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!

I picked up a refferer from the MSDN magazine internal site sometime in the last 24 hours, so I’m guessing the article will be posted tomorrow. I’ve been saying for months that Feb ’03 was going to be big with my first child and, much less important, my first published article. Now it appears child and article will both be “publicly available” the same day. My wife Julie is going to be induced first thing tomorrow. Funny how these things work out.

But what makes [threedegrees] interesting from a tech standpoint is the technology bets that are involved. The groups are built on the Microsoft peer to peer platform, which is ipv6 only. The IPv6 part means that NATs are a deployment blocker, so enterteredo. [Doubt’s log]

I just noticed this yesterday as well. Very cool stuff. I didn’t realize that XP SP1 includes a production quality IPv6 stack (though it’s still appears as “developer preview” in the UI) and Windows Server 2003 takes that support to the next level. Plus .NET Framework 1.1 includes support for IPv6. Terendo seems pretty cool (traffic IPv6 over IPv4 and bypass NAT issues). However, how much does Teredo (sometimes called Shipworm) rely on UPnP support? The slides Doubt linked to claims that it works for “all NAT”, but it also discusses UPnP in depth. I’ve turned off UPnP support on all my machines inside my Linksys NAT, not because of the security issue but because my NAT doesn’t behave when it’s turned on. I have to routinely reset the NAT when UPnP support is turned on. I’ve updated to the latest firmware, but I’m still having the problem.