Scott Hanselman

One of the things I was lucky to do at PDC 09 a few weeks ago was host a "talk show." The folks at Channel 9 hooked up some amazing equipment and a great team and had basically 8 solid hours of live television streaming (over Silverlight and IIS Smooth Streaming) every day using the Professional Developer's Conference.

I had an hour or so each day over the three day conference, usually around the lunch hour. Some guests were fun, some were more challenging, but I tell you - after having done stand-up (and kind of failed), doing code demos and powerpoint for years, hosting panels and roundtables, I think I'm supposed to be hosting my own talk show. ;) If I had more creative control (and wasn't working for The Man) I'd love to take on Craig Ferguson or Jimmy Fallon. What a blast!

Anyway, Nic and the team at Channel 9 are busy transcoding and chopping out many hours of videos and putting them up on Channel 9 under the "ch9live" tag.

Two of my segments are up so far, but there's a dozen segments with lots of great hosts like Charles Torre and Robert Hess. One day they'll let me near Ozzie, but this time I got to sit down with Bob Muglia and the deeply awesome Mike Anguilo. Mike is the GM dude that designed the laptop that all the PDC attendees took him. Even though I was nice to him, he didn't give me a laptop. Sigh.

Here's some video. I'll post more as it comes up, and be sure to check out the whole set as more are going up each day. Here's the complete Live on Channel 9 schedule.

Scott talks to Mike Anguilo about the PDC Laptop

Channel 9 Live at PDC09: Bob Muglia and the Cloud

 

I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I had doing them. More to come soon! Maybe they'll let me be more wacky at Mix 2010!

Oh, other thing, last week Jon Galloway and I were up in Redmond for his New Employee Orientation (NEO) last week and we stopped by (crashed, really) "This Week on Channel 9."

TWC9: Scott Hanselman, Jon Galloway, Bing, parallel unit tests, more

This week on Channel 9, we're joined by Scott Hanselman and Jon Galloway to discuss the week's top developer news, including:

• Bing blog - Bing announces a number of updates including using Silverlight, Streetside, integrated Photosynth, neighborhood outlines and integrated applications (Twitter, Traffic, etc)
• Laura Foy - First look at Streetside in Bing Maps
• VS Test Team - How to execute unit tests in parallel on a multi-CPU/multi-core machine
• Stephen Forte - How to use the Open Data Protocol visualizer to browse a Web service data model
• David Anson - Silverlight and WPF Data Visualization updated to support SL4/WPF4
• Clint Rutkas - Coding4Fun Projects at PDC
• Laura Foy - The PDC Geekfest party including the Drunktender contest
• Pete Brown - The Future of client app dev - WPF & Silverlight to converge
• Pinal Dave - How to build Comma Separated Values (CSV) from a table column
• Coding4Fun - Andy Beaulieu - Creating a Pinball game in Silverlight & Expression Blend and Farseer Physics, including 11-part video tutorial (Play demo)
• Picks of the week:
  • Dan's pick: favstar.fm which tracks the most favorited tweets on Twitter
  • Scott's pick: Zeo Personal Life Coach - Tracks when you're in deep sleep, REM, how often you wake up, and more
  • Jon's pick: John Sheehan - 130+ jQuery Code Snippets for Visual Studio 2010make it so that you don't have to remember jQuery syntax

On the live side of things, Here's the other great segments from Channel 9 Live @ PDC as of the time of this post:

• Channel 9 Live at PDC09 Kurt DelBene<
• Channel 9 Live at PDC09 Mike Anguilo
• Channel 9 Live at PDC09: Dean Hachamovitch
• Channel 9 Live at PDC09: Gary Flake
• Channel 9 Live at PDC09: Mark Russinovich and Patrick Dussud
• Channel 9 Live at PDC09: Dr Jeff Norris, NASA
• Channel 9 Live at PDC09: Scott Guthrie
• Channel 9 Live at PDC09: Bob Muglia
• Channel 9 Live at PDC09: Ray Ozzie
• Channel 9 Live at PDC09 Schedule
• Announcing Channel 9 Live at PDC09

Enjoy!

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.

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I just can't say enough about multiple monitors. I've had two monitors since 2003 and three since later that same year and have been hooked ever since.

If you're working on a computer I'm convinced you need to fill your field of vision with the work at hand. Working on something important on a 15" monitor is like viewing an eclipse through a pinhole projector. I prefer to stare directly at the sun*!

I was over at Brad Wilson's house yesterday and he mentioned he was going to buy a new 27" computer and needed to get rid of his Dell 30" (3007WFP-HC). Since I freaking LOVE Dell Monitors, I jumped at the chance (after calling my wife and asking her permission) to give myself a Christmas Gift and promptly drove away with a new 30" monitor for $700.

That's insane, you say! That's too much for a monitor! I say, nay nay. Even if it lasts only a year - and it will likely last much longer - that's $2 a day for pure joy and a nice tax deduction.

This brings my collection of Dell Monitors to 4 and my collection of screens to 5. Here's the lay of the land today. I even threw the 7" iMo Mimo Pivot in there for fun.

So that's 7130 wide, and roughly 1600 tall in most places. The machine is still running the same two (now obsolete) $75 video cards as when we built the "Coding Horror Ultimate Developer Rig" a few years back.

I'm running just TWO NVidia GeForce 8600 GTS with 256megs each. They are VERY modest cards, in my opinion, but the work nicely and I still have a WEI of 6.4 for Graphics even on this two year old machine.

All you need to run multiple monitors is, ahem, multiple monitors, and a video card (or two) that has more than one connector. I have two cards that each have two DVI connectors. You can use two cards that each have one connector but you'll soon run out of slots on your PC.

If you don't have an extra monitor, maybe you have an extra laptop? You can use your laptop as an extra monitor with MaxiVista.

Get those pixels working for you! Go get another monitor!

• Gone Quad - Day 0 with the Ultimate Developer PC (series)
• The CodingHorror Ultimate Developer Rig Throwdown: Part 1
• The CodingHorror Ultimate Developer Rig Throwdown: Part 2
• The CodingHorror Ultimate Developer Rig Throwdown: Part 3
• Hanselminutes Podcast 69 - Building a Developer PC
• Hanselminutes Podcast 74 - Jeff Atwood overclocks the Ultimate PC
• Building a PC, Part I
• Building a PC, Part II
• Building a PC, Part III

 * I'm kidding. Seriously, what's wrong with you? ;)

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.

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There's been jokes for years asking if I sleep. I do tend to stay up late and I get a lot done between 2am and 5am, but I sleep quite nicely, thank you.

However, I've always been fascinated by sleep. How long does it take me to fall asleep and how deep do I sleep? According to my wife I can fall asleep mid-sentence and I have personally slept through no less than three earthquakes.

Here's a shot of me being beaten in my sleep by my two sons.

I'm already plugged into other devices like my insulin pump and my blood sugar meter, so I've been used to testing my system and getting a number, then acting on that number.

When I heard about the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach, I knew I needed to check it out. It's basically a fancy clock radio with a headband. The headband has a pad and a number of metal contacts. You wear it - like a heartbeat monitor for your head - while you sleep. It's weird the first day, but meh, you get over it.

The headband recharges in the top cradle of the device, and when it's on you it transmits data back to the base station. There's an SD card slot with data card. You login to the Zeo site and upload the data occasionally.

The site is quite fancy and lets you look at your sleep from a number of dimensions. The Zeo measures how long you are in Light Sleep, Rem Sleep or Deep Sleep. You can see in this chart below that I had an awesome REM night on Friday. This is totally true. I was dreaming up a storm and knew it. When I woke up I was impressed that the Zeo had picked up up. I dreamt for over 3 and a half hours that night, compared to only 90 minutes the previous night.

This chart view shows how much time I spent in each phase. notice how it only took a few minutes to fall asleep. I'm known for this and the Zeo also picked up on this as well. I went straight from awake into deep sleep in about 10 minutes.

The best part - the part  I most enjoyed - about the Zeo is the SmartWake feature. It's an alarm clock, but instead of waking you up at 8am, for example, you tell it to wake you up near 8am at the best time for you. You ever wake up right in the middle of a dream or right when you're in really deep sleep? SmartWake will watch how you're sleeping and wake you up +/-30 minutes of your preferred time. For me this really worked. It totally woke me up at the right time and I found I awoke more refreshed than usual.

The worst part of the Zeo, really the only bad part for me was that after 5 straight days of wearing the headband it began to "burn" my forehead. These weren't bad, but there were red marks that were significant enough that my wife said "what happened to your head." These weren't just pressure marks but tiny, minor electrical irritation or burns. I've not heard anything about this irritation on the web or on their site, so perhaps I'm just hyper-sensitive to the tiny bit of electricity that powers the sensor. I mention it just because it would prevent me from using Zeo every single day. I'd probably use it only 4 times a week as each day this mark got worse. Your mileage may vary.

UPDATE: Zeo responded in the comments and in a private email, and a few of you in the comments pointed this out as well. The marks after wearing the band are very likely something allergic, not "burns" or electricity related. Here's what Zeo said in a private email, and I think this makes a lot of sense. I'm likely a statistical anomaly, but either way, the marks clear up in a few hours and won't keep me from using the Zeo:

The most probable cause of the irritation is either a dirty sensor pad or acne mechanica.  The headband can get dirty over time due to a build-up of oil, dead skin, sweat, lotions, etc.  Depending on your skin type, this can result in irritation.  If you think you have a dirty headband, we recommend either replacing it or hand washing it with a mild detergent such as Woolite.
With regards to acne mechanica, we consulted with a dermatologist who advised that there is a small percentage of people who get irritations from the normal contact and friction of wearing anything on the head or face.  This can include hats, caps, and even the Zeo headband. We wanted to make sure you were aware of this possibility.

They've also got a Sleep Coach online that will analyze your sleep patterns as well as some questionnaire data and suggest specific ways you can improve your sleep. While using the Zeo was really fascinating and a valuable experience for me, for me it just confirmed that I sleep awesomely.

There's a 30-day risk free trial right now where you can use the Zeo for $19.95. If you keep it it's between $200 and $249 depending on whatever specials they are running. I haven't decided, but since I have no sleep problems and even according to the Zeo itself my "ZQ" showed I do just fine.

That said, just take a look at the site. These folks really dig sleep. The Sleep Info Center is impressive in its scope and I found it a valuable read. I haven't decide if I'll keep it, but I will say this, if you're into analysis or you have any issues sleeping, you can't beat a $19.95 trial. I'm really enjoying the experience.

http://www.myzeo.com/

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.

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While I was at PDC last week in Los Angeles I got to present an ASP.NET MVC 2 presentation. Phil has been home playing with his new baby so I was thrilled to be able to give a presentation on his behalf. I gave the talk immediately after the Day 2 keynote a few minutes after they announced that they were giving all attendees custom laptops.

This talk was a (virtually) no slides, just demos talk. I showed some new ASP.NET MVC 2 features, some tips and techniques that aren't/weren't ASP.NET MVC 2 specific. I also mentioned some community projects that are doing some cool things in the ASP.NET MVC space like MVCContrib and MVCTurbine.

You can watch the HD version of the talk using Silverlight Smooth Streaming 1280x720 here or the non-HD version embedded below.

You can download the talk in these formats:

• High Quality WMV (1280x720, not smooth streaming)
• WMV (640x360) video
• MP4 Video

There are a number of interesting one-off utilities for downloading all the PDC Videos in a particular format. Here's a few of note:

• On the basic side, you can use Mike Swanson's downloader batch file.
• Download CURL and put it in a folder.
• Download this Batch File and this Renamer Batch File and put everything in one folder
• There's about 96 gigs of WMV High videos, but the other formats are a lot smaller.
• For more features, Naeem Khedarun has a fancier PDC Video Downloader at his blog that includes many improvements over the original "Alternative PDC Downloader" from Frank's World. It has features like Resuming and Balloon Tips, and it runs in the Tray. As of the timing of this post the most recent version was v4 but check out his blog for the latest.

Enjoy!

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.

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My one-hundred-and-eighty-ninth podcast is up. It's the day after Thanksgiving (in the US) and we're making our way deep into the holiday season. Scott chats with Richard Campbell and they each share their best gadget gifts for the geek in your life. I've put a bunch of these on my Amazon Wishlist!

Subscribe:

Download: MP3 Full Show

Links from the Show

• HP TouchSmart TX2 Multi-touch Tablet
• Mimo iMo USB Monitor
• Amazon Kindle
• La Crosse BC-9009 Battery Charger
• PaperPro Nano Miniature Stapler, 12 Sheet Capacity
• Flip Ultra HD
• TomTom GO 740 Live 4.3-Inch Widescreen Internet Connected GPS Navigator
• OCZ Vertex SSD on Bing
• Creative Vado HD
•  D-Link DWL-G730AP Wireless Pocket Router/AP w/ Client Mode

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 to completeness. 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

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