tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80708781484875300222024-02-18T21:00:51.871-05:00We will rule the galaxy togetherVisual Studio .NET and Microsoft Access InformationGreg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-12205775764398035132014-10-21T09:54:00.000-04:002014-10-21T09:56:20.370-04:00How I broke my legEveryone seems to be asking how I broke my leg. So let me tell you. The weekend of October 10th and 11th I was at a Christian men's conference called <a href="http://crossmg.org/" target="_blank">Men at The Cross</a>. Men at The Cross is unique. It was developed by Bob Hudson who has masters degrees in biblical counseling and divinity. First you hear biblical teaching, then you are asked deep questions like a biblical counselor would ask (how does this apply to me), then you work on applying it to your life using physical processes. If you have problems trusting God, then you do a trust fall. If you feel like sin is holding you back then they tie ropes to you and you have to break free. It is the coolest men's conference ever, it is like Bible and team sports. At the end of the day on Saturday, you have a victory dance. We were dancing around like a bunch of college kids. That is when I broke my leg. There were about eight guys doing chest bumps like you see NFL players do on TV. I was mid air doing a chest bump and I was clipped by someone else doing a chest bump. I twisted my left leg and then fell down on it. It was an accident. It could have happened to any of us there. <br />
<br />
I can see the grace of God through my broken leg. God works all things for good.<br />
<ul>
<li>I broke my leg and Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, an ER doctor was on staff to treat me immediately</li>
<li>I had brothers surrounding me in prayer.</li>
<li>I had brothers to lay my head on their knee, hands to grip while my leg was being set, and hands to calm me down.</li>
<li>The paramedics arrived in two minutes, despite us being at a camp in the middle of nowhere.</li>
<li>I was able to share the gospel with Ben, Jessica, Ashley, Christine, and Curtis using the <a href="http://evangelismexplosion.org/" target="_blank">Evangelism Explosion</a> and <a href="http://www.whatsmystory.org/#/gfinzer" target="_blank">my testimony</a> which I prepared through Your Story Counts. The short testimony was perfect for the few minutes that I had with each medical practitioner. Thank God our Sunday school class was going through that.</li>
<li>I was blessed to have Dennis Kinlaw work for me for free in the ER.</li>
<li>Brothers came to the hospital to pray.</li>
<li>The surgery was scheduled to occur only twelve hours after I arrived.</li>
<li>The hospital that I was brought to is ranked one of the top ten orthopedic hospitals in the nation.</li>
<li>The hospital room that I was put in was a brand new room.</li>
<li>I was ate, was discharged, and had my pain medication all within 45 minutes. Dr. Kinlaw had me discharged in 15 minutes. Normally it takes 24 hours. Dr. Kinlaw took the script for my pain medication to the pharmacy. </li>
</ul>
God is so good. Here are some before and after pictures of my leg. I have a lot of hardware in there.<br />
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<br />Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-62119473796130922782013-12-16T16:53:00.001-05:002013-12-16T16:53:11.782-05:00How do I get Oracle to work with ASP.NET?I can say that Oracle and .NET is a real pain to get working. Here are some things that took me a while to learn:<br /><br /><b>The Oracle Drivers are un-managed</b><br /><br />Although Oracle has an xCopy version of the drivers, there are still un-managed pieces of the driver. What that means, is that you will need to do a full install of the drivers both on your development machine and the server. <br /><br /><b>The Oracle Drivers are either 32bit or 64bit</b><br /><br />Install the drivers that are appropriate for your web server, either 32 bit or 64 bit. You will also need to have the app pool for the application set to either 32 bit or 64 bit. If you don’t, you will receive this dreaded error:<br /><br /><span style="color: red;">Could not load file or assembly 'Oracle.DataAccess' or one of its dependencies. An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format. </span><br /><br /><b>Download the Oracle Drivers</b><br />Look for the Oracle Data Access Components (ODP.NET) on this link. <br /><a href="http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/index.html">http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/index.html</a><br /><br /><b>Driver Reference</b><br />Add a reference to the Oracle.DataAccess<br />Check if the references if the Oracle.DataAccess is marked to Copy local.<br /><br /><b>Visual Studio 2010 and earlier have 32 bit Casini</b><br /><br />When you run the web application inside Visual Studio, the default web server built into Visual Studio is called Casini. It is 32 bit. So although you may have a 64 bit machine and 64 bit drivers, Oracle will not run in Visual Studio unless you get the 64 bit Casini version. Visual Studio 2012 and higher has a Casini that is 64 bit. It is interesting to note that any MSTest or NUnit tests will be run in 64 bit mode so any integration tests will work. <br /><br /><a href="http://cassinidev.codeplex.com/">http://cassinidev.codeplex.com/</a>Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-76215153370966031722013-12-09T17:05:00.002-05:002013-12-09T17:12:14.277-05:00How to use Teradata with .NETI recently worked on a fairly complex report which pulled data from three different systems. One of the databases used Teradata.<br />
<br />
<h3>
How to use Teradata with .NET</h3>
<br />
<b>1. Download the .NET driver:</b><br />
<a href="http://downloads.teradata.com/download/connectivity/net-data-provider-for-teradata"> http://downloads.teradata.com/download/connectivity/net-data-provider-for-teradata</a><br />
<br />
<b>2. Add a reference to both Teradata.Client.Provider.dll and the Teradata.Net.Security.Tdgss.dll in your Visual Studio Project</b><br />
<br />
<b>3. Create a connection string in the web or app.config. Here is the format:</b><br />
<a href="http://www.connectionstrings.com/teradata/">http://www.connectionstrings.com/teradata/</a><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><connectionstrings> <add connectionstring="Data Source=myDatabase;Integrated Security=true;" name="MyDatabase"><br /></add></connectionstrings></span><br />
<br />
<b>4. Write some code to connect.</b><br />
<i>Example:</i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">using Teradata.Client.Provider;<br /><br />public class Repository<br />{<br /> public void TestConnection()<br /> {<br /> TdConnection conn = new TdConnection<br /> {<br /> ConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MyDatabase"].ToString()<br /> };<br /> conn.Open();<br /> }<br />}</span><br />
<br />
<h3>
Questions</h3>
Q: In order to use Teradata with .NET, do I need to do a full install of the drivers on the web server or do I just need Teradata.Client.Provider.dll and the Teradata.Net.Security.Tdgss.dll?<br />
<br />
A: I found this out by trial. The Teradata driver does not reference any unmanaged pieces so it can be xcopy deployed to the bin directory on your web server.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Q: Why am I getting the error: [Teradata Database] [8017] The UserId, Password or Account is invalid.<br />
A: Put this in your web.config: <br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"><system .web=""><br /> <identity impersonate="true"><br /></identity></system></span><br />
<br />
Q: When am I getting this error: The NTLM authentication token is not supported<br />
A: I don't know why. I had to switch from integrated security to a normal user name and password.Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-91831227890792247662013-06-21T13:24:00.002-04:002013-06-21T13:24:40.853-04:00Sogeti, there is simply no comparison...I always get a good chuckle when I receive the recruiter spam from linked in or calls from other companies asking me to come and work for them. The grass isn't greener; no matter how many times a day Kaleb Dumont sends me an email. Sogeti simply has better opportunities and better benefits. I have many years before I reach retirement. I figured it out this past weekend that I will be able to retire earlier because of the high 401K matching that Sogeti is doing. Here is a theoretical example of how a salary would compare for a developer at another company vs. the same salary at Sogeti:<br />
<br />
<table align="left" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th align="left" valign="top">Item</th>
<th align="center" valign="top">Other Company</th>
<th align="center" valign="top">Sogeti</th>
<th align="center" valign="top">Notes</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">Example Base Salary</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$50,000.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$50,000.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">401K Match</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$1,500.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$4,500.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">Sogeti matches $1.50 per $1.00 up to 6%. Typical companies match up to 3%.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">Profit Sharing</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$-</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$2,500.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">5% profit sharing also goes into the 401K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">Individual Bonus Program</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$-</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$2,500.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$2,500 is the minimum if you are billable for a year</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">Laptop</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$-</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$1,500.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">Dell Lattitude</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">MSDN Universal Subscription</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$-</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$10,000.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">Architect Edition of Visual Studio</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top">Effective Salary</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$51,500.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">$71,000.00</td>
<td align="center" valign="top"></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Also, the health insurance has no monthly payments. It is an HSA with a high deductible. If you are not sick that often, it is a great benefit. Try plugging in your salary and see what you come up with. I would bet you that Sogeti comes out on top. Contact me if you are interested in joining Sogeti.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.kellermansoftware.com/download/blog/Sogeti-Comparison.xls">Sogeti Comparison</a><br />
<br />Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-49513936192690240522013-06-21T12:37:00.000-04:002014-08-05T17:58:01.299-04:00Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 81I haven't had an update for my son Samuel in a really long time. I thought it would be good to share how he is doing. Samuel has completely caught up with major motor skills and fine motor skills. He had a lot of problems jumping at first but now he is jumping everywhere. Samuel's current hurdle is speech. This is due to having a feeding tube down his throat for the first year and also the fact that he was exhausted from breathing with the one normal lung and one lung 1/3 the size. He puked and slept a lot that first year. Samuel recently had a full neurological evaluation. Praise the Lord he is now in the average range for speech. Samuel continues to be in speech therapy, mainly for mom's comfort now. Samuel attended preschool a couple times a week this past year so that he could continue to learn. Soon, Samuel will be attending a pre-kindergarden class all week.<br />
<br />
We are feeling now that we are finally on the last hurdle. Last year Samuel had his tonsils out. The big tonsils were hereditary and not related to Samuel's CDH (Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia). Jasmine had her tonsils out as well. The tonsils were so large that Samuel only had room to swallow food the size of a pea. If we would not cut up food small enough, the food would get stuck and he would puke out his entire meal and then not eat anything. It was typical last year that he would puke at least one meal. Now that his tonsils are out we were hoping that it would be easier to get him to eat. He is still prone to puking, although now it is more a mental thing rather than having enough space in the back of his throat issue. It is heartbreaking to Leyla because she creates meals with such great care to try and get Samuel to eat. If you could pray for Samuel, ask that God would give Samuel the ability to chew and swallow properly so that he can continue to grow. Samuel is 83 percentile in height and 24 percentile in weight. He is a stick. Samuel introduces himself to other boys as "I'm the fastest runner" Whatever food he does eat he burns off because like all boys, Samuel likes to run and climb.<br />
<br />
Personally, I am hoping that we are at the end of the financial distress from all the medical bills. Since Samuel has been born we have spent $6000 to $10,000 per year in medical bills (this is our portion after insurance). In addition to all that Samuel went through, Leyla's body was wrecked by the pregnancy. She had to go to a chiropractor and her thyroid needed to come out because it was over producing. That was an expensive surgery. The speech therapy is not covered by insurance and it was $500/month. I fought with the insurance company for several months to try and get them to pay. Basically, they do not pay because the speech is not affected by the mouth (split tongue, cleft pallet, cleft lip etc). We have a cheaper option now for the speech therapy. We still owe Nationwide Children's hospital around $3000. God willing we are hoping to pay it off this year. <br />
<br />
I love all my kids, and I am thankful to God for all of them. However, when I get a hug from my son, it puts me in remembrance of how thankful I am to have him. Samuel could have be in heaven now instead of having him be a blessing to us. He is full of personality, like most boys cracking jokes with potty humor. He loves remote control cars and trucks. He also likes airplanes and helicopters. I bought him a blue tricycle this summer and that boy rides that thing everywhere. I thank all of you for your prayers and your love. Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-29916009270072474722013-04-12T10:03:00.000-04:002013-04-12T10:03:13.412-04:00My favorite .NET ToolsI have a Java friend that just asked me. What are your favorite .NET tools? Here they are.<br /><br />Resharper. This is a must. It makes it so easy to navigate, refactor, and run tests. <br /><a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/">http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/</a><br /><br />My favorite coverage tool:<br /><a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/dotcover/">http://www.jetbrains.com/dotcover/</a><br /><br />My favorite profilers:<br /><a href="http://www.jetbrains.com/profiler/">http://www.jetbrains.com/profiler/</a><br /><a href="http://www.eqatec.com/Profiler/">http://www.eqatec.com/Profiler/</a><br /><br />Incredible code translation from VB.NET to C# or C# to VB.NET<br /><a href="http://www.tangiblesoftwaresolutions.com/Product_Details/Instant_VB.html">http://www.tangiblesoftwaresolutions.com/Product_Details/Instant_VB.html</a><br /><a href="http://www.tangiblesoftwaresolutions.com/Product_Details/Instant_CSharp.html">http://www.tangiblesoftwaresolutions.com/Product_Details/Instant_CSharp.html</a><br /><br />Beyond compare works great with subversion and TFS for code merging:<br /><a href="http://www.scootersoftware.com/">http://www.scootersoftware.com/</a><br /><br />If you are using subversion, this tool is a must for Visual Studio:<br /><a href="http://www.visualsvn.com/">http://www.visualsvn.com/</a><br /><br />This is a great tool for creating database documentation:<br /><a href="http://www.dbdesc.com/">http://www.dbdesc.com/</a><br /><br />My favorite .NET regular expression editor:<br /><a href="http://www.ultrapico.com/Expresso.htm">http://www.ultrapico.com/Expresso.htm</a><br /><br />My favorite Obfuscator:<br /><a href="http://www.deepseaobfuscator.com/">http://www.deepseaobfuscator.com/</a><br /><br />My favorite .NET Help file creator:<br /><a href="http://www.innovasys.com/products/dx/">http://www.innovasys.com/products/dx/</a><br /><br />My favorite Installer Creator:<br /><a href="http://www.installaware.com/">http://www.installaware.com/</a><br /><br />This is my favorite decompiler right now. <br /><a href="http://ilspy.net/">http://ilspy.net/</a><br /><br />My favorite training site:<br /><a href="http://www.pluralsight.com/">http://www.pluralsight.com</a><br /><br />If you are just getting started with .NET, this may help:<br /><a href="http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/">http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/</a><br /><br />Some of my favorite quick reference sheets for .NET:<br /><a href="http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/">http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/</a><br />ht<a href="tp://refcardz.dzone.com/">tp://refcardz.dzone.com/</a><br /><br />
<h3>
Other favorites not .NET related.</h3>
My favorite notepad replacement:<br />
<a href="http://notepad-plus-plus.org/">http://notepad-plus-plus.org/</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />My favorite paint replacement.<br />
<a href="http://download-paint-net.com/">http://download-paint-net.com/</a><br />
<br />
My favorite windows explorer replacement:<br /><a href="http://www.gpsoft.com.au/">http://www.gpsoft.com.au/</a><br /><br />My favorite link checker:<br /><a href="http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html">http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html</a><br /><br />My favorite directory size tool:<br /><a href="http://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/">http://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/</a><br /><br />My favorite way to run applications on my USB Flash Drive:<br /><a href="http://portableapps.com/">http://portableapps.com/</a><br /><br />My favorite corporate wiki:<br /><a href="http://www.screwturn.eu/">http://www.screwturn.eu/</a><br /><br />My favorite personal wiki:<br /><a href="http://tiddlywiki.com/">http://tiddlywiki.com/</a><br /><br />My favorite FTP and SFTP software:<br /><a href="https://filezilla-project.org/">https://filezilla-project.org/</a><br /><br />My favorite Zip Software:<br /><a href="http://www.7-zip.org/">http://www.7-zip.org/</a><br /><br />My favorite PDF printer:<br /><a href="http://www.cutepdf.com/">http://www.cutepdf.com/</a><br /><br />My favorite ISO mounter:<br /><a href="http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html">http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html</a><br /><br />My favorite cross database editors:<br /><a href="http://www.razorsql.com/">http://www.razorsql.com/</a><br /><a href="http://www.sqlmaestro.com/products/anysql/maestro/">http://www.sqlmaestro.com/products/anysql/maestro/</a><br /><br />My favorite online backup:<br /><a href="http://www.backblaze.com/">http://www.backblaze.com/</a>Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-61267190844968004022012-12-05T09:20:00.000-05:002012-12-05T09:20:13.375-05:00Why you should work for SogetiDuring my nearly 20 years as a developer, I have worked many places. I have been a permanent employee and also a consultant. I have always liked consulting because it not only gives me the opportunity to stay on top of technology, but it also has the benefit of a change in scenery. There is no perfect assignment from heaven; but with consulting you can be assured that whatever you don't like about an assignment, it will end and you will go on to something new. <br /><br />Right now, Sogeti is the best consulting company in Columbus, OH. They have benefits that simply cannot be touched:<br />* Free health insurance. It is a high deductible HSA. If you are not sick that often, then you really make out. The HSA is all pre-tax and it gains interest like a savings account.<br />* Free Vision and Dental<br />* 401K with 6% dollar for dollar match, plus a 5% profit sharing bonus. Essentially if you put in 6% into your 401K you are getting 17% in. That is just crazy awesome. <br />* The 401K mutual funds to pick from are actually very good at Sogeti. I have been at some places where the mutual fund performance is so poor, the employees put all their contributions into bonds.<br />* Three weeks of vacation to start plus seven paid holidays.<br />* Individual Bonus Program. At other companies, I have done many technical interviews in the past, attended user groups, and trainings with not a dime coming from it. Sogeti has a point system where activities are tracked. Surprisingly I have only been at Sogeti since May and I am on track for getting a $2500 bonus. <br />* Life Insurance equal to 2x salary<br />* Short Term Disability<br />* Long Term Disability<br />* Company Laptop. It is a beefy laptop too with a Core I7 with 8GB of memory.<br />* $10,000 Tuition Reimbursement<br />* 4,000 e-courses and 20,000 e-books<br />* MSDN Universal Subscription (That is worth 10,000 with the Visual Studio architect that is included)<br /><br />The first company that I worked for in Columbus went bankrupt around a year after I started. There were 120 people laid off in one day. Ever since then I am ultra sensitive about how my employer is doing financially. In fact they call me the Canary; as in, when the Canary gets out of the coal mine, you had better get out right now. I can't reveal any financials for Sogeti, but I can say Sogeti is growing during the recession. They are impressively beating the financial goals they have set. That coupled with the fact that Sogeti is all over the world gives it inherent diversification and stability. <br /><br />There are many other things that Sogeti has going for it that makes it very attractive:<br />* Positive culture. Everyone has each others back from the President down to the consultant level.<br />* Solution projects are favored over Staff Augmentation. Sogeti's bread and butter is Solutions work, not Staff Augmentation. This equals more exciting opportunities and higher bill rates. The higher bill rate translates into higher salaries compared to other consulting companies in Columbus.<br />* Recognition for hard work and overcoming challenges. Frankly I have been pleasantly surprised at the positive feedback that our team has received. I have been on great teams before at other companies and have received no feedback.<br /><br />The Canary is happy. In fact, when recruiters from other companies call me, I say "No thanks, I am going to stay with Sogeti for the next 20 years."<br /><br />Contact me at greg.finzer at us.sogeti.com if you are interested in coming on board with Sogeti Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-735606548136062952012-10-08T22:04:00.000-04:002012-10-08T22:04:31.448-04:00What I don't like about Windows 81. The double lock screen<br />
To me, it is just plain silly two have two lock screens, one for a pretty picture of a flower with appointments and one to type in your password. The flower and password screens should be combined into one showing appointments, email count, and the password too.<br />
<br />
2. The start menu and desktop are very disjointed. It is all very jumpy. I have a Windows Phone 7 and I love the device. It flows smoothly between the start menu and applications. The start menu on Windows Phone 7 makes sense because the phone primarily a communication and socialization device. The desktop PC is for work; managing documents, creating code, doing research, managing photos and videos. I think Microsoft has the idea that the desktop is the same as the phone. It is not. Going from the new start menu to the desktop is like coming out of the dark movie theater into a bright afternoon day. Shockingly bad.<br />
<br />
4. Does not work with a Microsoft Mouse. <br />
I have a wireless Microsoft Mouse. While it works, it hangs up some of the time. It works fine under Windows 7.<br />
<br />
5. Modifying the pointer speed in the control panel does nothing.<br />
I have a new Dell Core I7 Laptop and the accupoint is as slow as molasses. Windows 8 is nearly unusable.<br />
<br />
6. It does not remember my browser preference. <br />
The first program that I installed was Firefox. When I click on a link in my email it still goes to IE.<br />
<br />
7. There is no red X.<br />
Microsoft has made it nearly impossible to close an application that runs from the start menu. You have to go to the left hand side, find the application, then right click then click close. A far cry from the single click of an X. Bring the red X close button back.<br />
<br />
8. It is nearly impossible to find out how to shut down the PC<br />
For years, Microsoft has trained us to click the Start menu to shut down. Now they have completely lost their minds and have buried the shut down under the settings menu. Nothing says Shut Down like Settings. Really?<br />
<br />
9. Windows 8 didn't recognize an SSD drive. <br />
I was shocked at this really. My older laptop with Windows 7 was able to recognize an SSD drive.<br />
<br />
10. Unless you have used a previous version of Windows you are sunk.<br />
Control Panel cannot be found unless you actually type it into the start menu. I have been using Control Panel for years but is not actually one of the options on the new start menu. While the Control Panel may be found on the desktop side bar, it is not intuitive. You basically have two areas of settings. The settings in the new start menu and the control panel settings on the desktop. Really they should be one. If I am running on the desktop, I want to see all the settings.<br />
<br />
I skipped running Vista at home because of similar issues:<br />
* Microsoft simply renamed or buried things so badly it was nearly impossible to find. <br />
* Hardware incompatibilities<br />
<br />
It looks like I will be waiting for Windows 9 until these issues are fixed. <br />
<br />
I will write a post on the positive things later. I will give Windows 8 one positive thing out of the gate; Windows 8, boots up much faster. It is nearly as fast as an Amiga 2000 in boot up speed.<br />
Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-32063553621923963402012-10-06T08:43:00.001-04:002012-10-06T08:43:28.993-04:00Frequently Asked Questions for Windows 8Yesterday I bought a hard drive at MicroCenter (a Seagate Momentus XT) and swapped out the hard drive in my laptop and installed Windows 8. Here are some of the gotchas I encountered:<br />
<br />
<b>How do I restart in Windows 8?</b><br />
Move your mouse to the upper right hand corner. When the pop up menu appears, click settings, then click power, then click restart.<br />
<br />
<b>How do I shutdown in Windows 8?</b><br />
Move your mouse to the upper right hand corner. When the pop up menu
appears, click settings, then click power, then click Shutdown. By default the power button will put the computer into sleep. To change this, go to the new start menu, type in "Power Options" and change the power button to shut down. Then press the power button.<br />
<br />
<b>How do I get my desktop start bar back on Windows 8?</b><br />
Don't bother with any of the reg edits on you tube, they don't work. You will need to install a third party tool. This is the only one that works that is not in beta: <a href="http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: .HelveticaNeueUI; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/</span></span></a><b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>How do I change the pointer or mouse speed or acceleration in Windows 8?</b><br />
Believe it or not the settings in the new start menu really doesn't do much in Windows 8. In the new start menu in Windows 8, type in Control Panel. Click the Hardware and Sound Link and then mouse.<br />
<br />
<b>How do I find the programs that I have installed in Windows 8?</b><br />
In the new start menu, start typing and search for your program name.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b><b>How do I switch programs in Windows 8?</b></b><br />
The normal Alt-Tab switching is available if you have a keyboard. Alternatively, go to the upper left hand corner with your mouse then go to the tiny tabs on the left. Click on the program you which to switch to.<br />
<br />
<b><b>How do I close a program in Windows 8?</b></b><br />
Go to the upper left hand corner with your mouse then go to the tiny tabs on the left. Right click on the program you wish to close and select close.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b><b>How do I get to my desktop in Windows 8?</b></b><br />
Click the desktop icon.<br />
<br />
<b>How do I get back to the new start menu in Windows 8 when I am on the desktop?</b><br />
Press the windows key.<br />
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If you like this FAQ please tweet and Facebook it to your friends. If you have any more questions about Windows 8, comment to this post.<br />
Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-66158640533307771822012-07-03T19:29:00.001-04:002012-07-03T19:30:07.392-04:00Why I like re-inventing the wheelAdmittedly for my business I follow the Microsoft model of taking an idea that is already out there and then improving upon it. I can remember years ago when there were magazine ads for Word Perfect that had a picture of an open semi truck filled with boxes of Word Perfect software. Word Perfect is a distant memory. Microsoft came along and took that idea and made it better, Microsoft Word. That is what I am trying to do today with my latest piece of software, Knight .NET Data Layer.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.kellermansoftware.com/p-47-net-data-access-layer.aspx">http://www.kellermansoftware.com/p-47-net-data-access-layer.aspx</a><br />
<br />
I don't think developers should have to write basic database plumbing code. Years ago, writing straight ADO.NET code was tedious. The Microsoft Data Application Block made it a little better. Then NHibernate came along. We used it on many projects. Around three years ago I expressed my disgust with NHibernate. Namely, the ugly xml mapping files, the inelegant output of the SQL, the performance of the SQL, and the overt complexity of the setup. I remember distinctly telling Steve Harmon that I was going to write my own ORM. He told me not to; that I should simply extend NHibernate. Steve is a smart fellow, but I decided to write my own ORM anyway. I received several laughs from people saying that I should call the product "Not NHibernate" <br />
<br />
Well years have gone by. There is now Fluent NHibernate which does make NHibernate a little nicer. Although I would have to say that the the convention configuration in Fluent NHibernate is about as crazy looking as creating a regular expression. Using Fluent NHibernate also decreases the flexibility of NHibernate. And of course Entity Framework is now on the scene. To be honest, I would have to say that once Entity Framework came out, I thought about killing my project. I mean the basis of my project was complete automatic mapping. Entity Framework is close. The only thing it does wrong is having to create the DbSet and the DbContext. That is completely unneeded.<br />
<br />
There are more ORMs out there than you can shake a stick at. When I started creating the competition chart for how my ORM stacks up against all others, the list was daunting. Clearly there are a lot of other people and companies out there that have spent thousands of hours and dollars to try to solve the ORM problem. If NHibernate or Entity Framework are the bomb, why would they create another ORM? Because those companies must also consider the problem to be unsolved, otherwise they would not even have tried. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.kellermansoftware.com/download/DotNetTools/Knight-Data-Access-Layer-Competition.xls">http://www.kellermansoftware.com/download/DotNetTools/Knight-Data-Access-Layer-Competition.xls</a><br />
<br />
In believe that I have solved the ORM problem. Knight .NET Data Access Layer is better than NHibernate, better than Entity Framework, better than anything out there that interacts with a database. Here is why:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>ORM without any mapping files, attributes, or convention configuration. Similar to Entity Framework except no DbSet or DbContext. Flexible that you can override default behaviors with attributes, code, or xml mapping files. You choose.</li>
<li>Automatic mapping of straight SQL and stored procedure output to objects without any mapping files. </li>
<li>LINQ to SQL Server, LINQ to Oracle, LINQ to MySQL, LINQ to VistaDB, LINQ to Sqlite, LINQ to MS Access, and LINQ to Firebird</li>
<li>Wrapper for ADO.NET to perform standard operations such as executing sprocs.</li>
<li>Generate databases from namespaces. </li>
<li>Synchronize namespaces to a database.</li>
<li>Generate classes from tables.</li>
<li>Standard patterns built in that we all love. Session factory, unit of work, active record.</li>
</ul>
Let me know what you think about Knight Data Access Layer.<br />
Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-30732628722941741492011-12-20T07:03:00.004-05:002011-12-20T07:44:50.656-05:00How do you retain great developers?There is a difference between an average developer and a great developer. The difference is easy to see. A great developer learns extra on the side by attending conferences, user groups, and has side projects to learn new technologies. Average developers clock out at five and don't touch the computer again until the next morning. Great developers are better than average developers because their knowledge can improve an organization's competitiveness in the marketplace and increase efficiencies for processes which reduce costs.<br /><br />In my opinion here are the top three motivations of a great developer to make them stay:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Challenge with new technology = growth and marketability.</span><br />I met a cashier at a local grocery store. I was shocked to find out he was a former COBOL programmer. He told me he was making 25% of what he had made as a developer and that he couldn't find a job. Since then it is always in the back of my mind that I need to not only learn, but get experience in cutting edge technology or I might become a cashier at a grocery store. Everyone knows that five years from now, companies will be asking for five years experience in whatever technology just came out. If your organization or a consulting assignment is stuck with old technology and there is no plan to move to new technology, your good developers will leave. I have seen this over and over again where consultants are placed on an ancient technology assignment and they leave their consulting company. I have seen entire development departments leave because management made a decision that it was too costly to move to a newer technology. I have seen businesses go under because all of their technical knowledge went out the door. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Treated Fairly.</span><br />Everyone wants to be treated fairly. This can be broken down into three areas:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2a. A developer has the tools necessary to do his job. </span> A PC that is no more than two years old and 8GB of memory, a comfortable chair, a comfortable temperature, two monitors so he can look at requirements on one, and code on the other, and Re-sharper. <br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2b. Performance reviews that are fair. </span>It is not only about having a cost of living increase. Developers need to feel that they are making a difference. If your review process, is 100 metrics with "meets expectations" wording; it is flawed. The problem with a lot of metrics is that great developers will be reviewed as being average. The problem with "meets expectations" wording is the same. Managers can say things like, well I expected you to do great so you just meet expectations. Great developers will be treated unfairly as average developers.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2c. Benefits that are fair.</span> Companies that take away benefits or salary that have been earned by developers through years of service or position in order to save money to look better to stock holders will see an arterial bleed of developers leaving. If there is comp time, it should be one to one; or more than one to one if it is a holiday. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Management that can be trusted.</span><br />I love John Maxwell's book on Leadership. Trust is like earning and spending pocket change. Good decisions earn trust for a manager, bad decisions spend trust for a manager. At some point the last bad decision is made, and the manager is out of pocket change. If the manager is not fired, the great developers simply leave the organization.<br /><br />Are you a developer? What motivates you to stay at a company?Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-68062316342339108522011-11-28T10:17:00.001-05:002011-11-28T10:19:00.664-05:00Ninja .NET Database Pro Version 2 ReleasedNinja .NET Database Pro Version 2 has been released by Kellerman Software. New features include caching, triggers, increased performance and more.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.kellermansoftware.com/p-43-ninja-net-database-pro.aspx">.NET Database</a>Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-63336546825167048872011-08-23T13:05:00.003-04:002011-08-23T13:49:28.673-04:00Batten down the hatches for a double dip recessionWhatever you did with your business in 2009 to keep afloat; It is time to do it again. The double dip recession is coming soon, or we may already be in a double dip recession.
<br />
<br />When Lehman Brothers went under in 2008, my side business took a nose dive off a cliff from a sales perspective. In 2009, sales were down 15%, despite releasing new products and product upgrades. Recently the stock market has been wary of the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating from Standard & Poors and also the threat of the devaluation of the Euro due to the debt crisis in Greece. The media is also responsible for sensationalizing the doom and gloom. All that being said, my business has taken a nose dive again:
<br />
<br />* Sales are off 80%.
<br />* Prospects are virtually silent. Hardly anyone is asking questions about our products. That means future sales will continue to be lower.
<br />* Existing customers are virtually silent. That means customers are doing less projects with our products.
<br />
<br />I love this quote from one of my friends; "The predictions of economists make meteorologists look smart."
<br />
<br />I am not an economist, all I can see is what is happening in my business. I just hope that the information technology sector does not decrease as a whole. Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-34505949345446812792011-06-13T10:40:00.001-04:002011-06-13T10:40:50.263-04:00Vote for CDHVote for CDH Research.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.vivint.com/givesbackproject/charity/3"><img src="http://media.vivint.com/www.vivint.com/en/images/givesbackproject/givesback_banner_468x60_version_1.gif" alt="Vivint is giving away $1.25 Million to charities. Help us win!" width="468" height="60" /></a>Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-52464934482040712852011-05-07T07:57:00.005-04:002011-05-07T10:47:41.709-04:00A Hard Business Lesson Learned at Stir TrekYesterday I attended the Stir Trek developer conference. My company, Kellerman Software was the Refreshments sponsor. It was a fairly inexpensive advertising test, $500 for; a slick in the attendee bag, the company name on the website, a label on the popcorn bags, and the logo in the conference program. The graphics for the slick cost me $114, the slick printing cost $180, the labels $59, the label printing cost $22, and the popcorn bags $36. My wife and I spent two hours putting labels on popcorn bags on a Saturday (our time was considered free). All for a grand total of $911. The goal of the advertising was to get the attendees to purchase a $1400 product for only $99 (Ninja Database Ultimate). The end goal to acquire a new customer that would purchase other items in the future.<br /><br />I watched people as they opened their attendee bags. I noticed that they did not look at any of the other sponsor material. When they saw the Kellerman Software slick, they read it and then put the attendee bag in their backpack or threw the attendee bag on the floor. I was excited to see that at least they had actually read the advertisement. I was hopeful at this point for a couple new customers from this conference.<br /><br />When they received their popcorn, there were a bunch of people all at the same time, trying to scan the QR Code that I had put on the bag. Again I was excited about the prospect of new customers. This is what I heard from the row of seats that I was in and the row in front and behind me (they had no idea I was the Kellerman Software CEO):<br />* What is this thing on the bags?<br />* A $1400 product for only $99? This must be a joke.<br />* It probably cost the sponsor $1400 to put the labels on these popcorn bags.<br />* I can just use my database that I built.<br />* Ha ha, maybe you can sell your database for $600<br /><br />I went on to tell the person in back row that the price wasn't a joke. I asked them if they thought it was a good deal. I told them I was the developer of the database. I could tell they were embarrassed at what they said and they replied with "Oh, great."<br /><br />The person that was sitting next to me had developed a small database to save with JSON. He was upset with me and with Kellerman Software for selling a database. The only features that it had was CRUD. He went on and on about the performance. Of course with hardly any features the performance was high. There were no indexes, no foreign key relationships, no constraints, and no transactions. I guess that is fine if you are not writing a business application. <br /><br />Clearly even though it is only the day after the conference, with reactions like that, I will not be selling a single license of Ninja Database Ultimate for $99. So was the $911 a complete waste of money? No. Why? Because of the lesson that I learned.<br /><br />I thought it was maybe just me, the advertising, or maybe it was just too good of a deal. It was none of that. After lunch I heard a bunch of developers talking in disgust about the lunch presentation. Telerik had paid $2500 for the lunch sponsorship and the ability to give a 15 minute presentation. Telerik is a well respected control vendor that is in the top 10 in sales on component source. Here is what the attendees were saying:<br />* The lunch presentation was a waste<br />* Thank God the proctor in our room lowered the audio to 20%<br />* Phil is a good speaker but JustMock is clearly a rip off of Rhino Mocks<br />* Yeah, I bet if you use reflector you will just find Rhino Mocks in there<br /><br />Hmmmm. So the reaction to a vendor that has just paid for their lunch is not gratitude but disgust? It is shocking that they accused a respected vendor of fraud. What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with the attendees?<br /><br />Most conference developers are business ignorant. The attendees, all software developers, have no idea about conference costs; nor should they. One CodeMash attendee said it best, "Wow these are pretty good buffets for only $110" It costs thousands of dollars to put on a conference. Without the sponsors it would be impossible to put them on.<br /><br />Some developers believe all software should be free. A lot of the developers at these conferences are at the top of their game. They are always learning something new, they love open source projects, and have their own open source projects. There is a prevalent anti-commercial software attitude at these conferences.<br /><br />Some developers are dishonest. Since the developers believe the software should be free they daily violate copyright laws by downloading pirated movies and running pirated software. I overheard one developer say recently that he had to start deleting movies from his 2 Terabyte Hard drive because it was filling up. One developer smirked as he said he was still "Evaluating" TestDriven.NET...forever. It doesn't stop at developers, IT managers are dishonest too; I have seen a lot of license violations over the years; a company buying a single developer Infragistics Suite license and using it for 10 developers, a company buying a single user license of Active Reports and using it with three developers. I still remember being laughed at when I told the other developers on my team that I bought WinZip to be honest. They continued to use the 30 day trial for months.<br /><br />So some of the conference attendees, are business ignorant, dishonest, free loaders. So should this be my target audience? No! No! No! It took me 6 years to figure this out! Wow I feel so stupid just now connecting the dots. My business should target other companies and not developers. I should have known this from all my other advertising tests:<br />* Did the $10,000 I spent in print advertising work? Not a single person bought.<br />* Did the $2500 web advertisement on Code Project work? Not a single person bought.<br />* Did the $2000 SharpToolbox web advertisement work? Not a single person bought.<br />* Did the $2500 email advertisement on Code Project work? Not a single person bought.<br />* Did the $911 I spent at StirTrek work? Not a single person bought.<br />* Did Scott Hanselman's tweets work? Not a single person bought.<br /><br />I asked one of the developers there if he was going to buy and he said "That is a $100 I don't have." The funny thing is he paid $35 to attend the conference and took the entire day off work to attend. I bet he gets paid more than $8.13 per hour.<br /><br />Developers don't buy, companies do. Developers recommend but if you try to sell to them they are flat out angry. So with all this information I am going to change my strategy. I was originally intending to sponsor the local CONDG meeting and do some free give aways. The next goal was to sponsor and do give aways at all the INETA groups in North America. I can now see the reaction to that would not be gratefulness but disgust. Developers simply do not like being sold to at all.<br /><br />Obviously the other control vendors in my industry haven't figured this out yet either as they are still ignorantly throwing money away by sponsoring these conferences. If someone from Telerik, Infragistics, or Component One is reading this, it would be best to stop throwing advertising into these conferences as it does not work. If you can, track sales for the conference; guaranteed it will be zero.<br /><br />So you may still have the question in your mind. Is Ninja Database Ultimate really worth the $1400? No, actually it is worth $17,000. Over a period of 9 months I wrote 600 unit tests and paid a group of developers $17,000. Yeah, $99 for a $17,000 database is not that great of a deal.<br /><br />Thus ends my rant. Thank you for allowing me to vent.<br /><br />Comments?<br /><br />#stirtrek @stirtrekGreg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-57529148062118952792011-01-11T16:04:00.002-05:002011-01-11T16:06:17.779-05:00Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 80Ugh, I just realized that I had updated Facebook but not the blog. Samuel came home on Christmas Eve. He is doing well. He is about 75% physically and emotionally compared to before. He is improving every day.Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-50563184202799769972010-12-23T13:55:00.002-05:002010-12-23T13:58:10.013-05:00Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 79They took out the NG tube from Samuel last night. He started taking clear liquids this morning. If he drinks enough they will take out the IV.Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-27416896385621875482010-12-22T15:20:00.003-05:002010-12-22T15:32:01.624-05:00Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 78Praise God, Samuel had two bowel movements today. He is also completely off oxygen. They also turned off the suction from the NG tube. The surgery practitioner said the NG tube could come out as soon as tonight. The next step is to wait a while and then they will start giving him clear liquids by mouth. Leyla's uncle and aunt are flying in from Puerto Rico tonight to help and to celebrate Christmas. It is going to be difficult not having Samuel at home for Christmas. The giant bull dozer toy is going to stay under the tree until Samuel comes home. We are very pleased with his progress. Thank you for your prayers and kind words.Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-5761918756345166332010-12-21T11:32:00.001-05:002010-12-21T11:33:40.547-05:00Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 77Samuel is doing as well as can be expected. They have reduced his oxygen from 1 liter to .2 liter which is great. Yesterday he was getting about half the pain medication of the day before. Today he is off the continuous feed of pain medication and it is just as needed. We are walking Samuel around 3 times a day to try to get his intestines moving again. He will be given pedialyte as soon as he passes gas or has a bowel movement. I know this sounds like a funny request but could you pray that he passes gas or has a BM. That is the next phase of his recovery. He really likes to be held. Leyla and I are taking turns. More later.Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-30310802997786420522010-12-19T08:59:00.003-05:002010-12-19T09:29:23.778-05:00Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 76The surgeons rounded today and I was able to ask them several questions. I am also going to try to answer some of the questions each of you have posted on facebook.<br /><br />Did the vomiting cause the hernia or did the hernia cause the vomiting?<br />The intestine went up through a hole in the diaphragm and twisted. When the food got to the twist, it couldn't pass and caused the vomiting. The intestine went up in there over a period of months. This isn't something that happened overnight.<br /><br />Why did the surgery take so long?<br />There was a lot of scar tissue on the liver from the previous surgery. The liver was actually attached to the intestine and to the abdomen wall. They had to cut the scar tissue off the liver and the intestine. The intestine was also attached to the abdomen wall. Samuel had to have a blood transfusion during surgery because his liver bled when they removed the scar tissue.<br /><br />How big is the patch in the diaphragm?<br />On Samuel's right side, he has hardly any material left in his diaphragm. He does have a small rim but it is now mostly a gortex patch there. See the picture I posted on facebook.<br /><br />Why is Samuel on so much oxygen?<br />Samuel is on a full liter of oxygen because he is breathing fast due to the surgery. The NG tube down his throat is also bothering him. To give you some history Samuel was completely off oxygen in January. Before that he was getting .2 Liter just at night.<br /><br />How long is Samuel going to be in the hospital?<br />He is going to be here for 7 to 10 days or until he passes gas or has a bowel movement.<br /><br />How long is it going to take for the incision to heal?<br />6 weeks.<br /><br />When is he going to be able to eat again?<br />A few days.<br /><br />There are two goals for today:<br />1. To remove the Foley (a Foley is like a catheter for boys). They just did that this morning.<br />2. To have him walk. Samuel's intestines are in shock from the surgery and we need to wake them up to get them working again.<br /><br />Thank you for your prayers.Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-54641384928568332142010-12-18T15:18:00.002-05:002010-12-18T15:57:18.450-05:00Samuel Kenneth Finzer Update 75Leyla and I are in total shock and in kind of a daze. Forgive me if this post is incoherent. Samuel had three days of vomiting a week and a half ago. We took him to the ER and they said that there is a really bad virus going around. After a shot for Nausea Samuel recovered and had about four days where he was feeling well. We had a wonderful birthday party for Samuel. This past Wednesday Samuel started vomiting again. On Friday morning he was bent over screaming in pain. Leyla took him to urgent care at 12:30pm. I arrived at 1:30pm. They determined that Samuel was dehydrated and sent us to the ER for a fluid IV. After several hours they took an X-Ray and determined that Samuel had re-herniated. A couple loops of intestine had gone up into the chest cavity. He had surgery at 8:30pm to put the intestine back into the abdomen and sew up the hole. They were finished about 12:15am. The surgery took several hours because of all the scar tissue from the previous re-herniation. (Samuel had his second re-herniation in April 2010.) This time they put a gortex patch in his diaphragm. Hopefully this will prevent future rips in the diaphragm. Samuel is in the hospital now. They have him on morphine for the pain and an anti-itch medicine for the side effect of the morphine. He is also on 1 liter of oxygen in a cannula. His lungs are fine but he just needed some extra oxygen after the surgery. He is running a temp and they are giving him Tylenol for that. Samuel isn't too happy since he also has an Nasal Gastric (NG) tube down his throat to take out the fluid that accumulated in his stomach during surgery. Samuel is out of the NICU and in a regular room at the hospital. He will be in here a week since they had to reopen the incision plus a little more.<br /><br />We are living this verse today:<br /><br />And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose. <br /><br />Thank God that the herniation was found before something worse happened.<br />Thank God that my work was let out early on Friday and I was able to be with Leyla.<br />Thank God that a surgeon was available to do the Surgery on the same day.<br />Thank God for Gary and Linda Fisher who stood by our side in the Operating waiting room.<br />Thank God that Leyla's mom is on vacation and is able to help with the girls.<br />Thank God that Leyla's uncle is coming for Christmas on Wednesday so we will have even more hands to help.<br />Thank God that there is no RSV going around and the kids can visit Samuel.<br /><br />Thank you for your prayers.Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-46977711043405735392010-12-16T09:10:00.003-05:002010-12-16T09:31:18.516-05:00Sharing Calendars in Windows Phone 7My wife and I have two windows phones with separate windows live ids. We want to share calendars. This is especially important for us with all the doctors appointments that my son has.<br />The 1.0 version of Windows Phone 7 does not allow you to use the calendar sharing in either hotmail or live mail. I have confirmed this with Microsoft. (See <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2430181">calendar syncing</a>). It also does not allow you to do calendar sharing with separate gmail accounts. You also cannot share a single hotmail calendar when you have two separate live ids. Google to the rescue. You can use a single gmail account and link it to two phones.<br /><br />Here is the process:<br />1. Create a gmail account.<br />2. On both phones, in the windows phone settings add the gmail account. Under content to sync, unselect everything except Calendar.<br />3. On both phones, go to the calendar, click on the elipsis at the bottom and click on calendars. Disable the windows live calendar and make sure the google calendar is on.<br /><br />That is it.<br /><br />Enjoy.Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-85232041270181533712010-11-09T06:28:00.003-05:002010-11-09T07:28:07.551-05:00Dell X51V vs HTC HD7 Windows Phone 7 Part 1I have been waiting a long time to upgrade from my Dell X51V to a smart phone. If you are not familiar with the Dell X51V, it is a Windows Pocket PC with wireless but no phone capability. <br /><br />Overall (WP7) Windows Phone 7 is a great phone OS. It is rock solid. I have had zero lock ups or crashes on my first day of using it about 5 hours. It succeeds Microsoft's goals of "Always delightful" and "Incredibly Mine". <br /><br />The phone set up was easy. It brought in all my contacts from hotmail, gmail, and facebook. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>I am very impressed with the live tiles and how WP7 handles email. It is easy to delete unwanted messages and get right back out. In fact deleting gmail in the phone is easier than web based gmail itself. You don't accidentally go into the message when trying to delete a lot of messages.<br /><br />The browser is incredibly smooth and fast. It supports multiple tabs and it remembers the tabs when you go back in. My bank already supports WP7 so it is easy to check balances and make payments. The funny thing is, the Windows Phone 7 forums look horrible on wp7. <br /><br />The ME tile on WP7 is cool. It allows you to see updates to Windows Live and Facebook. You can change your picture and change your status here. However, it is missing a lot of things. It is a phone and there should be a My Phone Number. It should also have my address if the phone is lost. It should also have an ICE (In Case of Emergency) phone number. It is also missing twitter integration. <br /><br />The text messaging works great. It corrects words as you type. I like how it indents replies. <br /><br />The camera is a 5MP camera. It has no image stabilization so it is nearly impossible to take a non-blurry picture. However the video is better than expected for a phone. It is way cool how the phone automatically syncs your pictures to skydrive. The pictures hub works well to organize your photos. <br /><br />The voice recognition is incredible. It does not require any training, it recognized my voice right away. <br /><br />Compared to my Dell Axim X51V, my Windows Phone does lack a lot of things that I use every day but it was just released yesterday. <br /><ul><li>All the notes in Outlook that I had cannot be synced to Windows Phone 7</li><li>Outlook tasks cannot be synced<br /></li><li>Windows Phone 7 has One Note built in but it does not Sync To Sky Drive. I guess I will be using evernote.<br /></li><li>There is no To Do List application that syncs to the desktop.</li><li>There is no blue tooth keyboard for the phone like the stow away keyboard for the Axim.</li><li>There is no eWallet type application that syncs to the desktop.<br /></li></ul>On my Axim I get about 2 hours of continuous usage. Battery life is about 3.5 hours of continuous usage on the HTC HD7 where I was browsing the marketplace, downloading applications, installing applications and removing applications.<br /><br />It looks like WP7 marketplace is following in the footsteps for the iPhone marketplace. Over a thousand applications on launch day is impressive. However, 90% of the applications are crap. Most paid applications have no trial.<br /><br />More to come...Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-52314659713249607212010-09-17T13:48:00.004-04:002010-09-17T13:52:10.531-04:00Free Ninja Database Lite ReleasedAfter much hard work and expense, the database that we have been working on is finally complete. Ninja Database Lite is an object database for Windows Phone 7, Silverlight, and .NET. I have decided to release the lite version for free until October 31st, 2010.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.kellermansoftware.com/t-ninja-forums.aspx">http://www.kellermansoftware.com/t-ninja-forums.aspx</a><br /><br />Any feedback would be appreciated.<br /><br />Thanks,<br />GregGreg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070878148487530022.post-50613781474535514892010-09-10T08:40:00.004-04:002010-09-10T08:47:20.788-04:00NUnit Test Runner for Windows Phone 7After finding a bug in Windows Phone 7 Isolated storage I decided to create an NUnit Test Runner for Windows Phone 7.<br /><br /><a href="http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsphone7series/thread/b65105cf-cac1-409d-a742-ec93638788fe">Isolated Storage Bug</a><br /><br />I am creating a two different databases for Windows Phone 7. I have almost 400 unit tests but no way to run them in the emulator.<br /><br />Here are some initial screen shots.<br /><br />This is the list screen. You can click on an item to get the stack trace.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.kellermansoftware.com/images/blog/NUnitRunnerList.png" alt="" border="0" /><br /><br />This is the detail screen with the stack trace.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.kellermansoftware.com/images/blog/NUnitRunnerDetails.png" alt="" border="0" /><br /><br />Any feedback would be appreciated.Greg Finzerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12920629780529451188noreply@blogger.com2