Scott Hanselman

Golly, it sure seems to me that the Optimus Mini Three Keyboard (ThinkGeek - ORDERED) would really suit Windows Vista SideShow very nicely. SideShow is Vista direct support for "helper displays." That might be three lines of LCD text on the back of a laptop on standby, or it might be a 320x240 color screen on your wall talking bluetooth. It'll certainly make Continuous Integration build monitors fun to write. :)

Of course McLaws is already over the general SideShow idea, and the the list is obvious. As SideShow APIs are fairly clear (MSDN) and the SideShow blog is very active, so I predict a LOT of motion in this direction soon.

Here's some ideas on what needs to be written:

• SideShow adapters for Ceiva picture frames. Actually, this is a great idea. I think I'll start with this guy's Serial Port adapter for Ceiva, and flash my old picture frame with Linux, then write the SideShow stuff in C#.
• SideShow using your PocketPC or SmartPhone as the display, over Bluetooth or WiFi.
• A user-written XNA game for 360, where the XBox360 itself is the SideShow display.
• Making a CrystalFontz LCD work with SideShow. Hm...I've got one of these lying around. I don't think there's a minimum device standard.
• SideShow for the Optimus Mini-Three...this would ROCK. That'll be worked on this weekend...
• I wonder if I can control the LCD on my Canon Pixma m550 Printer?
• How long until Logitech updates the G15? They're obviously working on it - they'd be incredibly short sighted not to - it's too bad they haven't jumped in earlier with beta stuff.
• There will be better Remotes that'll do it, but too bad my Harmony 880 Remote isn't wireless...

If your a company and you've got a cool device, email me, and let's talk about getting SideShow to talk to it, and I'll do a Coding4Fun article on SideShow. If you're the SideShow team, let me know what device isn't done yet, and I'll do it.

One very lovely thing to note about SideShow that will enable all sorts of crazy nonsense - from the docs:

The Sideshow platform is connection agnostic. It doesn’t matter whether an auxiliary display is connected through USB, Bluetooth, TCP/IP, or other future protocols, as long as the appropriate user mode Sideshow transport driver is present.

SideShowDevices.com is starting to collect news on all things SideShowy. Any other ideas on crazy SideShow stuff?

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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A number of listeners wrote in with answers to my question - how can I update a Windows system that's NOT connected to the Internet, given ~70 updates and 6 reboots needed to get an XP SP2 system "up to date?"

I had a lot of trouble - as the de facto IT manager for my family - while in Tanzania trying to bring systems up to a safe standard without even dial-up internet.

I brought my trusty 2gig USB stick along with a pile of Portable Apps and the usual suspects for anti-crapware and general malware. I didn't realize that I could have brought the latest patches and rollups as well in an easy-to-install form.

• Colin Bell and Dave Russell each point me to AutoPatcher, also mentioned on LifeHacker recently. It requires SP2 as a baseline, but otherwise is a great solution. If you're interested in "surviving the first day" after installing a slipstream XPSP2 installation, it appears to be the bomb. It also includes support for Windows 2000, which really would have made a big difference for me in Tanzania; it probably would have saved me at least 8 hours of downloading.
• Marc Scheuner suggests "c't Updater" from the German computer magazine "c't." He says: "They do this by maintaining lists of download URL's and using free software like "wget" to download everything and "mkisofs" to create ISO files from those downloads. The client is smart enough to allow you to run all the downloads at home on your fast connection, burn a CD (or put the .ISO files onto an external hard disk), and then go to your Mam's site and update her computer from the ISO / CD-ROM / DVD-R (whatever you choose to do)."
  Download the software package (scripts and free software and all) from this page (in German - just get the " 3.02" latest release): http://www.heise.de/ct/ftp/projekte/offlineupdate/
  And an English translation of the original article exists at:
  http://www.heise-security.co.uk/articles/80682
  and an English speaking discussion forum about it exists at:
  http://www.heise-security.co.uk/forums/go.shtml?list=1&forum_id=108277
• Balazs Attila-Mihaly points me to both of these on his blog, as well as a Microsoft-hosted and created ISO image for all that month's security updates for easy burning to blank CDs.
  The Microsoft CD images have the advantage of supporting all currently supported Microsoft OSs in most major languages in one download.

Thanks folks!

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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We did a podcast called "A Better Outlook" a while back and talked about ClearContext, SpeedFiler, and Taglocity. I've also talked about TiddlyWiki and for a while, ran my home page on Tiddly. (If you, your parents, or your school thinks you need a blog, you might try TiddlyWiki. Once you get it, it'll blow your mind. Some folks are using it to take notes in class. Brilliant.)

Now, we all know that Outlook Today (the javascript-based home page) sucked egregiously, and that suckage continues to this day. It's not really it's fault, it's mostly the Outlook Automation APIs being slow.

On the issue of functionally sucking, well, it's javascript and the Outlook Automation APIs are ever-so-public, so a mysterious person named dr.Uqbar decided to create Jello.Dashboard, a complete replacement for Outlook Today with a distinctive bent towards Getting Things Done.

It installed fine - it's just HTML and javascript, but the little tool they include to make your Outlook Home Page point to Jello didn't work, possibly because of my combo of Vista and Office 2007, but that was easily remedied. Just right-click on the folder you want to set the home page for - I recommend the ROOT/TOP folder - and select Properties. Then click Home and browse to C:\Program Files\JelloDashboard\jelloDash.htm. All set.

Don't freak out and think it'll mess up your Outlook, you can detangle it from Outlook by going to the same Properties Dialog and clicking "Restore Defaults."

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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Finally! The section of Media Center formerly known as the "Online Spotlight" has launched/been-made-available on Windows Vista Media Center. I've just setup my Xbox360 to talk to the Vista Media Center, rather than Media Center 2005, and it's lovely. Truly. There's piles of content, and hopefully there will be piles more to come.

I also installed Anthony Park's MCEBrowser under Vista and it works great. I also noticed last week that my Windows Media Center Remote Keyboard controls 90% of the Xbox360 without telling it to, so that's shiny. I'll take a look and see if it makes the browsing experience bearable on a 37" LCD in my living room. I'm sure the wife would love to do her Gmail from the couch.

Hm...seems like a lot of technology hoops just to get the equivalent of a WebTV. Why can't I just browse the web on my Xbox360?

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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It's official, Z has completely discovered, grasped, and is now fully exploiting the word "no." My wife Mo saw this coming, and had been warning me for weeks now. I've been in denial, saying "Nonsense, he's clearly saying 'neh.'" At this, my wife sadly shook her head at her husband.

This morning I tried to take a pen away from Z and was greeted with "No!" as clear as a bell, following by what I can only describe as a scampering away.

My one year old is getting into his Terrible Twos. He wants everything. He's also exploded with regard to sign language. Now he not only wants, but he knows what he wants and tells us constantly.

Given my extraordinarily vast parenting experience - goodness, nearly a year of it - I've planned on The Principle of Benign Deprivation. I figure I'll give Z everything he needs, and maybe 10% of what he wants. I know folks who can't go into a Target or Wallmart for milk without also coming out with the latest GIJoe action figure or My Little Pony. I figure that Quaker Oats containers and cardboard boxes were good enough for me, they'll be good enough for Z.

Folks are currently taking bets on how long this attitude of mine is going to last. I believe the latest Vegas odds are 4:1 against, within the next six months.

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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