Spaghetti Code goes roundtable style with notable Twin Cities developers to talk about what's in store for 2009.  We cover several topics and technologies and have a great discussion to close out 2008.           

Spaghetti Code discusses Microsoft Powershell with Neil Iversen. Neil describes how Powershell is the combination of command line simplicity with the power of .NET.  He also talks about how Powershell can make life easier for developers and how Powershell exposes new capabilities to the applications they create.

Update:  There were some issues with the podcast upload to my hoster.  Hopefully they have been resolved and everything is good to go.

Microsoft has posted a large example application using ASP.NET MVC to CodePlex.  Called Oxite, this app is an extensible content management platform for blog hosting and large web sites.  It is really intended for use by developers as reference on how to build large applications with ASP.NET MVC, but could be used in a variety of scenarios if you are so inclined.

Some of the features:

• Support for pingbacks and trackbacks
• Comment support for both authenticated and anonymous users
• RSS feeds (duh)
• Web admin (duh)
• Users can add new pages or sub pages

You can check out MIX Online to see a production web site built on Oxite.  Oxite is the result of building the MIX site.

Well, if any news is good news, I guess this article qualifies.  Not sure if I have ever seen a company put the lay off blame quiet this way, but hey, kudos to Silverlight I guess. ;-)

This CNET story almost seems like a rumor that ends up taking on a life of it’s own even though its not true.  But then again, CNET is pretty good so I have to think this is the real deal.  And if it is, I just quietly threw up in my hand…

After a week of holiday vacation and endless food temptations, I’m glad to see that I didn’t pick up any poundage and am back on track with my return week.  A bit behind schedule overall, but still trending very nice and hoping to get back on or under the red line by the end of next week.  I’m about a half pound over where I wanted to be at this point, but a net loss of over 10 pounds in 5 weeks so I am very happy.

Why am I posting this work out stuff here?  I need “something” to keep me honest and motivated, so by posting here I get that.

I know, sad record of posting lately.  Something I am working on rectifying shortly.

Well, my verdict is in.  I have been on the road for a fairly long number of consecutive weeks, and as a result I ended up really having to “live on my phone” for both professional and personal life. Windows Mobile and Exchange/Outlook Mobile has been a great experience for many years, but this was the first time I have had to really live on my phone and access my online email accounts. Like many people, I have two (some of you certainly have more) email accounts; one with Gmail and one with Hotmail.  The short story: Hotmail is hands down the better mobile experience. 

The longer story: I was accessing my email via Mobile IE so it was a pretty minimal, barebones experience.  I don’t want to hear about this browser or that browser would make my Gmail experience better – I got what I got.  Here is my pro/con of each service:

Hotmail Pro

1. Digit keys can be used to take actions on email (i.e., delete checked items by pressing 7)
2. Cleaner lay out of options

Hotmail Cons

1. Ok, this could be a deal breaker, but there where times I could not get to Hotmail due to the service not being available.  I’m not sure if it was a network/mobile IE issue or a Hotmail issue.  Regardless, it was never more than a minute before I could get access

GMail Pro

1. Grouping conversations was still there and handy

GMail Cons

1. No digit key support – I had to navigate to and click each button to take an action
2. The screen real estate just had an awful clunky layout

Ok, not exhaustive, but I like Hotmail better for mobile.  For normal access, GMail holds a slight edge for me primarily because of the conversation grouping and tagging.