I have one music library on my iMac (running Snow Leopard) and another on my MacBook Pro (BootCamp – running Windows 7 Ultimate).  My wife purchases music on the iMac and I purchase from my laptop.  Sometimes we use iTunes, other times we use Wal-Mart.com.  Hence the need for a sync utility.  I came across Microsoft’s Live Sync while looking for a platform agnostic utility to sync my music library.

Live Sync

Windows Live Sync is an application and web service used to synchronize files and folders across multiple computers and with multiple users.  You can sync up to 20 different folders with up to 20,000 files each.  It also provides a nice web interface for browsing your remote computers’ hard drives (don’t worry, it’s all encrypted).

You can invite friends to share/sync folders and grant permissions as readers, contributors or owners.

In theory, this should have worked great.  My problem was that I already had folders that were out of sync with each other.  Live Sync seemed to have a hard time with this.  It was also quite slow in syncing 10+ GB over the internet.

I use this to quickly and conveniently access files on my home network from anywhere in the world.  This could also be a great solution for musicians who are working on a project remotely.  It’s a user-friendly, FREE way to sync your music projects.

Live Mesh

Home Brew

So, I learned about a couple nice utilities from Microsoft that run smoothly on Mac, but at this point I’ve decided to write my own folder sync utility in C#.  It’s a console app right now.  I have the following config settings available:

• Local folder location
• Remote folder location (supports UNC paths for network shares)
• Copy from local to remote
• Copy from remote to local
• Enable verbose logging
• Log file location
• Append or overwrite log file
• Overwrite files if source is larger – if there are files of different sizes with the same name in the same folder. This option will overwrite the destination file if the source file is larger
• File types to exclude (I use this because I don’t want DS_Store files copied to Windows and I don’t want desktop.ini or .lnk files copied to the Mac)

So far so good.  I copied 10 gigs of files in 5000 directories (on a local 100Mbps network) in about 20 minutes.  This could come in handy if you need to sync a local folder with a network share at work.  Thoughts from the peanut gallery?  Should I turn it into a windows app and post it here for download?

Click here to check out a great blog post about Live Sync, Live Mesh and SkyDrive.

I recently upgraded our TFS server from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008.  Since then, my remaining work report hasn’t run.  This makes me sad.  Bill Wang explained the reason for this and I’m grateful for it.

In a nutshell, there needs to be an assembly redirection.  This takes place per a couple settings in two (2) different web.config files.  Modify the config files in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Warehouse\web.config AND  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server\Tools\SetupWarehouse.exe.config as follows:

      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft.AnalysisServices"
                          publicKeyToken="89845dcd8080cc91"
                          culture="neutral" />
        <bindingRedirect oldVersion="9.0.242.0" newVersion="10.0.0.0"/>
      </dependentAssembly>

Restart IIS, then send Bill Wang a thank you note!

Sticky notes are cool.  I love taking a quick, digital note with the assurance that it will both be saved and save the environment; albeit one leaf at a time.  No need to litter the cubicle with 3×3 pieces of paper, right?

So Microsoft lifted a decent idea from MAC with the sticky notes as a widget in Windows Vista.  It’s even better in Windows 7. BUT!…There’s always a big “BUT”.  Let’s talk about Windows 7’s big “BUT”.

You know that little “x” at the top right of all of your windows applications since, oh I don’t know, Windows 3.1?  Closes the application, right?  WRONG!  Apparently, Microsoft decided to make it DELETE YOUR NOTE in Windows 7.  If I was a swearing man, now would be the time.

In Microsoft’s defense, you’ll be warned with a dialog like so:

If you’re like me, you checked the checkbox long ago and forgot all about it.  If you want to bring the warning back, you can do so by modifying your registry.  Set the \HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\StickyNotes\PROMPT_ON_DELETE DWORD to “1″.

Microsoft trained me for years to press Ctrl+S to save and then click the “x” to close the application.  My sticky note was a victim of Pavlov’s theory.

I logged onto Facebook this morning and one of my “friends” had posted a link to something he thought was funny.  It had profanity in the title.  I’m not a fan of profanity, but didn’t want to flat out block my friend, so I went in search of a profanity filter at UserScripts.org. To my delight, I found one and it works great!  For the script to work, you’ll need Firefox, Greasemonkey and the Profanity Filter (install in that order).

I’ve been a devout Firefox convert for a couple years now.  While impressed with Chrome and Safari, I just can’t leave Firefox.  I’ll even concede that, “in my humble opinion”, IE 8 SEEMS FASTER THAN FIREFOX?!  GASP!!! Dare I say?  Nevertheless, the “Add On” features of Firefox will keep me a Firefox user unless the competition does something about it.  Here are my top 5 “Can’t Live Without” add-ons:

1. AdBlock Plus – I haven’t seen an ad on a website in a couple years.  I bet I wouldn’t recognize half the sites I visit if this add-on was disabled!
2. Firebug – a web developer MUST have (features in Safari and IE are comparable, but not up to par)
3. GreaseMonkey – Runner user scripts to make the net more enjoyable.  Here are a few of my favorite scripts:
   1. ExpertsExhangeFilter
   2. Google Account Multi-Logon
   3. PROFANITY FILTER (keep reading)
   4. Facebook Purity: For those annoying survey results on Facebook…blah!
4. CoolIris – The coolest way to search Craigslist!
5. TwitterFox (recently renamed to Echofon, horrible name!) / TinyURL Generator – used in conjunction! :-)

While I’m on the “safe browsing” kick, please check out OpenDNS.org.  Thank you OpenDNS.org, Mozilla, Greasemonkey and the countless open source developers for helping me keep the garbage out of my house!  Surfing without OpenDNS, AdBlock plus and Profanity Filter is like driving without your seat belt fastened.

UPDATE:  This Profanity Filter script for Greasemonkey seems to work with far less latency than the aforementioned.  It also allows for customized replacement strings.

I needed a list of all checked-out files in TFS today.  This page came in handy! Thanks Clay!  Here’s what he had to say (slightly modified for VS 2008)

tf.exe status $/MyProject /user:* /s:http://MyTfs:8080 /recursive

tf.exe status /user:mark /s:http://MyTfs:8080

tf.exe status /user:* /s:http://MyTfs:8080 > c:\tfsCheckedOut.txt

Synergy rocks. In their own words:

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).  Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Furthermore, it synchronizes screen savers so they all start and stop together and, if screen locking is enabled, only one screen requires a password to unlock them all. Learn more about how it works.

Synergy has been around for awhile.  I don’t pretend to be revealing a hidden gem.  So why do I share?  Because I’ve got an interesting setup that I hope someone else may find useful!  Also, my mother told me to share.

The majority of my time at work is spent in .NET development.  I have a MacBook Pro configured to dual boot to Windows 7 (Boot Camp) and it runs like a champ.  My company’s VPN is such that it disables connections to the general internet.  When I connect to my VPN, I lose my internet connection.  Nooo, it doesn’t support split tunneling or allow me to clear the “Use gateway on remote network” checkbox.  So if I want to work from home AND have an internet connection….enter Synergy! Synergy allows me to control my Windows 7 laptop AND my iMac with a single keyboard and mouse. Also, Synergy connected systems share clipboard settings.  Awww yeeaaah!

I setup my windows laptop as the Synergy server like so:

Next, I created a couple basic AppleScript scripts to connect to and disconnect from the server. The startup script assumes that you have the synergy client in a folder called “synergy” in the root directory.

Client Connect (technically, you can do this without “tell application”, but I like the visual):

tell application "Terminal"
 activate
 do script "/synergy/synergyc -f <ServerHostNameOrIpAddress>"
end tell

Client Disconnect:

set synergyName to "synergy"

set synergyPid to (do shell script "ps ax | grep " &
  (quoted form of synergyName) & " | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'")

if synergyPid is not "" then do shell script ("kill -9 " & synergyPid)

Download Synergy
Download Synergy Client Launch AppleScript
Download Synergy Client Kill AppleScript

My wife makes BEAUTIFUL, custom wooden puzzles.  I used to run a site for her under the domain “PuzzleMom.com”.  However, I recently shut down the site.  She still makes great puzzles.  If you’re interested, you can email her at mowglihuff at gmail dot com.

I used to run very small business on the side called “MJ Consulting”. I provided basic IT services to mom & pop shop businesses in my area; making sure that it did not conflict with any interests at my real job with Wachter. It was so small that I barely made enough to pay for the business license and domain name each year. :-)

Well I haven’t done anything in that name for about a year, so I shut down the site. However, I had some .NET controls there. One was a Weather Channel control and another was a rounded corner “div” container. Typical “drag n drop” server controls. If you came here looking for those, you can find them using the links below. Shoot me an email if you have any questions or find a bug. Happy coding!

Download Rounded Div Control 3.1 Updated 02/06/2010
Download Weather Control 2.1 Updated 02/06/2010

A month or so ago, I blogged about multiple remote sessions on Windows Vista SP2.  Since then, I’ve started playing with Windows 7 from my company’s MSDN subscription.  Very cool.  I’ll save some of my favorite features  for another post.

@Choreboy responded to my blog post and mentioned a universal solution that he found here.  I downloaded, scanned with Avast (no viruses), installed & rescanned (still clean).  It worked great!  It claims to work on Vista & XP as well, but I haven’t tested it.

Download Universal Patch here

Run program & you’re done.  Happy RDP-ing. :-)

I like my data.  Pictures, music, videos, documents…great stuff.  I cry a little bit to think that it could all vanish should one of my kids cannonball off the top bunk onto my laptop.  Hence the need for a complete PC backup to a network share.  Vista has a slick new method for backing up your data.  A complete Vista backup essentially creates a Virtual Hard Disk file (VHD) which could, in theory, be mounted with Microsoft Virtual PC.

So off we go in search of the new backup features in Windows Vista:

1. Start
2. Control Panel
3. Backup and Restore Center
4. Back up computer

The first thing you’ll notice is that you can only backup to a local hard drive or multiple DVDs.  This is fine if you’ve got a USB hard drive or a bunch of DVD’s.  However, I want to backup to a network location (i.e. UNC path).  Enter the powerful WBAdmin utility.  TO THE COMMAND PROMPT ROBIN!

Here’s how your would do a one time backup to a network share:

1. Command Prompt
2. wbadmin start backup -backupTarget:UNC_PATH_HERE -include:C: -quiet
3. Grab a healthy snack and watch your ones and zeros zing across the network

Now let’s take a look at automating this job with the Task Scheduler:

1. Start
2. Control Panel
3. Administrative Tools
4. Task Scheduler
5. Action
6. Create Basic Task
7. Give it a name like “Technullogy Rocks”
8. Set your schedule on the “Task Trigger” screen
9. Select “Start a program” on the “Action” screen
10. Enter “wbadmin.exe” in the “Program/script” textbox
11. Under “Add arguments” type “start backup -backupTarget:UNC_PATH_HERE -include:C: -quiet” (without quotes)
12. Click Finish and do a happy dance (be sure your friends don’t see this step – it could lead to a an awkward moment)