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We’re so super excited that Andy Smith (a server control guru) is helping us polish up all the server controls in our soon to be announced Community Server product [1] — all UI code will be done as server controls. I wrote a lot of the 80+ server controls that are in the current version, but having Andy on board means they are going to get even better!

[1]
Community Server is an integrated platform bringing together the best of .Text, nGallery, and the ASP.NET Forums. More details can be found now by visiting www.communityserver.org.

I received an MSDN Universal Subscription as part of the Microsoft Regional Director’s program soon after leaving Microsoft last May. Honestly, I’m a little overwhelmed. I’ve got two huge books of CDs and DVDs with more software than I even know what to do with. But what a fantastic resource! I wish I had this at Microsoft, it’s so convenient vs. having to do everything over the network.

My most used DVD? … and I haven’t even looked at all of them yet: SQL Server. I’m constantly setting up VPC’s to test new functionality in Community Server — such as Passport integration which I’m working on now. My Passport experience will be a separate blog rant saved for later.

Speaking of developer tools, I attended a user group presentation here in Dallas on CodeSmith a couple of nights ago. Talk about cool tools! It’s unlike other code generators that I’ve seen. Instead it is template driven and even better, the templates look like ASP.NET code! Since it’s template driven, it literally generates your code the same way you would have written it because you wrote the template! If you find yourself doing repetitive code, check this tool out. We’re (Telligent) definitely going to be making use of this tool – it’s going to save us a ton of development time and I’ll blog more later about how we’re using it.

I often receive emails, or see postings, where people call me Ron rather than Rob. Is it because my name sounds so much like the old Happy Days star turned director? Who knows 🙂

I do however have empirical evidence that some people do confuse me with Ron Howard; I’m sure this post, once indexed by Google, will not help the situation either <g>! A couple weeks ago I received an email from a woman who was asking me to talk to her son about film school:

“I have a son who’s life dream is to be a film director…” [removed] “… perhaps you can shed some light to a concerned Mom.“

Just a few days ago I received an email from a teenager telling me how much she enjoyed my recent film and wanted to talk to my daughter:

“Hi, my name’s [removed] and I’m 14. I am a big fan of your movies” [removed] “I still watch Happy Days“

When reading these emails a small, small mischievous part of me would like to have some fun with a reply, but the sincerity of the author always makes me take the time to write out a very polite reply. I wonder if Jason Alexander has this problem (haha).

So, if you are the real Ron Howard and you happen across this blog posting (yeah right)… drop me an email: rhoward@telligentsystems.com so I can forward you your mailbag. And while you’re at it, I’ve also got some great software for running a community — I’ll even help you set it up!

…a funny new addition to the .NET developer vernacular I keep hearing. Know what it is?

hint: it’s caused by bad developer code (not by anything wrong with the .NET Framework — ok, I am a LITTLE biased).

second hint: you’ve got to be a web developer to ‘get it’

One of the largest Microsoft Open Source projects  (previously known as ASP.NET Forums) Community Server :: Forums has just been released!

More details here:

http://www.communityserver.org/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=457530#457530

A few tidbits…

• over 150 compiled server controls
• hundreds of thousands of lines of source code (C#) included
• localized in over 10 languages
• designed to run everything from small single server sites to large multi-server web farms, and the discussion platform used by sites such as http://channel9.msdn.com, http://forums.xbox.com, and http://www.asp.net/forums

Enjoy 🙂

I’m so excited to finally see that it’s official: Scott Watermasysk, creator of .Text (your using it now) has joined Telligent Systems!

Scott and I interacted a lot on weblogs.asp.net and blogs.msdn.com while I was at Microsoft and we had the chance to collaborate on some integration points between Forums and .Text. We both agreed that there was a lot of potential to bring the two closer together, and I’m thrilled to say we’ve taken the first step down that path with Scott joining.

Today we also semi-officially announced new names for ASP.NET Forums, .Text, and nGallery as:

• Community Server :: Forums
• Community Server :: Blogs
• Community Server :: Gallery

There’s actually deeper meaning behind the naming, but that news will come later!

When a hotel advertises Internet Access in a room, you would expect to find an ethernet cable or port in the room. Right?

I stayed at a hotel in Houston several days back at the Candlewood Suites. I chose that hotel precisely because they offered free Internet Access (as you can see listed on their web page). After a long day I finally got to the room and looked around for the Ethernet port/cable, but couldn’t find it. The following conversation followed:

(Called hotel operator)

Rob: Hi, I’m in room 212. You guys have internet access in the room right?

Hotel: Yes! In fact, we’re getting broadband wireless in about 3 weeks.

Rob: Well, that’s great. But I need to access to the Internet now and I can’t seem to find where to plug my computer in.

Hotel: Just plug it into the base of the phone.

Rob: You don’t have ethernet in the rooms?

Hotel: No, we have dial-up internet access. You have to plug a phone cable into your computer and then into the phone.

Rob: (Disappointed) Fine. What’s the number I need to call?

Hotel: That’s your responsbility.

Rob: Ok, so basically you’re ‘internet access’ consists of a phone line in the room. That’s not internet access, that’s called a phone line. 

My dad was an airline pilot for a now defunct airline Braniff International. When I was younger I had really wanted to fly planes – my dad had a great story of how, when he was 15, he lied about his age to enroll in the Marines for WWII and flew combat (Corsairs) in the Pacific. Luckily, he had the foresight to know that my days spent with my Commodore 64 were probably a better investment than flying lessons. Besides, once Microsoft Flight Simulator came out, who really needed lessons (hehe). …but was he ever right! I’d still love to learn how to fly someday — maybe I can bug my buddy Stephen who bought a plane, but doesn’t know how to fly yet (haha) — but for now I’m happy just being a passenger.

Being a passenger is something that I’ve been doing a lot of the last couple years. Now that I’ve left Microsoft to start Telligent Systems I was hoping to travel a little less. That was supposed to happen (at least in theory), but here I am at 12:30 AM packing for another trip. Last week it was Montreal, Houston, and Austin and now Amsterdam.

No complaints though, I love to travel! I just thought it might be fun to blog about my roadwarrior gear and what I consider the ‘essentials’:

• iPod – 10GB only because I’m all about the ‘deal’ and bought an open box that someone else had returned; I saved a bundle. I’m not a Mac fan. In fact, as much as I love looking at the Mac when I go into a store using a Mac drives me absolutely nuts. That said I LOVE my iPod. Form, function, battery life and besides it just looks cool!
• Blackberry 7320 – A battery that never seems to drain, getting emails and being able to reply to them from anywhere, and a built-in phone, calendar, and address book that all syncs with Outlook makes this my ‘can’t leave home without it’ device. Negative, it runs Java. Someday it will be perfect and run managed code, but for now I’m content with just using it and not developing for it.
• IBM Thinkpad T40i – After 6+ years of Toshibas at Microsoft I surveyed the usual cast of characters (non-MSFT presenters) that I see at every conference. I now see why they have a Thinkpad — after having a brand new Toshiba breakdown on me 3 times over the last 6 months I was at Microsoft. It’s solid, fast, light, and super-swappable. Love it.
• Tumi Laptop Backback – I travel as light as possible and prefer to have my laptop on my back instead of a shoulder bag. The Tumi backpack is great. It fits under just about any airline seat and has enough organization and space to house all the other stuff. Again an example of always looking for the ‘deal’ I haggled my way down to a 1 year old version of this backpack for about 1/3 the retail cost — new they’re really too pricey.
• Targus Universal Power Adapter – One power adapter that is modular enough to support various power inputs and output cabling for laptops and other devices for US and European power.
• 5 foot Ethernet Patch Cable – Never know when you’re going to need it, but always handy to have.
• Microsoft Laptop Mouse – So nice…
• Pad of paper – or at least until I buy a tablet Slate. Both Marcie and Julia helped me see the Tablet PC light at DevTeach.
• 50 Business Cards – Never know when someone wants more info on Telligent Systems 🙂
• 3 foot USB Patch Cable – Again, always useful.
• Retractable RJ-45 Phone Cable – Haven’t used it in a while, but still carry one just in case.
• 64 MB USB drive – So, so useful. I use this on just about every trip I go on.
• CDs – Backups of all PPTs I’ve ever presented and some others that I like to reference (with Demos included)
• CD copy of last laptop backup – just in case something goes horribly wrong
• Passport/Hotel/Car/Airline program cards

That’s it. I do throw some other stuff into the bag occasionally. Such as spare laptop batteries or the chargers for the iPod or Blackberry, but only for 3+ day trips. Of course clothes too, but I’ll spare you the details there 😀

What don’t I take? No hardcopy reading material, such as books and magazines. Too much weight and usually not as interesting as you orignally thought — or you just read it faster. It’s easy to throw a magazine away, but lugging a 5+ lbs book around…

I’ve been working a lot lately on my laptop and I use the built-in eraser head mouse pointer; I just cannot stand the touchpad. After too many days my right-index finger will begin to ache — as it’s doing now — from overuse. So I thought I’d look this condition up and when I didn’t find one I decided to invent my own ‘condition’:

mousepointeritis (mouspointritis) a condition caused by repetitive use of an eraser-head mouse pointer as commonly found on laptops.

The sad part about this is rather putting my laptop down I just switch to a different finger for the mousepointer/eraserhead!

mousepointeritis… my contribution to Google — we’ll see how long it takes to get indexed 🙂

A couple of people have asked me what my post-Microsoft plan is and whether or not I plan to stay actively involved in the .NET developer community — resounding YES!

A dream of mine has always been to start my own consulting/software company, I love technology and I love helping people with technology so it seemed a natural fit. Working at Microsoft for nearly 6 years was definitely part of that plan. I wanted to learn from the best and for me that meant getting a job at the best possible software company and learning their business.

<tangent>
Working at Microsoft was definitely an eye-opening experience. Microsoft is run in a very bottom’s up manner – I’ve recently been reading the book First, Break All the Rules… and it amazes me how many of the recommended culture/management styles are embodied in the Microsoft culture. Microsoft is an idea incubator with hundreds if not thousands of small-sized internal businesses. I’ll post some more later about my experiences as a Microsoft employee and the culture.
</tangent>

About 18 months ago I decided it was time to start thinking about leaving Microsoft and pursuing my dream. I’m big on goal setting and when I first joined the company my goal was 5 years and the re-evaluate. It was a tough decision; there was no reason for me to want to leave in fact there was more reasons to stay! But I followed my dream and decided to pull the trigger. The first step was moving to Dallas, TX June of 2003 where I was introduced to the world of telecommuting (read: working from home); oddly enough the challenge here was that I never had to leave work — loved it!

While all this was going on I also started writing out my business plan, started seeking financing, and started chatting with a couple of people about what my plans were — mainly just trying out different ideas to see what peoples reactions were. The hardest part about getting everything started? Picking a name! It took me nearly 6 months to finally pick the name »telligentsystems.

May 31st was my last day at my 2nd favorite company (Telligent now being my new favorite) …now a little on what we do (note, www.telligentsystems.com launches July 1):

»telligentsystems
Telligent Systems, Inc. is a solutions company with unique expertise and knowledge of the Microsoft .NET Platform. We offer developer guidance, architecture, design, and implementation services for enterprise organizations migrating to or already using the Microsoft .NET Platform. While we take great pride in our engineering abilities, our core value and driving vision is to provide our customers with beyond their expectations service and care.

We believe in a high-touch relationship driven business coupled with on-demand services. We deliver value by providing our customers with exceptional service, advice, guidance, and products as they apply technology to accomplish their organization’s goals and vision.

Beyond simply having beyond your expectations customer service, we also like to pride ourselves in the predictable nature of what we do. It’s what helps makes us different from other technology companies or as we like to say: Exceptional service. Predictable Results.

My new email address is rhoward@telligentsystems.com.