I know I blogged that I haven’t been dogfooding, but Don’s post about programming without generics hit home. For example, look thru the source code for dasBlog and you’ll see a ton of hand-written type-safe collection classes that Whidbey will just eliminate en masse. So I loaded up an older laptop with Longhorn & Whidbey. I have been more interested in Whidbey than Longhorn so far, but I figured since I could dedicate hardware (LH runs much better on my 650MHz P3 than in a VPC on my 2GHz P4) I might as well go all the way. Plus, an old friend who spent his Christmas vacation @ Whistler brought me an authentic Longhorn Saloon & Grill hat.

Robert M. Wagner Jr. sent me (and Chris) an update for IMCLI to support MSNP8. I haven’t tested it or integrated it into Messenger.NET yet, but here’s the code if you don’t want to wait.

I’ve spun up a GDN Workspace for IMCLI and Messenger.NET. Nothing’s up there yet until I get Chris‘s permission to post his code. Permission has been granted – I’ll have the code up there in the next day or so.

I’m not sure which of the post-game analysts said it, but the 2003 college football season is summed up with these words: “Any coach who doesn’t vote USC #1 is crazy”. Congrats to SC for their 28-14 victory over Michigan @ the Rose Bowl and for winning at least a share of the national championship. Now, my Sunday night is clear since I don’t need to watch the Nokia “Battle for Second Place” bowl (which I blogged a month ago).

Update: I added a link to a picture my son all decked out in his Trojan gear and smiling wide after winning the national championship (actually, his mother is making faces off camera).

Another Update: I found a great post on the subject of the BCS by Jason Salas via Bryan’s Weblog of Stuff. Jason is a .NET developer and a sportscaster, so his views on the BCS from both sides are facinating (though he did mix up the AP and the Coaches poll).

I haven’t checked it personally, but I hear that Messenger.NET is no longer working. Apparently, MSN shut off access to all versions of their protocol prior to MSNP8 (Messenger.NET uses imcli which implements MSNP7) back in October.

There’s a good description of the MSNP8 protocol up on hypothetic.org as well as some info on the changes in MSNP9 and MSNP10. I don’t have time to upgrade imcli and/or Messenger.NET. Any volunteers?

BTW, as an alternative, I found the dotMSN library on hypothetic’s project page. Version 1.1 of dotMSN implements MSNP8. It’s free, though the source is not provided. I have no idea if it’s any good, but it’s the only .NET library for MSN messenger that implements MSNP8 that I could find.

My son (pictured with Santa) finally fell asleep for his first Christmas Eve. Of course, I read him ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas before bedtime. He was pretty worked up because we have quite a crowd in town. My parents, brother and great aunt all arrived today. That makes eight with my wife, my son, my mother-in-law (who just moved up a few months ago) and me. Add the tree and all the presents and you get a very excited little boy. Plus we’re going to Victoria to see my uncles the day after Christmas.

With so many people in town plus it being my son’s first Christmas, we have a ton of presents under the tree. My wife’s immediate thought was of the kids all over the world who don’t get the presents (or the opportunities) that we do. It’s been an amazing year for me, from the birth of my son to my new job and getting published.  I can only hope I am lucky enough to have as good year next year as I had this past year. In addition to the usual resolutions to clean out the garage and lose weight (though I have a role model on that one), I want to do more in 2004 to share this happiness and prosperity with those less fortunate.

Have a happy holiday season and good luck to you, dear reader, for the year ahead.