Chris Russell's Space: Blog

2008 Mazdaspeed3 Slot Car

Sun, 11 May 2008 18:41:48 GMT

This is a great little car...

I don't drive like this but I think this video is pretty amusing nonetheless.

This is good review. Watch the torque steer...

Dave Russell Sr.'s 95th Birthday

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 21:04:15 GMT

My grandfather, Dave Russell Sr. of Springfield, Vermont (no he doesn't watch the Simpsons) is turning 95-years old on Sunday. My dad and I recently put up a website for him which will be used to promote a book he published two years ago entitled "Verses from a Vermont Hillside". I spent many happy days during my childhood up on the farm in Vermont and will always remember my grandfather's office in the basement and his old typewriter and hundreds of short stories and poems strewn about his old rolltop desk typed on carbon paper and on the back of discarded scraps of paper. The book compiles the best of his stories, poems and essays and is a great read. We hope to get some additional information posted that will allow people to order copies soon.

Happy 95th Birthday Grandfather. You're a great man and I miss being within driving distance of the farm.

http://daverussell.net

Ascribe vs. Imbue vs. Impute

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:39:51 GMT

Pop quiz vocab hotshots:

What's the difference between these three words?

I had to look them up recently while reading though a whitepaper. As I expected, the author was incorrectly ascribing the semantics of the word impute to the word imbue. Anyway, I had to look it up to be sure so I guess I might have made the same mistake.

At The Risk Of Ripping Your Ears Off

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:11:52 GMT

Zune "Premium Earbuds" (they're pretty good) ship with a cloth sleeve which protects and stiffens the cabling. It looks nice and is functional. However, when the cloth rubs against the zipper of your jacket, the vibration is transmitted along the cable to your ears. I read this suggestion on a Zune mailing list and although I do not recommend getting your ears ripped off, with a little care you can avoid peril and lose the noise.

"... [the] Secondary benefit to cord wrapped behind ear is that when you are working out the earbud doesn't fall out as easily. [of] Course then if you catch the cord on something you rip your entire ear off instead of just yanking the buds out, but to lose the rubbing sound transmission it is worth it."

Joining Windows Core

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:46:50 GMT

At the end of February, I transferred inside the Windows Division and joined the Application Platform Team (part of Windows Core Engineering). This is a big deal for me personally as I have been hired to help solve some vexing problems that have interested me for years.

Broken RSS Aggregation

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:45:20 GMT

Hmm... Looks like something has gone wrong with the RSS feeds displayed on this page. Seems like they have all been reset to pull from the New York Times.

In Memory of Kyra Husky

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:34:22 GMT

I am extremely sad to report that our female Siberian Husky Kyra died today two months shy of her tenth birthday due to liver cancer. We first became aware of a potentially serious problem on Tuesday and an ultrasound, an exploratory surgery and three days and she's gone. She was loved dearly and will be sorely missed.

New England Down In Flames

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:38:55 GMT

I don't want to talk about the Superbowl.

Windows Vista Slideshow Screen Resolution

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 07:45:16 GMT

The "Windows Photo Gallery" application bundled with Windows Vista supports a full-screen slideshow mode that sometimes tries to be a little too smart about choosing an optimal screen resolution for slideshow viewing. Specifically, the slideshow viewer may decide to reduce the screen resolution for full-screen viewing when invoked and doesn't expose any obvious way to override this default behavior.

For most people this is not a huge problem (if they notice it at all). Discriminating viewers may note a degradation in image quality. But you really run into a problem if your video adapter is driving a display device that (a) isn't recognized by plug-and-play (thus defaulting Window's knowledge of your dislay's actual capabilities to "Generic PnP Monitor" which is assumed to support a wide variety of different video modes) (b) doesn't actually support the display mode automaticlly selected by "Windows Photo Gallery" for full-screen slideshow viewing.

In my case, this Vista box is using an NVidia Quadro FX1000 (a dated but still kick-ass video adapter) connected to a Samsung DLP HDTV which I've configured for full 1080p (1920x1080 @ 60Hz) viewing on the desktop. However, when I flip to slideshow mode I'm toast - the Samsung supports only a view different display resolutions and the one chosen as I enter slideshow mode is not supported. The display flickers and then bluescreens (Samsung video input not detected NOT a Vista BSOD). So for me on this particular PC configuration slideshow just doesn't work out-of-the-box. Parenthetically, the standard Photo Viewer screensaver bundled with Vista is just a wrapper around Windows Photo Gallery's slideshow mode so it too is busted for this particular configuration.

Luckily it's not hard to fix.

Refer to the Windows Knowledge Base Article 930102 for specific details.

Summary:

Add the DWORD value WinSATScore = 500 (decimal) to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Photo Gallery\SlideShow key in the registry to instruct Windws Photo Gallery to use the desktop display settings when switching into slideshow mode. This solves both the image quality and the unsupported display resolution problems.

Please insert a CD

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:39:15 GMT

I'm sitting on the sofa with my wireless keyboard/mouse typing this message. My workstation is ten feet away from me connected to an HDTV. I want to rip the audio CD that I just dropped in the tray before I sat down. But, I forgot to retract the drive tray.

Right about now it sure would be handy if the right-click conext menu item "Eject" normally associated with Windows optical drives toggled state to "Retract" when the drive tray is ejected. Sounds like a good lunchtime hack to figure out how to change the behavior. I'm getting up to push the button now.

ObjectGraph Web 2.0 Dictionary/Thesuarus

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:35:16 GMT

I was customizing an installation of Opera and stumbled across an optional side-panel dictionary plug-in from ObjectGraph.com. Basically, they present an AJAX-powered web form that retrieves/displays dictionary queries for each character you type. Even over my crappy HughesNet satellite "broadband" connection the form is responsive enough to be useful. There's also an online Thesuarus.

ObjectGraph.com : Interactive Dictionary

Windows Media Player 11 Taskbar Settings

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 21:58:53 GMT

Booting a clean install of Vista Ultimate, the first time you minimize Windows Media Player (WMP) 11 you're prompted to decide if you want WMP to display itself as either a standard taskbar task icon OR a taskbar-embedded mini-player. I elect the taskbar-embedded mini-player-on-minimize option and continue on. Later, I decide I prefer the standard taskbar icon-on-minimize display option because restoring the mini-player window requires a precise mouse action. But how to restore the standard behavior?

After drilling through all the WMP option menu dialog boxes I've come up with nothing. WMP prompts you but doesn't appear to expose the setting anywhere. As with most things Winows, the work-around is trivial if not a little counterintuitive. The WMP mini-player embedded in the taskbar is a so-called taskbar toolbar. Toggle mini-player vs. standard-taskbar-icon-on-minimize behavior as follows:

right-click the taskbar and unlock the taskbar if it's locked
toogle WMP mini-player-on-minimize by right-clicking the taskbar and selecting the Toolbars | Windows Media Player checkbox-menu item.

Let There Be Bass (Electric)

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:55:11 GMT

Sitting here half watching the Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival on PBS Great Performances and suddenly - wow... Okay Jeff Beck (one of my personal favorites from way back) is jamming... But, who is this kid he's got up on stage on bass? Man, it's amazing to see so much tallent stuffed into someone so young... Absent credits for Beck's band, a little digging on the web revels that a young woman named Tal Wilkenfeld appeared with Beck for the Chicago 2007 Guitar Festival. I'm definitely going to buy her debut CD and dig through my jazz CD's (because I haven't listened to any of them for what seems like years).

Here are some links:

PBS Great Performances: Eric Clapton Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007

Tal Wilkenfeld (Wikipedia) .::. Tal Wilkenfeld (Official Site)

Jeff Beck w/Tal Wilkenfeld "Big Block" @ Crossroads 2007 (YouTube video)

Rockies Swept

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:00:26 GMT

Sweet. I orderred my Boston Red Sox 2007 World Series Champions baseball cap this AM. I'll keep it next to my 2004 World Series cap

WS Game Four and Slam the Door?

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 23:50:06 GMT

Well... I really didn't expect that the Red Sox would go up 3-0 on the Colorado Rockies in the World Series. There was a lot of hype about the Rockies in the press but so far, there's only been a few brief moments where Colorado has seriously threatened to take the lead let alone win a game. Tonight's game four starts in about 45 minutes in Boston. At this point, the Rockies are in a giant hole staring at four back-to-back win-it-or-hang-up-the-cleats games. The Red Sox need only win one out of the next four to become World Series Champions for 2007. It should be a good game tonight.

Ishkur's Guide To Electronic Music

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:48:03 GMT

Man this is great! Check this out: http://www.di.fm/edmguide/music.swf

Yankees Down in Flames

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 03:55:06 GMT

Sweet. Sox vs. Indians for the AL Championship Friday night, 7:30 EST in Fenway broadcast on FOX.

Live Spaces and IE 7 Crash...

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:47:32 GMT

Here's a good one: If I log into my Live Spaces account and attempt to change the layout, IE7 crashes with an unhandled exception every time (running on Windows XP). Hmm... maybe I'll submit some feedback. Or file a bug report when I get into the office tomorrow...

Xcerion Xios

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:21:24 GMT

http://xcerion.com/

XIOS, an "XML Operating System" from Swedish Xcerion is an interesting system. However, XIOS is not an operating system. Rather, it is a fancy scripting host that sits atop a real operating system.

Safe Labels in C++

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:07:36 GMT

An excellent new article on Artima C++ describes techiques for leveraging macros and templates to perform compile-time validation on normally error-prone (i.e. dangerous) bit-level manipulations.

http://www.artima.com/cppsource/safelabels.html

Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 23:53:37 GMT

http://bbtc.org

It is BBTC's goal to make Washington one of the best places in the country to ride a mountain bike. We are doing this by:

Working with landowners/managers.
Thousands of hours of trail building and maintenance.
Educating mountain bikers through boot camps and trailbuilding clinics.
Getting out there and riding on hundreds of club rides!

Live Spaces and Cookies

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 06:38:15 GMT

Imagine my annoyance to find that I need to relax my IE 7 cookie security in order to log into Windows Live Spaces.

IE7 Privacy was: High

- Blocks all cookies from websites that do not have a compact privacy policy

- Blocks cookies that save information that can be used to contact you without your explicit consent

Okay - I don't know what a compact privacy policy is... But whatever. The second item isn't really clear to me either. But again, whatever. I don't want people to contact me without my consent so don't allow it. But this doesn't work with Windows Live Spaces. You can't log in unless you relax the restrictions on cookies.

IE Private now: Medium

- Blocks third-party cookies that do not have a compact privacy policy

- Blocks third-party cookies that save information that can be used to contact you without your explicit consent

- Blocks first-party cookies that save information that can be used to contact you without your implicit consent

So now I can log into Windows Live Spaces. Why can't I log in with cookie security set to High? Anyone?

Stroustrup Talk on C++0x

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:18:25 GMT

A very interesting talk by Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup given earlier this month at University of Waterloo about C++0x.

Paint .NET

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 05:51:17 GMT

I've been using a shareware photo/image manipulation software application called Paint .NET that I first learned about on the Microsoft-internal toolbox intranet website (Paint .NET was originally written as an MS-sponsored school project if memory serves me correctly). Anyway, it's a solid piece of work and well worth checking out (it reminds of the old versions of PaintShop Pro from JASC software before they ruined it by trying to compete with Adobe PhotoShop). http://www.getpaint.net/

Odds and Ends News Update

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:15:34 GMT

It's been awhile since I posted so I thought I would do a quick round-up of the happenings here in Washington State since May.

Vicki has a new job over in Kirkland. She's now managing the Multiple Sclerosis Center at Evergreen Healthcare in Kirkland. She really likes it and is settling into her new set of responsibilities.

Cody & Kyra (our Huskies) have been getting a lot of walks in the Tolt Macdonald Park in Carnation where they enjoy crusing through the big cedar trees and swimming in the Snoqualmie River. Both are doing well and have acclimated to West Coast life (i.e. they sleep out in the yard all day while we're at work). Kyra objects to the carpet color in the house and has been taking matters into her own paws recently (read steam cleaner rental will be required at some point).

I have been spending somewhat fewer hours at Microsoft as the project I've been working on since the beginning of the year is nearly complete and is slated to ship with the next release of the Windows Logo Kit. The project, KitSetup, is a generic configuration manager for software kits (i.e. complex software distributions comprised of many smaller interdependent components).

On the home front, I spent a few weekends building 18" x 8' x 8' shelf units for the garage. Altogether, I built six or seven of these units - enough to cover most of the exposed wall in the garage and get all the moving boxes from the barn in Maine off the floor. I still need to go through all the boxes and sort everything out so I can find it. But, that can wait until it starts to rain.

Bought a $45 used lawn mower which is receiving a beating. I miss the fancy John Deere riding mower from Maine but couldn't really use it out here even if I had it. Two of three giant brush piles from last summer's tree work operation got burned early this summer with help from Kenny and his excavator. One additional pile (half the size of the house) remains from last summer and Kenny and I created another one last week clearing windfall from last December's massive windstorm. We got another load of logs (mostly Douglas Fir) out of the windfall which I'm going to sell to the mill to defray the cost of Kenny and his excavator. I've definitely been getting my money's worth out of the Stihl MS390.

I gave up on my old GT zero-suspension mountain bike (basically every component was broken and needed to be replaced). Vicki and I both are getting new mountain bikes (I'm getting a Specialized and she's 90% fixed on a Trek). I was down at the Marmot Mountain store in Bellevue earlier this afternoon and picked up several Washington State Department of Forestry maps that show all the logging trails out behind the house in the Alpine Lakes region of the Cascades. We can get out to trails directly from the house without ever hitting paved road and have access to hundreds of thousands of acres of logging road and single track. We should be able to get some fantasic vistas as it looks possible to ride up to 4 or 5K feet and get a commanding view of Puget Sound out to the Olypics to the West and Mt. Rainier to the South. Cool. I'll post some pictures and try to outride the couugars and bears :)

We've been talking some about coming back East this fall to visit friends and family in New England but there's nothing definite yet.

Talk to you all soon!

Microsoft Surface Computing

Wed, 30 May 2007 20:31:32 GMT

Microsoft has announced "Surface" - a table-based user interface that leverages DLP projection, video cameras and a Vista-based software stack to provide a really cool set of interactive possibilities. Check out the promotional videos at http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Hey This is Cool: Tourfilter.com

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 10:11:21 GMT

Tourfilter.com searches club websites and sends you email when your favorite bands come to town. That's cool!

For example: TourFilter Calendar for Seattle Washington

I Love Fila Brazzilia

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 09:58:42 GMT

I don't ever seem to get sick of listening to Fila Brazillia.

The Speewah (Video on YouTube)

Fila Brazillia Homepage

Laptop Battle at Microsoft

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:11:15 GMT

I went over to MS' Bear Creek facility this afternoon to check out Squid Leader and VYTEAR from LaptopBattle.org who were mixing up sets for the geeks from the Zune group and taking questions about gear, samples, software, Vista vs. Mac ... It was cool. Some big fat beats. Nobody in that building got any work done during their performance - it was loud!

I've uploaded several photos I snapped with my camera phone.

Excellent In-Depth Vista Review on ars technica

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:43:03 GMT

ars technica has published an excellent in-depth review of Windows Vista that provides details on most of the major enhancements over Windows XP SP2.

Windows Vista: More Than a Pretty Face

Cool K2 Ski Graphics

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:42:29 GMT

Vicki and I were hanging around in the Marmot store in Bellevue yesterday (a great gear store with a much better selection than REI) and I was checking out the K2 Mt. Baker and Shuksan skis. Not that I need new skis - I love my new Atomics and Lange boots that I got last season. But, the graphics on these K2's are great (those who know me know I love Northwestern indian art). Check these:

I've been too busy to get out on the boards this season. But, there's plenty of snow in the Cascades and have promised Vicki that we'll get out and check Stevens Pass (about an hour from the house in Duvall) and Crystal Mountain (two and a half hour drive South from Duvall to get to the Crystal Mountain / Mount Rainier National Park entrance). And, of course there's always the four and a half hour drive North to Whistler BC (guess I need to file the paperwork to get a passport now to cross the border into Canada... what a drag A?). Another area that I just heard about is Alpental (The Summit at Snoqualmie Pass).

Useful Windows Shell Trick

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 21:40:21 GMT

When resizing the width of a column in a Windows application (e.g. Explorer) you typically left-click-drag the column header to the desired width. Intead of left-click-dragging the column header, try double clicking the column divider. Move the mouse cursor over the column divider (the icon will change to the resize icon), and then double-click to maximimze the width of the column to the left of the divider.

Power Restored Last Evening

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:03:03 GMT

The power got restored last evening seven days after the windstorm took down all the lines. I think that's the longest I've ever been without electricity. I had planned to go out Christmas shopping last weekend but that didn't happen as I spent the entire time cutting trees, provisioning backup power, and searching for fuel. I tried to do some shopping this morning in Bellevue. But, so did everyone else. I got into the mall but after getting pushed around for about ten minutes, I left that horrible place and went into work.

Off the Grid

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 22:37:42 GMT

When the windstorm hit us Thursday night I was unprepared for an extended power outage. So were many other people who quickly bought up the local supply of generators. Also, there were quite a few people who camped out at HomeDepot and then purchased entire shipments of generators as they arrived only to turn around and resell them in the parking lot for a 60-100% premium. At the advice of my neighbor Ty, I got a small portable 1.8 KW 120 VAC unit early Sunday morning down in Carnation and managed to get it wired into the breaker box Sunday afternoon. This was sufficient to get the heat back on, a few lights, and the TV. However, the well pump runs on 220 VAC so we continued without water.

Last night I drove up towards Canada and grabbed a 5 KW 120/240 VAC generator from Lowes who got a small shipment in. Actually getting the unit purchased and in the car involved a small argument with a angry man who insisted that he was there before me. He wasn't and I got the generator in the car while keeping a watchful eye.

Early this morning I ripped my rigged 120 VAC wiring out of the breaker box and rewired for 120/240 VAC and fired up the new unit. Cool! We now have water and I took a nice long hot shower and then came into work.

I still haven't done any Christmas shopping... I was planning to do that this past weekend but getting the house up was more important. Especially so as Vicki's mom was here from Boston (she left on Monday in the early AM). Maybe I'll stop and get a tree on my way home tonight now that there's a better than even chance of finding the moving boxes that may or may not contain the Christmas decorations.

Side note: Moving packers are really odd - it's like they go out of their way to screw with your mind. I open boxes and find collections of completely unrelated items... For example, I found a box in the garage this morning that contained four formal dinner plates, some jewelery, a collection of spent tennis balls, several alen wrenches, and some paperback books, and a half-eaten dog biscuit that was lovingly wrapped up in packing paper. Ummm... !?

Here's some notes from the Puget Sound Energy website posted this morning:

"Significant progress was made again yesterday and last night to restore customers' power. We've now re-energized 158 of the 159 substations that lost power from the fierce windstorm. The only remaining substation without power, serving Duvall, should be re-energized today. And we've now repaired 70 of the 85 transmission lines that lost power from the storm."

From what I'm hearing via the Microsoft Duvall e-mail list this isn't entirely accurate however. People are saying the power crews coming in for coffee in town are really tired and don't think they'll have the substation and surrounding neighborhoods online until after Christmas. Even then, there's quite a few miles of smashed utility polls and downed lines to repair before they get out to Stossel Creek. But we have our generator and despite the fact that I normally curse HughNet satellite Internet service, it's actually kind of cool to fire up the generator and be online despite the fact that you can't even get out with dial-up at this point because all the lines are down.

Anyway, back to work for a few more hours. My late lunch is now over.

There is Unrest in the Forest, There is Trouble With the Trees...

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 04:58:32 GMT

... No oaks ignoring maples. But, the Douglas Firs and Cedars are pissed off. Last Thursday night's storm was scary as we lay awake in bed listening to the trees crashing down around the house. Luckily we sustained no damage to the house and cars - amazing... A dozen or so Douglas Firs fell behind the house and all stacked up pointing North. Had they come East the house would have been completely destroyed. Likewise, if any of the trees on the East hill overlooking the house had fallen it would have taken out the cars and the house...

Spent most of Friday and Saturday cutting out of the driveway and down the private road to get to the paved road out to Duvall. The neighbors lost several of their Huskies who ran away after a giant cotton wood crushed the corner of their kennel. Don't ask me why those dogs were outside during the storm... But that's another post for another day. It was a good excuse to meet some of the neighbors while taking breaks to sharpen the chainsaw chain.

This afternoon I got a small 1850 Watt generator jacked into the breaker panel so we now have lights and heat again. Unfortunately the well is offline until the big generator I have on order arrives. They estimate that they'll have power restored in Duvall by this weekend. However, it's my guess that it will be another week, maybe two, before they get the power back on out here... They're going to need to replace twenty miles of phone polls and lines before they flip the switch...

For posterity, here's a cut-n-paste from the Puget Sound Energy website:

Storm Recovery Update

As of 6 p.m. PST, Dec. 18, 2006*

The scope and severity of damage to Puget Sound Energy's electric system from Friday's windstorm is unprecedented. In many hard-hit areas, our crews are having to re-build the system from the substation to customers' doors – after downed trees and debris are cleared away. Crews now have successfully repaired the core backbone of the system – our high-voltage transmission grid – and as of midmorning Monday, they'd restored power to more than 525,000 of the 700,000 customers who lost power.

We're continuing to repair other portions of our transmission and distribution systems, with more than 400 crews, representing over 2,000 workers, involved in the restoration effort. Besides our local crews, PSE has enlisted nearly 170 additional crews from across the western United States and Canada to help restore customers' power, and two dozen more crews are arriving later today from Missouri. Because the storm's damage is so widespread, however, we believe it will take most of this week to restore power to everyone in the hardest-hit areas.

Carnation, Duvall, Fall City, Snoqualmie and North Bend areas

Restoration work in the heavily damaged Snoqualmie Valley will continue late into the week, perhaps Friday or Saturday. The North Bend, Snoqualmie and Snoqualmie Valley areas were among those hardest hit within our service area. Work is focused on restoring the high-voltage transmission grid and the substations that feed electricity to local neighborhoods. We hope to have our substations in these areas re-energized by midweek. Once this work is complete, we can concentrate on repairing the local distribution lines that serve customers.

100 Rules for NASA Project Managers

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 21:23:18 GMT

This link made the rounds on one of my mailing lists earlier today.

100 Rules for NASA Project Managers

Theoretical Computer Science Cheat Sheet

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 20:54:30 GMT

Theoretical Computer Science Cheat Sheet

^- A great cheat sheet cited in a recent post on Lambda the Ultimate - The Programming Languages Weblog.

I wish I remembered all of this from my undergraduate EE / CS days... At least the graph theory is familiar.

"The Windows (Vista) Shutdown Menu crapfest"

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:46:25 GMT

Here's an interesting blog entry by former Microsoft employee Moishe Lettvin that details his frustrations working as a developer on the Vista Shutdown "Feature" team. I found the comments to be particularly interesting.

The Windows Shutdown crapfest

New Stroustrup Interview posted on TR

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:06:20 GMT

MIT's Technology Review has posted a great interview with Bjarne Stroustrup entitled "The Problem with Programming". It's well worth a read regardless of your like / dislike for the C++ programming language.

The Problem With Programming - Nov. 28th 2006 Technology Review interview w/Bjarne Stroustrup

Windows Live 3D Earth

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 19:31:37 GMT

I was messing around with Microsoft Live's new 3D Earth application on Local Live yesterday. Man is it cool. Way better than Google Earth. I particularly like the ability to fly over the surface at an angle - a perspective that allows you to gleen the topology of the mountains around here. Check it out for yourself (broadband definitely required).

Vista Goes Gold

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 19:29:15 GMT

Yesterday morning the last of the required signoffs were completed and Windows Vista was released to manufacturing. Here's some additional information on the Vista RTM

It's Time - Jim Allchin's post on the Vista blog
Vista Ultimate Box - a photos of the Vista packaging on Wikipedia
What's Next Video - a Gates keynote video
Vista Goes Gold - article from Microsoft Watch

So this is a big deal for most of the people I work with who have been slaving away for years to get this release out the door. I've been running Vista on my laptop and on my machines here in the office for several months now and have to say that it's much nicer than XP. It's actually pretty cool. I like the new version of Internet Explorer, and Office 12 is slick as well.

For me personally, Vista RTM really marks the beginning of my life here at Microsoft working on Windows Vienna. All things considered I'm glad that I decided to join Microsoft and make the jump in the summer of 2006. There are great things going on here...

Duvall Island

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:39:10 GMT

Record flooding of the Snoqualmie River turned the towns of Carnation and Duvall into islands yesterday by flooding all roads across the Snoqualmie River valley for the past thirty hours. I just got into work by driving South on Route 203 to Fall City and then driving North on Route 202 up to Redmond - a route that still officially closed.

Convergence of Computing and Biology

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 20:38:13 GMT

Many predict that computing and molecular biology will ultimately converge. iGEM 2006 makes you wonder how far away this really is...

iGEM 2006 - Can simple biological systems be built from standard, interchangeable parts and operated in living cells?
Standard Parts List - What do you do when your project gets up and walks off I wonder?

Windows Vista + IE7 Keyboard Shortcuts

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:13:37 GMT

Here are some public links that document Windows Vista and IE7 keyboard shortcuts:

Many of keyboard shortcuts listed in the links above are nothing new and have been around for years. However, there are a few that are new - at least to me. Of particular utility is the Quick Launch shortcut that allows you to launch applications with icons in your Quick Launch toolbar (typically docked in the Task Tar (aka Start Bar)). It works like this: Suppose you have a shortcut in your Quick Launch toolbar that you click to launch Internet Explorer. Suppose it's the forth icon. You can launch IE by using the keyboard shortcut WIN + 4. More generally WIN + # will invoke the #th shortcut in the Quick Launch toolbar. That's useful!

Bye Berryfield

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 23:01:18 GMT

We sold the house on Berryfield Rd. in Yarmouth this afternoon. The closing finished up about an hour ago. So we're relieved to have that done. But also sad to leave a place and friends we love so much. Thanks to Diane, Charles, and Dave for your help getting the last remaining items out of the place. Anytime you want to take a trip to Washington State, we'll leave the latchstring out.

Checking out Bebo.com

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 00:16:03 GMT

My friend Adam kicked the Yahoo habbit and now works for social networking startup Bebo.com. I created a Bebo homepage for myself so I could check out the service and kick the tires. Also, I thought it would be useful to have a web-based hub to help me manage all my global social interactions.

Chris' Bebo Homepage

Bassnectar

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 05:18:27 GMT

Listening to OEMRadio.org's amazing stream, I've been grooving on Bassnectar. Big bass (obviously). Bassnectar kicks ass.

Upcoming Electronic Music Shows of Note

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 21:36:50 GMT

Banco de Gaia (9/20/2006 @ Nectar Lounge) <-- I'll be there!
DJ Shadow (9/20/2006 @ The Showbox) <-- I had tickets. But going to see Toby Marks instead. Tough call.
DJ Krush (9/26/2006 @ Nuemos)
Tommy Guerrero (9/30/2006 @ Nectar Lounge)
Cut Chemist (10/25/2006 @ Nuemos)
Amon Tobin (10/26/2006 @ Nuemos)
Mouse on Mars (11/05/2006 @ Chop Suey)
Lee Scratch Perry (11/13/2006 @ Nuemos)
Prefuse73 (12/03/2006 @ Chop Suey)

Safely Back in Washington

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:33:03 GMT

Vicki, the two Huskies, and I drove down to Boston on Tuesday and eventually got the dogs checked into Alaska Airlines cargo for the flight to Seattle. We were told initially that the dogs had to be delivered to Alaska's cargo terminal and got as far as getting them out of the rented SUV, into the cargo area, and up on the scales before they figured out that a mistake had been made and that they were booked under some other designation that required that we check them curbside (not exactly a simple process with a rental car that needs to be returned elsewhere). Long story short, we got on the flight and arrived safely. Remind me to blog on the major security loophole in TSA's process for transporting live animals on flights later when I have more time...

We all finally got back to the new house in Duvall after midnight early Wednesday morning. The dogs went nuts running around which was cool until Cody came charging down a hill in front of the house and ran out of ground and took a really nasty header into the driveway. I was 40' away and was pretty sure that he was badly injurred by the fall. But he seems okay which is amazing, and quite lucky because it would have been pretty much impossible to get him emergency vet care quickly at that hour. So, we're really thankful that he seems to be okay but we're keeping an eye on him... Kyra, as always, seems to be perfectly happy to be anywhere we are and adapts very quickly.

Yesterday (Wednesday), I called out of work and we walked the dogs and did errands. I'm back a work today. Vicki has an interview tomorrow... Still need to sell the house in Maine. Man --- I can't wait for things to be normal-like again.

Thanks to everyone who saw us off, and checked in on us to make sure we arrived safely. We love you guys!

Return to Washington

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 06:09:36 GMT

Returning to Seattle tomorrow PM with Vicki and the Huskies. We're flying from Boston and the dogs have to be crated and delivered to Logan cargo so it's going to be a long day before we all get back to the new house in Duvall. That's it for me today...