Sometimes technical, sometimes not, never a kitty

I have an HP ScanJet 4670, and after installing IE 7, the HP Director software wouldn't work.  Turns out, IE 7 breaks HP director, and there is now a fix:

Critical update to resolve an issue with HP Director after installing IE7: missing icons and contents of HP Director screens which may not function properly after upgrading to IE7

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?softwareitem=oj-46104-1&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=73501&os=228&lang=en

Hat tip: sandi

The flippin' awesome Ankh Subversion plug-in for Visual Studio has its 1.0 Final release the other day.  Official post at http://arildf.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E99F8B43533149B0!221.entry.  Download from http://ankhsvn.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=7315, you want the 2727-Final build (list isn't in order).

Congrats and thanks to Arild for a great tool.

(hat tip: Daily Grind 1064)

About a year ago, I tried to give an alternate way to think about "what is a blog".  Since then, I've also become a big fan of Pajama Market.  Great minds think alike; on the same day, Brian came out with his "what is a blog" post, I was trying to explain them in a private florist forum.  Here is my attempt:

This single post isn't a deifnitive answer, but a discussion opener.

A blog is a web-based application. Some people confuse them with a traditional website, and some use blogs instead of websites, but blogs are actually different. If you think about a traditional website, the navigation is very structured, and content is arranged usually hierarchically. The design of a webpage can get very complex, and may contain a considerable amount of content. It often takes a lot of work to create and maintain a traditional website, sometimes involving special software tools and technical knowledge. When a visitor returns to a traditional website, the new content is not readily apparent.

On the other hand, blogs are designed to be very simple. Content is shown in order of date added, with the most recent posts at the top of the page. After a certain time period or number of posts, older content rolls off the bottom. The blog application automatically creates the navigation. Posts are arranged by date, and into categories (a.k.a. tags). Clicking on a tag brings up all posts in that category, arranged from most recent to oldest. There is typically only one or two levels of navigation in a blog. The page layout of a blog is very simple.

Adding a new post is easy. You simply log in, click the "new post" button, and use a rich text editor, same as posting here. Very, very similar. No software necessary other than your browser.

Different blog applications differ in their capabilities. The software we use at FloristBlogs.com has some very advanced features, but is easy to use.

...

On many traditional websites, there was often a "what's new" or "announcements" page, that was cumbersome to work with, and just as difficult to update as the rest of the site. A blog is a far superior way to replace a "what's new" page.

One of the limitations of a website is knowing who is linking to to you. Blog applications are designed to talk to one another. When I post a link on my blog to someone else's blog, my software sends a message called a "trackback" to the other person's blog. They know immediately that I linked to them, and can follow the trackback to the post which has the link. Trackbaks were originally shown along with post comments, but trackbacks have become heavily abused by spammers, so the trackbacks are now rarely displayed, if the functionality is even enabled at all.

The obvious follow-up is whether to have a blog, or a website, or both. This depends on your business, but in our case, I'd recommend both if possible. They serve different purposes. A website should be considered an additional shop, while a blog is a marketing channel.

I missed a few points in my definition, which Brian covers in his post at http://www.pajamamarket.com/pajama_market_small_busin/2007/01/what_is_a_blog.html.  Worth a read.

The folks at ASP.NET have posted a new By The Community, For the Community poll.  Choices are pretty good--an e-commerce extension to the Small Business Starter Kit, an events calendar, AJAX popup calendar, an image gallery control, or a DB-driven menu with roles.  So far, the menu is way in the lead.

Vote at http://asp.net/default.aspx?tabindex=6&tabid=50.

My latest ASP Alliance article has been published: Review: ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts in Action

ASP.NET 2.0 brought us all sorts of new technologies and one of the most exciting is Web Parts. Web Parts are versatile contols over which the end user can exhibit some level of control and form the basis of portals. In his recently published book, Darren takes us from the very basics of web parts and portals to advanced techniques of portal building. Darren's book is well written, and illustrated with screenshots and code (which can be downloaded from the publisher's website).

ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts in Action

 

Microsoft Across America is bringing their Launch Event 2007 to Pittsburgh on Feb 1, 2007. The event will be held at Sheraton Station Square, which is an awesome location finally. Attendees go home with Office 2007 Pro and Groove 2007. You may wonder why Groove, but after you see the cool stuff it can do, you'll dig it. Full info at http://www.microsoft.com/business/launch2007/signup/default.mspx.

This is not one of those crazy "Bill gates will pay you a dollar for everyone who reads this e-mail" things--this is real. Microsoft is giving away Microsoft Office Acocunting Express 2007 for free. This is the latest version of their small business accounting package, aimed at the Quickbooks crowd. In the past couple of years, Microsoft has begun offering "Express" editions of many of its products for free. These editions have most of the basic features one needs, and for many people, is all they'll ever need. If you outgrow an Express edition, the upgrade to the Professional edition is pretty simple--just buy it. The Pro edition is aimed at the QB Pro/Peachtree crowd. Along with the free software, Microsoft is running a contest for the best small business idea. The winner gets $100,000 and free retail space in NYC to get your business started.

Full story and download at http://www.ideawins.com/

It took me a while to find this tip, so here's how to get Google Desktop to index XML files:

I think by default GDS has XML file indexing TURNED OFF in the registry - it won't index them at all. This key is in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Desktop\file_extensions_to_skip.  You'll have to remove "xml" from that list (I think)

(source: http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Desktop_past-discussions/browse_thread/thread/6059c564cf1bf007/4cb1bf32429413bb)

The 'xml' extension was in this list, and I removed it.  Now I wait until the reindex is complete and try some queries.  Update to follow.

<update 2006-12-29>

The reindex has taken place, and there are plenty of XML files in the index now.  I can find them by simply searching for *.xml, but I still can't search the contents of an XML file in Google Desktop Search.  Not such a surprise, since Google Desktop Search's help indicates it does not support XML files (http://desktop.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12634&topic=201).

Before I get too far into what I'm trying next, let me explain my need.  We use XML to send and receive shipment details with a business partner.  From time to time, I need to be able to quickly locate a specific shipment in the hundreds of XML files stored in the archive.  I'm positive I'm not the only person in this situation.

I found a plug-in at http://www.trivex.net/ which will have GDS treat XML as plain text, and that should hopefully improve the search.  Apparently Copernic can be set to do this from its control panel, and that's the next stop.  A plain text search is good enough, but ideally, either GDS or Copernic would support an XQuery for a specific element or attribute value.

So I've installed Larry's Any Text plug in (http://www.trivex.net/).  That was darn easy.  I had to add the XML extension to the config file furing installation, and the plug-in has triggered a reindex.  I'll let you know how this one works out.

<update 2006-12-29>

The index updated over lunch, and Larry's plug-in did the trick.  I can pull up the XML files I need simply by order number or some other identifier.  It's great.  Too bad it's not an XQuery or something similar, but it'll work.  Keep in mind that GDS does not support wildcards, so you have to enter the entire string you're looking for, not a partial order number.  Fortunately, element and attribute values are percieved as whole words.

The talk goes something like this:

FedEx--"When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight."

UPS--"Moving at the speed of business."

I have 300+ identical packages to ship next week.  No flipping way amd I making the labels one at a time via a website.  I know both UPS and FedEx have PC-based shipping software for their accounts, so I decided to acquire such.

I started with FedEx.  I registered online, complete with FedEx account number.  In order to obtain the software, you have to call your account rep.  Not knowing who that was, I called the general support number, spoke to a nice rep, explained what I needed.  The support rep sent a message to my account sales contact.  This was about 8:30 pm on 12/5, and I didn't leave with a warm feeling anything was going to happen.  The next day I realized I gave the nice rep my wrong extension, called back, spoke to yet another nice rep, and gave my correct extension.  Another message was sent to my acocunt sales contact.  Even with the wrong extension, the main number on the account is correct.

So, my Plan B was UPS.  I registered at www.ups.com, complete with account number, and filled out the online request form.  This was right arount 3:00 pm on 12/6.  At 1:00 pm on 12/7, I had WorldShip 8 in my hands.  22 hours from request to delivery.  Still nothing from my FedEx guy nearly 40 hours later.  Looks like 300+ packages are going UPS.  On a personal note, I'm a little torn by this.  I grew up in Louisville, where UPS is based.  But I now live near Pittsburgh, where FedEx Ground is based.  Either one is a home-team to me.

Small businesses have weird needs.  Sometimes (as in this case) we have huge shipments all at once.  Business owners  are pretty much 24/7 living their business.  This phone tag stuff is so '80s.  Hard to believe it's so tough to give your business to a company sometimes.