wrightin.gs

Living with your Microsoft VMs "in the cloud" on a Mac

Some Background

So I am a software development consultant. This often requires me to have several different environments setup for several different customers. The best way to accomplish this that I have found is to have a virtual machine setup for each customer. This also requires that I have a copy of that vm on a laptop and at my home setup since sometimes I travel to the customer's office with my laptop.

Old Environment

Apple FanBoy is another adjective that describes who I am. I make money writing code in Microsoft .NET and in the Windows environment but I use the Mac side for everything else. I use a 13" Macbook for client visits and a MacPro beast at home. I placed each client's Windows environment in a VMWare VM with the necessary tools like Visual Studio, Subversion, Git, SQL Server, etc. I would then keep the VM on an external drive and run he VM from my MacPro at home or my MacBook on the road. If I knew that I was going to be at a client for a long time, I would copy that VM locally to my MacBook since it would run faster from my laptops SSD drive. Once I worked at the client site a couple of days, I would copy that VM back to my external drive to run from both at home and at a client site.

Some Issues with Old Environment

There were a lot of issues that I did not like with this setup of copying vms. The first issue was that this was substantially inefficient. Copying 30 gig vm files from external drive to internal drive on various computers took around 20 minutes a piece. This made it hard to quickly get out to a client site for a meeting or to quickly copy the VM back for a "quick fix".

Another issue related to copying vms was that Windows Software Authentication which makes sure you're not using the latest China build is horrible. When copying the vm from one machine to another and/or running the vm on an external drive from different host machines, the horrible satanic "Genuine Advantage" would get confused and de-authenticate your OS since the hardware is changing so much.

The New Environment

The new environment eliminates the issues with the old environment. With the new environment, I still run all of my customer setups in separate VMs. The difference is that these VMs are always run from home on my MacPro. This 8-core, 16G Ram machine is perfectly fine with running multiple (anywhere from 5 - 8) VMs at a time. When I bounce to a client site I still run these VMs from my home computer and I connect to them over Windows Remote Desktop Connection for the Mac.

You really do not see any difference with running this way. The advantage is that I do not need to copy the VMs onto my laptop anymore and I do not get bothered with the software authentication anymore. I don't have to worry about having multiple copies of the same VM on different machines and a portable drive. The biggest advantage is the state of the VM is always constant. I can close my laptop at anytime and know that when I get home, the VM will be in the exact state as I have left it when I closed my laptop. This is especially useful with long running scripts or builds that need to be run and you have to split.

There are a few disadvantages that mostly deal with connection issues. You may have spotty Wifi coverage that causes some lag but the Windows Remote Desktop software is really well written for those scenarios. I have used a VM over a Sprint 3G connection many-o-times without any issues. 

Another issue is that I cannot get any Windows Aero features since Windows does not like you to use those features over RDC. This is not a big deal for me but it may be for you.

I still carry a portable VM with me just in case of an emergency. If I can't connect for some reason, I still have VMWare installed on my laptop and I can get some version of the customer VM from the local drive.

How to setup the New Environment

There are 3 steps to getting this new environment setup on your VM.

1. Setup your guest virtual machine
   
2. Setup your host machine & router
3. Create a dynamic DNS to connect over the internet

Setup your guest virtual machine

I am using VMWare Fusion on my Mac and the screenshots below are from that application. I am sure all virtual machine software apps have these features so use what you like such as Parallels or Virtual Box.

• Change wireless settings on VM to use a bridged connection
  

In order for your host machine to pass the connection on from the internet to your VM, your VM must have it's network settings on Bridged. I believe the default for Fusion is NAT and so you to change this to Bridged. 

[DISCLAIMER: I am horrible at network administration and so some of this may not be needed or wrong. Please check with a certified network person thingy. I am not responsible for you fucking your stuff up.]

From Fusion, select your VM from you want to make available from the interwebs and select Virtual Machine -> Settings (CMD+E). Select Network and make sure your settings are like the following:

• Change Remote Settings on your Windows VM

On your guest machine, you need to setup Windows to allow for remote connections for remote desktop.

From the Control Panel, browse to System and Maintenance -> System. On the left hand side, select Remote settings.

 

On the Remote settings screen, check "Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer" and check "Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop (less secure)."

 

• Turn off IPv6 [if needed] on your Windows VM
  

OK, I am unsure why you need to do this but I did in my case. You may not need to do this or you may have to change other settings. Again, I am an idiot when it comes to network administration.

From the Control Panel, browse to Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center. On the lef hand side, select Manage network connections.

 

Right-click on your active network connection, and select Properties. Uncheck "Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)".

 

• Set static IP address on your Windows VM
  

You need to setup a static IP address for your VM instead of using a DHCP server which is normally the default. This is an internal static IP address for your internal network. These usually start with 10.0.1.XX. I make sure that the XX will be the same number as the port that I am going to be using to identify the VM later. I start with port 85 and go up from there (skipping 89). You can use any number for XX as long as it does not conflict with other devices in your house such as a Slingbox or another FileServer, etc.

From the Control Panel, browse to Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center. On the right hand side, select Manage network connections (same as above).

Right-click on your active network connection, and select Properties (same as above).

Click on "Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)" and click Properties. In the following window, click on "Use the following IP address" and set your IP address according to the recommendations above.

In this instance, I used 10.0.1.90 to identify this machine since I will connect to it over port 3390. Make sure you remember what this is as you will need it in a little bit.

 

You should now be able to ping your VM from another computer in your house and from your host machine. Try to ping your static IP address that you set. If you are unsuccessful, carefully follow the steps above again.

• Update Registry settings on your Windows VM

In order to connect to your multiple VMs from the internet, you need to change the port number that they are connecting to. By default, Remote Desktop connections occur over port 3389 and we will change this default port since we will have multiple VMs. Another advantage of doing this is that if you are a customer site, some customer sites block outgoing port 3389 requests and this will get around that.

Start the Registry Editor by going to Start -> and type regedit and click enter.

Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber.

Change the value to the port number you want to use. In this instance, I used 3390 as the port number.

 

Here is another article on changing your RD listening port: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306759.

• Add Firewall port exceptions on your Windows VM

You need to add TCP and UDP exceptions to the Windows Firewall in order to connect to your VM over RD for the port that you specified above. 

From the Control Panel, browse to Network and Internet -> Windows Firewall. On the left hand side, select "Allow a program through Windows Firewall".

 

Click on the Exceptions tab and then click the "Add port..." button. On the following window, set the name to "Remote Desktop TCP (3390)" (or the port number you used), set Port number to the one you specified above, and set the Protocol to TCP. Here is what it should look like in this instance:

 

You will want to do the same thing for UDP. Here is what that should look like in this instance:

 

Setup your host machine / router

OK, the hard part is done. Now in order to connect to your VM from the internets, you need to be able to route your request in your router for the specified port number to the appropriate VM. To do this, you need to map your port to the appropriate VM. I will show you how to do this for the Apple Airport Extreme / Time Capsule since that is what I am using. I am sure it is easy to find information on port mapping for your specific router on the internet, just Google it.

Open up your Airport Utility and click on Manual Setup for your router.

 

Click on the Advanced tab and click on Port Mapping (it may take a few seconds to be enabled).

  

Click on the small + at the bottom of the Allow list.

Enter your port number (3390 in this case) in the public and private UDP ports and the public and private TCP ports. Enter your internal static IP address (10.0.1.90 in this case).

 

Click Continue.

Enter a description here and click done. I usually use the name of my client followed by " Windows VM" as the name.

That is it for the port mapping. Continue adding all the VMs you want to allow with different ports and IP addresses. Make sure that they do not collide with other devices and services on your network.

The next step is to download the Remote Desktop Client for the Mac on your laptop or other device where you want to access these VMs remotely. You can get the software here. The Remote Desktop client is at the bottom listed under products (horrible page, I know). You then want the latest version.

 

You should be able to connect to your VMs over the internet now. Using your current outside IP address (you can find out what it is by going to http://checkip.dyndns.com/) and the port number, you can connect via Remote Desktop Client. Just use the format XX.XXX.XX.X:3390 (or your port number) and click connect. It will then ask you for your Windows username and password. Bam! Your living in the cloud man.

You can save each connection via the RD Client. I do this by saving via customer name and then use the Recent Connections menu item to switch back and forth.

Create a dynamic DNS to connect over the internet

The final thing you need is a static IP address if you do not already have one through your ISP. The good news is that there is a free service which allows you to use your dynamic IP address that is usually what your ISP will give you for free. They usually don't change this often but when they do, you will not be able to connect to your VMs anymore.

DynDNS allows you to specify a domain name and you can use this domain name to link to your dynamic ip address. The trick is that you download a small application on your host machine which notifies DynDNS when your IP address has changed so that it can update where it points the domain to. The free account is pretty easy to use. The only catch is that DynDNS will send you an email once a month with a link that you need to verify that you are still using the service. If that is too much trouble for you, feel free to pay for it using their pricing services.

The signup is pretty self explanatory. You can download the client at https://www.dyndns.com/support/clients. The client is not needed as they have a web interface as well if you don't want to clutter up your system. I did not install it as the dynamic IP address does not change at all for me.

I know this was long but I wanted to make it detailed enough to follow pretty easy. It's really nice to work this way once it is set up properly. Happy living...

Why I am Writing yet another Issue Tracking System

Someone asked me several years ago why I am writing yet another issue tracking system, "There are literally hundreds of them" he said. "I know", I said, "but this one will be different". How many times has that been said?

I am fully aware that almost everyone at some point in their software writing careers has thought of or written a bug tracking system. They write these because their specific business need is not satisfied with the "hundreds" that are on the market today. Or, more likely, the ones on the market are just too feature rich and overly priced. Why wouldn't you write your own if you are just trying to capture some common information so you don't use half of the "features" but you still have to pay an arm and a leg? Or the tools are the market do not fit how you work. Some developers like to use Outlook tasks, some developers like to use an integrated IDE, some developers like to use a TODO.txt file. Everyone is different and so to find a tool that fits the needs of a whole team is difficult.

Throughout my career, I have used many tools to try and make the software development process a little more organized. Organized projects obviously have a better chance of getting done on time and on budget.

The tools that I have used however have been lacking in one area or another or they are just too "feature" rich and complicated. They all contain some sort of major pain points. I am just trying to reduce those major pain points.  Those pain points range from having too much information to enter, too painful to add multipe work items within a session, too painful to edit multiple work items, too many fields to enter, not fast enough, to not enough integration into other applications that developers, managers, and testers use.

The system that I am building will address these pain points and concentrate on simplicity. It will not corner the users into a certain way of collecting work items for a software project. It will have integration points with the other software that you use. The first release will concentrate on collecting and editing the information followed quickly by the integration piece. After that release, I will look at actively using that information to help users manage a project. That is a whole 'nother conversation.

For those that already know about the history of this application, you may want to know what the heck have I been up to. I started working on the application several years ago and I have been working on it in between client projects for a full year. I was close to releasing it but when I started using it, I found that it sucked. So I scraped it and started over. I am happy with how the new one is looking and I am definitely going to dog food it a little earlier.

If you are interested in learning more, you can sign up at http://teammorale.com. You can also follow the development process and release process on Twitter at http://twitter.com/morale. We want to be very transparent and share with you our ideas and thoughts behind the application.

What I Have Been Up To [Video]

Just a quick update on what I have been up to in glorious video form...

Here are some links that were mentioned in the video:

• Innovativ Studios
• Brilliant Fantastic
• Made from Dolly
• Morale

Introduction of The Tweet Shirt - The Twitter T-Shirt

So here is a video that shows off the our first product from our new side project Made From Dolly.

The first product is a t-shirt called the Tweet Shirt. It is a t-shirt that advertises your Twitter username. You go to http://madefromdolly.com/tweetshirt, enter your twitter username and you get a shirt printed with your username on it. Pure sweetness.

Aww...My First Video

So I decided to post my first video blog. I will hopefully be doing more of these in the future.

More Random Thoughts from the milk carton...

So it's been a long time since I last published a blog entry. Hell, it's almost been 3 months. Time flies when you are having fun. I have been using my twitter stream a lot which caused me to sort of ignore my blog. No more though as I am going to try and publish at least one blog entry a day on either this blog or my business blog.

Here is a collection of thoughts and happening I have had over the past couple of months in no particular order...

1. Segways are a lot of fun and hella useful. I don't know why everyone in major metropolitian areas does not own one.
2. SugarSync is the best file syncing application out there. Period.
3. Segway needs to do a better marketing job. Pick someone at random and let them borrow a Segway for a day. You will sell a lot more.
4. SmugMug is a better photo-sharing site than Flickr because it shows the photos as large as it can. It caters to your monitor size.
5. I am going to stand and wait in line for the iPhone again. I want to make sure I get a 16 G one.
6. Black vs. White iPhone 3G is actually keeping me up at night.
7. Gary Vaynerchuck is a very good speaker. He taught me the importance of personal branding.
8. The SEED 3 conference was worth every penny.
9. I need a new car. I want an Audi A5 but it is very expensive and spending money on cars is a waste of money.
10. I should just get a Segway.
11. Ordered a new Aeron chair. It's expensive but I sit in a chair all day so it should be good.
12. I want to start doing a video podcast about anything technology. Any takers for co-hosting with me?
13. I have seen someone really screw up the MVC pattern.  It doesn't count as MVC if you are still doing everything in a code behind file.
14. I need to blog more. This is fun.
15. Thinking about writing for the local newspaper on technology subjects.
16. Outlook always crashes when I exit it.
17. Internet Explorer always crashes if I go to Newsgator.
18. Windows works great as long as you have a quad core machine.
19. Launchy is a must have on Windows PCs.
20. I have been using less and less tablet functionality as of late. Thinking about making the switch to the Macbook. I just love tablets though.
21. I am selling my Lenovo X60 with extras for cheap. Email me jwright AT wrightin DOT gs if you are interested.
22. I am fed up with my Motorola DVR box. It sucks at the only thing it has to do, display television.
23. I ordered a refurbished Tivo HD DVR for $199.
24. There is a "hidden" (not thought of) cost when buying a Tivo.  Each cable card will set you back $100.
25. I hate dressers. They are very inefficent in placing clothes in and getting clothes out of. Someone please design something that is more effecient.
26. I am in love with Castle Active Record.  Seriously, it's true love.
27. CSLA.NET + Active Record = Complete Bliss. This is kind of stuff you stay home on Friday nights for.
28. Alex Albrecht's girlfriend Heather Stewart has some serious music skills. She made my iPhone cut.

Microsoft Stole From Me

Well, not really, but I did loose out on another opportunity.  If you haven't heard, Microsoft released the Beta 1 of Internet Explorer 8 at their annual Mix conference at the beggining of March.  One of the features that are available with the new Internet Explorer is the idea of "activities", as Microsoft calls them, which allows you to perform some context sensitive action based on the content of the site you are on.

I came up with this idea last summer.  To "prove" that I did, here is a screen shot of the OneNote notebook I used to jot down my ideas.  You can see the date/timestamp on the top left corner (click for full version) under the title.

You can see that I was going to call it (codename anyway) "Sprout", "Context", or "Connect".  The idea came to me when I was trying to add a bunch of books to my Amazon wishlist from a person's blog.  I had to click on all the links to bring up new windows and then add them to my wishlist.  That was silly and I thought "why should I not just be able to right-click and say "Add To Amazon Wishlist?"".  Then a little "Ajax-y" window would pop up with the results.  Obviously Microsoft thought of the same idea.

Anywho, I am sad that I didn't implement it but Microsoft would of came out with this in IE 8 and my idea would of been all for nothing anyway.  I have to start listening to those little voices in my head a little closer.

Day in the Gadget Life

As others have done before such as James Kendrick and the guys at Gotta Be Mobile, I am going to document a typical mobile day for me.  I will include the software and the gadgets I use throughout the day in order to get me through the day.

For those of you that don't know, I am an independent software development consultant and I am currently working with several clients.  The following chronicals my day as it was on this past Monday.

My iPhone went off at 7 am as I use that as my alarm clock.  I grab it and check my email and calander for the day.  It helps me get organized for the day and jog my memory for what I need to do.  I then check my SMS Twitter messages to see what else is going on in my virtual world.  On Tuesdays, I also check the new music that arrives in iTunes.  If anything that interests me is released that day, I usually download it from the iTunes WiFi store so I have something new to listen to that day.

It is now time to stop playing, so I hop in the shower and get dressed.  I have a meeting at a client site and so I need to get properly dressed and not just throw on my usual jeans and t-shirt mode when working at home.  I go down to my office where my Lenovo Thinkpad X60 tablet is sitting in it's dock from the previous night.  I put it in hibernate mode (something that takes several minutes in Vista) and load it into my Tom Bihn Ego bag.  While I am doing this, I  place my iPhone into it's dock and it syncs with my desktop PC in order to grab any new podcasts that may have come down the previous night.  I then make my way upstairs to wkae up my daughter and get her ready for day care.  I grab my Tom Bihn bag and my iPhone and I am out the door to drop my daughter off and proceed to my meeting.

After I drop my daughter off, I turn on my Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS unit and head towards my client's office.  Although I have been to the client's site many times, using my GPS allows me to get around any traffic jams that may occur on my way.  Waiting for the GPS to boot up when stuck in traffic may make me miss some opportunites to redirect my route so I keep it on just in case.  My client's office is about an hour away so to keep entertained, I often listen to my podcasts that I just synced from my desktop PC.  In order to listen to these, I use the b which I do not like as a solution.  The FM transmitter makes me have to turn off the radios on my iPhone in order to not allow for any interference.  This means that all calls are routed directly to voicemail and I have to pause my podcasts from time to time on the trip to make sure I didn't miss an important phone call.  I am looking for a new solution such as a car stereo with a jack or an integrated iPod control but I have not done that yet.

Once I get to the client site, I grab my tablet and get it set up before the client gets to the meeting room.  During the meeting, I need to show the current software features that I have completed in between the last meeting and the current one.  I also need to get feedback on the current software and plan what will be done between now and the next meeting.  In order to do this I often need to flip in between tablet and laptop mode.  In notebook mode, I use the keyboard and mouse to enter data and show the application.  I show the client the software over a projector and so I put the tablet in presentation mode through the Lenovo tools.  Once that is complete, I unplug the projector and flip the tablet into tablet mode.  I bring up the meeting within Outlook and click on the Meeting Notes toolbar item in order to enter my notes within OneNote and keep a reference back to the meeting within OneNote.  I absolutely love this integration bewteen Outlook and OneNote.  During the meeting, I often have to refer back to a live web site that we use to keep the client's project in order.  To accomplish this I plug in my Merlin S720 Sprint EVDO PCMCIA card.  This allows me to access the internet without requiring me to get access to the client's internal network.  I love that fact and my client appreciates it as well.

The meeting is over at 11 am and it is now time to head back home.  I plug in the iTrip and start my podcasts listening.  I use my GPS unit to get back home as well.  When I am about 15 minutes from home, I feel the urge for Chineese for lunch.  There is a great Chinees resturaunt near my home but I forgot the number.  I grab my iPhone and use Google maps to quickly find the number and call them.  I place my order and pick it up on my way home.  I get home and dock both my iPhone and tablet.  While eating my lunch, I pull up some recorded shows from the previous night on my DVR.  I finish my leasure time and it's time to get back to work.

I go back downstairs to my office and take a look at my notes I took in OneNote.  I enter any tasks that came out of the meeting into FogBugz and Morale.  I am using Morale side-by-side as a test case before I release it.  I also enter any requirement changes into our wiki we are using to track user requirements.

I stay in my cave and slang code for several hours on my desktop computer.  I use Visual Studio to develop as well a lot of tools that augment the development.  I listen to my music and watch video podcats on iTunes.  I am often on Microsoft Messenger IM'ing people.  I use Twadget to Twitter throughout the day.

It is now 4 pm and I have another meeting with a new client.  I enter the address into my Garmin GPS, through my Lenovo tablet in hibernate mode and into my Waterfield SleeveCase bag.  I do not anticipate this to be a long meeting so I can just take my tablet and no extra power supplies or batteries.  I arrive at the meeting a little early so I through in the Sprint EVDO card and read a couple of my RSS feeds using Newsgator Online.  My client arrives to the meeting and so I again use the Outlook and OneNote integration.  I take notes in OneNote and flag any action items with an Outlook task flag which creates my tasks in Outlook.  Those tasks are then synced automatically with the Plaxo toolbar.  I can use my iPhone to check those tasks on Plaxo mobile which syncs back to Outlook.  It was a productive meeting and my (hopefully future) client is impressed with my tablet so I do a little evangeslism before I take off.

Back at home, I play with my daughters and have dinner with my wife.  Once the kids are asleep, I grab the tablet in order to do some light work upstairs where I can talk with my wife and we can watch tv on our high def 50" LG plasma.  I use my tablet in notebook mode and track my time for my various clients using Quickbooks Online.  I now have to create an estimate for a client on yet another project.  I use Mindjet Mindmanager to map out the tasks I need to complete for them.  I use this in tablet mode and it simply rocks and it is very productive.  Once I work on that a little, it is time to wind down and read some feeds.  The best use case for a tablet is the ability to lie down on a couch and read my feeds in tablet mode using Newsgator Online.

I get through my feeds and it is still early (by my standards), so I flip back to notebook mode and slang some code for my Morale project.

It was a very productive day and my gadgets and software help me get through the day.

Codemash 2008 Review

This post is a duplicate from the istu blog.  The original can be found here.

I attended the CodeMash event from Wednesday, January 9th - Friday, January 11th at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, OH.  This event was intended to be a "mash-up" for developers of various languages like Java, .NET, Ruby, and Python.  The schedule contained all sorts of sessions that convered all of these various languages and topics.

This was the second annual CodeMash event whose idea was started by several developers and leaders in the development community over lunch.  It was a very different event because of the wide range of topics covered and the venue it was held at.  It made for a very relaxed atmosphere.  Here are some of my thoughts on the event.  Sorry in advance for the long post, I just had a lot to say about it.

Event Organization

The event was very well organized even before I stepped foot on the venue.  The web site for the event had various rss feeds so you could get up to the minute news about the event.  News such as when the speakers and sessions were announced, when registration could take place, etc.  That was a very good thing because it didn't require me to go out to the site every so often to look for any updated news.

Another great piece of organization that was present is that the CodeMash organizers developed a scheduling application that allowed you to schedule the sessions you wanted to attend before you got there.  You could then email these schedules or print them off and be ready before you got the pamphlet the day of the event.  The only downside to this was that it was written in Silverlight.  I know the developer probably wanted to experiment with Silverlight and that is why it was used but it was total overkill for the application and it required me to go and download the new Silverlight plugin to use.  This was a pain in the butt but the idea was great.

I arrived to the event on Wednesday evening at 5:30 and checked in to the hotel.  When I checked in, the resort knew that I was there for the CodeMash event and gave me a flyer for the event which gave a brief overview of what was going on.  This was a nice touch as well so I wouldn't be sitting there going "OK, what is going on now".  The organizers have arranged with the resort a great price.  I got my single room for Wednesday night for $88 and a suite for Thursday and Friday night for $159!  I stayed at the resort before and the suite costs me $350 so these were great rates and another reason to attend this event.

After I checked in, I went down to the convention center which was just down the hall from my room to register for the event.  I told them my last name and they gave me my pre-printed badge, a ticket for the raffle at the end of the event and a t-shirt ticket to claim my free t-shirt.  The shirts were well designed and a nice touch to an already cheap event.  I also recieved a printed program for the event that mapped out the session rooms, the schedule, and the information about each session.  It was very well organized and had all the information I needed.

The sessions were well spread out and scheduled well.  There were only a couple of sessions in which I had a conflict of interests.  This was not a big issue as you could pop in and out of any the sessions you wanted.  There were plenty of time in between each session to mingle, network, grab a quick drink, or grad some juice for your laptop.  The event was scheduled very well and ran without a hitch.

Believe it or not, the organizers also organized breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the entire event!  This was included for the cheap registration fee.  They did a GREAT JOB on the sponsors.  From what I understand, you will have to thank Jim Holmes for bringing all these sponsors together for this event.  He did a great job on keeping the event cheap for the attendees.

Overall the event was organized near perfection!  I was very pleased with how the event was organized.  Great job to everyone who was involved.  I only know a few so sorry for anyone I am missing.  Great job to Brian Prince, Jim Holmes, Josh Holmes, John Hopkins, and Jason Follas.

Venue

Like I mentioned before, the event was held at the Kalahari resort in Sandusky, OH.  It is a huge hotel with an indoor waterpark.  It recently went under some new construction and it opened a new larger part of their park on Christmas so we were lucky that we were able to be there after the construction.  They added a wave pool, a swim up bar, and some sweet new waterslides.  My family came over from Toledo on Thursday night and I was at the park with them on Thursday and Friday night.  It was a lot of fun.  My favorite was a new water slide that is like a giant toliet bowl and spun you around this bowl and then dropped you out at the end.  I must of went on that at least ten times.  My 1 year old daughter also enjoyed the new kids section.  She was in awe most of the time.  Did I mention that the $150 rate for the suite also gave 8 people access to the waterpark for our entire stay.  This was possible because of the organizers.

There were a couple of things that I didn't like about the resort.  They seem to be understaffed at the checkin/checkout desk and they totally do not have enough luggage carts for all the rooms they have.  These were just minor details but they definately improved on the service since the last time I was there.

Content

The content was probably my biggest disappointment of the event.  I thought it was good but I thought it would be better.  The content I didn't like was the stuff I didn't learn anything at.  That was probably due to the fact that I should of attended something else and expanded my mind but I really was expecting something else in some of these sessions due to what I read on the session description.  Here are my thoughts on the sessions that I attended:

• Keynote : Software "Engineering" & Polyglot Programming by Neal Ford - This session made comparions between tradional engineering (example used was building a bridge) and software engineering and how they differ.  This was a very, very good keynote and it set the expectations for me for the event.  I liked the "theory" keynotes as apposed to the technical ones (the other two).  Score: A+.
• Coding in Silverlight by Jeff Blankenburg - OK, I am going to be honest, this was the worst of the ones I attended.  To be fair though, Jeff did fill in for the original speaker at the last minute.  The session demoed putting a spinning button in a web form using XAML and Silverlight.  Seriously.  After all the people saying "I don't want to do a spinning button", that is what was done.  I left the session early to check out of my current room and into my suite so it would be ready for the family when they arrived.  Score: F.
• Crash, Smash, Kaboom Course in Python by Catherin Delvin - I have never looked at Python before so I was excited about this course.  It was exactly as it says, it was an introduction to Python, it's development environments, and third party controls.  I thought it was very informative and it got me excited about Python.  Score: B+.
• Keynote : Mashing it up with IIS7 by Scott Hanselman - This was perhaps the funiest session I have ever seen.  The first part of Scott's keynote was him talking about himself in a sort of stand-up comedy routine with some slides and what it is like to work at Microsoft.  He bashes himself and Microsoft several times.  At one point in his slides, he talks about how he has met so many great people and he shows a Photoshoped picture of himself with his arm around the picture of the guys who are pictured during the Visual Studio install.  Very funny.  He had the whole room cracking up.  The second part was him talking about the new features in IIS and implemented an HttpModule in C# for a PHP program running in IIS.  It was good except I dodn't learn that much plus I do not like technical keynotes like I said.  He gets a higher score for being so funny.  Score: B-.
• Applied Service-Oriented Architecture by Brian Prince - I love going to Brian's talks as he talks bout real world issues and doesn't talk about spinning buttons (see above).  He talked about how to architecture your service oriented applications and how much work should be done in designing them.  I did not learn much in this because I have read these sort of things before but it was a good talk and discussion.  Score: C+.
• Putting the Fun into Functional with F# by Dustin Campbell - Dustin lives in Toledo and so I see a lot of his talks at local user groups.  He always blows my mind with his talks and he makes me feel really stupid.  He did sort of an introductory talk about F# and functional programming.  It was good because he taught me how to get functional programming and I had an "Ah-ha moment" as he talks about.  Plus you can hear him on the recent Hanselminutes podcast talking about similar things.  Score: A-.
• Party and Jam Session - I didn't attend this because my family was at the resort and I wanted to spend time with them.
• Keynote : Concurrency: Past and Present by Brian Goetz - This talked about the issues surounding concurrency  and how it is a hard problem to solve.  Brian demostrated how some of the issues can be solved and gave code snippets in Java.  I think this talk was way too technical (and frankly boring) for a morning keynote session.  I did not get anything out of it.  Score: D+.
• Real World C# by Bill Wagner - This was a good best practices for C# and the new features in the 3.5 .NET Framework.  Since I live and breath C# day in and day out, I did not get much out of this presentation but I thought it was good.  Score: B-.
• Hands-on Agile Practices by Brian Prince - This is second time I have seen this presentation and there is a reason for that.  Brian talks about how his company uses some concepts from Agile practices to implement software for his clients.  I love the approach and I plan on implementing some of these concepts into Morale.  Score: A+.
• RESTful Web Services by Dave Donaldson - This talked about how to make web services RESTful and the theories around REST web services.  The problem was that the first half of the talk implemented a WS-* based web service in .NET.  I didn't care about that and that is not why I attended the session.  I think most people felt that way as I looked around the room.  The rest of the talk was informative for me though as I never really knew what made a good REST service.  Score: B-.
• Building Custom Workflow Activities in Workflow Foundation by Keith Elder -  This talked about how to implement a custom workflow activity and implement designer features for the end user.  It demostrated an activity that sent email and built the designer pieces around that.  I just started in WF so I was excited about this but I did not learn a thing because it is something I already knew how to do.  It was good but again, I did not learn anything.  Score: C+.

Final Thoughts

Overall I thought that the conference was well worth the $125 registration fee and the hotel costs.  I killed four birds with one stone.  I learned some things, networked with several people, caught up with people I used to work with etc., and allowed my family to have a great time.  They have already announced CodeMash 2009 and I will definately be attending that as well.  I will go for the sessions that I do not know much about though such as Ruby and PHP.  If you want to hear the sessions from CodeMash 2008, all of them were recorded and you can listen to the podcasts here.  Hopefully I see many of you next year.  It was fun and I plan on being a sponsor next year.

Random Thoughts from the milk carton...

I have been off the chart as of late.  I am having a hard time trying to find time to blog because I am working like mad on some client work and my business.

Here is a collection of thoughts and happening I have had over the past couple of weeks in no particular order...

1. Fake Christmas trees are expensive for no particular reason...especially when you move into a new and larger house.
2. I finally sent out Christmas gifts to my clients and potential clients.
3. The iPhone is the best gadget in 2007....2006, 2005,....2008, 2009, 2010...
4. Threadless is addictive.  I have ordered at least 2 new tshirts a week for the past 3 weeks.  They are only $10 a piece so how can you beat it?  They even made one that resembles my business logo (which I am wearing right now).
5. I want some Threadless retail art but they have sold out of everything and have not released anything new.
6. iTunes on Tuesdays is also addicting.
7. I need to send my tablet back to Lenovo because of a loose screen.  They sent me a box to send it back in but I can't let it go :(
8. I wanted the new Dell tablet until I found out it starts at $2600.  The new capactitive touch screen may be worth it though...giant iPhone with a bad UI (stupid Vista).
9. The ModBook finally has a ship date of January 4th.  I am not going to get one until I hear El Jobso at the MacWorld in January.  If Apple does not announce one, I will get that.
10. ActiveRecord is cool to get apps out the door but it still forces you to give up some control over your business object architecture.  May be a good DTO framework for CSLA though.
11. I can't wait to try ASP.NET MVC pattern (it has been RC'd but no time yet).
12. I love the MVP pattern for web apps....maybe the ASP.NET MVC pattern will change me.
13. My time per week = 40 hours for one client + 30 hours for another + family time + keeping up with other clients + marketing business + Morale = > 168 hours
14. Morale is going slowly...will cut out some features to get it out the door.
15. So many more ideas for Morale...it will be freaking awesome once I get the features I want in it.
16. Company blog is suffering...must find time
17. Diggnation is the funiest video podcast out right now
18. I've been trying new beers.  I get a six pack of whatever each time I get my usual and give it a whirl.  I have found a few that I like but the only problem is that I can't remember the name the next day.
19. Field mice + new house + new housing development + winter = mice in house = Orkin visits = wife standing on chairs and screaming
20. Looking into opening a new business next year...that should become fun
21. Working from home with no hours is awesome
22. Passive income rocks
23. Working with Fanzoo Technology rocks
24. Ava has about 20 days to start walking...doesn't she know she has 1-year pictures coming up?
25. Still need to get Ava birthday party invitations out
26. How did I live before my 30-inch monitor?
27. I love Method Man's son's name....Pinky Fat Fat...maybe for our next one?
28. I am starting to get the hankering for designing t-shirts again...maybe next year
29. Paranormal State is a pretty good show...I get a lot of Goosebumps
30. Writer strike sucks for The Office
31. Can't wait for Lost to start again
32. I am indifferent about Ohio State going to the national championship...don't get me wrong, I am glad but the winner will not be seen as the best team in the country because of the crazy season
33. Looking to go to LA next year for the OSU vs. USC game...any babysitters, please call me
34. Michigan...stop crying, lick your wounds, and go find someone besides Les Miles...get your wallets out and pay Bill Cowher
35. Finally reserved my room at Kalahari for CodeMash.  This better not turn out like before. It was a lot cheaper with the CODEMASH discount code.  $150/night for a suite compared to $350 the last time I was there in a suite.
36. Kalahari will open their new expansion on Christmas.
37. Jott still rocks.  I use it all the time.
38. I have a new idea for a "family organization" application...Time will tell if I can develop it.
39. I hate everything about the winter except the concept of snow.
40. I have wanted to go on a snowmobiling trip for about 5 years now.  It is cold when you snowmobile.
41. Weightwatchers sucks but it works.
42. Weightwatchers.com is expensive but it works.
43. I can't wait for the iPhone SDK.
44. Ava is a hell of a lot of fun.
45. Alecia is growing up....really, really fast.
46. I want a casino party for my 30th birthday...real tables, real dealers, real money....is that legal to have a casino in your garage for one night?
47. Where did the college football season go?
48. I have no time to play my Xbox or Wii but yet I still buy the games.
49. Mario Galaxy is not as good as I had hoped.
50. Call of Duty 4 is really, really good.
51. I am not that into Guitar Hero or Rock Band but they are fun to play at parties.
52. I hate scraping ice off of my car
53. 2 car garages always only fit one car...no matter what
54. CodeRush and Refactor! are the best tools you can get for coding in Visual Studio....if your company won't buy it for you, buy it yourself...you will save 3x that in the first week.
55. I will miss Marc Orchant even though I have only had email conversations with him.  He was a great person and I wish the best for his family which I know he was very close too.  Life is too short.
56. Blog entries take a long time to polish