David's Blog

PowerShell is a replacement for the Windows command prompt (a.k.a. CMD).

I ran into this feature today: accessing network shares.

With CMD, you map a drive letter to a network share in order to access it. Trying to access the share directly (via the UNC name) does not work.

For example, here's what happens if I try to list the contents of a share called \\ivory\users\public directly (fails) and then via a mapped drive S: using CMD...

PowerShell supports UNC! No more mapping drive letters!

Check out the same task via PowerShell...

Posted on July 2, 2009 12:15 AM | Permalink| Comments (0)

Files that don't have an extension (like "makefile") do not work well in Windows.

• In Vista, these files are not even searched! If you see a file called "makefile" in a directory and type "make" in the search box, Vista will report no files are found! NOTE: Windows 7 doesn't have this problem.
• Also, these files are not indexed, so searching for the contents of an extension-less file will return zero hits. I expect this works in Windows 7, but I haven't tested.
• If you try to open a file without an extension, you will always be asked which application should open this file. The "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" checkbox is disabled, so you are constantly asked the same question, even when you open the same file over and over. This happens on Vista and Windows 7.

There is an easy fix for all of this:

Tell Windows that files that do not have an extension are the same as text files.

Here's how:

1. Start->Search->regedit
2. Go to Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.txt
3. File->Export->txt.reg
4. Open txt.reg in notepad
5. Replace every ".txt" with "."
6. Save the file
7. Open the new txt.reg to import the settings into the registry

The extension-less updated txt.reg should look similar (depending on what you have installed on your OS) to this...

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.]
"PerceivedType"="text"
@="Notepad++_file"
"Content Type"="text/plain"
"Notepad++_backup"="txtfile"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.\OpenWithList]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.\PersistentHandler]
@="{5e941d80-bf96-11cd-b579-08002b30bfeb}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.\ShellNew]
"ItemName"=hex(2):40,00,25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,\  6f,00,74,00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,\  00,6e,00,6f,00,74,00,65,00,70,00,61,00,64,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,2c,00,\
2d,00,34,00,37,00,30,00,00,00
"NullFile"=""

With this fix, files without an extension...

• Have filenames that are searchable
• Have contents that are searchable
• Are associated with the application that opens your text files

P.S.: If you are using Notepad/Wordpad for text editing, please checkout Notepad++...I *love* it and you will too.

Posted on June 28, 2009 10:30 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

This stuff cracks me up. You *have* to check out the ManBabies website.

ManBabies inspired me this weekend.

Here is my first attempt, from the movie "The Hangover"...

Next up, I dug through some family photos...

I submitted both of these to ManBabies...we'll see if they get picked up.

I used Photoshop CS3 to do these.

Posted on June 28, 2009 5:18 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

Every year ILM takes out a two page ad in Cinefex magazine to thank its employees.

This is my third time to be in the credit list. Here are my first and second.

I'm on page 2, 1st column, 32nd down.

Page 1...

Page 2...

Posted on June 20, 2009 5:46 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

Saturday, I biked the bridge with Delia and family. Sunday, we did a GoCar tour of San Francisco.

The cars are 3-wheeled, gas-powered (1 gallon tank for 70 miles, they say) 2-seaters. The only way to go backwards is to get out and push the car.

They come with a “GPS,” which is a bit misleading. As long as you follow the route map (which is attached to the dashboard), you get an audio tour of your surroundings via a CD in the CD player. The tour gives you directions, but it is easy to miss a turn. Once you make a wrong turn, the “GPS” won’t give you any instructions again until you get back on the route.

Lesson learned: study the map before venturing out…you can’t rely on the GPS to keep you on the path.

The cars are considered motorcycles and thus can park easily almost anywhere in SF.

The maximum speed of a GoCar is 30 Mph…so they can’t go on any highways (and the GPS will bark at you if you try).

Here are some pics I took along the way.

I saw a lot of things I had never seen before on this tour. It is a fun way to see the city in an unusual vehicle. Highly recommended.

Posted on June 20, 2009 3:47 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

Delia Flores Salazar and her husband John and daughter Sydney came to SF last weekend. I went to high school with Delia and haven’t seen her in 20 years. We’ve actually become better friends than we ever were in high school because of Facebook…weird!

There is a ton of stuff to do in SF. I’ve done a lot of it, but there is a surprising amount I haven’t…including riding a bike across the Golden Gate Bridge. Delia and Co. wanted to bike the bridge, so I tagged along.

We rented our bikes from Blazing Saddles in Fisherman’s Wharf at the Hyde St. location. We rode along the bay to Fort Point, crossed the bridge, and stopped in Sausalito for lunch. We took the ferry from Sausalito back to the Ferry Building in SF, and the rode back to the Hyde St. location where we started. Total trip was about 8 miles.

Here are some photos I took along the way.

If you get the chance…you *must* do this…it is an amazing way to see the sights and get some exercise as well. *Definitely* bring sunscreen (I didn’t and my arms got fried).

Posted on June 20, 2009 3:11 PM | Permalink| Comments (1)

I was impressed with the Palm Pre when it was announced to the world at CES back in January.

It has the cool UI of the iPhone and the keyboard of a Blackberry…a killer combination.

I stood in line at the Van Ness Sprint store in San Francisco the past Saturday. I got there at 7:30am and I was issued ticket #17.

I was able to pickup a Pre around 10:30am, but not the cool new Touchstone “wireless” charger because they were already sold out. I ordered one and should have it by next week.

What do I think?

I love it.

What I like

1. A keyboard! It is almost identical to a Palm Treo Pro (my previous phone). Some keys were rearranged for better internet typing. For example, the @ sign can be typed without using the alt key. The keyboard is a huge deal. When you type a message, you still get the full screen, instead of just half (or less) on iPhone’s virtual keyboard.
2. Multi-tasking. I can run Pandora radio in the background, Facebook, Twitter, load multiple web pages, write an email, use Google Maps, and have multiple txt message conversations, and jump back and forth between these running apps. If you listen to Apple (I recommend you don’t…they lie…a lot), they’d have you believe phones *can’t* do multitasking…and their dumbed down “push notification” is the solution. Whatever! The iPhone is the *only* smart phone that can’t do multi-tasking. You don’t know how much you need multi-tasking until you don’t have it anymore.
3. Notifications! You can keep working while email/txt messages arrive…notifications don’t get in the way…unless you want to deal with them. See it action here.
4. Camera has a flash…night time photos now possible with cell phone. Camera is very quick to start, take pictures. It seems like good quality 3MP images, too.
5. Copy/Paste keyboard shortcuts are *fast*…works much better than using a menu to do copy/paste. To copy, select text by holding the shift key while dragging on the screen, then put one finger on the gesture area (button will light up) and press the “c” key. To paste, touch where you want to insert (or hold orange key to move cursor more precisely with your finger), and then touch the gesture area with one figure (button will light up) and press the “v” key.
6. The Touchstone charger is just slick (see end of notifications video above)
7. The Palm Pre SDK runs on PC’s (Windows, Linux, Mac). iPhone SDK only runs on Mac. Also, the Pre SDK does *not* use Objective-C (who uses that?!?!? Oh yeah, just Apple)! I’m trying to get the Pre SDK now.
8. Adobe Flash Support coming!
9. Tethering (coming soon)
10. Smaller than an iPhone…fits better in your pocket.
11. Linked contacts. I added my Facebook account to my Pre contacts and then all of my exchange contacts that have Facebook accounts suddenly have Facebook profile pics associated with them (for email, txt messages, phone calls). Very cool! Here’s a demo of contacts on the Pre.
12. Gestures. I didn’t appreciate gestures until I started using the phone…but now I’m hooked. Gestures let you quickly do various common tasks (go back, quick launch apps, switch between apps, close apps) without using any valuable screen real-estate by flicking your finger in certain ways. Here is a demo of gestures.
13. My phone hasn’t had a typical day yet since I keep showing people what it can do and I’m constantly playing with it. Currently, I’m sitting at 35% of the battery left at almost midnight…not bad!
14. I’m on Sprint now (had AT&T). At work, with AT&T I had *no* signal until I left the building. With Sprint, I get two bars consistently…my phone is now usable at work.
15. Wi-Fi on my old phone would drain the battery quickly, so I rarely used it. I’ve read the Palm Pre uses *less* battery with Wi-Fi than using the cellular network for loading data. Good to know!

What I don’t like

1. Can’t send a txt message to multiple people…or at least I haven’t found a way.
2. Can’t have more than three “launcher” pages (for starting apps)
3. No support for iCalendar events. For my previous phone, I’d forward events from my work calendar to my home email as iCalendar and I could easily add them to my home calendar via my phone. Pre doesn’t support this (yet?)

So far my Pre has been amazingly stable with few bugs…unheard of in a 1.0 product.

I expect things to get more interesting as Palm updates the software with more features and more apps are developed for the Pre.

Highly recommended!

Posted on June 10, 2009 12:14 AM | Permalink| Comments (11)

So far this year, I have three movies on my “must see” list.

I saw “The Hangover” on Friday. I *really* enjoyed this movie…it doesn’t get any funnier than this. I’ve already started quoting this movie…and you should too. Drop what you are doing and go see this now!

Last weekend, I saw “Drag Me to Hell.” The ads make it look like a cheesy horror flick…but this movie is much better than that. It is actually very funny. The last time I experienced anything like this was when I saw Evil Dead 2 for the first time. That shouldn’t be a surprise since they are both by Sam Raimi.

Star Trek has a lot to like: visual effects (by ILM!), great dialog, acting, interesting story, and hot green chicks. Yesterday, Star Trek passed Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as the 2nd top grossing Star Trek film (in adjusted dollars). It will likely take the top position ($18 million to go) from Star Trek: The Motion Picture soon.

Posted on June 8, 2009 12:41 AM | Permalink| Comments (5)

I’m pretty excited about this. I’ve always thought IMDb (Internet Movie Database) was pretty cool.

And now *I* am on it! My IMDb credit is online.

I got this credit for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (a video game).

I should have another credit soon for a movie coming out in July.

Technorati Tags: IMDb

Posted on May 21, 2009 1:36 AM | Permalink| Comments (3)

I am reading this document about the C# language.

Here are a list of features in C# that improve on how C++ works…

Technorati Tags: C#,C++,Programming

Posted on May 12, 2009 8:35 PM | Permalink| Comments (4)

I have had 6 different keyboards in the last 2 years. I’m always looking for the *perfect* keyboard. My perfect keyboard would have…

• Backlighting
• Volume knob
• Media keys
• Standard layout
• Wireless (with *no* dropped keystrokes or delays)
• Thin profile
• Pointing stick (so I can use the mouse without taking my fingers off the keys)
• Small footprint

I don’t think that keyboard exists.

I got a new Logitech keyboard this week. So far, I’m happy with it.

My favorite so far is the Dell Multimedia Keyboard (see end of post).

Here are the last 5 keyboards I’ve had in reverse chronological order and what I liked/didn’t like about them.

Logitech Illuminated Keyboard

Pro

• Backlit
• Cool looking/thin
• No wasted “extra” keys
• Volume keys
• Function keys have normal operation first (can be changed)
• Small footprint

Con

• Non-standard layout (delete key/insert key/scroll lock)
• Not wireless
• Uses volume buttons instead of knob
• Media keys don’t work well with Zune player (opened a support item on this)

Microsoft Wired Keyboard 600

Pro

• Standard layout
• Calculator hot key
• Volume keys
• Small footprint

Con

• Delay with volume keys
• Not illuminated
• Not wireless

Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 6000

Pro

• Slight curve to keyboard is nice without being radically different than standard keyboard
• Wireless
• Good looking/thin

Con

• Non-standard function key layout
• Hard to tell which keys were volume keys
• Not illuminated
• Many special keys that I never used
• Sometimes pressing keys would do nothing, reconnecting USB transmitter fixed issue

Microsoft Reclusa Gaming Keyboard

Pro

• Backlit

Con

• Big
• Extra buttons I don’t care about
• No volume controls
• No media keys
• Flakey keyboard management software
• Not wireless

Dell USB Multimedia Keyboard

Pro

• Excellent volume knob! Can easily turn it up/down quickly by feel. *Much* better than volume keys.
• Media keys layout around volume knob works well. Track forward/back different size than other media keys so they can be used by feel.
• Standard keyboard layout
• Small footprint

Con

• Not backlit
• Not wireless

Technorati Tags: Keyboards,Logitech,Dell,Microsoft

Posted on April 26, 2009 12:41 PM | Permalink| Comments (8)

The above screen shot looks straight forward enough, but there is something special going on.

Look at the window decorations. The application on the left is IE 6 running under XP and the application on the right is IE 8 running under Windows 7.

On Friday, XP Mode was announced as a new feature for Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise. XP Mode is basically Windows XP emulated within Windows 7, with the added ability to run the XP applications side-by-side Windows 7 applications.

This is a big deal.

One of the reasons companies are slow to upgrade to the latest version of an OS is fear that applications designed for their current OS won’t work in the new OS.

Any company thinking of upgrading to Vista should keep this in mind…

• Windows 7 runs better on low end hardware than Windows Vista
• Windows 7 is more compatible with Windows XP than Window Vista

I hope this means we see a very quick adoption of Windows 7…I think it will.

Technorati Tags: XP Mode,Windows 7,Windows Vista

Posted on April 26, 2009 9:43 AM | Permalink| Comments (2)

First, some background.

I showed David Bullock, a buddy of mine from work, a blog post I did about HD-DVD vs. DVD and how the difference for a typical TV size and viewing distance is not as obvious as you would think.

We got in several “discussions” about the topic. DavidB thought it would be easy to tell the difference between Blu-ray and DVD. I claimed it would be difficult.

Who would be right?

Arguing got us no where. We decided to settle this like they did in the Pepsi Challenge: a “Blu-Ray/DVD Taste Test.”

The loser of the test has to take the winner out for dinner at a restaurant of their choosing.

The taste test had the following rules:

• 10 popular movies of David Lenihan’s choosing
• Play a scene of David Lenihan’s choosing
• May be all DVD, all Blu-ray, or a mix
• Played in random order
• No replaying
• No pausing
• Played on a PlayStation 3 connected to a Sony XBR3 46” LCD via HDMI
• TV/PS3 running at 1080p
• Tuned with Blu-ray Digital Video Essentials
• 1:1 Pixel Mapping for Blu-ray content
• Test subjects cannot watch video setup or when video stops
• Viewing distance of 6ft or more
• Scoring is as follows:
  • 1 point for each movie identified correctly as Blu-ray or DVD
  • -1 point for each movie incorrectly identified
  • 0 points for blank answer

I invited people from work to join in the fun.

From left to right: CharlieK, Ed, DavidB, Shelly, Greg, An, and Ted.

Here are the movies I showed:

1. Death Proof - DVD
2. Matrix – DVD
3. Dark City – DVD
4. Pixar’s Lifted – Blu-Ray
5. Reservoir Dogs – Blu-Ray
6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind – Blu-Ray
7. Sleeping Beauty – Blu-Ray
8. Terminator 2 – Blu-Ray
9. Blade Runner – DVD
10. Sin City – DVD

I had everybody predict what their score would be on the scorecard.

Here are the results (click on the names to see the actual scorecard)…

Some interesting results:

• Everyone picked Lifted as Blu-ray, and it was
• Everyone picked Sin City as Blu-ray, but it was DVD
• A score of zero is what you would expect if someone guessed on every movie. Only Greg beat the guessing score.
• Ted did 9 points worse than he predicted, the biggest disparity
• Greg was the only person that did better than they predicted, by 1 point
• The average score was –0.14, which is worse than the guessing average

So where should I have David take me to dinner? Post your suggestions in the comments.

This was a lot of fun…thanks to my buds from work for coming out and being great sports!

Technorati Tags: Blu-ray,DVD

Posted on April 10, 2009 1:25 AM | Permalink| Comments (26)

I did a “photo shoot” last week with fellow ILM-ers JD Hass and Frank D’Iorio for the “The Digital Bits,” a web site focused on upcoming DVD/Blu-ray releases. We aren’t on the front page anymore, but you can find the original photo/burb here.

Technorati Tags: The Digital Bits

Posted on April 2, 2009 8:46 AM | Permalink| Comments (2)

This is fun…

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 - Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 - Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Apple,Advertising

Posted on March 27, 2009 7:57 PM | Permalink| Comments (3)

I really like this ad…

Here are two more “I’m a PC” ads: Alexa and Adam. All Microsoft ads are here.

From an advertising standpoint, I’m impressed with how Microsoft dealt with the “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads.

It is interesting to compare the contrasting styles of the ads:

• Hollywood actors vs. real people
• White background set vs. real places
• Attacking the competition vs. showing how your product works

By embracing the “I’m a PC” catchphrase and putting a positive spin on it, Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads are now connected to Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” ads.

Is this why we haven’t seen a new “I’m a Mac” ad since Christmas 2008?

Technorati Tags: I'm a PC,I'm a Mac,Advertising

Posted on March 21, 2009 10:59 AM | Permalink| Comments (5)

Microsoft posted a *very* slick 2 minute video of user interface concepts they imagine will be in use 10 years from now…

A longer (5 min) version with more focus on the UI’s is here…

Exciting stuff!

Things that jumped out at me:

• The “transparent” wall conversation between the kid in the US and and the kid in India
• The single credit card that contains all of your cards
• The interactive newspaper
• The arrow on the ground at the airport that leads you where you need to go
• Zooming in and out by bringing a device closer/further from you
• The “transparent” coffee cup that shows the liquid level and temperature
• Devices that are completely wrapped in a screen so the the entire device is a drawing surface

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Future Vision Montage,User Interface

Posted on March 1, 2009 2:32 PM | Permalink| Comments (1)

Touch-screen phones existed well before the iPhone. The iPhone is different because it supports multi-touch. The iPhone uses a capacitance screen instead of the traditional resistive screen.

I assumed that a capacitance screen was a requirement to get multi-touch…until I watched this video.

Stantum is demonstrating a way to do multi-touch with resistive screens.

Advantages of resistive multi-touch screens over capacitance screens:

• Cheaper
• Works with *any* input: finger, fingernails, gloves, stylus, paint brush, etc.

This tech is a game changer…stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: Resistive Screen,Multi-Touch,Stantum,iPhone,Capacitance Screen

Posted on February 19, 2009 8:37 AM | Permalink| Comments (0)

Check it out here.

Posted on February 7, 2009 1:03 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

Burn Disc Image

I found this today after I downloaded the Windows 7 SDK Beta. The download comes as an .ISO disc image file that must be burnt to a DVD before using.

In the past, you needed a separate utility to do this…but not anymore.

Just double-click on the .ISO file and you get the above dialog box…easy!

Technorati Tags: Windows 7

Posted on February 1, 2009 11:09 AM | Permalink| Comments (1)