It is great to finally have you in the blogosphere.

Good to be here. I mean, it was bound to happen.

Hi Carl,

Small world eh? For some comments about how .NET .NOT Rocks see <a href="http://abderaware.typepad.com>:-)</a>

Hey Zane. Interesting stuff there. As for the 20MB download, it's a problem right now. I hope it becomes something people will WANT to download/install in the future. I think if there's a version they should burn on CD and give away at Wal-Mart it should be 2.0

Welcome, just listened to the show with Scott Guthrie today - pretty good! Now, what about transcripts for the .NET rocks shows on your blog :-) (I wonder how they'd do passed through a speech recognition system?)

Welcome aboard Carl! I'm am *so* glad to see you enter the blogsphere. I'll be sitting by waiting to hear great stories about all kinds of interesting stuff you guys are doing.

Oh, just don't sing My Darling Clementine anymore, OK?

Carl - welcome aboard... looking forward to your postings and of course, your presentations at the Conn .NET SIG meetings (http://www.ctmsdev.net/)... :-)

Welcome. This has been a long time coming.

Scott,

We're going to transcribe all the shows and make them available as RSS.

How's that for serendipity?

Carl

welcome....

Consider recording it on video as well. That would be twice as better!

I left my wallet at home that night, but how about we get a group of people together and rent out a penthouse at one of the hotels and have our own little party after?

I can say for a fact that dotnetjunkies will pitch in a nice lump if others will help out. We were planning on doing some sort of thing anyway. If you want us to coordinate please ping me. We can get a good rate on the room for sure being platinum members at about 3 of the more upscale hotels in the area.

let me now,

donny.mack@dotnetjunkies.com

Well, that was way too cost-prohibitive. I don't know if you've done any video, but to do a 3-camera shoot right you need a talented video team, and they are not cheap. Besides, Mark and I share a phisique that was made for radio!

Donny, you mean raise some money to serve beer at the DNR show? Our room seats 800 people, and the PDC is sold out. That could get expensive :-)

If you mean have a party just to have a party, I'm all for it!

Check out this post by Brian Desmond [1] about AWStats [2]. This is what I use on my servers now.

1: http://weblogs.asp.net/bdesmond/posts/26801.aspx

2: http://awstats.sourceforge.net/

Dude, are you bringing a guitar?

Of course!

www.deepmetrix.com (LIveStats)

Yeah, that's the one I use. It sucks. It's always breaking, the reported data is wrong, and its got Java all over it. They have been unresponsive to my requests to add web services, and in general it's very slow.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a .NET stats program? ASP.NET based, SQL, web services, etc?

*sigh*

I know I'm no longer an RD, but I used to be. Does that qualify me?

Check out http://www.SmarterTools.com - it's 100% .NET. Great to see you blogging Carl!

You, sir, would be qualified if you'd been busted to a measly Microsoft sweatshop coder! :-)

Wow.. the price is certainly right! Thanks for the tip. Good to hear from you.

Mike, you'll always hold a place in my heart for being a direct descendant of the inventor of that wonderful instrument that made John Coltrane a household name!

I currently use SmarterStats (from SmarterTools which Mike mentioned) - it is pretty good (and free for single sites which is nice). In comparison to other tools though, I have to say that it feels a bit 'unfinished' but it is certainly usable and worth trying, but it is not perfect...

Hey, we already got a taker!

Todd Lichty of Waterloo, ONT Canada is our first member! Ooo.. this is so exciting!

Funny, I live in Palm Desert (about 5 miles away from DevConnections) and decided to put my money into PDC and a hotel instead of going to DevConnections (Even though I would really like to).

Yep. The PDC is just too big to ignore this year.

I was just curious, Carl. Will the CDs have tracks so I can skip ahead or backward for any reason? Or will the recording be one single track? Thx.

All of the shows recorded from this date on that we press to CD will have tracks. Old ones that you buy as archives will only have one track.

I was wondering what you were waiting for. You should post in mp3 format! Just kidding. I'm looking forward to reading and hope I can get as much out of your blog as I do out of your show.

Thanks! I haven't really begun to post anything interesting. I'm still in conference mode. After the PDC, I'll probably ramp up a bit.

Its great that you got things going with MSDN frank!

This is going to be cool ... something I won't miss at .NET Rocks!

Leaked about Longhorn? Moi? Never!

Seriously, thanks for a great chat!

sad, sad, sad

obviously you sir are a microsoft sycophant!

After what I saw yesterday, we should all be microsoft sycophants!

Hey Carl,

For what it's worth, the Ecuador RD will be there too. See you at room 403AB!

No it don't, it's standard breaking rubbish. Full well you know this.

Edgar, thanks. I'll see you there.

Elastic Rat

Presumably that'll be another watershed product like 95 or XP: products so good that I moved to Linux.
If Linux had a million pound PR budget, I'm sure you'd be impressed with a look at projects 2 or 3 years down the line, so let's wait until it comes out before passing judgment: anything else would be like sucking up to Microsoft, surely?

Anything can be cloned. It's business model that matters!

“what the f**k were we thinking?” ?? more likely they'll be saying "how can we make a knock-off (copy)off that one?"
Read 'Why Open Source Stifles Innovation'
http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/8160?pg=0

You Linux guys have it wrong. It would be predictable to expect the results you're expecting. If you are looking at purely technology (not marketing) you'll be blown away. You cannot comment on that which you have not seen with any more accuracy than a fortune teller. I have seen it. You will soon.

I am suprised that you are so suprise about power of Blogs. Afterall, they are about information and information is power. The problem now is how to filter in the ocean of inforamtion the one is valid to you!

Can not wait till the download for the show, Maxim

.NET Rocks, is the most popular and free radio talk show for .NET developers in the world. Dont be suprised Carl. Information is power. You announced it, in the last episode of .NET Rocks that you guys, would be at PDC 2003.
I cannt wait to get the show, I have being checking Franklins.NET almost every second for the show.
Keep the good work, Carl and Mark.

Maxim.. email is also about information, so is print advertising. I think Chris Sells said it best that (for the time being, anyway) blogs are a way that people who know how to use them can give themselves a more clear channel (more filtered, as you say) way to communicate. What surprises me is just how many people are tuned in.

Idea of Blogs as you know is very simple and it provides with great power to share the knowledge. Einstein said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" So, I think that is why so many people are following the Blogs and also. Information is an "Order" that fits a purpose. Purpose of blogs is to share the information and therefore it fits the purpose.

I think next level next we will see audio blogs. I can not wait to see that happening. .NET Radio Show is in the way a pioneer in that space.

So, keep up a good job, Maxim

So, can you characterize this as be a radical departure from what we've publically seen so far? Are you speaking purely from our (developer's) point of view?

What about it blew you away? Was it the 'look and feel' of what they've done - or did they really come up with an new idea that changes things?

I can't comment on technology until I have used or programmed it. I mean, OS/2 'looked' good with all that hype years ago.....
You cannot comment on that which you have not used with any more accuracy than a fortune teller. Neither of has used it. But we (eventually) will. Then we can decide wether it is any good or not.

Last time I looked, python/whwindows ran on just about every machine that has a C++ compiler. OO code and a GUI as well!
Ok, it's *NOT* .NET, but since .NET doesn't run on Mac/*nix, it never will be write-once run-anywhere.

How do I get into that party on the roof of the Standard?

Oh man! You discovered the use of grep together with some pipes! Very 78-unix style. Ooh: it has shiny buttons! Well, thats what we get for 25 years of progress!

Let's see. Most OSS scripting in whatever language uses a toolkit called "tk", which is inherently stretchy and provides a native interface on any OS. For example, I tossed together an program to provide a window view of a text file. I've been working on it using native X11 and native Aqua, and the same code runs on both. If you look at the page my name links to you'll see the evolution of the app as I added stuff to it. The first Mac OS X view was with the X11 code, untweaked. The second one, at the top, is what I got after adding a handful of tweaks to it.

I haven't tried it on Windows, but it shouldn't have any problem running from a BAT file, maybe as "wish vdb.tk -- args" because Windows doesn't have a built-in script launcher at the exec level.

How long would it take me to search my home directory? Thanks to the harvest search engine, which is also one of these web search engines you're talking about, not long at all. That's old technology.

Give me open systems and get out of my way.

PS: Sparky... look, shiny buttons you can put in your pipelines!

Yes, shiny buttons in my scripts - it's called pyQT when I program them. Helpfully, they also work on windows / mac / bsd / aix etc.... which is more than we can say for .NET!

Carl,
I enjoy reading your post.
Now, If you truly want to understand where some of the Longhorn innovation come from you should read Gordon Bell research papers on idea of archiving information digitally searched for "CyberAll: A Personal Store for Everything" with goolge and you will find the paper. The idea for Longhorn comes from this completely! I can not wait to see from Microsoft did with CyberAll project!

Great, something else we can't have until later. ;)

sorry, didn't see the header , please delete this

sorry, didn't see the header , please delete this

Its a little annoying that the msdn links don't show the original date of the show.
I like archives but I don't want a show from 1999. Everything shows Oct 23rd.

I can't understand why Linux guys always hang around Microsoft areas. I can't think of 1 MS guy that could care less about Linux.
You Linux guys, quit all your complaining. You are ALL so tiresome.
MS is a business, plain and simple. Get your heads out of "cloud 9" or just leave us alone and go hug a tree.

Any chance of a setlist then?

Oooh. I'll see if we can get the lyrics posted as well. Maybe George Bullock has them written down somewhere.

Sick puppy...and how did you find the time? I keep saying that one year I'm going to do something elaborate like that, but something always seems to come up (like getting home from PDC at 6am on Halloween).

I'm sure you've made Halloween memorable for those kids who managed to avoid heart failure. ;-)

I am sure it keeps your neighborhood's crime rate down... :-)

Actually, I'm sure it does keep the crime rate down. For example, as I was hiding in the bushes, a big band of teenagers walked by and threw an egg at my neighbor's house. I flipped on the power and said in a low voice "I know where you live, kid" LOL! One of them yelled out the kid's name: "His name is Jason Blablabla"...

As for the time, I've been planning this since August. I got all my supplies at the local toy and hobby store (and Home Depot, of course) and it only took me 45 minutes to set up.

5 days later and the new show is still unavailable from either site! Well, back to the crack pipe for now...

Attention all Linux believers: Looks like the CEO of Red Hat is telling people to use Windows!!!

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5101690.html

Oh, and by the way, Red Hat no longer gives away Linux. They sell it.

*ahem* Yes, I'd like fries with that, if you don't mind.

For the record... the bar was the "Biting Sow" and not only does .NET Rock... But so does CARL.

Rocket launcher? Hmm... Was that special for this prank? Or are rockets a hobby of yours? I've Launched a few boy made objects into the atmosphere myself. (BTW, If you find a couple of Estes Wizards within a hundred miles of Voluntown let me know.)

Carl, thanks for the good sum-up on PDC for those of us that couldn't go.

As for Linux vs. Windows... can't we all just get along.

I am developing on a shoe string budget. So why do I develop with MS rather than Linux based solutions? Because that's what we have. And because when I wanted to start writing interactive web pages I had a flood of ASP documentation that I could understand online that I could just read. I had friendly coders who didn't call me stupid cause I didn't already know what a Pipe is. (Which I still don't.)

Now I am writing Windows/Web Services/Apps integrating with Databases and all sorts of stuff. I have not taken one course that I or my company has had to pay for. That's what I call open source.

Let's put it this way. What good is a Mac that is simple for people to use that programmers can't develop for? Microsoft focused on making it easy for developers to create apps that would make people want to use their OS. Yes, maybe now they are making their interface easier, and that could have started earlier. But history shows that if you make apps for it, they will come. What app do I have to have that only runs on Linux?

Voluntown CT? Heh. When my brother was 15 he made a custom Estes rocket with 4 freakin D engine stages. That thing took off like a shot and disappeared. We never saw it again. AND... we launched it in a football field. Gone.

Preach on!

I think you're gonna hear about that one. Do you have the one, 'If OSs were airlines?'

you are dangerous Carl.. :-)

I cannot believe I missed this! I've been enjoying your coding tips, articles and wit for years (back to the QB45 days). And you were in town, and jammed at the "Biting Sow"! Carl, come back soon! I won't miss the next.

Check this out: http://www.webaugur.com/bibliotheca/field_stock/os-airlines.html

Yeah! That's a riot.

I have the same laptop Carl, never had a problem with it, and is great for .NET development (e.g. the resolution)

You might want to tell your listeners about this RSS feed:
http://royo.is-a-geek.com/siteFeeder/GetFeed.aspx?FeedId=40

(latest .NetRocks shows on MSDN)

Although it will leave me wide open to the law of pedantic reverberation I think I should point out that grammar is incorrectly spelt ;-)

Please go back to weekly. My morning commute to work is lonely w/o the show.

I think the expression is 'slower than molasses'... but then again there are things slower than that (as you have mentioned)... :-)

SNET was slow back in 1998 when I was working for the CyberZone, an ISP that was at the time out of Plainfield, CT. Aye! You think they woulda learned.

Ah yes. Cyberzone. I never met those guys, but I do know Scott that started Mindport (one of the first ISPs in the area, if not the first) and of course Downcity. They were good guys.

[spelling fixed] Thanks

SNET? Aren't they now called SBC :-)

Yep.

Scott worked with Sean (owner of Cyberzone) for a while. Scott was a Linux guy, but Sean was die hard MS. Cyberzone eventually bought Mindport (my first ISP). But then got gobbled up themselves. Hehe, I have some memories.

Great pics Carl! Thanks for posting them up.

Hi Carl (and all you happy people :) ). One of the reasons I was impressed with what I could see of the new technological developments at the PDC (didn't go) was I knew that Microsoft would be bringing this technology into the mainstream. The part about including some compilers as "standard equipment" on the OS is totally awesome! I remember when programming languages used to come standard on personal computers. It's one big reason I learned to program at all when I was young. I wonder if we'll see a return of the "type-in" magazines of yore once Longhorn comes out. That would be neat.

As to some of the earlier comments, I've known about tools like Tk and "Wish" (I think it was called), both of which were designed to make GUI apps easy to create (primarily on Unix), since 11 years ago when I was in college. You know what? In the real world not that many places use them. The one place I've heard where such tools like these, and Ruby, are used are in government IT departments. I personally have not worked on a single IT project in my career that used these tools, and it's not because I worked on Microsoft-only projects. Far from it. Some years back I used to work on Unix almost exclusively. I used to beg and plead with my project leader to allow me to add some X11 UIs to the server tools we developed and deployed to customer sites, especially since we were doing data maintenance for most of our clients. The answer was always no, because the customers believed that X11 was too much of a security risk. None of the customers had a problem with us deploying Windows clients though.

Despite similar tools and frameworks being developed earlier, I believe that Microsoft will achieve with these technologies what they have always done in the past: introduce them to the broad public and make them understandable so that millions and millions of people actually use it and obtain its benefits, rather than it being forever the purview of a relatively small group or community.

That's cool stuff. And a nice, concise explanation. Thanks, Carl!

I think the word you were looking for is "operands". But if you are anything like me, you were probably making up your own word on purpose.

I enjoyed this - thanks for putting it up.

Carl - not sure if you saw this but the docs have been posted for the Longhorn SDK and contains some awesome information.

http://longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com/

Some day I am going to build a rocket with a tracking system sending WiFi to a laptop. If I hurry maybe I can be the first .Net interplanetary launch software.

Carl, i have doubt in operator overloading
above given code i tried to execute but at operator defination ti showing an error "Expected end of statement" and Operator this keyword is not recognizing. plz. give solution for it

I'm using the Alpha bits of Whidbey from the PDC. What version are you using?

Like, it's 2003....? where have you guys been the last 5 years?

Site is faster now. Thanks.

I noticed the speed difference as well. Glad it went smoothly.

It's interesting, because the new machine isn't much faster than the old machine. It's the new OS/IIS that makes it faster.

Carl,
This is very good use of Delegates. I agree with you. I had a post on this topic on my blog as well let me know what you think:

http://faithinteractive.com/simpleblog/PermLink.aspx?entryid=13

There is a clean demo code for all senerios of using delegates and events :)

Thanks, Maxim

Delegates. So was Cindi satified with you ans.?
Still seems a bit confusing to me.
Thanks.
Jim

Ok, I seem to have learn how to declare and use a delegate, but please explain to me how this woman problem was solved by using delegates. In other words, I don't yet see how your detailed explanation solved her problem. Of course it's my ignorance that's the problem here.

deleg = new xxx(address of XYZ)

But isn't Cindi saying that XYZ is a variable.
So, how does your explanation work with this.

She has methods:
obj.aa
obj.bb
obj.cc
etc...

So, if I understand this correctly, she needs to do something like:
deleg = new xxx(address of obj.aa)

But...the fact that we need "aa" this time (say it was passed into a Querystring - ...aspx?meth=aa) means that we need something like:

'--- Bad syntax - just making a point
deleg = new xxx(address of obj. & meth)

So...please set me straight on this. I'm lost.

Thanks a lot.
Jim
jim@cheseborough.com

Jim,

The question I answered for her is "Is there a way for me to pass a variable as the function name"

IOW she wants to represent a function call with a variable.

I did not address her issue of "I don't want to have to type 70 function calls separately" but I did see it as an opportunity to show her how she could represent the methods of a class as variables.

If you understand the fundamental of how to represent functions as delegates then it's an easy logical step to figure out how to return an array of delegates that represent the function calls.

Carl,
Thanks a bunch for your reply!
I feel really stupid asking again, but you teachers always say there's "no such thing as a stupid question". So, I'll keep asking till I understand.

In YOUR example code, can you tell me how Sub1 could possibly be used from a STRING variable having a value of "Sub1". Assume *somehow* we have a string, string1 = "Sub1".

Using delegates in your example, how can I get at "Public Sub Sub1(ByVal Arg As String)" (in your TestClass) using this value in string1?

I thought THAT was what the woman was asking, Or (most likely) I'm all confused and brain dead as far as delegates go.

By the way, love your show. Listen to all of them as soon as they appear. I have the Archos mp3 player too. Keep up the good work.

Thanks again,
Jim

Absolutely no such thing as a stupid question!

I see know why you're confused. I did not show her how to call the function by name with a STRING variable. I showed her how to access the function as a DELEGATE variable.

But, since you asked... and so did she apparently, here is some code that you can add to ANY CLASS to call a member by name with a STRING variable.

Public Class Foo
'-- Add this function to any class to call a method by name
Public Function InvokeMethodByName(ByVal MethodName As String, Optional ByVal Args() As Object = Nothing) As Object
'-- Get a type obj for my instance
Dim mytype As Type = Me.GetType

Try
'-- Get a MethodInfo object for the given methodname
Dim mi As MethodInfo = mytype.GetMethod(MethodName)
'-- Invoke the method and return the result
Return mi.Invoke(Me, Args)
Catch ex As Exception
'-- Error handling just passes exception up. Modify if necessary
Throw ex
End Try
End Function

'-- Sample method 1: Does nothing
Public Sub Sub1()
MsgBox("Sub1")
End Sub

'-- Sample method 2: Returns a value
Public Function Sub2() As Int32
Return 100
End Function

'-- Sample method 3: Accepts an argument
Public Sub Sub3(ByVal Arg As String)
MsgBox("Sub3: " & Arg)
End Sub

End Class

' Now, here is some code you can use to test it:

Dim MyFoo As New Foo

'-- Call Sub1
MyFoo.InvokeMethodByName("Sub1")

'-- Call Sub2 and display return value
Dim retval As Int32 = CInt(MyFoo.InvokeMethodByName("Sub2"))
MsgBox("Sub2 returns: " & retval.ToString)

'-- Call Sub3 passing a string argument
Dim args() As Object = {"Hello!"}
MyFoo.InvokeMethodByName("Sub3", args)

Hope this helps.

I like your quote from 'The Sound of Music'..
:-)

I'm going to be trying this soon - look forward to reading anything you learn about the process of getting MCE running. :)

if your drive had trouble reading the disk, you should download the image again and burn another, possibly at a lower speed.

I tried burning at a lower speed. It turns out that it's the combination of the CD reader (kinda old) and the 80min silver Maxell CDRs I'm using. If there is so much as a thumbprint on the disc, the CD drive has problems. More to come...

Like Brian, I am about to take on this task as well...looking forward to more :D

First, I would suggest checking out http://www.thegreenbutton.com if you haven't already - it's a great resource for all things MCE. There are a ton of FAQs (especially "Getting Started") and very knowledgeable people there who should be able to help you out further.

I do know MCE can be very particular. Make sure you get all the updates, update your video drivers etc. I also made sure to take a ghost image as soon as I got something working, and I'll probably wipe it again when I reinstall my new capture card.

Also - what model of the Hauppauge do you have? Not all video capture cards work. I bought the Avermedia m179 originally, which unfortunately is a piece of shit and doesn't work. I *THINK* the 250 and 350 are the only supported models for MCE.

I have an order in for the Hauppauge 250MCE, the new version specifically geared for 2004 that adds radio support, but it's on 2 weeks back order.

Thanks Tim.

The Green Button - great place. I have visited it regularly.

> what model of the Hauppauge do you have?

Win-TV Theater.

Doesn't sound like this is your problem, but I'm not sure if that model supports the API expected by MCE. You should check into that.

Good luck with it. I've been using it mostly as a jukebox, as my card troubles prevented me from using SVIDEO input (and the coax image quality wasn't cutting it).

I need to get a better cooling system too, the thing runs damned hot in my entertainment center. A new power supply probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

What model of Inspiron did you have before? I have an 8000 and occasionally experience problems with the audio ground and syncing up with projectors.

Very Cool. Thanks for the Blog update about this.
Hey Carl how about some *more* blogs on Whidbey from you? I don't think you've written enough on it (I could be wrong tho!).

For those of us than can't get our hands on a beta...we are anxiously awaiting the final release.

How do you like it?

Thanks
Jim

Was it Spyware that did this? This is pretty worrying and raises a point about the hosts file, this really should be more secure by default - why is it still just a simple text file???

sorry to hear about it... thanks for the precautionary tip..

It was obviously spyware that I picked up from some website.

kind of scary.
did you track down how this spyware got installed? maybe active x component download. if it was not some compiled download than it could have been done in script?

I am not allowing ActiveX, so that's not it. I have not figured out HOW it got installed

Ouch, not good man. I'm sorry to hear. Do you know who/what the spyware was? Was it the box that hosted the NAT? Do you have Win2k3's Firewall running? Just wondering for our protection here.

I've wondered for a while what it might take for a windows update bomb. IP spoofing, DNS tricks, but this would do it too.

maybe it was script in a web page or email message. i did some tests a while ago with a page on the internet regarding how much i could do with script. i was shocked, i could launch ie, open a command window and kill a process. for this reason i often find myself dragging outlook message into notepad first if i do not know who the sender is

I don't use outlook on that machine. It definitely came through IE.

my guess is some script that used the filesystemobject to grab and modify the hosts file

www.mozilla.org man, the web pages look just as good and you don't have to contend with rogue scripts killing processes.

FYI I'm not affiliated with mozilla.org other than as a user and I make my living programming in C#. :)

If something can access your filesystem like that it can probably remove readonly attributes... If you want to protect it you'd be better restricting write access to an administrator account that you don't use for everyday work. Having said that, if something malicious has access to your file system, a change to the hosts file is the least of your worries.
If you don't know what did it how can you say it "definitely" came through a patched IE?

SOme stuff I'm learning more about is how often folks (like me) run with an admin login.

why am I posting this info....

if you protect a file for example to admin but as loged in as an admin then an attack that gets something to run on your pc can run as admin and do what it wants to... theres a site I found and will post later with an on-line book-in-progress about windows developer security that describes how this can happen and how to *NOT* let it happen by running with a low privelge account so that if IE launches a script it only runs as the less powerfull login account....
I'll find the link and post it back later....

After thinking about it some more, it's probably more likely that I donwloaded some shareware, which touched the file.

Also, changing the read-only attribute will only get you so far. If someone is writing to the file they can also flip the attribute back off.

I am away from the PC at the momemnt, but I will investigate further and let everyone know what I find.

In the future, please do not manually remove the .NET Framework - always use the official uninstall. If it's not done correctly, it could, in fact, cause the original problem you described, in a way that reinstall won't fix. The v2.0 un/install will be more robust in that area. But, in general, it's not recommended to do this stuff by hand.

I don't make a habit of uninstalling the framework manually! ;-)

The only reason I did this as a last resort before re-paving the machine is because the official uninstaller was NOT THERE in the control panel applet.

This was NOT the cause of the original problem. This was during the "fixing" stage, which ended up not working.

Now I am going to completely re-install and I will post my results.

I will also monitor the installation closely in case I run into other problems.

Sounds like the QHosts trojan, which is installed via IE vulnerabilities, or a variant thereof.

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_100719.htm

The original QHosts used an unpatched vulnerability and was distributed by one of the ads hosted by a banner ad service; that ad was quickly removed. Lots of net scum are using the same technique, however.

I've got plenty of .NET problem stories to tell. Seems like Microsoft didn't really think much about domain controller University environments when creating the documentation for management of .NET.

We have plenty of success stories. I'd love to tell you about how our hybrid Flash/C#/VB6/VC++ portal I worked on for the guys over at Articulate (http://www.articulateglobal.com)is kicking Macromedia Breeze's J2EE arse all over the place at the trade shows, despite the fact that it was/is being developed with a fraction of the resources. But of course, that is only one story... got plenty more :-).

That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Let's talk by email.

Kind of like building 'n' layers of UI and using some slider principle to toggle views?

Yes, I have a great .NET success story. This is a two year old story. We built an application in classic asp. We needed to do something async to the application but did not due to the need to get something up and going. Well because the classic asp application was doing the operation everytime, the app was just two slow. I set down, moved the functionality out of the classic asp application into a .NET Windows Service and the app ran beautifully after that. More specifics are available if you want to talk about it.

Wally

I really don't think the end user is going to like this. It's one thing to have controls on the page the user doesn't understand but it's quite another to have a constantly changing interface. And human curiousity is going to take over at some point and the user is going to keep clicking the button to see what it does.

I like the idea Carl. This would also give us the capability of activating/de-activating features based on user roles.

Can't wait to see the comments posted by the VS.NET Program Managers.

My colleague had the same problem. It was one of the website that had a script that modifies your host file.

That's good point James. I don't think it's UI layers that we really want though. What if you want to allow the user or administrator to choose what features they want to see? What if you need to do a roles based security type thing and (de)activate, hide/show controls based on domain group membership, some config in a database, or the registry? You can't simply lump everything into a "layer" and achieve these features, because you'd need to have more fine grained control.

The idea of having UI's that differ for different abilities of users is appealing until you find out that nobody will ever select the beginner UI - its a big old ego thing. You might as well be calling them stupid.

That said I'd agree that the UI design bits of VS.net need work. Particularly web forms - doing HTML layout in a tool that is markedly inferior to the Dreamweaver of 3-4 years ago is really shitty.

LMAO!

> It's one thing to have controls on the page the user doesn't understand but it's quite another to have a constantly changing interface <

> The idea of having UI's that differ for different abilities of users .. <

I think some of you miss the point of this.

UI Layers are not a security setting and nobody expects any user to "pick" a layer and stay with it. Nor are we talking about radically altering the UI from one layer to another.

I'm talking about incrementally adding UI elements that require a gradually increasing learning curve for the purposes of getting the user USING all the features as quickly as possible.

The goal is to have the user at the highest level and staying there.

I bet you dollars to doughnuts, however, that usability testing will prove that gradually "introducing" users to features in the right order will signifigantly decrease the time it takes your average user to become proficient at using complex applications.

Sounds great. Why not send me the story by email? carl@franklins.net

I'm not sure I like this idea that much. Besides the fact that Jon points out - nobody wants to be "beginner" - you're just presenting them with another choice.

And you're presenting them with this choice because your UI is already confusing?

I can envision the calls already from my older relatives if this ever made it into Office.

Plus, you kind of already have something like this in menu items. It filters out the things you don't use often, and while in many respects this is a convenience thing, it also effectively hides the "complicated" aspects of the application that the user doesn't use yet.

Although if you did go about this route, I think we should build AI to "learn" the level of the user and essentially have adaptive UI. If you don't f'up and seem to be doing well, gradually add features.

It's like those computer adaptive tests - give them a middle of the road question, see if they get it right. If they do, you trust them a little more and give them a harder one. If they don't get it right, dumb it down a bit.

> nobody wants to be "beginner"

Maybe a better approach is to give them books for "dummies". Nah - nobody would EVER by a book that labels you a dummy... would they?

Interestingly enough, this is what my senior project revolves around. We're writing a C++ IDE that can have features enabled incrementally (debugging, syntax highlighting, etc). The approach we're taking is basically an integer bitmask that the professor can generate to authorize features, then hand out to the students. Once a feature's authorized, the user can see it listed in the options and enable. Obviously, it's not the most secure approach we could be taking, but it should suffice for now.

As far as the designer support, I must say it does sound rather useful. I don't know if it would be used enough to make Microsoft's time creating it worthwhile, but it'd be cool nonetheless.



Mark Erikson
mark dot erikson at cedarville dot edu

The idea has merit for a certain range of applications, and is probably more applicable to commercial applications. I’m not sure that most applications need it. But flexibility is good if it doesn’t get in the way when you don't want it.

One easy way to implement this is with Extender Providers. I could do a base form than contained this functionality using an Extender Provider in a half hour or less, with each control’s minimum UI level settable in the property window. Should I do an MSDN article showing that solution? I’ll credit you as the idea originator.

I think the idea definitely has merits. It also shares insight into what the future should be like where UI's are adaptive to how people are best productive and one design does not fit all.

I often take a more task oriented apporach of asking what they might want to do next, making some assumptions, kinda like Win XP and the Side task pane. Having said that I almost wish you could turn this feature of XP off for advance users that want that screen space back.

Having previously said that the idea has some possibilities, how do you suggest going about implememnting such an idea. Are the layers composed of metadata, that can be configured on use, experience, etc? So would this perhaps be achieved by VS.NET creating mulitple .resx files that perhaps inherit from each other? I have lots more questions, but I'll leave it at those.

Billy,

Sure, go right ahead! Publish a link to this blog entry, if you don't mind. :-)

Eddy,

VS.NET just has to keep track of which controls/menu items are visible in a given layer, and to make sure that when your app switches from layer to layer that the new controls "appear" in a way that doesn't screw up the layout - i.e. drawing controls on top of each other.

CONCEPT CHECK: All the code is always there. All the UI is always there, it's just that both at design time and runtime, certain objects are invisible.

The designer UI simply needs to let you build a complex app in stages, but instead of forking the code (that would be bad) we need to quickly go from view to view or layer to layer.

I really don't think it's a complex task.

Now that I think of it, maybe a property of System.Windows.Forms.Control called Layer, which is 0 by default (there is always a layer 0) and can be set to reflect the layer that the control lives in.

I'm not sure who owns the logic to turn control functionality on and off. I suppose both the form (or container) and the control to some extent, although I haven't thought it through yet.

I don't have enough information, but let's see what we can guess:

1. You say behind NAT - but it's not clear if it's hardware (behind a router) or you're using Internet Connection Sharing on your machine. ICS does not provide the kind of firewall protection NAT on a router provides (because the machine is still directly on the Internet).

2. You don't mention if you have an active antivirus program running (such as Mcafee or Norton) - I assume you would though.

Assuming you're properly firewalled, updated, and antivirus protected, there remain several possibilities:
1 - You hit a site or software during the "window of vulnerability" between the discovery of a vulnerability and antivirus vendors came up with a solution.
2 - You did something to install adware. Lots of Adware does stuff like this, and some of them do their best to hide what they are doing. Software based greeting cards are one example. ActiveX controls carry these kinds of things.

It sounds a bit like the Troj_QHosts.A virus - it's based on an ActiveX exploit. I assume you prompt on installation of ActiveX controls (including signed controls?).

My best guess is that you were not hacked from outside - rather, you were infected during the course of browsing or reading Email.

Dan

Dan,

I'm using a cable modem going into a NAT router (hardware). My ip address is not public.

I'm going to investigate more when I get back.

Very cool idea Carl. I always love the way you are thinking out of the box. So first of all, my mom and dad would be VERY happy with an application that let's them start out as a beginner. No ego problems there at all.

I will have to look at the code because my brain is already whizzing through all of the possible ways to implement this. Talk about an extensible framework. God - think XAML. That's what would enable a thing like this. You don't have to change the CODE just the face.

Oh Carl, how can you do this to me? I've already got a gazillion client projects and pet projects on the burner! :-)

Now this is inspiraton to go out and get a longhorn box and get snowed in!!

How about extending the idea to security groups? Layers representing security levels - almost the same thing.

While I like the idea of providing different UI capabilities to different users I don't think it is a new idea but rather something we should all be doing...more or less explicitly.

As an example of an explicit approach the UI of the Calculator app in Windows can be changed using the menu View|Standard or Scientific.

It other applications the access to advanced features/behaviour hidden away behind Option or Advanced buttons/tabs.

/Chris

Chris,

I agree it's not a new idea, and we have always had the ability to code this feature explicitly, as I did in the sample project above.

I'm proposing that the designers in the dev environment give us the ability to create an "incremental UI" without having to write a great deal of plumbing code.

Excellent.

Video moved at a good pace, and was easy to understand.

Thanks.

"The idea of having UI's that differ for different abilities of users is appealing until you find out that nobody will ever select the beginner UI - its a big old ego thing."

I think you're right if we're talking about developers - Developers definitely have ego issues when it comes to being considered "Beginner/Pro/Expert," but end users just want something simple and easy regardless of the label. There's nothing particularly insulting about "beginner" status anyway. All it indicates is that you're new to a system, which isn't even remotely the same thing as calling somebody "stupid."

While it's entirely anecdotal evidence, I *do* know quite a few people who wouldn't mind being called "begginers" at all. Rather, they might find it rather comforting. Seeing a "beginner" setting might make them feel as though the developer actually *considered* that there might be non-expert users at the helm. Far from being insulting, I would think this to be a sign of compassion in an area that has traditionally been rife with "bad vibes" (developers meeting with users often result with both sides swearing at each other - it doesn't *have* to be like this).

Also, this whole UI layering thing isn't something you'd have to stick in every app you write, but it would be pretty sweet to have for the times when such a system would make sense. I've certainly written apps for which a layering system would have been appropriate.

Anyway, I think it's more important to give a user a good experience than to worry about egos.

I've been playing "Simpsons Road Rage" on my X-Box all afternoon, and I've been playing with the "tutorial" mode turned on. This means that I am presented with the occasional dialog box explaining a concept of the game with which I might not yet be familiar. It's a silly example, but it's helped me get the most out of the game in a very short amount of time. I find the feature very useful, and don't mind the implication that I'm not an "expert" "Simpsons Road Rage player." You may feel differently, but I wanted to express that there *are* those of us who *like* a little bit of hand-holding at the outset.

Just my two cents. I'll probably be back in a little while when I get some more change...

"While I like the idea of providing different UI capabilities to different users I don't think it is a new idea but rather something we should all be doing...more or less explicitly."

I was thinking about whether or not this idea had been implemented in other apps, and then I realized that it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because it certainly hasn't been *widely* implemented, nor has it been implemented in the user-friendly manner presented here.

Also, the solution goes beyond just the user experience - there's a benefit to the developer here, too.

One of the major differences of Carl's idea seems to be the integration at the level of the IDE. Doing it "Carl's Way" is like the difference between assembling a car piece by piece in a barn and using an assembly line.

Part of the innovation here is the *process*.

At least that's what I think...

Great!

I definitely like this idea. To some extent (at least with complex apps), when I use an app for the first time, I don't try and go through all of the options and figure out what I want set to what - I play around with the app, and set the options as they come up.

This will just be a way of formalizing that process. I could start with the Beginner UI, and gradually work my way up to Expert. While this progression may be fairly fast for me, it doesn't have to be that way for everyone.

While the term "beginner" may be insulting for some users, it's not like these descriptions are set in stone. The label doesn't matter as much as the concept, of allowing the user to learn the app at their own pace.

If the word 'beginner' bothers you - try "simple" and "complex". That skews it the other way.

As a developer I would like this functionality in the IDE as well. And I have developed many apps where there were multiple user roles that only differed by what controls were visible.

We already have PageNavigation in the Framework, PageLayers could be a step in the "removal of 2/3's of the code" direction.

Now if we could *animate* the opacity of controls fading in/out we would have coolness as well :)

Gang, don't think that the "idea" is to put a "Beginner/Pro/Expert" button on every form. That's just a demo. The important thing is that you have programatic control over when, how, and under what conditions to move through the layers.

If you want to "decide" for the user when to do that, great. If you want to let the user control that, great. If you want to bug the user about it "Do you want to be able to do such-and-such.." that's ok too.

It's the designer and the programatic control that I'd like to see developed.

I'm sure this has merit and probably has a limited use for applications that may be used by a wide range of users; most appropriately software development applications that target both students and developers with decades of experience behind them.

Not to burst your bubble, but this really isn't any different that what the Office team did when they introduced the "Advanced view" for the drop-down menus. When you first install Office you get a slimmed down view of the menu items. But as you use hidden features (viewable when you hover of the last icon in the slim menu view) these features slowly get added to the menus. Or you can enable the full menus with an Option.

I'm afraid this would all come down to ROI. Is it really worth the development time to build a really good interface? In your layered example of your simple notepad app, what would happen in you added lots of features in level 3; what would that mean if you then went back to level 2? Would there be implicit rules that that form designer would need to follow? Would the user understand these constricting rules without a Level 3 view side-by-side? There's a lot to think about.

Steven- (If I am understanding you correctly) I think you are missing Carl's point. He is suggesting that the IDE could be making it easier for us to implement this type of stuff so that we don't have to worry about the ROI of creating user level UI's.

Sure the idea of showing/hiding features is not new. I'm sure many of us do it based on user permissions all of the time. Admins see things non-admins don't. Managers see things non-managers don't. In my case that's just making menu options visible or not, buttons visible or not or maybe a screen editable or not.

So that's where Billy's idea of the control extenders come in. Right now, I explicitly set these values when I load a page - check the user parms and basically turn visible true or false or enabled true or false. But with control extenders, you can just set the permission setting once and the extender can have the control of these properties. Generically "this control is available to GROUP X and GROUP Y". So that is a neat way to implement it already without something new in the IDE.

Well, I have to go. We got over a foot of snow and it is time to go skiing! Woo hoo!!

>> Not to burst your bubble, but this really isn't any different that what the Office team did when they introduced the "Advanced view" for the drop-down menus. <<

There's no bubble to burst. <g>

As I told Chris (scroll up), the idea of hiding things is not new. What I want is an easy way to DEVELOP apps that have a layered incremental UI.

If you really want to be picky, you could say that Office implemented this only in the menu structure. With the right tools, it could apply to the general work area (controls) as well.

>> with control extenders, you can just set the permission setting once and the extender can have the control of these properties. <<

That's true, and I wasn't even thinking of using this feature in the context of security, but I suppose that could work too.

See IUI a'la Longhorn http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/longhorn_task-based_ui.asp

Using Tasks for each screen, still enables you to have support for shortcut keys and other optioned configuration.

So, if you want to simulate application option layers, couldn't you create a struct/class/array containing refs to the UI controls that are contained in each layer. Then when the user clicks on the "pro" or "expert" button, you just interate through the array and set the "visible" property on each control (or if you were using a struct/class to hold the refs you could just have a methods called "show" and "hide" on the object).

Actually an interesting idea. This is something people have been doing for awhile. But I think the difference here is that you are actually presenting this to the developer within the UI as a feature of VS.NET.

As someone mentioned I personally, think it would be good within the context of security most of all. The idea that when you validate a user certain layers get turned off and the code is segmented would be interesting.

I was thinking more about the control extenders (while shoveling snow!). It would be hard [for me] to make them dynamic so that you could easily ADD permission groups or user levels, etc..

The experiment to do would be to compare having one control extender with multiple properties (is that possible?) or have multiple control extenders.

But I have to work on my other program now. I just can't help thinking about this. I like the challenge of how to make it work in the most extensible way.

I know its hard to pick out the nuggets in this post, but I'd like to see a Layer property on System.Windows.Forms.Control :-)

Yeah, I got it. I agree it would be cool to be able to build a UI as Carl described. But I wonder about the value of such a UI and how it would be adopted by users other than those who can comprehend such an advanced view of the world.

Joe User doesn't even understand that the Start menu is the same as the Start menu folder and can be viewed in Windows Explorer, IE, right-clicking on My Computer and clicking Explore. Window is bloated with redundant features to help different user levels, but in the end, it tends to confuse more than clarify. (Don't get me wrong; I a big fan.)

Of course, I could very well be proven wrong and, as I said, think it would be worth investigating. I look forward to hear if this does get adopted by Microsoft.

windows.form.control.layer=string?
windows.form.control.layer=windows.form.controls.layerEnum?
It looks like I have to cut this out and just download the damned sample! I just am knee-deep in code... :-)

Why don't you just call it a layered "working" tutorial?

"But I wonder about the value of such a UI and how it would be adopted by users other than those who can comprehend such an advanced view of the world."

I think those users would really appreciate it. Although this might sound silly, such a feature would be a good way to say "Hey - we just want to help you out a little."

It isn't going to solve all the usability problems in the universe, but it could contribute to making things better for the big picture.

Anyway, I think the added complexity of *one* toggle button (or however it's implemented) would be worth the benefit.

"Joe User doesn't even understand that the Start menu is the same as the Start menu folder and can be viewed in Windows Explorer..."

The user doesn't know about that folder because the user doesn't need to access it.

Users do, however, use applications. I mean, there's no other reason to turn the PC on in the first place :)

Since they're already exposed to the app, and since the feature could be implemented in a very easy to use and very easy to find manner, I think that adapting to the feature wouldn't be terribly difficult - certainly less difficult than finding some obscure folder. Users are accustomed to pushing buttons, but they aren't very familiar with hunting down folders they don't use - they use that stupid Search Dog for that :)

I wonder how many of us have spent any time with the "rest of the world." You know, those who'se lives DON'T revolve around the PC. <g>

There are more of them than there are of us.

Case and point, the minister of my church is afraid of PCs, but absolutely has to use one to communicate by email.

She has to know just as much about using email as you I any of us. What do you think her experience of configuring and using Outlook is going to be like? Not good.

"Carl, I just installed and am running Outlook. Now what do I do?"

Unlike the plethora of "softies" posting here and other places, I have to design interfaces for real people. I get feedback immediately if the UI is confusing, usually a phone call or a blinking voicemail light. I have been doing this for around 10 years now. Stuff like this is nice for developers to have; 90% of the users will never use it. Stuff like this gets posted in PC Magazine as a "Windows tip and trick: Did you know you can enable advanced options in blah? Click the "advanced" button".

I think the real advantage to the layers concept, something which is not new (web apps have been doing it since the boom), is in the security context that others have mentioned. The ability to easily show/hide UI elements based on a security role would be a plus.

However, given that there are easy work arounds in the current framework that would simulate this sort of thing, I'd rather any .NET Framework guys at MS working on this turn their efforts toward making a DataGrid and DataSet that not suck rather than adding a .Layer property to WinForms/WebForms.

"Unlike the plethora of "softies" posting here and other places, I have to design interfaces for real people."

Well - Let's be fair here... Owning the vast majority of the desktop market, MS is absolutely developing interfaces for real people.

It shows, too.

There might be flaws, but MS isn't alone in making the odd mistake or two. I get really frustrated when using my Mac sometimes because I've found that, depending on who coded what app with what technology, different *common* meta-key combos do entirely different things. It's maddening. I certainly haven't encountered anything like this in Windows.

Granted, like most of what I write in comments, this "evidence" is anecdotal, but let's not pretend that MS coders aren't developing for "real people."

"However, given that there are easy work arounds in the current framework that would simulate this sort of thing, I'd rather any .NET Framework guys at MS working on this turn their efforts toward making a DataGrid and DataSet that not suck rather than adding a .Layer property to WinForms/WebForms."

It's not like .NET is the product of five coders crammed in a room. It's entirely possible that the people who deal with the DataGrid aren't the same people who would implement a feature like this.

Of course, I have no idea what I'm talking about since I haven't seen MS's operations, but it isn't a bad guess.

Point being, it *seems* like a good idea that would be totally innocuous - if you don't want to use the feature, then you certainly wouldn't have to.

The ad hominems are just a distraction from the issue which is simply: Is the feature good or not?

Raymond Chen's note "Why doesn't Windows have an 'expert mode'?" (http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/raymondc/permalink.aspx/cc8dd84f-7605-4145-bd4b-26413e507b02) is relevant to this discussion. Okay, he's talking about the problems with a global setting across a very diverse environment, whereas Carl is talking about a specific application, but worth a look all the same.

Ivan,

Great post. I agree that it can't work at the OS level. Just because I'm new to application X doesn't mean I'm not a whiz at application Y.

Rory,

I'm not sure that this feature IS totally innoculous. By including a "Layer" property, you also have to include a "Layers" collection for the WinForm, which means a default Layer has to be present for all the controls on the form to go into. You also have to include some sort of z-layer like property in the layer to handle overlaps. Not to mention an overhaul of the visual designer in Visual Studio to handle the layers. I don't know how big of a deal that is since VS is closed source :), but given how slowly things move at a large corporation I can't imagine the change would be trvial. Given that there are other ways to implement this in the current framework, it wouldn't get a high priority from me on a new features list. It's kind of a pseudo control-array wrapper for the "visible" property.

The ad hominems were actually making a different point, it must have been a murkey one though. Even if Microsoft implements the layer feature and we have the ability to turn off/on parts of the UI based on experience level, most people won't use it or even know the "expert" interface is there. I've been using MS technologies since DOS 4.0 and I'm STILL finding little nuggets and features in apps like Word and Excel. Features that some developer locked away in an office with only enough room under the door to slide a pizza, thought was the most important feature. One that everyone would want.

>> You also have to include some sort of z-layer like property in the layer to handle overlaps <<

Layers are not on top of each other (as in photoshop, for example). They are stages of UI all on the same z-axis. Microsoft already has anchoring and docking features of controls that prevent them from stepping on each other.

>> Even if Microsoft implements the layer feature and we have the ability to turn off/on parts of the UI based on experience level, most people won't use it or even know the "expert" interface is there. <<

That's assuming that the layers can ONLY be promoted by the user, which has nothing to do with the layer technology. That's a decision the programmer makes. A good program will determine when it is time to promote the UI.

How hard would it be to ask the user after so many days of use?

You've heard from me before, but I'll review our stuff here.

We had no web site when I got here. (1 page does not a web site make.) I started creating forms in ASP classic, but the more we did online, the more we wanted to do.

So, we've developed our site in .Net which integrates orders with Great Plains and our Kodak Production software (SQL database). We used to hire extra help between Sept. and Dec.
Now, not only have we stopped hiring extra help, we've shrunk our staff through atrophy.

We get hundreds of complex orders a day that used to have to be hand entered twice, into Great Plains and the SQL database. Now nobody handles them until it's time to complete the order.

Development staff = 1 (Me)
Training Process = .Net Rocks, Forums, and books

Already begging for this functionality, tho I didn't know it. My software handles 3 different types of jobs, tho very similar. I have a clunky way of handling which controls are viewed for which type of job. I'm programmatically creating the text boxes I need, even tho some of them are the same regardless of the job. I could use a layer for each job with certain controls for all layers.

BTW, I hate the hidden menu controls. Bugs me right up a wall when I am talking to a user and say 'Click on Open' and they say 'I don't see open' and all it is is they have to click those stupid double arrows.

Good point about the user being prompted after so many uses. Although I don't know that I would tie it to a time interval, but maybe a usage or function level. e.g. if(advanced_functionality_exists_for_task) -> prompt the user about displaying/tutoring them in the advanced functions. That could annoy some people though. "This darn computer keeps asking me questions every time I try to do something!"

I think that programatically a layers property would make it easier to show/hide controls (which is really what we are talking about, not enabling/disabling functionality) based on certain conditions. But I think it's already possible and not difficult to implement now, so it's not something I would clamor for (if you're soliciting opinions, if not "/ignore Scott"). Plus I'm already doing things like this in ASP.NET and haven' had to do much WinForms programming, so that may color my thinking somewhat.

I want to throw a contrarian view out there. It would be a bad idea to make this easy. Task based UI is a great idea. Having layers as a metaphor to allow drag and drop building of dynamic UI rather than forcing the developer to code is not bad.

But the original idea of multiple modes that get switched on the user is horrible. HORRIBLE I SAY! :-) I can't say how frustrating it is to find a cool feature only to forget where you found it. Add on top of that the need to know what mode you've set your App in, or for goodness sake what mode it decided to auto-select for you! There are lots of different ways people remember things, and moving stuff around dynamically penalizes a large portion of the population that might recall things spatially.

Having a tutorial, programmatic help, or comprehensible UI for a beginning user/player is not the same thing as having a visually different UI based on a mode setting. I think some recent games show good ideas in this direction. People aren't forced to use games so bad UI is punished there more than other areas. Knights of the Old Republic (I played it on the Xbox) had a great automatic introduction to the controls as it introduced you to the tasks at hand. I think looking at game UI is a good place to see experiments in UI succeed or fail.

It sounds like this feature would make it easy to create horribly complicated software puzzles that would serve to frustrate and confuse users. Add on top of that multiplying the test matrix for the now easily created modes, and I'd argue you have a recipe for losing sight of the issue (an unapproachable UI) when the resulting problems in additional bugs, documentation, etc start to roll in.

That said, the spirt of this discussion ... how to aid developers in creating approachable UI, is great. I just think automating the creation of modality in the presentation layer is the wrong direction.

Well, in regards to Steve's comment, helping developers create the UI is great. It should (and in many other features of programming, is) be the responsibility of the programmer to ensure ease of use with the tools he has at hand. (Because a gun shoots a man is the gun at fault?)

'Sides, if somebody makes a poor UI, nobody will buy it, or his company will either can him or tell him to shape up.

"I'm not sure that this feature IS totally innoculous. By including a "Layer" property, you also have to include a "Layers" collection for the WinForm, which means a default Layer has to be present for all the controls on the form to go into."

I might be wrong here, but it seems to me that it could just be assumed that a layers collection with less than 2 layers already has a default layer (i.e. - the *only* one). I don't see this as being a major impediment.

"I've been using MS technologies since DOS 4.0 and I'm STILL finding little nuggets and features in apps like Word and Excel."

DOS 4.0? Newbie :) Been booting DOS on a floppy since 1.1, thankyouverymuch.

And, you wouldn't even have to worry about those little "nuggets" in Word/etc. if you had a "Beginner" setting.

I'm still thinking that this is a pretty harmless feature that would be a great "nice-to-have"...

I understand where you're coming from, though, and I think the opposition is good. I'm a supporter of this layers idea, but I find it really interesting to hear why someone *wouldn't* want a feature like this.

"But the original idea of multiple modes that get switched on the user is horrible. HORRIBLE I SAY! :-) I can't say how frustrating it is to find a cool feature only to forget where you found it."

While I agree that it would be frustrating to find a cool feature and then forget where it came from, I'd like to point out that this shouldn't be a problem with the multiple-modes feature.

If the user starts out in "Beginner" mode and increments the complexity of the UI sequentially (Beginner, Pro, Expert), then the user theoretically shouldn't encounter any features that he or she will forget - if I understand Carl's idea properly, then the UI is always added *to*, but not subracted *from*.

By the time you're ready for "Pro" mode, you should know the "Beginner" UI pretty well.

It would be like playing a game of "Concentration" first with 4 cards ("Beginner"), then 8 cards ("Pro"), and finally 16 ("Expert"). As cards are added, you *will* lose a little bit of context, but you should still have a generally good idea of where the old cards were.

'Course, this might all just be the caffeine talking :)

Carl, I like your idea and have been looking for something like it for years. I startet out in web development, and html have allways been able to do layers. It's a common thing that I use every day developent asp.net pages.

You should maybe think of layers as placeholders for UI elements that you can turn on and off (or altered) depending of events triggered by e.g. the user. That's how web developers use layers. Can't see the fuzz about security having anything to do with layers???

Maybe your example is confusing, but I understand it as purely a design feature. Not a beginner, pro, expert feature.

My source for concern is that this is counterproductive modality.

I don't agree with everything Raskin has to say, but I think he is spot on with respect to modality.

http://humane.sourceforge.net/humane_interface/hollands_review.html

Beginner,Pro,Expert makes for a more complicated (and modal) user model that arguably outweighs the benefits gained from restricting the problem domain with a UI mode.

Can't the problem domain be restricted without resorting to modality? Use a task based menu? Take a look at Digital Image Pro - it has a secondary task based menu along the side that accomplishes the same goal of UI approachability without limiting the available functionality.

Example user issues with the modality:
Unless Beginning, Pro, Expert modes are common across all applications it cannot be considered something the user will know about.

How does the user figure out a feature they want is available, but they need to change mode first? Why should this discovery be necessary?

What happens when an expert solves a problem for a beginner? Should they leave it in expert mode so the beginner can solve it themselves next time? What is the model for incrementally learning the application when the UI radically changes twice on the way to expert?

>> BTW, I hate the hidden menu controls. Bugs me right up a wall when I am talking to a user and say 'Click on Open' and they say 'I don't see open' <<

I don't envision people going from a more complex UI back to a more simple UI, which is what you have there. Again, my idea is to just give the user a way to become proficient more quickly, and never look back.

> Maybe your example is confusing, but I understand it as purely a design feature. Not a beginner, pro, expert feature. <

That is exactly how I see it. Everyone has glommed onto the beginner/pro/expert thing, when that is just the silly demo part of the whole deal. I don't care if you call it apples, bannans, and fruitcake. It's stages - layers of complexity. I feel like I've been making the same post over and over again.

It's not about beginner/pro/expert, ok??

I might be confused. But I think I acutally just disagree. (Though my opinion on UI can definitely be taken with a couple grains of salt.)

>The problem is the UI to access ALL the features is always enabled by default.<

That is the statements I don't agree with.

I believe that easing the learning curve of a UI without disabling access to any features is always a better alternative.

Is that because you can't imagine being a regular user getting overwhelmed by a complex UI?

I take people's word for it when they tell me software is too complex.

I like the ideal. And here's where I'd use it. Outlook. There's really only about 3 or 4 buttons that I use on a daily basis, however I've probably got 25 buttons and other items on the toolbars. I'd like to reclaim that space (can you tell I work on a laptop?). And only when I need those advanced items would I show them.

This is kind of along a line of another control I'd like to create called a cabinet control. Think of the XP drop-down menu, but that concept would be used on a toolbar. Show me the items I use alot (or pin, a la the Start menu in XP) and when I hover over the ">>" icon show me all of the toolbar.

Sean

I am starting to warm up to the layers idea some, it could just be the effects of the gas they pump into the air in Redmond. I just got back from the Scott Guthrie show at the Microsoft conference center.

I think most of us realize that the idea can be extended beyone just a simple "beginner, pro" UI modification. I don't think the layers property adds any value to the users experience inherently. I think it provides a shortcut for the developers that they can use to enhance the users experience. I think the most obvious practical uses are both the user configurable UI (think of the users being able to select out things they don't care about then being able to hide them with a single method call.) and for security purposes (think of a firewall configuration applet that will display the ports open, but hide any buttons (or kb hotkeys?) that would allow the user to open ports up).

Adding a layers property would require a change to the visual designer, unless it was a pure pseudo-control array type of construct and didn't have anything to do with the presentation.

Navel gaze all you want no one really knows for sure about these things until they are tried.

We could blah blah blah about the pros and cons or we could download a first stab at providing VS.NET designer support and give it a shot.

http://nand.net/~iman/LayeredUI/FilteredUIApp.zip

Its a VS.NET solution with 2 projects in c#
one is a Library providing designer support and the other is a test app

The library provides a ControlRoleProvider component. When the component is added to your form then a string 'Role' property becomes available to all controls in that form.

The ControlRoleProvider itself has a Roles collection (StringCollection) that defines all available roles eg {"Basic", "Advanced", "Expert"}

When your application wants to display "Basic" UI then ControlRoleProvider.Role = "Basic" should suffice. Likewise ControlRoleProvider.Role = "Advanced" will display "Advanced" and "Basic" controls. etc

As a convenience int ControlRoleProvider.RoleIndex can be used to cycle through roles.

You of course almost never see any of this using the designer. Enjoy

P.S It's a lil rough around the edges this was a saturday afternoon sunday morning thing

I love the Internet! I can't wait to check this out!

I saw two people mention "Control Extenders", which on subsequent googling came up with very little. Anyone care to enlighten me on this? From what I can tell they are non-visual components that get linked up to a control...but do what? Thanks, Bryan.

An good example of an extender provider is the ToolTip control. When you add it to the form, all the controls on the form get a new property "ToolTip on ToolTip1". The new property is attached to all the controls but the implementation is in the ToolTip1 control.

I guess I should have read the comments before going off and spending an hour coding up a solution. Looks like a lot of people already realized it could be done using an extender property, and have created an implementation.

My implementation differs from the one described by Ifeanyi Echeruo, because I stick with an Integer value for the Layer property. I believe that allows you to more easily "stack" layers. If a control only has one layer property, it can only belong to one layer. Using an integer, you can say an control with a Layer = 3 will show up on every layer 0-3. My component that provides the Layer property also has its own property, CurrentLayer. This provides the interface for the developer to change the layer. In the property "set" method of CurrentLayer, it loops through all of the controls on the form and sets the control's visible property to true if it's Layer <= CurrentLayer, otherwise it is set to false.
This was just a quick-hit solution, as using the Visible property in this way wouldn't be reliable. What if a control's visibility is controlled by some other programmatic means? Just because a control is on a layer that is visible, doesn't necessarily the control should be visible at that point.

Bryan - try googling for IExtenderProvider. That's the interface you need to implement to create one of these things.

Ok, I feel like I'm doing my own MSDN article now. Carl, I apologize for using your webspace for my own streaming thoughts (I'm blogless), but I love your idea, and firmly believe that a usable solution can be created WITHOUT waiting for Redmond to implement it.

Anyone want to start a GotDotNet Workspace to do this? joshuaflanagan at yahoo dot com

Actually, Billy Hollis is the guy to help you. He's got a lot of time with Extender Providers. I'll email him and ask him to come back to the blog. :-)

This concept has a wonderful benefit if you are developing applications that are either licensed at levels or that users play different roles with different workflows.

So one question... does the newest layer inherit all of the prior layers or is it independent on it's own?

Yes, exactly. the highest layer inherits all the objects from the previous layers.

Carl

Same thing happened to me only on Google ... nothing else that I noticed but when I entered google it redirected me to www2.google.com and poped up a porn site as well ...

when I cleared my cache and cookies in IE and tried google again I got this:

If you see this page your hosts file has been hacked. Please use the instruction below to clean your machine.

You cannot reach the site you where trying to reach without following this procedure! - Please follow the steps provided in this document and make sure to download all patches for your computer from the Windows Update Site which can be found here:
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

1. Start regedit,
find HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run ,
delete starting of svchost.exe file,
reboot your computer,
delete file svchost.exe in windows directory.

2. Reboot windows and start in
SAFE MODE (F8 key on keyboard before windows starting),
delete file winlogon.exe in directory: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

3. Clear your 'hosts' file.
How to edit your hosts file: locate it first, either by browsing to the directory (as shown above) or by hitting "Start - Search - select all files and folders - type in 'hosts' (without the quotation marks) and hit search. When the file is found, click with your right mouse button on the file and select 'Open With...' This will bring up a list of programs to edit the file with. Select Notepad from that list and click OK. - Remove all lines from the file and type in: 127.0.0.1 localhost. Now close the file and save your changes.
For Windows 95/98/Millenium machines: Locate the file hosts in your C:\Windows directory. Just delete it or edit it with a text editor like notepad and make sure there is only one line there:
127.0.0.1 localhost
For Windows 2000 machines: Locate the file hosts in your C:\Winnt\System32\Drivers\Etc directory. Just delete it or edit it with a text editor like notepad and make sure there is only one line there:
127.0.0.1 localhost
For Windows XP machines: Locate the file hosts in your C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc directory. Just delete it or edit it with a text editor like notepad and make sure there is only one line there:
127.0.0.1 localhost

Oh boy this is getting long winded. At this rate the blog is going to need a newsgroup ;)

Josh - my implementation does what you describe under the hood. It uses an integer property to mark layers. And multiple providers can set different layers on the same object without clobbering each other.
The layout provider keeps the dirty laundry under wraps but publicly maps the integer to the order of strings in the Roles collection. Given a Roles collection Dad, Mom and Bob; at layer Dad only Dad is enabled but at layer Bob Bob, Mom and Dad are enabled.

The reason for using strings to label layers would be the same reason you would want to use enums in code for constants.

You're quite right about the fight for visibility. if you make an item invisible in code and later switch layers that item's visibility is clobbered. The solution?

I could only think of two

1) Dont give the item a layer. If SetRole is never called on an object its hands off for the layer system. I guess that means IRoleProvider needs an UnSetRole

2) Provide a second property 'layer visibility'
It is a shadow property that indicates what Control.Visible 'should' be. Every time you want to change Control.Visible and it does not match 'layer visibility' you know someone did something behind your back. Leave the control alone until 'layer visibility' and Control.Visible match

PS - I mix the terms 'layer' and 'role' cos as I wrote the code role seemed a more natural term, layer was kinda ambiguous. Role is a crap term it's as ambiguous as 'paradigm shift'. So I'll be changing everything back to 'layer' in the code as soon as I get a chance

Ifeanyi,

I finally got the chance to run your code. Wow! This is exactly what I was talking about. Everyone interested in this should download his project at http://nand.net/~iman/LayeredUI/ (or just click on his name above).

Wow.

I haven't had time to go back and investigate what happened yet, but I will!

What was the URL of the page that had this instruction on it?

Nice Carl, have you tried this with compressing ViewState? - I have tried this, but never got it working...would be pretty useful if someone could...

That would be cool.

I have some code for persisting viewstate on the server in the session object at http://www.franklins.net/dotnet

Carl

Carl,

Thanks for inviting me to participate.
---------

All of this is predicated on the assumption that the quality of a program's behavior is somehow related to its collection of functions. That is not true.

A program can be well-behaved with lots of functions, and it can be ill-behaved with few. What makes a user interface good or bad isn't access to more or fewer functions.

A program with good interaction will allow its users to direct it the way you direct your car down the street, not the way you select functions on your home entertainment system (which are univerally poorly designed).

Programmers must solve software construction problems by deconstructing user scenarios down into their constituent functions and then coding them up as such. But to then turn around and present that same scenario back to the user as a decomposed heap of vaguely-related functions does not work very well for the user (notwithstanding the fact that it might work just fine for the programmer). Dividing that decomposed heap up into several--conditionally-hidden--smaller heaps misses the point.

There's a big difference between good programming doctrine and good design doctrine. One does not necessarily imply the other.

Thanx,
Alan

This is absolutely true. Alan makes a great point that we ought not to forget.

What I'm describing is a tool to make a particular type of user interface. Just because you use the tool doesn't mean you will design the right UI. Even if you do design a great UI it doesn't mean people will use it, and no tool is a substitute for thinking through the process of making a great UI.

A MUCH more important question than "how will we create a layered user interface?" is "What does the user need to DO with this software, and what will their experience be."

So if you are committed to developing the BEST UI possible, and you decide to using a layered UI tool, your work is just beginning. And, if you were smart, you'd want to get an experienced designer's help.

Carl, you should try the new Livestats.net by DeepMetrix....100% .NET (sql backend and a touch of SOAP) and uses page embedding to track stats instead of straight log analysis. I think they learned from 6.x, but it has only been out for a week so it's probably too early to tell. If you have a thing against java, it's still in there, but no one's perfect right?

Yeah, I've had enough of those guys. If I hear that other people are using it successfully maybe I'll try it. I wasted a ton of time on that product.

Update: SecureWebs is no longer hosting the show since MSDN came along.

Also, I'm almost done with the data-driven asp.net version of the .NET Rocks! website. More consistent, faster, and not just one big page!

great stuff.. now all you have to do is get Dennis to blog!! :-)

Thanks Carl. The transcript idea is great. Any chance it can be a regular feature for all future shows.

Looks good. Just finished the Robert Greene episode. Hmmm... do you need the canned applause? I don't think you do. Your better without it. Awesome show as always tho.

Once the show starts really paying for itself (sponsors) we should be able to do transcripts.

While I can appreciate your desire to put this information out, I feel that this is a little too much marketing oriented. Due to the issues that have occurred with Robert McLaws, I would think that a more appropiate post would be something along the lines of:

New Class Schedule at franklins.net

VB.NET Master Class with Carl Franklin (link to additional info)
ASP.NET Master Class with Carl Franklin (link to additional info)
Advanced Sockets in VB .NET! (link to additional info)

Wally

Point taken.

Thanks, Wally.

Carl

Well, I thought it was up 24hr now (and streamed, if you chose that link) right?

Not sure how this "new" system will be any different.

Jim

What I'm talking about is more like a radio station, where you connect and you hear what everyone else hears at the same time. It's coming from a single audio source on the server.

One of the best assets about the internet is that you get content "on demand". Get WHAT you want WHEN you want it. Which is why TiVO is so popular too.

So, to "hear what everyone else hears at the same time"? I don't see that as any advantage. Maybe I'm missing somthing.

Jim

Then, my good friend, don't listen to it. :-)

I think it's a good idea. I listen to internet radio pretty often, it's good to NOT have to choose what to hear sometimes, to just tune to the station you know is always good. If it's a repeat I don't want to hear again, I can switch stations or go to the archives.

Jim, didn't mean to be a wise-ass. OK, I did, but not in at all in a mean-spirited way. :-)

It's just another way that listeners can enjoy the show. We're not taking the downloads away, just adding another "channel" if you will.

We actually did this because we got so many requests for it, so there are people out there who want it.

Ok, let's have some fun with this:
So far the best part of this is Shannon saying "it's good to NOT have to choose what to hear sometime"

Why Shannon?

Let's think about this for a moment. Maybe you feel that most websites make you actually DECIDE what link to click on, and of course you might be tired one day perhaps and you just want the computer to pick a link for you.
(I hope your smiling about this right now). So...lets see, we could ask another person in the room to pick a number between 1 and 15, then click on THAT link. We could push the mouse and release it from our hand - the link it ends up closest to, click that one. You could roll dice! No, no...that's too much work.

Anyway, I think you get my point. Do we really need a complex computer program to add randomness to decide what link to click?

If this were a LIVE (maybe a "call in" show!), I could see the usefulness of it.

I'm really looking forward to having some fun reading people's reasons for embracing this.

Take care all and Merry Christmas!!
Jim

Jim, Jim, Jim...

The goal is to have a LIVE stream. It's going to be DNR shows for the most part, but we are working toward a goal of having MULTIPLE live shows, call-ins and otherwise, on different topics, not just .NET.

This is phase one of what I hope will be what programmers and other IT professionals will want to listen to while they work.

Again, if you don't like it, don't listen to it. We're not taking down the website, and I'm certainly not forcing anyone to listen to the stream.

Cheers and happy ho-ho-ho to you too!

Carl

Awesome! It comes in crystal clear and super interesting (currently listening to the interview with Alan Cooper, the inventor of the language that made a career for me). Please keep it up!
Now, just to hope that the stream can make it through the firewall at work.

It should. I'm going through port 80

Hey Carl!

Comes in loud and clear all the way up here in Fairbanks, Alaska! That is, as long as I'm not downloading a fresh version of Office 2003 from MSDN.

I'm looking forward to it! Maybe that's what I'll play during down times during training weeks and before conference sessions....

Hope you're having great holidays!

Don

Cool, Don!

My latest idea is to do a morning show for maybe 3 days in a row to get some feedback.

I'd basically do about 2 hours of live call-in, music, and conversation around .NET, and then repeat it throughout the day.

Looks like I probably can get it with a bit of finessing.
Great, Carl!
BTW, nice description on the stream. :)

Did it work through the firewall?

We want the tour !!

What? no cookies for Santa? Season's Greetings..

HA HA - very funny ("even Jim Cheseborough!"). Am I famous now? Hey, maybe you'll mention me on the show, that would be cool. My last name is pronounced "Chezz-Bro" (no cheese in it!)

Hey Carl, I hope your Christmas was nice.
Always remember that I'm a huge DotNetRocks fan (and no, I'm not fat!).

Jim

yep, it does work through firewalls.

Great job. Carl

Hehe... cool.

Happy New Year, Jim!

Great!

Dude,

Will you also provide a mp3 download of the live show afterwards ? With the time differences, Australia might not be awake when the show is is on the air. Some people esp in Australia don't have the internet connection to do the live streaming, and the people I know who listen to dotnet rocks, listen to it in a disconnected mode, i.e mp3 player on the bus, in the car. So a mp3 download would be great!!!

Dude,

Will you also provide a mp3 download of the live show afterwards ? With the time differences, Australia might not be awake when the show is is on the air. Some people esp in Australia don't have the internet connection to do the live streaming, and the people I know who listen to dotnet rocks, listen to it in a disconnected mode, i.e mp3 player on the bus, in the car. So a mp3 download would be great!!!

Aaron,

We absolutely will provide mp3s for all live content.

I connected to my XP Box at work from my XP Box at home over a VPN connection. I disconnected my VPN connection while connected to my Work XP Box. After waiting a minute or two I reconnected to the VPN and the Terminal Service session picked right back up, and I had a different IP! So I don't think it has to deal with Windows 2003 Terminal Services, rather it is more of an XP terminal service feature. Cool stuff nevertheless.

How cool is that. I never noticed it before.

Dang, how many great ideas can a single person have in a month??? You did it again Carl, this is beyond <great/>.

Speaking of Windows Media, I too use the encoder and was wondering why you still use MP3's instead of Windows Media format since it is smaller and seems to have better sound quality.

I had been thinking this for a while, have you thought of talking to a Satellite Radio provider. For those that dont know, I listen to a morning radio on my way to work from Tampa (I am in Orlando). No I dont have Satellite Radio, this is something where this Radio jock worked out with a Clear Channel station( am guessing). However,people call the show all the time from all over the country that get the show through XM. So Satellite subscribers as well as FM channels get the show. So it's possible! Plus you would get paid! Just a thought.

Actually I just got an email back from XM radio saying that their programming is all locked in for a while but I should keep in touch. Hm.

I've been talking with them for a while about this. I need everyone to send them email requesting .NET Rocks! That might work.

Well, in the end, it worked through the firewall fine, but it kept triggering our proxy server to ask me for my password, so I couldn't really listen to it at work. Damn!

Nice one, Carl - its working through my Pocket PC fine, which is what I usually listen to the show on (all the way from here in Munich, Germany).

As for the regular links to the shows, it looks like you had the Media player streams turned off for each show (I guess due to the bandwidth issues?), and from MSDN its not possible to listen to the stream from the Pocket PC - at least not with Pocket IE. Are there any ways you know of to still listen to it via Pocket PC, short of downloading each episode and transferring it over to the device?

Keep up the good work, great show!

Hey Pete - we don't have the streams turned off. You may be behind a firewall, as the regular streams are not using port 80. If we set up a separate server for the streams, I suppose it would work. Let me look into it.

No, sorry, you're right! - the Windows Media links for the shows work OK.

I assumed the link was just for download but Pocket Windows Media buffers and plays it OK. I hadn't tried it since your servers came back online, with the new ASP.NET interface, etc. - I think there used to be a separate link for the streaming version (?) so I thought that wasn't possible anymore.

Hey Jim, I'd say its all about serendipity. I just tried the 24 hour stream, and it came up with one of the shows I hadn't heard, and which I didn't think would be that interesting for me. And I ended up learning some great stuff from it, and heard a few really interesting things - quite relevant for what I'm working on at the moment.

Also, I agree totally with Shannon. Knowing what to choose is often overwhelming - so just to turn it on and have a listen sometimes is great. I often listen to the show when doing other stuff around the house, and sometimes I don't want to go through all the archive trying to decide which one would be most interesting. Sometimes I just want to have it going in the background, and see if I pick up some interesting stuff.

Thank you

Also check your lmhosts file - it nominally is only for lookups of "Windows machines" but if an entry is in there it will be used for address lookup instead of going to dns also...

Well, got a version working...very simple, only problem now will be effectively duplicating what default ViewState can do with encryption, hashing etc...oh to have access to the ASP.NET source...(reflector has thus far been unable to shed light on how / where this is done...)
You can take a look here: http://www.mostlylucid.co.uk/posts/694.aspx

Why not try anakrino (http://www.saurik.com/net/exemplar/) His website was hacked, but try back in a couple days. It decompiles the framework to C#

Great show. I learned a lot from your questions and answers (ie. soap is not acronym.)

thanks

Yup, did the same thing with Reflector - found out how it's done - in a very rigid manner is unfortunately the answer...

You have several new features assosiated with TS in server 2003.
Among them are the keep alive connections group policy setting (rdp 5.2 required)

This setting is useful when a client are connecting via a WAN link or via the Internet. By enabling this GPO the terminal server will check the session state between it and the client instead of the default behavior, which more or less assumes the session state. The benefit realized by enabling keepalive connections is that if there is a network hiccup that causes a break in the network connection between the client and the server the session will be placed into a disconnected state. Should the client attempt to reconnect to the Terminal Server it will connect back to the existing session instead of being forced into a new session. This prevents the client's current work from sitting idle in a session it can no longer reconnect to without administrative intervention...

This is a great example of why we need code access security.
How many are browsing while using an admin account?
All code downloaded during a session will run with the prevelegies assosiated with user account.

You can make a sand box structure at your drive(more restrective ntfs rigts), and run windows explorer (or what ever browser you might be using), with the run as service(secondary logon)

at the start menu-->ie-->right click-->run as-->use an account with restricted prevelegies..

You might have seen that server 2003 will not allow browsing with ie, unless you change your security settings

When I try to open your stream, I get the following error back in WMP:

0xC00D11B6: Cannot play the file

Windows Media Player cannot play the file. A network firewall may be preventing the Player from opening the file by using the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) transport protocol. To play this file, try opening the file without specifying UDP.

Try it now.

In my case this problem appears to have been caused by a conflict with Norton Anti-virus. We had the same probelm with a new HP Pavillion notebook that shipped with XP MCE. My boss had installed the OEM trial version of Norton Anti Virus that shipped with the PC before trying to launch Media Center. We removed NAV to replace it with our licensed version of Mcafee and now Media Center launches. Hooray!

Yup, working great now!

I am also having the same ehshell.exe problem. Even after 2 reformats & half a dozen installs, has anyone got any further with this problem? Ive been looking for a solution for weeks :(

My solution is to buy a Dell. :-)

THis is the same problem that I have been experiencing. I also have the MSDN partner membership, and thougt that I should install wind. media center edt. on a computer I had. I downloaded from microsoft down-site and started installing. Got the same problem with the xp sp1, and when I was finished installing xp media center could not find Iexplorer etc. I would also have liked to add the computer into my domain but that option was also gone..only workgroup was availible. I think maybe there must be something wrong with the version you can download from microsoft download site.

I work as a computer technician and a network-administrator for 3 companies, so you can say I have some experience in installing computers.

if anybody have downloaded the wind. xp MCE from the MSDN web-site and have got it to work please send me a mail to erlen77@hotmail.com

Floppy_a
Norway

hmmm...I am wondering. Why do people have to come with feedback if they have nothing smart to say. I understand that you have got a problem and is trying to troubleshoot your way to make it work, and that if you have to re-install it doesnt mather because it doesnt work anyway.
I am just wondering if there can be problems with the ISO image we are downloading from the microsoft site.
since I have tryed re-installing the OS several times now, and same error appears. I have also installed XP and wind 2003 server on that same machine (it works fine) so it is no hardware error.

People that do not have downloaded from the MSDN-site is not in the same situation as us, and can therefore not give oss the proper feedback.

Same ehshell.exe problem here. Whenever i select TV i get the error, ive tried numerous supposedly compatible cards, all with the same result.

Nobody found a solution?

Spyware software (such as Spybot S&D, Adaware) can change the hosts file to be read-only, as well as remedy other little hacks that visuses, spyware, malware, etc., have used.

I recently installed a divx codec, and the installer, without notifying me, happily installed that "GatorWare" search thing, too.

I was trying to figure out why radom sites were popping up in IE when I wasn't even browsing.

Figured it out, and went temporarily (more) insane.

It's really frustrating when trouble is due a virus - when it's an actual company, though, that's employing such underhanded techniques to push ads in front of your face, it is absolutely infuriating.

Nothing a few minutes of primal scream therapy can't fix, but wow - I know where you're coming from...

Don't hold back Carl. Tell us how you really feel about these jerks.

Wahoo! What time is Rory's show going online?

Rory's show is almost ready for prime time. Another hour tops

I'm sure Mrs. Clinton now thinks Gandhi joke wasn't too funny either.

Get a life, Not.

Hey Carl,

I have a little suggestion, hopefully other blog readers will agree that it's a good idea, but if possible, can you let us know who will be on the show before you record it. As there have been guests on your show, who I would like to ask them a dotnet question or two. We can email you the questions before you record the show, and you can choose a couple to ask the guest.


Cheers

Aaron

Aaron,

There is a schedule of upcoming shows and the recording dates online at http://www.franklins.net/dnrsched

We might also be turning the show into a live show soon, in which case we'd do a lot more to publicize the recordings. :-)

I enjoy your show, but I wish you would disagree more often.

Although there is usually some interesting technical stuff, there is never any debate.

> I enjoy your show, but I wish you would disagree more often <

I disagree. <g>

Carl,
I enjoyed the show with an exceptions some of the comparisions you used!

Did you pick a co-host yet?

I missed it, why is Mark leaving? Where is he off to? Did he get too excited for ya?

Too busy for the likes of us! <g> Really, his MOC training business has taken off and he has to manage it. No time for recording.

This basically sums up the show....

Carl : Gee Rory, you're so cool
Mark : Yeah, you get me more excited than an alabama tick at a skynnard concert.
Rory : No, you guys are cooler.
Carl : No you are, here let me read from your blog.....

:P

Not running under an non-admin account would've prevented this from happening....

yep. That's the first thing I changed

LOL. Yeah, that's about right!

I was just catching up on past shows and I kind of went in backwards order. I got to the Dan Appleman show from 9/9/02 and I got a kick out of how much has changed from then. For instance the topic of Everette came up and nobody even knew what it was. My oh may how time flies.

I think '.NET Rocks' can do with a rating system - 'stars', 'thumbs-up' or similar. At the end of year, we can have our own Oscars!

Are you planning to have a bloggers' beer (or dinner) at the Dutch Tavern when Rory is in town?

Using www.timezoneconverter.com, because I'm lazy:

12:00:00 Fri Jan 30 2004 in US/Eastern converts to
04:00:00 Sat Jan 31 2004 in Australia/Melbourne

Hm. Can I be bothered staying up that late, or getting up that early? I don't know.

The idea is intriguing, though.

Excellent!

I know Bill and Peter. I am going to try and listen in.

Wally

You'll still be able to download it.

How can I contact you? Can you give us your skype username?

Carl,

Couple of suggestions:
Perhaps you can put a link to your show schedule in the main Show page. I say this becuase I missed calling in for the Chris Sells show. Darn it! And I think many listerners are unaware of the schedule and the phone number to call. Eventually I found the http://www.franklins.net/dnrsched/ page.
Also, have you thought of allowing user to rate the shows, similar to how people rate articles. That way you could get feedback, dont get me I love all of them. Some are however better than other.
Just some thoughts :)

As I said in my first post, We'll publish a page with instructions on how to call in once we get closer to Friday.

As for calling in, we have not done the show live yet, so we have not had an opportunity to have callers. In the past we have called people back who told us they wanted to be callers, but we couldn't get enough callers to do it on a regular basis.

So glad to see you are pumping out shows weekly now. I feel better about myself when I don't listen to Stern on the way to work.

Cool! Just wait until you hear the live show!

So now that free mug I got with my club .net rocks subscription is a collector's item because it has Mark's name on it. I wonder if I can sell it on ebay for $239? I'm SO EXCITED!

Dear Carl,

Things have changed a lot in Brazil recently. Information was scarce and now, through internet, I am very glad I can get reach free and valuable resources like msdn.microsoft.com , www.msdnbrasil.com.br , weblogs.asp.net , etc. By the way, I new of .Net Rocks! just recent, only after MSDN started hosting it and it have proved to be a valuable source of information/trends for me.

I am also new to blogging and it seems to me it is an amazing way of communicating. I started reading some blogs through internet and just recentely got acquainted of RSS aggregators. I am using RSS Bandit. I do not now whether there is better free RSS aggregators than it, so if you now of free RSS aggregators share your thougts on it.

I also got interested in your post about Skype. Actually I had already heard of it, but did not give it much attention because I already use MSN Messenger, ICQ and Yahoo Messenger and thought it was just another akin in the arena. Anytime you start calling or letting people call during .Net Rocks! recordings, let me know about, so I might manage timezone and agenda to get connected to .Net Rocks!

Best regards,

Luciano Evaristo Guerche
Jacarei, SP, Brazil

What a treat :)

I hope my flight isn't knocked out due to weather - this is sounding rather a bit more awesomer even than it already was (so much that grammar is failing me)...

Hey Carl,
I can't wait to hear the show on Friday. The Skype software looks cool. I did a quick google group search to see what people say about it. I came across some posts referencing a part of the license agreement that I found a little scary:

Paragraph 9:
(c) THE SKYPE SOFTWARE IS UTILIZED AND DISTRIBUTED BY THIRD PARTIES
WHICH ARE UNRELATED TO SKYPER. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT INSTALLATION OF
THE SKYPE SOFTWARE WILL ALLOW THIRD PARTIES WHO ARE NOT AFFILIATED
WITH SKYPER THE ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR COMPUTER ("OUTSIDE
PARTIES"). YOU AGREE THAT SKYPER WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE,
CLAIM OR LOSS OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES AS STATED IN
PARAGRAPH 9(a) ABOVE, RESULTING FROM ANY ACTIONS OR OMISSIONS OF THE
OUTSIDE PARTIES.

third parties access to my computer? are all eula(s) like this? if so i have to start reading them.

>> third parties access to my computer?

That's what happens when you talk to people with Skype.

Really cool Idee! Ralf

I wrote the previous post on my ipaq while sitting on the crapper, so I apologize for its irreverence. I really wish Mark the best of luck with his business and love club .net rocks.

> I think '.NET Rocks' can do with a rating system

It has one. It's called the blogsphere <g>

uh, Rory you mean the free bundled version of DivX that says "it's free because it's supported by adware"?

The one that says "This will install GAIN on your computer if you install it"

Can't blame the company if you click the "next" button without reading the site.

You're going to put Rory on the air LIVE! Can't wait to hear this!!!

Carl,
I was a little bit disappointed with this show, because compare to other shows you produced it did not provide me with a solid knowledge of the of ClickOne technology. What I gathered was just marketing talk about what direction Microsoft is taken in the future, and like any other technologies have chances to change. I enjoyed brief conversation about Datasets though. Why wouldn't you talk more about topics that developers are working currently on? For example, how do you detect and resolve Concurrency conflict with ADO.NET?
Since, Microsoft is sponsoring bandwidth and hosting shows on MSND do they dictate who your next speaker is going to be?

Hope to hear from ya, Maxim

> did not provide me with a solid knowledge of the of ClickOne technology <

Unfortunately, nobody has a solid knowledge of ClickOnce because it does not exist yet. This was a future-oriented show that accomplished it's goals, I thought, which were to let people know what direction MS is taking with AutoDeployment.

> how do you detect and resolve Concurrency conflict with ADO.NET <

Listen to Bill Vaughn's shows.

> Since, Microsoft is sponsoring bandwidth and hosting shows on MSND do they dictate who your next speaker is going to be? <

Nope. I pick the speakers. Microsoft is sponsoring the show because it is good content and they really like it.

Hopefully you'll like the next one better. :-)

Carl,
I listen to Bill Vaughn show it rocked!

I am looking forward to next show, so keep up good work.

Real-life interaction is good. Ads are ads though regardless of the format.
There is a saying "Free cheese is only in mouse trap" :)

I thought Active Reports ads were pretty good!

I think it's a great idea.

Cool!

Tune in on Friday!

more prizes and give-aways with the ads may do the trick also.. :-)

Whatever you need to do to keep the show coming! Actually I think I would be more receptive to hear developers talk about their product (infomercial like) than a 2 minute ad (which I occasionally fast forward thru anyway :blush:) Hmmm, maybe thats how I ended up with this rotisserie grill?!

It really comes down to the host of the show, if there attitude is "i need the $$ so i'll be really nice" then the ads will suck.

But if you question the product, have tried the product out, try and find out what it can and can't do, then everyone will benefit. Also suggest getting a developer of the product in for the ad, not just there salesman, could be more interesting,
with questions of "what were the main challenges etc", "what problems did you have porting your code from vb to dotnet" etc etc.


Just my usual 2 cents worth.

Aaron

Good idea! Get the vendors to give one away on the show.

I think thats a cool Idea. One other sugestion... Get rid of that "Girl" who does your show intro! She/He sounds really scary!

> if you question the product, have tried the product out, try and find out what it can and can't do, then everyone will benefit <

The problem is that it wouldn't be fair to the listeners for me to spend an hour or two with a product and form an opinion. That's why we've only had sponsors who have products we have used and like.

So, maybe an idea is for the vendor to bring along with them a developer who is using the product, and they can give a testimonial. That would be worth something to everybody, right?

I have nothing against ads, per se. Only against ads for stuff that is clearly only randomly thrown at me. Ads about products/services that are in line with my field of work deserve at least a minute or two of my time. Sometimes they actually have their intended effect with me: I learn about a product that does something I need to do.

So what about having the ads, sure, (5 minutes tops), but instead of having it just an audio version of a print ad, covering all the bullet points that I will find out the home page of the web site anyway, suggest something different to the advertiser. Like, letting them discuss why one key feature sets their product apart.

Instead of just, "It saves time! Look at the web site! It organizes your Rolodex! Look at the web site! We won an award! It walks the dog!" you have more depth to the ad, rather than breadth. "Out of four products in our market, ours is the only one that walks the dog <i>and</i> scoops the poop -- something you won't find up on the home page of our web site. How does it work? We'll tell you. We modified a wet vac by attaching a COM interface to it, and harnessed it to our dog walking engine, which was built entirely in C#. Both the walker and the scooper's functionality are exposed through a Web Service. The New York Dog Walking Association chose our product and used it to walk sixty dogs at once. Since our competitors don't scoop the poop, thirty dogs were unmanageable for them. Poop would've been everywhere. But our product kept the sidewalks poop-free for the the duration of the longest walk."

Well, I guess there's a good reason I'm a software wonk and not an ad man.

Good luck, I think it's a good idea.

That is a great idea! It will be much better than the current cheesy ads. Keep up the good work... .Net rocks! ;)

I like the developer using the product idea. Kind of like a product success story. Maybe if any listeners have had success with those products they could even write in or be incorporated in some how. I do get the sense that the ads aren't a sell your soul type situation where you let anyone advertise just to pay the bills.

PS I like the intro girl (in a purely platonic way)

Actually, I think hearing from different vendors (even though they are paying) is interesting. I especially like when you put your take on the matter.

Thanks for the great comments. I want to change the format, and I think this is a great way to do it.

I like cheese... Not so sure about poop though... Sounds like a good idea to me. Whatever keeps you in ribs and keeps the show coming.

Only if related to the topic of the show.

VC++: Intro_girl++;
VB: Intro_girl = Intro_girl + 1

I like the idea of giving some time to sponsors to talk about their products. Maybe you could ask for questions to be submitted on your blog that developers would like to ask the sponsor concerning the functionality of their products and then have the sponsor address those during the show.

I think it would be much better than the run-of-the-mill type ads, as long as it isn't just, like Alan McBee said, an "audio version of a print ad". Developers don't care about sales hype, because we know most of it is BS anyway.

Ads are ads, but given that we really want .Net Rocks to stay on the air (?) go for whatever you have to to keep it alive and kickin. BTW: Awesome show!

I don't mind the short ads, but your idea to do a more in depth spot on the company and it's product is a great idea especially if they start giving away products.

Carl,

Some of my favorite ads were the cheesy ones you use to have about Franklins.NEt, specially since you use to play beats I assume were created by you, some were really good. Like Tim Huc mentioned on a show once, listeners including myself cant wait to fly out to New London, CT and have lunch with you guys up there. Having said that, it is a great idea, what you're proposing. I am sure like most we'd rather have a few ads per show and keep a good thing going. After all if it bothers anyone that much than fasforward thru it. Also, I wanted to share with you and you can pass this on to the vendors, that most.NET components we have bought in my company have been a result of seeing them in some form of ad mostly through say, magazine ads. Meaning advertising does work and once you hear a name then if you need it you check them out.

The only potential problem I see is, that since it is not pre-recorded or the same everytime, that each subsequent week the sponsor would have less to say.

Just a small concern,

Like always keep on Rocking!!!

Thanks, Eddy.

I agree that we would not be able to do an extended segment with the same sponsor week after week. I imagine we'd still have some sponsors who would want to do the traditional ad spot (obviously for less $$) on a regular basis.

Maybe you could post who the sponsors are going to be in advance so we could send in some or our questions in advance. (The "Cheesy" ads are good too...)

How far ahead do Micro$oft look, there is a two new versions of Visual Studio .Net (code named 'Whidbey' and 'Orcus' ) and a new Operationg system (codenamed 'Longhorn') on the way. I See that there are some very useful...

Carl - cool!

I'll be listening. Should be a great show!

.NetRocks On!

Hey, I like the questions idea. Not just force fed info. Also, I'm sorry, but the intro girl just doesn't sound... right. She sounds like she's reading from a card and forcing a smile.

Maybe Datagrid Girl (Marcie Robillard) could do your intro.

I vote keep the intro girl.

I use Active Reports.net and really like it. It would be very cool to hear from their architect and/or main developers.

As snoop dog would say, "Keep it real..."

Ian

Just don't let him sing...:-)

You do appear to have a number of guests from the Seventies (judging by the photos on http://www.franklins.net/dotnetrocks/) - did they have .NET then?

Bummer... very popular show, no doubt. The server is busy. :(

Great job gentlemen! I would've loved to have called in, but I'm at work. So, I love the idea of a midnight show!!! I'm always up late coding...oh crap, did I just admit that pubicly. I must admit, I was skeptical at first about the "long form" ads, but it was very informative (having the guests ask questions of the advertiser was a good thing). I give it a thumbs up.

I love the live format...excellent job on your first show Rory...and keep the live stuff coming!!

Awesome job! I looked around for my old headset, but no luck finding it. I did download Skype, though, so maybe next time (if I'm home sick then, too).

OK, I admitted it "publicly".

Good job and the idea of a late show is a good one as not everyone can call in during business hours.

I listened to a bit of it and it was excellent. Will listen to the rest when it's online.

I got to listen to the first hour and it was awesome, keep up the great work. I really like the new ad format, much better than the old ads.

Great show and I love the idea of a DevTalk late show. I too am often up late coding. So if there is a support group or anything for people like us, then give me the 12 steps.

I also don't have a headset or mic during the day but should at home at night.

I really enjoyed the live show. Some of the calls were hard to hear, but other than that, I love this format.

Great show! Lost the feed a couple of times late in the first hour but still a Rocking success.

One of the callers aked about securing passwords in a database using .NET cryptography. Pat Hynds showed how to do this using hashing with random salt at at recent talk I attended.

Powerpoint and code samples from the talk can be found here:
http://www.torontoug.net/Downloads/385.aspx

Great show, I got so interested that I almost forgot to go register my car (last day today). Had to run out for 15 minutes to get that done.

I enjoyed doing these talks with Carl. He's the qunitesential professional and host. He always makes the guest seem welcome and at ease. Ask me again anytime to talk on any subject from helicopters to jets (so to speak).

For those who could connect.. I was able to connect before the show, but as soon as you went live all I could get was protocol not supported error from Window Media Player (I tried many times throughout the 2 hours... rebooted... Had no problem connecting to other forms of streaming audio or video...) Any thoughts?

Looking forward to hearing the rerun...

Hm. I don't know what the deal was. I'm going to be examining the logs to see how to tweak the server. Although I haven't had any other bad reports yet.

I had the same connection problem...Cant way to get it when it comes online.

Thanks you Carl

I just glad I was so quick to remember System.Net.DNS. I sometimes astound myself with my memory. ;-)

Hmmm, that should "I'm just" rather than "I just". Sometimes a also astound myself with my inability to use my native language beyond a 3rd grade level. :(

LOL. Hey, if anyone else had this connection problem, please tell me. I want to see if there's a connection limit imposed by default. It definitely wasn't a bandwidth problem. We have 10Mbits

I couldn't connect, either, but I'm fairly certain my corporate firewall/proxy was to blame. So +1 on the idea of a nighttime show.

As you know should know Carl, no one ever "Rocks" at noon. All good rocking happens late at night. So I second that.

Besides, the only thing better than a geek call-in program would be a drunken geek call-in program.

See the link for comment

Rob: I didn't see anything in that PowerPoint about how to encrypt passwords for storage in a database if anyone is interested. I wrote up a very short "how to" about hashing them in ASP.NET. It just uses the FormsAuthentication hashing method, but I think it works pretty well.

http://www.lazycoder.com/article.php?story=20040130162602331

I did a post on my blog awhile back about Cryptography and wanted to ask Dan.
http://ipattern.com/simpleblog/PermLink.aspx?entryid=19

Patterns are cool!

www.ipattern.com do you?

Enjoyed the show. Downloaded Skype but forgot to pick up a headset so missed out on the prizes. I was listening in UK so the show was on at 5.00pm which was fine for me. Still missing Mark's laid back drawl but Rory was a worthy replacement. Very amusing... Nice one gentlemen...

Maxim's Post is much better than my post. Much more detail. :)

Think of mine as a sprig of parsley on the plate of Maxim's post. It's just there for decoration, you can eat it but it's not very filling. Maxim's is a meal.

</threadjacking>

Scott and Max: Sorry I should have checked the download from Pat's talk. There is a slide there where he did the Random Salt demo but I guess he didn't supply the demo project.

I found this link that explains the process and has demo code.

http://www.sys-con.com/dotnet/article.cfm?id=487

Live is GREAT! Listener interaction adds an exciting new element to the show. I would like to see this become a regular event.

I listened to almost the entire show from Argentina. Excelent as always.
Do you know how many people were connected?

The most we ever had at one time was 81 listeners. I think that's pretty good for blogs and email being the only advertising.