For those who are curious as to how I spend my waking (cough-business-cough) hours, I offer this: Expression Community Site. Oh, and this sharp looking SilverLight 1.0 video player as well.

The Golden Rule

Sometime this week, I'm going to spend sometime and clean up this blog. You know - go through links, see if they are still valid, remove older posts, well, because 3 years was 3 years ago, etc. Plus, I'm also working on a Silvering only version to host the actual content, since most of it is available via RSS anyway. Don't be alarmed, this page will probably disappear also.

Zillinois SilverLight 1.0 Media Player

Posted from the Windows Live Writer "Blog This" button in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista X64.

What are YOU "Downloading"?

What Others Are "Downloading":

Others who downloaded Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar also downloaded:

1. Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2
2. Microsoft® Silverlight™ 1.0 Software Development Kit
3. Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1
4. ASP.NET AJAX 1.0
5. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5

Download details: Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar

Yes, I know, I've been lagging in the blogging department, and while I have already prepared a short list of redundant excuses (old laptop went TU, new laptop needed Microsoft Vista 64 bit drivers, work, life, juggling small kittens, etc.), I figure it is better to just to keep blogging along like nothing has happened. Well, in reality, where I visit from time to time, all sorts of things are happening:

Self-biased political commentator, Stephen Colbert, has announced his plans to consider whether or not to announce that he has decided to think about running for the position of "President of the United States of America". Personally, I think he really just wants to rule South Carolina. In that stark placed named "reality", he is actually helping teachers in SC get teaching resources their classrooms via DonorsChoose.org, which was created by Craig of CraigsList.com fame.

Conspiracy theorists are having a field day with "NSPD-51" or , and Ron Rosenbaum, of Slate.com, asks "Who will run the country after the next 9/11?". Of course, you can read the actual public facing document here.

Since almost everyone enjoyed the conspiracy of the DaVinci Code, this article about how the Vatican destroyed the Knights Templar makes for an interesting follow up read. This also lead me some very antique ambigram matchbox artwork.

The descent of Heroin, as presented by pictures, and sort of NSFW.

The Big Blue Marble.

I came across this interesting "do it yourself" article about how to build a USB enabled guitar. This really is a great idea for a project, as I've been idly waiting for some company such as Fender to come out with this kind of modification. If anybody else has done something similar to this, like maybe putting in a FireWire connector, I'd love to hear more about the project, and hear some of the output!

And just to add a couple of links for the programming crew, I came across these two opinion pieces taking on Bjarne Stroustrup's C++. They include "10 things I love & hate about C" and "Why D is kicking C++'s ass".

And lastly, this NSFW data splice of Google Images results for the term "housewife", though it does demonstrate the power of their filtering algorithm. and Microsoft's Live Image search has similar results.

Well, the cat is out of the bag, all the rumors are true, I'm working with a very good friend and talented musician, Robert Svilpa, on his new CD, entitled "Paraesthesia". I'm pretty excited about these sessions, and Robert has gathered some other incredibly gifted musicians to help lend a progressive aura to his newest material. This new collection of songs will feature the following players:

• Paul Harrington, on keyboards and vocals
• Mark Parris, thumbing fretted, fretless and upright basses, along with Moog Taurus bass pedals and additional keyboards
• John Hernandez, on drums
• Robert Svilpa - electric & sustainer guitars, 6 & 12 string acoustic guitars, keyboards, lead & background vocals
• and lastly, Sean Gephardt, playing Fender and Gibson electric and acoustic guitars.

About Paraesthesia and also the Official MySpace site.

My friends and I have been having some fun lately with Wordsmith.Org's "Internet Anagram Server". Here is a list based on my name that seemed feasible for text-based use. Some are funnier than others, some are downright weird, and some...well, are just plain gross. Actually, I'm just trying to game search engines :)

1. Stagehand Rep
2. Grandpa Sheet
3. Pageant Herds
4. Angered Staph
5. Grenade Paths
6. Handset Pager
7. Dang Preheats
8. Pagan Herd Set
9. The Asp Danger
10. Rant She Gaped

You get the picture...but add the middle name and you get variations on these, most of which would make great band names or news headlines. I've added some punctuation;)

1. A Charred Herpes Spit Thong
2. Thee Handcar Stripper Hogs
3. Stripper Has Reached Thong
4. Ho Stripper Changed Haters
5. Stripper Changed Earth Hos
6. He Hatched Stripper Organs
7. The Anchored Stripper Gash
8. Hag Stripper Snatched Hero
9. Stripper/Dancer Hog Sheath
10. Stripper Reaches, Had Thong

Ok, so let us pick a specific word, and see what that returns:

1. Hothead Snatcher Grippers
2. Snatches Head Proper Right
3. High Rated Proper Snatches
4. Eight Proper Hard Snatches
5. Pagan Hipsters Three Chord
6. Strippers Each Heard Thong
7. Penis Hardhat Chest Groper
8. Thin Chapped Gashes Terror
9. and so on, and so on, etc. etc. etc.!

Hey All, I've updated the "About" page to show off a very simple XAML-based SilverLight animation. I've also updated our SilverLight Test page, which will give you an idea of the direction I'll be taking with the new UI for our site. This sample is using JavaScript for most of the dynamic functionality, whereas when it's actually finished, it will using some client side C# code as well.

"The hippies had it right all along. Oh yes they did."..."But, you know, whatever." - Mark Morford.

Also, "The most honest man in news" from Rolling Stone.

The more I play with the Expression Design XAML tool, the more I'm becoming a fan. Here are a couple of links for comparison, the first "Test One", is a SilverLight XAML page with images, and the second "Test Two" is a SilverLight XAML page without images. The obvious web performance pros & cons apply, with images comes more HTTP calls, therefore a slower time to render. In my opinion, using the images does make it look just a hair better than the "vanilla" XAML (sans images). The "vanilla" XAML weighs considerably less as far as download time goes, and is also only one small HTTP call, but I feel it looks to dry when comparing them side by side. As you can see, I was trying to mimic my existing web site design, but I can foresee how I will need to revisit certain design elements, like sub-page navigation. One thing I might play with is dynamically resize the container element (in this case a <div>), especially as it pertains to working with other inline content. Obviously, there are some short cuts that can be taken to achieve certain visual effects like subtle animation, and I'll be digging into those when I have the time.

I found a way to copy and paste source code for last nights post about WPF/e, but it involved copying from Visual Studio into Microsoft Word, then into Windows Live Writer. The following three are examples of some plug-ins, the last of the three being for Visual Studio 2005. I'm currently favoring "Insert Code for Windows LiveWriter", as it has the most robust UI and feature set of the three. Specifically, as you can see if you are reading this on a web page, it can add a default background color, that is independent of your web site design. The line numbers are a very nice touch also. Enjoy!

From "VSPaste.msi"

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace WinTestApp1
{
    static class Program
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [STAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            Application.Run(new Form1());
        }
    }
}

From "Insert Code for Windows Live Writer.msi"

   1:  using System;

   2:  using System.Collections.Generic;

   3:  using System.Windows.Forms;

   4:   

   5:  namespace WinTestApp1

   6:  {

   7:      static class Program

   8:      {

   9:          /// <summary>

  10:          /// The main entry point for the application.

  11:          /// </summary>

  12:          [STAThread]

  13:          static void Main()

  14:          {

  15:              Application.EnableVisualStyles();

  16:              Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);

  17:              Application.Run(new Form1());

  18:          }

  19:      }

  20:  }

From "BlogMyCode.msi" (VS 2005 Plugin):

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace WinTestApp1
{
    static class Program
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [STAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            Application.Run(new Form1());
        }
    }
}

As I've mentioned, I've recently been playing with Microsoft's new "SilverLight" technology, and cooked up this little sample last night. Having been knee-deep in DHTML based web page development since the "golden age" ( the 1990's! ) of the Internet, I've been keenly interested in this technology, touted by some as a "Adobe Flash Killer". It has been somewhat challenging to move from the OOP mind-set of C#, to a more declarative programming model, and in that was it feels similar to DHTML. Obviously, because SilverLight uses JavaScript, incorporating XmlHttpRequests (or AJAX) does become very tempting, not mention very easy to add to the design equation. There seems to be a very loose overall design pattern present in most of the samples I've seen of SilverLight, and I look forward to seeing what those really creative types out there on the web can dream up. One idea that I have that keeps surfacing, would be the ability to simply use JavaScript/XmlHttp against an HttpHandler that return XAML. This may sound like a very "chatty" client, but if done right, could really embody the whole "Rich Internet Application" space. Can I assume that Flash probably is able of using that same design? Probably, otherwise why would Microsoft invest in such a product? I'm curious what security concerns may rear their ugly heads in the future, but it would seem that Adobe Flash is used quite heavily, especially in the "Web 2.0" world, and has clearly been met with a high level of success and popularity, and no glaring security issues.

[sample XAML]