I’ve been blogging with Front Page as my front end, but it looks like I’m going to have to investigate InfoPath. As .NET blogging tools grow up, I might need to move my site onto ASPNetWeblog or BlogX. I wonder how well these tools support customization. I’ve obviously got more than just blog up on this site.

Both threedeegrees and the Windows XP Peer-to-Peer SDK are now available. Haven’t tried them out yet (new baby) but I have been working through Understanding IPv6 during off moments. I’m very impressed with IPv6. It really rectifies the issues around internet addressing beyond just providing a huge number of addresses (2¹²⁵ to be exact). In IPv6, interfaces typically have multiple addresses – an auto-configured link-local address, and a dynamically configured site-local and global address. IPv6 also provides a mechanism for neighbor discovery, which allows a node to determine what other devices (esp. routers) are on the local link. Many of these features are supported as add-ons to IPv4, but they aren’t very cleanly designed since they weren’t included in the original design.

One funny thing about IPv6 – the first 13 bits of an IPv6 address is called the Top Level Aggregator Identifier, or the TLA ID. I thought TLA stood for Three Letter Acronym! 😄

I did install the WinXP P2P SDK and poke around enough to notice it is C++ based. I wonder if the next version of the .NET Framework, with it’s built in IPv6 support, will get it’s own P2P SDK soon?

Scott Hanselman clued me into PhotoBob, by Scott Stanfield – CEO of Vertigo Software and reigning Iron Developer. Built with ASP.NET, WinForm admin client talking to an XML web service, automatic thumbnail generation – all very cool features. Looks like it auto-resizes and it even writes copyright messages. It also includes a Pocket PC smart client built with the Compact Framework. The idea of caching your photos on your PocketPC is pretty cool – 21st century version of carrying pictures in your wallet. I’ve been thinking of getting a new PocketPC (and a good excuse to get one) – the Dell Axim X5 looks cool.

While this is my “personal” blog, I do typically keep the topic on computers in general and CLR in particular (with a few notable exceptions). So instead of posting a bunch of pictures here, I’ll just point to my MSN Photos and MSN Groups sites where I’m posting pictures.

This does lead to a technical question, however: Is there a good pre-existing photo library web application? The problem with the MSN sites (esp. MSN Groups) is that they are laden with advertising. But the upside is that they are really easy to use. They even have a really easy upload control so you can browse your local machine and select multiple pictures at once. Photos are automatically resized during the upload process to minimize page load size (though you can include a “print-quality” version that’s full sized). Thumbnails automatically get generated (though that seems to be broken on MSN Groups right now). It would be really nice to have an ASP.NET photo library with a comparable feature set.

Second question – has anyone used Plus! Photo Story, part of Plus! Digital Media Edition? Unlike the original Plus!, Plus! DME actually looks like its got some fairlyinterestingutilities included.

My wife Julie gave birth to our son Patrick Harold Pierson Wed. night at 10:50pm. She labored all day (14 hours) to no avail – we had to go with a c-section. But Mom and Baby are doing just great. Got home yesterday – weblogging was not on the top of the priority list. Today, I’ve read thru some of the backlog of weblogs (back-blogs?) but I’m avoiding my work inbox like the plague. Luckily, Microsoft’s awesome benefits package include a month of paternity leave so there’s no hurry getting back to work!