Finnaly I can say it, Tandy Trower and his team have announced the Microsoft Robotic Studio [1]. Last time I have seen it in early spring, some parts of the tool have been already very impressing. Finally, I am looking forward for the final release.

Brside this the Robot magazine gives a first impression of the Robotics Studio [2] and some first screenshots of the upcomming Simulator [3]. Furthermore the Carnegie Mellon University starts a new programm [4] supported by the Robotics Group from Redmond. Meanwhile, there is also a Channe 9 video of almost one hour [5] available.

[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/robotics/
[2] http://www.botmag.com/issue3/microsoft_technical_preview_1.shtml
[3] http://www.botmag.com/issue3/microsoft_technical_preview_2.shtml
[4] http://www.cir.ri.cmu.edu/
[5] http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=206574

Today I finished my first fischertechnik [1] article for the Coding4Fun website [2]. I guess it will take some days until the text is read, processed and published. I also think already about a follow up article of some more sophisticated models.

[1] http://www.fischertechnik.de/en/index.aspx
[2] http://msdn.microsoft.com/coding4fun/

I am definitely not the biggest fan of soccer. But when the championship is in Germany, I will at least watch of the German team. The Soccer Scoreboard [1] allows you to add your home team to your desktop.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=df6a6e6e-21af-4786-ad1d-a38e8bfda82f&displaylang=en

Sometimes I have to wonder about the world we live in: While thousands went to strike to work less (at the end half an hour a week), I have to write an additional application that has to be approved to work two hours more each week. This does not make a lot sense to me. 

All the badges, collected during the last 48 months are scanned and added to my perosonal memex [1].

• SFB 346 [2] Presentation, University of Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
  
• A.T. Kearney Workshop, Karlsruhe, Germany
  
• CSC Ploenzke Workshop, Karlsruhe, Germany
  
• Informatik 2003 [3], Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  
• NET.Object Days 2003 [4], Erfurt, Germany
  
• TechNet Roadshow, Microsoft Office 2003 & Exchange Server 2003, Frankfurt, Germany
  
• MSR Academic Conference 2003, Dresden, Germany
  
• TechEd 2004, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  
• STC 2004 [5], Essen-Duisburg, Germany
  
• TechNet Roadshow 2004 Windows Server System, Frankfurt, Germany
  
• Wissenschaftssommer 2004 [], Stutgart, Germany
  
• Informatik 2004 [6], Ulm, Germany
  
• Informatics Driving Innovation – Challenges in Research, Munich, Germany
  
• “Less is More” – Simple Computing in an Age of Complexity [7], Cambridge, UK
  
• PDC 2005, Los Angeles, Unuted States
  
• EURON Roadmap Workshop 2005 [8], Karlsruhe, Germany
  
• Visual Studio 2005 Launch, Birmingham, UK
  
• Visual Studio 2005 Launch, London, UK
  
• Visual Studio 2005 Launch, Harrogate, UK
  
• Visual Studio 2005 Launch, Edinburgh, UK
  
• Microsoft Research Security Workshop [9], Hamburg, Germany
  
• Microsoft MVP Open Day, Cambridge, UK
  
• Informatiktage 2006 [10], Bonn, Germany
  
• Microsoft Research, International Symposium on Intelligent Environements [11], Cambridge, UK
  
• CHI2006 [12], Montréal, Canada

[1] http://blog.aheil.de/CategoryView,category,Memex.aspx
[2] http://www.imi.uni-karlsruhe.de/367.php
[3] http://www.informatik2003.de/
[4] http://www.old.netobjectdays.org/node03/index.html
[5] http://www.event-team.com/events/stc2004/
[6] http://www.wissenschaft-im-dialog.de/wss.php4?ID=20
[7] http://research.microsoft.com/ero/iep/LessIsMore.aspx
[8] http://wwwiaim.ira.uka.de/euron/cwiki.php
[9] http://research.microsoft.com/ero/Events/Security/2006/
[10] http://www.informatiktage.de/
[11] http://research.microsoft.com/ero/iep/isie06.aspx
[12] http://www.chi2006.org

SVNService [1] by Magnus Norddahl works great if you want to run subversion [2] as a Win32 service. Just installing the service with svnservice.exe -install -d -r c:\repository. It seems to be confusing that the service is not started and set to manual, but the svn server is running, even after a reboot.

[1] http://dark.clansoft.dk/~mbn/svnservice/
[2] http://subversion.tigris.org/

There are some Microsoft Mac essentials [1] that must be on my Mac’s HDD. Windows Media Player and IntelliPoint at least. I have also found but not tried yet an update for Virtual PC, which maybe can solve the previous installing issue [2].

I especially recommend IntelliPoint if you use any Microsoft Mouse. I became very frustrated by my Wireless Optical Blue Mouse on the Mac. It was slow and stucking; improving the speed within the Mac’s System Preferences did not improve the handling cery well. However, the IntelliPoint software does support the devices very well, and by using the IntelliPoint pointer speed option instead of System Mouse Tracking the performance and reliability of the wireless mouse is improved dramatically.

click here to enlarge (69.19 KB)

It also has some additional information on the mouse, depending on the attached device. After replacing my Optical Wheel Mouse USB with the Wireless Optical Blue Mouse I got this additional tab showing the battery level.

click to enlarge (51.14 KB)

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Browse.aspx?displaylang=en&categoryid=5
[2] http://blog.aheil.de/MyFirstMac.aspx

Maria brought the Consolas Font Pack for Visual Studio 2006 [1] to my attention. After installing, the Consolas font is set up as default font in Visual Studio 2005. At least on my Portégé M200 it is very readable.

[1] microsoft.com/downloads

The last impression of the city of Montréal [1] after CHI2006 [2] was one of the very impressive underground shopping centers, before we left te city.

click to enlarge (3.87 MB)

[1] http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/
[2] http://www.chi2006.org/

Actually, you can never have enough backups, but the original reason for getting Acronis’ TrueImage was to copy an image of my 60GB laptop HDD to a new 100GB HDD. This worked surprisingly well, connecting the new disk, using an external USB case, the tool reboots the system and copies a bootable image of the disk.

Beside this, the tool can perform backups while you work on your system. Very cool and helpfully if you backup to a server, which could take some time. In addition the tool provides a very great feature, which makes accessing files within your backup very comfortable. You can just plug an backup image as a virtual disk to your system and this way you can access the complete backup and access specific files you are looking for.

click to enlarge (36 KB)

click to enlarge (56.47 KB)

click to enlarge (68.35 KB)

click to enlarge (50.77 KB)

click to enlarge (20.27 KB)

click to enlarge (77.51 KB)

It is shown [1], that filtered coffee – not espresso or French-style brews – does not increase the risk of some heart diseases… Shack-o the next coding session can come.

[1] today.reuters.co.uk

If you travel a lot, and if you have a chicken as pet – this solution presented at CHI could be exactly what you where looking for:

click to enlarge (33.92 KB)

1. Put a special, fluffy jacket with built-in vibrators and wireless communication on your chicken.
   
   
   

   

   
   

   click to enlarge (68.87 KB)

   
   
2. 
   
   Touch the physical avatar of your chicken, wherever you are.
   
   
   
   

   
   
   click to enlarge (74.79 KB)
   

   
   
3. And your chicken will definitely like it!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   
   click to enlarge (61.42 KB)

Actually they have done a “user study” with two chicken. Using a red and a blue door, one with food and water, one with food, water, and 10 minutes of the jacket, the chickens prefer the door with the additional 10 minutes Force Feedback jacket. And no, this is not a joke, it is serious research. For those not believing, a video was also shown with a real chicken remotely touched by a user…

click to enlarge (45.77 KB)

Even during CHI [1], a lot of work is left to do: So I take the chance und finish some stuff in the evening hours in a very special working atmosphere.

click here to enlarge (73.14 KB)

[1] http://www.chi2006.org/

2006 All Stars

click to enlarge (71.79 KB)

Yesterday evening we arrived in Montréal, Québec for CHI 2006 [1]. Just some impressions from the place. At the bottom you can see which area is covered by the panoramic view.

click to enlarge (85.32 KB)

click to enlarge (3.36 MB)

click to enlarge (77.67 KB)

[1] http://www.chi2006.org/

I just checked out the Kartoo [1] map using aheil as query. Interesting links and relations are found by this tool. But I do not have any clue how ww.cwea.org is realted to the whole map.

click to enlarge

[1] http://www.kartoo.com/

Actually, I do not have any problem paying for music. Sometimes I just want to listen to a piece of music, I checkout e.g. Musicload. I copied the music files, made a backup of the licenses and reinstalled my machine. So I decided to listen to a particular song:

Because I have freshly installed my box these days, I needed to restore my licenses but I do encounter this message while trying to restoring them:

Let’s see what “Web Help” says:

This is not helpfully at all. OK, let’s check the radio button to tell this to the people over there. An additional text box appears, asking for my experience; I was spending a lot of money on music, 2 o’clock a.m., I want to listen to my music, I am so somewhat angry… But I do not give up so easily. So I tried to restore another backup. Of course I did backup by licenses on a regular basis. And all I get is this:

Also this message does not satisfy me a lot. So I decide to try it a third time:

The very interesting thing: Depending on which backup I try to restore, I get always the very same message but I do never get my licenses back. Let’s go back where I bought the music, downloading the license again, because it looks like this is my very last chance:

But the song is not available anymore… they do only keep it for six months.. That sucks. Only the last three songs are left. And of course they write I should make backups of my licenses… Remark to myself: Do not purchase any music anymore.

[Update]

Actually the DRM policy allows you to restore your licences on four different systems. Lucky day, because I just backed up my licences on another system and tried to restore them. This was th so-called plan. But DRM does not give up so easily and fires this message:

At least some of my licences which I bought and payed for, I own , i.e. they belong to me and I do have the right to hear the song whenever I want (at least I thought so), do work again. But some others still suck…

I just did it: I ordered one of those nifty Apple Mac minis with the new Intel inside. Actually I plan to put a Windows on it. Fortunately, when I bought the Office for Mac last year, the package also included on Windows XP license… btw: I ordered the English Mac OS X. A few weeks ago I spend some time together with some colleagues in a Apple store in Seattle. And yes, the hardware does look great.

For all those developers who prefer Emacs there it is. Emacs shortcuts put of the box supported by the Visual Studio 2005.

“The following shortcut key combinations mimic commands available in Emacs and are used while editing code in the integrated development environment (IDE).“

Link: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165528.aspx

Do you remember the song, while Will Smith [1] standing in the shower in I,Robot [2]? Superstition by Stevie Wonder [3]. That song rocks!

[1] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000226/
[2] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/
[3] http://www.musicload.de/item?trackid=164828

BtK is definitely not the only person playing with food before Halloween… and Maria did the painting for my very first real Halloween Pumpkin!

click to enlarge (60,36 KB)

And, what a surprise… it’s a pumpkin… how disgusting!

click to enlarge (73,22 KB)

But one day, a man has to do, what a man has to do. so I was brave.

click to enlarge (66,18 KB)

Finally, everybody was happy…

click to enlarge (75,65 KB)

click to enlarge (47,08 KB)

Because I was assked again some minutes ago: Lutz Roeder’s .NET Reflector [1] is one of MUST HAVE tools for .NET programers.

[1] http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet/

Last week I have been several times at the fischertechnik factory in Salzstetten, Germany. One time I got a Mercedes C-model Kompressor because all small ones where gone. Usually I am not really impressed by the C-model, as my boss has trouble with his cars for years… But this one, even with the smallest engine… let’s say, the first time I had to break, I kissed almost the front panel… really impressing.

After moving from the Intel boxed cooler to the Zalman [1] CNPS-7000B, I was able to reduce the temperature of my case from 45° to 39°-40° celcius while being idle. For this the CPU cooler runs at full speed. Nervertheless noise caused by the CPU cooler changed significant.

Because I found no information about this: The CNPS-7000 works fine with the ASRock P4S55FX+ board.

Just some days after changing the CPU cooler the VGA fan started to make strange noises, so I decided to move to a Zalman fan, too. This time it is the VF700-CU. A full copper 270g fan, pinned to my AGP-Slot. Using the new VGA fan and the CPU cooler I was able to reduce the temperature to 39° while using silent mode (~5V) for both fans.

The last I used two FAN MATE II on the front side of my case to control both, the CPU and the VGA cooler. Full throttle to both fans lowers the case temperature to 34°. And my harddisk remains the only piece of hardware making a lot of noise.

[1] http://www.zalman.co.kr/

Because Xbox 360 is comming I am back live. XboxFriends.com [1] provides this nice banner generator [2] by Cory Smith [3].

[1] http://www.xboxfriends.com/
[2] http://www.xboxfriends.com/bannergen.aspx
[3] http://addressof.com/blog/archive/2004/04/28/648.aspx