Scott Hanselman

I'm a huge CodeRush fan, as you may know. CodeRush take a while to really grok, and some folks don't want to spend $250 on it. They also offer just Refactor! Pro for $99 with 75 refactorings (CodeRush includes these, plus the underlying engine) for those who really just want the refactorings.

If you don't use either of these, and you want a FREE Refactoring tool for ASP.NET, run, don't walk over to the Refactor! for ASP.NET (Beta) and check it out.

(Note that the ASP.NET refactorings in this tool are included in the Refactor! Pro updates, so don't install this tool if you already have Refactor Pro.)

I loves me some free tools.

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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For years I've avoided Docking Stations Port Replicators. Early on, they at least made sense, because they had a bunch of ports that your laptop didn't already have. Now, other than more USB ports and the occasional DVI port, most Docking Stations seem like Port Duplicators. Sure, folks argue that you don't have to plugin multiple cords, but I don't personally find it all that difficult to plug in the monitor and one USB hub.

Anyway, the real point here is this - Has docking/undocking ever worked in Windows? The only docking station I've ever used that hasn't sucked egregiously has been the Toshiba MultiDock II Docking Station. It's for the Portege m200/205 Tablet PC and is not only a docking station, but also a stand that expects you to use the laptop screen as the primary monitor. The docking station experience in Vista with this laptop, so far, seems to be fine. No errors, no troubles, although for some reason when I'm docked I can't go into standby.

However, things aren't so rosy on the Windows XP SP2 totally fresh install side. I just got a Lenovo ThinkPad T60p. A fine laptop indeed. It also happened to come with a Docking Station. The station has lock-and-key on the top with two buttons marked "1" and "2" that I'm apparently supposed to press in order. When I press the first one I get a message telling me that:

"You cannot eject your computer because of of the devices in the docking station, "Docking Station," cannot be stopped because of an unknown error. Since this device is still being used, do not remove the computer."

Sometimes I'll get the same error except it'll say "USB Printing Support" - and I'm not printing.

On the other hand, when I plug my new T60p into the docking station, it just reboots. no blue screen, no How's your Father, just black screen, then BIOs. I'm not going to use the docking station anymore. Sigh.

From my point of view, I need my Docking Station to understand this. When I pressed the Undock button, that wasn't a request. I'm not asking your permission, Docking Station, if I can take my computer with me. Understand this, Mr. Station, I'm taking the computer with me, and I'm taking it now. The fact that I pressed the button at all was a kindness - a heads up, if you will - to you. If you choose to do something about it, cool, do what you have to do and shut down what you need to shut down, but if you have a problem doing that, you should error on the side of "I guess he's not coming back" not on the side of "Don't Leave!"

Seems to me the design of the Undocking experience is sub-par at best, similar to the "Unplugging a Device" experience. Much of the device related errors are like this. When an anonymous dialog tells me that a Device can't do something, why doesn't it tell me WHY not, and offer some suggestions about how I can move forward? If you're going to put up a roadblock, as a designer, always offer a detour sign so I can continue the journey.

Does your docking station experience suck as well?

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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Just a short note to let you know about the feed options that are available if you, or a friend, wants to subscribe to my (mostly) weekly podcast.

Here's some of your many software choices for downloading podcasts:

• iTunes: You can subscribe with iTunes by clicking here
  

• FireAnt: You can subscribe with FireAnt, another popular podcast downloader by clicking here:
  

• Other Podcasting Clients: There's a LOT of different podcasting clients out there.

• Your existing RSS Reader: Many Feed Readers do podcasts automatically, like my favorite FeedDemon. In fact, if you don't want to pay, you can download FeedDemon's FeedStation for FREE.

• IE7 (with some utilities): IE7 is actually a nice Podcasting client, although it moves your podcasts to odd directories. Carl Franklin has a utility to help with that.

If you like your audio in a certain format, we've got several options for you. 

Master Feed of Every Hanselminutes Show We've Ever Done

•  Complete Feed in MP3 Format at 96kbps

Feeds containing the last 20 shows:

•  MP3 Format at 96kbps
•  Apple AAC Format at 96kbps
•  Microsoft WMA Format at 96kbps
•  Microsoft Lo-fidelity at 32kbps WMA Format (for slower connections)

If you like BitTorrent, you can download feeds using uTorrent:

•  MP3 Format at 96kbps via BitTorrent
•  Microsoft WMA Format at 96kbps via BitTorrent

You can also always download the shows directly from the site. We also have a team of elves that do PDF Transcripts (with a few errors here and there) that appear a week or two after each show.

We do our best each week to not waste your time and to make your commute a little less crappy. I hope you enjoy listening to the shows as much as I enjoy doing them.

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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My forty-ninth Podcast is up. I'm not planning to turn the podcast into an interview show, certainly not as often as I've been doing them, but when I get the opportunity to talk to someone awesome, I have to take it. You already know I'm a PowerShell Fanboy, so rather than having this be another "PowerShell is awesome" show, as I was fortunate enough to talk to Bruce Payette, a Language Designer on PowerShell. Bruce has many years of history in programming languages and he answers questions like "Why doesn't PowerShell just use C#?" amongst others. I hope you enjoy it.

DOWNLOAD: Here's a free PDF of Chapter 10 "Processing Text, Files, and XML" from "PowerShell In Action".

We're listed in the iTunes Podcast Directory, so I encourage you to subscribe with a single click (two in Firefox) with the button below. For those of you on slower connections there are lo-fi and torrent-based versions as well.

Subscribe:

Links from the show are also always on the show site. This particular show had no links to speak of. Do also remember the archives are always up and they have PDF Transcripts, a little known feature that show up a few weeks after each show.

Our sponsors are /n software and the .NET Dev Journal.

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)

• The basic MP3 feed is here, and the iPod friendly one is here. There's a number of other ways you can get it (streaming, straight download, etc) that are all up on the site just below the fold. I use iTunes, myself, to listen to most podcasts, but I also use FeedDemon and it's built in support.
  • Some other clients are Doppler (also suppose Windows CE), FireAnt, Nimiq, and PrimeTime Podcast.
• Note that for now, because of bandwidth constraints, the feeds always have just the current show. If you want to get an old show (and because many Podcasting Clients aren't smart enough to not download the file more than once) you can always find them at http://www.hanselminutes.com.
• I have, and will, also include the enclosures to this feed you're reading, so if you're already subscribed to ComputerZen and you're not interested in cluttering your life with another feed, you have the choice to get the 'cast as well.
• If there's a topic you'd like to hear, perhaps one that is better spoken than presented on a blog, or a great tool you can't live without, contact me and I'll get it in the queue!

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.

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I'm testing something right now that is so cool, so simple, so obvious, so elegant, so clever, and well, just so secret, that I can't say a word to anyone.

That's what the NDA says. James Bond and his Quartermaster "Q" would be proud of me for saying nothing because I haven't said a word.

This product kindels sparks of enthusiasm in me, but I can't speak about it. I will wait though, and when I am allowed to talk about it, I'll say nice things.

It's basic, this product, but it's improving a fundamental aspect of my life the way the iPod, ReplayTV and GPS did. It's lame and it's sad to be a secret because this product deserves its praises to be sung.

I'm not sure what the point of keeping it secret is, but it's a 2.0 world and the {set of folks who are not I} make the rules.

What are you currently testing or working on that is so secret you dare not speak its name?

What have you worked on in the past that was kept secret, but by the time it finally came out, no one cared?

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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