daily

SL2 Embed

2008-11-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

Test Live Embed

2008-10-10T23:04:00.000-07:00

Test video embed

2008-09-12T15:08:00.001-07:00

Back at last

2008-05-08T08:08:00.001-07:00

I finally decided to spend the 10 minutes to get my blog back up and running.

Hopefully I can move off blogger soon but that will take some free time :P

Testing another Embed

2007-11-13T10:52:00.000-08:00

Am I that good?

Soapbox Embedding

2007-11-06T14:49:00.000-08:00

Video: Lizard Kong Fu!

Believe

2007-09-29T08:13:00.001-07:00

http://beta.channel9.msdn.com

Silverlight on 9

2007-09-26T18:41:00.001-07:00

First, a video by Adam about using a piece of Expression Encoder to create the Silverlight player on Channel 8. I explain how we use BasePlayer.js to get everything we need out of a player instantly. Check me out in my office chatting up the camera.

Second, try out the addition Duncan made to Channel 9 to allow you to use Silverlight now! It's based on the player we use on the Channel 9 Beta. And by "based on" I mean "is."

I've taken to calling the live version of Channel 9 "9 Classic" to eliminate confusion as we talk about the coming Beta update internally. Let's see if I can get it to catch on :)

New Router

2007-09-20T22:17:00.001-07:00

Got me a Linksys WRT150N from Best Buy. I've been on 802.11b only for quite a while so it's nice to be on something faster :)

Technorati Tags: network , 802.11

Looking up my own KB Article

2007-09-20T08:25:00.001-07:00

MagicFolder has a smart client piece that is used to push the videos users want to publish up to the server for encoding and uploading. Being a former ClickOnce design time dev, I deploy and update the application with ClickOnce. I love the technology mostly because I don't have to think about deployment issues: it just works.

Today I went to push an update of the client for the first time in a few months. Suddenly I get an error that "The certificate is not valid for signing." Crap. You see, I had used the default Visual Studio option of creating a temporary certificate that lasts for a year and is self-signed. I checked the metadata and sure enough: it expired in August.

No problem, just make a new one right? Wrong. ClickOnce will error if you deploy a new version because as far as it's concerned you've created a new program. Your manifest files are assemblies much like your DLLs are. They have a strong name and key pair used to sign them is the one bound to your certificate. You need to create a new certificate but re-use the same key pair. It's possible but annoying.

Enter my KB article. Before I left the VB team, we actually started to see this from Beta early adopters. To head this off, I wrote a little C++ app that would take a PFX file, get it's key pair from Windows, and issue a new self-signed certificate using that key pair. I had learned quite a bit about the certificate API's from working in the bowels of Visual Studio so it took me just a few hours. I wrote up the steps on how to compile and use the code sample and after my QA team gave it the thumbs up (thanks David and Elizabeth), we sent it out to the world.

This morning I looked up that same article to get my code again so I could fix up my cert. By default it creates a cert that's good for five years from the day you run the renew app. Never wanting to think about this again, I changed that to 25. My app published, updated, and all is well with the world.

Here's the article if you'd like to take a look:
You receive an error message when you try to update a Visual Studio 2005 ClickOnce application after the certificate that was used to sign the installation expires

Technorati tags: EvNet, MagicFolder, ClickOnce

Silverlight Player

2007-09-19T10:38:00.001-07:00

Yup, it was me. Thanks to the Expression Media Encoder team for making a sweet class that makes video players a lot easier to write.

Once we get this out to VisitMix and 10 I'll be able to drop the least stable part of MagicFolder from the process: creation of the streaming MP4 file. Good times.

Technorati tags: Channel 8, EvNet, MagicFolder, Silverlight

OneNote is the new Wiki

2007-09-18T14:54:00.001-07:00

I'm a *huge* OneNote fan. I use it for day to day planning, check lists, and even planning equipment for my WoW character. Our team needed a information collaboration solution so of course I turned to this awesome app.

We have one shared notebook that we use for all our info: EvNet Shared. It's stored up on our team Sharepoint site so we can get at it from any machine on the network. OneNote operates off a sync model so you can make plenty of offline changes then simply connect and sync. I take advantage of this for my personal use as well and keep a notebook on a thumbdrive which I sync to my work laptop and home laptop.

I think I may give Groove a look as well but for now, OneNote is king.

Technorati tags: EvNet, OneNote, wiki, organization

Actual Play

2007-09-15T11:17:00.001-07:00

I play in a table top game using a system called Burning Wheel. The game is called Forsaken and it's been a ton of fun to plan and play in.

I just wrote up what we in the internets call an "Actual Play" post. You summarize you game in a forum thread and talk about what you liked, what you didn't and generally share your game with others. I've read quite a few to get a sense for games and RPG theory ideas but I never wrote one until now.

Thanks to Sons of Kryos, best RPG podcast in my mind, for hosting their boards for my post: Forsaken: The Academy. Let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags: Burning Wheel , actual play , sons of kryos , RPG

Trying out tags

2007-08-29T09:36:00.001-07:00

Blogger calls them "labels" but whatever. :P

SkyDrive

2007-08-15T11:06:00.001-07:00

Testing out some embed stuff...

A Movie inspired by a Game about Real Life

2007-05-25T08:56:00.001-07:00

Fox has the rights to The Sims movie.

Just... wow...

Where the real magic is

2007-05-16T09:46:00.001-07:00

So someone has released a Sidebar gadget called MagicFolder. (Source: The Office Support Blog).

As none of you know, that's the name for the video conversion pipeline I wrote for our team over at EvNet (Channel9 and Channel10). The idea was you'd drop in a video and then it would automatically create all the right formats and whatnot and push it to all the right servers. The final implementation also sends up a small XML file with instructions but it lived up to it's promise.

Now someone is stealing my thunder? Lame.

Help stop Duncan

2007-05-15T16:30:00.001-07:00

You too can help bring down Duncan's website!

Joystiq has already put a hit out on his server. Get his Twitter app and help kill his hosting bill!

(On a serious note, it's pretty lame that all the comments on the story are about some other site.)

Foom 70

2007-05-13T17:22:00.001-07:00

Booyah!

Mogonar is 70

Now time to get some gear and start raiding.

Success is silence

2007-05-08T10:18:00.001-07:00

Jeff just blogged about how they pushed 50 interviews up to VisitMix.com. He gave me some of the kudos for making it happen as well as giving a pretty good explanation of the process.

The video conversion tool that I wrote last year (MagicFolder, for those in the know) hummed along pretty peacefully through the whole process. There was one consistent problem: QuickTime kept wanting to update. I use the ActiveX control in our app to generate the streaming MP4 file. Once a day, that app would hang and pause the whole pipeline until I logged in, closed the app, and made the file manually. I've since fixed the problem but it took me about 20 minutes a day thru Mix to fix this.

So I think the tool did pretty well. I set up all the other process as well (the terminal server, found the FTP site, etc.) and that went along pretty smooth. All in all, I had no idea we pushed up that much content at Mix. That, to me, is the best indication that the tool is working.

Chemical Reactions

2007-05-02T08:13:00.001-07:00

There's some funny here but it will take me a bit to get there so bear with me.

I was on digg's blog reading about the recent HD-DVD thing going on. I went to their homepage for the first time in a while and the top story was Why Christians have sex before marriage. Being someone who cares too much about these things, I clicked the link and read the entry. The blog post is nothing to write home about, pretty standard forbidden fruit theory by someone who took intro psych. I was pretty good at intro psych myself (ask about my hippocampus!) but I try to keep that to myself.

Anywho, I started reading the comments. Pretty standard stuff from Christians and non-Christians alike agreeing with him. A few were from abstinence pledgers who chimed in with an "I agree! But not me!" which sounds like a standard teenage response (learned that in intro psych!). Then this post and response caught my eye:

The fear of guilt and the fear of God isn't exactly a great way to motivate kids to not partake in sex before marriage. I don't even think that's how God himself would go about it. The whole reason is a sane and rationale one: It's a tool to bond two people together. A chemical reaction happens in a female three times in her life - When she gets married, when she has a baby, and when she nurses. This chemical reaction causes a bonding sensation beyond her control. I'm 22 and not married and still a Virgin and I'll be damned if that chemical reaction happens outside a committed relationship. Devastation would ensue. I already saw what getting too close emotionally can do outside a committed relationship... I can't imagine adding a physical closeness that only intensifies the emotional element. God isn't about making rules to make life suck... I think he set up rules to protect us from harm.

The reply:

What is this chemical reaction you speak of that happens to "a female three times in her life"? As a gynecologist, I'd love to hear about mysterious chemical reaction that I've never seen before in any literature, because I'm certain it would profoundly affect my work. Would you be so kind as to back this up with some form of medical reference?

Actually got me laughing out loud a bit. Let's make sure you got all the parts that were funny:

This "chemical reaction" is a myth.
By her own criteria, having sex outside of marriage would not induce this magic effect. It's married, baby, and nursing.
Virgin should not be capitalized.
If God created everything, he created everything. He may have made the rules to protect you from harm but he made the harm too.

Author's Note: This post makes me seem like a huge ass. Sorry about that...

Mordent Orb Lives!

2007-04-02T10:33:00.001-07:00

When I was in college a friend of mine and I decided that we should start a band. Quickly realizing that our pooled musical talent would be put to shame by a 5th grade orchestra we resigned ourselves to simply adopting a band name. Band names are cool and give you a great story to tell your friends with out actually having to produce music.

Our band? Mordent Orb.

When I got Guitar Hero for my PS2 and it asked for a band name, the choice was clear. Now I hear that Harmonix has annouced Rock Band.

Look for Mordent Orb flyers around Seattle this holiday season.

Kalifornia?

2007-03-26T10:23:00.001-07:00

Random MSNBC article suggests that some Westerners view the state as desctuctive as the Indian goddess.

Some are fighting back.

Official Jetpack day apparel

2007-03-23T10:35:00.001-07:00

This is supposed to be the future... from Threadless

Sexy Pack also from Threadless

Now you'll be ready for next year.

What is this, jetpack day?

2007-03-23T10:16:00.001-07:00

Duncan mentions Jetpac Refueled and PA talks about the Rocketeer.

Did I miss a memo?