Satter Ramblings

New Year Resolution - Update

I normally don't go political but this just made me mad as hell. So I am asking my readers to make a New Year's Resolution to write your Congress and Senate representatives. The record companies are now going to try and get just the act of ripping a CD declared illegal!

HP EX475 MediaSmart Home Server

Most people have heard of Windows Home Server. This new OS is made specifically to be a server for the home, home office or small business. I have not had anytime to do anything with this new technology. Santa decided our home needed one though and yesterday a new HP EX475 MediaSmart Home Server showed up at the door.

Another new record 12 million rows

Rob Tiffany has given the Windows Mobile development community a Christmas present - 12 million rows syncing an hour on his test rack. The interesting part of the whole thing is that this is using off the shelf computers.

Solid State Drives

Over the last year a quiet revolution has been brewing - solid state drives, SSD. If you have been in an electronics store lately you have seen flash drives of up to 8gb. Prices range from under $10 for a gig to mid 200s for 8gig. Now look at that I can have 8gb flash drive for $250 bucks. Put enough of those together and I could have a sizable hard drive.

Creating Beautiful UIs

The Compact Framework while small still has a very rich feature set. This includes all the components you need to build a really stunning UI similar to the iPhone.

Paperless Flying

With little fanfare the TSA and Continental started piloting using totally electronic tickets using your cell phone or PDA. Of course I just had to try it out today. I sent the boarding pass to my email and was off to the airport.