Mozilla Labs in partnership with Adaptive Path has released two concept videos of what the web browsing experience may look and feel like in the future.  It shows some pretty interesting concepts.  I particularly like the 3D interface where content continually recedes as time progresses – kind of like a push-down stack from front to back with the most recent items in the front.

The little hand-held device looks remarkably similar to the iPhone, and the design team appears to have made the same kinds of assumptions about interfaces that will appeal to most people.   I must say I’m surprised these guys didn’t focus any attention on alternative interface mechanisms, like speech, for example.  I would have thought that any concept of web browser futures must include at least some kind of speech recognition and speech synthesis.  The idea that common folk will remain content to push little icons around on a tiny little screen just seems stupid to me.  Why do I LOVE my Garmin?   One reason is because she TALKS to me!  (Did I say ‘she’?  I meant ‘it’!)

Anyway, have a look at these concept videos and muse for a moment about what might be around the bend in terms of human-machine interaction.  I’d be particularly interested in hearing your thoughts about how these kinds of ideas might influence the future direction of the SharePoint UI.

To learn more about the Aurora project, visit http://adaptivepath.com/aurora.

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.
Aurora (Part 2) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Ok, so first I need to give a shout out to John Miller, who read my last post and promptly encouraged me to check out the VMWare Fusion 2.0 beta, which adds a nifty feature called “AutoProtect”.  The idea is to have Fusion automatically save snapshots of your virtual machines as backups for easy rollbacks in exactly the same situation I find myself in now.  Unfortunately, I didn’t upgrade sooner, because it looks like this is one of those “must have” features.  The other neat thing about the 2.0 version is that it now includes the multi-snapshot feature I like so much in the Workstation 6.0 product.  Now we can have the best of both worlds.

Now back to reality.  What to do about the corrupt disk image?  I’ve since learned that the smart guys at VMWare have known about this for awhile and have pinpointed a potential bug in the Mac OS that can cause virtual machines to get fried because of some problem handling unbuffered i/o.  If you’re interested, you can read about it here.  Wish I’d known about this sooner!

First, I decided to upgrade to the 2.0 beta to see if perhaps by some fluke of grace (?), I might get lucky and Windows might magically be restored.  Not hardly.  But I have to say, the new Fusion interface is pretty slick.  Perhaps when I’m sane again, I can do a full treatment of the new features.  Right now, I’m still too wigged out to pay attention to such details.  I need to find a way to recover those lost VS2008 projects I was working on.

The next idea was to create a brand new VM and then try to connect to the old disk, perhaps by adding it as a second hard drive.  That way, even if the registry got fried, I might be able to retrieve the data.  I might even be able to repair the registry and somehow get windows to boot up again.  First things first – how to access the old virtual disk drive?

Using the new Fusion beta 2.0 interface was a snap.  They have a feature called “Easy Install” that automates the entire installation and then installs the VMWare Tools package for you.  I decided to go with Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition with SP2 – the same as the one I was running before.  (I’ve tried various flavors of Windows Server 2008 as well as the 64bit versions, but I don’t really see that much of an improvement especially since I’m using it mostly as a workstation for SharePoint development.).  I had forgotten how fast this machine is.  I allocated 3GB to the VM and configured it for 4 virtual CPUs.  Even though it says “Setup will complete in approximately 37 minutes”, the whole thing was done in less than 10 minutes on the Mac Pro.

Once I had the OS installed, I couldn’t wait to attach the old drive and start poking around.  So I opened the VM settings page and added a second hard disk, making a copy of the existing virtual disk from the other system.  Then I held my breath, crossed my fingers and stood by the window a-wishin’  for a miracle…

I couldn’t believe how long it took to boot up – but boot up it did!  Then I opened Windows Explorer and navigated to the My Computer node.  Low and behold, there were recognizable files!  Sadly, the “My Documents” folder was completely empty, so most of my documents were off to emerald city.  Not that I even remember what was there exactly.  But I know there was some good stuff in there.  Oh well.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’ll take what I can get.  And you can best believe this was an important wake up call for me.

Here’s the deal:

1. If you’re using VMWare Fusion – get the 2.0 beta NOW.
2. Turn on AutoProtect to do periodic snapshots.  After this experience, I have mine set to take a new snapshot every hour and to keep 10 copies for safe keeping.  You can set it for every day, hour or half-hour and it’s smart enough to keep a range of snapshots to provide different restore options. 
    
3. From the VMWare Fusion Preferences menu, under the ‘General’ tab in the ‘Performance’ section, select the “Optimize for virtual machine disk performance” option.  This turns off unbuffered i/o.  If you choose the other option (optimize for Mac OS application performance) it writes directly to the disk, using less memory, but you run the risk of hitting that nasty OS X bug.

Next, I’ll start poking around and see what files I can recover.  Then I’ll revert to the prior snapshot and see if the “My Documents” folder is still intact there.  I should be able to get back most of my older document files.  Anything else that was lost, well, what can I say?  Ah, the cost of complacency. 

JFH

Chalk it up to "bad karma".  Sometimes, we’re just destined to experience bad things.  Nasty, wicked, insanely cruel things. 

I was on a roll.  I had finally carved out some "extra time" and was well on my way to tying up all my loose ends.  You know - pet projects, writing, research.  Life was good.  Even kind of dreamy.

I'm not sure when it happened, exactly.  As I think back over the past 24 hours, there were definitely signs.  Maybe I'm not yet seasoned enough to recognize them since adopting my new Mac OS X dev platform.  But you'd think after 25+ years in this business, something would start to sink in.  Guess not.

I've been running VMWARE Fusion for the past 6 months or so, and I absolutely LOVE it.  I've got  Windows Server 2003 installed on a 40GB virtual disk.  LOTS of software tools installed.  I'm talking LOTS of tools and software.  MOSS, SQL Server, Office, Visual Studio, etc.  It's been working so well, I've fallen out of the habit of taking regular snapshots.  (Unlike VMWare Workstation 6, you can't take multiple snapshots in Fusion - only one snapshot that overwrites any previous ones.  This was a downer from the start - hopefully the folks at VMWare will change this in a future version.)  Still,  I really like this setup, because I can run iTunes, Safari and a host of other Mac apps while at the same time developing on a screaming WIN2003 virtual box.  It's really snappy and takes full advantage of the MONSTER hardware on my Mac Pro.

Anyway, I think it started with iTunes.  Every now an then, I would hear the tell-tale "swoosh" as some application was being terminated on the Mac side.  I thought it was some background process shutting down, but later, there was a popup that said another version of  iTunes was available and would I like to download it.  I said yes.  iTunes then proceeded to go into an infinite loop spinning indefinitely.  Tried to force quit - iTunes refused.  This was the first sign, but I was too busy to deal with it.  You see, I was in the middle of installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1.  This was one of those "loose ends" I'd been wanting to do since forever.

But there was a problem on the Windows side.  Seems the SP1 for Visual Studio was failing to install.  Everything else upgraded ok, including Office 2007 and all the other packages affected by the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.  But for some reason the Visual Studio SP1 just kept failing.   I spent about a half day trying to figure this out.  Since I also had VS2005 on the same machine, I thought there might be some kind of strangeness in the registry.  Others had reported similar problems since the beta, so I uninstalled VS2005 completely and tried the SP1 upgrade again.  Still no dice.

I thought maybe I could just ignore it.  But when I tried to create a new project in Visual Studio - the "OK" button on the "New Project" dialog was disabled for all project types.  This meant I was effectively dead in the water.  I could continue to work on existing projects, but no new projects.  Not a good situation for a hard core developer like me.

Next, I tried a repair operation for VS2008.  Copied all new DLLs from the original DVD.  Everything worked fine.  No errors reported, but still no "OK" button.  Now I'm thinking complete uninstall/reinstall of Visual Studio.  But just to be on the "safe side" (ironic, eh?), I decide to shut down the VM and reboot just in case the windows installer had issues that needed to be cleaned up.  No problem.  Shut down the guest OS.  Shut down VMWare. 

Since I was having problems with iTunes, I figure now is probably a good time to reboot the physical machine as well.  This is where things start to get a little "hinky".  Seems iTunes is still refusing to shut down.  Can't restart the machine.  After a few minutes, the Apple Finder then crashes and burns.  Kind of like when Windows Explorer goes away and restarts.  Only, it doesn't restart.  Just the dock remains visible on the screen.  None of the reset keys work.  What to do?  What would you do?  Hardware reset, right? Wrong.  Not sure what else could have been done, though.

[ At this point, the stage is all set for a major catastrophe of some sort.  iTunes is having problems, likely with the physical disk.  Visual Studio is having problems, likely with the registry.  Fusion doesn't appear to be having problems, but since it is running while iTunes is choking, perhaps things are not all hunky-dory.  Finder has gone away - perhaps something still in memory that really needs to be flushed from the cache?  Who knows?  Definitely not me.  Certainly not now. ]

I press and hold the power button until the machine starts up again.  Great.  Startup iTunes - no problem.  Delicious sounds emanating from the speakers.  Startup VMWare Fusion.  Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition.  Windows logo appears on the screen.  I'm listening to Luther Vandross singing "Going in Circles" waiting for Windows to boot, and then WHAM!  Blue screen.  "Stop: C0000218 {Registry File Failure} The registry cannot load the hive (file): \SystemRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE or its log or alternate."

At first, I'm not sure what this means.  My mind starts racing.  I reset the VM and try it again.  WHAM!  BSOD!  I reset again and try to boot into safe mode using F8.   Windows seems to ignore the F8.  I check the system settings to make sure function keys are getting to the guest OS.  I reset again and again, trying desperately to boot into safe mode - no dice. 

[ Seems my hardware is TOO FAST!  Fusion doesn't have time to process the function keys in the instant between starting the VM and starting Windows.  (This is an area where the VMWare guys could help by perhaps including a "start Windows in safe mode" menu command.) ] 

Everything I find on Google says "reboot into safe mode".  But I can't get into safe mode at all.  Damn! 

Now I'm in full panic mode.  What was I working on?  How long since my last snapshot?  What am I going to lose if I revert to the last snapshot?  Will I be able to recover anything?  Can I access the hard drive even if the OS fails to boot?  What is the recovery process for a failed virtual drive?  Is John really up the creek this time without a paddle?  Find out next time on "Crash and Burn, Part Two – Wake Up Call".

Seriously, though.  This will definitely be a learning process, to say the least.  I'll post a follow up as soon as I can, but right now I have to go for a walk on the beach and settle down a bit.  Maybe I'll do some yoga later and then catch a movie or something.  I'm not kidding.   This is not looking good.

JFH

Ok, I’m being melodramatic.  But if you do any kind of rich media publishing on the web and you thought the Flash FLV format was your only option – think again.  Microsoft has upped the ante quite a bit with their new free Silverlight Streaming service which is now part of Windows Live. 

Did I mention it was free?  This is a big deal.  Until now, you had to use a paid service such as Techsmith’s screencast.com to host your streaming media files, or you had to setup a streaming media server yourself.  Since I just did a complete overhaul of both my blog and our non-profit web site (www.worksofwonder.org) , I had to decide what to do with my Camtasia videos and other rich media.  Silverlight Streaming seemed like a good choice and I was amazed at how simple it was – especially now that Techsmith has upgraded Camtasia 5.1 so that the default settings produce Silverlight compatible videos.  

After creating a Silverlight Streaming account, I basically just opened the Camtasia project, selected WMV as the target format and then uploaded the resulting .WMV file to the Silverlight Streaming site.  No muss, no fuss.  All that was left was placing a simple URL reference on my blog, and voila!  Instant streaming video.

Notice the space allocation.  You get 10 GB of storage, and up to 10 minutes per video of free bandwidth.  When you think about it, that’s quite a bit of space for what you get: efficient, nearly instantaneous video playback.  To see what I mean, check out the video my wife and I produced for our Works of Wonder site. 

Works of Wonder - South Africa - The Eastern Cape

I had been thinking for a long time about how I was going to get that video online, but the complexities of producing the FLV and all the supporting files and other streaming goodness proved to be just a bit too much for my myopic little developer attention span.  I was always worried I was missing something important, not to mention the prohibitive cost of hosting it on a paid streaming service.  Now it’s very easy and simple.

I must admit, I’ve been on the fence with Silverlight and I’m just now starting to look closely at the tools and other resources Microsoft is making available.  One thing is clear – Microsoft is serious about the rich media market.  They’ve already announced plans for turnkey advertising as part of the Silverlight Streaming service.  I’ve already signed up and can’t wait to give it a try.

Who would have thought?  No more Flash!  Just kidding.

Did I mention it was free?

Stay tuned.

JFH

After running my blog for the past two years on Subtext, I finally decided to move everything over to the new BlogEngine 1.4 platform.  What a great idea that was!

Check out the new look!  Marvel at the clean lines and smooth transitions!  See how responsive the pages are?  Nice.  

The main reason I'm excited about this product (other than the fact that it's free) is the elegant simplicity of the BlogEngine design, which makes it a breeze to customize and add your own extensions.  Kudos to Mads Kristensen and the entire BlogEngine team for producing a truly great blogging platform.    

If you haven't heard of BlogEngine, and you host your own blog, then you should definitely check it out.  It's based on ASP.NET 2.0, and therefore takes full advantage of all the latest .NET features, like master pages, page caching, etc.  It also uses XML files to store the blog posts, which makes it much easier to manage since it doesn't rely on a SQL database.  It also has a drag-and-drop "widget" framework (a lot like web parts), and built-in support for semantic processing via APML and other similar formats.   There are lots of other features that I won't go into here, but you get the idea - I like it much!

You'll notice that things have moved around a bit and I've streamlined some of the pages to make it easier to navigate the site.  If you find something is amiss - broken links, or other problems, please drop me a line so I can straighten it out.  I'm planning quite a bit of new content for the coming months, so I need to make sure everything is working the way it should.  So far, it's looking pretty good.

This week, Bill Gates will retire from Microsoft, so there is a lot of additional attention being focused on him right now, but a couple of weeks ago I got a rare opportunity to see for myself why everyone is so excited about his upcoming transition away from software development at Microsoft towards human development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

During the TechEd Developers 2008 Conference in Orlando, I was invited to attend a private luncheon called the "influencer's roundtable".  This was a great honor for me, as I got to share a meal with Bill Gates and a group of about 15 other people.  We spent the hour talking with Bill about his retirement and upcoming activities and I have to tell you, I now have a much better understanding of why Microsoft has become the powerful market force it is today.  I came away filled with a mixture of awe and admiration for Bill, the way he thinks and the way he approaches problem solving.

First of all, Bill is one of those people who is 100% "present" in whatever he does, and his passion is now squarely focused on human development.  Finding better ways to educate people.  Finding better ways to feed people.  Finding better ways to improve access to vaccines and other technological advances.  I was utterly impressed by the sheer breadth and depth of his knowledge on a wide range of issues and also by his uncanny ability to focus in precisely on the essential elements of any given problem.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that Bill Gates is truly a phenomenon and I was at once both humbled and inspired by our meeting.  So much so that I feel a renewed sense of commitment to my own philanthropic work.

Being "rich" is not always about having a lot of money.  It can also be a feeling.  A feeling of empowerment.  A feeling of hope.  A feeling that we can actually make a difference in the world.  Being with Bill for that short time - listening to his plans for changing our world, for making it better - filled me with that sense of hope and empowerment and I could tell that others in the room felt it too.   For those few moments I felt like I was the richest man in the world, because there I was, talking with the architect of a new vision for humanity.  A vision I could completely buy into, and one that I truly believe can be achieved.

I just want to say thank you, Bill Gates.  The world is already a better place because of your work, your passion and your commitment.  We need more like you, and although you're moving into a new arena, I'll look forward to the same innovation, excellence and success we've all come to expect of you.

JFH

Ever wished you could use a MOSS List as a mechanism for storing business data, but found yourself limited by the built-in WSS field types?  WSS 3.0 includes the ability to define your own custom field types.  Custom field types allow you to control the initialization, rendering and data validation behind your columns.  In this session, Dylan will walk you through creating and deploying custom field types and content types.

Meeting Details:

• Speaker: Dylan Phillips
• Date: June 19, 2008
• Location: Bank of America, Buliding 500, 9000 Southside Blvd; 2nd Floor; Sea Oats room
• Location Map:http://floridaofficegeeks.org/JOG/Pages/Meeting%20Logistics.aspx
• RSVP Required: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=129175

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer gave a recent demo of the new Windows 7 user interface at the D6 "All Things Digital" executive Conference put on each year.  Here is a first glimpse, compliments of YouTube.  Enjoy.

Microsoft announced today that a future version of Office 2007 (due out in early 2009) will include direct support for popular document formats including PDF.  The list of supported formats will include ODF (the standardized Open Document Format), XPS (XML Paper Specification), and PDF (Portable Document Format).  It doesn't look like we'll be able to open and edit PDF files - only save them.  The big news is the native support for ODF, which will greatly extend the interoperability between Office documents and many other productivity suites, including Google Docs, IBM Lotus Symphony and Corel WordPerfect Office X4.

Read the full announcement here: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/may08/05-21ExpandedFormatsPR.mspx

[ via Reza Alirezaei ]

Fellow MVP Reza Alirezaei has written a great article that provides a systematic approach to securing SharePoint applications.  What I like about this article is that Reza includes a well-written section on how to apply Threat Model Analysis to determine the appropriate level of protection for a given application.  Then he proceeds to lay out the different tools and coding techniques we have at our disposal to deal with the threat.

This is such an important topic, I highly recommend reading this article and then add it to your offline collection to refer back to again and again.  You can read the full article here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/secmvp/sv0408.mspx