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October 2007 - Posts

Now I Remember

I now remember what I found so disappointing when I first had a Pocket PC years ago. It was the lack of good third party applications for it and the hassle it was to download and install what was out there. Don't get me wrong, the applications that come
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Regular Expression Resources

A collection of regular expression tools and references for my reference. I will be incorporating this into my tools and reference list. Tools Expresso 3.0 - A great regular expression builder and analyzer tool. The Regulator - A regular expression testing
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WTF - How Does This Help?

The Daily WTF is one of my favorite sites and I always enjoy when a new post appears in my reader. This post: Error'd- Incredibly Accessible, almost made me choke on my coffee. It probably also has an audio track for the deaf...

Guitar Hero III

Just picked up the Guitar Hero III with Wireless Guitar package from Best Buy. There are improvements in the game but there is nothing that is jaw dropping. Still a solid game that I am enjoying. Here is the song list: Aerosmith - "Same Old Song and
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Achievements Update

I have not made any achievements over the last couple of days, so my progress has leveled out. Although I expect that to change later today when I pick up Guitar Hero III from Best Buy.
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Beautiful Code

I picked up Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think from Borders last week and I have been enjoying it. It has awakened a need to play around with code again that is not directly related to my work. I like that the book is really a
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If I Ever Needed An Ash Tray

This Game-Fish Ash Tray is just weird, yet I think it would still be cool to make one and give it as a gift. (via Boing Boing)
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Finally Finished Half-Life 2

I finally finished Half-Life 2 from The Orange Box last night. Took about a total of 13 hours but it seemed like it could have been longer if I explored more during some of the outdoor areas. Will try to go through later and get the Lambda achievement.
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Got A New Toy!

I got my new Palm Treo 700wx last night and got it provisioned with my cell number. I also got it hooked up to my companies Exchange server and am able to send email directly from the phone. So far I am loving it. Compared to my old phone, this is light
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Yet Another Windows Utility List

Ala Scott Hanselman's 2007 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows, I have started my own list of tools and utilities that I use regularly. There will be definite overlap, but the purpose is not provide new information. The purpose of
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XBox 360 Links

Here are some of the XBox 360 links that I frequent. I will be updating these I find more relevant links. XBox.com - The official site for the XBox consoles and the XBox Live system. Has great forums and information on your achievement points. Major
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SharePoint 2007 Links

My list of SharePoint 2007 Links and Blogs that I monitor and refer to when I need help. By no means an exhaustive list. I will be adding to this as I come across more sites: http://jopx.blogspot.com/ - JOPX on SharePoint 2007 (MOSS and WSS V3 ), Office
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Just for My Records

A chart for my records...
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Still Working My Way Through Half-Life 2

I am up to Chapter 10: Entanglement now and got about 9 hours into the game. I miss my Antlions now though. They were like big murderous pets. I am committed to finishing the game now and will try to put in 2 hours or so each day until I do so...
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I Need This!!

Although I am doing just fine with my setup: A Recipe for Disaster I like this: Steelcase's Walkstation marries desk and treadmill - via Engadget Once I finish up Puzzle Quest, I guess it would be nice to play online poker while on the treadmill...
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Achievement Progress for the Last 2 Weeks

I made an Excel chart of my XBox 360 Achievement progress for the last 2 weeks while I have been working from home: The spikes on October 8th and October 16th represent Halo 3 and The Orange Box releases respectively.
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Half-Life 2

Wow is Half-Life 2 a long game! I just got to Chapter 6 - "We Don't Go To Ravenholm..." and there are 8 more chapters after this one!!! That does not even include the game play in Chapter One and Chapter Two that are included in the Orange Box. I had
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Portal - Still Alive Song

I really enjoyed the song that plays during the credits of Portal, so I decided to see if I could find the soundtrack to buy and/or download. Here is what I found so far:   MP3 Download of Song - http://boards.ign.com/half_life/b5220/151977331/p1/
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It's Like an Early Christmas!

I was checking the XBox Live content yesterday and I noticed that the much awaited Oblivion - Fighters Stronghold was finally available and it is free! Can't beat that! I wasn't even expecting it. Wow, now I just need to find my copy of Oblivion. I have
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Finished Portal

Finished the main part of portal yesterday and am trying to get the remaining acheivements.  I wish it was longer and had more challenges, but overall a very appreciated game. Some of the levels on Advanced mode are nigh on impossible! Overall Portal
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How Did They Target Me?

Got this in the mail the other day. I have never been to Cincinnati or expressed an interest in the Reds, so I am unsure how I got targeted for this offer. I haven't really expressed that much interest in Baseball at all. I have been to a couple of Braves
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A Recipe for Disaster

This is just a recipe for disaster. For some of you couch potatoes out there, that is a treadmill console. See my previous post: I Am Going to Break My Neck for more information.
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The Orange Box

Picked up The Orange Box from Best Buy yesterday and I am really getting into the game. I played Half Life a long time ago on the PC, but I never got into the later versions of the game. Graphically it is solid, it is not as beautiful as games like Gears
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I Am Going to Break My Neck

I bought a treadmill last week because I am going to be working from home for the month of October and I figured I could watch TV or play my XBox 360 while I was walking. Well, I posted yesterday about Puzzle Quest yesterday and I started to play it while
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Puzzle Quest - Stay Away If You Have Stuff To Do!

Just got Puzzle Quest last night and is it addictive! I am having to set a timer to limit my gameplay otherwise I will play it until I fall asleep like last night. I highly recommend this game. It is a little pricey at 1,250 points, but it is worth it.
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Gamer Zines

If you don't already get the free online magazines from Gamer Zines, you really should. They have zines specific to all of the major gaming platforms and did I mention that it was free. They send you an email each month when a new issue is available that
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Xbox 360 Chatpad

Bought a XBox 360 Chatpad at Circuit City the other day and had my first opportunity to chat with someone over IM yesterday. It was clumsy at first, but it became more natural as the conversation went on. I think it is a very solid addition to the controller
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What I Learned Last Night

Was working with web part pages in a document library in SharePoint 2007 and could not understand why the web parts that I added were not showing up in the contents of the file when I referenced the SPListItem.File.OpenBinaryStream method. The contents
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Heroes Season 1

My daughter and I did a Heroes Season 1 marathon over the weekend. She saw that I had the 2 episodes from the new season on my ReplayTV and she was interested, but I told her it wouldn't make sense unless she saw the 1st season. So we rented the 1st season
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First Gratuitous Cat Pictures

Got a new Kodak EasyShare M883 camera yesterday and having been taking pictures with it. So without further ado here are pictures of my 2 cats: Big Head and Bea-Bea.
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SPListExists SharePoint 2007 Code Snippet

I use this method whenever I need to determine if a List exists in SharePoint 2007. I have not found a built in method for this yet. I hope there is one, but until I find it, this works. I don't use this in production code, only for deployment and test
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I Made Private!

I graduated from Basic Training in Halo 3. My last game was awesome. I was on a roll and had a long killing spree. I can see a definite improvement over the first time I played online. I still need to work on my evading and being aware of what is happening
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RunWithElevatedPrivileges SharePoint 2007 Code Snippet

Here is a common piece of code that I have been using when writing Web Parts, Event Receivers and Activities for SharePoint 2007. When any calls to the SharePoint API are run in the context of the user that initiated the action. This can pose a problem
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Host Application Code for Old XMLDocumentSplitter Class

I am including the code from my original host application for my XMLDocumentSplitter class. I will be updating this along with the utility class as well. It is interesting to see some of my coding habits from years ago.   Public Class frmMain
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My Old XMLDocumentSplitter Class

I have resurrected my old XMLDocumentSplitter class from Code Project and am planning on updating it. These are on my list of things I need to bring this up to date: Write both C# and VB.NET versions Use an Event handler method for handling the chunks
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Revisiting Old Code

I was doing an ego search and found some of my old articles that I posted to Code Project a long time ago: Single Instance Application in VB.NET and XML Document Splitter Class. I have decided to take a look at the code and update it this week for Visual
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