Adrenaline Werks

Getting Internet Calendar Feeds on a Windows Phone 7

2011-07-11T11:21:00.001-06:00

I use TripIt.com, which exposes a nice iCal calendar feed for my travel details. At first I didn’t see a way to subscribe to my TripIt iCal feed on my Windows Phone 7. But if you’ve setup your Windows Phone 7 with a Windows Live account, here’s an easy way to subscribe to iCal feeds and have them show up on your Windows Phone 7:

From a desktop, sign in to your Windows Live account at www.live.com
Choose Calendar from the Hotmail menu at the top of the page
Choose Subscribe from the calendar tool bar
Select Subscribe to a public calendar radio button, and provide your calendar iCal feed and calendar name in the text boxes, choose a color, then click the Subscribe to calendar button.
Windows Live / Hotmail will process the request and you’ll be returned back to your Hotmail Calendar. You should see your new calendar on the left-hand side.
Now change to your Windows Phone 7.
Go to the Settings application, then tap emails + accounts
On your list of accounts, tap and hold the Windows Live account, then choose Sync from the menu.
Return to the home screen and select the Calendar application
Choose settings from the Calendar menu
Choose which Calendars you want to include in your Calendar view and assign the colors.

Note: I use a custom domain with my Windows Live account and don’t use the Hotmail email account but can still use the calendar features. You can also disable the Hotmail email on the phone if you’re not using it.

Free Windows Phone avatar prop for Xbox 360 owners

2011-06-10T12:58:00.001-06:00

The Xbox 360 is a great place to advertise Windows Phone 7 as the phone’s Xbox Live features are designed to appeal to console gamers. Now gamers can learn about Windows Phone and get a free avatar prop for their trouble.

Here’s what to do:

On the Xbox 360, switch to the Inside Xbox section of the dashboard.
Find the tile that reads: Get a free Windows Phone for your avatar/Your avatar is the special guest on Hot Apps with Laura Foy (it’s marked as an Advertisement).
Watch the video and then…
You’ll see a zoomed-in view of a Windows Phone. Navigate the cursor to the “Keep the phone!” tile. Click it and download the avatar prop.

Hurry, this is probably a limited time offer.

That’s it! Have your avatar call my avatar. We’ll go out for ice cream.

Fix for "Add STS Reference" missing in Visual Studio 2010

2011-06-07T06:53:00.001-06:00

If for some reason, you reset your designer settings or revert to an older version, you will notice that the add STS reference command is no longer available.

To resolve this:

Run Visual Studio Command Prompt in administrator mode

Run the following commands

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\"
devenv.exe /ResetAddin Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tools.VS.VSAddin.FederationAddin

Getting TFS to Remember You

2011-05-25T15:18:00.003-06:00

If you’re like me, you do a lot of development work inside of Virtual Machines. Sometimes these VM’s are not joined to the Windows Domain, so when you launch Visual Studio and access any of the Team Foundation Server (TFS) features, TFS prompts you for your domain credentials. This credentials box does not have the familiar “Remember my credentials” checkbox.

To get TFS to remember who you are:

From the Windows Start menu, open the Control Panel
Click on User Accounts, then Credential Manager
Click “Add a Windows credential”
Fill in the fields:
- In the Internet or network address field, enter the host name of your TFS server
- In the Username field, enter your domain\username
- In the Password field, enter your password
- Click OK

Now, next time Visual Studio needs to access the TFS server it will use these credentials instead of prompting you.

Note: If you change your domain password, you will need to manually update your stored credential.

Add the Weather to SharePoint by using the RSS Viewer Web Part

2011-05-24T15:50:00.001-06:00

The out-of-the-box SharePoint RSS Viewer Web Part can be used more than just displaying a list of articles from your favorite blog or website. After the RSS Viewer Web Part downloads the feed, the web part uses XSLT to transform the RSS Feed from XML into HTML, and then your browser renders that HTML as human readable text. By changing the XSLT, you can create a different visual output. The following steps outline how to create a Weather RSS Viewer Web Part.

Step 1 – Add the RSS Viewer Web Part

Navigate to the page where you want to add the web part.

Change the page mode to edit, by selecting Edit Page from the Site Actions menu.

Then click on the Add a Web Part link in the appropriate zone.

Select the Default category.

Select the RSS Viewer Web Part.

Verify the correct zone is listed where you want the web part added.

Click the Add button to add the RSS Viewer Web Part to your page.

SharePoint will add the web part to the specified zone. The new web part will display a message that the RSS Viewer has not been configured, click on the link in the message to open the tool pane.

In the tool pane, enter the following URL as the RSS Feed URL, replacing 80202 with your 5 digit zip code.

http://weather.yahooapis.com/forecastrss?p=80202

Next, click the XSL Editor button, this will open a Text Editor window with the XSLT loaded. Replace the current XSLT with the contents of the Weather XLST file.

Click the Save button on the Text Dialog window, then click OK on the RSS Viewer Web Part Tool Pane. When the page refreshes you should have your weather information displayed like above.

The SharePoint RSS Viewer Web Part can be used to display many different types of information by simply editing the XSLT.

Customize UI Logon Background in Windows 7

2011-05-24T15:50:00.000-06:00

In the latest Windows 7 build (7057), users can customize the UI logon background images to include custom images.

First, enable the customization functionality by setting the "OEMBackground" DWORD value to 1 in the registry key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

Depending on users systems, this value may not exist by default.

Images are taken from an OEM folder located at "%windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds" and may not exist by default.

The default background image "backgroundDefault.jpg" is is stretched-to-fit when loaded. Custom sized images can be included with the following file names:

backgroundDefault.jpg
background900×1440.jpg (0.625)
background960×1280.jpg (0.75)
background1024×1280.jpg (0.8)
background1280×1024.jpg (1.25)
background1024×768.jpg (1.33-)
background1280×960.jpg (1.33-)
background1600×1200.jpg (1.33-)
background1440×900.jpg (1.6)
background1920×1200.jpg (1.6)
background1280×768.jpg (1.66-)
background1360×768.jpg (1.770833-)

Claims Based Identity and Access Control

2011-05-24T15:22:00.000-06:00

Recently I’ve been working a lot with Active Directory Federated Services (ADFS v2) and Windows Identity Framework (WIF). This is a great stating point for someone looking to use the new claims based identity and access control (aka Windows Identity Framework or Active Directory Federated Services v2 ADFSv2).

"An Introduction to Claims" explains what a claim is and gives general rules on what makes a good claim and how to incorporate them in your application. It’s probably a good idea that you read this chapter before you go on to the scenarios.

"Claims-Based Architectures" shows you how to use claims with browser-based applications and smart client–based applications. In particular, the chapter focuses on how to implement single sign-on for your users, whether they are on an intranet or an extranet. This chapter is optional. You don’t need to read it before you go on to the scenarios.

"Claims-Based Single Sign-On for the Web" shows you how to implement single-sign on within a corporate intranet. Although this may be something that you can also implement with Windows integrated authentication, it is the first stop on the way to implementing more complex scenarios. It includes a section for Windows Azure™ that shows you how to move the claims-based application to the cloud.

"Federated Identity for Web Applications" shows you how you can give your business partners access to your applications while maintaining the integrity of your corporate directory and theirs. In other words, your partners’ employees can use their corporate credentials to gain access to your applications.

"Federated Identity for Web Services" shows you how to use the claims-based approach with Web services, where a partner uses a smart client rather than a browser.

"Federated Identity with Multiple Partners" is a variation of the previous scenario that shows you how to federate with partners who have no issuer of their own as well as those who do. It demonstrates how to use the ASP.NET MVC framework to create a claims-aware application.

Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) Configuration Sections

2011-05-24T15:21:00.000-06:00

This post outlines common configuration settings in web.config related to Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) when used with ASP.NET applications.

Summary of Common WIF Configuration Settings

Below is the summary of common configuration setting related to WIF:

Authentication and Authorization configurations.
Register Http Modules with ASP.NET pipeline
Identity Model Configuration Section
Initializing Audience
Federation Configuration
Token Encryption
Trusted Token Issuers

Rest of this post cover details of each configuration

Authentication and Authorization configurations

Authentication configured to “None”.
Authorization configured to deny all unauthenticated users.

Register Http Modules with ASP.NET pipeline

WIF Http Modules registered with ASP.NET pipeline.
When working with Development Web Server that ships with Visual Studio (Cassini) modules registered under <system.web.httpModules> section.
When working with IIS7 modules registered under <system.webServer.modules> section. In that case additional attribute needed preCondition="managedHandler" .
WSFederationAuthenticationModule added by default. Responsible for redirecting unauthenticated requests. Refer to visuals at Claims-Based Architectures.
SessionAuthenticationModule added by default. Responsible for maintaining authentication session and parsing tokens into .Net Types. Refer to visuals at Claims-Based Architectures.
ClaimsAuthorizationModule added by developer in when implementing Claims Based Authorization. For more info - Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) By Example Part III – How To Implement Claims Based Authorization For ASP.NET Application

Identity Model Configuration Section

Required to enable WIF related configuration in web.config. Added by default when adding STS Reference.

Initializing Audience

Required to make sure incoming tokens intended for the application.
Usually has the URI’s (URL’s) of the application, this is what’s configured in the sample from Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) By Example Part II – How To Migrate Existing ASP.NET Web Application To Claims Aware:

<microsoft.identityModel>
  <service>
   <audienceUris>
     <add value="http://localhost:10130/MigrateWindowsAuthenticationToWIF" />
   </audienceUris>

Federation Configuration

Required by WSFederationAuthenticationModule and by SessionAuthenticationModule.
issuer – end point of the Token Issuer. In my case it is pointing to SelfSTS that I have used for development purposes in Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) By Example Part II – How To Migrate Existing ASP.NET Web Application To Claims Aware
realm – value attached to wtrealm. Read more about it here - Windows Identity Foundation (WIF) Explained – Web Browser Sign-In Flow (WS-Federation Passive Requestor Profile)
requireHttps and requireSsl – specifies whether the communications should be performed over HTTPS (SSL). Make no mistake – you want to specify true for both in production environment.

Token Encryption

Required when tokens are encrypted.
It’s an optional extra security step in protecting the tokens despite the fact the tokens sent over HTTP (SSL).
Located in <microsoft.identityModel.service> element.
This is how it looks for the A Guide to Claims-Based Identity and Access Control – Code Samples (online):

Trusted Token Issuers

Required to identify trusted token issuers.
Makes it possible to verify token being signed by trusted token issuer.

<issuerNameRegistrytype="Microsoft.IdentityModel.Tokens.ConfigurationBasedIssuerNameRegistry, Microsoft.IdentityModel, Version=3.5.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35">
  <trustedIssuers>
   <add thumbprint="313D3B54E2140192A8C7ED626332B6BF9106A9EC" name="SelfSTS" />
  </trustedIssuers>

Using WinMerge with Visual Studio

2011-05-23T15:23:00.000-06:00

In Visual Studio do the following:

Click on Tools menu
Click on Options menu item
Expand Source Control tree item
Select Visual Studio Team Foundation Server tree item
Click on Configure User Tools... button

Comparing

To use WinMerge as the Compare/Diff tool:

Click the Add... button
For Extension, type *
For Operation, select Compare
For Command, browse for C:\Program Files\WinMerge\WinMerge.exe (or C:\Program Files (x86)\WinMerge\WinMergeU.exe if you're running a 64-bit OS)
For Arguments, type /x /e /ub /wl /dl %6 /dr %7 %1 %2
Click OK to accept

Merging

To use WinMerge as the Merge tool:

Click the Add... button
For Extension, type *
For Operation, select Merge
For Command, browse for C:\Program Files\WinMerge\WinMerge.exe (or C:\Program Files (x86)\WinMerge\WinMergeU.exe if you're running a 64-bit OS)
For Arguments, type /x /e /ub /wl /dl %6 /dr %7 %1 %2 %4
Click OK to accept

Note: You need to click on the Save button on the tool bar within WinMerge merge to commit a merge before exiting the screen

Northwest Motorcycle Trip

2010-07-31T20:00:00.000-06:00

Sammamish, WA — All week I’d been looking forward to getting on my Kawasaki ZX-6R and hitting the Cascade Mountains. The new Shoei RF-1100 helmet had come in yesterday so I was anxious to try it out. But one thing I’ve learned about living in the Great American Northwest is the weather will not cooperate with your plans, and this morning was no exception.

The day started off overcast and very cool. So I threw on an extra shirt and told myself the sun would be out soon. I rolled out, headed South from Sammamish towards Issaquah and then onto Cedar Grove. Along here and on 169/Renton-Maple Valley Road the overcast turned to fog and drizzling rain. In Enumclaw I stopped at the McDonalds for breakfast and a chance to warm up. I debated simply turning around and heading home, as I don’t really enjoy riding in the rain. As the coffee began to warm me up, I decided I’d press onward in hope that I could escape the marine layer that had moved in.

As I headed out of Enumclaw on Highway 410, I was in luck, within 10 miles the sun had come out and chased the fog and rain away. I was in luck! The ride through Federation Forest State Park, along the White River, and Mt Rainier National Park was excellent with little to no traffic!

At the top of Chinook Pass, I stopped and took in the fresh mountain air. On the way up the pass I did encounter a few small rocks on the highway, thankfully none larger than a golf ball.

From here I headed East towards Yakima.

At a bend in the road, there was a large yield sign, as I came out of the bend, the road abruptly detoured via a right hand turn. The short notice on this was surprising, I’m glad I slowed down when I saw the yield sign. Looking at the maps later, I think detour followed Devil Creek Road onto Old River Road and then back to Highway 410. The detoured road was new pavement, which was nice and smooth. Along the way there were some good twisting turns giving to a fun ride!

By this point, the cool weather was a distant memory, as I cruised along Highway 410 the temperature rose at a steady pace. I stopped for gas in Naches, then skirted around Yakima, took off an shirt extra layer and headed up the Yakima River Canyon.

On the way up the canyon, I saw lots of people were floating down the river trying to escape the heat, I’ll have to keep this in mind for a future adventure!

As a note to other riders, you’ll want to keep an eye on your speed through the canyon. I also passed several sheriff' cars along the way, all but one had someone pulled over. As I reached the North end of the canyon and came into Ellensburg, I was ready for lunch.

After a stop at Wendy’s to eat and rest I contemplated my options. Originally I had planned on taking US 97 to WA 970, but since this my first major ride of the season, I decided I didn’t want to push myself any further than I already had and decided to head back towards home via I-90.

The ride on I-90 was rough with road construction in a couple of places. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a rougher stretch of interstate on a motorcycle.

It was nice to great the new Shoei RF-1100 helmet on this run. It fits my head better and is lighter and better ventilated than my 7 year old KBC. With the standard shield, I had the normal fog issues and I’m considering getting the new CW-1 Clear Pinlock shield with the dark smoke lens.

Next weekend: Deception Pass with the Seattle Motorcycle Riders Meetup.

Cool iPhone Mail Tip

2010-07-30T10:21:00.001-06:00

Have you ever wanted to just include a part of an email in your reply? I found, by accident, an easy way to do this on an iPhone running iOS 4.

Open the Mail app
Open an email you’ve received
Highlight/select part of the message
Tap the arrow on the bottom row of icons
Tap Reply or Reply All or Forward
In the new email message, scroll down and you’ll see that only the select part of the original email message is included.

Office 2010 Editions

2010-04-23T16:03:00.001-06:00

Office 2010 has hit RTM (Release To Manufacturing) and is just about to start making itself available to users in its final version.

A couple of major changes are:

· No more Office Enterprise

· New Pro Academic Option

· OneNote is now in ALL versions of Microsoft Office 2010 (except Starter); previously it appeared in just the Enterprise SKU. OneNote is a great application (What is OneNote?) and this will help increase it’s adoption among home users and also within Corporate Environments.

You can see more on Technet here.

Emergency Contacts for Colorado Drivers

2010-03-20T11:35:00.001-06:00

The State of Colorado allows drivers to name one or two contacts, linked to your driver’s license, so that police may quickly identify the appropriate contacts in a case of emergency. This information does not appear on your driver’s license, it’s only available electronically to law enforcement and public safety authorities in the event of the license holder’s injury or death as a result of an accident, criminal act, or other emergency situation.

To add an emergency contact go to https://www.colorado.gov/apps/dor/emergency/contact/start.jsf The process takes a couple of minutes, you’ll need your Colorado Driver’s License number, information about yourself, and contact information for one or two contacts to be notified in case of an emergency.

Colorado Fall 2009

2009-10-03T15:55:00.001-06:00

Last weekend Scott and I went to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The fall colors where at the peak of the season and the weather was amazing. On Saturday we drove up through Clark and past Steamboat Springs Lake, on Sunday we followed some hiking paths in Routt National Forest. I would really like to go back again during ski season.

58 Days in India

2009-10-01T09:39:00.003-06:00

Here’s a video collage of the photos I took while in India

Commerce Server 2009 R2 August CTP – No Upgrade Path?

2009-08-29T01:14:00.001-06:00

From the readme file for Commerce Server 2009 R2:

Before You Begin

You must UNINSTALL all previous versions of Commerce Server before you install this release. If you installed the Contemporary Site (Template Pack) or Default Site they must also be uninstalled. Leveraging a clean system that has never had a version of Commerce Server installed on it is strongly recommended. When you do uninstall previous versions of Commerce Server, we strongly suggest that you reboot the computer before you install Commerce Server 2009 "R2". If you do not, instances of some running services, for example, the SharePoint Timer Service, may cache SharePoint solutions and cause unpredictable installation issues. To completely uninstall Commerce Server 2007 or Commerce Server 2009, see No upgrade path currently exists from Commerce Server 2007 or Commerce Server 2009 to Commerce Server 2009 "R2".

No upgrade path currently exists from Commerce Server 2007 or Commerce Server 2009 to Commerce Server 2009 "R2"

You need to uninstall ALL previous versions of Commerce Server before you can install Commerce Server 2009 "R2" August 2009 CTP.

Does anyone know if this will be the case once CS2009 R2 reaches RTM (release stage)?

I think this may be a step in the right direction, since I think most customers are interested in integrating Commerce Server with SharePoint, it never made sense to me why you would need to install CS2007 and the upgrade to CS2009. (Yes, technically I understand why, but you don’t do this with any other Server product.)

I know some customers who are looking at CS2009 and future versions, but it makes a very hard sell when you have to re-engineer and/or migrate your solution for every new Commerce Server version. I think it would be a much easier sell if Commerce Server worked more like .NET 2.0, 3.0, & 3.5. The newer versions bring new features and it’s easy for developers to leverage new features by adding references to the new Commerce Server assemblies.

More information on Commerce Server 2009 R2 August CTP can be found on the Microsoft Commerce Server Product Unit Blog

Qutb Minar

2009-08-09T09:57:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, August 8, 2009 my co-worker and I took a taxi trip into the Delhi area. Our first stop was at Qutb Minar.

The foundations of this world-famous tower, known as the Qutb Minar, were laid by Qutbuddin Aibak of the Mamluk Dynasty towards the end of the 12th century. The construction was interrupted at the first story by his death and the remaining three stories were completed in matching material and style by his successor Iltuthish, commonly known as Altamash in 1230 A.D.

In 1368 A.D. the Minar was damaged by lightning later, Firuz Shah Tugiluq (1351 – 1388 A.D.) replaced the top story with the existing 2 stories faced with marble. Sikandar Lodi (1489 - 1517 A.D.) made some repairs to the Minar in 1503 A.D. when it was again struck by lightning.

The tower has a diameter of 14.32 meters at the base and about 2.75 meters at the top with a height of 72.5 meters. Ascended by 379 steps it is the highest stone-tower in India and a perfect example of Minar know to exist anywhere. The variegated plan of its 3 lower stories, the projecting balconies with stalactite brackets and ornate bands of inscriptions on its faces heightens its decorative effect.

The area around the tower is surrounded with exquisite stone work. Here is a close up of the work and an example of the rows of columns which exist.

While walking around the grounds of Qutb Minar, I noticed these guys sweeping the sidewalk using hand-made brooms. Their “cart” is a modified bicycle held together with wire, paper, and good old fashion ingenuity.

Note: Click on the images to see a larger version.

Cow in Cyber City!

2009-08-05T22:00:00.000-06:00

On the way to the Accenture/Avanade offices we saw this cow grazing in the median of the main road through the DLF Cyber City. For my Denver friends, think of seeing a cow at the corner of DTC Boulevard and Belleview Avenue!

Laptop Video Card Dies … 7,750 Miles from Home

2009-08-01T23:54:00.001-06:00

Shortly after my last post, the video card in my laptop starting having issues. At first the text was hard to read but it quickly evolved to frequent blue screens.

After a couple of calls to our excellent support staff back in the US on Tuesday, a new laptop was shipped via UPS. The bad news, it would not arrive until Friday.

Most of the time I was able to get the laptop to boot and everything would work, for awhile. I turned off a lot of the GPU intensive stuff, like the Aero Theme, which seemed to help. Sometimes, I just need to let the laptop cool off. However, on Thursday evening, the card went out completely. I was not able to revive the laptop.

A lot of folks wanted to help, most asking if I had rebooted the laptop. I guess due to the local power fluctuations that’s the first thing they always try. But once they saw the vertical redlines on the power-up/BIOS screen, they conceded that, yes, it really was a hardware problem and not a software issue.

Either way, a slightly used Toshiba M5 laptop arrived on Friday as promised. I was able to get a screwdriver from the helpful Trident Hotel staff, so I could move over the memory and hard drive, and I’m back up and running.

Location	Date	Local Time	Description
GURGAON IN	31/07/2009	13:41	DELIVERED
	31/07/2009	9:08	OUT FOR DELIVERY
NEW DELHI IN	31/07/2009	1:59	IMPORT SCAN
	31/07/2009	1:59	IMPORT SCAN
	31/07/2009	0:30	ARRIVAL SCAN
FRANKFURT DE	30/07/2009	13:55	DEPARTURE SCAN
KOELN (COLOGNE) DE	29/07/2009	18:48	ARRIVAL SCAN
LOUISVILLE , KY , US	29/07/2009	4:56	DEPARTURE SCAN
	29/07/2009	4:52	DEPARTURE SCAN
	29/07/2009	2:51	EXPORT SCAN
	29/07/2009	2:41	EXPORT SCAN
	29/07/2009	2:14	ARRIVAL SCAN
SEATTLE , WA , US	28/07/2009	19:20	DEPARTURE SCAN
	28/07/2009	18:25	ARRIVAL SCAN
	28/07/2009	18:15	DEPARTURE SCAN
	28/07/2009	17:45	ORIGIN SCAN
	28/07/2009	16:00	COLLECTION SCAN
US	28/07/2009	11:30	BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Ambience Mall & Cyber City, Gurgaon, India

2009-07-28T07:30:00.000-06:00

This is the view from the 3rd floor of the Ambience Mall looking towards the DLF Cyber City in Gurgaon, India. The banners in the Ambience Mall tout it as the largest mall in the Asia Pacific region.

I’m not sure what the grey building is, but the area immediately beyond is a tent city filled folks working on the new $6 Million USD, 6,000+ square feet, condos going in behind the mall.

The DLF Cyber City is a technology center, much like the Denver Tech Center, but the buildings are much closer together, traffic is a nightmare, and there is little to no water drainage. So, when it rains, the streets flood, badly.

Click the picture for a full sized version.

The Trident Hotel is just a couple of blocks from here. The Leela Kempinski Hotel is at the North end of the Ambience Mall. We may change hotels so we have easier access to the mall, as a cab is required since you can not walk across the NH-8 (National Highway, think Interstate).

Gurgaon is located just South of Delhi and New Delhi, about 30 minutes South of the Indira Gandhi International Airport (DEL) Airport.

My First Sunday in India

2009-07-26T03:29:00.000-06:00

The Trident hotel is very nice, 5+ star kind of nice. Breakfast is included with my room rate, so this morning I had a fresh omelet, orange juice, and a cup of coffee. Since I forgot my belt at home, a trip to the mall was in order.

It's strange seeing armed guards at the garage entrances everywhere searching every car and metal/explosive detectors at every pedestrian entrance. Most stores also had their own security staff, complete with AK-47 style assault guns.

While at the mall, I noticed that technical books are extremely cheap here, I found a one book I bought for $50 retails here for about $7! Electronics are about the same price as the US. I found the McDonalds at the mall, no Quarter Pounders but plenty of vegi-burger and other options. We skipped McDonalds in favor of one of the local places, I had Butter Chicken with rice, which had a good flavor and a bit of a kick.

I'm very glad my co-worker is here with me, he is a native who moved to the US about 12 years ago. Everyone here speaks English but they still prefer their native language, which he is fluent in, but with a Southern dialect/accent. I guess the word for taxi and underwear are very similar, as he asked one guard where to get a taxi and the guard suggested Calvin Kline. Everyone got a good laugh out of it.

It was a bit of a challenge getting a taxi to get back to the hotel. But we made it in a rusted out VW-bus style of vehicle, with the flat spare tire sitting on the back seat with us. Watching people drive here is like watching chaos in action. Very aggressive, size matters not right of way, and motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic. One thing I did notice is that none of the drivers are on the phone.

Time for a short nap, and then off to find the hotel workout facilities.

I'm looking forward to meeting the rest of our team tomorrow at the development center.

Delayed

2009-07-17T17:00:00.000-06:00

Due to some contractual issues, the trip to India has been delayed. Hopefully we will set out next Friday.

India Visa

2009-07-16T07:00:00.000-06:00

Normally I would have sent my passport in to CIBT and they would have handled everything, for a fee of course, related to getting a business visa for my upcoming trip to India. However, it takes 8 business days, and we ran out of time. So the next best thing, a day trip to San Francisco.

In order to qualify for same-day service from Tarvisa, the 3rd party company who handles visas for the India Consulate, you have to arrive no later than 10:40am. The visa would be added to my passport and I could pick it up after 5:00pm. So, I booked the earliest flight out I could find, United flight 59 with a 6:13am departure, and the latest return flight departing SFO at 7:30pm.

I didn’t sleep well the night before as I was concerned about the tight schedule. I was up at 3:30am, left my place and got to the airport with time to spare. Security lines were minimal. After the flight left, on time, I was sure everything would fall into place and drifted off to sleep.

The captain’s voice on the intercom woke me up, “Ah, we’re about to begin our decent,” I thought to my self. But it turns out, we were only 30 minutes into the flight and the captain was informing us that there was a problem with the thrust on one on the engines and we would be returning to Denver. So much for everything falling into place.

We landed on the emergency runway which was lined with emergency equipment with lights flashing. Everything went smoothly and safely, and we returned to the concourse and were instructed to deplane.

United was able to locate a new aircraft for us, and after a 3 hour delay, we were back in the friendly skies headed to San Francisco.

After landing at SFO, it was now 10:20am, if I wanted same day service, I would have to get from SFO to downtown San Francisco in under 20 minutes. Realizing this was not possible, I would not be able to get same day service. My visa would not be ready until 4:30pm the next day; I was going to have to stay overnight. I stopped by the United Customer Service desk and Ms. M. Lee looked at outbound United flights for the next day, all booked. Eventually, she was able to re-book me on a Frontier flight, whew.

I reached Travisa just before their noon cutoff for lunch. There were a couple of folks ahead of me in line, but it moved quickly. I dropped off all my paper work, passport, and money order for the visa and went in search of a hotel.

Since I had originally planed this as a quick day trip and Travisa doesn’t allow you to bring laptops into their office, I left my laptop at home and was armed with only my trusty iPhone. I called my corporate travel department and Josh was able to get me a room at the Westin St. Francis. Having stayed at that hotel many times before on vacation trips, I knew where it was.

Nap time!

With the exception of spending an unplanned day in San Francisco, everything else fell into place. I received a text message at 4:30pm from Travisa that my passport was ready. I stopped by their office and picked up my passport with a brand new visa. Took Bart to SFO, sailed through security (amazing how easy it is when you don’t have any carry on bags), on to the plane, take off, landing, drive home, and finally crawled into bed at midnight.

Traveling to India

2009-07-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have an excellent opportunity to travel to India on business. While in India, I will be helping to build a team that will be using Commerce Server and SharePoint Server. While on one hand I’m excited about the adventure, I’m also nervous as I’ve never been to that part of the world.

Based on information from co-workers, I scheduled an appointment at the Global Travel Health office at Rose Medical Center. After meeting with a nurse and describing where and what I would be doing, she informed me that there were no required vaccinations, but there were a few recommended ones I should get. My tetanus shot was up to date, but based on her recommendations, I opted for to be vaccinated against Polio, Hepatitis A, and Typhoid. There were a few others, like Japanese Encephalitis, that I didn’t opt for since I won’t be in rural areas nor will I be working to provide aid to refugees.

Up next, getting a business visa for India.

Recovery in action

2009-06-08T16:12:00.001-06:00

Colorado [Cherry Creek News, 6/2/09]:

"Today, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) started a three-mile asphalt resurfacing project on Colfax Avenue (US 40) between Kipling Street and Sheridan Boulevard. The $4.7 million project is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and is one of two Recovery Act projects starting this week in the Denver metro area, bringing the total to four in Denver. ‘This is the second transportation infrastructure stimulus project to begin in the Seventh Congressional District. This project will improve a heavily used section of Colfax Avenue while creating and saving jobs for APC, a company in my district. This legislation continues to invest in our aging infrastructure while providing economic opportunities for many Coloradans,’ stated U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (CO-07). This segment of Colfax Avenue carries approximately 27,800 vehicles a day and is currently in poor condition. The rotomilling and asphalt paving will help extend the life of the pavement. In addition to paving, the project will repair and replace concrete curb and gutter and sidewalk."

Pasted from <http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Recovery-in-Action-TN-CO-TX-LA-MS/>