I took this picture at the intersection of MO-169 and 188th St. in Smithville, Missouri, not too far from my house.  Somebody lost control in an ice storm and took out the stop sign.  The county (or would this be city or state?) replaced the sign quickly.

Perhaps a little too quickly.

My mom and her husband run their own business as artisans.  They sell glass and copper pieces, mostly hummingbird feeders.  It's really beautiful stuff.

My mom surprised me a few weeks ago by announcing to me that they'd started a blog.  She wanted to know what words of wisdom I had to offer, so I sent her to Scott Hanselman's 32 Ways to Keep your Blog from Sucking.

So, now I'm confused about the nature of blogging.  Does it mean that blogging is no longer cool when your mom starts to do it?  :)

Seriously, though.  If you're shopping for a unique gift or you just like hummingbirds, please do check out my mom and step-dad's shop and blog.

Back when I accepted my current job with Corillian/Checkfree/Fiserv, I stated that a job like this where I could telecommute was my holy grail.  Over the last few weeks, I've been putting a lot of thought into whether or not I still feel as excited about telecommuting as I did when I wrote that.

It's a mixed bag, really.  I enjoy being (mostly) free from distractions, free from micro-management, and I especially enjoy my respite from the daily rat race of commuting. 

On the other hand, it's easy to get lonely.  You don't realize how much you miss "water cooler" chats until you don't have them anymore.  And, as much as I love my kids, the noise they make occasionally gets to be a nuisance. 

Overall, I still love it, to say nothing of the job itself (which is also great).  I am starting to get a touch of cabin fever, and that contributes to an over-exaggerated feeling of missing my colleagues at Commerce, but overall, this is a great working arrangement.  I'm just going to have to make a concerted effort to keep active socially, I think.

With the most recent system update for the Xbox 360, Microsoft added support for my favorite video codec, DivX, and its open-source equivalent, XviD.  I decided that, with modern inexpensive storage, the time was right to build an online video library, as I already had for music several years ago.

I've divided my media folder into two sections:  Home Movies, where I keep captured camcorder tapes, and Entertainment, where I keep my DVD movie collection.  I use different processes for each.

For the camcorder tapes, I capture the digital video over Firewire using WinDV or the video import tool built into Vista.  I take the raw DV AVI (about 13 GB per hour) and run it through MediaCoder.  I encode using 2-pass XviD at 1500 kbps, using VBR MP3 for the audio.  I set the output to resize to 720x400 (my camcorder shoots 16x9 video) and pass it through the yadif 0 de-interlace filter.  The final result is about 700 Mb per hour, and looks reasonably good on both the PC and the Xbox 360.  MediaCoder is a little tricky to learn, so I recommend reading the forums and FAQs on the website.

For the DVD movies, I rip the DVDs to my hard drive using well-known tools.  (Disclaimer:  It is my belief that this legally falls under the doctrine of fair use, as I only rip movies that I own.  I do not advocate pirating movies in any way.)  I then use the Auto Gordian Knot to encode the movie to XviD, specifying a custom file size that I calculate using the rate of 700 Mb/hour.  This process is well-explained in the AutoGK tutorial.

So far, I've got about 40 movies, the entire run of Firefly, the Band of Brothers mini-series, and 30 hours of home video stored on my server and instantly available on my Xbox 360.  This is definitely a convenience that I find worth the time investment if you're so inclined.

I've been doing a lot of video editing lately, capturing digital video over firewire from my digital camcorder.  Unfortunately, I'd noticed that every so often, I would drop a bunch of frames.  Like, hundreds, all in one pop.  Dropping one or two frames here and there is normal.  Dropping hundreds is not.

I also noticed that occasionally on playback, the video would freeze and the audio would stutter.  This seems strange, because my current rig is no slouch:  Dual-core AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+, with 3 GB of RAM running Vista Ultimate (alas, 32-bit.  I'm not brave enough to move to 64-bit yet).   I noticed that the stutter/freeze had a tendency to occur  whenever there was hard drive activity.  Just try to get Vista to stop all hard drive activity.  Especially when you're capture full-frame uncompressed video.  (Side note:  I originally tried to blame Vista, so I tried to fix it by installing Service Pack 1 RC1.  While SP1 gets my seal of approval as being chock full of win, it didn't fix my issue...)

A little Googling led me to the general understanding that this is a known flaw in this motherboard, requiring a BIOS update.  Okay, let's update the BIOS.  Umm...  Where's the new BIOS?  Searching on Foxconn's website seems to indicate there is no such motherboard.  Great.

Luckily, Google came to the rescue again.  You can get the latest BIOS here.

Next problem:  How to install the damned thing.  They have a DOS-based flash utility here, and they expect you to make a bootable floppy to execute it.  I ask you, who the heck actually builds a system with a freakin' floppy drive these days?  Luckily, these folks have the answer.  I downloaded their bootable CD image, and followed their instructions to add the DOS flash utility and BIOS binary to the ISO, which I then burnt to disk.

One more problem:  When I booted up into the DR-DOS CD, I was presented with my old friend, Pause.exe, who said, "Strike any key to continue . . ."  I struck a key.  Nothing happened.  I struck another, and still nothing happened.  Seems I forgot that DOS wasn't going to support my USB keyboard.  D'oh!

Thankfully, this motherboard has PS2 ports.  I dug out an old PS2-based Microsoft Natural Keyboard, plugged it in, and struck a key.  That took me to an A:\> prompt. 

One note for anybody who may be playing along with the home edition of our game:  In case you don't notice when the CD driver loads, the CD gets mounted at R:.  So switch to the R: drive (by typing R: followed by enter), and then type the filename of the flash utility followed by the full name of the BIOS binary, e.g. AFU860H.EXE 58GW1P34.BIN followed by enter.  Then just follow the prompts.  Note that you cannot save a backup of your existing BIOS, because the CD you burnt is a write-once media.

So I installed the new BIOS, and I'm happy to say my encoded video and audio is much smoother.  Big thumbs down to Foxconn for making me play Internet scavenger hunt, though.  Supposedly, their boards come with a Windows-based BIOS utility called SuperUpdate, but, like any self-respecting the geek, the first thing I do when I get a new piece of hardware is throw away the disk full of crapware and get the latest and greatest drivers off the web.  And of course, Foxconn doesn't have SuperUpdate available for download.  Grrrr.

Dear Mom/Mom-In-Law/Grandma/Other,

Please stop using Internet Explorer 6.0.  Just...  Stop.

I know you're comfortable with it.  I know that's what came installed on your computer, and you're not even aware that it sucks.  But trust me, it does.

"But Cam," you ask, "If it isn't broken, why should I fix it?"  Ah, but that's the point.  It is ridiculously broken.  It's the Yugo of web browsers.  Aside from being ridden with security vulnerabilities, and lacking innovations such as tabbed browsing, its CSS standards support is horribly broken and will never be fixed.

My point about security and tabs should be self-explanatory.  The CSS problem, in layman's terms, means that, just this week, a simple web page which should have taken me about four hours to design and develop took me over two days because I had to work around Internet Explorer 6.0's CSS flaws.  That's just...  obscene.  It wastes Corillian's time.  And worse yet, it wastes my time, which I could be using to post videos of your grandkids.

So what can you do to help me?  Convert to a different browser.  A more modern, more standards-compliant browser.  Just about all of them will automatically convert your favorites or bookmarks, history, cookies, and saved passwords.   They're all free.  All you have to do is download them and install them.  And then get your friends and relatives to do the same.  Here are a few suggestions.

• Internet Explorer 7.0.  Microsoft fixed a lot of the problems Internet Explorer 6.0 had, as well as adding some useful user interface enhancements.  I know it looks a little different, but if you try it, you might just like it.  Pros: Microsoft was aware of all the issues with IE 6.0 and fixed most of them.  Cons:  Slight learning curve with the new user interface.
  
  
• Mozilla Firefox.  This is the second-most popular browser right now.  It's very fast, reliable, and secure.  It has a really neat feature called extensions, which allow you download free add-ons for the browser that perform any number of useful functions.  For example, I run an extension called Ad Block Plus, which filters out banner ads from my web pages.  In many cases, I never even realize they were there.  Pros: Insanely active open-source community backing, which means frequent security updates, new features, and extensions.  Cons:  There are still a few web pages (very few) that were designed specifically with non-standard features of Internet Explorer in mind.  These sites don't deserve your traffic anyway and whoever told them they should design their site like that should be fired.
  
  
• Opera.  I honestly don't know a whole lot about Opera, but its users are very vocal about how much they like it, so maybe you will, too.  Pros:  I've heard it's really quite good.  Cons:  Same as Firefox.
  
  
• Safari.  This is Apple's browser that comes pre-installed on Mac computers.  They make a Windows version now.  I wasn't overly impressed, but again, this letter is about giving you options.  Pros:  Um...  it's free?  Cons:  Nothing overly compelling about it.
  

With just five minutes of effort, you can take a step toward a better browsing experience for you, and, as others follow your lead, a better development experience for me.  Thank you.

Michelle and I decided we should take advantage of the snowstorm here in KC and take Connor in the backyard to go sledding.  He has two sleds, one that's just a cheap plastic disc, and the other is my three-rail sit-on sled from my childhood.  The three-rail sled didn't glide as well as as the disc, but Connor didn't care.  He wanted to ride Daddy's old sled.

Well, after pushing him up and down the hill a few times, I was freakin' exhausted, but Connor wasn't anywhere near ready to come inside.  And then I had a memory of my childhood on the farm, when my dad would tie my sled to the back of his tractor and drag me all over the place.

Well, my tractor isn't nearly as big as my dad's, but I think it works just as well.  :)

I love Guitar Hero.  As a musician who long ago gave up his art to focus on his profession, I frequently miss the cathartic effect performing had on me.  Guitar Hero gives me a way to quickly reconnect with that aspect of my life, without the long-term investment of locking myself in a room and practicing every day.  I know it's a far cry from really making music, but it does a good job of simulating it.

So, with great anticipation, I picked up Rock Band today.  Well, my wife picked it up, actually.  She's probably too tolerant of my fetish for geeky expensive toys, at least from a financial standpoint.  Understand, she plunked down the MSRP $170 for the full set, with the game, the guitar, the mic, and the drums.  This is not a cheap hobby.  This just supports my theory that I have the best wife ever.  Scott Hanselman sometimes gets shot down because of low Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF), but I don't think I've actually been shot down yet.  The rule of thumb is, as long as the bills are paid, the kids are clothed, food is on the table, and I don't question silly expenditures like family portraits, she won't question the serious expenditures like $170 for a toy guitar and drum kit.  I think it's a good arrangement.

I digress. 

Rock Band is awesome.  Well worth the money, particularly for a Guitar Hero fan.  Aside from the guitar and bass parts, the game also allows you to play drums and sing vocals.  Or, at least, try to sing.  It makes me feel like I can sing, and that's what's important.  I reject your reality (the one in which my singing voice is somewhere between William Hung and a cat in a blender) and substitute my own (where my voice would make Frank Sinatra jealous).

The defining moment of my evening tonight:  When I discovered that, while playing the vocal part, you sometimes get to tap the mic in your hand to simulate a tambourine or, in the case of Don't Fear the Reaper, cowbell.  Yes, that's right.  I got to be Will Ferrell!  :)

More Cowbell!

Well, not really.  The folks at Infusion have posted their "trailer" for their upcoming video recap of Sleepless in New York.  Get it here.

I've got a decent amount of screen time in the trailer.   Before you ask, no, I wasn't really worried about hidden microphones.  It was about one in the morning, they were conducting personal interviews of all attendees, and I was punch drunk.  So for every question, I kept coming up with the most off-the-wall answers I could think of.  They did three takes of my interview, and I never answered any questions the same way twice.

Hopefully some of the funnier answers of my interview will be available in the future.

AT&T, the poster child for telecommuting, the company that practically invented telecommuting as we know it, appears to be forcing its teleworkers back into the office.

Yikes.  As someone who telecommutes full time (and absolutely loves it), I really feel bad for those workers.  Apparently, the suits at SBC, who recently acquired AT&T, don't share the former management's liberal views regarding work arrangements.  This is a scenario I sometimes worry about, as the company I work for, Corillian, has been acquired by CheckFree, which is in turn being acquired by Fiserv. 

Well, if it happens, it happens.  I'll enjoy it while I can.  I have a feeling, though, that with the rising costs of transportation and energy, AT&T may be an oddity.  I think it's likely more companies will embrace telework.

Look, I get Microsoft Office Sharepoint Services as a platform.  I get what it is, what it does, and why it's so cool.  Hell, Sleepless in NY was all about MOSS, and it was fun.  But I do need to rant about something.

At Sleepless in NY, Kurt Guenther, in his introductory Sharepoint presentation, characterized MOSS as "Microsoft's Web Platform."  Full stop.  Almost implying that that ASP.NET developers that didn't build on MOSS were an endangered species, that all .NET web development would eventually be done on MOSS.  I don't know if that's what he meant to imply, but that's what I heard.  And I don't buy that.  At least, not when MOSS has such a painful development story right now.

When I'm developing ASP.NET, I make my changes, I do a build, and I debug.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  Once I'm in that rhythm, things progress very quickly.  There's some JIT overhead here and there, but besides that, it's a very smooth process.

When I'm developing on MOSS, however, it's a lot harder.  I make my changes, deploy to my bin folder (or the GAC), sometimes IISReset, wait forever for the whole damn thing to JIT.  And then, when I debug, if I set a breakpoint and leave the code running at a break too long, the entire Sharepoint object model times out or something and turns null, locking up Sharepoint in the process and requiring another IISReset to correct.  What a huge pain in the ass.  And all that's assuming that I'm not dealing with code that requires feature activation or a new site collection to test.  And don't get me started on the cryptic exceptions.  GAH!

So yes, MOSS brings a lot to the table.  Collaboration, search, business intelligence, business forms, workflow, content management, and more.  It's an awesome product.  There's a reason why every headhunter and his brother is looking high and low for MOSS developers right now - they're in high demand.  But until the development story improves, I think I'd prefer to wait before calling myself a MOSS developer.

The trip was awesome.  Greg Brill and Infusion were great hosts, from picking us up to the airport, to feeding us, to keeping the training interesting and fun.  The first night, they even treated us to catered BBQ on a rooftop 17 stories above Times Square.  Yes, that was as cool as it sounds.

They weren't kidding when they called it "Sleepless in NY," though.  They started us off with a Sharepoint/MOSS overview Friday night (before the food), getting us all to bed around 1 AM for our 7 AM wake-up call.  The following day focused on a wide range of topics, including Sharepoint specifics (like the Business Data Connector and Excel Services), WPF, and Silverlight.  Then, Saturday night, they gave us the assignment:  By 10 the next morning, in groups of 3, we were to develop something intended for contribution to the open-source Community Kit for Sharepoint. 

While the other teams attempted projects with a fairly broad scope, my team decided to define a very narrowly-scoped project, so that we could be assured we would deliver a fully working prototype.  The additional benefit to this approach was that we were likely to finish quickly, so we'd hopefully get some sleep and be fresh for our presentation to the judges.

In around four hours, we created a simple web part that implemented Digg-style content rating using a custom site column.  This got us in bed around 2:30 AM, so we were ready with a high-energy presentation the next morning.  The judges really seemed to enjoy our idea, and Ed, the presenter from our group, did a fantastic job presenting the solution, but we didn't win.  The prize actually ended up going to a team that really did pull an all-nighter, and they certainly deserved it.

The competition for Insomniac (the laptop) was a Sharepoint quiz show.  I was actually one of the first to get eliminated, so no laptop for me.  That's cool - everyone still got a Tom Bihn Brain Bag and a couple books.

Hanging out with Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell, as well as the talent from Infusion and MVP's and Blue Badges they had as judges was a blast.  As my flight was one of the last ones out, I even got to enjoy Carl's musical talents as he jammed on an Infusion guy's guitar to pass the time waiting on his train.  I recorded a few minutes of Carl's impromptu concert on my Creative Zen Vision:M, downloadable here (not the best quality in the world, mind you.  Cheap mic, and the Zen only records 4 bit, 11 Khz PCM).

Overall, I had a blast - The weekend gave me just what I wanted in terms of challenge and networking.