Scott Hanselman

While I (really) unplugged in December of 2009, you can access a nice calendar of all my 2009 posts (as well as other years) at this link.

In 2008 I published a Greatest Hits post that I will keep updated, but here's a list of links to the posts I most enjoyed writing this last year. I hope you find some of them useful, and perhaps you missed one or two or you just started reading recently and this 2009 "Greatest Hits" Post will catch you up on the stuff I was thinking about this year.

General Geekery

• Painful Reminder: Focus on Core Competencies (and Back Stuff Up)
• 10 Awesome Things I Remember About Computers
• FizzBin - The Technical Support Secret Handshake
• Paving my machine for a fresh 2009 - First-Pass Must-Haves
• Low Bandwidth View and other Hidden (and Future) Features of MSDN
• Less Virtual, More Machine - Windows 7 and the magic of Boot to VHD
• Switching my Windows 7 Boot Disk from D to C with BCDBoot rather than BCDEdit
• Running a Subversion Server off your Windows Home Server
• Virtual Camaraderie - A Persistent Video "Portal" for the Remote Worker
• Upgrading my Lenovo W500 to a OCZ Vertex 250GB SATA II Solid State Disk (SSD)
• Step-By-Step: Turning a Windows 7 DVD or ISO into a Bootable VHD Virtual Machine
• Step-By-Step: How To "Upgrade" from Windows XP to Windows 7
• Scott Hanselman's 2009 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows
• Herding Cats: Organize your Desktop Icons with Stardock Fences for Windows
• Get those pixels working for you

Blogging

• Don't Give Bile a Permalink - Finding Balance within The No Asshole Rule
• These are the little bugs that lead to madness

Twitter

• How To Twitter - First Steps and a Twitter Glossary
• When Word of Mouth Got a Permalink - Companies, Customers and Twitter
• Twitter: Let the Information Wash Over You

Podcasts

• Week Three in South Africa - Scott talks to his Wife, Ntombenhle and Hanselminutes Podcast 153 - Scott's Wife Mo interviews Scott Hanselman
• Hanselminutes Podcast 145 - SOLID Principles with Uncle Bob - Robert C. Martin
• Hanselminutes Podcast 161 - BBSs and Wildcat! from Mustang Software
• Hanselminutes Podcast 166 - Windows Presentation Foundation explained by Ian Griffiths - I still get mail on this podcasts saying it was the best episode we've ever done. The credit for this goes squarely to Ian.
• "Hanselminutes on 9" - I did lots of fun videos for Channel 9 this year and I was very proud of these.

Programming

• Hanselminutes Podcast 145 - SOLID Principles with Uncle Bob - Robert C. Martin (ya, twice. It's a good show)
• Real World Apps in Days not Weeks
• Back to Basics: 32-bit and 64-bit confusion around x86 and x64 and the .NET Framework and CLR
• Mix: Getting my head around Oslo, M and MGrammar
• The Weekly Source Code 39 - Commodore 64 Emulator in Silverlight 3
• The Weekly Source Code 40 - TweetSharp and Introducing Tweet Sandwich
• Breaking All The Rules with WCF
• Top 10 Tips Working Developers Should Know about Windows 7
• The Weekly Source Code 45 - Kicking Butt on Windows 7 *and* Windows XP
• Programming for Absolute Beginners
• Light it Up: List of Applications that use new Windows 7 Features

.NET and ASP.NET

• ASP Dynamic Data Preview - More ways to exploit ADO.NET Data Services for fun and profit
• Splitting DateTime - Unit Testing ASP.NET MVC Custom Model Binders
• ELMAH: Error Logging Modules and Handlers for ASP.NET (and MVC too!)
• C# 4 and the dynamic keyword - Whirlwind Tour around .NET 4 (and Visual Studio 2010) Beta 1
• ASP 4 - Whirlwind Tour around .NET 4 (and Visual Studio 2010) Beta 1
• MultiBrowser or CrossBrowser Testing and deconstructing Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview

Gadgets and Product Reviews

• A year with an Amazon Kindle (and new Kindle Cases)
• Accidental Prescience and the Secrets of Project Natal
• It's a Man-Bag - Muzetto Laptop Messenger Bag Review
• Review - Mophie Juice Pack (not the Juice Pack Air)
• Review: Mimo Monitors - iMo Pivot
• Review: Trying Clear from Clearwire - Mobile Broadband Service
• Review and Comparison: Microsoft LifeCam Cinema HD and VX-7000 with High Quality Video in Skype and Live Messenger
• Herding Cats: Organize your Desktop Icons with Stardock Fences for Windows
• Screenshots: Amazon Kindle 2 gets Better Battery Life and Native PDF Support
• Review: Zeo Personal Sleep Coach
• The (Near) Final Word on Multi-Monitor Taskbars for Windows 7 - Ultramon vs. DisplayFusion

Speaking and Presentations

• Mix 09 - First Half Rollup and Session Videos
• Mix: Mobile Web Sites with ASP.NET MVC and the Mobile Browser Definition File
• Social Networking for Developers - Conference Talk Video
• The HaaHa Show visits .NET Rocks
• Videos from the Norwegian Developer's Conference
• Oredev Keynote - Information Overload and Managing the Flow: Effectiveness and Efficiency
• Oredev 2009 - LIVE (now recorded) Closing Panel Video

Personal Stuff and LifeHacks

• South Africa 2008: NewsFlash - Turns out eating less and moving more causes weight loss
• Technical Presentations: Be Prepared for Absolute Chaos
• Baby Sign Language 2.0 - Update at 14 months
• Paint Fence, Cut Wood, Pull Weed, Plant Tree - Finding Geek Balance Outside My Comfort Zone
• Building your own Arcade Cabinet for Geeks - Part 7 - Success and Conclusion
• The Complete Series
1. Cabinet and Power
2. Monitor and Mounting
3. Control Panel
4. Sound and Lights
5. Paint and Art
6. Computer Hardware and Software
7. Success and Conclusion
• Best Practices for Individual Contribution
• Burnt Day - I need a Do-Over for Monday
• Square Foot Gardening for Programmers
• The Three Most Important Outlook Rules for Processing Mail

I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed writing them. See you next decade!

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

Hosting By

Wow, this was the longest time I've ever gone without blogging. It was very interesting being (reasonably) unplugged. I was even more unplugged this time than last year when we spent Christmas in South Africa (where I was blogging near-daily over a cell phone modem).

Anyway, I'm still on vacation until next Monday, but I have been messing around with a few things I wanted to share, and here is one such project.

Disclaimer: I'm not on the Windows 7 team and I have no knowledge about anything they are, have, may, may not, will, will not do, or did and didn't tell anyone. I'm just a dude who likes Windows.

I've fully converted myself and the extended family over to Windows 7. In fact, Windows 7 was my number 1 Christmas Gift this year. Everyone's running it and everyone's happy. Even Uncle Ronnie, a 90+ year old die-hard Windows XP guy has been upgraded (but hasn't noticed, other than "it's snappier.")

However, the one remaining gaping hole in Windows 7 for the Power User (like me with my four (sometimes five) monitors) is the lack of a native taskbar that works across more than one monitor.

I'm sure someone owns this feature on Windows 7 and I'm sure that it didn't make it into the product for some reason and I'm sure someone is looking at the feature for the future*.

Regardless, Windows 7 has an awesome ecosystem of 3rd party stuff and there are two contenders fighting for the title of "Multi-Monitor Taskbar for Windows 7."

The most interesting thing about Windows 7 isn't a feature; it's that Windows 7 has a strong sense of aesthetic. Nasty looking apps won't cut it any more. Folks want things to integrate with Windows 7 features like jump lists and the superbar. They want clean design and fresh styles. Most of all, they want their apps to LOOK like Windows 7 - like they belong.

Now, back to the taskbar thing. Here are the two contenders and my conclusion. I'm reviewing these products taskbar capabilities, not the many other features they each offer like multi-monitor wallpaper support, etc. For the most part they are similar, but I'm a utilitarian and I'm interested in the bread and butter stuff first.

First, Ultramon, then DisplayFusion. Note the post was written against Specific Versions whose features are in likely flux. Try them both yourself!

Ultramon 3.0.8 Beta from Realtime Soft

Realtime Soft appears to be a one-person company run by Christian Studer out of Switzerland. He's been making software since 1998 and I purchased his product Ultramon when it was version 2 in Jun of 2002. Wow. That's over 7 years for the math-challenged.

Ultramon has long been the only game in town when it comes to multimonitor support on Windows. It gets revised in fits and starts. Sometimes you won't hear anything for literally months, then there will be a flurry of activity, then silence. Christian is very kind when he answers forum posts, but it's no uncommon to hear folks complaining about the speed at which the beta version's bugs are fixed. These days folks want to see code rev'ing weekly, minimum.

That said, Ultramon has always been very tight code and I've had minimal trouble with it. As of Dec 21st, there's a 3.0.8 beta available that runs on Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Here are the things I look for in a Multimonitor Taskbar on Windows 7 and how Ultramon 3.0.8 beta stacks up.

Looks

Here are four apps running in an Ultramon toolbar on my third monitor.

Here are the same four apps running in the Windows 7 taskbar on my primary monitor.

What's this? Three apps? Well, note that the second and third above were actually Windows Explorer windows. Ultramon not only didn't group them together (per my settings within Windows itself), it also used the actual icons for the folders I was on, rather than the default Explorer one.

I think respecting the grouping option is more important then the icon thing, but I though it was interesting nonetheless. It's a pretty darn good facsimile.

Ultramon also respects the default Windows taskbar settings and will show Text and Icons if you've got that setting set:

Animations and Aero Preview

Sadly, this is where Ultramon falls down. There's no Aero Preview. Recall that Aero Preview is when you get a nice tiny window preview as you mouse over running tasks. In this version of Ultramon you'll just get a sad little tooltip.

True, this isn't really functionally necessary, but it's a missing piece that Windows itself does have and as I said before, I want Windows 7 utilities to look like Windows 7. While a small thing, it's enough to give me pause when deciding to use Ultramon. I really like my aero effects.

Now there is "color tracking" in Ultramon buttons. This is when you look at the most prominent color in an icon and create an light or glow effect that tracks with the mouse. Here's the effect from Ultramon (click to watch the animation):

 
http://screencast.com/t/Nzc0MmE1

Note that the tooltip unfortunately (and constantly) pops up while you're tracking, basically ruining the effect and getting in the way. Also, very subtle, the color tracking effect "jumps" from button to button as you move the mouse. It doesn't "fade out" as it does on the actual Windows taskbar. It's maybe a 100-200ms animation, but I noticed.

Finally, and this may be something that's either not possible or certainly not easy to fix. When you minimize a window on another monitor, the "I'm minimizing" animation is the same one that Windows itself uses, meaning, the app will appear to minimize in a diagonal slashing motion to the primary monitor. This is a bummer, but I suspect tough to fix.

Behavior

When you're using the actual Taskbar in Windows 7, you can rearrange the buttons (tasks, programs) just by dragging them. This is true whether the apps are running or not. You can't rearrange the running tasks on the Ultramon taskbars by dragging, or at all.

When you right click on a running task on the Ultramon "false" taskbar you get the app's System Menu with two added items. Maximize to Desktop and Move to Monitor. The Move to Monitor option is fabulous and I use it all the time. (Although Windows 7 itself includes hotkey support for moving windows between monitors via Shift+Win+ArrowKeys.)

Ultramon also dynamically adds (as an overlay, but you don't know that) buttons to every window with the same functionality. Note the two extra buttons on the left. It's a very nice touch and Ultramon tries very hard to make these buttons the right size and style as if they were included with Windows.

There are some odd windows that paint their own title bar and buttons that will look weird when Ultramon puts these buttons on them. Skype and Office Communicator come to mind. You can add these as exceptions in the config for Ultramon.

One other thing of note with Ultramon as a taskbar for other monitors is that this is a taskbar, not a superbar (or whatever the Windows taskbar is called) which means you can't pin icons or make launch-able non-running icons. You also (and this is sad) don't get that apps JumpLists. You can only access jumplists on the primary monitor and even then, only if that app is pinned. Non-pinned apps that are running may have jumplists, but you can't get to them if the app is running on the other monitor. Subtle, but very important, and missed.

Ultramon is US$39.95 with a sliding scale for bulk licenses that bottoms out at $19.95 in packs of over 100. You can read the release notes for 3.0.8 to see what's new and what's changing.

Now, the contender.

DisplayFusion 3.1.6 from Binary Fortress

DisplayFusion is the new kid on the block but it's rev'ing fast and has been really blowing some minds as Ultramon appears to rev slower and be less risky with features and eye candy.

Looks

Here are four apps running on my third monitor using DisplayFusion as my extra taskbar:

Here are the same four apps running in the Windows 7 taskbar on my primary monitor.

Again, DisplayFusion is pixel perfect against the primary taskbar and identical to Ultramon's. They also ignore the grouping options and show Windows separately.

Animations and Aero Preview

This is where DisplayFusion really shines because at least he's got something to show. ;)

Instead of fading in while simultaneously moving up from the bottom, these previews snap in and wipe up. It's close, but it's not perfect. It's maybe 50% there on the intro animation.

 
http://screencast.com/t/OGY3M2JiZTAt

One awesome thing though, is that these previews are the true live preview that you're using to seeing with Alt-Tab or on the standard taskbar. That means if you're watching a video, you'll see a tiny thumbnail of that same video appearing in the DisplayFusion version of Aero Preview. While the preview intro animation isn't perfect, the animation when you've already got a preview up and you're moving laterally to another one (the preview transition animation, I'll call it) is darn near perfect. I was impressed. Kudos to them for making the effort. I hope they keep trying to get the animation pixel perfect. It matters.

Behavior

Shift-Clicking on a running item doesn't bring up a new instance like it does on the Windows taskbar. Ctrl-Shift-Click doesn't work either. It should run a new instance as Administrator.

DisplayFusion also adds buttons to the title bar at runtime, although the buttons are more squared off than the Ultramon ones. Ultramon includes two buttons, but DisplayFusion actually has a menu that lets you add many buttons with lots of different options. You can control what buttons do and in what order they appear. I just find the DisplayFusion buttons to be visually jarring. They do offer various themes for the added buttons, but I'd prefer they just pick up the ambient look and feel.

Right-clicking on a running item in DisplayFusion shows only the default System Menu, with no additional menu items. There are no jumplists either.

The Windows taskbar includes an option to expand the taskbar buttons to included both the icon and its text, and DisplayFusion can do the same. They don't pick up the default setting, unfortunately. You have to set it manually and the wording is different from the language Windows uses so it may take a second to figure it out. When it's done, however, it looks great:

DisplayFusion also allows you to the rearrange the order of running items in their taskbars.

There is no smooth dragging like the standard taskbar, but it's an effort that's completely missing from Ultramon.

DisplayFusion is US$25. You can read the Change Log to see what's coming in the next version.

Conclusion

It's a tight race. I like that DisplayFusion has animations and looks great. But I love the Move To Monitor popup window and System Menu additions by Ultramon.

I've used Ultramon for literally years and I trust it. I know it's fast and I've used it for days without crashing. However, DisplayFusion is closing fast. If they continue to focus on getting the look and feel perfect and adding a few options like "Move to Monitor...", DisplayFusion just may be the Multi-Monitor Toolbar for Windows 7.

For now, I'll keep switching between both products until one nails it. I encourage you to download and trial both.

• Download Ultramon
• Download DisplayFusion

Related Links

• Light it Up: List of Applications that use new Windows 7 Features
• The Weekly Source Code 45 - Kicking Butt on Windows 7 *and* Windows XP
• Herding Cats: Organize your Desktop Icons with Stardock Fences for Windows
• The Weekly Source Code 46 - Jeff Key rocks Taskbar Meters that Monitor your Windows 7 CPU and Memory and Disk in the Taskbar
• Top 10 Tips Working Developers Should Know about Windows 7

* Because that's how things work at Microsoft. Believe me, for everything you wish we did, someone on the inside has fought for that feature at some point, and very likely continues to.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

Hosting By

I'm always looking for new ways to process email more effectively. I talked a little about this at a recent conference in Sweden. The topic of my talk was Information Overload and Managing the Flow: Effectiveness and Efficiency and there's video of the talk at the link there.

I've done blog posts on how my Outlook folders are setup in Getting Organized While Drinking from the (Outlook) Fire Hose and Personal Systems of Organization.

However, lately as the flow of email increases, I've added three new rules in Outlook that have really made things easier for me.

The idea is this. Stuff shows up in your Inbox and you need to process it, right? Not necessarily do it, but decide what to do with it. However all email that shows up in your inbox isn't the same. I segment them like this:

• Most Important: Email that is sent directly to me. I am on the to: line.
• Kind of Important: Email where I am cc:ed. I was copied on a mail, likely as an FYI to me.
• External Mail: Mail that was sent to me from outside my company.
• Meeting Invites: Just that. Someone wants me to show up somewhere.

So I've got these "inboxes" in Outlook now and I put them in my favorites so they show up at the top of the folder list. These are the emails I'm currently processing that came in overnight.

Here are the Outlook Rules to make this happen. The main Inbox folder is the main Inbox. The others are just folders named "Inbox - Something."

Processing Meeting Invites

First rule is to move any meeting invitations to a separate folder. This is an easy rule. Just make sure the "and stop processing more rules" appears at the bottom and that this rule is close the top (if not at the top.)

Processing External Mail with an Outlook Rule

This one is a little tricky, so be careful. There's no good "comes from outside my company" rule built into Outlook, so you can make one like this.

"Apply this rule after the message arrives
where my name is in the To or Cc box
  and with @ in the sender's address
move it to the Inbox - External folder
except with "yourcompany.com" in the sender's address
stop processing more rules."

Tricky and composite, but works nicely. Now all emails that are from OUTSIDE go into a single folder. Of course if you are a member of external mailing lists, etc, you might want exclusions here, or more likely a separate Outlook rule for that mailing list that is higher in the list of rules. Remember, rule order matters.

Processing Mail To: me, rather than mail Cc: to me

Here I just say "if my name is not in the To box" then send the mail to the Inbox-CC folder. However, I have some exceptions for email from certain people whose email goes to my Inbox always, regardless.

Last one (a fourth possible rule, yeah, I know) and this one is optional. If I get an answer to a mail that's from a mailing list, I like it to come to my Inbox, not show up in a folder deep in Outlook somewhere.

Now you just have a rule for mail that is sent directly to you. You have to say "move it to the inbox" and "stop processing." This will also bring mail up from your internal mailing lists folders if you've been addressed directly.

There you go, that's my four inboxes with three (or four) Outlook rules.

Time to get back to "Inbox Zero" by processing emails sent directly to me first!

Important Notes:

• The order of Rules in Outlook matters for this system, as does the final "stop processing other rules" step. Without that, you may get duplicate emails.
• If you're using a mobile phone (iPhone or Windows Mobile) make sure that you've set your phone to Sync Mail from these new folders, otherwise you might miss a meeting invite that never went through your inbox.

Hope someone finds this useful. I have.

Related Links

• Oredev Keynote - Information Overload and Managing the Flow: Effectiveness and Efficiency
• Personal Systems of Organization
• Getting Organized While Drinking from the (Outlook) Fire Hose

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

Hosting By

My one-hundred-and-ninety-first podcast is up. Scott's on campus and talks to Nathan Brixius, a Senior Developer working on the Microsoft Solver Foundation library. Solver Foundation helps break down complex multi-variable problems in a clean, declarative way.

Subscribe:

Download: MP3 Full Show

Links from the Show

• Microsoft Solver Foundation
• Creating Solver Foundation models with LINQ to SQL
• Solver Foundation with Excel and C# for Portfolio Management
• Traveling Salesman with Solver Foundation

Do also remember the complete archives are always up and they have PDF Transcripts, a little known feature that show up a few weeks after each show.

Telerik is our sponsor for this show.

Check out their UI Suite of controls for ASP.NET. It's very hardcore stuff. One of the things I appreciate aboutTelerik is their commitment tocompleteness. For example, they have a page about their Right-to-Left support while some vendors have zero support, or don't bother testing. They also are committed to XHTML compliance and publish their roadmap. It's nice when your controls vendor is very transparent.

As I've said before this show comes to you with the audio expertise and stewardship of Carl Franklin. The name comes from Travis Illig, but the goal of the show is simple. Avoid wasting the listener's time. (and make the commute less boring)

Enjoy. Who knows what'll happen in the next show?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

Hosting By

My one-hundred-and-ninetieth podcast is up. Scott's in Redmond this week and he sits down with Lee Holmes and Jason Shirk from the Powershell team. What's the state of Powershell now that it's built into Windows. What does 2.0 buy me and what features could I exploit more effectively?

Subscribe:

Download: MP3 Full Show

Do also remember the complete archives are always up and they have PDF Transcripts, a little known feature that show up a few weeks after each show.

Telerik is our sponsor for this show.

Check out their UI Suite of controls for ASP.NET. It's very hardcore stuff. One of the things I appreciate aboutTelerik is their commitment tocompleteness. For example, they have a page about their Right-to-Left support while some vendors have zero support, or don't bother testing. They also are committed to XHTML compliance and publish their roadmap. It's nice when your controls vendor is very transparent.

As I've said before this show comes to you with the audio expertise and stewardship of Carl Franklin. The name comes from Travis Illig, but the goal of the show is simple. Avoid wasting the listener's time. (and make the commute less boring)

Enjoy. Who knows what'll happen in the next show?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

Hosting By