ViNull Records

FeelTheFunc: EP 12: MechaFunc

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:51:24 GMT

In this episode we talk about the launch of DragonTee and the next project for FuncWorks. Show Notes at http://feelthefunc.com

FeelTheFunc: EP 11: CodeStock - Running a Community Event Panel

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:52:03 GMT

This episode was recorded at CodeStock 2009 during the Running a Community Event Panel. Show Notes at http://feelthefunc.com

FeelTheFunc: EP 10: CodeStock Review

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:30:59 GMT

In this episode special guest Perry Nelson shares his thoughts on CodeStock as Mike's "secret shopper" Show Notes at http://feelthefunc.com

FuncWorks Studio

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:20:27 GMT

I’m felling pretty good about launching the Feel The Func podcast; we’ve managed to consistently release episodes on time and we are starting to find our groove. Certainly there is room for improvements by the hosts, but we’ve reached a point I felt good about investing into the production. Last night I recorded the first episode in our new “Studio” and will release the result this weekend.

M-Audio ProFire 610

The M-Audio ProFire 610 is the heart of the new studio. Retails for $500, I found a new-in-box one on eBay for $325. The 610 gets its name from having 6 inputs and 10 outputs, all of which can be used simultaneously. It connects to a computer over a FireWire port and can even be powered by the FireWire, eliminated the need for a wall adapter (note: only the large FireWire ports support device power). Two of the inputs support XLR mics, can provide phantom power, and have adjustable gain controls. The two line in ports on the back are just 1/4” jacks, but for $50 bucks you can get an M-Audio Audio Buddy that will provide two more XLR mics with phantom power support and gain control. I’d love to have all 4 inputs be the same, but the Audio Buddy works well with the 610. The last two inputs are SPDIF Left and Right channel, and 8 of the outputs are 1/4” line outs with 2 more SPDIF Left and Right channels for the total of 10 out.

The 610 comes with a pretty simple software control panel for mapping inputs to outputs. Not only are you able to map an physical input to a physical output, but you also can map 10 “software return” virtual outputs. These are lines created in your audio software sent to the 610 over FireWire, such as a previously recorded track.

ASIO vs WDM

The first snag I hit playing with the 610 was driver related, or driver type related (the actual drivers seem flawless and had no issues on Vista x64 or x32). In the sound world, Microsoft has lagged in providing a low latency multi-channel driver system. Vista prefers the WDM, or Window Driver Model, and should be quite capable of handling the needs of the 610, but since this type of driver didn’t appear until Vista the majority of support is for ASIO, Audio Stream Input/Output by Steinberg. The 610 supports only two channels with the WDM drivers, and all channels with the ASIO drivers.

The curve ball is ASIO is under patent by Steinberg, and therefore not available in open source tools like Audacity. Reaper is a popular recording application that supports ASIO, and has a 30 day trial with all features. Reaper is $225, or $60 if your yearly gross revenue is less than $20K, are using it for personal use only, or are a non-profit/educational organization. I’ve not found Reaper to be bad, but I’ve found out that you can get ASIO support in Audacity provided you compile it yourself and do not distribute the modified version. I will be trying out ASIO Audacity before deciding on which package I’ll use to record. (After recording, I use Audacity for editing.)

There is an upside to this ASIO vs. WDM cage match. Normally you are limited to recording from one device at a time in windows, but really it’s one device per driver system. You can use your sound card’s WDM drivers at the same time as the ProFire 610 ASIO drivers. I have a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum eX, which is an older card but included a breakout box with every known audio interface exposed. I’m able to connect the SPDIF connection from the Audigy to the ProFire and both play audio on the computer that gets recorded to a track (such as a listener question) and use my computer speakers as a monitor system during recording, by mapping the ProFire outputs to the SPDIF channels.

Mic Check… sibilance, sibilance

All this stuff is for nothing, if you don’t have the right mics to record with. John Kellar cornered Carl Franklin for an interview on podcasting and got Carl to reveal the secrets of DotNetRocks, one of the most successful developer podcasts out there. There are many great tips in the video, and one key point was using the right type of mic – specifically a large diaphragm condenser microphone. 10 years ago it would have cost you a grand or more to get one of these mics, but the number of podcasts and the power of China’s production lines have created several $100 options. These aren’t the best available, that $1K mic still has it’s advantages, but they are great quality for the price and will provide the rich full voice sound of professional podcasts like DNR.

After talking with my local sound guys at Guitar Center, I settled on the Sterling Audio ST51. Even though these are targeted at budget minded consumers, they still come with a padded case and heavy-duty microphone stand adapter. The mics themselves have a good heft to them, and feel like they won’t break easy (not that I don’t treat them gold!). If you decided to pick up condenser mics, make sure your setup can provide phantom power that these mics require.

Check please!

Okay, so after cables, stands, and pop-filters it might seem like $1K dropped on a podcast is excessive. For this money I’ve gained the ability to record 4 people at once on to separate tracks and get a pretty good quality result. I have some learning left in post production (i.e. should I normalize each speaker’s track then mix them, or mix them then normalize?), but I feel pretty good on the recording side. I’ve been an audio geek for years (starting with my Tascam 4-track PortaStudio 414 Mark II) and love that i finally have a reason to build a home studio!

ViNull Photos for Sunday, June 28, 2009

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:59:59 GMT

Check out all my photos links at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scoregasm/
(Hover over photos for title)

CodeStock 2009 on Twitter

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:29:22 GMT

During CodeStock 2009, I was busy and didn’t get much time to check on email or twitter. I subscribe to an RSS feed of a “CodeStock” search in my news reader so I don’t miss anything, and tonight I went though the 300+ tweets and saved off some of my favorites.

This is mostly for me, to pump myself up during the dark hours of organizing CodeStock 2010. These tweets show it’s not about creating an awesome event, it’s about setting a stage where people can do awesome things. I’ll have a post soon about my time planning/running/enjoying CodeStock this year, but for now enjoy these tweets. (You can follow me on twitter as @ViNull and CodeStock announcements as @CodeStock)

@crazeegeekchick - http://twitpic.com/8f86g - @vinull, @rachelappel standing around

@jayharris - I am so far vack in line at #codestock that I might as well register for #devlink. Hello, Nashville.

@bramhaghosh - Codestock rocked and looking forward to devlink but damn tn is hot and humid

@reneeholiday - @codestock @archidraca kicks arse!! and dragontee.com has some really cool designs! so glad to meet you. :-)

@crazeegeekchick - http://twitpic.com/8f5eb - Geeks at codestock!!!

@wbm - http://twitpic.com/8fcz2 - Serious discussions at #codestock

@joshgrenon - I soldout @codestock!

@rkierner - Awesome conversations tonight with @skimedic, @agstemen and @johnboker. Looking forward to #codestock. Look for my "Pair w/ Me" sign.

@arcanecode - All fresh & clean. They even have that indoor plumbing I've heard so much about. All beautified for my #CodeStock presentation this AM!

@MLaritz - I'm never up this early ... Thanks #codestock

@jwright - I recorded most of @alanstevens Opening Circle on the iPhone at #Codestock. Uploading now to YouTube. Will tweet out when it's uploaded.

@ChrisLove - Hey #CodeStock folks WAKE UP!!!! Its almost 10, where are your tweets????

@kirstinj - @rachelreese and I need a ride to #Codestock from the ghetto hotel (La Quinta). (The princess has finally awakened- it is 7 am her time)..

@sbeardsley - Learned new term "defugging" debugging with the F Keys (F5, F10, F11) #Codestock

@joshholmes - Riding my '77 gl1000 down to #codestock from philly. Just crossed into tn!

@jbkazoo - @mjeaton ...sweet... what happens on the way to #CodeStock stays at #CodeStock (ROFL)

@mattbrewer - @AlanBarber Thanks & once again, you help the folks who arent at the venue feel like they are there! http://is.gd/1eGSH #codestock

@alanbarber - #deepfriedbytes live tonight at 5:00pm in the #codestock auditorium! be there or woody and elder will cry!

@kirstinj - R @RachelReese and I have started our own Cool Kids club. You can only be in it if you've never been an MVP. #CodeStock

@scottradcliff - The #codestock tweets are making me angry. I'm jealous!

@pngwen - Back from day one of #codestock. Installing my free copy of windows 7 RC!

@kirstinj - http://twitpic.com/8ieoo - Geeks eating and tweeting. #CodeStock

@cwoodruff - Waiting for midget wrestling at Electric Cowboy #codestock

@gmakinabakan - Beer=England food=thai friend=turkish music=jamaica place= #Codestock Tenessee. This is the international Scott http://tinyurl.com/otpe2o

@sbeardsley - People with eat, sleep, code shirts are dancing in the crowd to reggae... I see you! #Codestock

@alanbarber - RT @benfarmer: Big thanks goes out to @_Neville for an excellent #codestock after party. Nev FTW!

@arcanecode - Wiped out. Time for some Zs, tomorrow is another exciting day at #CodeStock. Especially looking forward to @whimsql open space SSIS session

@joshgrenon - Things to do after #codestock http://tr.im/pWsZ

@BwanaJim - @joshgrenon Number 11: spend all night twittering about #CodeStock and sleep through Saturday's sessions.

@kirstinj - OH: "I love cross-site scripting attacks!" #CodeStock

@kirstinj - @thingles Well, they kicked us out of the pool at 10pm. #CodeStock

@81bronco - By far the most entertaining portion of the evening was watching people tweet to each other while standing 3 ft apart. #CodeStock

@LinqKinq - If you attended my Inside LINQ talk at #Codestock, I appreciate feedback at http://bit.ly/3Lz5bp

@steverb - Time to get ready to stock some code. #codestock #my_son_is_annoying_me_this_am

@joshholmes - All excited about my "Lost Art of Simplicity" keynote this morning at #codestock. Had lots of ideas on the bike yesterday - 15 new slides...

@WhimSQL - I'm hiding in open spaces... :D #codestock my examples for my 1050 session wont load guess ill draw on the board. :p

@cmm1869 - Heading to #codestock to speak on starting a company. Great ay to start a Saturday! http://myloc.me/61cu

@cwayman - RT @elijahmanor: Great keynote by @JoshHolmes on "The Lost Art of Simplicity"... presentation can be found at http://bit.ly/VrdcD #codestock

@JustinEtheredge - Wishing I was at #codestock , darn weddings! :-)

@alanbarber - koans installed and fired up rake... way cool!!!!!! #codestock

@alanbarber - lot of the tribe is here in the ruby koans talk... I think it's just to get to be at one with the great Leon :) #codestock

@kemmis - Nice job on the #codestock keynote this morning @joshholmes!

@alanbarber - Learned a lot about ruby with the awesome help from the loveable huggable @fallenrogue #codestock

@ben_henderson - Networking at lunch. #codestock http://yfrog.com/1111zj

@mamund - @carpdeus and i just did a lap around the pond outside the #codestock auditorium. now back for more sessions! http://ff.im/-4vGQN

@tobint - @chrisgwilliams I can't find @rachelreese or anyone. I think they all started their own mini-codestock without us.

@cschuman - Following @kirstinj because her codestock tweets are hilarious

@kelleystar - The presenter, James Bender, is wearing a Green Lantern shirt. Don't see those that often. #codestock

@kirstinj - CodeStock:IDrinkable #CodeStock

@brianhprince - aaccidentally forgot to go to panel on buildong community bc I was eengaging the community. sorry @vinull #codestock

@agstemen - @jamesbender beeeeennnndddeeeeeer! #codestock #HeckleByTwitter

@ricardovg - Nice to see some beautifully written code at the #codestock course showing how DevEvents works!

@kirstinj - If anyone sees @alanstevens can you please tell him I'm done running? Thx #codestock

@areynolds65 - #Codestock 2009 has come to an end. I enjoyed all the sessions I attended but really liked the one on XNA Game Dev at the end.

@kirstinj - OH: "What do you need an IDE for? You got TextMate and you're on a Mac." #CodeStock

@nonsensepoem - Good times at Codestock. Joe Bower, Mike Neel were great. Looking fwd to next year. #codestock

@kirstinj - OH: "Oh Wally, PLEASE don't leave me!" #CodeStock

@kirstinj - OH: "You should just call it 'Laid Camp" and then everyone would come." Discussing "Laid-off Camp" at #CodeStock

@tedneward - Bummed *I* didn't get a drunk voicemail from #codestock ....

@rkierner - Chilling at the #codestock after party listening to @steveandrews play guitar and enjoying a calming fire. Mellow feel at casa @alanstevens

@bramhaghosh - Codestock rocked and looking forward to devlink but damn tn is hot and humid

@AlanGHecht - Listening to Alan Stevens sing at #codestock after party

@BrianGenisio - Will be starting a game of Carcasone in LaQuinta 250. Stop by if you want! We have beer :) #CodeStock

@timoconnell - the #codestock after-party is officially over. @Kirstinj is flying with a 12 yr old.

@kirstinj - And now that @tobint 's flight has taken off and he is probably passed out, I am officially the last person awake from #CodeStock

@agstemen - #Codestock was great again this year! Thanks @vinull @alanstevens @wbm and everybody else involved for all your hard work!

@WhimSQL - @alanstevens thanks for all the fish. :) #codestock

@mamund - i just posted my slides and samples from #codestock 2009. Programming w/ #HTTP/#REST... http://ff.im/-4xHTj

@waltal - A hearty Well Done! to @ViNull, RecruitWise, and other people and #CodeStock sponsors. Great event, even if I didn't get a door prize!

@mamund - i talked to eric and gary of www.RecruitWise.jobs (yep, .jobs!) while #codestock. great folks. need some staffing?... http://ff.im/-4xIBE

@cathybrinkman - Returned from #Codestock last night. Enjoyed cool presentations - robotics & XNA; and a lot of WCF, WPF, #Silverlight, MVVM.

@kirstinj - RT @alanstevens: Uploaded my CodeStock photos here: http://tr.im/q4lb

@ViNull - I just figured out what I want CodeStock 2010 to be - damn, I have to wait a year to do this!

@ViNull - #CodeStock 2009 Photos posted http://www.flickr.com/photos/scoregasm/sets/72157620686419596/

@steverb - Joshua in the front row at #Codestock http://www.flickr.com/photos/scoregasm/3668441767 . That's my boy. Hopefully he'll give me a job. #fb

@steverb - Heh. Joshua grills the panel. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scoregasm/3668456545/ #codestock #fb

@rkierner - Classic: on the way home frm #codestock. twice i scared the crap out of sleeping passengers w/ sudden breaking @jamesbender & @gregmalcolm

@cogitu - @BrianPrescott I'll put everything on blog.cogitu.com late tonight, but I'd like to keep things at codestock.org when they get an area setup

@RachelHawley - Woah, I missed a serious pool party at CodeStock. Hope it went off well guys!

@jbaird_pa - And home from #codestock...1412 miles round trip...

@Alric - Home from #codestock . Good sessions. Great community. Awesome event.

@alanbarber - Final round of #codestock photos are up to check out. Includes a few from the friday night social! http://is.gd/1hpcy

FeelTheFunc: EP 9: CodeStock - Starting a Software Company Panel

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:45:30 GMT

This episode was recorded at CodeStock 2009 during the Starting a Software Company Panel. Show Notes at http://feelthfunc.com

FeelTheFunc: EP 8: The Func Review

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:57:32 GMT

In this episode we discuss the launch designs of the DragonTee website. Show Notes at http://www.feelthefunc.com/

ViNull Photos for Monday, June 15, 2009

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:59:59 GMT

Check out all my photos links at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scoregasm/
(Hover over photos for title)

The Desk that Mike’s Dad Built

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:42:28 GMT

Not too long ago, I built a desk to fit the space I had.

Early this year we began remodeling the downstairs room. Remodeling is to gentle of a word, rebuilding is more apt. We turned an open basement that had cheap carpet and wood paneling (walls and ceiling) into a true entertainment zone. Hardwood floors, speakers embedded in the walls, HD LCD TV hung above an entertainment center with an Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3. Reading area, bar with room for a mini-fridge, and my favorite, and office.

My office isn’t huge, but decent sized – I figured I’d have no trouble buying a desk. I was wrong. Desk styles come in two types – amazingly small and ginormus. What I needed was a hybrid, small on one side and ginormus on the other. So I downloaded SketchUp and made a draft of what I wanted.

My father did all of the work (I know when I’m beyond my 10th grade wood shop skills). The movable keyboard tray was his idea, in response to my idea that the desk support two people if needed. The “cable system” I got looking at other desks, and is just a 6” gap between the back wall and desk. The half drawer / half shelf was my own idea, since I often have awkward shaped equipment I need stored around (like microphone desk stands). The tapered edge look I took from listening to Joel Spolsky on StackOverflow. I also used Joel’s discussion of proper posture for dimensions of the desk.

The materials ran about $275, the labor I got a deal on (benefit of being a Son). If you live in the Knoxville, TN area and have need of some custom wood work (or general construction – Dad has also been a major part of the home renovations), let me know and I’ll get you in touch with Dad!

Ann Arbor Give Camp

2009-06-15T14:42:42.000Z

I will be attending Ann Arbor Give Camp! When: Fri Jul 17, 2009 to Sun Jul 19, 2009

I will be taking part in the Ann Arbor GiveCamp, as a member of the Knoxville, TN Team. For details, contact Nathan Blevins at http://nathanblevins.com/Articles/knoxville-Satellite-Give-Camp-2009.aspx

FeelTheFunc: EP 7: Funcnation - America's Podcast

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:40:38 GMT

In this episode we discuss changes made during the coding of the Dragon Tee website. Show notes at http://www.feelthefunc.com

Tri-Cities User Group

2009-06-10T03:19:49.000Z

I will be attending Tri-Cities User Group! When: Tue Jun 16, 2009 6pm to Tue Jun 16, 2009 10pm EDT

I will be speaking at the Tri-Cities User Group

From Zero to XAML - Windows Presentation Foundation is "the most significant technology to come out of Microsoft. Ever." according to Mark Miller. We've all seen the demos of Visual Studio 2008 with Blend to create breathtaking UIs, but what is under the hood? Is WPF useful to the average developer cranking out WinForms applications for internal corporate use? To answer this question we will take a close look at WPF code - without Design Mode or Blend. Warning: This is a no Technotainment Zone!

Meeting will be held at the Rush Street Grill at 1229 E. Stone Drive, Kingsport, TN

SilverLight 2.0: Setting the Background of a Button

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:15:02 GMT

I know, this hardly seems a topic worthy of a blog post. To create a Button in SilverLight like the first in the picture is just:

<Button Content="Stock Button"/>

To set the Background to a dark green, you might assume works (I know I did):

<Button Content="Green Stock Button" Background="DarkGreen" />

In the land of WPF, that would do exactly what you expect, but in SilverLight (2.0, I haven’t tested 3.0) you would get the second button in the image. It’s a nice “touch of green” to the button, but hardly noticeable to most and impossible to see on some LCD monitors. Even if you set the background to Black, it will only darken the gradient a bit.

So what’s the problem? Digging into the SilverLight 2.0 source, the default style for a button is:

<ControlTemplate TargetType="controls:Button">
    <Grid>
        <!-- snipped the 36 lines of VisualStatManager here -->
        <Border x:Name="Background" CornerRadius="3" Background="White" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}">
            <Grid Background="{TemplateBinding Background}"  Margin="1">
                <Border Opacity="0"  x:Name="BackgroundAnimation" Background="#FF448DCA" />
                <Rectangle x:Name="BackgroundGradient" >
                    <Rectangle.Fill>
                        <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint=".7,0" EndPoint=".7,1">
                            <GradientStop Color="#FFFFFFFF" Offset="0" />
                            <GradientStop Color="#F9FFFFFF" Offset="0.375" />
                            <GradientStop Color="#E5FFFFFF" Offset="0.625" />
                            <GradientStop Color="#C6FFFFFF" Offset="1" />
                        </LinearGradientBrush>
                    </Rectangle.Fill>
                </Rectangle>
            </Grid>
        </Border>
        <ContentPresenter
            x:Name="contentPresenter" 
            Content="{TemplateBinding Content}" 
            ContentTemplate="{TemplateBinding ContentTemplate}"
            VerticalAlignment="{TemplateBinding VerticalContentAlignment}" 
            HorizontalAlignment="{TemplateBinding HorizontalContentAlignment}"
            Margin="{TemplateBinding Padding}"/>
        <Rectangle x:Name="DisabledVisualElement" RadiusX="3" RadiusY="3" Fill="#FFFFFFFF" Opacity="0" IsHitTestVisible="false" />
        <Rectangle x:Name="FocusVisualElement" RadiusX="2" RadiusY="2" Margin="1" Stroke="#FF6DBDD1" StrokeThickness="1" Opacity="0" IsHitTestVisible="false" />
    </Grid>
</ControlTemplate>

The issue is the Rectangle with it's own Background is on top of the Grid which has the Background from our button. Also, the Border is hard-coded to White, so even if we handle the rectangle we’ll have a white box padding the content . We can fix this using our own ContentTemplate, but that means also adding all the VisualStatManager stuff to get all the animations that go along with the Button. That’s more effort than I want to put into fixing a Button.

A second method is to subclass Button, and modify the template in the OnApplyTemplate override. I don’t want to remove any of the controls in the template, since that will break the animations, so my fix is to lower the opacity of the rectangle and border so the background shows through:

public class BKButton : Button {

    public override void OnApplyTemplate() {
        base.OnApplyTemplate();

        Border border = GetTemplateChild("Background") as Border;
        Rectangle rect = GetTemplateChild("BackgroundGradient") as Rectangle;

        if (border != null) {
            border.Background = this.Background;
            border.Opacity = .6;
        }
        if (rect != null) {
            LinearGradientBrush lbrush = rect.Fill as LinearGradientBrush;
            if (lbrush != null) {
                lbrush.Opacity = .6;
            }
        }
    }
}

When I use this, it looks like the third button in the image. From XAML you’ll need to add xmlns:local="clr-namespace:MyProjectNameSpace" to the UserControl, and then call this button:

<local:BKButton Content="Green BKButton Button" Background="DarkGreen" />

FeelTheFunc: EP 6: Funcometry

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:18:27 GMT

In this episode we talk about Google Wave, P = NP, managing inventory web 2.0, and database schema. Show notes at http://feelthefunc.com

FeelTheFunc: EP 5: Behind the Func

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:45:23 GMT

In this episode we talk about the podcast itself, and some tips for simple website design. Show notes at http://feelthefunc.com

Code Camp Room Planner

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 04:14:16 GMT

I just finished creating a project on CodePlex for the Code Camp Room Planner, a little app I wrote to help me plan the schedule at CodeStock 2009. I’ve also created some basic documentation.

Background: CodeStock is involving attendees in the planning of the conference. We started out with attendees voting on submissions, and used those votes to select sessions and speakers – the top 20 have ribbons on the sessions list page. The next step is asking attendees what sessions from the accepted list did they want to attend. We can use this data to plan a schedule with the least amount of conflicts.

It sounds simple, until I realized this is a P = NP type of problem. In simple terms, there are problems that are easy to verify a solution yet hard to calculate one. Imagine you had to select 5 prime numbers that add up to zero (negative primes allowed). This would be easy to verify that a set of 5 primes fulfill the requirements by adding them up – the trick is in how to figure out what those five numbers are, and if it’s even possible.

The question is if there is a problem, who's solution is easily checked, does that mean there is a set of steps to find the answer to the solution? Put another way, since I know how to see if one schedule is better than another (by having lower number of conflicts, with the ideal of zero) does that mean there is a method to tell me the best schedule? It’s been called the greatest problem of computer science today, but since Alan Turing isn’t answering his phone I’ll have to put off finding the solution until CodeStock 2010.

So what I did was to schedule sessions by overall popularity, then adjust to see if the total conflicts went up or down. When I started, there were 460 conflicts and I now have it down to 304 (the final schedule is out for review by speakers and should be public Monday). If you download the app you get the CodeStock data as an example – if you can beat 304 let me know! (Email me the “save” data, and also let me know your approach)

FeelTheFunc: EP 4: Funcnomics

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 03:35:16 GMT

In this episode we discuss the mechanics of a tipping point and usability of a website. Show notes at http://feelthefunc.com

FeelTheFunc: EP 3: Building The Funcdation

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:01:10 GMT

In this episode we discuss which technology to build the site on. Show notes at http://feelthefunc.com

Announcing FuncWorks and the Feel The Func Podcast

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:06:49 GMT

A month ago I had a conversation with Dylan about starting a company. We had been having conversations about needing to work on some extracurricular projects – some for friends, some for us. It soon became clear that we would have a constant need for a designer, so we broadened the group to include Cicelie.

FuncWorks is pretty simple – you know those crazy ideas you get to build a site/app/game/service/etc? We’re going to build them. We are not a consulting group, billing by hour and bidding on contracts. We are just a group that will act on these ideas and hopefully one (or more) will stick. In the beginning these will be our own ideas; possible in the future we may join with others to work on their ideas.

Along with FuncWorks, we’ve launched a podcast called “Feel the Func”. The podcast is an open discussion of what’s happening one FuncWorks projects. We’ve just released the first two episodes discussing our first project, which will be a T-Shirt site. (I never said our projects would be earth-shattering!)

Checkout the podcast at http://www.feelthefunc.com

CodeStock: An interesting chart

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Mon, 25 May 2009 00:06:11 GMT

This weekend I’ve been working on the CodeStock budget and projections. Last week we crossed the 2008 mark making CodeStock 2009 officially bigger than CodeStock 2008. My job is to figure out how much bigger, and what that means to the budget.

To help me see where we are headed, I created the chart above of the number of days left until CodeStock plotted against the total registrations to date. I’m surprised to see a pretty constant velocity, I would have expected more of a last minute rush. This constant velocity is a good thing since it makes it east to take a stab at final attendance. My conservative estimate is 325 (I’m not sure what effect the price going to $45 will have on velocity). For the curious, the space can handle 450.

The net result of all these projections is I need to raise another $2,000 for this year’s event. Sponsorship has been hard to come by however, with the economy coming out of a technical depression, or at best “The Great Recession”. That hasn’t hurt demand for CodeStock (or any community led conference from what I’ve seen this year), and hopefully I will be able to use charts like the above to dazzle and loosen marketing budget purse strings.

Speaking of which, if you are in control of marketing budget purse strings, and want to know how to get your brand and product in front of 325 passionate software developers, drop me an email at sponsorship@codestock.org

FeelTheFunc: EP 2: Functastic

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Sun, 24 May 2009 17:40:35 GMT

In this episode we continue creating personas and discuss user behavior. Show notes at http://feelthefunc.com

FeelTheFunc: EP 1: Welcome To The Func

podcast@feelthefunc.com (Cicelie, Dylan, and Mike) — Sun, 24 May 2009 17:17:23 GMT

In this episode we begin planning on the first FuncWorks project. Show notes at http://feelthefunc.com

Some site enhancements for SEO, Gravatars, Xbox, and Zune

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:23:27 GMT

I’ve just updated ViNull.com with a few fixes and additions.

The first change is a fix to my sitemap protocol page. Thanks to Google’s webmaster tools I saw that this page was generating links with and without “www”. Actually, I was using the server variable “SERVER_NAME” to generate the links, so if you hit the site as vinull.com, you got vinull.com links and if you used www.vinull.com you got links starting with www.vinull.com. This can cause search engines to think these sites are different, and hurt results.

While fixing the sitemap, I also added an IIS redirect from vinull.com to the www version of the site. This is quite easy to add, and it’s only my laziness that kept me from doing it sooner. I trimmed links to tag pages with no tags, and added canonical url meta links to help search engines figure out what a page’s official url is.

Last week I read a post by Jim Wooley on Gravatars and decided I needed to add this to my blog as well. All you really have to do is create a hash from the user’s email address – the process is outlined by Jim and the Gravatar site. Jim however clings to a dead programming language, so to save you from searing pain in your retinas here is code building the hash in c#:

public static String GravatarImage(Object email) {
    if (email == null)
        return "http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/default.jpg?s=50";

    MD5CryptoServiceProvider md5 = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider();
    UTF8Encoding enc = new UTF8Encoding();

    Byte[] bytes = md5.ComputeHash(enc.GetBytes(email.ToString().ToLower()));
    String hex = String.Join("", (from b in bytes select b.ToString("X2").ToLower()).ToArray());

    return String.Format("http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/{0}.jpg?s=50&r=G", hex);
}

I the the email in as an Object so when I call the method from an aspx template control, it’s as simple as GravatarImage(Eval(“email”)) where email may or may not exist. The upside to using hashed emails is Gravatar support is retroactive.

Other changes: I added a CodeStock logo, Xbox and Zune cards to the side bar. Now you can see what I’ve been playing both in music and games!

Chattanooga .Net User Group

2009-05-08T20:50:07.000Z

I will be attending Chattanooga .Net User Group ! When: Tue May 12, 2009 5:30pm to Tue May 12, 2009 9pm EDT

I will be presenting "DataSets: Code Less, Do More" -

DataSets are Evil. They will hog your CPU, steal your RAM, and rob your home. This is the story surrounding DataSets, but what is fact and what is myth? In this session we will look at DataSets and the tools that go with them to see how they can save you development time while not crashing the server. We’ll also dive into DataSets in 2008 with LINQ to DataSets and Unit Testing with DataSets.

http://www.chadnug.com/

CodeStock

2009-05-07T14:09:42.000Z

I will be attending CodeStock! When: Fri Jun 26, 2009 to Sat Jun 27, 2009

2009 to Sat Jun 27, 2009

Event Status: confirmed

DevLink

2009-05-07T14:07:38.000Z

I will be attending DevLink! When: Thu Aug 13, 2009 to Sat Aug 15, 2009

2009 to Sat Aug 15, 2009

Event Status: confirmed

12 Reasons Startups Hate Microsoft

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:17:54 GMT

You might be surprised to learn there is still a war going on between Microsoft and Open Source. You probably aren’t.

Robert Schoble made a post back in 2005 listing the reasons why Web 2.0 entrepreneurs don’t use Microsoft stuff. Yesterday Rob Conery touched on the list and asked what should Microsoft do for .Net Open Source? I found the list to still be pretty relevant, as perception is reality, and have added my comments here.

Before I get to the list, I wanted to say it’s okay to flame me and question my motives as I am a Microsoft developer and MVP, and we all know that means I’m secretly paid under the table to spew the Microsoft party line. This is no different from when I spent 5 years as a LAMP developer, and would be branded an Open Source Zealot for saying there was advantages in LAMP. FUD is best when you attack the speaker, not the argument.

Here is the list:

1) Startup costs. Linux is free. Ruby on Rails is free. MySQL is free.

Costs have come down, and Microsoft has many free (as in beer) options. Visual Studio Express and MS SQL Express are free to use for commercial use. Server still costs, but there are programs like BizSpark to get everything for as little as $100 for three years (and you pay the $100 at the end of the three years, nothing up front). Still, I’d think a Web 2.0 startup wouldn’t be looking to self host as the administration and bandwidth costs dwarf software costs, and now there are also cloud options.

2) Performance per dollar. They perceive that a Linux server running Apache has more performance than IIS running .NET.

Windows Server 2003 is a workhorse, and IIS6 has proven itself as well. Would they win in a head to head show down against Apache and Linux? Probably not – I’ve see first hand how well a custom compiled Apache can do and it’s hard for me in imagine it would loose, though I’ve not tested this. The bigger point though is Windows is capable of scaling and bottle necks will likely come from your code before either OS is to blame.

MySQL blows the doors off of all commercial databases in terms of speed. The last time I tested MySQL against MS SQL it was MySQL 3.x and MS SQL 2000, but the MS SQL box was a quad Xeon and the MySQL an eMachine 450 P3. MySQL was 25x faster. I rechecked this for days, I just couldn’t get over how much faster MySQL was. Both products have newer versions, and MS SQL has come a very long way with 2005 and 2008, but I still have to think MySQL carries this torch.

3) Finding tech staff is easier. There are a whole new raft of young, highly skilled people willing to work long hours at startups who can build sites using Ruby on Rails.

In Silicon Valley, CA – yes. Everywhere else, probably not. I’ll flip this around and say finding an open source job outside of California is rare, and it will probably be a telecommute gig. I often joke I had and lost the one python job in East TN. Out here, LAMP/Open Source developer in a job ad is code for “salary 30K max”. (I actually went on one interview to learn they didn’t plan on giving developers vacation or sick time).

4) Perception of scalability. The geeks who run these new businesses perceive that they can scale up their data centers with Linux and not with Windows (the old “Google runs on Linux” argument).

If you are in the business of running a datacenter, and this is less and less becoming something a web startup should be doing themselves (hint: outsource things that distract you from growing the business), virtualization is king. This comes down to VMware versus Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and I can’t get into details because I haven’t used either of them directly. I don’t think either solution is going to be cheap, and again hardware costs will probably trump software.

5) That Microsoft doesn’t care about small businesses. After all, Microsoft is an evil borg, but Ruby on Rails comes from a single guy: David Heinemeier Hansson. He has a blog and answers questions fast.

I read this as wanting free support. I doubt David Heinemeier will guarantee a response to you for leaving a comment on his blog. There are tons of ways to get free support for Microsoft products, and even the .Net source code is available for review if you think you have a framework bug. Microsoft does have paid options for support as well, as do most open source platforms.

6) That open source makes it easier to fix problems and/or build custom solutions. A variant of the old “Google or Amazon couldn’t be built on Windows” argument.

I’m just going to call this FUD and move on. MySpace was started on ColdFusion, sold for $380 Million – I think this pretty much nails the coffin shut that platform doesn’t matter. (MySpace has since migrated to ASP.Net, so there is proof of IIS/Windows scalability).

7) On clients, they want to choose the highest-reach platforms. That doesn’t mean a Windows app. Or even an app that runs only in IE. It must run on every variant of Linux and Macintosh too.

Giving the topic was for Web 2.0 startups, this seems odd. Nothing on a web server dictates what the client must be using, and only a bad developer codes browser specific code.

8) They don’t want to take shit from their friends (or, even, their Venture Capitalist). Most of this is just pure cost-control. I can hear the conversation now: “OK, you wanna go with Windows as your platform, but is the extra feature worth the licensing fees for Windows?”

Unless you are selling to your friends and they make up your target audience, tell them to stfu. If your VC is involved at this level of decision, you don’t have control anyway. Shoppers at Amazon don’t come for the platform, they come for the user comments, product selection, and user experience.

9) No lockin. These new businesses don’t want to be locked into a specific vendor’s problems, er products. Why? Because that way they can’t shop for the best price among tools (or move to something else if the architecture changes).

No matter which platform you choose, you are “locked in” to that platform unless you do a rewrite. If you had chosen MySQL, Oracle now has you “locked in”. If you have a decent code structure, you can change database providers with marginal effort. This may be interesting in theory, but in practice what really matters is the lock in from hosting companies. These are the monthly expenses that can be changed, and it’s pretty easy to move web hosts these days, no matter the platform. In fact, as you grow you should plan on moving from shared hosting, to semi-dedicated or virtual server, to dedicated server packages.

10) More security. The new businesses perceive Linux, Apache, Firefox, and other open source stuff to have higher security than stuff built on Windows.

This was once true, but no longer. Using secunia.com (which sums up security advisories from a number of sources for 2008, IIS6 had 5 advisories and 4 vulnerabilities, IIS7 had 1 each, Apache 2.0 had 39 advisories 23 and vulnerabilities, and Apache 2.2 had 10 advisories and 16 vulnerabilities. Am I saying IIS is more secure than Apache? No, I’m saying that Microsoft “got it” and has vastly improved their security.

11) More agility. I’ve had entrepreneurs tell me they need to be able to buy a server and have it totally up and running in less than 30 minutes and that they say that Linux is better at that.

Really? What kind of testing of that new system is done in those 30 minutes? Funny how security is a concern, yet I doubt any server can truly be installed and hardened in 30 minutes. If you need servers that fast (you can’t wait a day?), then you need to be on a cloud platform. (I’m leaving out the obvious “cloning” method, because that wouldn’t care about the OS).

12) The working set is smaller. Because Linux can be stripped down, the entrepreneurs are telling me that they can make their server-side stuff run faster and with less memory usage.

Again, this is a perceived speed thing. Windows 2008 introduced Core Server, which is a stripped down version of Server for just such a case, but it doesn’t support .Net so I’m going to agree here and say “What the hell Microsoft!?!” (just because I want ASP.Net, WCF, etc as options on Core).

Okay, much of this list is redundant. To boil it down, I see: It’s too expensive, it’s not fast, and it’s insecure. There is also a bit of an undercurrent that it’s just not cool, in which case the others don’t really matter. Personally, I see the debate as pointless – either platform is capable of getting the job done in the general sense. Your specific goal and skills will be a big factor (if you’re a ruby specialist it makes sense to develop in ruby), and at the end of the day will not affect the really important factor – your customers.

Flame on.

Getting a Recursive FTP File List in .Net

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:48:23 GMT

Even though it’s 2009, there are still some dark areas of the internet that haven’t been upgraded to modern standards. FTP is one of them.

FTP is closer to HTTP than you think – results of FTP commands are sent back as plain text. There is no field delimiter, no standard field order, and not even a standard of what data gets returned. FTP was written with the idea that the user is on a text console, and would be reading the messages from the server directly – clients shouldn’t parse results. Still, FTP is in wide use and available on everything from servers to cell phone microchips because it does a good job at moving files.

The problem: You need to get a list of all files on a server using FTP.

The issue: FTP doesn’t provide a built in method to get a recursive list of all files, and provides two basic methods to get lists of files in the current directory. LIST (WebRequestMethods.Ftp.ListDirectoryDetails) gets a list of files and details (formatting subject to the server’s configuration), and NLIST(WebRequestMethods.Ftp.ListDirectory) gets a “name list” which is the same list as LIST, but only returns filenames, and now details.

The result of LIST might look like:

09-18-08  02:11PM             18918524 readme.txt
09-18-08  02:13PM             18918676 Try 2 Parse Me!
05-04-09  02:16PM       <DIR>          I’m a folder

… or it might look like this:

-rwxrwxrwx   1 owner    group        18918524 Sep 18  2008 readme.txt
-rwxrwxrwx   1 owner    group        18918676 Sep 18  2008 Try 2 Parse Me!
drwxrwxrwx   1 owner    group               0 May  4 14:16 I’m a folder

… or something else entirely. That’s the F in FTP – Fun! (Or it could mean F**k’d).

The solution: First I’m vetoing the use of regular expressions. Experience has taught me there be dragons in that namespace and anytime you can avoid a regex, do. Second, avoid recursive functions unless your in a functional programming language. Here we go:

public static String[] FTPListTree(String FtpUri, String User, String Pass) {

    List<String> files = new List<String>();
    Queue<String> folders = new Queue<String>();
    folders.Enqueue(FtpUri);

    while (folders.Count > 0) {
        String fld = folders.Dequeue();
        List<String> newFiles = new List<String>();

        FtpWebRequest ftp = (FtpWebRequest)FtpWebRequest.Create(fld);
        ftp.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(User, Pass);
        ftp.UsePassive = false;
        ftp.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.ListDirectory;
        using (StreamReader resp = new StreamReader(ftp.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())) {
            String line = resp.ReadLine();
            while (line != null) {
                newFiles.Add(line.Trim());
                line = resp.ReadLine();
            }
        }

        ftp = (FtpWebRequest)FtpWebRequest.Create(fld);
        ftp.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(User, Pass);
        ftp.UsePassive = false;
        ftp.Method = WebRequestMethods.Ftp.ListDirectoryDetails;
        using (StreamReader resp = new StreamReader(ftp.GetResponse().GetResponseStream())) {
            String line = resp.ReadLine();
            while (line != null) {
                if (line.Trim().ToLower().StartsWith("d") || line.Contains(" <DIR> ")) {
                    String dir = newFiles.First(x => line.EndsWith(x));
                    newFiles.Remove(dir);
                    folders.Enqueue(fld + dir + "/");
                }
                line = resp.ReadLine();
            }
        }
        files.AddRange(from f in newFiles select fld + f);
    }
    return files.ToArray();
}

This function uses a two step process to parse a directory. First a list of file and directory names is retrieved, then a second call is made to get the details of the files. Yes, there are two calls to the server per directory – this allows a safe way to determine the directory name without heavy parsing of the details string. The use of a Queue avoids the need for recursion.

Notes: This function doesn’t perform error checking and will throw an exception on any error – in my case this is the desired behavior, but YMMV. Also, this method isn’t designed for speed – it’s fast enough for my solution (syncing folders across FTP with some custom logic tossed in), so I’m sure there is some room for improvement.

I posted this because I didn’t find anything in the .Net framework that did this already, and searching I found an overwhelming number of samples using regular expressions. Regular expressions are tricky to get right, hard to read, a pain to test, and in my view are a weapon of last resort when a degree of false positives are acceptable.

Book Review: The Big Idea by Donny Deutsch

michael.neel@gmail.com (Michael C. Neel) — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:11:13 GMT

I’m going to keep this review of The Big Idea by Donny Deutsch and Catherine Whitney very short. Unlike this book, I don’t want my post to be a waste of your time.

This book should have Mr. Deutsch pictured as a cheerleader, or at least with pom-pons, as that is the only value of these pages. Chapter after chapter, paragraphs after paragraphs are filled with inspiring stories of the formula: “meet person x, person x had a [problem|tragedy|dream] and started a company with [little|no] money. Now person x is [a millionaire|going to be a millionaire|a dead millionaire].” There is the occasional “took over dad’s company” side dish for variety.

As a motivational book, it’s pretty good. The problem is someone buying a book subtitled “How to Make Your Entrepreneurial Dreams Come True, From the Aha Moment to Your First Million” isn’t looking for motivation. It’s a pretty safe bet someone buying a book like this is already hip to the idea of starting a company and not looking for a cheerleader, but a coach.

There are two positives I gained reading this book, and I read the whole thing, even after half way in I knew it wasn’t going to get better. (Damn you OCD!) First, there is a great collection of links and sources to real information presented as a substitute for useful content. Second, I will now take a close look at any co-authors listed on a “big star’s” book. Not a knock on Mrs. Whitney, I’m sure she made this a much better read than if Donny flew solo, but looking at the titles she has co-authored it’s pretty clear she is a go-to person if you want to crank out a title to cash in on a name (Donny’s CNBC show, The Big Idea, is a pretty good show).