Five Minutes Past Noon Coffee 170

• Ben Hall announces IronEditor, a simple dev tool for IronPython and IronRuby. Pretty nice, though fairly simplistic (as Ben readily admits). For example, it doesn't have an interactive mode, only the ability to execute scripts and direct the output to IronEditor's output window. However, it is a good start and I'm sure it'll just get better. One thing he's apparently considering is a Silverlight version. (via Michael Foord)
• Speaking of "Iron" tools, Sapphire Steel have had an IronRuby version (in alpha) of their Ruby in Steel product for several months now. I wonder if John's had a chance to play with it.
• Speaking of John, the ASP.NET MVC / IronRuby prototype he talked about @ TechEd is now available on ASP.NET MVC Preview 4 via Phil Haack.
• Ted Neward has an article exploring the IronPython VS Integration sample that ships in the VS SDK. As I mentioned the other day, we're starting working on a production quality implementation of VS Integration for IPy.
• Ophir Kra-Oz (aka Evil Fish) blogs Python for Executives. I like his "Risk, Recruiting, Performance and Maturity" model - four boxes, perfect for keeping an executive's attention! :) Plus Ophir has some nice things to say about IronPython. (via Michael Foord)
• Ronnie Maor blogs an extension method for PythonEngine to make Eval simpler. I especially like how he uses string format syntax so you can dynamically generate the code to eval. I wonder what this would look like in IPy 2.0 with DLR Hosting API. (via IronPython URLs)
• Speaking of DLR Hosting, Seshadri has another great DLR hosting post, this time hosting IPy inside of VS08 so you can script VS08 events (document saved, window created, etc) with Python.
• Justin Etheredge has a bunch of IronRuby posts - Getting IronRuby Up and Running, Running Applications in IronRuby, Learning Ruby via IronRuby and C# Part 1. (via Sam Gentile)
• Don Syme links to several F# related posts by Ray Vernagus, though he's apparently also experimenting with IronRuby. I'm really interested in his Purely Functional Data Structures port to F#.
• Speaking of F#, Brian has a teaser screenshot of F# upcoming CTP. However, he chooses the New Item dialog to tease, which looks pretty much like the current new item dialog (the new one does have fewer F# templates). However, if you look in the Solution Explorer, you'll notice a real "References" node. No more #I/#R! Yeah!
• The interactive graphic in Kevin Kelly's One Machine article is fascinating. It really highlights that the vast vast vast majority of power, storage, CPU cycles and RAM come from personal computers on the edge. Even in bandwidth, where PC's still have the highest share but it looks to be around 1/3rd, the aggregate of all edge devices (PCs, mobile phones, PDAs, etc.) still dominates the data centers.

DevHawk's Inessential List of Tools

ilanchelian left a comment yesterday asking for me to share some of the utilities that I use sometimes. Of course, Scott Hanselman keeps *THE* ultimate list of tools, hence my titling this list as "inessential" (note, it's the list that's inessential, not the tools themselves.)

But since you asked, here are some of the things kicking around my utilities folder (in no particular order):

• cdburn and dvdburn from the WS03 Resource Kit
• CodePlex Client (aka cpc and tfc)
• NcFTP Client (aka ncftp, ncftpput and ncftpget)
• Reflector
• Wizmo
• AMP FontViewer
• DiffMerge
• Process Explorer
• HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (used for building bootable flash drives)
• Subversion command line utilities
• 7-Zip
• Notepad2
• TreeSize Free
• Foxit Reader
• Script Elevation PowerToys (PowerShell Here and Elevate)
• SyncToy 2.0

Morning Coffee 137

• Note, I somehow duplicated Morning Coffee 135. So I've skipped 136 to make up for it.
• Congrats to Hillary Clinton for her unexpected win in the New Hampshire primary. As I said last week, I think Obama has a better chance of winning in November, but I've got nothing against Clinton or her politics.
• Speaking of winning, congrats to LSU on winning the BCS. Are they the best team in college football? Personally, I don't think so - there are at least three other teams (Georgia, West VA and of course USC) who can make a persuasive argument that they should be #1. But losing to teams like Penn Pitt and Stanford, neither WVA and USC have an argument they should have been in the championship game. But that's what makes the BCS such BS. If nothing else, at least the "we need a playoff" meme is picking up steam.
• This is sort of cool: Eye-fi is a wireless enabled SD card so you can wirelessly upload pictures from your camera to your PC or favorite photo service. However, I think the price needs to come down a bit. I recently bought a 2GB SD card for my wife's new camera for $20. A 2GB Eye-fi card is $99. Not sure wireless upload is worth 5x per card.
• With all the focus on LINQ providing type-safe queries, it's easy to forget that some apps do need to build their queries at run time. Scott Guthrie points at a Dynamic LINQ C# sample (also available for VB) that builds LINQ expression trees from strings. It kinda takes you back to the bad-old-days of embedding SQL strings in your code, but there are scenarios - especially BI scenarios - where you need this capability.
• Soma announces the VC++ 2008 Feature Pack Beta. This is the long-awaited (by who?) MFC update as well as support for the C++ TR1. TR1 provides some FP-esque support like function objects and tuples, so maybe this is worth a look. On the other hand, given that much (all?) of TR1 is lifted from Boost, maybe we should just use that.
• Speaking of cool libraries, check out C5 (aka the Copenhagen Comprehensive Collection Classes for C#). It's basically a complete redesign of System.Collections.Generic (or SCG as they call it). I've read thru their online book and I'm very impressed. Of course, with me focused on F# of late, I'm primarily using immutable collections, so I'm not sure how much use I have for C5 right now.
• There was a free CoDe magazine in my DevTeach bag back in November with a fascinating article on where LINQ goes from here - LINQ 2.0 if you will. One of things the article discusses is tier-splitting, which has seen the light of day in Volta. Will Volta also deliver External Relationships, Reshaping Combinators and Join Patterns or will those come from different projects?
• I had to pave my workstation yesterday. I was running an interim build of Vista x64 SP1 and I couldn't make Virtual Server work with it. As part of the repave, I discovered I needed to update the firmware of my SCSI controller, but the update had to run under DOS. Freaking DOS? My workstation doesn't even have a floppy drive to boot DOS from! However, I was able to boot from a USB thumb disk instead. That's damn useful.

Wired for Sound

One of the cool things about my house is that it has built in speakers in four rooms and the back deck. Shortly after we first moved in two years ago, we had a combination house warming and Rileyanne's christening party. As you might expect, one of the top priorities for said party was music, so I hooked up both my main surround sound receiver plus an old receiver I've had forever and we had tunes pumping everywhere except the dining room (which no one was in anyway).

Then, sometime this past winter, I got tired of NOT having surround sound for my HDTV so I redid the sound system. You might be surprised that it took me over a year to get to that, but remember the part about above about "Rileyanne's christening"? I had other priorities. Anyway, I hooked up the surround sound, including the set of built-in rear speakers in the TV room, and banished the old receiver back to the garage.

Now, it's summer again. We spend lots of time outside and on the back deck, but now sans tunes. So I'm re-configuring the sound system again, this time so I can get both surround sound and music in the house. Given that it's a fairly custom speaker setup, I don't think there's an affordable off-the-shelf solution that works for this house.

In the long run, I'm thinking of building a custom amplifier that can drive four sets of speakers (one of the sets in the house is the back surround sound speakers, so they're already taken care of) plus some type of UPnP AV client device. Gainclone chip amplifiers look fairly simple to build - three resistors, two capacitors and the chip itself times eight + a power supply. As for the AV client, I haven't really investigated yet, but whatever solution I go with has to have high WAF.

Of course, building a custom amplifier takes time, so I figured in the short run I'd dust off the old banished receiver and use it to drive two sets of speakers. I also have an old laptop with a bad battery circuit. It can't roam, but it can sit there by the TV and pull music off my loft computer and play feed it into said old receiver just fine. It's not a high WAF solution, but it's something I could put together with parts I had at home + one 1/8" to RCA cable from Radio Shack. I figured I could get this up and running over the weekend. Almost, but not quite.

I hit one snag with WMP 11 for XP. My office machine and my laptop are both running Vista. All my music is on my office machine, but I use WMP 11's media sharing capabilities (previously known as Windows Media Connect) to make that media available on my Xbox. I figured I could do the same with the old laptop, using WMP 11 as the AV client. Being an old laptop it can't run Vista so I installed a fresh copy of XP instead. However, while WMP 11 XP can share media, it can't consume shared media the way WMP 11 Vista can. Best laid plans and all that.

The workaround is to expose the media via file sharing. Simple enough, except now you have to make sure the security is correctly configured between the two machines. Since it's a single function device, I hadn't bothered to set up a password for the default user. Now, in order to access files off the network, I guess I'll have to.

Once I fix this little file sharing and security problem, I think I'm going to start by looking for a better AV client solution. I know I need a custom amplifier if I want to drive all my speakers, but with my old amp I get music in the kitchen and on the back deck which is where we want it most. On the other hand, the AV Client is the main user experience, so perhaps I should pay it more attention. I'd love to have a solution that is drivable on the TV via the remote while also isn't built on a seven year old slightly busted laptop.

Any suggestions?

Good Week for Hobbyists and Students

Both XNA Game Studio Express and Microsoft Robotics Studio shipped their 1.0 releases this week. So once you're done hacking a robot to mow your lawn, you can relax by debugging your latest game on your Xbox 360. W00t!

Santa, please bring me a few extra hours per day so I can play with this stuff!

QOTD : Michael Lehman

I was talking about modeling with Michael Lehman today when he mentioned the "cult of the arcane" - people who specialize in typically older technologies that are not widely understood who use this general lack of knowledge for job security. I thought it was funny.

Three Seperate IM Stacks

It's interesting to see how consumer and corporate IM have finally started to evolve in different directions. I have a personal IM account (harrypierson at hotmail dot com) on MSN running the newly released MSN 7. I really like the integration with Spaces, the contact cards and the new Personal Message feature that also integrates w/ WMP and iTunes to show "what I'm listening to" (in case you're curious, baby lullabies - I'm sitting in Patrick's room as he goes to sleep). I hadn't realized how many of my coworkers (primarily ex-teammates) have started blogs on MSN Spaces.

I also just installed Office Communicator 2005, the new corporate client for Live Communications Server 2005. While we've had LCS installed internally for a while, I rarely used it. I mean, the only real value I saw in corporate IM in general was security - if your employees are chatting on IM, better to keep it off the public Internet. But w/ LCS 2005 & new new client, there are several cool new features. First off, LCS 2005 connects with both AOL and MSN public IM services. So if you want to, add me as an IM contact via my corporate email address (hpierson at microsoft dot com). Next, LCS 2005 & the new client integrate with your Exchange calendar. So if you're in a meeting, you're status changes to Busy. I can also hover on a contact and see what they're up to now (in a meeting until noon, free until 3:30, etc). Finally, the new Office Communicator client integrates with PBX systems. So I can select a conact, hit call, and my desktop phone automatically calls the person. For incoming calls, I get notification even if I'm not in my office. So if I'm in a meeting, my wife calls, I can click on the notification to forward the call to my mobile phone.

Finally, I'm running Skype (callto harrypierson). I was in Barcelona most of last week and I used the SkypeOut service all the time, except when I was making connections in the Amsterdam airport. I racked up the big 2 Euros in calls over the course of a week. I seem to remember MSN IM having support a similar service via Net2Phone, but they stopped some time ago. I'd probably can Skype if they brought it back. I don't want or need three contact points like this. Two is good - one for work and one for personal - but three is one too many.

If you want to reach me, you have zero excuse! 

Tape Deck for PC

Back in college, I used to DJ for KSCR, USC's student run radio station. I've got a bunch of old cassette of my "work". Now, with the PlusDeck, I could actually install a tape deck in a free 5.25" drive bay of my home computer. But for $150, I think I'd rather just plug my old tape deck from the garage into the sound card.

Experimenting with Podcasting

So I'm playing around with podcasting. The new version of dasBlog supports RSS enclosures for local binaries and I'm thinking of adding support for remote binaries. (I'm not sure my friend who hosts this blog for me would appreciate the bandwidth spike from adding downloads of media files. Of course, that assumes people would listen). So far, I'm just listening. My friend Mike does his Manic Minute and I guess Daily Source Code is the defacto standard podcast. This will be easier when I get my new AUX input installed in my car.

Listening to 30 minute podcasts like DSC on my Nomad have me longing for WMP's variable speed feature. I listen to podcasts primarily on my Nomad - the combination of WMP 10 AutoSync, Doppler Radio and Sean's podcast playlists makes syncing down to my player effortless. But listening to Adam Curry ramble on about podcast commercialization for 45 minutes doesn't fit into my communte. However, listening to Adam Curry sped up 1.4x would make a 45 minute show end in just over 30 minutes. But alas, the Nomad doesn't have that feature. Does any player support that? Or does it take more proccessing power than these things are carrying around?

Note to MSTV Foundation team - variable speed support would also be a great feature for the DVR. I wouldn't watch 24 sped up, but I might watch the Daily Show that way.

UPDATE - I neglected to "give props" to my boss Norman for convincing me to look at this whole podcasting thing in the first place. Given how little spare time I have these days, I'm not sure that I needed yet another hobby. On the other hand, not following your boss's suggestions or giving him props is never good for the career! :)

My Fourth Nomad

I just got my hands on a Nomad Zen Micro. That makes four Nomad's so far - I also have a IIc, Zen Xtra, and a MuVo NX. While I like my other Nomads, the Micro blows them all away.

First off, it's tiny. It may only be 5GB compared to the Zen Xtra's 40GB, but it's also around a third the size. The touch pad is a little funky to get used to, but it sure looks nice. And unlike the Xtra, it pulls power from the USB connector. It doesn't even have a separate power connector - the AC adapter that it comes with actually plugs into the mini USB slot. Cool

Haven't had it long enough to talk about battery life or the interface, though the interface at first blush seems much better than the Zen Xtra. For example, if you're listening to a song you can jump to that artist in the library. I've wished for that feature many times with the Zen Xtra.

Of course, the first thing I did was flash the device to the new 2.1 firmware. The 2.x firmware adds support for Plays for Sure subscription services like Napster To Go. And I signed up for my 14 day trial on Napster about 10 seconds after I updated the firmware. I've downloaded about 1GB of music from Napster - I figure that's a good start.

(Note to Creative - the fact that I got a Zen Micro does not let you off the hook for updating the firmware of the Zen Xtra. I expect to be able to use that with Napster To Go as soon as possible.)

Outlook Connector

I recently had to repave my main machine. Among other things I installed MSN Premium which I use to manage my hotmail and DevHawk emails. However, this time I installed the Outlook Connector for MSN, which enables you to use Outlook 2002 or later to manage your hotmail account. Calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, everything. Very very cool. Now, there's no need to install the MSN Premium client at all...or is there?

The coolest feature of the Outlook Connector is that it delivers all of my personal hotmail to a totally different top level folder inside Outlook. Does anyone know how to do that for POP3 mailboxes? I tried using Outlook to manage my DevHawk email, but then all that mail gets mingled together with my work email. I want the exact same experience for my DevHawk email inside Outlook as I get for my hotmail. However, it appears that while you can have multiple PSTs, you have to designate one as the new mail delivery location default for all accounts. I.e. it doesn't appear that you can configure this on a per-account basis. I'm guessing the Outlook Connector is overriding this for my hotmail.

Anyone have any ideas on how to deliver email from two different accounts to two different locations? (Other than the obvious “use rules” - I had issues with that approach.)

Wizmo + MSN Deskbar

If you're using the MSN Deskbar, you might want to pick up Gibson Research's Wizmo. Wizmo is a command line tool that provides a grab-bag of tools. Personally, I use it for the shutdown commands. I've mapped several of them to Deskbar shortcut, particularly “shutdown” and “shutdown!”. The exclamation point invokes the “damit” variation that overrides applications and/or device drivers that refuse to shutdown. I know a repave is in the near future when I'm find myself using shutdown! on a regular basis.

I'm surprised Wizmo didn't make Scott's Ultimate Power Tools list.

MSDN2's Hackable URLs + MSN Toolbar

This is just too cool:

You can also use a $w to indicate a parameter.  For example:

@msdn2, http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/$w

...and then you can type msdn2 System.String - for the easiest way to lookup classes in the MSDN2 library.

[Simon Guest - Off Topic: MSN Toolbar Suite]

MSN Toolbar with Desktop Search

The new MSN Toolbar is now publicly available in beta. The big new feature is the integrated desktop search. I've been running internal builds for a while, and I love it. Obviously, comparisons will be drawn to Google Desktop but I can't comment because Google Desktop wouldn't run on my machine because I have the Microsoft ISA Server client (according to the Google Desktop Help Center, the latest version of the ISA client should work, but that's what I was running). However, from looking at the Google Desktop screen shots, I know that Google doesn't have my favorite feature of the MSN Toolbar - the Deskbar. It's available via keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-Alt-M) and supports program execution (type “=appname” to launch appname) as well as typing shortcuts. I also like the search results page as I can narrow where my search executes in real time. For example, if I type “OOPSLA” into my deskbar it auto executes the the search across all locations on my desktop. As you would expect, the search screen is near-instant - just the time it takes to draw the window. Then I can narrow down to just show results from Documents, Email, Music, Pictures & Video, Email Attachments, Meetings, Contacts, etc. - in all around 19 different locations. I'm also only one click away from searching the web, news or images online from the search results screen.

Cool Smartphone Bluetooth Software

I haven't installed it, buy Mike Tautly has written a Bluetooth Remote Control for SmartPhone. It's a managed app that uses Bluetooth to communitcate between a remote control app running on the smartphone and a desktop app that can drive other applications. Mike originally built it to drive PowerPoint from his phone. I gotta try this - both my MPx220 SmartPhone and Toshiba Tecra M2 laptop support Bluetooth.

New Smartphone(s)

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a new toy - a Motorola MPx220 smartphone. I'm actually lucky enough to have recently laid my hands on two smartphones. The other was a dopod 515 which was a gift from the organizers of TechEd Beijing. The dopod is nice, but I really dig the MPx220. I'm partial to flip phones, plus the MPx220 has a camera and Bluetooth.

Of course, one of the benefits of having a smartphone is the ability to write some custom stuff for it. There are a variety of tweaks available that are predicated on registry modifications. There's a registry editor for Smartphone 2002, but I couldn't get it to install on since my phone is running Windows Mobile 2003. Luckily, there's OpenNETCF.org with a wide variety of useful libraries for compact framework development. They even have registry editing libraries that work from the device or the desktop. Not sure what else I want to write yet other than an app to download movie times a la the new SPOT watch movies channel, but I'm sure I can think of something!

One PhotoStory Gripe

I'm pretty impressed with the new Photo Story. I've been tracking this program since it was a research project so it's been cool to watch it evolve. However, I did run into something I didn't like in the new version. Once you've built a Photo Story, you can render it to a variety of target profiles. One of the target profiles is for SmartPhone. I've recently got an MPx220 so I figured I'd try it out. Didn't work as Photo Story's target profile is for SmartPhone with Windows Media Player 10 Mobile which the MPx220 doesn't have installed. Woops. And you can't upgrade the device to WMP10 Mobile. Double woops.

While I'm annoyed that I can't install WMP10 Mobile on my MPx220, I'm more annoyed at Photo Story. There's no way to build a custom target profile that would work with my phone. I was able to build an encoder profile to convert a Photo Story rendered for the desktop to be converted down to work well on the SmartPhone. Why can't I just do that inside Photo Story?

Two Thumbs Up on New Comcast Service

Jeff Sandquist and Scoble have gotten their new ComCast boxes and apparently the service rocks. Mine gets installed Sunday. 

(side note - Does anyone still use Scoble's first name or has Scoble transcended the whole first-name/last-name thing and moved directly to single name status?)

Konfabulator

I just installed Konfabulator as I've seen several people, like Scoble, blogging about it. I think I need to dig thru the widget gallery. Of the preinstalled ones, I only like the Battery Level and WiFi Signal widgets. But I really like them - as in like them enough to keep the software installed just for them. I've only played with it for 5 minutes, but already I am not interested in any of the interactive widgits - having a nice partially transparent graphic displaying information at a glance works for me the best.

Esp. after the launch of Halo 2, I'd love to see a Konfabulator widget with the status of my Xbox Live Friends list. Maybe something for the XboxFriends folks?

Speaking of Halo 2, I'm headed home now to do just that...

More on HW

In trolling for HW suggestions, I forgot to mention what I'm planning on using the HW for. I've got a couple of things in mind:

• Public facing web/media server. Family members are constantly asking for updated pictures of Patrick. I've gotten tired of regularly uploading pictures to a public website for them to download. I've got them all on my personal machine, so it would be much easier just to expose them directly. Similarly, between our camcorder, the video functions of our digital cameras and PhotoStory, I also have quite a bit of video media to make available to the rest of my family.
• Experimental / development server. ASP.NET 2.0 is coming, so if I'm going to expose photos and/or video, I might as well take advantage of the new stuff to do it with. I'm also thinking about writing some apps for keeping track of my family tree along with my dad and cousin.

• Movie making / 3D Rendering. I was working on my garage over the weekend and I came across my old copy of 3D Studio Max. It's up to version 7 now, so my copy of version 1.0 is way behind the times. I've been interested in movie making for a long time and if (when?) I get back into it I know I'll want to do some effects work - stuff like Matrix XP. This is where the Intel P4 HT vs. AMD Athlon 64 question really comes into play. Dual core vs. 64 bits?

One thing that's not on this list is Media Center. I'm interested in MCE05, but then yesterday MSFT and Comcast announce that they are rolling out Microsoft TV Foundation Edition in Washington state starting next week. I think, in the end, I'll want MCE since I'd like the ability to hack my TV but for now I think I want to try out the MSTV stuff. Also, the HDTV story around MCE doesn't look clear yet - it works with "over-the-air" HDTV, but makes no mention of cable delivered HDTV. I think the HW in this area is pretty new, but I would guess that would change in the next 6-12 months.

Update - I just spoke to Comcast regarding the MSTV functionallity. Their PVR functionallity supports both HD and non-HD programs so I'm definitely going to give that a try. Only downside - they can't come install for a week and a half. :(

HW Recommendations?

So I'm thinking of getting some new hardware. My big question is Intel P4 w/ HT vs. AMD XP vs. AMD 64 (along with associated mobo & memory)Any suggestions?

Movie Times on your SPOT Watch

Last week, Microsoft announced the new Movies channel for SPOT Watches. I blogged a while ago about wanting movie times on my SmartPhone. On my watch is nearly as good, except that I don't have said watch. I've been thinking about getting a SPOT watch, but I'm curious - why can't I get MSN Direct content delivered to my device of choice? I'd be happy to pay a service fee - I've just gotten used to not wearing a watch.

More on my New VoIP Service

I got my Lingo phone set up last night. It was mind-numbingly easy:

1. Ignore included directions which tell you to turn off the computer, router and cable modem. (maybe you unplug the microwave just to be sure)
2. Plug Lingo VoIP box into router
3. Plug Lingo VoIP box into phone
4. Plug Lingo VoIP box into power outlet
5. Wait for VoIP light to come on

We made a few calls, both locally and to our family & friends in Europe. I couldn't hear any difference in quality from our normal land line. We're going to run with both in parallel for a while, and then I'm going to cut back the services on the land line. I figure I don't want to shut it off completely for SLA reasons - it works when the power's out and in the very rare occasions that the internet connection is down. Otherwise, I figure I'll be completely switched over in a month or so.

BTW, like other VoIP vendors, Lingo offers incentives to sign up your friends. If you want Lingo and an extra $25 credit, drop me a line.

T-Mobile Rocks, Sprint Sucks

A while ago, Tom mentioned that I had a great customer service experience with T-Mobile. Truthfully, the great customer service experience came today. T-Mobile just earned a customer for...well, maybe not for life, but they certainly have earned enough karma to keep me around a while. And at the same time, Sprint has spurned a customer for life.

I blogged back in April about getting a SmartPhone. Well, the honeymoon was short lived - it was a developer beta unit and it was not particularly robust. I dropped it about a month ago and it died. No huge deal, the MPx220 is coming soon. Of course, I need a phone in the meantime. I had signed up for T-Mobile service to power the SmartPhone so I went back to pick up a V300 which would go to my wife when the MPx220 became available. Only trouble was that since I hadn't bought the phone when I activated my account, I was not eligible for an activation discount. I had asked about that when I bought the service, and had been assured it was no big deal. So I call up customer service, and they promise to wave the disconnect fee on the current account if I buy a new phone (with the activation discount). This was right before I went to New Zealand, so I figured I'd take care of it when I got back. In the meantime, I'm using a old borrowed phone and my existing account.

So I've been back a week, but hadn't gotten to taking care of the phone yet. Then last night, someone steals my phone and my wife's phone out of the car. So I call T-Mobile and explain the situation. They cancel the account on the spot, outright - no early termination fee or anything. Pretty cool. Of course, I did tell them I was going to buy not one but two new V300's from Amazon (for the low price of -$100 each after rebate) but still, I thought that was pretty cool. The only bummer of this whole scenario is that I won't be able to get the MPx220 with an activation discount when it comes up.

After talking to T-Mobile, I called Sprint. Now, I've been a Sprint customer for five years. You would think that would warrant a little respect and/or leeway, but apparently not. The "customer service" rep I spoke to was both rude and stupid. He was able to suspend my wife's phone, but when I asked to cancel it he told me there would be an early termination fee. Funny thing is, the term on this "contract" (which I never signed and was unaware of) end's on the 28th of August. You know, next Saturday. As in, six days from today. You would think that you might give a customer of five years who is dealing with a case of theft the benefit of the doubt and wave the early termination fee less than a week before the contract expires anyway. No, apparently I have to call back Saturday to terminate the contract. Fine. I set a reminder on my calendar so I don't forget to rid myself of Sprint for good and forever.

That's A Lot of Space

John was just in here admiring my Nomad Zen Xtra. I've got nearly 500 albums loaded, over 6000 songs, and I've only filled it half way. On my recent trip to Atlanta, I realized I regularly travel with 220 GB of storage. 60GB internal laptop drive, 60GB multibay drive, 60GB Iomega external portable USB drive and the 40GB Nomad Zen. I can even get really obscene and make it a round 300GB, with my new Argosy drive enclosure (thanks to Peter for recommending Argosy) and extra 80GB drive.

New Toy

I came back from lunch yesterday to discover that my boss had left a new toy on my desk - a Smartphone Developer Kit. Not sure where he got it, since it's all sold out. I'm stoked because I've been wanting a Smartphone for a while, but I want to use T-Mobile's service and I didn't want to pay a premium for an unlocked device. Now, I don't have to.

Any suggestions on cool Smartphone software?