Ever since I started at Infragistics, I had been working in the User Experience Group (under the Evangelism umbrella) primarily with WPF & WinForms.  As some of you know, I wasn't too fond with WPF at the beginning :) but now I love it.  [Shameless Plug:  Have you checked out Tangerine?  See my blog post about it.]

I have taken a new position now as what is usually referred to as the Configuration Manager (HR Title:  Configuration and Process Improvement Engineer.)

As some of you know, I have been working with Team Foundation Server since pre-beginning (is that a word?) like during the Betas.  [Strolls down memory lane... Anyone remember the Beta 2 to Beta 3 upgrade? whew... Ed K. remembers that day with the 3-hour phone call from the TFS Product Team.  Those were the days. I got a cool TFS All Stars shirt from it though!]  I digress.  Infragistics has decided to adopt TFS and planning to migrate pretty much all of our separate systems to it.  So, that's what I'm doing now in the Engineering department!  Although I'll be missing doing WPF and Evangelism work, I'm pretty excited about getting to do TFS stuff full-time.

If you were at Grant and I's talk at Boston ReMix or my talk at Tulsa Tech Fest, you got the preview of a community WPF application that we're working on to gather data from TFS and replace our Release Status Wall.  It's basically an application to visualize your release process.  As soon as we get something ready to preview, I'll definitely post up on here.  So I get to put my love of both WPF and TFS together!  Grant's a God-send when it comes to making applications look great. I'm really blessed to be working for a company that has a dedicated Visual Design team... We have 5 dedicated Visual Designers now... wow.

Another one of my goals with our new system of tracking development data is to provide more transparency to our customers in regard to feature tracking, bugs, etc.  I think it's important (as a previous customer) to be able to have that kind of transparency.  I'm thinking something along the line of Microsoft's Connect website.

So I look forward to being able to talk more about TFS and coming out with some exciting tools and information.  Don't worry, I still do WPF development too so you'll still see me from time to time blogging about it and speaking.  I just finished up a WPF magazine article yesterday even :)

BTW... I'll be in DevConnections next week in Las Vegas doing some WPF Evangelism stuff so be sure to hit me up if you'll be in town!

Ed B.

I switched from Sprint to AT&T as my cell phone carrier recently. Why? Sprint's Customer Service Sucks!... I will leave it at that. So far AT&T is awesome. I picked up the BlackJack as my new phone. This phone is really for the working professional, I got the unlimited data plan so I am able to read email, cruise the Internet, IM, Google Map, monitor my stocks and use my phone as a modem. Life is really great with this phone.

If you are looking for a great work phone, then I would recommend the BlackJack.

Ed K.

This weekend we had our annual "4th of July Paintball War" at my Dad's place. This year we had about 12 people playing, we divided the teams up by age, everyone 27 and under on team 1, everyone over 27 on team 2. If your wondering....I was on team 2 with the old farts.

The reason I am posting this is because something different happened this year during the big war.... I ending up having Surgery. I fell in a cactus patch and one of the cactus needles went into my wrist down to my tendon.  I had to go to the ER and then they put me in surgery to removed the 2 inch cactus needle.

I had no idea Cactus could cause so much damage.... and be so expensive lol

3 Days after Surgery:

 

Ed K.

I have downloaded and installed Safari 3 Beta on my laptop today. I am not a Browser Guru, I just want to make sure our site looks pretty :)

Ed K. 

Several people who had attended TechEd 2007 in Orlando, Florida last week had the opportunity to see the shuttle launch.  It's pretty awesome because they don't happen all of the time.  A group of us who had stayed for the weekend decided to head out to Cape Canaveral for the event.  We made our stakeout for about five hours and played cards but I have to tell you it was totally awesome.  It was extremely bright too!  I don't have the most awesome camera in the world but got some pretty cool shots.

Oh yeah - Congrats to Ed K on passing the TFS exam!  I guess I'll have to go take it now too

Ed B.

So it's been known by the other Ed and few choice co-workers... but I'm moving to New Jersey.  Somewhat scary (considering the movers are coming in T-minus ONE WEEK!) and the fact that I know no one in New Jersey except the great people I'm working with.

Oh yeah, I didn't say who I was working with, did I?  I have the privilege to join the Infragistics team!  I'm going to be starting out as the Best Practices Engineer.  Awesome title huh?  Not as cool as say... Codemunicator; but we'll work on it!

It is sad to be leaving Ed K after working together for so long... But we've decided to continue the branding and work together still in the future with our shared interests (what exactly are they?)  Ed's a Data Guy and I'm a UI Guy.... how does that work out?  Well that's what's been so great about our partnership.  I LOVE working with Ed.  He's everything I'm not!  I'm not afraid to take my stupid "Ed my query is taking too long, what's wrong?" questions to him!  (And it's always funny when he brings his GUI's that have like text boxes all over the places with different sizes and not even lined up - you know which ones I'm talking about! Then he asks "There's nothing wrong with it - it's beautiful!)  HA HA :)

How did it all begin?  Well... at the Tulsa Tech Fest in October, Ed K, Tim and I joined Caleb  and the rest of the speakers out to have drinks.  Did I mention how great the group of speakers were?  Anyhow, so I'm sitting with the guys, Ambrose, and Shaun Walker and we're just talking and somehow we start talking about UI or something... after a couple of drinks of course!  I just gave my spiel about UI and if you haven't ever heard it before, then just keep watching for posts; I talk about it all the time!  (Tim and Ed K. are sworn to secrecy about some of the stories that night!)  I stalled for a while since it was the middle of a huge deployment at the client I was at (and still am.)  But seriously... it was a crazy idea for me at the time to move from Texas to New Jersey; a place I had never actually been before.  It's not like I was afraid of the East Coast (I lived/worked in DC for a while a couple of years ago.)  It's just that... well... OK, so I started to get rid of the reasons why I shouldn't move.  I'd like to thank Ambrose for bothering me for several weeks to send my resume to him!  Without it, I wouldn't have come to my senses to accept the position that is most perfect for me.

Visiting Jersey and Infragistics was a lot of fun!  Wait did I just say that?  Seriously, the interviews were fun.  I really enjoyed the talks and the more I was the there the more I knew that I needed to be there.  Great People, Great Environment, Great Job...  I really couldn't ask for more and before I left the building I knew I just needed to figure out how to get through the obstacles (which I did.)  I will be working alongside a ton of great people.  I already told you about Ambrose but if you haven't ever met Jason Beres... wow! Quite the character also.  Being surrounded by really great people who are passionate about the presentation layer is something I know will just help my improve my skills.

I'm having to put a couple of my personal development projects on a hold for right now... I'll pick them back up when I get settled and actually find some friends :)

So I've pretty much three working days left.  It looks like I'm spending the entire time boroughing through the red tape of the Integration Lab to prove that Click-Once deployments are really not.

Now for those of you who always ask me about the "Telerik vs. Infragistics" questions and my opinions about each release from the companies, I have always done my best to stay objective and I plan to.... with reason of course!  There are things about both company's control suites that I love but anyone who has talked to me before knows that I prefer the Infragistics toolset over Telerik any day.  I'm hoping to take what I know about the different companies and make the Infragistics toolset that much better!

Hope everyone has had a Happy Holidays and wish everyone a great new year!  I'll post my new Infragistics blog whenever I get it set up....

Take care,

Ed B.

I usually do not blog about movies but this is definitely an exception. I grew up watching the "Rocky" saga, I am a die hard fan and seriously look at Rocky as an idol. For years there had been rumors of a Rocky 6 being written but never did I see anything; I felt robbed at not getting a final chapter in the life of the Italian Stallion; I am now satisfied :).

The movie was overall great. The story could have used a little more work to fill in some gaps after Rocky V but it was still a very riveting story line. The acting was good, Sylvester Stallone delivered a realistic character and still had the good 'ol accent we have all grown to love and mock. I was displeased with the absence of a few key characters but surprised at the reentry of some very obscure characters. As you know, the movie always has a big fight scene that the story builds up too but I did not like the camera angles and feel of the frame for the first few rounds, it was kinda like watching boxing on TV, which they have done this in all the movies but this one just took it overboard and lost the movie feeling. During the last rounds they use to much mise en scène, they tried to hard to bring a psychological unity to each frame set. The movie ends a bit different than you would think but, its the final movie, so I expected that. I was pleased with the ending and felt closure with the Rocky chapters. I bid a farewell to Rocky, I have enjoyed sharing in the moments of his climb to fame, fall into retirement and rise in achievement to become a lasting legacy in the hearts of the American people.

I don't want to ruin the movie so I will say no more. Drop your 9 bucks and watch this movie, you will love it :) !

I give the movie two enthusiastic thumbs up! I can't wait to round out my Rocky DVD collection with the last.

  Rocky (1976)                           Rocky II (1979)                         Rocky III (1982)       
   

  Rocky IV (1985)                         Rocky V (1990)                         Rocky Balboa (2006)

Ed K.

Well, as you can see I did not post what I was learning at the IAF training, this is because the subject in which we were taught is sensitive information that we cannot share with others outside our organization. The training was awesome and really taught me about how to align IT with Business needs. This is always a touchy subject with most developers because they do not think that IT is bought in soon enough during the project inception. I understand that and definitely have felt the burn of that scenario. The IAF provides an outstanding way in which to address that common concern elegantly. I look forward to attending the advance classes that are offered. For now, that's it, all I can say.

Ed K.

The DotNetRocks show "Live from Tulsa TechFest 2006", show number 201, has been posted. This is one of the best shows I have heard in a while. Not just because "The Eds" are on it, but because of the humor and wide variety of people interview. Caleb Jenkins jokes, David Walkers references and Bill Vaughn's thoughts are a  few of the great momonents in the show. You can catch "The Eds" at minute 13. We had the opportunity to do a plug at the end of our talk so, we Bragged about  our employer Sogeti USA (a Capgemini Group company.) 

Download the show here.

Thanks for interviewing us Carl and Richard! We love the show and are huge fans!

Ed K.

If your working in HealthCare with BizTalk odds are you have a solution for the 837. The 837 is the standard for a HealthCare Claim. There are three different flavors of the 837, Dental, Professional and Institutional. There are many differences between these formats, impeticular, the beginning name of each node, TS837Q3 for Institutional, TS837Q1 for professional and TS837Q2 for Dental. The differences I speak of are very subtle. The one I want to share is the a node in the 2300 segment that we currently use to store a unique ID which we call the BizTalkID; it is how we track claims as we send it to different vendors for repricing. I am not saying that is a best practice but its what we have to deal with in the current BizTalk solution we have adopted.

Listed below is the node and its attributes on an Institutional claim:

<TS837Q3_2300_REF_ClaimIdentificationNumberForClearinghousesAndOtherTransmissionIntermediaries TS837Q3_2300_REF01__ReferenceIdentificationQualifier="D9" TS837Q3_2300_REF02__ValueAddedNetworkTraceNumber="02397SC05232604" />

Listed below is the node and its attributes on an Professional Claim:

<TS837Q1_2300_REF_ClaimIdentificationNumberForClearingHousesAndOtherTransmissionIntermediaries TS837Q1_2300_REF01__ReferenceIdentificationQualifier="D9" TS837Q1_2300_REF02__ClearinghouseTraceNumber="03497SC05318645" />

Can you spot the difference's.... besides the Q1 and Q3? That's right they are subtle.

The first and most oblivious is REF02 segment. One is ValueAddedNetworkTraceNumber and the other is ClearinghouseTraceNumber. The difference that has bitten us time and time again in XSL Transforms and XPaths is the node name. One has a capital H and the other has a lower case h.

TS837Q3_2300_REF_ClaimIdentificationNumberForClearinghousesAndOtherTransmissionIntermediaries
TS837Q1_2300_REF_ClaimIdentificationNumberForClearingHousesAndOtherTransmissionIntermediaries

Why is this? Their both are based off the 837 spec.......The answer is, who knows. Maybe different people were in charge of each sub type of the 837 and did not communicate. Just be careful and don't assume that they are the same.

Ed K.

HP Pavilion dv9035nr Notebook PC. Here is some specs:

• The next-generation Intel® Core™2 Duo processor is based on the innovative Intel® Core™ microarchitecture, so it runs faster and is more energy-efficient for cooler, quieter operation
• 17" WXGA+ high-definition widescreen display with BrightView technology and 1440 x 900 resolution
• 160GB Serial ATA hard drive capacity (two 80GB; 5400 rpm)
• NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 graphics with 256MB discrete video memory; S-video TV-out
• 2GB DDR2 memory for multitasking power
• Built-in HP Pavilion 1.3MP WebCam with microphone makes it easy to chat with and send video mail to family and friends 
• QuickPlay music and DVD buttons; HP mobile remote and ear bud headphones included
• Hewlett-Packard ExpressCard analog TV tuner with Media Center remote
• 5-in-1 digital media reader supports Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO and xD-Picture Card
• IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface and 4 high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast digital video, audio and data transfer
• Built-in 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector; 56 Kbps high-speed modem; Expansion Port 3 connector
• Long-lasting HP Imprint high-gloss finish with inlaid wave design; backlit media control panel
• Weighs 7.8 lbs. and measures 1.6" thin for portable power; lithium-ion battery and AC adapter
• Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system preinstalled; software package included with Sonic DigitalMedia Plus, muvee autoProducer DVD Edition with Burning, HP Photosmart Premier and more

I am really loving this laptop. When searching for a laptop, I decided that I wanted a laptop that was powerful enough to serve as a desktop replacement and be able to handle the advanced graphics of Vista. I am hardly ever at home...so it made sense to get something that I could develop on anywhere and at anytime. This machine certainly fit the bill for my needs; I can develop, play games and watch movies all without having to worry about performance and quality. O ya, almost forgot you can't beat the price tag for this beast of a laptop......$1499 at your local BestBuy.

Ed K.

Tim Rayburn of TimRayburn.net is trying to drum up some interest from the DFW area for a BizTalk Special Interest Group (SIG). This is a great idea seeing the need for BizTalk is becoming more relevant for business and there is little talent out there to guide and nurture solid BizTalk solutions for companies. If you are interested please visit his blog and shoot him an email.... Tell him "The Ed's" sent ya. Ed B and I will of course become members of this SIG since we love BizTalk :)

Ed K. & Ed B.

It's inevitable... members of a development team are going to work really long hours.  Especially around crunch time!!!  We all know how it is!

It's both fun and frustrating to work at an organization who is growing in their software development lifecycle, process framework, and project management processes.  Almost everyone I have talked to describes places that have a less than perfect process in place for effective project management.  Even when there are policies in place, some of the times it's not even followed!

Has this ever happened to anyone?:  A resource is allocated for three different projects at a given time that have a total of nearly 90 hours of work in any given week?  And... that resource is also assigned with application management for production defects?

One of the things that makes a project run smoother is better resource allocation.  The critical path gets affected when resources are being shared between projects and application maintenance.  It's one of the "risks" that should be documented!

WARNING:  I am not a project manager.  This opinion is definitely coming from the development side of things :) I feel so bad for project managers at times.  I know that they care about just making sure that the project has a "green" light at all times and that everything will be finished on time (or early) with no defects!  I'm proud to say that I'm one of the members of the development staff that definitely strives for those same goals.

So... until later... keep being that Super Developer Resource!

Ed B.

Don't you just hate it when your programming partner works on a segment of code that
you depend on and he goes and makes a typo and checks it in, then it takes you 2
days to figure out the problem. This ones for you Ed B.