point of this post.) But what really made me laugh was the headline itself. “Not” Who the hell still say that? Sike! As If!... (more)
Fri, Mar 17, 2006 @ 11:53 PM - 0 comment(s) Tonight I felt a little nostalgic so I made a VS.NET color scheme that reminds me of Borland's IDE's for DOS. Of course, VS is able to differentiate alot more than those IDE's and I mostly went from memory so it's not perfect. Let me know if you make any corrections. Download the VS.NET 2005 settings file... (more)
Thu, Mar 09, 2006 @ 2:39 PM - 6 comment(s) Here's an interesting question. With all the criticism Microsoft is always taking for their arcane, overly descriptive, hard to market names (instead of something simple like Tablet Enhancements for Outlook :-), why would they decide to call the new ultramobile pc's by that name instead of the code name which as we all know was “Origami”? Apple is always praised for its use of simple product names and marketing which as it turns out, is pretty successful. I'm not an Apple fan by any stretch of the imagination. But what sounds cooler, “iPod” or “Microsoft Portable Media Center”? But here's the real kicker. By using an overly broad term like Ultramobile PC, we wind up with exactly the same problem that arose when Microsoft stole the general term “smart phone” and turned it into “Microsoft SmartPhone”. And to a certain extent, the same with Tablet PC (although there really wasn't much going on in this space anyway). So now as a consumer, what's an Ul... (more)
Thu, Mar 09, 2006 @ 1:10 PM - 0 comment(s) I checked out these new screen shots of the Office 2007 “ribbon” and general user interface that will be in the technical refresh. This looks so much better than Beta 1. I really love the new look and despite what many people are saying about the retraining nightmare it's going to cause, I have to disagree. I think most people have no idea how to do even the most basic tasks in Office and probably spend alot of time hunting around for them. While the ribbon is a radical change, it's one for the better. I think it will ultimately result in alot less wasted time. See the rest.... (more)
Wed, Mar 08, 2006 @ 12:11 PM - 1 comment(s) I've finally gotten around to actually playing with Windows Presentation Foundation in Visual Studio and I'm really blown away by the capabilities. As a GUI guy, I can totally appreciate all the work they've put into this framework and I am relieved to see most of the problems with GDI+/Windows Forms being addressed. WPF will definitely mean more impressive looking user interfaces that will make “web 2.0” look like DOS. But what does this mean exactly for Tablet PC's? Well, with the recent announcements about Origami devices, the landscape is certainly changing drastically. No longer can a Tablet PC developer assume that his application will run in 1024x768 at 96dpi. Even with the Toshiba M200 and other large screen tablets this is already a problem (although it's alot easier to deal with more screen real estate than less). Resolution-independent applications The first way you can make your applications deal with different resolutions is to create adaptive layouts. That is, make sure your contr... (more)
Tue, Mar 07, 2006 @ 6:51 PM - 0 comment(s) This is just a shame. http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/hands-on-with-intels-umpc-prototype/#comments I never liked the Origami marketing strategy. But then people thought I was just a naysayer. However, I like the product. I just knew it would lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointment once people realized what it really was. The thing is, it's really a great product. But it's not life-changing. And it's not going to be all that it was expected to be for a few years. Come on, people... 12 hours battery life running x86 under 2lbs for $500? I'd love to know what the hell people were smoking when they dreamed that up because I could really use some. The reality is, Origami is a great evolutionary step for Tablet PC's because it makes them more practical (financially), more consumer oriented, and more portable. This is all great stuff for the Tablet PC world. Especially ISV's. But come on, my $3000 Motion setup can't even meet the expectations that were floating out there and it weighs 4lbs a... (more)
Mon, Feb 27, 2006 @ 11:36 AM - 2 comment(s) Instead, I've wasted hours this morning trying to find ways to work around the designer limitations for the new FlowLayoutPanel and TableLayoutPanel classes which simply don't work in inherited UI scenarios. I looked it up in the MSDN product feedback center and it was confirmed. These issues are “by design” just like they are with the ToolStrip. Why did the Windows Forms team decide that inherited forms and controls aren't worth supporting? Nearly every application can benefit from inherited forms and controls and it's even right there in the menus for adding new project items. And why is their answer always “use user controls instead of inheritence“. That sounds like the same sad excuse that VB6 fans used to defend the lack of inheritence. So anyway now it's back to writing my own layout code which I could have done just as easily in VS 2003 except I wouldn't have wasted all this time this morning.... (more)
Sun, Feb 26, 2006 @ 9:36 AM - 6 comment(s) For the first time, get a video walkthrough of TEO 3.0 before the beta is released. Several Tablet PC MVP's have installed TEO and are trying it out. But Rob Bushway goes a step further on a brand new Tablet PC focused web site started with co-founder Dennis Rice. Rob gives you a video tour through some of the hot new features in TEO 3.0. Because he was working with an early pre-beta, he didn't have access to some functionality like Skype integration and the Wikipedia research pane. I will do my best to fill in the gaps as soon as possible. You should check this out and the other great content they're working on. http://www.gottabemobile.com ... (more)
Sat, Feb 25, 2006 @ 7:17 AM - 0 comment(s) I gotta hand it to Loren Heiny of Jumping Minds software. This is just a very natural, no brainer. The ability to use commonly used proofreading gestures to edit Word documents and email messages makes perfect sense on the Tablet PC and he's executed it very well. Like me with TEO, Loren discovered the hard way that writing Office add ins for Tablet PC isn't a cakewalk and after what seemed like an eternity, the long awaited Ink Gestures 1.1 is available for the public. There are also several videos showing how to use it. Congrats Loren on beating me to market! :) And on making Office one step closer to being the ideal Tablet PC software. http://www.inkgestures.com ... (more)
Wed, Feb 08, 2006 @ 5:41 PM - 1 comment(s) I've heard great things about this add in for quite some time but only now did I get a chance to actually install it. I think this is a must-have for any Tablet PC user but it's also very useful to anyone that likes to keep an organized PIM. Basically, what Anagram does is parses text from the clipboard and converts it into a Contact, Task, Appointment, etc. I mostly use it for contacts because many times people will email me with their contact info but it's not in a VCF. It's in an email signature or even worse, the body of their email. So you select the text (it doesn't matter if you get stuff that isn't a part of the contact) and Anagram will do its best to figure out where fax numbers, home numbers, email addresses, etc. all go. The best part is, since TEO 2.x and above will override Outlook's standard UI's for things like this, it just works by default with TEO! I'm working on a screen capture video much like Rob Bushway did with TEO and ActiveWords to show off how Anagram works with TEO. I have o... (more)
Sat, Feb 04, 2006 @ 11:13 PM - 2 comment(s) I'm not sure who reads my blog, but if anyone can give me the answer to this question I'd love to know. In .NET, how can I tell if my object is in COM heaven? Meaning it's been separated from it's RCW and can no longer be called. I know if you call Marshal.ReleaseComObject() it will return the reference count but what if I just want that count without decrementing it? I don't like trapping InvalidComObjectException if I can avoid it. Oh and I should mention that it doesn't matter that I'm still holding a managed reference to it. The problem appears to be stemming from Windows Forms when it recursively disposes controls, it takes a different path for disposing ActiveX controls. So somewhere in there it's doing a FinalReleaseComObject on the object even though I still have a reference to the RCW.... (more)
Fri, Feb 03, 2006 @ 3:48 PM - 1 comment(s) When you have complicated UI requirements, sometimes you might forget that all of your controls are initialized in your form's constructor in Windows Forms. This can lead to dramatic performance problems, especially when COM interop is involved. Take for example the MapPoint integration in TEO 3.0. In TEO 3.0, rather than just calling out to MapPoint and bringing back an image, there is a live MapPoint instance embedded in a tab that you can work with just as if you were using MapPoint. Drag/zoom/etc. However, MapPoint is an out-of-process COM server which means that when the control is created, MapPoint.exe is launched invisibly in the background to serve this functionality. While I'm proud of the plugin, it's probably one of those things that you won't use every time you open a contact window. Yet all that initialization is still done in the forms constructor, contributing several seconds to load times. Or at least it would have been. If you have lots of complicated user interface components tucked a... (more)
Tue, Jan 17, 2006 @ 7:08 PM - 1 comment(s) Also on my MySpace.com account but linked here below. Baby Pictures Just got these! The first pictures of the next Einstein. Look at the size of that.... BRAIN! Josh and Heather from the Carnival cruise (formal night) ... (more)
Thu, Jan 05, 2006 @ 10:47 PM - 1 comment(s) Not sure if this is new or not, but this is such an awesome feature I had to blog about it. How many of you have Console.WriteLine or Debug.WriteLine or Trace.WriteLine statements cluttering up your code often for only temporary reasons? I just stumbled upon this tracepoint feature which works like a breakpoint except instead of breaking the code, it just writes a debug message optionally including variable values. Right click a line of code (only tried C#), Breakpoint -> Insert Tracepoint. ... (more)
Thu, Jan 05, 2006 @ 2:21 PM - 6 comment(s) I apologize for the several delays affecting the release of the TEO beta, but it's not for a lack of trying. I am working very hard (12-16 hour days) to make sure that the first beta lives up to the expectations. I have also dropped off the face of the earth as far as MSN, Newsgroups, Tablet PC Buzz, etc. Please understand that it is important for the first look at TEO 3 to give a positive impression. Even though it is a beta, there are certain standards I hold myself and my work to. I understand there will always be bugs, but some things that affect the overall usability are just not acceptable to me. I know several of you have been asking me to release it anyway with disclaimers or what not. I hope you will be patient and understand that I am firm in my commitment to quality even for the first beta and at this time, it's not ready. Oh he's just buying time, it's probably only halfway done. No, it's about 95% “done” and has been this way for a while. (Did you know TEO 3 is a ground up... (more)
Thu, Jan 05, 2006 @ 1:27 PM - 2 comment(s) Marc OrchantCraig Pringle Tracy Hooten Were also awarded MVP's yesterday. I read this over at www.tabletpcbuzz.com I thought Marc and Tracy were already MVP's but I guess not!... (more)
Wed, Jan 04, 2006 @ 8:47 PM - 12 comment(s) I got my confirmation email today that I got the Tablet PC MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award for my contributions to the newsgroups and Tablet PC Buzz forums (and believe it or not, the Infinotes forum too). I think this says alot about the program which I have had my doubts about in the past. For starters, by awarding me with the MVP, Microsoft has made it clear that the award is definitely given for community involvement and not for being a Microsoft puppet. As some of you who browse the newsgroups know, I very often times disagree with Microsoft and stray from the “supported and recommended” practices if it means helping someone out. I also express my views quite openly regardless of whether or not it's going to piss someone off. The fact that this didn't disqualify me gives me more faith in the program. Also, I want to make it clear that I didn't accept the nomination and change my mind about the program just for the benefits. I already have the MSDN membership and I already have N... (more)
Mon, Dec 26, 2005 @ 4:38 PM - 14 comment(s) I'm finally "allowed" to say it because we told our parents. I've known for a month actually. Heather is 9 weeks pregnant with our first child and I can't be more excited. I even made a stocking for "Number One" mostly as a joke but I put an absolute beginners C# (programming) book in there too. Heather has been constantly sick but hopefully that will subside soon. Of course this changes things for the wedding, and we'll probably have to do it sooner than expected. We're thinking about doing it in Vegas with immediate family present then having a reception back home. Who knows. Need to get TEO 3 out first. I'm really happy to be starting a family with her. I can't wait until "D day"!... (more)
Fri, Dec 23, 2005 @ 12:20 AM - 2 comment(s) When you see how fast TEO 3 is (yes even in the first beta) you can thank the folks over at AutomatedQA. This profiling tool is very intuitive and is probably the best performance profiler I've ever seen. I took a few hours to tune up TEO 3.0 tonight and made about an 85% speed improvement opening new and existing items. Sorry I haven't posted much. Been busy with Christmas, TEO, and sick as a dog for the last week. I have a pretty big announcement to make (about my personal life) on Saturday so stay tuned.... (more)
Thu, Dec 08, 2005 @ 6:15 PM - 0 comment(s) Well after over 2 years (and a visit to MS and interaction with many many employees), Microsoft's legal department just decided that Tablet Enhancements for Outlook is a violation of their trademark. I'm no expert in trademark law, but I'm sure they have grounds for what they're asking, but it's retarded. Why? Because it's not like I'm calling it “Outlook Tablet Edition” or something like that. The name is very descriptive of the fact that it is an add on for a specific Microsoft product. In fact, the descriptiveness of the name has probably been a key factor in how popular it has become. Furthermore, it is not in competition with anything Microsoft is doing and in fact it improves upon a product which has neglected Tablet PC users for 3 years. So anyway I have no ability to fight this and I'd probably lose anyway so it's time to think of a new name. Some suggestions I'm making are: Tablet Enhancements for Bullies Tablet Enhancements for Thunderbird Tablet Enhancements for iCal Tablet Enh... (more)
Sun, Nov 13, 2005 @ 1:43 PM - 1 comment(s) It would figure. I had database problems on the server yesterday that I happened to come across by chance. It was affecting the TEO web site for purchasing. When this comes up, a reboot typically fixes it. Now that .NET 2.0 is out I can permanently fix it but anyway, just as I was about to hit “OK” to reboot the server via RDP, my internet connection went out and I'm in the rocky mountains now and just got it back more than 12 hours later. Geez.... (more)
Thu, Nov 10, 2005 @ 11:05 PM - 5 comment(s) Well tomorrow I am off to the west coast AGAIN. I'm leaving for San Jose at 10:45AM. Gonna get there a little early. It's for some Sylantro training session. I am not attending as a student, however. I am helping out with some of the labs and they want me to check out the program they have so that I can help them with future training sessions. All in all, it's a distraction right now since TEO is getting so close to wrap up, but I promised I would do it and I want to keep my relationship good with them. With that said, I decided to do things a little differently this time. Rather than fly to San Jose (which by the way, no one does nonstop) I decided to take a train for a variety of reasons. First of all, I hate air travel. Scared to death of it. I try to avoid it whenever possible but it's even worse when I have to travel alone and even worse still when I have to make multiple stops. Second of all, (well kinda goes along with the first one) is that I lose lots of sleep and I get very distracted in the da... (more)
Sun, Nov 06, 2005 @ 7:14 PM - 10 comment(s) Yesterday I asked my girlfriend Heather to marry me and she said yes so we are officially engaged. There is no date set at the moment but it will be within a year. I wanted to wait until TEO 3.0 was finished but it's been taking longer than I hoped and I couldn't wait any longer. Heather is a great woman and I am very lucky to have her. I don't think things will be too much different since we already live together but now I can feel better about us working on a family which is the next step.... (more)
Fri, Oct 28, 2005 @ 3:03 PM - 0 comment(s) Someone named JC recently emailed me through my blog with questions about TEO but I believe you mistyped your email address because my reply came back as undeliverable. Please email me again at support@einsteinware.com so I can make sure my reply gets to you.... (more)
Fri, Oct 14, 2005 @ 11:51 PM - 7 comment(s) Okay so early this morning I posted a couple screen shots of the task form in TEO 3.0 just to kinda give some insight into the improvements I've made over TEO 2.x in overall usability and eye candy. So far the reactions have been good but the reason I try to avoid giving info like this away in increments is because it actually makes the product less interesting when it finally is released because you've gradually grown accustomed to things. Take for example the release of the Whidbey family of developer technologies next month. I should be ecstatic because it's a huge upgrade over VS.NET 2003. But I've been using Whidbey in beta form for months now and in fact I've been developing exclusively in Whidbey for months too. So to me, Whidbey was released 6 months ago. And don't get me wrong, it is totally awesome. Well I guess there is something to be said about the fine balance between gradually building buzz about a new product and giving it away all at once. The other reason is that it's hard to “seeR... (more)
Thu, Oct 13, 2005 @ 8:40 PM - 8 comment(s) Microsoft has quietly released a fix for the Tablet PC managed ink components when running under the .NET Framework 2.0 which will be released very shortly. I encourage all Tablet PC users (especially TEO users) to install the fix below which I am linking to. Hopefully there will be a redistributable version soon. You should install this component now, even though .NET Framework 2.0 is not out yet. This will ensure that your apps (and TEO) continue to work properly when the framework is released. This is very very good news because this enables Agilix to release Infinotes 2.0 which is dependent upon these fixes and corrects the problems that Infinotes currently has under .NET 2.0 beta. Agilix has said that they will release Infinotes 2.0 on or before November 7th. I want to thank everyone at Microsoft and Agilix who tolerated my bitching and got these fixes implemented. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=84bbefa4-7047-41df-8583-e3bdbf9d805f&DisplayLang=en... (more)
Mon, Oct 10, 2005 @ 11:04 PM - 0 comment(s) On my tablet, I often find myself switching between a large high res external display and the standard display on the tablet. Visual Studio .NET is awesome at accomodating multiple resolutions, but unfortunately it has no built in feature for remembering window layouts and more importantly, switching them upon resolution change the way Outlook does. There are VS.NET add ins that can manage your window layouts, but if you don't need all the bells and whistles (I don't) then you can possibly just get by with two layouts. Here's what I've done. I created two macros by using the Record New Macro featue. For the tablet layout, I just invoked the Window -> Auto Hide All command. Save this macro and you should have a line of code in the new macro that reads: DTE.ExecuteCommand("Window.AutoHideAll") Then start a new recording session and start setting the window layouts the way you want. When you are done, stop the macro recording. What I wound up with was: DTE.Windows.Item(Constants.vsWindowKindToolbox).Auto... (more)
Mon, Oct 10, 2005 @ 10:56 PM - 1 comment(s) Just wanted to pass on this VS.NET tip that you might find useful. In the External Tools menu, I have added two commands: Command Prompt in SolutionCommand Prompt in Project They are pretty simple to add, but valuable nonetheless. Here is how to add them. Title: Command Prompt in SolutionCommand: C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exeArguments: /k ""C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\vcvarsall.bat"" x86Initial Dir: $(SolutionDir) Title: Command Prompt in ProjectCommand: C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exeArguments: /k ""C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\vcvarsall.bat"" x86Initial Dir: $(ProjectDir) The only difference of course being the initial directory, but it's worth mentioning that the Arguments passed to the command processor will ensure that the environment variables for the .NET Framework get set correctly so that you can run compiler and other framework tools.... (more)
Sun, Oct 02, 2005 @ 11:24 AM - 7 comment(s) As has been reported on a few blogs already, I have announced the upgrade policy for TEO 3.0 and pricing information as well as a preliminary feature list. If you purchased TEO 2.0 on or after 10/1/2005*, then your upgrade to TEO 3.0 will be no additional cost. Upgrades from TEO 2.0 will be $24.99 and the full price will be $49.99. TEO 3.0 will be released around December 2005. No concrete release date has been specified. TEO 3.0 represents a huge upgrade from 2.0 with many new features. Below are some of the improvements and new features. Improvements Larger, more comfortable input controls with visible rule lines, focus indication, full keyboard support, and improved recognition. Much better correction interface with ability to correct recognition while preserving ink. Background incremental recognition and Outlook data binding for much faster saving. Full featured note taking with support for mixes of ink, text, shapes, images, and flags. Windows Journal import capability. Out... (more)
Fri, Sep 23, 2005 @ 11:47 PM - 6 comment(s) Since Square-Enix decided to delay the release of FF7 Advent Children in the US which was supposed to see a simultaneous release as the Japanese language version, I found my patience tested. And ultimately, I failed. I couldn't wait for the English release so since I had the opportunity to watch the Japanese version with subtitles (thanks, Tommy) I did so. I really liked the movie alot but I don't think anyone that isn't really into the game would understand it or enjoy it. You really have to have been wondering “what happened after meteor?” in order to care. After all, FF7 was released in 1997, that's a long time to wait for the sequel. Most people probably don't even remember the plot. Well, once I'm done this round of Chrono Trigger, I think I'll start up a new game of Final Fantasy VII for like the 30th time. I really hope they release a game sequel. Time for TEO-stigma!... (more)
Tue, Sep 13, 2005 @ 5:36 PM - 0 comment(s) This is without a doubt the most fun at a conference I've ever had. The hotel we are staying in (JW Marriot in Las Vegas) is amazing. Maybe Coar's Tours should do a review haha (inside joke). But seriously the pool area is huge. That is where I am at this moment with my Tablet PC on the Verizon EVDO network. I've done far more pimping of the Tablet PC platform than I have of my own Sylantro development efforts. The thing is, my presentation was targeted completely wrong. Apparently I misunderstood that the session called “Developer Roundtable” which I (a developer) was asked to speak at would only have about 5% of the audience that were developers. About the same percentage raised their hand when I asked how many used Microsoft .NET with their Sylantro deployment. Not good, but completely expected. After all, up until now, Sylantro has pushed the Java platform for integration. Their API's were EJB and CORBA based. Only recently (and not even released yet) were there web services and even more rec... (more)
Wed, Sep 07, 2005 @ 3:47 PM - 0 comment(s) Talked to Sylantro and they liked what I did with the Virtual Earth demo that I am going to present at Sylantro Global Summit and they want to demo it during the keynote. That'll be really cool because it will get me some exposure to non-developers too. Since my session later that day will be focused on developers, the marketing oriented people probably won't see it. While the application itself doesn't have alot of practical application (perhaps in a call center to quickly visualize where a regional problem may be occurring) what the application represents is more important - the integration of Sylantro and .NET to enable better business processes and bridge the gap between two completely different worlds. I'm excited about this conference. I'll talk more about it when I get back.... (more)
Fri, Aug 26, 2005 @ 1:00 AM - 1 comment(s) I used to defend Visual Basic vigorously. I've always attested to the fact that powerful things could be accomplished in VB5/6 even though it wasn't fully OO. Even today, there are still things you can do in VB6 that you simply cannot do or cannot do easily in .NET. But then when VB.NET came along, it looked like VB would finally earn some respect. It was fully OO, virtually on par with C# features, and best of all, VB code looked alot like C# code because the framework was the same. Then someone gets the bright idea for this “My” feature. I think this is a bad idea and here's why. You're catering to people that are basically saying “I don't wanna learn the .NET Framework“ Many things in My require more dots and more typing than the System(dot) counterparts You've got this virtual “namespace“ that contains tons of unrelated functionality Dumb thread-static behavior that will probably trip up tons of n00bs that use this thing Worst of all: VB code may now look drast... (more)
Mon, Aug 22, 2005 @ 3:03 PM - 5 comment(s) I decided to try my hand at incorporating Virtual Earth into a Windows Forms application and surprisingly, it wasn't all that difficult. The result of my work will be downloadable after the Sylantro Global Summit in September and this screen shot gives you a basic idea of what it does. ... (more)
Fri, Aug 19, 2005 @ 2:13 PM - 0 comment(s) Just got an IM from Dr. Neil and he sent me over to his Via Virtual Earth site which I hadn't been to in a few weeks and it looks great. Looks like alot more content and I hear some very cool things are on the way! http://www.viavirtualearth.com Hmm... gotta get this in TEO somehow. :)... (more)
Mon, Aug 15, 2005 @ 11:58 PM - 4 comment(s) Jensen Harris, the author of the excellent and very useful KnockOut utility for Outlook has agreed to let me bundle KnockOut with TEO 3.0 when it is released later this year. This is very cool because it will expose more people to the utility and TEO users will be able to easily include it in the installation to compensate for Outlook shut down issues. All too frequently do I get an email from a user who doesn't see the TEO menu after installing because Outlook was invisibly open in the background because of something like ActiveSync or another add-in. And once TEO is installed and working there may be times when Outlook refuses to shut down even when you think that it has. KnockOut allows you to monitor and control these invisible processes with a simple intuitive tray menu. Although I take every precaution that I can to prevent Outlook shut down problems, the reality is that Outlook with Add Ins and external apps like ActiveSync will sometimes just not shut down on its own. Now TEO users will be able to f... (more)
Sat, Aug 13, 2005 @ 1:32 PM - 3 comment(s) Since I got this Motion, I have been having a major problem with Standby and Hibernate in XP. The options worked just fine if I used the Start Menu to bring up the options but after a defined period of inactivity, the computer would never go into Standby or Hibernate. The weird thing was, the monitor *would* turn off after the specified period of inactivity. I thought first that an application may have been denying standby in the WM_POWERBROADCAST message so I fired up Spy++ and watched but this message never happened. I searched Google Groups to no avail, then I downloaded Speedswitch XP and started dicking with some of the advanced power options which really had no effect. Finally, I started shutting down apps and services one by one and Indexing Service was to blame. To confirm this, I searched Google Groups again but this time with “indexing service” in the query and confirmed my suspicions. I guess I installed Indexing Service pre-emptively because I assumed MSN Desktop Search needed it.... (more)
Fri, Aug 12, 2005 @ 7:04 PM - 0 comment(s) Rob Bushway is a good friend of mine. He even recently helped me out in a big way that may have saved TEO by going to bat for me with some of the Infinotes issues I had. So I am always glad to hear good news about Maggie, Rob's daughter who has (had actually...) brain cancer and has been on a really brave and inspirational road to recovery. A few months ago she was declared “cancer-free” after several risky procedures and now she's making great progress in getting back to her normal self. Go read Rob's post about it because I can't really capture the relief and joy he must be feeling. Read Rob Bushway's BlogStay up to date with Maggie's progress... (more)
Fri, Aug 12, 2005 @ 5:02 AM - 12 comment(s) Just noticed I have exceeded the 10,000 download mark over on TabletPCPost.com. I wanna thank Lora, Loren, Layne, and any other Heiny that contributed to that site. It truly is an awesome place to list your Tablet PC software. Let's make it another 10,000 real soon with TEO 3! ... (more)
Wed, Aug 10, 2005 @ 9:46 PM - 4 comment(s) I don't know why this isn't being talked about on Tablet PC blogs and why it has so few downloads. Virtual Click is a utility for Tablet PC that fixes several annoying bugs with the stylus drivers that ship with most Tablet PC's. Accidental double clicks, unintentional clicks, accidental drags, all fixed by Virtual Click. While it does have some minor issues, they are far easier to deal with than the bugs it fixes. OverviewClicking with stylus is actually not as comfortable as clicking with mouse. This software is an attempt to correct this a little. This software adds a small icon to your taskbar and manages clicks made with your stylus. Click imperfections :• Unnoticeable• Inaccurate• Sometimes, clicks are too short for some display to appear• Little bug in the driver that sometimes generate two clicks instead of one Solutions :• Acoustic and/or visual signal indicating when click was produced• Control of position for fast tap on the screen, and visual feed-back in... (more)
Tue, Aug 09, 2005 @ 4:05 PM - 0 comment(s) This is getting really frustrating. I bought Infinotes a few months ago but I have yet to be able to use it because all new development is being done in Whidbey and it still does not support version 2.0 of the .NET Framework. This is why TEO 2.1 can't be used with .NET 2.0 and it is why I am unable to test any of the new note taking features of TEO 3.0 (since TEO 3.0 is built on Whidbey technology). I keep tapping on people (at MS) but I don't think anybody else besides me goes to work in the summer.... (more)
Mon, Aug 01, 2005 @ 11:24 AM - 4 comment(s) Whether I like it or not, this site is becoming representative of Einstein Technologies so I'm going to refrain from posting personal things on my blog which was really only ever intended for friends. Now that I'm using MySpace quite regularly, I am going to use that as my personal blog and limit my personal entries to my circle of friends. So if you are a friend of mine, IM me or something and I'll give you the link. I'm not going to link to it here. There's a search feature anyway.... (more)
Fri, Jul 29, 2005 @ 11:57 AM - 0 comment(s) I'm off to go camping for the weekend with Heather. I will have my cell phone with me but I don't know if there's any EVDO coverage so I may or may not be checking support email while I'm gone. I am gonna be working on TEO there cause I'm not really into camping much. Made a ton of progress last night (thanks, Stacker 2) but I'm still having some trouble with DynamicRenderer.Refresh(). It's just an annoying visual glitch right now. But anyway, the new window management is completed and working and TEO forms are loading much faster in 3.0. I had to scrap the standard XP-themed tab control (again) because it does not paint quickly when using transparent controls. Since there's alot of tab switching going on, there's alot of paint operations. So I'm back with SandDock again. All of you who have asked for larger input areas will get your wish! But those of you with ultra portables, don't worry there is a special layout manager for smaller screens that will optimize the UI for your display.... (more)
Fri, Jul 29, 2005 @ 7:00 AM - 8 comment(s) It's not so much that I didn't get the sarcasm of the Register article. Just that I get pissed off when people say shit like that because I know it's going to get picked up on sites like CNN. Then people that don't know any better read this stuff and it hurts the image of Microsoft even worse than it already is. Why should the Virtual Earth team who has done a bang up job (ok so their aerial photos suck, it was just released in beta on Monday) be looked at like a bunch of anti-competitive jerks? Anyway, I don't mind people clobbering me in the comments. I do mind people writing fake apologies using my name. Well I'm leaving to go camping with my girlfriend later today so I'm putting all this behind me. Geez can't a guy blow his lid once in a while? And I was having a very productive night too...... (more)
Tue, Jul 26, 2005 @ 2:03 PM - 3 comment(s) Just a reminder, this is my personal web site, expressing my personal views. Just because I tend to write about TEO on here does not make it a “business blog”. With that said, I understand that my customers will, from time to time, find their way here. No offense, but I am not going to sugar coat things because of that fact. This is raw, uncut, uncensored Josh Einstein here. If I don't drop a few F-bombs every now and then, you're probably at the wrong URL. If you are subscribing to this site for TEO and Einstein Tech info, then I suggest you use the RSS links for those categories and ignore the “Personal” category because I will sometimes write offensive comments in that category.... (more)
Tue, Jul 26, 2005 @ 12:24 PM - 66 comment(s) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/25/msn_earth_deletes_aple/ I sent an email to Mr. John Oates with 5 simple words. You are a fucking jackass. This type of bullshit is why people get the wrong idea. Yeah Microsoft got out their photoshop tools and erased Apple from the world. John Oates you are a piece of shit. Look at what he says: How this terrible error came about is not yet clear. Nor can we be certain who else has been removed from Bill's upgraded planet. How it came about is not clear? Here's your first clue two paragraphs down you shit for brains... Even more disturbing MSN's Virtual Earth still shows the twin towers of the World Trade Center in all their pre-9/11 glory. Does it take someone with a higher than your inbred 54 IQ to realize that this is the result of outdated imagery? You and your fucking tabloid make me sick. Preying on the impressionable minds of your fellow feces-throwing monkeys who take it as fact.... (more)
Mon, Jul 25, 2005 @ 2:09 PM - 7 comment(s) With the announcement of the Education Pack for Tablet PC today, I came across this really cool Flash demo. Funny thing is, watching this, I found myself wanting a Tablet PC and then I remembered I've already owned 3 and I'm awaiting my 4th one. Oh, and I'm not even a student... Microsoft should find a way to get this in more places than just their web site.... (more)
Fri, Jul 22, 2005 @ 1:52 PM - 0 comment(s) I have been invited to speak on behalf of Einstein Technologies at the Sylantro Global Summit 2005 (Las Vegas, Sept 12-14), a private conference for Sylantro customers, partners, and developers. I accepted the invitation and I'm really excited to showcase some of the awesome technologies I have developed around SAI and CDR using Microsoft .NET. While my development of SAI.NET and CDR.NET have slowed significantly (temporarily halted, even) due to the tons of work I've been investing in Tablet PC, I am going to continue to try to juggle these two technologies because I think they both have alot of potential and I'm really proud of the work I've done with both. Oh and I'm taking Heather with me this time so there's no chance of coming back to find that she moved to another state.... (more)
Tue, Jul 19, 2005 @ 7:10 PM - 1 comment(s) I posted this in the newsgroups a long time ago and several people have emailed me about how it helped them which is really great because the problem is extremely hard to track down. Hopefully by “cross-posting” it here on my web site I will make it even easier to find. Josh Aug 5 2003, 6:34 am show options Newsgroups: microsoft.public.dotnet.framework, microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.aspnet, microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.performance, microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.windowsforms, microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.csharp, microsoft.public.dotnet.languages.vb, mic From: "Josh" <josheinstein@hotmail.com> - Find messages by this author Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 16:34:53 -0400 Local: Tues,Aug 5 2003 6:34 am Subject: FIX: Slow compilations when using strong name Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse To all... I have experienced this problem and recently so has my co-worker whi... (more)
Tue, Jul 19, 2005 @ 2:40 PM - 5 comment(s) To all those “open sores” fans that think Microsoft software is riddled with security holes, put this in your bong and smoke it... http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/07/19.html#a10693 We've all heard it before, operating systems like Mac OSX and Linux give the illusion of security because they are too small a target to concern yourself with. The fact is, programmers are humans (some of them that is) and humans make mistakes. Microsoft hires from the same pool of programmers that Google, Apple, and Red Hat do. And now that Firefox is fast becoming a very popular browser, it will start to show cracks. That doesn't make it a crappy browser, it means it was developed by humans.... (more)
Tue, Jul 19, 2005 @ 2:19 PM - 2 comment(s) Very soon I will be the proud owner of a new Motion LE1600 (ViewAnywhere) Tablet PC and a larger-than-life Dell 24” Widescreen LCD. This will serve as my new development system and will be the birthplace of TEO 3.0. Can't wait! Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW 24-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD Monitor Motion Computing LE1600 Tablet PC... (more)
Sat, Jul 16, 2005 @ 10:16 PM - 0 comment(s) Marc Orchant has long proclaimed that I am his “Outlook Savior” but today, he is my “Bob Dylan” savior! Without Marc's blog post, I would have missed out on this incredible Amazon 10th Anniversary Show featuring one of (if not the) my most favorite musicians, Bob Dylan. The show is great and I almost feel like I am there! I am outside chilling with my Tablet PC, a steady supply of cold beer, cigarettes, and smoking a fat doob and I feel like I am right there at a Dylan concert. I just saw Bob Dylan last month in Camden, NJ with Willie Nelson and as usual he kicked ass. Tonight is no exception. His performance is great and he's even throwing in some less than well known songs which is great for fans. THANKS MARC!!!!!!... (more)
Sat, Jul 16, 2005 @ 2:19 PM - 5 comment(s) TEO 2.0's input control A prototype for TEO 3.0's input control As I work diligently on TEO 3.0, one of the things I am writing completely from scratch is the input control. This handy little “ink text box” is the rounded rectangular region in which you write in TEO. I feel that my ink text box has a number of advantages over controls such as InkEdit, the ink feature in InfoPath, and ink entry controls in other applications. Here are the four big advantages that I see: Ink to text conversion is an explicit mode switchThat is to say that recognition does not happen automatically from the user's perspective. (Though recognition is performed in the background for interoperability purposes.) The user chooses exactly when to convert the ink, if ever. Mode switching is fast! Not context menu driven, no dialogs. Eraser is fully supportedBecause of #1, the eraser can be used to give a more natural pen-on-paper experience. Scratch-out is also supported (and by the way, works much more predictably ... (more)
Thu, Jul 14, 2005 @ 5:13 PM - 0 comment(s) This is pretty funny and it just goes to show, be careful what someone else is doing to taint your good name! While I was searching Google Images to look for a picture of Robert Scoble to show a friend of mine that he looks just like someone we know, I came across this: Robert Scoble, the pedophile I can't stop laughing. Of course this is not the real Robert Scoble that we all know. But the funniest part of this article as Rob Bushway points out is the paragraph that reads: "We are being crucified in the newspapers in Australia. There is some terrible innuendo being published, " he said. "One woman has written some very libellous stuff and we're going to sue the panties off her." Not something you wanna say when accused of having child pornography, bizarro Robert! Update: And as Chris Coulter points out, his name has also been tainted by a pervert. http://www.nobscan.com/nobitorial/tales.htm BREMERTON, WA - Christopher Coulter and his wife, Emily, were engaging in bondage games when Christopher su... (more)
Thu, Jul 14, 2005 @ 12:27 PM - 0 comment(s) http://wintellect.com/WEBLOGS/wintellect/archive/2005/07/14/2161.aspx I'm glad to see someone sees how cool these are. :) If you aren't using .NET Tracing and Debugging to the fullest extent then you may be wasting alot of time finding and fixing bugs in your applications. The TraceListener architecture is a great place to begin adding diagnostics capabilities to your application and I've gone ahead and given away two useful TraceListener components for free. Check them out. Wintellect is a great .NET consulting company highly respected by Microsoft and the .NET community in general.... (more)
Wed, Jul 13, 2005 @ 4:36 PM - 1 comment(s) If it looks good, you'll see it. If it sounds good, you'll hear it. If it's marketed right, you'll buy it. But if it's real........... you'll feel it.... (more)
Wed, Jul 13, 2005 @ 3:59 PM - 4 comment(s) One feature I used to really like about VB6/COM was a security feature called private interface implementation. Basically, what this means is that you have an interface that two components are aware of, but the public is not. So imagine if you will the following (in C# syntax, though C# doesn't support this): public class MyComponentA{ private MyComponentB _componentB; public MyComponentB ComponentB { get { return _componentB; } } public void Execute() { ((IPrivateExecution)_componentB).DoSomething(); }} public class MyComponentB : IPrivateExecution{ void IPrivateExecution.DoSomething() { } public string SafeProperty { get{ return “blah“; } }} internal interface IPrivateExecution{ void DoSomething();} What the above allows you to do is define members in IPrivateExecution that no one else can call unless they have IPrivateExecution and share the MyComponentB class publicly without giving direct access to the IPrivateExecution implementation.... (more)
Tue, Jul 12, 2005 @ 7:21 PM - 13 comment(s) I got an email a few weeks ago from Handango informing me that they were preparing to launch their Tablet PC marketplace which is something that has been announced before but apparently they're very close to launching it. They wanted me to list with them so that they have a nice catalog of apps for when the shop opens up in a few weeks. I'm sure they are actively going out and seeking the Tablet PC developers because I didn't initiate the conversation with them. So anyway, I asked a very simple question and got a very prompt and simple answer (thank you, Emily) but the answer was astonishing. They want 40% commission for apps sold through their web site Handango.com, 40%-50% for “value added channels”, and 10%-20% for their commerce engine (basically you sell the app, use Handango as a shopping cart - much like PayPal does for alot less). Why on earth would anyone willingly subject themselves to this? And who does Handango think they are? In the Tablet PC space, they have little relevance and th... (more)
Tue, Jul 05, 2005 @ 8:43 PM - 0 comment(s) Many people made this a much bigger deal than it needed to be but the memory leak that affected Tablet PC 2005 users after days between reboots has been fixed. Download the patch here. Thanks to Chris Coulter for the link. Update: Changed the title from tabtip.exe to tcserver.exe which apparently is where the leak was. Just goes to show how little I noticed this “major bug”.... (more)
Tue, Jul 05, 2005 @ 11:16 AM - 1 comment(s) I had the pleasure of sitting down with James Kendrick and Marc Orchant over the weekend to chat about TEO 3.0, VoIP, Outlook as a “life manager”, and living among dinosaurs in an ecosystem in which Microsoft could erase me at any time. The audio of the interview is now available over on The Podcast Network. Go check it out, about an hour long.... (more)
Sun, Jul 03, 2005 @ 1:36 PM - 1 comment(s) http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2005/07/msft__ecosystem.html So, the big question is what do you do if you are these guys. Josh has been going at this for a couple of years, I believe. He answers his support email within minutes, deals with creating new code, works the forum and, in general, does a great job with a nice business happening. What does he do? Hopefully, he is planning the next release with additional features that make his way of ink entry into Outlook the way to go. Great question. Unfortunately there is not much you can do about it except use the agility advantage over Microsoft and keep trying to make your product better. But the real thing you hope for if you are put in this position is an acquisition. I answered this and many more questions this morning in an interview with James Kendrick and Marc Orchant which will air next week in Episode #15 of the Tablet PC Show podcast. You better download it or else I'm sending Mr. T after yo' ass!... (more)
Sat, Jul 02, 2005 @ 11:37 AM - 0 comment(s) The founder of pen computing pioneer Go filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft, claiming that the software giant violated antitrust laws by trying to thwart Go's attempt to enter the PC operating system market. http://news.com.com/Go+files+antitrust+suit+against+Microsoft/2100-7343_3-5772534.html?part=rss&tag=5772534&subj=news... (more)
Fri, Jul 01, 2005 @ 8:28 PM - 0 comment(s) Aside from offering a smaller form factor device, I personally wouldn't change it. Obviously thinner, lighter, longer battery life etc will always be something you hope for. But the basic platform as it stands now WORKS! What would I change? How about the marketing of it? Maybe the ISV support too. Also, I am still pissed over the results of that Tablet PC software contest where TEO didn't make any of the 11 positions yet it somehow became a very popular Tablet PC download. Anyway, go add your 2 cents. http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000807049064/#comments Update: Looking over these answers, I can see clearly why the Tablet PC is not taking off... Quite simply, the consumers don't know what they want. More accurately, they don't understant the Tablet PC's message. The comments people are making are unrealistic and many of them are steps backwards. Flash drives (yet they complain about price) and touch screens? I don't mean to come off sounding like I'm whining “the product is failing cause cus... (more)
Thu, Jun 30, 2005 @ 12:56 PM - 3 comment(s) Well ok not really, but I bet not many of you knew that TEO 2.0 actually consists of 3 programming languages and TEO 3.0 will consist of about 5? Here's the breakdown. C# - Most of TEO is written in C# because it is, in my opinion, the cleanest and most well thought out of all of the managed programming languages. All of the UI, the persistence logic, and the ink manipulation is done in C#. Probably about 85% of TEO consists of C# in version 2.0 VB.NET - Some of you may know I used to exclusively program in VB6. Despite the apparent limitations, hardcore VB6'ers like myself were able to do alot of awesome things with it (Matthew Curland has an excellent book on this). But anyway, since .NET I don't use VB much anymore but I always return to it to keep myself sharp and in some cases, certain things are just easier in VB.NET. In the case of TEO, I made use of VB.NET's late binding abilities to get around a major hurdle with Outlook PIA's. Basically, an AppointmentItem, TaskItem, JournalItem, and ContactItem h... (more)
Mon, Jun 27, 2005 @ 9:37 PM - 8 comment(s) I'm expressing my frustrations about a book I bought a while ago called C# Design Patterns (Addison Wesley) by James W. Cooper. It's supposed to be a C#-oriented look at the "Gang of Four" Design Patterns book. This book is, however, pissing me off to no end because the author is obviously a Java developer who just ported his crappy code to C# with no insight on how to apply these design patterns to .NET, Windows Forms, EnterpriseServices, etc. How do I know he's a Java developer? His C# code looks like this:class CpyButton : Button, Command { public void setMediator(Mediator md) { } public Mediator getMediator() { } private void clickHandler() { } } Lets look at this line by line. CpyButton. A .NET/C# developer would have called this CopyButton. While this isn't a Java convention that I know of, it's a sign of someone who doesn't understand .NET Class Library Design Guidelines. Command is an interface. You wouldn't know that from his code though because in Java, the... (more)
Mon, Jun 27, 2005 @ 12:36 PM - 4 comment(s) I'm no expert on this matter. After all, I refused to believe Apple was even making the switch up until the day it was announced. But a point I hear a couple of people making is that Apple's sales will be hurt in the short term while people wait for the Intel-based Macs. You think this is true? I personally don't. When you think about it, what is the advantage to having an Intel-based Mac when they first come out? Let's see, you won't be able to run any software. It will take YEARS before the universal binary catches on. Take a look at .NET for example... it took years to become widely used and Microsoft has the best ISV community out there. Secondly, what are you hoping you'll be able to dual boot Windows and OSX? Get real. First of all, OSX won't install or run on the same off-the-shelf hardware that your PC will. So people claiming to have installed this on their Tablet PC would most likely be a liar. Also, you won't be able to get Windows to run on your Mac either. I mean sure you might get it to boot bu... (more)
Sun, Jun 26, 2005 @ 10:28 PM - 2 comment(s) It's no secret, I despise Skype. I think their business model is stupid, I think making phone calls from a PC is stupid, I think deviating from a well established standard for VoIP is stupid. Yes I hate Skype. But lots of people are using it and I am now formally announcing that among more than 20 new features of TEO 3.0, Skype will be supported in the next version! You'll be able to store your pal's Skype info in Outlook and initiate a call to them from within Outlook using your pen. I am not ready to officially commit to doing voice dialing yet but more likely than not, you will see a voice dialer too. But guess what, I'm also going to support Vonage and Sylantro as well. In fact, Sylantro users will have a MUCH nicer experience than the rest of you. I will discuss that more later. By the way, TEO development is happening at hyper speed right now thanks to a steady dose of Stacker 2 (with Ephedra) and several cases of C2. Don't ask when it's going to be done cause I don't know. I can't release it un... (more)
Fri, Jun 24, 2005 @ 12:44 AM - 1 comment(s) As a software developer, I put alot of emphasis on good UI design. Nothing worse than an ugly application or one that looks like it was thrown together without any consideration of your user's eyes. With that said, programmers usually aren't artists. But fortunately you can get high quality professional looking icons inexpensively. Here are some links. http://www.iconexperience.com (Thanks for the link, Andre)http://www.fasticon.com http://www.foood.net There's no longer any excuse to use the crappy icons that ship with Visual Studio.... (more)
Thu, Jun 23, 2005 @ 11:00 AM - 0 comment(s) Well I started cleaning out the apartment last night in order to make it habitable again. Actually cleaning is kind of an understatement. I threw just about everything out. I'm starting over from scratch just leaving the furniture really. Even the sheets and pillows, all gone. It's hard tho cause every single thing I threw away reminded me of my three and a half year relationship with Tara. It's still hard to accept that she's gone even tho I now have no contact with her at all. Oh well, time to begin the Summer of Josh! You can't repeat the past? What do you mean you can't, of course you can.... (more)
Tue, Jun 14, 2005 @ 7:09 PM - 0 comment(s) I don't know if you need to heed the warning about doob-smoking but check this out. It's interesting and relaxing to listen to. I've been getting stressed out lately from work and personal issues and these podcasts have given me a chance to look at things in a different way. The message may not always get through my thick head 100% of the time, but there's something here. This is not religion. http://www.jeditrainer.com/... (more)
Tue, Jun 14, 2005 @ 12:11 PM - 6 comment(s) I'm “thrilled” (no pun intended) that MJ (whacko jacko, whatever you wanna call him) was found not guilty on all of the charges. To be honest, I thought they'd at least get him with the minor charges but ever since the beginning of this whole mess I maintained he was innocent. Why? Cause the guy is just too naive. He really thinks he's a kid. He's done so many great things for charities and kids with terminal illness and it makes me sick to my stomach to think that most of the country would turn on him just because some fat ass lying bitch who has a track record of screwing people over for money made some allegations that she knew would be easy to convince people were true. The only child abuse going on is the way that woman is corrupting her son. I'm glad the jury looked at this case from a technical perspective and did not let their emotions or the sweeping waves of popular opinion taint their verdict. And don't write me saying “Oh I guess you think OJ is innocent too.” I am sick ... (more)
Sat, Jun 11, 2005 @ 10:13 PM - 0 comment(s) Okay I've been tracking down a mysterious explosion in “Allocated Bytes/sec” performance counter for the entire day. I've been watching an application that's been running happily in a live environment for several days now for the first time and I've been keeping an eye on the performance counters every now and then. Well today I noticed something very unusual. The Allocated Bytes/sec was fluctuating between 250,000 and 600,000 bytes per second and Gen 0 collections were happening at a staggering 1.5 collections per second! Something was giving the garbage collector a workout. While the overall stability of the application was unaffected (because the Garbage Collector was doing its job after all) I found it unsettling and I needed to find out what was causing the allocations. It took a few hours to realize that I had left another machine open to a web page which is using AJAX to constantly refresh statistical data from a remoting server (the one I'm trying to debug) but once I found that out, I w... (more)
Thu, Jun 09, 2005 @ 2:22 AM - 3 comment(s) I added a new TraceListener component called SyslogTraceListener that allows you to send trace output to a syslog server. Also built the DLL for .NET 1.1 too. Download PowerTrace Freeware Download Kiwi Syslog Daemon... (more)
Wed, Jun 08, 2005 @ 11:57 PM - 1 comment(s) This pisses me off. I read this CNET article about Dell's spyware-related tech support calls being halved since last year. They attribute it to “better consumer awareness” and the availability of anti spyware tools. Hello? Does it take a rocket scientist to realize that this is because of Windows XP Service Pack 2? This is what I hate about the media. They'll spend years bashing Microsoft for lax security. Then Microsoft will make something like SP2 available to all (even those filthy software pirates) for free and the media will spend months talking about how businesses won't install it and it breaks things. Then we see a report like this and they won't even acknowledge that Service Pack 2 is most definitely the cause of such positive news. I'm ready to unsubscribe from CNET. For the same reason I boycotted Tech TV. I'm fucking sick of this “it's cool to bash Microsoft” attitude. http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-5738083.html?part=rss&tag=5738083&subj=news http://www1.us.de... (more)
Wed, Jun 08, 2005 @ 3:32 AM - 5 comment(s) I have just decided to release “PowerTrace” a .NET assembly that contains a very cool component called “TerminalTraceListener” that allows you to quickly and easily debug your apps running in either production or staging environments. What is PowerTrace? PowerTrace is the name of the “product” although currently it only consists of one component. It's also free with no royalties, no license fees, no support, and no code. So it's not really a product. It is however, fully documented and extendable so you can inherit from it if you want. I just made it about an hour ago so take it for what it is. What is TerminalTraceListener? TerminalTraceListener is the name of the first (and currently only) component in the PowerTrace toolkit. The way it works is simple. You add the trace listener to the listeners collection either via an application configuration file or manually in code. This registers a trace listener which is a component that outputs trace information whenever you ... (more)
Mon, Jun 06, 2005 @ 12:57 PM - 1 comment(s) http://blogs.msdn.com/eric_carter/archive/2005/06/06/423986.aspx Eric Carter discusses the announcement that Visual Studio Tools for Office now supports Outlook! This is great! TEO stability will be greatly improved and Outlook managed add-ins will be simplified all around. This is a great thing.... (more)
Sun, Jun 05, 2005 @ 7:57 PM - 0 comment(s) This is pretty creepy. If I worked with the guy that came up with this, I'd probably request that a metal detector be installed at work. ... (more)
Thu, Jun 02, 2005 @ 2:17 AM - 0 comment(s) Well okay I am always up this late anyway. But earlier today, Robert Scoble said that there would be a MAJOR announcement by the Office team at 12:01 AM Eastern Time. So guess what the news was? Office is adding XML document formats to version 12. Whoop-dee-doo. Hey Chris haven't we been making Excel spreadsheets and Word docs from DataSets using XSLT for the last three years? Yeah that's right. The big MAJOR news is that the default file format is being changed to the XML formats. Yeah, ok, this is a step in the right direction. I'm not saying it's a bad change. But if this is the major killer feature of Office 12 then I am going to be sorely disappointed. We've had XML file formats since Office 2003, this is a major let down to me. I was hoping it was something like a truly managed add in host.... (more)
Mon, May 30, 2005 @ 9:52 PM - 3 comment(s) With all the rage about RSS/Atom and aggregators and podcasting and blah blah blah. I thought I would take a moment to mention that this is yet another technology that was born in the era of the almighty BBS (Bulletin Board System). Those of you that know me personally, know that I was a long time SysOp of many BBSes over the years starting out when I was about 15. So every now and then I feel nostalgic and start thinking back to the ways that the innovation around BBSes is what did them in with the internet. For example, RSS is pretty simple, right? You've got an application that goes around pulling down XML feeds from various web sites and when new items are detected they are shown to you as new headlines and at this point they are completely in your control. You are not connected to the web site while you are reading the document. Aside from the fact that RSS has been around for many many years on the internet (anybody remember iSyndicate?), this idea was pioneered by the geniuses at Clark Development, ... (more)
Sun, May 29, 2005 @ 5:12 PM - 0 comment(s) Looks like Sylantro has some great developer positions open. Looks like they're even looking for a CTO! If you live in the San Jose, CA area (they're actually in Campbell, CA) then check it out. http://www.sylantro.com/Careers.htm How come I don't see any .NET jobs up there? I know for a fact that they have more than one customer that is .NET based. They really should cover that side a little better. Einstein Tech is doing its part.... (more)
Sun, May 29, 2005 @ 12:51 PM - 0 comment(s) Been working on my C# implementation of the Sylantro Application Interface (SAI) all week, including this weekend. Don't really have a catchy name for it right now other than SAI.NET. It's going to come in two flavors: A command-level layer and an application-level layer. I'm currently working on the lower level command layer. Here's how it basically works... SAI is a bidirectional TCP/IP stream that receives and sends comma separated values. The number of commands is pretty massive. I think I counted something like 50. But anyway the commands are not human friendly, the structures are inconsistent and unpredictable, and being CSV, you need a reference manual just to see what's coming and going. Enter SAI.NET's command interface. What I've done is basically grouped all of the commands by common parameters and behavioral categories and created a large (really large actually) object model hierarchy. Each command class represents a command in the SAI specification. Then we've got the all important magical Co... (more)
Tue, May 24, 2005 @ 7:06 PM - 0 comment(s) I love this... The House Tuesday debated a controversial bill that would expand public funding for embryonic stem cell research, a measure President Bush last week threatened to veto. Bush says he will not use "taxpayers' money to promote science which destroys life in order to save life." Supporters of the bill say it applies to embryos that would never be used to create babies, and it includes ethical limits. Now didn't Gov. George W. Bush put record numbers of people to death when he was governor of Texas? Who does he think pays for that? Personally, I support both capitol punishment and stem cell research. But he's not very consistent. I hate when government is guided by religion.... (more)
Sun, May 22, 2005 @ 8:38 PM - 1 comment(s) As I sit here brainstorming how I am going to design my managed implementation of the Sylantro Application Interface (SAI) protocol, I am reminded that the benefit of the Tablet PC isn't always about the ink. Sure that's what first comes to mind, how useful it is to draw, sketch, write, etc. But there's more to it than that. I find that I am much better at the initial design on the Tablet PC because of its form factor. It allows me to be more relaxed and comfortable which lends itself well to the creative process. At first I'll brainstorm some ideas in TEO's Journal, but soon I'm moving to the VS.NET 2005 Class Designer to start laying out the object model. This is where I find that I work better on the tablet. Sure it's more time consuming to enter class names and member names with the TIP, but for some reason, with the tablet, my thoughts flow better and ideas come more easily and I'm less distracted. All the while I'm using the tablet in slate mode but not using a pixel of ink. So this is the message tha... (more)
Sat, May 21, 2005 @ 1:14 PM - 0 comment(s) Those of you that know me know I really love racing. I'm mostly into NASCAR, not Indy, but I'm also into Tablet PC's. When I saw this I thought it was really cool! http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000620044142/... (more)
Tue, May 17, 2005 @ 9:41 AM - 0 comment(s) I just thought I'd take the time to mention here, two companies that sell development tools that DO get it and have ensured that their components work properly with Visual Studio .NET 2005 because they know that their customers are using the tools today to build applications for tomorrow. ComponentArt, makers of the WebUI Suite for ASP.NETI can't say enough good things about this company. They continue to amaze me with their ingenuity and design style in all of their products. I haven't bought the product quite yet because I'm not yet ready to go to production, but this is a definite no-brainer. Every ASP.NET developer should not be without this toolkit. They've always been comitted to .NET 2.0 from the beginning and when the VS.NET designer broke in between Beta1 and Beta2, they worked hard to restore the designer support and kept their customers informed of their progress. Divelements, UI controls for Windows FormsThese awesome, Office-style UI controls are great. There were a few minor visual glitches in... (more)
Mon, May 16, 2005 @ 1:37 PM - 0 comment(s) Okay listen up. If you are a component developer, then by now you should have Whidbey-compatible components available. The “we're waiting for .NET to ship” excuse is no longer valid. The API is almost entirely finalized with only absolutely necessary breaking changes being expected between now and RTM. If you don't believe me, go take a look around blogs.msdn.com. As a developer, I can understand not wanting to support a beta product (regardless of how incredibly stable it may be), but the fact is, if you make developer products, then you have to understand that people are already in the process of building their next generation applications on these tools that are right around the corner. If you think your customers are going to wait for you to catch up, you're dead wrong. I am building two major applications in VS.NET 2005 right now and both are expected to ship shortly after Whidbey. However, in one of those application's I'm going to be held back by two component companies that are still cli... (more)
Sun, May 15, 2005 @ 1:43 PM - 2 comment(s) If you wanna know how to make the most of your Tablet PC with the Office 2003 suite, check out this good overview. I agree that Office 2003 should be a no brainer on every tablet. It'd be nice to see more OEM's bundling it. http://wickedstageact2.typepad.com/life_on_the_wicked_stage_/2005/05/office_2003_and.html [Update: I fucking suck at this blog shit. I don't even know how to use a trackback.]... (more)
Wed, May 11, 2005 @ 3:29 PM - 1 comment(s) I've been using VS.NET 2005 ever since the first CTP's were available. If you know me, you know that I am always an early adopter of .NET technologies and VS.NET in particular. The upside to working with it this early is that by the time it comes out, you're already an expert, in-demand, and looked up to for knowledge by your peers who are just looking at it for the first time. The downside is, you often wind up with a couple of crappy projects and alot less hair because of changing API's, unstable environments, and just an overall “trial and error” approach to using the new tools. I have to say that 2005 has been a great experience. Aside from a couple glitches, I've been using it to develop applications that will wind up in production with the GoLive agreement that comes with Beta 2. It's incredibly stable and more importantly, it reinvigorates my love of software architecture and development. The designers and editor improvements make me cringe when I think of going back to VS 2003 for any rea... (more)
Mon, May 09, 2005 @ 5:17 PM - 0 comment(s) I continue to be amazed when people of importance in companies tell me they don't use an RSS reader or even worse, they don't know what one is. Get with the program people. Especially if you are in a business that deals in information technology of any kind (telecommunications, software, services, etc). People, this is not hard. Go to www.newsgator.com and get the Outlook edition. It will integrate the RSS headlines right into Outlook. If you're still checking your favorite sites every few days for updates then you are wasting your time and you will be left behind. There is a wealth of information out there that bloggers and publishers are working hard to keep you informed about. Don't miss out on it lest you risk being left in the dark. By the way, this blog is completely usless but there are others that cannot be missed. Check out http://blogs.msdn.com or if you're into VoIP, http://voip.weblogsinc.com (lots more sites on www.weblogsinc.com)... (more)
Tue, May 03, 2005 @ 3:01 PM - 0 comment(s) People in that place have absolutely no concept of loyalty and friendship. I have worked with some of these people for 6 years and I don't get a “Hey sorry to see you go”, “Good luck with your new opportunities.” Nothing. Bitter? Got one reply to my farewell email to the company. But hey that's always been the case. When someone leaves that place, no matter for what the reason, they become the scapegoat and the black sheep. Hopefully the business relationships remain open, but I can think of quite a few friendships that won't.... (more)
Thu, Apr 21, 2005 @ 12:05 AM - 1 comment(s) This blog post says everything I've thought when people told me to look for investors or venture capital funding. http://www.sandhill.com/opinion/editorial.php?id=16 Einstein Tech was started with no money, just sweat equity. The only money I spend is on advertising (minimal), computers, VoIP service, etc and it's all funded by TEO. It's a slow, uphill battle this way, sure. But I don't owe anybody anything and I don't answer to anyone except my customers.... (more)
Mon, Apr 18, 2005 @ 4:55 PM - 12 comment(s) Trailer Trash Talkin' Turleen If Barbie makes you want to puke, and memories of your childhood being forced to play with Barbie dolls induces nightmares, we have the cure. Introducing Trailer Trash Talkin' Turleen. Yes that's right, a burping, beer drinking, cigarette smoking, 12 inch tall doll, the exemplifies true American White Trash. Press her belly, (it's big because she's got one in the oven) and she will share some pearls of wisdom with the sophistication and style that makes her family and third grade teacher proud. "..Pour me a double, I'm drinking for two..."- Turleen Trailer Trash Talkin' TurleenClick Buttons to Listen OUR PRICE: $ 34.89(Buy 3 or more and Save $ 5.00) A little biography about Turleen: She didn’t just fall off of the turnip truck! Turleen is a sophisticated and patriotic American and a model working mother. After hours of hard work gathe... (more)
Fri, Apr 15, 2005 @ 2:57 PM - 1 comment(s) Finally, Martin Luther King (my baby speckled king snake) ate today. I've been having trouble getting him to eat for about 2 weeks. He kept throwing up the dead mice after getting them down halfway. I think they were probably too big for him. Today I got him two juicy baby brown mice and I'm telling you he snatched them up in seconds and crush, gulp, they were both gone. He ought to be well fed for at least a week or two now. I put some pictures of the feeding on the gallery at http://josheinstein.com/journal/gallery/16.aspx Before you animal rights activists come busting down my door, I do not keep the snake with no substrate. I had to take out the newspapers cause the mice were trying to hide.... (more)
Thu, Apr 14, 2005 @ 9:13 AM - 0 comment(s) Any updates? Do I still have to fly for 6 hours??... (more)
Tue, Apr 05, 2005 @ 2:04 AM - 0 comment(s) Well I didn't want to do it, but Lora says I have to be there. Won't tell me why though. Anyway, who am I to argue with her? :) I'll have a little something extra to show off at WinHEC 2005 in Seattle at the end of the month.... (more)
Mon, Apr 04, 2005 @ 12:17 PM - 0 comment(s) And by the way, in addition to my last post, I should say, there is no hard feelings between SNiP and myself. I believe that we will continue to have a very successful business relationship and that we will continue to help and support each other. SNiP's VoIP product offerings will be complemented by Einstein Technologies application functionality and I think we will both mutually benefit. This is not just P.R. candy coating. I am still good friends with Anthony and a handful of others at SNiP. I really think this is what's best for everyone.... (more)
Mon, Apr 04, 2005 @ 11:59 AM - 0 comment(s) Since I've heard alot of rumors about why/how I left SNiP and some people have asked, I figure I'll post something up here about it. The bottom line is, I was not fired or laid off, I did in fact resign. And despite what some trolls may be trying to spread, there was no sexual harassment complaint. In fact, the girl who supposedly made this complaint, I am now dating. The reasons I left SNiP had just as much to do with business as they did with personal life. Over the past few months I have become increasingly distracted. Trying to get Einstein Technologies off the ground has not been an easy task. TEO is only a small part of it. There's all the stuff we're doing in the VoIP market that nobody sees right now. Developing these products, attending trade shows for VoIP and Tablet PC has distracted me quite a bit from being the best that I can be for SNiP as a project manager. If I was able to focus 100% on that role, I would have felt better about it, but I felt like I couldn't give 100% so I wanted to give up... (more)
Fri, Mar 25, 2005 @ 3:34 PM - 0 comment(s) This picture is great. I saw this guy in front of me at Commerce Bank today and I just had to take a picture of his shirt. Pretty funny. ... (more)
Wed, Mar 16, 2005 @ 3:44 PM - 3 comment(s) Well today is a new beginning for me. I'm not really enjoying it but I guess it had to be done. I resigned from SNiP today, effective as soon as my current responsibilities are completed and I have found a replacement for myself. I promised Anthony that I wouldn't leave them high and dry and I intend to keep good on that. (By the way, if you're a talented .NET developer looking for a project leader role in a telecommunications company in the Delaware Valley, email me.) Also, Tara has now completely cut off all ties from me and rumor is, she's moved to Massachusets. To be honest, I am not only shocked, but completely devastated. I miss her like hell and I am filled with regret. For the way I treated her, for not realizing how I felt, for letting her go in the first place. It's going to take a long time to get over her. Finally, I am finding out that you really never truly know who your friends are -- only who your friends aren't. That's all I'm going to say on that matter. So now I am basically forcing myse... (more)
Tue, Mar 15, 2005 @ 12:42 AM - 1 comment(s) Thanks to Lora and Loren for hosting www.tabletpcpost.com and I'm proud to announce that TEO has once again pulled ahead to become the #1 most popular download. ... (more)
Thu, Mar 10, 2005 @ 10:26 PM - 0 comment(s) Don't ever expect to see an Einstein Technologies application that runs on Oracle software or databases. I think Larry Ellison is a jackass and I'd like to see him fail. Compeition is good, but not respecting your competition is both foolish and distasteful. http://news.com.com/Quote+of+the+day+Ellison+pokes+at+sappy+rival/2110-1014_3-5609502.html?part=rss&tag=5608819&subj=news... (more)
Thu, Mar 10, 2005 @ 6:48 PM - 3 comment(s) I'm having a great time out here in San Jose but I really can't wait to get back home to NJ. I miss my friends and smoky drunk nights at Saccas Pourhouse. Where else can you and your friends go drink all night and walk away with a check for under 40 bucks!... (more)
Thu, Mar 10, 2005 @ 1:04 AM - 0 comment(s) Thanks so much to Sylantro Systems who was kind enough to invite Einstein Technologies to their booth at VON. I got to meet alot of great people and show them how Einstein Technologies is developing the technology on top of the Sylantro platform that makes the best hosted pbx and ip centrex platform even better!... (more)
Tue, Feb 22, 2005 @ 1:36 AM - 2 comment(s) All employees are required to watch the following training video. http://media.ebaumsworld.com/sexualharassment.wmv... (more)
Mon, Feb 21, 2005 @ 3:49 PM - 2 comment(s) once upon a time there was a goldfish who lived happily in an aquariumhe had everything he needed in the aquarium, food, warmth, plenty of spacebut every day he would stare out through the glassa seemingly endless world existed outside of his glass walls and he wanted to experience it so one day, the goldfish foolishly decided to make his movehe swam with all his might to the surface and flew out of the water and over the edge for about 2 seconds he felt as free as a bird and the world was his but then the goldfish realized that he had made a foolish mistakehe realized he could not survive outside of the aquarium he had left behindand he wanted badly to go back, but he couldn't as he lay there on the carpet, gasping for breath, flapping around helplessly,he looked back up inside the glass walls and knew he could never go back... (more)
Sat, Feb 19, 2005 @ 11:20 PM - 0 comment(s) I'm never 100% confident in the decisions I make. But sometimes I get the feeling that I really fucked up. It's extremely rare that I feel regret, but I'm feeling it now... and it sucks.... (more)
Wed, Feb 16, 2005 @ 5:29 PM - 0 comment(s) http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_050216.html According to space.com, NASA researchers have strong evidence of present life on Mars. It will likely be several years before we can confirm or deny this, but it's very exciting!... (more)
Wed, Feb 16, 2005 @ 4:54 PM - 4 comment(s) Yet another article dooming pen computing. http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000667031704/ You know at Windows Anywhere, I was surprised (actually... was I?) that the OEM's and MS still don't realize the huge marketing problem with Tablet PC's right now. Yeah yeah everyone's drinking the kool-aid and thinking that everything is roses. Well the vast majority out there either doesn't give a shit about the Tablet PC or doesn't like it. To me, that's a problem. This slow and steady growth thing isn't going to change on its own. Laptops are growing too. Tablet PC is not growing in proportion to other mobile technology. How is this ever going to get mainstream? How are you going to get people to care? Of the 7 or so people I've convinced to buy a Tablet PC, none of them use the digitizer anymore. It's just a laptop to them. When is something going to happen?... (more)
Sun, Feb 13, 2005 @ 1:01 AM - 0 comment(s) I'm not trying to say TEO is a magic pill for Tablet PC, but this was an interesting post to read. Thanks, Julia for the shout out. http://www.thedatafarm.com/blog/Trackback.aspx?guid=c3a8b363-86b8-4db6-a5a6-f80ef92a5a2f... (more)
Wed, Feb 09, 2005 @ 5:51 AM - 2 comment(s) I met up with Rob Bushway (http://robbushway.blogspot.com), Trevor Claireborn, and Tom Clarkson (http://www.orangeguava.com) on Monday night. Great group of guys. Okay so me and Tom got off to a bumpy start with the emails back and forth about incompatibilities with O.G. and TEO. Well nothing a few beers can't solve. Anyway, tonight (Tuesday) I got to meet Omar Shahine (http://www.shahine.com/omar) who is totally awesome. Through his blog, I've come to understand Outlook programming so much better (even if it means accepting that it just sucks sometimes). Also got to meet Lora Heiny and her brother Loren. Even though we didn't really hang out much, it was cool to finally meet her. Lora you are far too cute to hang out in the background. You should be more visible. And got to see Arin and Frank once again. So far, trip's been really good. Thanks again Microsoft!... (more)
Wed, Feb 09, 2005 @ 5:44 AM - 0 comment(s) Alright alright. New England wins again. But come on, you can't be too proud of yourselves after winning by only 3 points with so many turnovers. The Philadelphia Eagles that I've watched every week before then would have whooped on New England good. It's alot of pressure especially when nobody ever expected you to get that far. Well guess what... the team's just gonna get stronger.... (more)
Sat, Feb 05, 2005 @ 9:28 PM - 0 comment(s) Can't wait to see the Eagles whoop some New England ass tomorrow. Then I'm flying out Monday morning for Windows Anywhere. There's some very exciting things going on at Einstein Technologies right now. Lots of innovative VoIP apps getting built in a fraction of the time it would take anyone else without the extensive toolkit I have developed. Hopefully I'll get to show some of my friends at the conference the things that have been keeping me from TEO. :)... (more)
Thu, Feb 03, 2005 @ 8:30 PM - 5 comment(s) Marc Orchant is a great guy. One of my best users and testers. He's also a big proponent of Tablet Enhancements for Outlook and mentions it alot on his blog. Today I was tuning into the G'Day World podcast (I subscribed a few weeks ago when Robert Scoble was on) and I knew Marc was going to be on. To my surprise though, TEO came up in the conversation and Marc and the hosts Cameron and Mick had some great things to say about it! I've included a sample of the show below and I encourage you to check out the whole thing as well as subscribe to their RSS feed to listen to future shows. Check out the sample here (requires Windows Media 10) Thanks again guys, I'm trying to stay humble. :)... (more)
Tue, Jan 25, 2005 @ 9:11 PM - 0 comment(s) The best action show of all time (in my opinion) comes to DVD. Go get this now! ... (more)
Tue, Jan 25, 2005 @ 3:18 AM - 1 comment(s) But this time it has nothing to do with ink or pen at all. I'm finding myself wanting to have a conversation with Outlook about things. I started digging into the SAPI framework (which Tablet PC guru, Arin Goldberg also contributed to -- what can't this guy do?) and found that it's not all that hard to get a reliable conversation going between you and your PC. Even with the crappy mic in my Electrovaya. Expect to see some demos of voice enhancements to TEO at Microsoft Windows Anywhere.... (more)
Sun, Jan 23, 2005 @ 6:42 PM - 0 comment(s) WHOO HOO! If you would like to donate some boxes of Kleenex to the Atlanta fans, you can by clicking here.... (more)
Sun, Jan 23, 2005 @ 2:41 PM - 1 comment(s) Last night and today Messenger service (Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger) has been off and on. Usually these types of lengthy outages make headlines.... (more)
Sun, Jan 23, 2005 @ 12:38 PM - 1 comment(s) For a guy that hates to fly, I've sure got alot of it coming up. Microsoft is being kind enough to accomodate me at Microsoft Windows Anywhere, a conference for Tablet PC developers and enthusiasts which is located in San Francisco, CA. I of course live outside of Philadelphia so I have about a 6 hour trip. The conference is Feb 6-10 but you'll need alot more than Tablet PC's and fellow geeks to pry me away from the Superbowl. Especially since I'm sure the Eagles are going. Once that's done, I will be representing Einstein Technologies as an attendee for VON the VoIP conference in San Jose, CA March 7-10. Another 6 hour trip, only this time with a stop. Twice as many takeoff's and landings. Sigh. I have a completely irrational fear of flying. I hate it. Scared to death of it. All I can think of are engines falling off, failing during takeoff, landing gear not coming down, etc. Terrorists don't scare me. We know now how to deal with terrorists. Human error and mechanical failure scares me. After all, I ... (more)
Sat, Jan 22, 2005 @ 12:38 AM - 0 comment(s) I actually held out on this desktop search thing for a long time. I'm a programmer so organization means everything to me. If you asked me where something was on my hard disk, I knew exactly and it was DEEP within a highly organized folder hierarchy. Well since adopting desktop search, I have not given up that method of organization. I'm still meticulous about where things are stored. I don't see search as a replacement for that, but it's a great enhancement. I actually started out with Lookout for Outlook and I loved it. In fact, I wouldn't have switched to MSN if I didn't know that the author was involved in writing it (and it's very similar to Lookout.) But since I switched to MSN Desktop Search, I found that my favorite use for it has nothing to do with documents, emails, contacts, etc. It's actually MUSIC! I love music but I hate listening to an album all the way through. I'm more of a pick and choose songs -- whatever pops into my head -- type of guy. So if I think of a Bob Dylan song I just typ... (more)
Fri, Jan 21, 2005 @ 2:49 PM - 4 comment(s) I get so frustrated every time I read a MSDN article that warns developers not to deploy the Office 2003 PIAs. I am frustrated because the PIA problem in Office is a major pain in the ass and so far, nothing has been done to rectify it. Just to recap what myself and others have bitched about, here are the problems: Microsoft wants you to compile a version of your app for Office XP and a version for Office 2003 if you intend to support both Microsoft doesn't want you to redistribute Office 2003 PIAs to any version of Office... ever. There is no way, short of telling the user to go find their system administrator and modify the office installation, that I know of to get the 2003 PIAs on a user's machine if they were not installed the first time (which they are not by default). Microsoft doesn't want you to use the freely redistributable Office XP PIA's on Office 2003 These are big problems and make developing Office 2003 add ins very unattractive. It's very rare that developing for Microsoft technologies... (more)
Sun, Jan 16, 2005 @ 11:40 PM - 6 comment(s) (Feels good to be blogging in the style I used to do back in the mid 90's... Yes I know we didn't call it blogging back then.) I've always been very optimistic when it comes to my future. I've always pretty much assumed that eventually I would get a big break and make big money. So far that hasn't happened yet, but I'm still 25 years old. I've got about 3/4 of my life left (assuming life expectancy continues to grow the way it has in the past). So alright lets assume that I sell enough copies of TEO, or TCS, or DotOffice, or whatever and I find myself sitting on a couple hundred million dollars. Is my life complete? Well sortof. What I am about to talk about is pretty shocking and some people might take it the wrong way. Hear me out. Once I make that kind of money and I am sure that my family is properly taken care of and my responsibilities have been handled, I am going to kill myself. Yes that's right I am going to commit suicide. Now before you go running to the telephones to dial the suicide preventio... (more)
Fri, Jan 07, 2005 @ 1:21 AM - 0 comment(s) I am not going to name any names but I am sick of companies that have these MVP-like awards to rip off the one Microsoft started a few years ago. These companies are small, usually with only a couple of products and barely have a support presence at all, yet they somehow see themselves as prestigious enough to bestow an honor upon forum participants. I don't know what's worse, the fact that these companies think they are significant enough that such awards mean anything or that people actually need pats on the back bad enough to strive for them. Please note, I'm not all that fond of the MVP concept in general, even from Microsoft. It encourages end users to freely devote their time to supporting commercial products for no financial compensation. In other words, get free tech support by sending someone a plaque. Also note that I don't dislike the companies that I am referring to. In fact I am customers of both. But I do shake my head when I see they are giving out awards like this. One even has the nerve to ... (more)
Thu, Jan 06, 2005 @ 8:40 PM - 86 comment(s) This is so funny. Oh man it reminds me of somebody I know. So funny... Update: People... stop being stupid! This site is NOT Howard Stern's web site. Stop sending me comments addressed to Howard Stern. Go to his fucking web site www.howardstern.com and learn how to read. “High Pitch ErikHaving Sex”... (more)
Wed, Jan 05, 2005 @ 8:05 PM - 0 comment(s) ... But your woman thinks I'm a man. :-)... (more)
Mon, Jan 03, 2005 @ 1:53 AM - 0 comment(s) Don't ask. It's kind of an inside joke. It's mostly for my brother and fans of my Tenny comics.... (more)
Wed, Dec 29, 2004 @ 10:16 PM - 1 comment(s) Einstein Technologies is going to donate $1,000 to the Red Cross for the tsunami victims. I strongly encourage everyone to donate as well. As you have heard, they are most in need of monetary donations, not food or clothing. You can make your tax deductible donation to many charitable organizations. I've listed a few below. I know that everyone is struggling after Christmas gifts and all, but dig deep. This is truly the worst disaster, natural or otherwise, that's occurred in our lifetime. Red Cross (via Amazon) AmeriCares Direct Relief International Médecins Sans Frontières International Oxfam Sarvodaya UNICEF... (more)
Sat, Dec 25, 2004 @ 10:26 PM - 0 comment(s) I love these things!... (more)
Sat, Dec 25, 2004 @ 12:38 AM - 0 comment(s) ... (more)
Sat, Dec 25, 2004 @ 12:25 AM - 2 comment(s) Christmas is one of the only holidays I actually care about. I've always enjoyed buying gifts for people to give them, and believe it or not, I really don't care about getting anything. In fact, I'd prefer not to get anything in return. Why? Because I'm pretty fortunate in that I make pretty good money between my job and TEO and when I want something, I usually buy it myself. So I'm not really in need of much. I think everyone eventually has one of those moments in their life when they really figure out what Christmas is all about. For me it's always been about giving gifts, but now that I am here alone on Christmas Eve (Tara's in the hospital, remember...) I realize that being around people you care about is really more important than gifts -- either giving or receiving. Which by the way, reminds me. Since I never know what to tell people when they ask what I want for Christmas or my birthday, I've decided that from now on, don't get me anything. Instead, use the money to buy a gift for a program like R... (more)
Fri, Dec 24, 2004 @ 1:27 PM - 2 comment(s) Well as an indirect result of Tara's gall bladder surgery, she is having difficulty breathing and the doctors can't figure out why. So we'll be spending Christmas Eve + Christmas Day in the hospital. I feel really bad for her but I'm not gonna leave her side on Christmas. So now I'm packing up all the presents to bring them there. Those of you that know me know that I am not a religious man. To me, this is an unfortunate arragement of molecules. But that doesn't mean I don't still hope for the best.... (more)
Mon, Dec 13, 2004 @ 1:07 AM - 1 comment(s) I don't think enough people are talking about this product. It is very very cool. It's called Agile Messenger for various cell phone operating systems. They happen to have a beta of version 3.0 for SmartPhone that allows you to sign into AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo for instant messaging. While that sounds like nothing out of the ordinary, there are some very cool features that have now made this my replacement for MSN Messenger on the Smart Phone (and I've only had it installed for about 5 minutes)... You can send images from your phone to the other part and you can “push to talk” and send voice messages. The voice message (or picture) arrives to the other party as a link to Agile's web server that stores your picture or voice message and it plays it through their browser. This makes it very easy to send quick notes via IM to a PC user that would otherwise take a long time to type. If the other user happens to be a SmartPhone user, they can also play the message right from within the Agile Messenger... (more)
Sat, Dec 11, 2004 @ 4:05 PM - 0 comment(s) People must think I am such a dork. I'm the only person in the world who is bogging from their tablet to their Smart Phone over bluetooth. TEO really comes in handy for Christmas shopping lists.... (more)
Tue, Dec 07, 2004 @ 7:24 PM - 4 comment(s) After overhearing an argument between two fellow geeks at my work, I've decided to try a little personal experiment. I am going to change my life over to UTC (formerly GMT) coordinates. If you don't know what UTC is (come on is there really anybody that doesn't?) it is a universally accepted “global time” for Earth based in Greenwich, England. The various time zones on the Earth are expressed in offsets from UTC. For example, in my former time zone, EST/EDT the time right now would be 7:14PM/8:14 PM in standard and daylight savings time respectively. The offsets are -5:00/-4:00 respectively. Daylight savings time and time zones make life difficult for programmers, TV networks, people with alarm clocks, travelers, airlines, etc. The whole world would be better off if we all agreed on UTC. Sure, this means I'd go to bed around 06:00 (1:00 AM EST) typically and wake up around 15:00 (10:00 AM EST) but I could get used to that quickly. People in other parts of the world would go to bed and ... (more)
Tue, Dec 07, 2004 @ 3:31 PM - 1 comment(s) Since the release of TEO 2.0, customers have been telling me about a problem that occurs when TEO (and many other managed add ins) are installed. The problem has to do with the notes system. When a new note is created, Outlook will spit up a couple of error messages (that really don't affect anything) on shut down or display change events. Well Omar, from Microsoft (the author of the Outlook to One Note powertoy) has an explanation of the problem and proposes a way to avoid it. Thanks, Omar! My customers will thank you. I will try to implement this in TEO soon. http://www.shahine.com/omar/PermaLink,guid,e8ef8ba0-be2d-4599-ab77-db2a1f5cf15c.aspx ... (more)
Fri, Dec 03, 2004 @ 7:03 PM - 2 comment(s) Supporting free speech means supporting even idiots who think Mel Gibson is a medical expert. This is atrocious. I hope that school gets the shit sued out of them. http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/12/02/busdriver.stemcell.ap/index.html... (more)
Fri, Dec 03, 2004 @ 11:58 AM - 0 comment(s) A friend of mine at work got in trouble for decorating her cubicle for Christmas and was told to take it down. Believe me, there's alot more people making a shit load more money wasting a shit load more time. Fucking hypocrites.... (more)
Tue, Nov 30, 2004 @ 10:11 PM - 1 comment(s) An expensive DVD player that I can use at work late at night while I work on my Toshiba Satellite. :)... (more)
Mon, Nov 29, 2004 @ 4:31 PM - 0 comment(s) ... (more)
Thu, Nov 25, 2004 @ 5:43 PM - 1 comment(s) ... (more)
Wed, Nov 24, 2004 @ 8:45 PM - 0 comment(s) Shouldn't be that hard really. ASP.NET makes is really easy to create a mobile page where only the video links would be listed. Then using Windows Media Encoder they could make a 32k stream and put it up on their Media Server. I'd definitely watch more if I didn't have to be in front of a computer.... (more)
Wed, Nov 24, 2004 @ 3:00 PM - 1 comment(s) I just had a really good idea for an application for Tablet PC that could change the way people interact with their Tablet PC and it has nothing to do with digital ink. What is it? Well I can't tell you because I don't know when I'm going to have the time to work on it. But I do think it would do pretty well and be popular among developers and end users alike. Of course I won't be able to market it anyway so it'll suffer the same fate as TEO probably. But I'm a developer and sometimes the joy of developing useful software outweighs the possibility of profit.... sometimes, not always. :)... (more)
Tue, Nov 23, 2004 @ 8:31 PM - 3 comment(s) Camden, NJ is now the most dangerous city in the United States. And I live just a few miles away. What a shit hole. I wish they would just napalm the whole city and then after a few minutes, it won't be the most dangerous city anymore. ... (more)
Mon, Nov 22, 2004 @ 6:09 PM - 8 comment(s) I got mine, did you? These are some pics of the displays at two nearby Game Stops. Also a pic of my DS and Madden NFL and Super Mario DS.... (more)
Sun, Nov 21, 2004 @ 6:56 PM - 1 comment(s) I won't be drinking that anymore. I'm gonna stick to straight vodka in my new flask that my brother got me for my birthday.... (more)
Sat, Nov 20, 2004 @ 4:50 PM - 0 comment(s) ... (more)
Sat, Nov 20, 2004 @ 4:49 PM - 1 comment(s) My brother and I ran to the liquor store after he was kind enough to come give my car a jump. Tara has been refusing to let me use her car and we're fighting over it. :) This pic is from lunch at Gaetanos.... (more)
Fri, Nov 19, 2004 @ 2:05 PM - 2 comment(s) I found this on Marc Orchant's web log. Joel on Software has this seemingly simple tip: Did you know… you can Ctrl+C to copy the text of a Windows popup error message box to the clipboard? I did not know that. It’s made me crazy for years. ... (more)
Thu, Nov 18, 2004 @ 8:48 PM - 0 comment(s) As some of you know I've been helping my company (not Einstein Technologies) develop a VOIP product offering. I am getting really fed up with it and losing confidence in it before it's even out. When we initially planned this, we aimed for simple implementation, yet full featured enough to compete with the likes of Vonage and AT&T. Unfortunately, now people are over-engineering it, stepping on toes, trying to envision every possible situation under the sun, and the end result is a coding mess just to get a couple lines turned up. And once they're up, don't even think about trying to reconfigure it. I think flexibility comes with simplicity and this thing is getting more and more complex every day and we're losing that flexibility. Anyway I'm just venting. I am not going to go into specifics but just stupid things like the database hierarchy and naming conventions are hurting the product architecture. This is why modern programmers and engineers can't get along.... (more)
Thu, Nov 18, 2004 @ 8:24 PM - 5 comment(s) In a previous post, I talked about how I overcame the storage limitations of my new Audiovox SMT5600 by setting up a streaming Windows Media server. In this post, I will describe in detail the steps to set it up and create content. Although this document does not describe how to stream live TV, it does tell you how to stream recorded TV or DVDs. What you will need: Windows Media Encoder 9 Windows 2003 Server Standard A DVD with your favorite TV episodes DVD Shrink Intervideo WinDVD A Windows-powered SmartPhone or Pocket PC Phone A data plan or some other type of internet access for your phone Steps to create the content: This is the part where I have to ask you to be responsible. I am describing the steps to do this for your own personal use on your Windows Mobile device. Please be responsible and do not violate the licensing terms of the content you are using. For example, broadcasting a football game to the public is definitely a violation. Download and install Windows Media Encoder 9. ... (more)
Thu, Nov 18, 2004 @ 2:32 PM - 0 comment(s) ... (more)
Thu, Nov 18, 2004 @ 11:39 AM - 1 comment(s) ... and now it won't start. :(... (more)
Wed, Nov 17, 2004 @ 11:33 PM - 1 comment(s) ... (more)
Tue, Nov 16, 2004 @ 6:12 PM - 5 comment(s) This site seems legit. I have a carton of Marlboro Lights on order. I can't believe how cheap they are. I only smoke like a pack a month anyway so these should last me a long time. http://www.cigoutlet.net... (more)
Mon, Nov 15, 2004 @ 7:19 PM - 2 comment(s) With all the buzz lately around iPods, podcasting, podwhatevering, etc, people have lost sight of one of the coolest features that Windows Mobile has provided since the earliest days of Pocket PC... Windows Media Player. I love music, I love TV. Some people have tried talking me into getting an iPod but I refuse to carry yet another device in my pocket. With the SmartPhone, I not only have my entire Exchange mailbox in my pocket, but also a camera, and a built in music player. While the SmartPhone may not be the best at any of these tasks, it certainly is the best at doing all of them. But one thing that really bothered me about the Audiovox SMT5600 SmartPhone that I bought was the storage limitations. How on earth could I live within the confines of a 512MB miniSD card? Well encoding audio at 64kbps WMA is low enough. The quality is just fine for me for mobile audio through headphones but I wouldn't want to go much lower than that. I thought about changing my audio more frequently but that is too much of ... (more)
Mon, Nov 15, 2004 @ 6:37 PM - 0 comment(s) I'm gonna do all my Christmas shopping from the comfort of the local tavern. I just stumbled across Amazon.com's totally awesome mobile web site. It's designed for Pocket PC's and SmartPhones and it is really convenient. With this site and a GPRS data plan from T-Mobile, I can shop for just about everything on Amazon's web site and have it shipped right to me as if I were in front of a PC. What's more, once you sign in, it will set a cookie so that you can use their “One Click” shopping feature which means you don't have to type shipping addresses and credit card numbers. I highly recommend this site.... (more)
Mon, Nov 15, 2004 @ 6:34 PM - 3 comment(s) First I just wanna say thanks to everyone who wished me well on my recovery. I am now back to work and as long as I don't sneeze, I feel fine. Now about the Audiovox SMT5600 Smart Phone. Wow this phone is awesome! I got mine last week and I can't put it down. The first thing I did when I got it was test out the voice quality since the MPx220 which seemed like a good phone was ruined by its poor voice quality. I am happy to say the quality of the Audiovox is excellent on T-Mobile. The camera part of the phone is also surprisingly good, even in “okay” lighting conditions. The MPx220 stunk in anything but broad daylight (and even that sucked). I'll be rigging something up to post my pictures via MMS to my blog soon. I actually already have something developed just no place to put them yet. I wish the miniSD slot wasn't located underneath the battery because it basically restricts me to using one card and 512MB isn't all that much anymore. However, I did solve this problem in another unique way tha... (more)
Wed, Nov 10, 2004 @ 10:35 AM - 5 comment(s) I am now back from the hospital. I had an unexpected two-day stay when I decided to check in with severe stomach pains. It started Saturday night (which woke me up) and my first thought was that it must be acid reflux which is not uncommon for me. So all day Sunday the pain persisted and worsened despite all attempts at pain relief or acid reduction. As if my Eagles party wasn't bad enough with them getting massacred by the Steelers, I was unable to really do anything. Monday morning at 4 am the pain was so bad that I had to go to Kennedy Hospital. After hours of blood work, catscans, and examinations, they confirmed what I knew all along... appendicitis. So I had to stay in the ER until 6:00 PM or so because the rooms were booked. They finally got me a room but the operating room was booked until 11:00 PM or so. They took out my appendix at 11:00 PM and all day Tuesday I was in and out of consciousness because I hadn't slept much before. So now I'm in a ton of pain and recovering. It's hard to move and ... (more)
Sat, Nov 06, 2004 @ 3:20 AM - 0 comment(s) And I can't draw by any means so I just did this.... (more)
Wed, Nov 03, 2004 @ 2:00 PM - 0 comment(s) I hate to keep sounding like I am one of the Tablet PC naysayers, but why are all the Tablet PC sites talking about seeing the Tablet PC on TV? This is downright embarassing to the Tablet PC community. The fact that the Tablet PC is doing so poorly in mainstream that it gets so much attention when someone sees it on a television is not a good thing. If this was someone casually noticing it in a message board post or something, that'd be one thing. But blogs, front pages of news sites, posts to the newsgroups... come on. This is not newsworthy. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041103/sfw065_1.htmlhttp://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18960http://www.whatisnew.com/dailynews/showthread.php?t=1869http://www.tabletpctalk.com/#newsitemEpAAuAVVAFdfoZPxLEhttp://journals.tuxreports.com/lch/archives/002115.html Just go to any Tablet PC site and they'll have mention of this somewhere.... (more)
Sun, Oct 31, 2004 @ 11:00 PM - 1 comment(s) So many mixed emotions today. I had to flip back and forth between the Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 race and the Eagles / Ravens game. Dale Earnhardt Jr was third in the championship standings going into this race and down by 120 some points from Kurt Busch who led. Jeff Gordon was 2nd. I was elated when Kurt Busch blew up his motor and Jeff Gordon went to the garage with a bad suspension. It looked like Junior had first place in the bag. However, with 15 laps to go, some incidental contact with Carl Edwards sent Junior flying into the wall and dropped him from 3rd to 33rd place. As a result, several others gained ground on Busch and Gordon in the championships and put Junior in 5th overall. Okay so I didn't pay as much attention to the Eagles game as I did the race, but they pulled off another victory making them 7-0 so far this season. First time in the franchise's history. David Akers (my personal favorite player) kicked three field goals and Terrell Owens scored their only touch down (missed a two p... (more)
Sun, Oct 31, 2004 @ 10:49 PM - 1 comment(s) The MPx220 was no good. But now that I am researching the Audiovox SMT5600, it looks like it can't currently be unlocked. Since I want to continue using T-Mobile, that's a problem. In any case, I need to replace my aging T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition. The HTC Blue Angel looks nice but I am confused by all of it's brandings. I'm not really sure if I can get an English version. I'll ask Peter Rysavy when he gets back. I'm sure he'll have some good advice for me.... (more)
Sat, Oct 30, 2004 @ 8:02 PM - 0 comment(s) I've had it! I returned the MPX220 to Best Buy today. Fortunately, I was not charged a restocking fee and they gave me a full refund. Most of my return experiences with Best Buy are much more painful. Now I'll check out that Audiovox. Amazon.com has it for $350 without activation. Not bad.... (more)
Sat, Oct 30, 2004 @ 11:57 AM - 2 comment(s) What a shame. It was really time for Bush to go too. I guess you never know what might happen. Maybe the polls aren't so accurate after all.... (more)
Fri, Oct 29, 2004 @ 8:57 PM - 3 comment(s) Well my order from ecost.com has been back ordered for over a week and they have no estimated date that it will be in. So I cancelled that order and ordered from www.flash-memory-store.com and hopefully I'll see it soon. Since I refuse to buy an iPod (or any single purpose device ever again) my MPx220 is my music player. Since they switched to miniSD (hey Motorola... your customers are NOT demanding anything smaller than SD!!) I have to get this 512 MB card if I want to put any decent amount of music on the phone.... (more)
Fri, Oct 29, 2004 @ 12:40 AM - 0 comment(s) As you may have noticed if you are one of the two people that read my web site, I have changed the skin. I like this one better. The other one was getting too popular anyway. I didn't make this one, of course. I've also posted a bunch in the last few days. I'm gonna try to keep posting more often. Also set up a place to store my camera phone pictures. I don't lead a very exciting life, but maybe someday I'll have something interesting to put up there.... (more)
Thu, Oct 28, 2004 @ 12:37 AM - 8 comment(s) Why am I losing interest in Tablet PC? This is actually a real question. I don't expect to get many answers since I don't have many viewers. But I've been gung ho about Tablet PC technology for two years and my shareware business currently has only one product build specifically for Tablet PC. But since getting my laptop, I don't even bring the Tablet PC home from work anymore. I haven't even turned it on in the last 3 days. I need to start thinking about why this has happened if I expect to have any advice for MS to try to get the platform back on track. What do we need? Better synchronization? More power? (I'm no electronics engineer but how cool would it be to have a Tablet PC that when docked, added a second, more powerful processor to the system...) It isn't the battery life because my Electrovaya kills my laptop in that area. Weight too. Alot of it has to do with a lack of applications targeted for Tablet PC. And I'm talking about real applications. Not power toys, utils, demos, games, etc. Aside fro... (more)
Tue, Oct 26, 2004 @ 11:21 PM - 1 comment(s) Sometimes I get asked by people who are just getting started in programming what the most important advice I can give them is: Become familiar with the help system. This is the most important advice and it applies to any language, any technology. It doesn't even stop at programming. The best way to fast track your success is to get familiar with the help system and learn how to ask the right questions. This is especially true of the MSDN help collection in Visual Studio .NET. There are certain conventions that you can use to make sure you always find what you need quickly. Here are a couple tips for using the MSDN help index: Look for “Class” or “Structure“ following a typeWhen you search for .NET Framework types in the MSDN index, you will notice that the classes always have the word “class“ after them and the structures have the word “structure“. Enumerations, delegates, etc also follow similar conventions. What this means is if you are searching for... (more)
Tue, Oct 26, 2004 @ 10:40 PM - 14 comment(s) I'm disgusted with this device. I just spent $500 at Best Buy last weekend for a factory unlocked MPx220 SmartPhone. It's junk. Here are my complaints: Switched to miniSD which means all of my large SD cards are useless. The camera is awful. Barely usable in sunlight, unusable in low light such as bars where I want to take pictures. Maybe a third of the time that I call someone, they can't hear me at all. The speaker volume is very low and pretty much impossible to hear in noisy environments. The start menu items (which are extremely cluttered) are stored permanently in the ROM so they can't be reorganized. Windows Media Player 9, no WMP 10 and so far no word of an upgrade. Given Motorola's track record, I doubt it. Slow processor. No cradle like the MPx200 came with. [Updated] Forgot, bluetooth kinda stinks. Bluetooth modem is cool, but Bluetooth ActiveSync doesn't work properly for me. Disconnects after a few minutes then I have to reboot the phone to get it to work again. I'm sure I've g... (more)
Tue, Oct 26, 2004 @ 10:17 PM - 1 comment(s) I've heard about this software occasionally for several years but I never bothered to look into it until recently. Snag It is a screen capture software for Windows and while it may seem like there is not much to that since you can ALT+PRINTSCREEN to capture a bitmap image of the current window without any software, Snag It really takes this so much farther. As a software developer, I'm constantly building UI's or sending screen shots to others for various reasons. It's a real pain to do it the old fashioned way. ALT+PRINTSCREEN, then open a paint program, paste the image, crop it, save it as an optimized format, go back to your IM window, send file, browse for the image, send it. With Snag It, I just click capture, choose an IM recipient and its gone. But SnagIt can do so much more such as animated screen captures. (This is SUCH an awesome feature by the way.). There's too many features to mention but if you take screen shots regularly, then you need this software. [Check out a video of Snag It in action.]... (more)
Tue, Oct 26, 2004 @ 10:10 PM - 1 comment(s) I know I haven't posted in a while so it's not really new. But I just wanted to say that I got a 17” Toshiba Satellite laptop. This thing is great. It's a portable desktop, but it's not really mobile. I did not get rid of my Tablet PC although I don't really use it for anything other than notes and meetings anymore. I forgot what it was like to have a machine with some real processing power and screen real estate. This is really a great laptop except for the fact that the battery stinks. 2 hours max. So that's another good reason to keep the tablet around. Now one piece of shareware is absolutely critical for keeping two PC's ... SmartSync Pro. I downloaded this software and I forked up the $35 right away. It was well worth it. SmartSync Pro runs in the background and periodically synchronizes the files between the Tablet PC and the laptop. It doesn't synchronize Outlook, it is just a file-based synchronization solution, but that's ok because I use Exchange Server. If you have two PC's and want to ke... (more)
Fri, Oct 01, 2004 @ 7:05 PM - 4 comment(s) I thought that TEO 2.0 would finally distinguish me from the pack as far as Tablet PC software goes. But when I received the latest Tablet PC Partners Newsletter today, I noticed three other applications that were released this month that were mentioned in the newsletter. My application, which was also released this month, was not mentioned at all. While I understand that being a one person shareware author with no funding other than my own makes me a *very* small player, I also think that the application is quite impressive, especially when compared with other applications that larger companies are producing. I’m seeing very little opportunity to grow in this market and it’s very discouraging. I’d hate to see a good application fizzle out simply because I can’t market it, but I’m running out of ideas. I’m listed on www.tabletpcpost.com where the app has shot up to #2 after less than a week. It’s getting lots of favorable comments on that site and on www.tabletpcbuzz... (more)
Sun, Sep 26, 2004 @ 11:21 AM - 53 comment(s) In my previous post I talked about the nightmare I was having trying to get TEO 2.0 to load on a customer's machine. This happened to more than one person and I couldn't figure out why or even fix it until I stumbled across the fact that installing it on another user account and choosing the Help -> Detect and Repair could fix it. But I still didn't know why it happened. Apparently there is this barely documented “feature” of Outlook that disables AddIns during load if Outlook detects that the AddIn was not loaded successfully. Why that happened is another issue altogether that I have to try and solve. AddIn's currently have a LoadBehavior registry value that is typically “3” for enable at startup and “2” if the AddIn is disabled. The TEO installer always resets this to “3”. This registry key can be found at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\AddIns\(YourAddIn'sConnectProgID). There is also a HKCU flavor of this key so your AddIn can be in either one. If ... (more)
Thu, Sep 23, 2004 @ 10:09 PM - 2 comment(s) After releasing TEO 2.0 on Monday, hundreds of people rushed to the site to download the software. This may not seem like a lot but to a small one person shareware operation, it is. I love the fact that it is so popular, but unfortunately like all software, not every install goes as smoothly as it does for most. The abundance of support questions have unfortunately slowed my response times a bit so I’ll need to get back on track. (I do still have a 40 hour a week day job, remember.) Some of you may have read on Marc Orchant’s web log about the beta issues I worked with him on. Unfortunately it turned out to be an underlying problem with the Tablet PC Ink API’s and not my software at all. He’s not the only one that has experienced this problem. Although uncommon, about four of my users have reported errors that looked like TEO problems but turned out to be problems in the new Tablet PC 2005 RealTimeStylus API’s. There have also been other problems such as users trying to enter th... (more)
Mon, Sep 20, 2004 @ 5:54 PM - 0 comment(s) Today I released Tablet Enhancements for Outlook 2.0 to the public. Hopefully it will be popular among the Tablet PC community. Some of the new features include: - Save your handwriting. No more conversion to text required.- Integration with Outlook’s standard New Item behavior. Makes a dedicated toolbar unnecessary though these override options can be configured and you can use the new “Tablet PC” menu to create items instead.- Integration with Microsoft MapPoint 2004 to load, annotate, and save maps and directions for contacts right from within Outlook.- Support for Exchange Server. Your handwritten notes are synchronized with Exchange and you can even access your handwritten notes from Outlook Web Access.- Support for the Outlook Journal makes a great place to store and categorize your daily notes.- Much more refined user interface that looks and feels more like Office. Check it out and download the trial from http://www.tabletoutlook.com!... (more)
Mon, Sep 13, 2004 @ 11:15 PM - 0 comment(s) Marc Orchant had some great things to say about my support philosophy over on his web log: http://office.weblogsinc.com/entry/7796926471413448 Lora Heiny, a well known Tablet PC advocate also told me this over IM: Lora says: I do! I have before, but I have been using it quite a bit more... and it definitely makes outlook more useful Lora says: changed the way I use it I'm glad that others are excited about TEO 2.0 like I am... (more)
Tue, Sep 07, 2004 @ 6:52 PM - 0 comment(s) Over the weekend, TEO 2.0 became feature complete. Most of the known bugs are fixed. The only ones that are not are minor issues that I can’t fix without Microsoft’s help. Hopefully they will be responsive. I am very happy with the way this product turned out. It’s really improved the quality and quantity of Outlook content that I create on a daily basis. Now the hard part is going to be selling and supporting it. I’m pretty much doing this entirely by myself.... (more)
Sat, Sep 04, 2004 @ 12:38 AM - 1 comment(s) I really gotta stop chatting on MSN Messenger so much. Not only is it unproductive, but I think I am annoying the crap out of a lot of people. I’ve been working very late the past few weeks and I tend to get chatty. So from now on, strictly business. Oh hey by the way, TEO now has MapPoint support. http://beta.tabletoutlook.com... (more)
Wed, Sep 01, 2004 @ 7:04 PM - 0 comment(s) I just signed up for Napster’s premium service for $9.95/mo. I really like that I can download music on up to three of my PC’s but I don’t like that one of those can’t be my Pocket PC Phone. But on the other hand, I like paying 99 cents per track as opposed to buying an entire album for a handful of songs. All in all, I like it. http://www.napster.com... (more)
Tue, Aug 24, 2004 @ 8:10 PM - 1 comment(s) Found this really awesome blog site for Office. What really got me interested was info about Outlook Add-Ins on Chris Kunicki's web log. http://www.officezealot.com... (more)
Sun, Aug 01, 2004 @ 4:07 PM - 0 comment(s) Well after a series of unacceptable delays, TEO 2.0 will be entering the beta stage shortly. I sent the email around to all the existing customers and a few tablet news sites have picked it up already. I'm really excited to get this out because I feel like I've become the Axl Rose of Tablet PC's. While I'm still a big fan of Guns N' Roses, I don't want to be associated with his unreliable vaporware. TEO 2.0's delays were a result of a combination of bad luck, important projects that distracted me, and my own intolerance for imperfection. TEO 1.0 was a bargain utility at a bargain price. I wanted 2.0 to be much more refined. But several times during its development I changed my mind on alot of areas that required significant amounts of work to be thrown away and restarted. All in all, its for the better.... (more)
Sat, Jul 31, 2004 @ 10:18 PM - 2 comment(s) When I first heard that Scott Weiland was going to be fronting Velvet Revolver, I was less than thrilled. But they're doing an amazing job! If you have not picked up Contraband yet, I strongly recommend that you do. This album has been in my CD player for the last two weeks or so. Check these out: Velvet Revolver - ContrabandSlash - Obsession... (more)
Thu, Jul 08, 2004 @ 12:01 PM - 2 comment(s) Due to my lack of time, and a limited market for the Tablet Information Manager product, I've decided to go back to just “TEO 2” for now. This just means that some of the extra features of TIM 2005 will be postponed or cancelled. These features include web views, integrated web server, integrated RSS reader, voice reminders, etc. However, there's alot of people out there that are still looking forward to TEO 2 and I apologize. I've explained on Tablet PC Buzz that the limited market and my limited ability to advertise means that I have to focus on things that bring in money. But I wouldn't just leave my customers out in the cold. I'm determined to get this out as soon as I can, even if it means a reduced feature set. A couple of things are going to be different than originally discussed. Aside from the missing features above, I'm going back to a more Outlook-style UI. Originally I wanted to be flashy, show off some creativity, and really distinguish the add-in from th rest of Outlook. However, i... (more)
Thu, Jun 17, 2004 @ 8:13 PM - 0 comment(s) I'm back in business with my new Tablet PC. I couldn't be happier with my choice of hardware too. I went with the Electrovaya SC-2000 which has outstanding battery life and packs enough power and large enough screen into a 3lb slate form factor. So now that my system is back together I can get back to what's really important... Tablet PC development for Einstein Technologies. As a side note, I've finally switched away from Internet Explorer as my default browser. I read a whole bunch of posts on Robert Scoble's web log and Channel 9 forums that got me asking... "What benefit does IE have anymore?" The sad fact is none, really. It used to be that other browsers sucked at rendering bad web pages and IE was more tolerant. But now IE has been virtually untouched (except for a bunch of security patches) for years and Mozilla has gotten really good at rendering pages. IE doesn't support nearly as many standards and has numerous rendering flaws that MS seems uninterested in fixing. Oh well I've defended ... (more)
Tue, Jun 01, 2004 @ 9:46 PM - 1 comment(s) My life has been so disrupted by the loss of this Tablet PC it's not even funny. I haven't measured or anything but my productivity has dropped alot. And I'm not just saying that to pitch Tablet PC's. I've become so reliant on that device that I literally sleep 4 more hours now that I don't have it. In a way, you could say I have no reason to get up in the morning. Seriously, I've gotten nothing done with Tablet Information Manager because I've been spending so much time visiting various tablet manufacturer's web sites. I'm so confused right now. This is worse than when I first bought a tablet because at least then, CPU was a main influence but now they all have Centrino. I'm considering (in no particular order): Fujitsu Stylistic (with Outdoor screen)Motion M1400 (assuming they get back to me with a developer discount)Electrovaya Scribbler (drool...... 9 hours of battery!!)Toshiba M200 (only because I can walk into a store and walk out with it... I hate Toshiba tablets) This really sucks. :(... (more)
Thu, May 27, 2004 @ 4:07 PM - 0 comment(s) This really truly sucks. My Tablet PC's LCD screen was cracked when I opened it this morning. It's not under warranty and I have to replace it ASAP so I can continue development on Tablet Information Manager. I don't need this kind of setback...... (more)
Tue, May 25, 2004 @ 10:03 PM - 0 comment(s) Hey MS, as an atheist, I am pretty offended by the star of David appearing in the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font. I am only bothered by it because they decided to make a “Critical Update” that removes a schwastika from the font set. I'm not a Nazi or a racist or anything, but I also don't like double standards. The Nazi's did some pretty horrible things, but you can't just sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen. What about all the Christians who believe that the Jews killed Jesus? Don't they have a right to be offended? What a bunch of whiney sissies America is turning into...... (more)
Sun, May 23, 2004 @ 10:59 PM - 0 comment(s) Well I was in my local Comp USA today again (despite my frustration with them not having the MSN Direct watch last week) buying some more junk for my computer. I got a Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Elite. (I want to punch the people that come up with these names. Long product names suck. That's why I like short ones like Tablet Information Manager 2005...) I also got a Creative web cam and a Logitech USB headset. I was pretty pissed off though when I still didn't see the Tablet PC display that they were supposed to have. I asked one of the sales reps about it and he said “Yeah the guy didn't show up today. He doesn't really know what he's doing anyway. He pretty much just stands here.” So Microsoft, if you're reading this, make sure you fire the guy that does the Tablet PC demo at the Comp USA in Mount Laurel, NJ. I wish the Tablet PC had more of a presence in retail stores. This is where people find out about things. Not on Microsoft's web site. You gotta put Tablet PC's in the hands of ... (more)
Sat, May 22, 2004 @ 4:07 PM - 1 comment(s) I forgot how much better I like the Pocket PC Phone than the SmartPhone. So much easier to enter text, more screen real estate, more software, and oh yeah (listen up, Motorola) THEY ACTUALLY GET UPDATED! Stupid MPX200 was outdated the day it hit the market. Motorola has done nothing to update it. They have a WM2003 ROM but won't give it to the public. No instead they want the people that shelled out $500 last year to shell out even more for their new device this year. Well I might have done that, but now I'm never buying another Motorola phone again. Hmph. Not like one person matters anyway.... (more)
Wed, May 19, 2004 @ 6:20 PM - 124 comment(s) I was blown away by the FF7 Advent Children trailer that was shown at E3. I can't wait to see this movie. I would imagine that since it was previewed in the US and had an english narration that there are at least plans to bring it stateside. As many of you know I am a huge Final Fantasy VII fan (I even got a tattoo of Cloud on my left arm...) and I strongly suggest you head over to http://www.7ac.net to see the trailer. Unfortunately, it requires QuickTime.... (more)
Tue, May 18, 2004 @ 12:20 PM - 0 comment(s) Retail stores SUCK. I am sick of CompUSA or Best Buy never having anything in stock or anything on display. This particular time it was a MSN Direct watch. CompUSA never has them in stock (and they never re-order them) and Best Buy doesn't even display them in the store. It's the same with Pocket PCs and Tablet PCs. Where's this grand Tablet PC display that I was supposed to see at CompUSA??... (more)
Fri, May 14, 2004 @ 9:28 PM - 0 comment(s) It's been a fun week, but I can't wait to get back home to my screaming Trans Am, my booming stereo, big screen TV, and most importantly, Tara. I know she's been pretty lonely this last week and I can't wait to see her.... (more)
Fri, May 14, 2004 @ 5:23 PM - 0 comment(s) Well I just got done my last meeting with the Tablet PC SDK dev lead. I guess it was ok but I still have this feeling that it could have went better. Since I thought I was just meeting with him to size me up for a job (more on that in a bit) I didn't bring my tablet and he had wanted to see a demo of the app. I told him that the beta will be out soon and I am gonna get it to Arin so he can give it out to the tablet guys to look at. So now I'll just talk a little bit about my general feeling of the trip, not that anyone reads this. :) When I was first invited out, I was really excited. It's a really cool thing when your insignificant little start up ISV is getting recognized by the most important technology company in the world. But the more people I talked to, the more I realized that this trip wasn't really about Einstein Technologies. It was more about whether or not I'd be a good fit to work at Microsoft. I should say that Microsoft is my favorite company in the world and having experienced the atmospher... (more)
Fri, May 14, 2004 @ 2:47 PM - 0 comment(s) The meeting with the office guys was definitely the best and most productive meeting thus far. We talked about alot of good ideas and alot of great improvements in Outlook managed development. It was also nice to finally be seen as an ISV and not a potential recruit for a change. :) ... (more)
Fri, May 14, 2004 @ 11:58 AM - 1 comment(s) Well I was invited to a meeting with the Office Programmability, Outlook, and InfoPath teams at 10:00. This is the one I have been waiting for since I have a couple different issues to talk about. This will also probably be the last demonstration I'll be giving of the very crude Tablet Information Manager pre-beta. When I return on Saturday, I'll be working on a public beta to be released soon.... (more)
Thu, May 13, 2004 @ 4:19 PM - 0 comment(s) Had lunch with Robert Hess and some guys from the new Channel 9 show. It was fun. I am glad I got to meet Robert because I am a big fan of The .NET Show. We had some interesting talks about Longhorn, SP2, and Windows security in general. At Microsoft, they even talk about development on their lunch breaks! Twilight zone man...... (more)
Wed, May 12, 2004 @ 5:44 PM - 0 comment(s) Well I am off to go demo Tablet Information Manager to a few more Tablet PC folks. This is probably my last meeting of the day so then I can go back and get some much needed rest. Actually I probably should start working on Tablet Information Manager some more. I gotta say, this seems to be the BEST place for a developer to work.... (more)
Wed, May 12, 2004 @ 1:43 PM - 1 comment(s) Just had a very good demo of Tablet Information Manager with the Tablet PC folks over at Microsoft. They seemed impressed. I'm touring the campus and the city now with Arin. Another meeting at 3.... (more)
Tue, May 11, 2004 @ 6:34 PM - 0 comment(s) Doh flight is delayed. Been delayed for an hour.... (more)
Tue, May 11, 2004 @ 3:54 PM - 0 comment(s) ... (more)
Sun, May 09, 2004 @ 6:39 PM - 1 comment(s) I was thinking about getting a SPOT watch. Not one of the really expensive ones but I am interested in the technology and once I crack how to send messages to it programmatically I will be able to do all sorts of notifications. Granted I can already do this to my SmartPhone but to a watch would be SOOO cool! :)... (more)
Sat, May 08, 2004 @ 11:32 PM - 1 comment(s) Well although it's already over a month late, I am almost ready to release the first beta of Tablet Information Manager 2004. This will of course, not be feature complete yet. But the core features are working - saving/loading of Outlook Contacts, Appointments, Tasks and soon Journal. These items can save ink as ink yet still be fully used in the rest of the Outlook program as text too. Some of the features that probably won't be ready are the Tablet PC optimized views (Outlook Today, Ink Contact List, Ink Calendar, etc) and the RSS reader. You'll probably see something posted shortly after I get back from Redmond.... (more)
Fri, May 07, 2004 @ 5:47 PM - 1 comment(s) ... (more)
Thu, May 06, 2004 @ 7:48 PM - 0 comment(s) This thing looks really cool. I might have to get one. Thanks Andre for showing it to me.... (more)
Wed, May 05, 2004 @ 10:50 PM - 1 comment(s) Well I am on a roll with this web log thing. I just wrote an application that will let me send web log entries via a simple MSN Messenger message. This just gets more and more convenient!... (more)
Wed, May 05, 2004 @ 3:58 PM - 2 comment(s) I've been driving trans ams and firebirds in general for years and I can't explain how fun they are. Nothing beats the feeling of 325 horses stampeding under your foot with the tops off. And I never get tired of driving it! I've had this car for almost two years and I am still writing about it.... (more)
Tue, May 04, 2004 @ 11:32 PM - 0 comment(s) I whipped up a little mobile asp.net app that allows me to post to my journal from my smart phone. not sure how often i will use this since it's hard to type on a cell phone but if i have to say something that can't wait them i'll have a way.... (more)
Tue, May 04, 2004 @ 9:24 PM - 0 comment(s) Formerly known as Tablet Enhancements for Outlook, Tablet Information Manager has really evolved into a professional application. It has really outgrown its predecessor's “utility” feel but at the same time it still sticks to it's originally intended purpose -- enabling you to write data into Outlook with a pen. Some of the more notable improvements are a completely refined user interface with a very stylish look, deeper integration into Outlook (takes over standard Outlook functions instead of requiring all interaction through the toolbar), and of course everyone's favorite, saving ink as ink data in Outlook items. The last one was harder to do than I originally thought. The problem is, where do you put the data? I thought about storing it in the Outlook item itself for the sake of Exchange users so that their ink could follow their Exchange mailbox the same way their contacts, etc do. However, the resulting size of the item would be too big I think. Not to mention, there aren't many people ou... (more)
Mon, May 03, 2004 @ 11:55 PM - 1 comment(s) ... (more)
Mon, May 03, 2004 @ 9:59 PM - 0 comment(s) ... (more)
Mon, May 03, 2004 @ 3:11 AM - 1 comment(s) So now I am finally posting entries again. I was going to write my own engine for doing this as that is what I have usually done in the past but I don't have that kind of time anymore. So I downloaded .Text and for an open source project, this is surprisingly cool. The author should be kicking himself for giving this away. I would have gladly bought it and I think alot of others would too. It's a little late right now so I will post more tomorrow. Probably using the Tablet PC. ... (more)