Over the years, I’ve come up with a lot of ideas for products, both real world and software.  Some of those would be:

1) Ear muffs with built in headphones

2) Surround sound headphones

3) A keyboard that works well for programmers, including instant macros, a billion shortcuts and more.

 

#1 was brought out by someone about 6 months after I thought of the idea – this was in the late 80’s or early 90’s.

 

#2 started appearing a while ago, again about 6 months after I first thought of it.  I guess I need to learn to react quicker to these ideas (that, and build a factory so I have the resources handy when I have an idea)!

 

Now it looks like #3 has possibly happened, but by accident rather than by design.

 

Logitech has a product called the G15 Gaming Keyboard.  I believe this may turn out to be a fantastic keyboard for programmers.  You can read their information site for all the relevant details, but consider this – it has a grand total of 54 programmable function keys!  That’s 18 keys, with three "banks" of programming.  Each key can be assigned to launch a program or run a macro.  Macros can be programmed quickly just by pressing the MR (macro record) key and then the "G" key you want the keystrokes to be associated with.  Program launching can be handled by using the configuration program.

 

The LCD display can display things like current media playing, a date / time / email status panel and system performance (CPU and memory utilization).  It can also be programmed using an included SDK.  In my case I was intending to use it to display certain server status information, but I haven’t gotten around to coding that yet.  However, DevExpress has come out with a plug in for their Refactor! Pro tool that displays the refactors available and various statistics about the code that you’re looking at.  I don’t know that it’s extremely useful, but it is cool.

 

The key feel is quite good in my opinion, but the keyboard overall is large.  Given everything that’s jammed on it, that isn’t a surprise, but if you have a tiny desk, you might notice the loss of space.  No Miguel, they don’t have a "natural" version.

 

Oh yeah, it has lighted keys (which can be turned off) to help with those late late late night coding sessions.

 

Do you code?  Do you think this keyboard might be useful to you?

I’m building myself a new computer since I have to give the old one to someone else.  While installing all the software necessary to work and develop in these modern times, I got jumped by a popup window from a product called "PDF Complete".  Apparently, this is one of the few products (seriously, with HP Workstations they don’t load up a ton of crap) that HP preloaded on this machine.

 

Well, if you’re going to inflict a popup on me to upgrade, when I haven’t even run your program yet, there’s only one thing I’m going to do – uninstall your program.

 

The thing is, if they just popped up the offer when I ran the program, that’d be one thing.  But jumping into the middle of what I’m doing, well, you get no respect or financial loving from me.

 

I should note that HP has started putting in the same sort of popup for QuickBooks for the machines we buy for our users.  There is no easy way to get rid of it and we no longer trust their builds since they are now putting crap on business machines, so we just reformat the drive and reload it.  Good job HP!

Since I don’t have DotNetBugs.com up and running yet, I figure I’ll put this here for now…

 

After installing Visual Studio 2005, you may find that trying to access local help results in an error saying "Cannot Find Server".  If you look at the URL you can see it clearly isn’t attempting to access a server on the Internet, but rather content on your machine.

 

After spending much time Googling around, I found enough hints to get to the solution.

 

First, log out of your current user and log in as another user with Administrator priveleges.  Even if your current user has administrator priveleges, you must log in as someone else.

 

Second, navigate to the Local Settings directory for the user that is having the problem.  For example, if your login is Bob, and you are now logged in as Administrator, chances are that "c:documents and settingsBobLocal Settings" is the path you want.  Make sure that you have "Show Hidden Files and Folders" turned on in Folder Options in explorer.

 

Third, delete the "Temporary Internet Files" directory.  You won’t miss it.  Windows will recreate it as soon as it needs it.

 

Finally, log back in as yourself, then bring up VS.NET help.  At this point, everything will be peachy.

 

Hope this helps someone!

I recently purchased a component for imaging from a company that for argument’s sake we’ll call LeadTools.

 

The product is fine, we’re quite happy with it and we’re about to go live with a tool that uses it.  That’s not where the "failure to communicate" occurs.

 

I purchased the product from their web site.  I provided them with my billing and company information, they provided me with the serial number.  So far so good. 

 

Yesterday, I received a card in the mail (how 80’s) from them thanking me for the the purchase and urging me to register the product with them. They conveniently provided the serial number, order # and customer # to assist in the registration.

 

Let’s think this through:  They sent me an physical letter asking me to register on their web site, along with all of the information, from their database, that I need to register.  So… we have a company who knows who I am, and exactly what I bought, asking me to go to their web site so I can tell them who I am and what I bought?

 

I just don’t get it.  Use your computers people!