Saturday, December 22, 2007
My son has a school video project and when I tried to load my copy of Pinacle 10 on Vista it warned me of incompatibility issues. I decided to pursue something Vista compatible and Adobe Elements looked like a nice option. Unfortionately it crashes so much that we can't even use it. I am going to try it on XP, but if that doesn't do it for us then we may be forced to live with Pinnacle 10 on Vista for a bit. I dont feel like dumping more money into products at this point. Surely it has to work better than Premiere 4! I expected better from Adobe. How could this product pass QA?
12/22/2007 8:40:47 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  |  Trackback
 Monday, July 02, 2007
When hosting Google Video's on your site it can be handy to pull back the thumbnail for the video image. Currently there is no API for doing this so I wrote a method to do it for me. First I retrieve the RSS feed for the video. Then I pull out the thumbnail path from that feed.

        private static string GetGoogleThumnailPath(string contentID)
        {
            string path = null;
            // Fetch the RSS for the video
            WebRequest req = HttpWebRequest.Create("http://video.google.com/videofeed?docid=" + contentID);
            req.Method = "GET";
            WebResponse response = req.GetResponse();
            XmlTextReader stream = new XmlTextReader(response.GetResponseStream());
            XPathDocument doc = new XPathDocument(stream);
            XPathNavigator nav = doc.CreateNavigator();
            XmlNamespaceManager manager = new XmlNamespaceManager(nav.NameTable);
            manager.AddNamespace("media", "http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/");
            XPathNodeIterator iterator = nav.Select("/rss/channel/item/media:group/media:thumbnail/@url", manager);
            while (iterator.MoveNext())
            {
                path = iterator.Current.Value;
            }

            return path;
        }

We used this code on the Pets Best Community site. By the way if you are interested in Pet Insurance you can use my Promo Code: CISAKSON5 for a 5% discount. If you do not see the box to enter it on the Get a Quote page then it probably has automatically been applied through one of my links.
7/2/2007 5:25:46 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  |  Trackback
 Tuesday, October 03, 2006

I am leaving the country and will not be able to use my 2 airline vouchers.  If you can use them throw a bid at them over on EBay!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140038192577

10/3/2006 9:42:21 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  |  Trackback
 Tuesday, September 26, 2006

In a few weeks I will be starting a new job in Germany.  As a result I have a couple large items I need to sell.  Contact me if you are interested.

1997 Suburban 1500 : 82,500 miles - $7750 (Boise)


See photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14596724@N00/sets/72157594301357769/detail/

Excellent Condition
Seats 9
4WD shift on the fly
Electric everything
Rear air/heat!
CD / Cassette

Beautiful 2066 sq. ft. house : $229,000


MLS ID: 98263218

4+ bedrooms
3 full bathrooms
excellent neighborhood
walk to schools / parks
cheap utilities

3668 N. Tee Ave, Boise, ID  83704

9/26/2006 7:52:42 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  |  Trackback
 Monday, February 14, 2005

Jim Blizzard is moving to Florida.  He will go on record as the best Microsoft employee to regularly visit Boise.  His support of the Boise .NET developers user group was outstanding.  More importantly he has become a friend and I will miss him.  As I read Rory's post this morning I was reminded again how great he is.  Microsoft, if you are listening, the role of Developer Evangelist is a fantastic thing and Jim Blizzard has done you very well.  Take care of him and let him help you improve the program accross the planet.

Rory mentioned sailing in Florida.  How about a nerd cruise?  I have never been to Florida, but now I look forward to paying a visit one day.

Wishing you the best Jim!

2/14/2005 11:32:04 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  |  Trackback
 Thursday, January 29, 2004
My first Portland nerd dinner
1/29/2004 11:00:34 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  |  Trackback
 Saturday, January 17, 2004
It fits me!
1/17/2004 4:33:39 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  |  Trackback