I was at American Music yesterday getting guitar strings. I pull up and there’s a sign in the window that says “For your protection… these premises are under video surveillance”

For my protection? Of course I know about the roaming band of ninjas that target music stores. Stealing quitar string for garroteing purposes and leaving none alive in their wake.

But how is video taping it going to protect me?

Justin sent along a link to a blog that goes over writing managed custom actions to be called by MSI packages. In C++.

Since I’ve been up to my eyes in the E3 Deploy Manager work here I haven’t had a chance to read through it. shame But that means we can FINALLY drop all JScript based custom actions. That’ll be nice. We’ll be rebuilding all the installs here to use WiX.

Love had to go on bed rest this last week and while she was down I grabbed a wireless adapter so she could play WoW on the beefier AMD64 Box. I wound up with a Motorola WU830G because it was the only thing the local Target (gack) had and I needed it quick.

It’s fine for windows, but I haven’t gotten it setup in linux yet. I figure if I can get this done then I can toss it on the server in the garage and then route the other computers in the rack through the server.

I’ve taken an initial stab at ndiswrapper. I did an apt-get in Hoary.Ubuntu but that didn’t work. So I removed that and grabbed the latest source - as per the recommendation of the web site. Still no joy. The site mentioned not using the provided drivers but others based on the cards chipset. To be honest I was too busy to hunt those down.

Anyone have any success with the Motorola WU830G wireless adapter and linux?

I’m waiting to see if Breezy is stable enough to upgrade yet. One of the most frustrating things about working with Mono currently is having to compile from source. Once you’ve got that down then it’s no biggy. But gathering all the dependencies and getting it setup initially is a pain. I’d love to just apt-get the latest stuff.

Starting this I have the very odd feeling that I’ve started a post with this title before. And basically I said the same thing… I’m still alive and I just haven’t gotten any code done. But I will… right?

I need more funding for my techincal endeavors. My options appear to be:

A) Put up an annoying PayPal begging button for donations.
Pros: Free Money
Cons: People might think less of me and it may not work… since I - unlike your average goth chick who does this - do not have any naked pictures of myself to give in return… and even if I did.. I might make more money be threatening to post them if I didn’t get enough donations.

B) Finish my applications UI. Finish - or begin even - the company web site. And sell a 1.0 version of the application
Pros: This is what I’ve intended to do for a long while! The joys of actually having a release to sell would be spiritually rewarding. =) I could justify paying for hosting on a domain that just sits there and collects spam.
Cons: That’d actually be work, man. Seriously though, it requires some dedicated time that, with the new baby coming, I don’t know if I can provide at the moment. I’m already taking time away from the computer to be with the family as it is. I don’t see it getting better after baby.

C) Try mini-contracting through Rent-A-Coder or ELance.
Pros: More experience and a chance to work on new projects in areas I might not normally try.
Cons: The whole time issue. I don’t think that 1 month before a new baby arrives is the best time to enter into a contract with someone. =)

D) Open source my application and put up a donation button.
Pros: I can get my app out there and on peoples systems - there’s a certain amount of satisfaction that comes from knowing people are using your stuff. The project would/could potentially grow much faster than it is now.
Cons: A big chunk of my effort was spent on license validation in the app. That’d all have to be chucked for OS - be pointless to have it. I’d still need a web site. And I’d still need to finish the UI to have a real release. Could I possibly make as much OSing with donations as I would selling it? Likely not. Perhaps in the terms of “making some hobby money” option D shouldn’t be considered. =)

Basically it looks like no matter what I attempt, short of just mooching, I’ll need to wait on it for a few months until after the new baby comes and he’s finally sleeping through the night.

That was a fair bit of rambling.

Anyone else have time issues with development? What’s your solution?

Grab Vim Outliner when I get home and try it out. That is, if I get anywhere near the computer.

I think Open Source affords you the chance to be happy about the product you’re working in a way that your paying dev job tends to let you down. And allows you to things the “right way” when your paying job robs you of.

I just wandered over to Rob’s blog to have a read while I tried to figure out if I had enough time this morning to shoot of an email about WiX and Mono. (Yeah, I know, I handle my time rather bizarrely). I came across his post on EPIC. This IS really cool. I don’t want to give away the point of the whole thing… But I’ve got an opinion or two on the matter. Go to the site, watch it, and then leave me a comment for a debate. =)

I’ve been out of the writing hoop for a while. The family took of for the east coast this Monday and I took delivery of my new flat panel monitor on Tuesday. So needless to say I’ve been a little consumed… I sat down to see how well WoW would look on it… and well… Look! It’s Saturday already! I haven’t played WoW in so long. Not since I started going to SMUG meetings. It now seems my pendulum has swung the other direction with the purchase of this monitor and a week of free time.

oh well… let’s see if I can get back to the Code Side. Would that be the dark side or the light side?

Also, I tried moving my servers out to the garage and create a wireless bridge with my smaller laptop. But since I started trying to do that in earnest at like 9pm last night, I didn’t quite pull it off. So the servers are out there. Just no connection yet. I may petition for an access point once the pain of this monitor fades from the bank account.

But, yeah, this was all done to gut part of my office so I could setup an art studio for the family.

Oh well.. pictures, and more updates, to follow.

Rob Mensching will love this one. Work has decided that they want me to “patch” an assembly in the GAC. But get this. The assembly is a different build, BUT it’s the SAME version as the one currently installed on the target system.

The reasoning?

“We don’t want to break any of the other files that are dependent on it by changing the version.”

Uh *smack* change the version and GAC it and the originals will still work properly, they just won’t access the new assembly.

“We want the other files to have access to the fixes in this new assembly.”

Uh *smack* recompile the apps dependent on this new assembly and deliver those.

“We don’t want to. Look, can’t you just FORCE the installer to install the same assembly again? Why does MSI not let us?”

Uh *kick* - my hand started to sting - MSI doesn’t let you because it’s inherently stupid and it’s trying to keep you from blowing your head off. It’s not the way to do it. I gave you the choices.

“Oh hey! I usually just run gacutil /i on my dev box to get it to do it. How about we just create a custom action that runs ‘gacutil /i ‘ at the command prompt during the install?”

*gives up* Do you want a blindfold and a cigarette? Or do you intend to see it coming as you shoot yourself in the head?

“What?”

I say it’s the wrong way to do it. I say no.

“We say do it. It works.”

So, anywho. I can produce my resume on request. Please don’t let my work environment set your expectations of my skills.

*sighs*