I get approached about jobs all the time, I very seldom post them on my blog, but this one sounded really cool.

It’s IN LA, and it’s a funded startup in the Social Networking space.

Company Info:

The client is an entrepreneurially driven, independent venture that is launching a new, web-centric model for the distribution of all manner of entertainment products -- DVDs, CDs, videogames and books, both in shrink-wrapped and digital form.  It is being architected on a rich Internet application software platform and is expected to offer a million-title deep library of product as well as a range of exclusive products from A-level talent.  The site combines commerce and social networking elements to support a model that feeds into people's natural behaviors to talk and proselytize about the artists, films, games and books about which they are most passionate.  Our client is advised by the brightest and most influential minds in the technology and entertainment space including former employees of Creative Artists, Idealab!, AOL, Gap and many others.

Job Description:

Work as the lead developer of the core engineering team to design and develop new applications and features from the ground up. Primarily responsible for developing within a .NET environment and developing code given product design and user interaction specifications.

Qualifications:

• 6-8 years experience as a developer
• Strong knowledge of C#, ASP.NET, Visual Studio
• Solid foundation in n-tier, Business Objects, Design Patterns and OOP
• Experience with Agile Software Developer (including Extreme Programming)
• Experience with Biztalk, Commerce Server and IIS6 highly desired
• Strong knowledge of web service (SOA, WSDL, SOAP)
• Must be a driven self-starter that is comfortable working in a start-up environment and seeing the “BIG” picture
• Excellent communication and analytical skills
• Quick learner and can-do attitude
• Comfortable working in a casual fun environment desiring a competitive salary and great benefits!

Candidates MUST have hands-on expertise in architecting, prioritizing, analyzing, and developing a technical roadmap for a large consumer Internet company.   Must have prior experience in a major ecommerce, search, social network, and community building Internet site in a hands-on technical role.

The client is led by veteran Internet and Entertainment entrepreneurs and is backed by a leading venture capitalist.

If you’re interested DON’T EMAIL ME !!!!

Email Matt at matt.hildebrandt@futurestep.com

A few links for migrating from Classic ASP to ASP.NET came through my inbox and I though some folks might find them usefull.

1.       http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/aa336573.aspx

2.       http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa479019.aspx

3.       http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms973813.aspx

4.       http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/aa336623.aspx

As a Microsoft shareholder I’ve been opposed to Mono.

Not as technology, but as theft of Microsoft’s Technology. [Personal opinion, not a statement of Microsoft’s Position.]

Now, before the attack start – just Google Me. I’m as active in Open Source Developer Technologies as I am in Closed Source.

For developers who seek to actively avoid Microsoft technology, I respect their choice, so (and ESPECIALLY where Mono is concerned.)

1. Stop being mad at Microsoft for choosing not to ship products on Linux.
2. Do YOUR OWN thing on Linux or cross-platform, but don’t try to do OUR thing on Linux.

So, philosophically, I think Mono is both theft and hypocritical.

(Ok, NOW you can attack.)

But, politics aside – you really gotta give Miguel de Icaza big credit. He’s keeps doing really significant stuff.

Gnome (of which he’s the co-founder) kicks butt and has surpassed KDE as the popular Linux Desktop, Mono, whatever one thinks of the politics, is significant (and amazing when you consider the size of the development team), and NOW………

MOONLIGHT

http://www.mono-project.com/MoonlightShots

Quite an accomplishment.

Ever wonder what that new project name at Microsoft stands for ?

Ever get confused about what something you learned about “turned into” at release time.

There is a Wikipedia page !!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_codenames

Shortcut to Sys.UI.DomElement.getElementById - gets a reference to the DOM element, same as document.getElementById

 $clearHandlers(FormElement) 

Shortcut to Sys.UI.DomEvent.clearHandlers

 $removeHandler(FormElement) 

Shortcut to Sys.UI.DomEvent.removeHandler

RIAs mean passing data around and XML is one of the big flavors for doing this.

The XML editing tools in Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 are really good, and are included in all of the VS SKUs (Express, Standard, and Pro).

Here is some good information on using them.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302298.aspx

http://www.lovettsoftware.com/blogs/blog.aspx?id=57

http://blogs.msdn.com/kaevans/archive/2006/02/20/535578.aspx

Do you find great samples on CodeProject.com ?

This cool utility for VS 2005 lets you browse Code Project directly in Visual Studio 2005. When you click on a link that would normally download a zip file, it asks you instead if you'd like to open the sample up using the Code Project Browser. If you say yes, the add-in will download the file, unzip it to a base "My documents\My Code Project Samples" directory, then load it directly. It also provides a sidebar where you can view, reload and delete all of the projects you've downloaded. Finally, it allows you to keep Code Project favorites, just like any respectable web browser would.

http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/cpbrowser.asp

Kirk has an interesting blog post on debugging Javascript (from a PHP page no less) in Visual Studio 2008 here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/kaevans/archive/2007/08/10/javascript-debugging-in-visual-studio-2008.aspx

I’ve been building a VPC (Virtual PC Hard Drive) for the Microsoft Developer Evangelists in the field. It’s a Windows Vista Ultimate installation with a reasonably complex collection of PHP demos.

When you install Widows Vista you have 30 days before you have to Activate Windows.

I built the VPC more than 30 days ago !!!

Today I finally got around to finalize the details and my 30 day trial has expired. BUMMER !

When I started up Windows Vista, I get the message “This installation of Windows is not Authentic” (or something close to that).

Now – if I wanted to extend the 30 day trial for another 30 days (Up to 120 days total) and I thought to do it BEFORE the first 30 days expired, it’s not a difficult thing to do. But, once you are PAST the 30 days, you don’t get the Windows interface (not Start Menu so no command prompt.)

When you click on the link that lets you ruin Windows Vista in “Limited Functionality” all you get is a browser that takes you to a web site where you can buy Windows Vista. There is NO desktop and if you close the browser Windows Vista shuts down.

Now, I don’t want to Activate Windows Vista because this VPC is going out to hundreds of folks inside Microsoft. (And I wanna KEEP my job!)

But, I also don’t want to have to start over and recreate my VPC from scratch.

So, here is how I managed to do to extend the trial period and save myself a few days of necessary work.

In the Internet Explorer window that opens to take you to a site where you can purchase Windows Vista….

Do this:

When you hit return you will get here:

Then, navigate to the C:\Windows\System32 directory and find the cmd.exe file in Explorer.

Right Click on cmd.exe and select “Run as Administrator”.

In the command shell type: "slmgr -rearm" and hit enter.

Now – REBOOT Windows Vista Inside your VPC.

VIOLA ! – You have another 30 days to try out Windows Vista.

Note: extending the evaluation period is not a violation of Vista's end user agreement.

In my video “How Do I Use the Cascading Drop Down Control Extender”  I demonstrate setting EnableEventValidation=”false” at the page level and mention that you can leave the default (which is true) and individually authorize client event.

Since I’ve had a number of email about this, I thought I’d comment on the issue here.

It turns out that it’s actually a bit tricky in the case of using the Cascading Drop Down Control Extender when the Drop-Down values are dynamic. (Meaning they come from a data-source where items might be added after your code is written.)

The reason is that you need to SPECIFY what values are valid for the post-back.

Example, in the Render or Pre-Render methods you could:

   ClientScript.RegisterForEventValidation( _MyList.SomeUniqueID, “Red”);

   ClientScript.RegisterForEventValidation( _MyList.SomeUniqueID, “Green”); 

   ClientScript.RegisterForEventValidation( _MyList.SomeUniqueID, “Blue”);

The issue here is the “Red”, “Green” etc.

Of course, you could pull them from the database at runtime and call RegisterForEventValidation for each value.

Rather than write about all the details I’ll point you to a pair of excellent blog postings by K. Scott Allen over at OdeToCode.com

Read HERE: http://odetocode.com/Blogs/scott/archive/2006/03/20/3145.aspx

And HERE: http://odetocode.com/Blogs/scott/archive/2006/03/21/3153.aspx

Thanks Scott! Good stuff !

These documents provide a list of new features, changes or enhancements that have been made to Silverlight since the Silverlight 1.0 Beta release (MIX release May 2007).

In addition, they provide a list of "breaking changes" which are changes that you might need to make in applications that you created using the Silverlight 1.0 Beta to make them compatible with the RC release.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb693297.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/jstegman/archive/2007/06/06/more-v-1-0-changes.aspx

ReqEx is a critical tool for use in defending your website from malicious activity as well as assuring the quality of user input.

Check out this great Regular Expression Webcast Series by Zain Naboulsi.

http://blogs.msdn.com/zainnab/pages/webcasts-page.aspx

• Every conversation is excruciatingly painful.
• You even wanna strangle the people that are on YOUR SIDE.
• When it’s over you’re left with less than you started with !!!!!

I know tech support is a hard job.

I know it’s hard to communicate from the other side of the world when my first language is your second language.

I know my patience is less than perfect (especially when I’m not getting my job done.)

But MAN OH MAN !

This week my laptop died. (A Toshiba M5)

So, I called our Help Desk (on the other side of the planet).

[Help Desk] Hello, Sir, What is your name.

[Joe] May mane is Joe,

[Help Desk] So, You’re name is Joe?

[Joe] Yes, My name is Joe.

[Help Desk] What is your email alias.

[Joe] My alias is joestag. J-O-E-S-T-A-G

[Help Desk] So, your email alias is joestag?

[Joe] Yes

[Help Desk] So that’s J-O-E-S-T-A-G

[Joe] A-yup !

Basically it went on like that for 1/2 an hour and THEN I got to tell him about my problem.

My M5 doesn’t detect any USB Devices. I’ve tried a fresh install of Vista, I’ve tried 8 different USB devices…….

[Help Desk] So, your having trouble with your USB Device, what kind is it?

[Joe] Sorry, did I mention that I’ve tried 8 different devices?

[Help Desk] Did you try re-installing Vista ?

[Joe] Um, Ya !

[Help Desk] Ok, I’ll send someone over, what building are you in?

[Joe] I’m not on campus, I’m in New3 Hampshire.

[Help Desk] I’m sorry Sir, you’ll have to take it to a Microsoft building.

[Joe] Have a nice day !!

SO ……………………………………………………………….

I called Toshiba directly and after confirming that I’m still under warranty, we went through most of the same questions as I did with the help deck (well the technical ones anyway), and they told me to take it to the nearest Toshiba service center.

1/2 away in Nashua NH, no problem.

When I got there they had good news and bad news.

The good news was that they were in fact an authorized Toshiba service center.

The bad news is that they were starting to move to a new location in a couple of days and it would be a few WEEKS until they could get to my Laptop.

[Joe] Have a nice day.

I stopped at a CompUSA on the way home and bought a new Gateway Desktop .

…. and I still have NO IDEA how to get my Toshiba Laptop Fixed !!

ARGGG…….

After 10 years with Verizon Wireless I’ve changed cell phone providers to T-Mobile.

My experience in the store was great. They guys were friendly and really interested in providing good service.

I selected these 2 devices. The T-Mobile Wing as a PDA/Phone and a Wireless Broad-Band card the Sony Ericsson GC89.

The Wing was a snap to set up and so far I LOVE IT !

While the reviews complained that it was a bit slow, I don’t think it’s bad at all. It’s faster than both the Palm Treo 700w and the VZ6700 that I had with Verizon and the device along with Windows Mobile 6 has lots of great little features.

The GC38 was a bit troublesome to set up on Widows Vista, but it’s too early to hold that against it.

While I was i at it I picked up 2 accessories.

1^st – a Plantronics Blue-tooth Explorer 330

Plantronics just makes GREAT Stuff, and this is no exception.

I’ve tried 6 or 8 Blue-tooth ear pieces in the past and hated them all. Either they didn’t stay in (or on), or they gave me a headache.

This one ROCKS ! 

It stays in, it sounds great, is easy to use and I can wear it all day and not be bothered by it. (And it lasts that long on a single charge).

I highly recommend it !!

Next, the MOTOROKR™ S9

This thing ROCKS !!!

Great sounding Blue-Tooth Stereo Headphones – WIRELESS FREEDOM !

Coupled with the Wing via Blue tooth the sound is as good as my Zune or my iPod and with the included 1gig Micro SD card and Windows Media Player from Windows Mobile 6 – I’m Rockin’

It even sounds great on the Motorcycle.

All in all – a great start to my new mobile experience.

I don’t smoke, drink (much), I don’t do drugs, but I a AM a caffeine addict. 

It’s a productivity enhancemenmt.

But, how many cups of coffee can you drink a day. Plus, my bathroom is a couple hudred yards and 2 sets of stairs away  

So…. I’ve become an energy drink fan.

I usesually get Monster or Red-Line.

But, several of the guys I worked with n the MSDN Events Team drank Bawls, which is very hard to find.

Yesterday I stopped into a CompUSA store and they had Bawls by the case ON SALE !

So now – I HAVE BAWLS in the Morning. (For the next 10 days or so anyway  )

Just use a search engine and search for Verizon Wireless Sucks and see what you get.

I wrote a blog post few years ago titles “Verizon Wireless You Suck”. Since then I’ve received several HUNDRED email and comments with people sharing similar customer service nightmares with me about Verizon.

So… Last week I was in Redmond (I live n the East Coast but my job is based on the West Coast) and my phone wouldn’t work. After 2 hours with tech support they admitted they made changes that broke my access. This happens about once a fiscal quarter.

On the flight home I read “Smart Phone and Pocket PC Magazine” which was reviewing the new Windows Mobile 6 phones they are offering.

So when I got home, I decided to get the new device and give T-Mobile a try.

So, I went to the local Verizon Wireless center and asked them to cancel my accounts. NOPE ! We can’t do that.

But they did give me account information that my PC-Card data account was still under contract.

So I called Verizon Wireless directly.

Mind you, I have 4 Verizon Wireless Lines, have been a customer for TEN years and spent @ $20,000 with them in those 10 years.

When I said, “Hi, my name is Joe Stagner,my number is 123 and I'm calling to cancel all my accounts, can you guess what they said ?

OK, we’ll charge you $350. Have a nice day. (I should have paid $175 to terminate my PC Card account but it turns out that even though all my phones were out of contract they associate the PC Card with a phone and apparently charge you double for termination, or something, he representative couldn’t really explain, but at that point I didn’t care What it cost.)

So nice to be a valued customer  

Now I know, some people have had fine experience with Verizon Wireless – just not anyone that I know.

Later – I’ll post about the great experience I had atthe T-Mobile store in town.

And as a side note – wile I was in the T-Mobile store, FOUR other people came in and opened accounts so they could drop Verizon Wireless.

Free at last, FReE AT LAST !

2 Days ago I posted about my woes trying to contact Ektron.

Well, the folks ar Ektron are REALLY connected to the developer ecosystem.

It think I’ve recieved an email from almost EVERYONE  at Extron.

I have a demo next week (that even the CTO is going to join).

I’m excited about seeing the product, it looks great – and it’s cool that theyu are so plugged in and responsive. It’s a hint that their customer service is likley to be really responsive.

I’ll update you all after the review.

Does YOUR compnay think I’m porn  ??

Send me a screen-shot !

V3 Released

===========

Finally after more than 18 months of development, umbraco v3 was released in the beginning of the summer. Yesterday, v3.0.2 was released and now v3 is rock solid stable.

It offers more than 500 improvements, including:

- Much easier install

- A true managed .NET 2.0 application

- A new stunning standard compliant WYSIWYG editor

- Support for editing content in Microsoft Word 2007

- Full support for ASP.NET AJAX

- Better overview of available packages (extensions) via a

  build-in, browsable package repository

More info on http://umbraco.org

Microsoft SoftGrid

We are expanding our capabilities and facility- moving to 1 Memorial Drive Cambridge overlooking the Charles River 9/24/2007

Job Openings in Software Development.  ( dev manager, lead test engineer, software engineers, sustaining engineers and test engineers. )

Link to jobs: [CLICK HERE]

Link for info about the product:

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid/default.mspx

Send Resumes to:

Lauren Day

Microsoft

Staffing Consultant- SoftGrid/MSD/Forefront

27 Melcher Street 3rd Floor, Boston MA 02210- moving to 1 Memorial Drive Cambridge 9/07

Direct: 617-896-5601 EST

Home office: 978-686-2234 EST

laday@microsoft.com

www.microsoft.com/careers

Wanna Blog with Scott ?????

We’re going to start adding blogs from developers like YOU to http://weblogs.asp.net

I’m going to pick 1 or 2 folks each week and get them set up with a new blog on the ASP.NET web site.

http://blogs.asp.net/YOURNAMEHERE !!!!

If you blog regularly about ASP.NET (or are ready to start), and would like to move your blog, or start your blog on weblogs.asp.net – use the contact form on this blog [Or Click Here] and introduce yourself.

Since I’m going to do this a few at a time, I(‘ll be building a list.

Priority will be given to “Inflewentials” (RD’s, MVP’s, Insiders, Existing Bloggers), but all are welcome to submit !!!!

I’ve met the Ektron guys several times at various events and they make a super product (CMS400)  – not to mention have some very cool stuff on their site.

I wanted to take a closer look at the product (ad discuss some other opportunities) so I went to their web site and used the sales department’s email alias listed on their web site.

Here’s what came back to in me:

Delivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists:

name.hidden@ektron.com

5.2.2:  Your e-mail was not delivered to all intended recipients. The recipient’s mailbox is full so they will need to delete items in order to be able to receive e-mail again. You may be able to reach the recipient with a smaller message size. 

The following organization rejected your message: n109.sc0.cp.net.

I know, I know, stuff happens, but left we forget – customers rule.

I had a discussion with my manager last week (Simon Muzio) in which he thought I was a little nuts about my email habit.

While I get about 1000 email a day – my rule of thumb is that I don’t put my head on the pillow until I can see ALL my unanswered email with out scrolling the in-box window in outlook. (Which sometimes means late nights !)

Anyway – hope someone at Ektron reads my blog  

Wanna Blog with Scott ?????

We’re going to start adding blogs from developers like YOU to http://weblogs.asp.net

I’m going to pick 1 or 2 folks each week and get them set up with a new blog on the ASP.NET web site.

http://blogs.asp.net/YOURNAMEHERE !!!!

If you blog regularly about ASP.NET (or are ready to start), and would like to move your blog, or start your blog on weblogs.asp.net – use the contact form on this blog [Or Click Here] and introduce yourself.

Since I’m going to do this a few at a time, I(‘ll be building a list.

Priority will be given to “Inflewentials” (RD’s, MVP’s, Insiders, Existing Bloggers), but all are welcome to submit !!!!

I tried to register for ISP Con today and had a great experience of WHY we need more web technology conferences.

1.) I can’t register because the registration form insists my Credit Card expiration date in invalid. (Though it works every day elsewhere.) The form has no graceful plan “B”, but does say “Contact Us: which suggesting how to do so.

2.) The “Contact Us”form won’t let me contact them (Jupiter Media) because apparently they only want to hear from people hat do not use punctuation in their email address.

3.) No-one answers their “Registration Phone” (though I did get voice mail).

I guess we still REALLY do need web technology conferences.

** Update: I very pleasant representative from Jupiter phones to let me know they are aware of some problems with the web site and will call me again when I can register.

I place VERY tempered confidence in statistics and have never been a huge fan of the Netcraft numbers as I think they are often used to make arguments that their predicate data does not support. 

Still, this is interesting.

NetCraft web server survey says …..

Microsoft continues to increase its web server market share, adding 2.6 million sites this month as Apache loses 991K hostnames.

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/08/06/august_2007_web_server_survey.html

If you read my blog you’ll know there is allot about open source that I dig !

But, I also think CIO types have a tendency to make decision based on what was on the cover of their favorite trade rag last week.

Which, is made even more troublesome by the sensationalistic pseudo-journalists that write for most of the IT News Mags out there.

So…..  I thought this was funny.