Scott Hanselman

I got myself into some kind of voodoo/Bermuda Triangle situation where my TCP/IP stack was boogered and when I said "IPCONFIG" I was greeted with a single line, and NO listings of any of my Adapters. However, Greg Hughes gave me this magic command line:

netsh int ip reset logfile.txt

Lord help me I don't know exactly what this did, but it fixed it. I wonder if I'll pay for it later. :)

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 was a story on EWeek about the XmlDevCon. It's a very good article, actually. There was a certain amount of XML bashing, as XML does have its problems, as eloquently pointed out to by the likes of Tim Bray and Sam Ruby.

It was nice for Corillian, Patrick and I to be pointed out as success stories:

Not every aspect of XML is judged to be a potential disaster—far from it. Two presentations have demonstrated how XML is enabling solutions in the real world: one from the U.S. Department of Defense on using XML for Navy missile systems, and a presentation from Scott Hanselman and Patrick Cauldwell of Corillian about effectively using XML in financial systems.

All in all, I think it was the best SellsCon yet.  Great location - dispite my original misgivings - and great facilities.  It was very well planned, and it showed.

Congrats to Chris Sells and crowd for a great con, and thanks for inviting us.

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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If I had a nickel for everytime someone called me a Luddite, I'd have 5 cents.

Main Entry: Ludd·ite
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps from Ned Ludd, 18th century Leicestershire workman who destroyed machinery
: one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest; broadly : one who is opposed to especially technological change
- Luddite adjective

Dave Winer thinks me opposed to technological change as I'm currently underwhelmed by Podcasting. Here's a Dave's comment from Carl's blog (my annotations in bold.)

Dave Winer: Carl, every time some new form of communication there are always people to say it's unnecessary or no one wants it. I've even been one of those people from time to time. ;->

Your friend's mistake is that this isn't a replacement for PowerPoint, it's a replacement for drive-time radio, or radio listened to while exercising, or radio not listened to on long airplane flights or drives. (Where reception is non-existent or only idiotic right wing idealogues are available. They can be entertaining, but after a while you yearn for some adult conversation.)

Anyway, PowerPoint, which btw, I had a hand in inventing (Smooth segue. Apparently Dave invented the bulleted list and the slideshow. Here he remind us of one of his many places in history...), is a disaster for communication (...then as a technological bad-boy bashes it), it should be wiped off the face of the earth, a crutch for freaked-out speakers, and the people who have to listen to someone wade through a PP presentation know all too well that as soon as the first slide is up, people start falling asleep, checking their email or reading blogs. Now they'll have a new choice, put on the headphones and listen to one of the verbal incontinents [sic] your Luddite friend is so dismissive of.

When did PowerPoint come into all this? An example of another often low-fidelity content format perhaps.  Thank you Rory, for saying it simply "Podcasting is a means of syndicating binary content - that's all!"

That said:

• I've been an Audible Subscriber since its inception and use it for NPR as well as AudioBooks.
• I did a nationally syndicated Wireless Trip across the country in the Spring of 2000 that distributed via MP3s and produced by a local AM radio station. A few links. I've still got the MP3s, perhaps I should post them.
• I've be a PodCast subscriber since .NET Rocks started using PodCasting.

And I'm saying simply:

• It's ironic as we were all up in arms two weeks ago about RSS's use of bandwidth, now we're using RSS as a pointer to a 40 meg MP3.
• Other than Engadget and .NET Rocks, I'm underwhelmed by the content.
• It's fun to say "verbal incontinence" but now that Dave's chimed in, I'll start using the more descriptive "diarrhea of the mouth."

Thanks Dave for making my point about content quality for me by raising the quality of the discourse.  Too bad you didn't Podcast it.

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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Sorry folks, PodCasting = Verbal Incontinence.  I'm just not feeling it.  You can't speak as fast as I read.  I don't like it when you read your PowerPoints to me, and I REALLY don't like it when you ramble on.  My commute isn't nearly long enough to slog through your PodCasts to find a nugget of goodness.  If you blog, I can ignore it, or read it in any order. I can skip forward by, gasp, moving my eyes.

PodCasting, clever, yes.  Interesting, yes.  A new kind of media? Maybe. You could just post the MP3s and I'll download them whenever. Useful? Not to me.

P.S. After all this nonsense around RSS taking up too much bandwidth, you all have the stones to suggest we following links to 40meg MP3s?

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 was slightly involved in writing a few items in the XmlDevCon Top Ten List.  Here was my complete submission, some of which were used in the final.

Top Ten <Dirty Little=“True”>System.Xml</Dirty> Secrets

10. “Boxing” was almost called “Richtering”

9. Tim Bray and company meant the whole thing as a goof. And you bought it!

8. The original idea was quotes and commas, not angle brackets.

7. The Semantic Web was planned as the “Symantec Web,” and before that, “Norton’s Web”

6. The System.Sells.Ewald.Box.Brown.Fritz.GenX subsystem is wholly under-utilized.

5. Xml was even more useful back when it was called EDI.

5.5 (optional) WSDL Contracts with the Devil for your Soul must now include a Hell-specific Binding.

4. Xml 1.2 plans to be even more flexible than Xml 1.1 when it becomes a candidate recommendation in the spring of 2023.

3. Orcas plans to introduce a File | New | Enterprise wizard. “Looks like you’re opening an insurance agency! Can I help you with that?”

2. Indigo will soon include the “From Your Lips to God’s Ear” transport to replace DCOM.

1. Xml was dreamed up in order to give Ewald more opportunities to say “deterministic,” “infoset” and “a priori”

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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