It turned out that the the Silverlight Debugger was not turned on in my ASP.NET MVC app and turning it on solved the issue. Who knows why it was not turned on after I setup the Silverlight app in the website but anyway.

Here are the steps to turn it on:

- Right-click on the web project from within VS.NET
- Select Properties
- In the Properties window select the Web tab
- At the very bottom of the web tab there is a set of checkboxes for the debuggers that will be enabled for this project. Make sure that the Silverlight check-box is set.

In my opinion, the iPhone and the eco-system around it is the best implementation done by apple to date. It is the result of fine tuning their philosophy of building the hardware and the software with one dramatic twist. It is not their software that is selling the phones.

The app store is the single greatest move apple has made. I don’t know if they or any of the application developers make any money right now but they will.

Microsoft have had a decent operating system for many years and there are tons of applications that have been built on it. People do not know about them though and if you do find an app the process of downloading and installing it is a pain. This coming from a guy that develops software for a living is not a good thing!

Apple took a concept given to them by the community an implemented it from a user perspective perfectly.

From a developer aspect it seems like Apple are very restrictive but they have their reasons. The issue is that many developers are used to working in the Microsoft or Linux world where nothing is imposed on you. Just because Apple are different does not mean that they are wrong. Time will tell if their tactic is right.

As for the phone itself this one is the best one I’ve had. Proof is that I am using it to write this post. Try doing that on most other phones!

The information to solve it ends up being on the Infragistics support forums but it NEVER cm up on any search that I ran. I essentially got lucky by finding it through a a set of links in forum entries.

http://blogs.infragistics.com/forums/p/23539/86168.aspx

Turns out of is a bug, go figure. The workaround plus then setting the width of the underlying column to that width (minus 2 so it doesn not show the scroll bars) worked like a charm.

That’s not the interesting part though…the interesting part is that they are normal 1 plug headphones with a DETACHABLE converter to two plugs so it works on the plane. COOL.

They even want you to use your own headphones. I had thought about buying one but never got around to it. So I sat in First Class (upgraded) on a 3 hours flight from Houston to San Diego and watched The Day the End Stood Still and could actually hear what they were saying! Amazing.

Thanks Continental. Keep on listening.

After some investigation I found a component online which is completely .NET based with royalty free distribution. The component is Cablib by WoutWare. The API is simple and easy to use but provides all the power that is needed for this project.

I did some searching on the web and found this: Free Disk Defragmenter which seems to do a really good job.

It looks like at a low level it copies all the files from the main used area in a temporary space on the disk and then copies then back to de-fragment them. Simple, quick(-ish) and it works like a charm.

Using this and the compacting the VPC image post describing the use of the built in compacter took a 2.5GB installation down to 1.5 GB. Can’t complain at that!

The last time I was sitting on a plane, in coach, trying to get some work done and I came to the conclusion that unless you have a 10 inch screen you are doomed. Especially when the person in front of you reclines their seat.

It is doable but your wrists are so contorted that it is almost not worth it.

I have resorted to angling the laptop up so the keyboard rather than being flat is at a 45 degree angle and the screen ending up at your eyeline…ish. I like it. You are not crammed in and the screen is at a great viewing height, There is one problem though..the 45 keyboard angle. It makes it great for reading email but bad for answering.

I think a plastic, foldable mount that rests on the tray table and angles the laptop would be the answer. It would stop the laptop from moving when you move the keys and could contain an additional USB keyboard under the raised laptop that is flat so that you can type easily.

I bet that business travelers who do not get enough airline status to guarantee First class seats would pay $30 to get something like this. I know I would. 3-4 hours of quiet time with the ability to work is invaluable.

The application is called Dark Room. It is a c# word processing application that has a black background and green text. I know it sounds strange but when your eyes have not adjusted to the light yet this app is wonderful.

I use it for about 30 mins until I can brave using normal bright tools like Outlook. I then simple copy the email(s) I have been writing into new outlook messages and send them. Done.

I stopped doing this a while back as it was hard to type properly but with my new laptop and it’s backlit keyboard (just bright enough – not too bright!) it makes sense again.

Now that most of our clients have moved or are moving it to 9.3 we can actually start using 2008 more often. I am looking forward to some of the technology in 2008 or more specifically .NET 3.0 and 3.5

More on my thoughts as I have them!

It was not a straight Oracle 10g database but rather one that had business logic built in but ultimately it talked with the SDO API to get the features just not using a a spatial filter to limit the amount of data it took out.

The most interesting thing about the code was that it communicated with the client using XML with GML for any geometries that arose. It also communication directly using HTTP so the client did not need any special software or libraries installed. It made for a great deployment model as all requests were handled using straight HTTP calls.

Here’s hoping that I get a chance to write against this API in the future. It was a refreshing change.