john.blog

So….We go that snow they were talking about, a whole lot of it.  Now i only wish i had a snow blower to move all the damn snow we just got. Skye and I spent a good half an hour shoveling out our driveway and then one of our neighbors came to our rescue and blew the rest of the snow out of our driveway so i could get to work.  Also, a very good thing we got moved when we did other wise we wouldn’t have gotten moved before Christmas, and that would have been bad.

Woooohooo!!!!!  Finaly after all this waiting, we finally have closed on our house.  So here is the timeline of the rest of my day after i left work.  (3:30) So the actually signing of the papers only took about an hour.  That was the easy part.  (4:30) Then I had to drive to Sheldon to pick up the keys for my house(long story…not going there).  (6:00) So after i picked up the keys and drove back home, we started moving stuff in. (10:45) 98% of the stuff is moved in, only small stuff remains, done moving for the night. (11:30) 5% of stuff put away, living room quasy organized, bed in place and made…sleep time.

Now you might ask, why did you move right away…well there is a massive snow storm that is supposed to hit today so we wanted to get it done so we wouldn’t have to worry about it…and we are having Christmas at our house for my immediate family in the morning and Skye’s immediate family in the afternoon, so we needed to get stuff in, so we could get it put away.

Pictures will come soon when we get everything put where we think we want it.  Range and Fridge are getting delivered today.  Woooohooo!!!!!

Since we had anticipated on signing papers on November 21st, we had our cable and internet moved over the the new house.  Now that the bank has decided to take its sweet time with the paperwork, we are currently without internet and cable TV, which really really sucks.  If we were without one and not the other, it would be significantly better, but still not great.  So for the past 2.5 weeks we have been renting movies from the video store (all my dvd’s got packed up and are in the trailer ready to move) and “borrowing” and internet connection from a neighbor.  I really don’t know how much longer this is going to last, hopefully not much longer, as i miss my fast, high speed internet connection and my tv shows i regularly watch.  Next week we should be moving in, as the paperwork for our house is complete and we are just waiting for the house to be appraised and when both us and the sellers can find time to sign the final papers.

While the bank continues to work on the paperwork to finalize our loan for our new house, I thought I would post the only pictures that I have (which I did not take) of my new house.  It is across town and closer to work for both Skye and I, so thats a plus, and it has a basement for those not so nice days.

If you haven’t seen the recent news about Windows 7, I would highly suggest finding some reading and watching some video’s from this years PDC.  Now, a long time ago when they did a PDC before Windows Vista was released, they had all these cool promises of features that never really materialized into the final product.  This time around, i didn’t feel that way.  Features they said they were doing are in the latest builds, and working very very well from what i have seen and heard.  For all those apple fans and recent switchers out there, i hope you watch this video -> http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/pdc08/WMV-HQ/PC24.wmv

The video in question is a rundown of the new TASKBAR for Windows 7.  Now you might ask, why is taskbar in all caps?  Watch the video, it explains it all.  Microsoft has made some major improvments to the taskbar, most of which are not copied from any other window manager. I’m not going to tell you about them, watch the video, it’s worth your time. 

Ok, im gonna start out with the link to an article i saw this afternoon at work.

http://www.istartedsomething.com/20080908/windows-home-server-v2-time-machine-ui-media-center-live-mesh-integration/

This article is the exact reason i am working on creating Thinix Kiosk in WPF.  While the graphics in Thinix Kiosk are not created by me,  the layout and the UI design are all mine, and i have lots of creative ideas on how to make it better.  Since i am limited by machine hardware (Thin Clients) graphical “coolness” is not on the list for our production product.

So while i work on that side project, i need some help from you guys with screenshots of the current WHS since, even though i am a beta tester for the project, i do not have a machine to put it on(unless i find an old beater at work to run it on).  I may have to resort to this to see for myself the functionality, but if i can get away with screenshots i will.  The plan, develop a new UI as something to do for fun that will improve my WPF skills and my overall programming skills.

So, shoot me some screenshots or any other helpful information to my gmail.

This just happens to be another one of those sites that was brought up at work that i had never heard of, but now that i have, its great.  The title kinda explains most of it, but the interesting thing to me is that, while you can go to the abc, nbc, or cbs website of your choice and view the lesser viewed, not as popular tv shows in their full entirety, while only being able to sample the ones you really like.   Hulu is completly different.  They offer full length TV shows as well as full length Movies which makes it really cool.  And its all available to you for that great price of….FREE.

http://www.hulu.com

Check it out and tell me what you think.

When Apple decided to launch the App Store, they opened up the world of software to the iPhone and iPod Touch.   So about a month ago my boss came into work and showed off his newly downloaded apps from the App Store.  One of them that was FREE was Pandora, an online radio that only plays the music you want to play.  This is also available through a web browser on any computer.  Pandora works by you first choosing an Artist and then playing what it thinks you will like.  If you like it, give it a thumbs up and it will play more songs like that one, if you dont, give it a thumbs down and it won’t play it anymore.  Before I was told about Pandora, i would take my iPod into work and listen to the music i had on that.  Now, the iPod stays home and i listen to the music from Pandora.

So go ahead, check it out, you know you want to.

http://www.pandora.com

After not blogging for a very long time (since i graduated from college) i am finally back. Same dootdoot address, different topics this time around.  This time, more programming stuff (C# and WPF) and Windows XP Embedded developement stuff related to all the things im working on at work and freelance and the occational personal thing along the way.