Update: There seems to be an issue with recurring events that are NOT set up by you. This is a huge inconvenience. Hopefully the Google Calendar team fixes this soon as this renders this sync tool un-usable as most of my recurring events are set up by others (Project Managers).

Google dropped the Outlook Calendar Sync yesterday. You can see the alert in your Google Calendar.

The great news is that it offers a two way sync between Outlook and Google Calendar. As a consultant, this is great. I can now have a synced calendar between my different clients an my personal life. I can sync my clients outlook (dfelker@example.com) with my personal calendar and then sync my work Outlook with my personal. Therefore I have a master calendar that is updated at all times. Regardless if I'm at the client, logged into their domain, or logged in at the office, or at home, I get the reminders and notifications I need. No more checking 3-5 calendars to make sure I do/don't have a meeting that day. :)

As you may or my not know, you can have Google Send you text messages for calendar events every morning as an Agenda. So when  you wake up, it will be waiting for you in your cell as a text message.

What it looks like installed:

I downloaded it and it places an icon in your tray that looks like this:

When the calendars are sync'ng up, this icon is displayed:

Yup, that's right. Team Foundation Sever told me TOO BAD, SO SAD, GO AWAY, TRY AGAIN ANOTHER DAY. What a great way to start a Monday. Oh, any by the way, we have an emergency release that might have to get pushed out. We're waiting on upper management to make the final decision... fun-fun it is.

Photo By: Auntie P

This weekend I rebuilt my machine. I have a Dell Inspiron 6400 Laptop and it came loaded with Vista Business (and TONS of junk-ware I don't need/nor care about). The one thing I love is that to restore back to factory settings only took about 10 minutes. Yes, 10 minutes - that's craziness. Most rebuilds take hours (unless you're using Ghost or something like that). There is a little partition on the drive that has the factory restore files on it. Just boot into the boot menu during start up (F8) and then choose restore to factory default and you'll have a factory machine within 10 minutes, total awesome-ness.

After I spend the next 6-8 hours installing VS2005, VS2008 (yes, I need both, some clients will only have VS2005 and the solution files in VS2005 and VS2008 are different, by a line), Office 2007, and my list of tools that are close to Hanselmans tools list I finally was ready to get back to work on Monday. I came in today and tried to connect to TFS (2005). Nope. Not going to happen. Here's the error:

 

TF31002: Unable to connect to this Team Foundation Server (...) Please contact your TFS Administrator.

 

Me: *Expletive*

Great, I am the TFS administrator. I have FULL access rights to TFS, I AM THE ADMINISTRATOR!! I have no idea why this would happen. I was able to connect last Friday, on Saturday before the re-install and team members are working against TFS as I speak. Then I rebooted, tried a few other things. Checked Windows firewall and a few other places. Nope. Still didn't work.

Me: *Expletive*

The Fix

I had a hunch this was caused by some type of interception of a call to TFS. I then decided to uninstall Macfee Anti-Virus because, well, because I can't stand anti-virus software that bloats my system. After the always-required-reboot, I started up VS2005 and tried to connect to TFS.

It worked.

I wanted to know if anyone else had this problem so I did a little poking around and I found this thread on the MSDN forums. It looks like this is the EXACT problem that I had.

Oh what a joy AV software is. Actually, I can't stand it - not one bit.

Photo By: just_skizo

Being a consultant has its challenges and conference calls can be one of them. If your company does not offer a conference line for you, or perhaps you're a consultant or freelancer yourself, hosting conference calls can be a challenge and costly if you're not aware of how long the call is going to be.

Thankfully there are other options. Below is a small list of some of the free conferencing utilities available on the net. Each offer their own set of unique options.

Update 2008-02-29: Rondee's founder contacted me and wanted everyone to know:

I'll be happy to provide a demo of Rondee to any of your readers.  They can reach me at andre [at] rondeeinc [dot] com.

Andre D. Vanier
Founder, Rondee

Thanks Andre!

Free Services

• Rondee.com
  • Free Services Offered:
    • Scheduled Call: Conferences are scheduled ahead of time.
      • Web Based Caller Management (viewable to all)
      • Automated Email Invitations
      • Organizer can opt to record the call and all attendee's can download later - oh man, this would be so helpful in those situations where this happens: Client: "I never said that." You: "Um.. yes you did, I have it recorded." OH SNAP! I WIN!
• FreeConference.com
  • Free Services Offered:
    • Web-Scheduled - Conferences are scheduled ahead of time.
      • Maximum Callers: 150
      • Max Length of call: 4 hours
      • Automated Email Invitations
      • Outlook/Lotus calendaring
    • Reservationless Standard - You get a phone number to call with an access code. As many people as you want can call in and conference.
      • Maximum callers: 150
      • Max Length of call: 3 hours
• FreeConferenceCall.com
  • Free Services Offered
    • No need to schedule ahead of time.
    • Available 24/7
    • Up to 96 callers
    • Up to 6 hours for a conference call
    • Free recording
      • Distribute Via RSS/Podcast
• FreeAudioConferencing.com
  • Free Services Offered
    • 100 Callers per conference
    • Available 24/7
    • No need to schedule ahead of time
• Freenet.com
  • Free Services offered
    • Available 24/7
    • 100 callers per conference
    • 3 Hour conference length
    • Toll Free Dial in number
• InstantConference.com
  • Free Services Offered
    • Dedicated dial-in number and
      access codes; never expires
    • Additional access codes available
    • Free recording
    • No reservations needed
    • Up to 150 callers on each call
    • Post call and monthly reports
• Foonz.com (Group calling - See site for more info)
  • Free Services Offered
    • Instant or scheduled calls
    • Leave group messages
• The Basement Ventures
  • Free Services Offered
    • 250 callers per conference
    • Reservation-less, on demand calling
    • MP3 Call recording

Then there's Mobivox. Its not really conferencing but it does allow you to call anyone in the world, FOR FREE. The only thing is, both users (caller and and receiver) must be a member of Mobivox. Not a bad deal if you ask me. You can call members via Land Lines and mobile phones. There are restrictions to locations, so check out the free section of the site here.

Hopefully this helps some of you out there who are in a bind for conference lines. :)

I use Enterprise Library for Logging and I use different event sources for each app. I've noticed that creating event sources is kind of a pain sometimes. Either you have to write an app that does it for you, or you have to write some logic in your code that checks for the event source. Either way, I think that's too bloated for in-house software. Now for software that has to be deployed, then ok, no problem I see the use. But we're talking bout non-released code here. Code that is used on an internal site or externally facing site.

Or you can use PowerShell, simple as pie. :)

This one liner will check for the Event Source and if it does not exist, it will create it for you. Real easy. Gotta love PowerShell.

 

if (![System.Diagnostics.EventLog]::SourceExists("MySourceName")) { [System.Diagnostics.EventLog]::CreateEventSource("MySourceName", "Application") }

Now if we write an event to the event log, it will show up because the source now exists. :)

You HAVE TO love one liners that can replace entire applications. :) Albeit, not a big app, but an app, none the less.

As of lately I've been tasked with more and more work with process automation. As usual, automation is usually found to be best suited for a scripting language and therefore I've been working with PowerShell a lot lately.

I'll admit - I have a problem with scripting languages the IDE's for Scripting Languages. What's the problem? The problem is that the IDE is usually Notepad. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Notepad, so much that I use Notepad++ as my primary text editor. Adding it to the context menu has been one of the productivity boosters in my day to day work.

The real issue comes down to productivity. I don't write a .NET Enterprise app in Notepad, I use Visual Studio. Could I? Yes. I don't write a Professional Letter in Notepad, I do it in Word. Could I write it in Notepad? Yes. This list could go on and on. I could use MS Paint to create a nice 3D Image, but I wont. But why? Simple... its not productive to. Its not productive to write letters, enterprise applications, or create a billion dollar proposal in Notepad.

Millions of dollars have been put into productivity tools. The industry has put a bounty on productivity so high that entire companies are based around developer productivity. Tools and libraries such as ReSharper, DevExpress, Telerik, Infragistics, etc. help forge the way for developers to increase productivity in their day to day work. In this instance I'm talking about Windows development, there are MANY other companies that create productivity tools for many different industries, such as - graphic design, engineering, medial, etc. The point here is that time is money.

Tools, are exactly that - tools. We've come from the stone age where a wheel was an innovational tool to help move items easier. So please, this is 2008 , and in computer years that puts Notepad into the stone age. So, please don't code in Notepad if you don't have to. Using Notepad as a tool to edit files on the fly is priceless, but using the tool as a primary editor, is, well... ludicrous and crazy. There are many IDE's for almost any environment out there. As new languages are developed, new IDE's soon follow. Unfortunately, one of the worst parts about being bleeding-edge/an-early-adopter and using a new language is waiting for the tool support. Look at VS 2008, the third party companies couldn't even keep up with VS2008 release date. When PowerShell came out, the only IDE was Notepad. Unfortunately, most IT folks still seem to use Notepad for most of there PowerShell scripts. This drives me nuts. This is like driving across country when  you could fly. But hey, if you're into long, over drawn out processes, maybe driving across the country will suit you. I'll see you in NYC when you get there, I'll already have gone sight-seeing for 3 days prior to your arrival.

This brings me back to PowerShell. There are many IDE's out there, some free, some not. The one I've seem to use on a regular basis is PowerGUI. Its simple, yet effective. Features include, IntellSense, built in help, debugging, watch window. You can also get more libraries from the downloads as well. For me, being able to debug into a script is worth its weight in gold. I don't know how many times back in ASP Classic I wrote:

Response.Write "In The If"

Man, I don't miss those days at all.

So let me say it again... if you're walking around in the stone age, its time to step out, get a IDE and start enjoying life again. Not reliving the "Response.Write" memoirs. :)