*Words of Wisdom From The Elder

July 13th I’ll be in Fort Smith, AR presenting at the local .Net User Group there on the topic of distributed caching with Velocity (Microsoft’s new distributed caching product). 

This will be my second trip to the state of Arkansas as I was in Little Rock earlier in the year.  Before hitting Fort Smith, we are planning a mini-vacation to Branson, Mo.  We’ve been there before and it will be fun to spend the weekend there. 

Here is the abstract and title for Monday night’s presentation:

Distributing Cache One Byte at a Time With Velocity

Have you ever used the built-in caching capabilities within Asp.Net? If you have you know that as long as you have one server to cache information it works really well. What happens though when you add an additional server? Or even better let's say you add an additional 10 servers! Now what? What happens is you've got data replicated all over the place and it gets out of sync. Not to mention it becomes really hard to manage as data gets changed. Enter "Velocity", Microsoft's new distributed caching product. In this session we'll do a thorough look at all of the pieces of Velocity from installation/deployment, configuration, the API and some of its features like regions and tags.

Last year I was invited to speak at a lot of conferences and code camps but the one that I didn’t get to go to due to scheduling conflicts was CodeStock held in Knoxville, TN.  This year I made sure it was on my schedule because the majority of my Twitterverse / Tribe will be there and I couldn’t stand to see the tweets from a remote location again this year.

CodeStock Sessions

I’ll be doing two of my “Back To Basics” sessions this year to help those that want to learn .Net get acclimated into the .Net platform.  The two sessions are:

• What is .Net?
• A Programmer’s Primer Programming in C#

While these two sessions aren’t about the latest and greatest technology and won’t fill the room, I strongly believe they are a necessity for code camps and other areas.  Speakers tend to focus on the latest and greatest shiny new thing but there is a huge whole whereby those that are starting at ground zero don’t have a place to go.  I’m glad these sessions got picked.

Deep Fried Bytes Live!

On Friday evening from 5:00 – 6:00 Woody and myself will be doing a Deep Fried Bytes episode live! 

But, the coolest announcement is that Elly Mae will be there live and in person to help us kick off the show.  So for those in attendance you’ll get a special treat no doubt getting to meet the truest Southern Belle in the South. 

It is going to be a great weekend with loads of fun.  See you there! (ps – rumor has it there are a handful of tickets left if you still haven’t signed up)

If you aren’t doing anything Wednesday, June 24th, around 3:00 EST sign up for the MSDN Webcast called Geek Speak and tune in to see me walk through deploying various WCF bindings such as TCP / MSMQ services in IIS / WAS. 

Register Online Here:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032417610&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Bring some popcorn or favorite Deep Fried Food, sit back and get your geek own!

DISCLAIMER

Doing this is not supported by AT&T and other wireless carriers.  Consult with your carrier before following these instructions. 

Tethering iPhone 3G

Folks, it is here, and it is a reality!  I am writing this blog article from Windows 7 tethered to my notebook via an iPhone 3g.  The best part of all is you don’t have to jail break the phone to do it.  For the record I am using an AT&T locked, non-hacked, standard iPhone.  Nothing has been done to this phone in anyway whatsoever.  Here is what you need to get this setup and working. 

Latest Updates

Be sure you have iTunes version 8.2 installed and then get the latest version of the iPhone OS, version 3.0. 

Install MobileConfigs

After the phone is updated to the latest firmware and version of iTunes go to http://help.benm.at from your iPhone. 

Follow the on screen settings to find your country, provider and so on.  Once the MobileConfig is download go into “Settings->General->Network” on your iPhone and enable tethering. 

Windows 7

Now connect the phone to your computer and a new driver will install.  You can find it in the control panel under Network called “Apple Mobile Device Ethernet”. 

That’s it, you should be online and tethered now.  I bet you expected a really long-winded process?  Nope, it is too simple.

For years I’ve had two monitors on my computers.  Working at home every day in and day out has reminded me that two just isn't enough.  I find myself constantly flipping between windows and applications, especially since all the development I do is virtualized.  At work we recently upgraded the majority of our developers with new Core i7 machines with two 22inch LCDs.  Since I already had my own machine I asked if I could just get two of the new LCDs.  A few days later two new Dell 22inch LCDs showed up at my house. 

Planning for their arrival I found out we use Humanscale M7 monitor stands at work.  M7’s aren’t cheap retailing for about $500.00.  That was out of my price range to get all four LCDs setup.  After hours of digging around I finally found a quad LCD monitor arm I was comfortable purchasing and it was only $88.00!  Here’s what I settled on:

The product is sold by Tyke Supply on Amazon and is manufactured by http://diwei.com/.  There really wasn’t much to go on to decide if this product was going to hold up and be sturdy enough but I pulled the trigger.

When the product arrived the first thing I noticed was how heavy it was.  As soon as I unpacked it I realized I had a winner.  The arms of the unit are extremely well built, very heavy aluminum.  It even came with an alum wrench to tighten things down. 

One word of caution is make sure you have someone to help you setup the unit.  This is not a one man job as it takes one person to hold the screens while the other person tightens them down on the pole. 

I was extremely surprised how sturdy the unit is once installed.  It doesn’t move once tightened down at all.  As long as you have a hang over on your desk you can install this unit.  As you can see below, it slid right onto my over hang. 

Windows 7 allowed me to easily configure the screens how I wanted them.

And of course, you have to see all of this screen real estate from the front or this blog post wouldn’t be complete.

The two LCDs on top were my previous Dell 19inch LCDs I purchased from the Dell refurb store several years ago and the bottom two are the new Dell 22inch LCDs work sent me.  If you are curious as to what is where on all of the screens here is what is running where right now (subject to change):

• Top Left – TweetDeck
• Top Right – Windows 7 gadgets, live messenger, pandora, email
• Bottom Left – VMWare Windows Server 2008 virtual machine (work)
• Bottom Right – Browser, Explorer, FeedDemon, Live Writer
I’ve only had this configuration for a couple of days and with so many screens and windows open I can honestly say that the new features of split screens, Aero Peek and others in Windows 7 make it incredibly easy to get around.

I may have to cancel all future speaking engagements because I seriously don’t want to leave my desk now.  :)