A new iPod

A YouTube video of the new iPod Touch. Looks really cool.

Entity Framework Beta 2 & the 1st Entity Framework Tools CTP Released!

Read more at the ADO.NET team blog.

[Video of the day]: Lion fight

This video is one of the most seen on YouTube. It's recorded in Krüger Park in South Africa. A group of lions attacks a little buffalo. It must be tough when you got like ten lions hanging in your neck and a crockodile is hanging in your tail but...

Resize images

This YouTube video about resize images are great. Watch it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-SSu3tJ3ns

It's about how to resize images without losing perspective and proportion in the image.

Third day...

Vacation is fantastic. I'm home and renovating our living room. Tomorrow we will start painting the ceiling. We got this week and next week to finish the room. We have also planned a trip to Sandhamn and a trip to Möja before going back to work.

[Friday fun]: Dad at Comedy Barn

I got this weeks largest laugh yesterday when I watched this video.

Thanks to Micke for his post

[Song of today]: Tomas Andersson Wij - Evighet

This cover of Evighet by Carola is fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lmtn76n5sI

Reflector for Orcas

Mr Roeder has just released the Orcas version of Reflector. Find it here.

Creativity

I found two very good articles in the swedish newspaper DN about creativity (this post below is in swedish...)

Den första artikeln heter "En korkad idé kan vara helt lysande" och den andra heter "Kreativa piloter lurade döden".

Från "En korkad idé..." "Höjdhopparen Dick Fosbury hoppade över ribban med ryggen först - vilket chockade konkurrenterna. Han revolutionerade sin gren. Men vad kännetecknar egentligen en kreativ person? Galen genialitet eller ett hårt och envist arbete?". En annan intressant sak är "Kreativa personer är ofta inte några "följa-efter-personer""... "Deras inre värld är viktigare än vad andra säger och tycker, gruppens åsikter betyder väldigt lite".

Läs de här...

Facebook is da shit....

I read this very interesting article about the social networking thing called "FaceBook is the Online Hub for Connected Professionals" by Brian Solis. The article is about the Facebook phenomena and the other social networks like MySpace, LinkedIn Ziki and Plaxo. Read it.

Amazing guitar [last time...]

I just have to show this amazing 10 year old kid from South Korea that copied Canon from Trace Bundy. Amazing

Sleeping on airplanes

Lufthansa economy-class sleeping area? I don't know but when I look at the picture I don't feel like buying a sleeping ticket on Lufthansa.

iPhone games

Soon you can play games on your iPhone. Many blogs and papers talks about a possible battle between Nintendo and Apple for the handheld games market. Intresting to see whats happens with this. Read more here and here for example.

A post on my post...

I wrote a post about the future of the social networks. Michael on Front Porch Forum refered to my post on his blog. Read it here.

Amazing guitarist part 2

Check out this one-armed guitarist. Watch it here.

Trace Bundy - Pachelbel's Canon. Watch it here.

California Dreaming - Michael Chapdelaine. Watch it here.

Check your WCF Service

When your running your WCF Service you could check the service with http://localhost:8080/ImportService and http://localhost:8080/ImportService?wsdl as when you worked with a web service. But our friends at iDesign has developed a tool called IDesign Metadata Explorer to help us get some more information about our services. Download the tool with source code here.

I had to remove the bin and obj folders and compile the code before it could start. The exe file included in the zip file didn't worked.

Patterns and Practices April 2007 DVD Released

Patterns and Practices April 2007 DVD is now released in July. Download it here.

[webcasts]: impossible guitar playing

A guy playing Canon.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjA5faZF1A8

Andy Mckee - Guitar - Drifting


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4MGaS3N4

Michael Hedges has a new way of playing accustic guitar.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbndgwfG22k

Zack Kim plays the Simpson theme on two guitars


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFqTd-CEjHM

Do you wanna make a lot of money?

If you can code AJAX you can make $200.000. Check this out here. I almost forgot. There are one catch....

The design of the Skatteverket web

This post is in Swedish.

Här beskriver Jens Wedin som jobbar med design och funktionalitet på Skatteverkets och Kronofogdens webbplatser om arbetet med att ta fram deras nya webplats. Intressant att följa tankar och funderingar kring detta. Det skulle vara kul ifall fler företag berättar hur de gör när de tar fram system och lösningar.

Acropolis August CTP (VS 2008 Beta2 Refresh) Release available now

Now you can download Acropolis August CTP (VS 2008 Beta2 Refresh) Release. As the team writes on their blog "This release is mainly an update so that our customers can continue to evaluate “Acropolis” with the latest VS 2008 Beta".

Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1

My colleague Thomas H asked me if I had installed Service Pack 1. I hadn't. I must have missed it or something. Download the service pack here. Tonight I must check my VS 2005 at home as well.

How long will the trip take in rush hour?

In google maps you can (only in america so long) see how long your trip will take in rush hour. Read more here.

Trace in .NET

I'm adding trace functionality to a project and I had almost forgotten System.Diagnostics. It's very easy to use and to config.

Add this to the app.config file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
     <system.diagnostics>
          <sources>
               <source name="TraceTest" switchName="SourceSwitch" switchType="System.Diagnostics.SourceSwitch" >
               <listeners>
                    <add name="FileLogListener" type="Microsoft.VisualBasic.Logging.FileLogTraceListener, Microsoft.VisualBasic, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL" initializeData="FileLogWriter" append="true" autoFlush="true" baseFilename="ImportService" location="ExecutableDirectory" logFileCreationSchedule="Daily"/>
               </listeners>
               </source>
          </sources>
          <switches>
               <!--add name="SourceSwitch" value="Warning" /-->
               <add name="SourceSwitch" value="Verbose"/>
          </switches>
          <trace autoflush="true" indentsize="4"></trace>
     </system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

Then you use the trace like this:

public partial class MainForm : Form 
{
        private TraceSource m_traceSource = new TraceSource("TraceTest");

        public MainForm()     
       {
            InitializeComponent();
            m_traceSource.TraceEvent(TraceEventType.Information, 0, "The MainForm was successfully started.");
        }

Social networks

The number of social networks on the net has exploded. LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Pownes, Plaxo and a million other. I remember the first network I joined was Six Degrees (I think...). The internet was kind of new and social networks were definitely new at least for me. Now I have a:

• MySpace account, to find new exiting music. MySpace feels to mainstream and tired now.
• Flickr account, to publish my photos. I really like Flickr.
• LinkedIn, to find and to keep my contacts. LinkedIn really feels like an old dinosaur.
• Facebook. I like the idea that you can build applications etc.
• Pownes. I had to try it.
• MSN account. To send files and chat. Don't use it so often.
• Skype account. Never use it anymore.

It's too many networks and ways for communication. So what will the future bring us? I have three thoughts about that.

• First of all. A community mash up. I think that Facebook has a point in the application idea. The companies and home developers could write there own add-ins and add the wanted functionality. Then the users will get the best from many networks. Today every network has a couple of good features but all together they all isn't good enough. Then the users could get music from one network, photos from one etc. Facebook has a good start for this.
• I think that the new networks will be forced (by the users) to be more open. As Robert Scoble write about Plaxo "Plaxo will come out with a social network that lets me own my own data and take it out of Plaxo and put it on other social networks". I think that Plaxo will be the first (that I heard about) but not the last. I don't think that Plaxo will be the next big thing because the timing, with Facebook and Pownes all media exposure right now, is not so good. It's so many users that just changed networks to one of "the new" ones.
• I think smaller networks with a base in your community could be the next thing. I think many users are fed up with the giant communities. I found this post from Julia Lerman that talk about an existing network that has a good idea. She writes "I realized I was losing touch with my personal friends because of my many new virtual friends". I can recornize this. She talks about Front Porch Forum. Julia describes the network like this "What FrontPorchForum focuses on is your very local community. It creates an online forum, also distributed every few days in an email, that allows you to connect to your neighbors. So the people in my town of Huntington are the only people who's posts I read and who see my posts (and my email address)".

What will the future bring us in the social networking over the Internet? Who knows....

Orcas Beta 2

I have installed Orcas Beta 2 on one of my machines, just to test the installation and to do some testing running fx2.0 stuff etc. I have tried it out and I was going to installed it on my main computer to use the Beta 2 as my only Visual Studio. Then I found this post about that the Beta 2 crashes like crazy. I think I'll wait with the installation...

XML general definition

If you are working with XML, XSD and XSLT don't forget to create and use general definitions in a specific file that you can use in all documents. If you create a XSD with the definitions you want to use.

Example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://www.utvecklargodis.com/GeneralDefinitions/1.0" targetNamespace="http://www.utvecklargodis.com/GeneralDefinitions/1.0" elementFormDefault="unqualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
     <!-- GUID -->
     <xs:simpleType name="GUID">
          <xs:annotation>
               <xs:documentation>General definition of a GUID</xs:documentation>
          </xs:annotation>
          <xs:restriction base="xs:string">
               <xs:pattern value="[a-fA-F0-9]{8}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{4}-[a-fA-F0-9]{12}"/>
          </xs:restriction>
     </xs:simpleType>
     <!-- /GUID -->
</xs:schema> 

Then you use the general definition like this:

<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:tns="http://www.utvecklargodis.com/system/2.0" xmlns:ns1="http://www.utvecklargodis.com/system/GeneralDefinitions/1.0" elementFormDefault="unqualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified">
<xs:import namespace="http://www.utvecklargodis.com/system/GeneralDefinitions/1.0" schemaLocation="./General.xsd"/>
     <xs:element name="Objects">
          <xs:complexType>
               <xs:element name="ObjectID" type="ns1:GUID"/>
          </xs:complexType>
     </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

Rosario Aug 2007 CTP

You can download a VPC image of Rosario now. "Visual Studio® Team System Code Name “Rosario” is the version of Team System that follows Visual Studio Team System 2008. This release provides the earliest public glimpse of the work in progress on the next generation of Team System." I have just installed Orcas Beta 2... Hmmm.... The new technology isn't new so very long.

Second week...

Tomorrow the second week of work after the summer holiday will start. I was going over the holiday photos and I felt a portion of holiday spirit through my body.

First my father helped me build a white picket fence. Then we went up to my parents place for a couple of days.

We just played with my partent dog Ludde and had a great time.

The last day of our vacation we went to Marits parents house on Öland.

Wiz-kid webcast

Robert Scoble recorded this webcast about Daniel Brusilovsky. He's a 14 year old podcaster, blogger geek. As Robert writes "I’m damn impressed. Anytime you think our future is doomed come back and replay this video". I agree. Watch the web cast.

YouTube architecture

Check out this article about the architecture of YouTube.

There are some points I found more interesting:

• "Supports the delivery of over 100 million videos per day" That is 4.167.000 per hour, 69.000 per minut, 1.150 per second if I counted right. Impressive!
• The team "2 sysadmins, 2 scalability software architects 2 feature developers, 2 network engineers, 1 DBA". To handle the site? Not so many people.
• "Know what's essential to your service and prioritize your resources and efforts around those priorities"
• "Keep it simple! Simplicity allows you to rearchitect more quickly so you can respond to problems"
• "Have a good cross discipline team that understands the whole system and what's underneath the system. ..... With a good team all things are possible"

[Country For Dummies]: CD 009 - Aug 6 2007

Just before summer CD number 007 and 008 of Country For Dummies was released. In retrospect I'm not completly satisfied with them. I don't think all songs are good enough... Now after the summer it's time for CD number 009. This one I think is the best collection of horse jazz so far. You got blue grass, country pop, rock flavoured country...

Here comes the list of the songs on the compilation:

Country For DummiesCD 009 - Aug 6 2007
001 Dixie Chicks - No Readt To Make Nice
002 Dan Bern & the IJBC - Baby Bye Bye
003 Greg Trooper - little sister
004 John Michael Montgomery - Cowboy Love
005 Clark Jameson - Waitin On The Whiskey
006 Steve Earle The Dukes - Billy Austin (Live)
007 Tom Russell - What Work Is
008 Catherine Britt - The Upside Of Being Down
009 The Soggy Bottom Boys I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow (Radio Station Version)
010 Aaron McDaris Be Good to My Little Baby Girl
011 Carlene Carter - Baby Ride Easy
012 Gretchen Wilson - Redneck Woman
013 Alan Jackson - Who's Cheatin' Who
014 Brad Paisley - The Best Thing That I Had Goin'
015 Kristofer Åström - Just A Little Insane
016 Peter Mulvey - Shirt
017 Josh Ritter - You Don't Make It Easy Babe

Everybody seems to write and talk about...

... Pownce. This is New York Times article about the site.

[Music]: Dolly P launching her own Label

I really love Dolly Parton. She is a very cool lady with amazing songs. She is launching her own record label Dolly Records. In february the firs releas will be out in stores. "It's really the first mainstream country record Dolly has done in 17 years," says Parton's manager Danny Nozell.

There will be a tour begin in the first quarter next year. "We're going to definitely do a world tour to support the album, starting in March," Nozell says. "We're going to be doing Europe, Australia, America and Canada."

Read more here.

Laws of software development

The laws of software development can teach us a great deal.

I especially like the Dilbert Principle "The most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management".

Other true laws are Wirth law "Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster" and ninty-ninty law "The first 90% of the code accounts for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time".

VS 2008 multi targeting Support

I installed Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 yesterday. There was no problem to install the program and this version works fine together with VS 2005 on the same machine.

When you open a 2005 solution in 2008 a wizard will perform an upgrade of the project files and the solution file. After the wizard was finished I checked the new solution file and compared it with the old one. There was one changed row.

The first row in the old solution file:Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 9.00# Visual Studio 2005

The first row in the new solution file:Microsoft Visual Studio Solution File, Format Version 10.00# Visual Studio 2008.NET 3.5 project file

The project files were the same. As you know VS 2008 has a multi targeting support. If you want to be able to run the same code in both VS 2005 and VS 2008 you can create a new solution file for VS 2008 and keep the old solution file for VS 2005. Only remember to update both files when you add or remove a project.

You can see what framework you use in the project files. Compare these two parts of a project file for the same win form project.

.NET 3.5 project file

<ItemGroup>
<Reference Include="System" />
<Reference Include="System.Core">
<RequiredTargetFramework>3.5</RequiredTargetFramework>
</Reference>
<Reference Include="System.Xml.Linq">
<RequiredTargetFramework>3.5</RequiredTargetFramework>
</Reference>
<Reference Include="System.Data.DataSetExtensions">
<RequiredTargetFramework>3.5</RequiredTargetFramework>
</Reference>
<Reference Include="System.Data" />
<Reference Include="System.Deployment" />
<Reference Include="System.Drawing" />
<Reference Include="System.Windows.Forms" />
<Reference Include="System.Xml" />
</ItemGroup>

.NET 2.0 project file

<ItemGroup> <Reference Include="System" /> <Reference Include="System.Data" /> <Reference Include="System.Deployment" /> <Reference Include="System.Drawing" /> <Reference Include="System.Windows.Forms" /> <Reference Include="System.Xml" /> </ItemGroup>

You got the RequiredTargetFramework to specify the versions of the references. Clever.

[Wednesday Fun]: Amazing singer

This clip has walked (no runned) around internet a while now but I watched it again yesterday and I'm still amazed about it.

The winner of the english TV-show "Britains got talant" was a cell phone sales man from Cardiff. He has not one bit self-confidence but won the show and became a loved by the britains and a big star. Whatch the clip of his first performance on the show here.

Who are you?

A fantastic post from Scott Hanselman about the programming stereotypes. It's really funny. There are so many persons you will recognize in here. You got the copy/paste dude, the Google guy, the blogger man, the used-to-do-HTML fellow...

[Webcast]: New features in Visual Studio 2008

Check out this webcast. Dan Wahlin shows us LINQ to SQL and a little bit about creating ASP.NET pages.