Archives May 2009

What? Seriously? Are you seriously trying to tell me that Calculator is cooler than just ‘watch me add, watch me divide! ooh, scientific view? whatevah!”

Seriously though, it is!  I didn’t even give it a second glance until someone I’m working with here launched it and the world started to shift before my eyes! (Our unspoken voices have been heard?!?)

While on the surface it looks like it always did “oh blah, calc”

When you start to look under the covers, things start to shift and change!@

Sure, Programmer Mode is kind of cool, and even Statistics

But once you turn on Unit Conversion or Date Calculation, we enter near zOMFG territory!

What is the killer? the true Zed in zOMFG?!?! It’s the Worksheets! THIS IS CALC DAMNIT!

So, whoa, wow and check it out! I wonder if they’ve drastically changed any other ‘core’ functionality that we all take for granted!

If you like me simply did the install without any care for the Product Key and you’re getting closer to that ‘doh! I’m going to deactivate soon!’ well, look no further, because it took me a few searches on Microsoft to find this Key Generator of sorts!

Simply visit this site: Windows 7 Release Candidate

Then simply select your Processor type and Language, and you’ll be prompted for your LiveID.

In my case, that meant copying/pasting the URL into IE, and logging in equaled my Product Key

So, get out there, generate your keys and get your Win7 set and running… until 2010 ;)

For those of you in the ESX space who are religious about your installation and deployment of Host Utility Kits (I hope you are!) 5.1 has just been announced! Hooray!

ESX Host Utilities 5.1 contain the following new features:

• Support for ESX 4.0 hosts.
• Support for role-based access control (RBAC) user names so that root access to storage controllers is not required.
• The mbralign program that fixes misaligned VMDK partitions.
• New timeout values added to config_hba to support software iSCSI initiators on 10 Gb Ethernet. Check the Interoperability Matrix for supported 10 Gb configurations.
• Updated SNIA API libraries for Emulex and QLogic adapters.
• An -expert option for the Host Utilities install command that installs the Host Utilities components but does not set timeouts or paths

And lots of other cool stuff, but these are the major high-lights, so get out there and download today! Hooray!

That’s right! If I ran into you (Hey Developers!) at TechEd I likely harassed you about this contest running from new CloudApp() !

While I am in no way affiliated with newCloudApp() I for one like to see people use their talents to win cold hard cash! Oh, and have some fun in the process!    So what is the plan?

What Is It?

new CloudApp() is a US-based developer challenge for .NET & PHP developers creating cloud applications or services (hereafter “application”) on the Azure™ Services Platform. Have your application judged by industry leadersOm Malik and Michael Cote and share your cloud coding skills with other developers. Grand Prize Winners will be announced at Structure 09 and featured on azure.com.

Register and submit your application now!

When?

• April 30:  Contest Open
• June 18:Submission deadline
• June 19:Community voting starts
• June 25:.NET & PHP category winners announced @ Structure 09
• June 29:Community voting ends
• June 30:Community winner announced

What Could I Win?*

Winning submissions will:

• Be featured on www.azure.com as well as at major Microsoft events
• Be featured in a video interview on Channel 9
• Be announced at Structure 09
• Receive cash ($):
  • NET App Category winner: $5,000 VISA gift card
  • PHP App Category winner: $5,000 VISA gift card
  • Community winner: $2,500 VISA gift card

So, seriously, step up! If you’ve never written an app for the Cloud before, now is the time when there is money on the table! MONEY ON THE TABLE? WHERE, SIGNZ ME UPS! err… Damn lolcatz!    But seriously.. if this is your bag, as it were, no better time than the present for peer acceptance and pocketbook love!   Check it out, and doooo it! :)

So, you’ve been using twitter for awhile, infact you may have even used How to mass unfollow or follow people on Twitter .. and more! and found the tools to be just absolutely amazing! until.. your cumulative follower/following exceeded 10k, and found the tools to break, oh my!

Well, once you’ve exceeded 10k and want to keep growing (Yea I know who you are!) welcome a new tool! Yes, while Huitter and others give you a nice ‘whackamole’ mentality to unfollow everyone, let’s take it up a notch with.. Tweepular!

It’s broken down into a few key areas most of which have features like Bulk Follow or unfollow!

It’s all driven by checkboxes… so you can bulk-checkbox them all and unselect the ones you want, then hit Go!  It’s rightly proper and amazing and very colorful, oh my!

I suggest you give it a try today! “Srsly Guiz” said the lolcat, so it’s lolcat approved! Tweepular!