Unbeknownst to me, the Milwaukee Brewers also have a Twitter account. Also unknown to me (until now) is they have (what I’m assuming is) an automated bot trolling the streams of Twitter searching for the keywords ‘Brewers’ and ‘Milwaukee’ and retweeting them. Here’s what popped up on my Twitter stream a few moments later…

After I picked myself up off the floor from laughing so hard, Larry and I had a nice technical discussion (yes…we’re geeks talking tech at a ball game) in what the MIL_Brewers bot forgot to do. It’s one thing to look for patterns and act on them, but you also want to be sure to apply exclusions in your pattern searches as well. I’m sure the MIL_Brewers bot is scanning for foul language. In this case they might want to determine if ‘Cubs’ is a 4-letter word or not. As a Cubs fan, I was happy to see this posted to all of the MIL_Brewers Twitter followers out there.

The Brewers ended up losing to the Nationals 8-3. Maybe my Tweet sent a little bad mojo to the Brew Crew. :)

GO CUBS!

One of the problems I thought was due to the fact that I'm using Community Server against it's intended purpose, running as a single blog in an engine meant for..well…a community. I went over to the Community Server site to pull down the new v2.1 files and apply them to my installation. This just opened a whole new can of worms in that I overwrote my config files that contained the various information to make it work as a single blog. Needless to say, my blog was down for quite a few hours as I trudged through my memory banks and the internet to try and remember which config changes I needed to make. After the changes were in place, which I was pretty sure were correct, I was still encountering errors. But the fact that I wasn't running locally meant that I wasn't able to see the actual error message. Frustrating to say the least. It was at this point that Istarted to seriouslyconsider a different blogging engine. I've been thinking about this for the past few weeks or so. Community Server is a great piece of softare with a ton of features, but for my simple purposes it's a bit much. Too many things get in the way when I start to encounter some sort of problem.

One of my big conerns about switching to another blogging engine is howdifficult itwould be to build a mapping url handler that would identify a request url for the community server path and map that to the new blogging engines path. My criteria for a blogging engine was that it must run ASP.NET and I must have access to the source code. The blogging engines I started to investigate were Subtext and dasBlog.

Subtext is a forked version of the old .Text engine which was my initial engine up untilmy move to Community Server a few months back. The move to Community Server was logical in that new development seized on .Text as it's primary developer, Scott Watermasysk, joined Telligent and morphed .Text into Community Server. Subtext forked it's source branch off of .Text and carried on new devlopment as Subtext. The good thing about Subtext is it looks as if the URL's for the content matches pretty much exactly to what Community Server serves up, so there would be no need to create a mapping handler. There's a bit of work involved in getting the content out of Community Server and into Subtext. I have a few issues with my comments and author details and trackbacks. But it's close.

I'm also looking into dasBlog which doesn't have a backend database as it stores all of it's content into serialized XML. Importing the content into dasBlog is certainly much more difficult and it will certainly require a URL mapper. I tried finding a Community Server to dasBlog converter but one doesn't seem to exist. There's plenty of discussion about going from dasBlog to Community Server but not the other way around. I find that interesting.

After bouncing back and forth between Subtext and dasBlog, I went back to my Community Server update to 2.1. I find out that during my upgrade process, I happend to skip a step that required me to update my membership database schemas. Once I applied that update script, my blog was back up and running. I wasn't able to determine this until I had my blog running on my local machine which makes it possible to determine what the actual problem is. Needless to say, I'm back up and running and the comments are working. Yay! However, I'm still looking to migrate to a new blogging engine. If you have any suggestions on easy ways to convert to Subtext or dasBlog, please let me know.

Tag: Community+Server, Subtext, dasBlog

Microsoft has an Employee Purchase Program (EPP) set up with a number of companies, including Dell. As I was perusing Dell?s website to order a new computer for the misses, I happened across a non-descript banner ad labeled ?Dads and Grads ? Spin to Win?. What the hell, I thought, I?ll give it a shot. Once I entered the obligatory personal information, I was presented with what looked to be a Flash application resembling a slot machine. The rules are, match 3 items and win ? naturally. I clicked on the ?Spin? button and watched lady luck spin away. Slot 1: TV, Slot 2: TV, Slot 3: TV. Woohoo! I won? but what did I win?

At first I thought, ?Oh how cute, I probably won a Dell branded 128mb memory stick or something?, but I was wrong. As the next screened informed me? ?Congratulations! You are the grand prize winner and have one a 23? LCD Dell TV!?? My reaction was, ?Wha? Huh?.. Yeah, right!? Suddenly, I had visions of several airlines websites selling round trip tickets for $1. Surely, something was wrong. I read over the rules which clearly stated that if an error has been determined to occur, Dell is not responsible for awarding the prize for such an error. (Bingo!) That?s probably what happened. Next, I saw were I should be expecting an email from Dell immediately, verifying my prize. So I waited?and waited?and waited. After an hour or so, no email. Damn!

On a hunch, I decided to check my Junk Mail folder, and lo and behold there was an email from Dell. I anxiously opened it and read that ?Yes, Dave! You pessimistic bastard? you won a Dell 23? LCD TV!!!? (I?m para-phrasing, of course) Attached to the email was an affidavit instructing that if I want my prize, I must sign my life away. For a TV?!? You betcha! I even had to get the affidavit notorized, so it must be real.

Well? we?ll see. Seeing is believing. I had to send the affidavit back to Dell?s prize department within 10 days. No fax allowed. It must be mailed. The chances are higher that the snail mail won?t make it in time. Further increasing the chances of not claiming the prize I suppose. Anyhow, I won?t truly rejoice until I receive a special shipment from Dell within 8?10 weeks.

Update: The nicelady in the brown truck and brown polyester shirt and shorts delivered the TV on Aug. 23rd. People really do win on the web!

Microsoft has just finished our Fiscal Year 2006 (FY?06). Apparently the month after a fiscal year-end is a great time to travel the country for a number of meetings. FY?07 Kick-off meetings? sales conferences?.technical conferences?etc.

My July is shaping up to be the ?Dave Bost World Tour 2006?. Tomorrow we kick it off with a team offsite in Dallas from July 10?11, than the infamous Microsoft sales conference (MGX-Microsoft Global Exchange) in Orlando from July 19?23. And than, for some miraculous reason, Microsoft?s internal technical conference (TechReady), taking place July 23?28th in Seattle. I?m not sure who came up with the grand plan on schedulingMGX on back-to-back weeks with TechReady? on opposite ends of the country!

Normally, DE?s wouldn?t attend the sales conference, but our manager?s-manager thought it would be valuable for new employeesto attend MGX. After all the pain of traveling this month though, I?m looking forward to it. It will be nice to reinvigorate the batteries and get ready for some great things to come in FY?07. It?s surely shaping to be an exciting year.

Why is spam picking up once again? Maybe there are new “spam” words that my trigger isn’t catching. Frankly, with this new round of spam, I’m getting tired of updating my spam rules. It’s time to hop off the blogging engine that I’ve been using since Day 1. It’s also important to note that this particular blogging engine, hasn’t updated it’s underlying source code since January 2003. It has since rolled into Community Server.

I tried Community Server back in the day, before it was easy to convert the .Text content into CS friendly content. There just wasn’t the ease nor the time to convert all the content back than. Blogging engines have matured and (I’m assuming) their spamming protection has matured as well. The time has come to finally update my blogging engine. The question I have is which engine to I want to “upgrade” to?

I’m struggling with a couple of things. One, now that I’m working for the man, should I jump on over to http://blogs.msdn.com? I’ve seriously considered it. For one thing, my traffic would jump by gazillion fold from ~20 readers to, well, a gazillion. However, moving over to http://blogs.msdn.com would take the control out of my hands. And as we all know, people with Type ‘A’ personalities like to maintain control. Nothing crazy mind you, just the ability to… i don’t know… scan your log files 10 times a day to see who’s linking, reading and searching on your blog. Ok… I don’t scan them 10 times a day… maybe 10 times every few months (I don’t want you to think I’m obsessive).

As I’m sitting here at the Deeper in .NET event in Milwaukee, Scott Hanselman is presenting a session on dasBlog and a behind-the-scenes look on how it works.I’vechecked into dasBlogon a couple of occasions and havealways been intrigued by it. First, it’s built on top of .NET (huge plus), but so is Community Server.dasBlog is file driven vs. database driven. Not a big deal, but it sure is nice to have to have to worry about a database when you don’t have to. dasBlog is stillan open source project found onGotDotNet.com whereas Community Server isnow a product. True, there’s a free version available but it’s stilla commercial product. Being a developer, I like to dig into code to see howother bit-twiddler’s work.

I’m still on the fence. Do Imove to http://blogs.msdn.com and lose all control or upgrade my site to an evolving blogging (and really cool) engine such as dasBlog? I’m sure you (my 20 readers) will find out soon enough.Any help in the decision making process is appreciated.

Why this is so out of the ordinary is that our blood line (Michael’s and mine) is not just English.. or English/Irish…or English/Irish/German…or English/Irish/German/Scottish buta truely full heaping of English/Irish/German/Scottish and Native American. I never realized there was someone else out there with the same mixed bag of nationalities such as my own. (Albeit I’m a real person and Michael Scott is a fictional character on a TV show.) Did one of the writers on the show poke into my family tree and pull out the parts???

And in case you’re wondering, although Michael didn’t divulge his Native American roots my understanding is I’m some parts Chippewa.

Just a weird moment at 1AM in the morning.

I’ve always tried to find ways of how I might interact with the community to share my knowledge. I started off several years ago by speaking at some of our local users groups which I always particularly enjoyed and have done so on countless occasions. I wanted to branch out the speaking thing into something more and that led me to opportunities to speaking at conferences such as VSLive! and Microsoft’s Developer Days and a few launch events. For whatever reason, those invites don’t come as easy as they once did. Maybe it’s more competition or maybe it’s me, I don’t know. I hope it isn’t *me*, but I’m certainly doing everything in my power to make sure it isn’t.

To get in “the game” again, you have to set yourself apart. You have to latch onto a particular topic that someone else hasn’t already conquered. That’s why I was happy when Microsoft announced Team System back at TechEd 2004. Not only is it a new product that no one has “conquered” yet, but it’s a particular product that I have a great interest in. So my goal for 2005 is to help others learn about the in’s-and-out’s of Team System as I come to learn and understand them myself. My particular focus (at this time, anyhow) will be the team development tools (work item tracking, source code management, testing features, process workflow, etc.).

To make this goal come to fruition, I’m trying to network with the folks within the Team System group and outside of Microsoft as well to let them know that I’m here to help. And thanks to this little thing called the “Blogosphere”, I’m happy to say that some things are starting to happen.

As it turns out, I’ve been asked to write a few whitepapers on Team System for MSDN. For me, writing is much more difficult than speaking in front of group of my peers. Quite a few people would disagree with me but that’s what works best for me. Blog writing has certainly helped but I still have quite a bit to learn in the realm of writing an article.

I’ve also been tapped by the folks at Code Magazine to submit some articles on Team System as well. Not to mention that there’s a very, very slim chance that through these efforts I might be able to have someone actually consider my proposals for some TechEd sessions (let’s hope). One of my life goals is to speak at TechEd and/or PDC. I think my options are slightly better (that’s if I have any options) with TechEd. TechEd seems to be more open to outside (of MSFT) speakers than PDC. For me to have a chance to speak at PDC would to become an employee of Microsoft (hint, hint).

The interesting thing is that all of this is happening at the same time, adding on to my already compact schedule. I love it though. This is what I want to do and I’m now getting a chance to do it. So for all of you out there… be careful of what you wish for; you just might get it.

I want to thank Christa and the folks at MSDN as well Rod and the folks at Code Magazine for giving me the opportunity.Hopefully this all leads into more speaking engagements. Because in the end, that’s where I get my kicks – the one-on-one interaction with my peers.

Here’s to a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year for everyone!

Podcast Alleyis featuring an interview with Engadget podcasters Phil Torrone and Lenn Pryor (yes, that Lenn Pryor of Channel9 fame). There’s a video of Phil giving a tour of his (I’m assuming) house and his plethora of geek gadgets. You’ll see things like the “Internet connected coffee maker” and the “iPod Egg chair“. Even his dog who walks around wearing a webcam!

What I want to know is what is his electric bill? How many blown fuses has he had over the years? More importantly, can anyone out in the blogosphere come close to Phil’s set up or better yet, pass him up in “Ultimate Geekdom and toy collection“? If you have something above and beyond what Phil has…let’s see it.