DotNetDoc - Daniel Egan

OK OK I know this is yet another NON-CODE post but oh well.

So living in Southern California is pretty cool. It's almost December and it is a beautiful 80 degrees. Since it is such a beautiful day, my girlfriend and I decided to go to the LA Farmers Market . Now if you are used to going to farmers markets in your area, this is nothing like it. It has been around since the beginning of time and although it does sell great produce, it is more of a social place. The huts selling food have grown into a mini-mall of cultural diversity. Every type of food you can imagine is served here but it has more of an old coffee shop feel then anything else. 

Being so close to Hollywood, Farmers Market is somewhat of a mecca for the stars to hang out. We are pretty used to this and pretty much ignore most of the stars that we see there ( Except of Wayne Brady, but that is another story ;) ) 

So we found our way to the Farmers Market today and headed straight for the French Crepe place that we always eat at. We usually like to sit at the counter but it was pretty busy today so my girlfriend grabbed a table nearby while I looked to see if there was room at the counter at on the other side of the restaurant. While looping over to the other side I walked right past this blond girl wearing big glasses and carrying a small dog. I thought to myself, hmmmm that girl is trying a bit to hard to look like Paris Hilton. Only in Hollywood right?  When I got to the other side I saw that there were two seats available next to a guy and a girl at the end of the counter and I waived my girlfriend over. When she reached the stools, she said to me, did you see Paris Hilton walk by with her body guard?  

I thought a second and said (pretty loud) that I thought is was someone who was trying a bit to hard to LOOK like Paris. We laughed a bit and my girlfriend commented that her nose looked even bigger in person. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the people next to us kept looking at us and were laughing to themselves. I thought that maybe they got a kick out of our comments. So we sat down and started to look at the menu.

We were about to order when we realized that the same people that were laughing at our comments were smoking at the counter even though it was a non-smoking area. We were a bit annoyed but instead of saying anything, we decided to go back to the table. As we passed them on the way back to the table, they looked at us again and we were about to give the "I am annoyed that you are smoking look" when we realized that it was Paris' sister, Niki Hilton and her friend sitting next to us.  What a hoot!!!  When we got to the table, we just started cracking up. We could not have planned it any better. They sure seemed to get a kick out of it :)

Oh well, we had a great dinner and then headed home. I just thought it was a funny story so I though I would share.

Doc

We have been so busy here lately that my head is starting to spin. But.... we did take some time to host the .Net Rocks RoadShow when they stopped in LA.

DotNetDoc was interviewed As my publishers Press Release states :

Visual Studio 2005 was released last night for MSDN Subscribers. It has been kind of a pain to uninstall all of the beta software before installing the released version but I am on my way now.  There are a ton of events comming up in our area in which I will be a part of. I will start pasting some of the cool 2005 presentations I am doing soon.

Doc

Hey, they translated my book into German.  Cool!!  Now if I can only translate the reviews.  What does this mean?  Großes Buch. Ich liebte es!!!   ;)

DotNetNuke
von Daniel N. Egan

Für Verleger: Erfahren Sie, wie Kunden in diesem Buch suchen können.

Amazon-Preis: EUR 29,90 Kostenlose Lieferung. Siehe Details.

Größeres Bild

Kategorie(n): Computer & Internet, Business & Karriere

Carl Franklin and the DotNetRocks Road trip will be stoping by our place in Southern California on November 4th. Stop by the SoCal DotNetRocs website for more information and to register for the event.

Free Food!!! Catered by Modicas Deli  (Not Pizza!!)

Lots of FREE Give-aways!!!  Make sure you register on the site so we can get a count!!

See you there!!

DOC

(I will get back to posting code stuff soon. I promise ;0  )
Have you tried this yet??

Wolfgang Puck Gourmet Latte Self-Heating Cans

It is pretty cool.  The you turn the can upside down, pop off a cap, push the bottom in, wait a few seconds, turn the can over, and POOF!!! In just 8 minutes you get a 140 degree latte without an expresso machine.

The kicker is that it tastes pretty good too!!  As you can see below, it's not all that bad for you either.  Well, unless it somehow breaks open and covers you in whatever toxic waste it uses to heat the coffee.

Oh well, I guess the hot coffee is worth it :)

Try it out while it is still cool to do :0

Doc

Just for giggles, I took an IQ test tonight (hehe) Here is what it said :

This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.

Your Intellectual Type is Insightful Linguist. This means you are highly intelligent and have the natural fluency of a writer and the visual and spatial strengths of an artist. Those skills contribute to your creative and expressive mind. And that's just some of what we know about you from your test results.

I recently purchased Toshibas new Satellite R15-S829 (I know, what a name) Notebook - it is a convertible  which doubles up as a tablet PC. While you can work with the R15-S829 using a keyboard, you can also rotate and fold the screen down to use it as a Tablet PC with pen-based input.

Real cools stuff. It works fantastic for meetings, presentations, teaching, etc... but it is also sturdy enough for me to use it as my development laptop. I don't know how I survived this long without it.

It comes pre-loaded with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 for convenient operation. An Intel Pentium M 735 processor and 512MB of memory (that can be upped to 2GB - I have 1.5 in there now).

It really gives me freedom; with it doubling up as a notebook and tablet PC, I can easily take down notes or draw with digital pen, while at the same time she can use the keyboard to send e-mail OR better yet, send personalized hand written notes in my email. Plus........ you just cant account for the COOL factor. When you swivel your screen around to dock it, EVERYONE is like ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So I am extremely happy with the machine, but have been very disappointed with the service. The one bad thing about this machine is the pen. It comes with a slot in the side of the machine that is spring loaded so that you can pop it our whenever you need it. It is styled so that it looks and feels like a real pen (instead of a stylus). The problem is that the pen clip (which I suppose is used to clip to your pocket) is very weak and easily broke off. This did not seem like such a big deal until I realized that this was what kept it in it's spring loaded slot(ouch!!).  So I was pretty ticked off but I bit the bullet and decided to just go to TosihbaDirect and buy another one. THIS is where my problems began. I ordered a pen/folder combo and set it up for overnight delivery. After two days, it was still not here so I called customer service and had to wait 30 minutes to speak to a rep (grrrrrrr). When the got on the phone they told me they were on backorder. WHAT!!! I just need a pen for my laptop. I asked where else I could buy it and the answer was (are you ready for this)   (sigh) "I don't know"(end of sentence). Thanks a heap, could I speak with your manager?  "Sure" (click)  I was speaking to Mr dial-tone at this point.

Actually, while I am writing this, I am starting to get upset all over again so I am going to condense the end.  It took me a month to get a pen, I left a message on 5 managers, and 1 supervisors voice mail (never got to a manager direct) and not one of them ever called me back. I had to wait between 30-45 minutes each time I called and EVERY SINGLE rep had an attitude.

So before I get all riled up again.  GREAT Laptop. Bad Service.  (You will have to decide if it is worth it.

Happy Programming (With Pen no less)

Doc

Last week was the PDC 2005 in LA. Lots of pictures and stories on the Event. I have a busy week of catching up but when I am done I will start posting again.

Doc

It is 8:00am and I am not fully awake yet but have made it down to (or up to I guess since I came from California) the Microsoft Conference Center. I just have to say, I wish ALL conferences were this wired. Every seat has hook-ups for power and of course free Wi-Fi and an individual speaker at each seat.

 This makes it SOOOO easy.  We are waiting for Scott Guthrie to do the opening monologue (sorry, I mean keynote speech). As part of the registration for this conference, you had the ability to schedule a 1 on 1 with one of the Wintelect guys. I have mine set for 10:45 this morning. This is slightly odd because it is during one of the sessions. I guess  will have to walk in late. I tried to get advanced notice of when it would happen but did not find out until I registered.

Anyway, ...........

Well the keynote is done. It was a pretty cool talk. He went through the development cycle that is used at Microsoft, the methodologies they use (UML?? What's UML - Word Doc's very interesting) and the tools they use in the process.   

NEWS ALERT!!!

What really caught my ear was actually after his keynote. I was packing up to go to another room and I caught him talking about DotNetNuke. He was talking to someone about how much testing they are doing with DNN and the Whidbey Beta 2.  Cool. Looks like I smell a book re-write :)

OK. The rest of the day was spent with Jeffery Richter of Wintellect. I sat through his sessions on Exception handling, and building extensible applications. 

He went though stuff like hosting the .Net process, Remoting, Reflection and the like. Except for the fact that he went over each session by about 20 minutes, the presentations were fantastic. This is not one of those Fluff conferences. He really gets into the nitty griddy of code.

Great stuff.

So yesterday, I think I told you that they have a soccer field on the MS campus. Well on the way back to my room I found out that the field had more than one use. While I was crossing campus I came across a helicopter about to take off from the soccer field. So of course I thought that was cool and wanted to take a picture of it.

My guess is that it was Mr. Bill (Or someone else important) because when I tried to take these pictures, I was attacked ( well just kind of shooed away) by the MS Security team.

The picture is a bit blurry because I was actually shooting video when he chased me off. He was not running towards me but it was definitely almost a jog. :) I guess Bill is shy.

Anyway, it was a fun day. Unfortunately, I have to do some work tonight.

I am looking forward to tomorrow. HTTPModules, HTTPHandlers, & Threading.  You can never have too many sessions on these fun topics.

Happy Programing.

Doc

Well the Doc came early for the Devscovery conference and I took the time to take a trip around the Microsoft Campus. The first thing that struck me was how every single building looked EXACTLY the same. It must be really easy to get lost there (Well if you don't know how to count anyway, since all the building are numbered in order).

I wanted to find the Microsoft Conference center so that I knew where to go tomorrow. I am staying at the Homestead Suites which are pretty cool because they are like little apartments. With a full kitchen and everything.

So I took off from the pad and went looking for the conference center. There was not too much to take a picture of because everything looked exactly the same. Of course, I had to take a picture of the sign.

The one thing that was worth taking a picture of was next to what looked like the like the MS cafeteria.  They have stones set in the walkway that show the release of every product launch. Some stones are for the products themselves and some are for the years that the products came out. I took two pictures. One for the year of MS's first launch. This was pretty cool because it only had one item on it. BASIC.

The other one for the year I graduated high school (no comments).

It really makes me wish I would have taken this path when I graduated. But look at all the products released in good old 85.

Well I will be at the conference tomorrow. I will post more then

Happy Coding

DotNetDoc (Daniel N. Egan)

Hey, I went to the the .Net Influential  BBQ today and had a great time. It was mostly relaxation but there was some business too!!  We have lots of events coming to town in the next couple of months.

.Net Rocks Roadshow November 4th

Dan Fernandez and Jay Roxe December 4th

Rocky Lohtka January

So Cal Code Camp January

Anyway. Here is part of the clan that was there.

From left to right.
Mike Vincent, Mark Rosenberg, ME, Scott Robertson, Art Villa, Dave Wells, Dave Foderick.

I will be in Redmond next week. I will post about the Devscovery Conference.

See Ya

Doc