I know, this is not related to ASP.NET, Silverlight, game development or anything I normally blog about. I just wanted to share a site I found the other day, as it has a pretty sweet concept and some nice graphics.

http://customhorror.net is the site I’m talking about.

The guy behind this, David, is making a cute/funny/sad/angry/etc. monster, EVERYDAY! And believe it or not, but most of them are pretty good. You can then buy them on T-shirts, get them framed, on batches, on cups etc. You can even get the EPS file and use it for commercial use with a small license fee.

Check it out, it a pretty cool little project :)

- Enjoy!

I just saw a discussion on my WebMonitor application on Codeplex, that a Chris Blankenship had asked me some questions and wrote an article on how he had improved my application.

His observation is really good. Normally WebMonitor uses a GET request to see if the web site is up. The reason I did that originally were because, as Chris also writes, that I sometimes need to look at the actual HTML on a particular web page.
What Chris has done is to change this to a HEAD request, as it saves data traffic and is more friendly to the server. In his article he writes how he did that, which is actually pretty easy.

Go and read his article, it pretty good and take a look at WebMonitor of cause :)

I will try to find the time to include this fix and make a new release.

- Enjoy!

I have been quiet for a while now. This is due to a very busy schedule at work and privately. In the next couple of weeks I should be able to finish some of the things I'm working on at the moment and get back to developing Silverlight games! I mean, http://silverarcade.com is just around the corner, so I better hurry up.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to hear all the new Silverlight stuff from MIX09 and will try to follow the Scott Gu keynote live, if possible (the time fits really bad for me), else I need to see the recording, which I hope will be up very fast after it took place. If you didn't knew it, you should be able to follow the keynotes live from here: http://live.visitmix.com

- Enjoy!

I just found these really nice tips from Scott Hanselman himself. It's sort of a "check-list" for what you need to know before going to the stage.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TipsForPreparingForATechnicalPresentation.aspx

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/11TopTipsForASuccessfulTechnicalPresentation.aspx

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TechnicalPresentationsBePreparedForAbsoluteChaos.aspx 

Enjoy - and thank Scott for the tips :)

I have heard about podcast for a long time and of cause knew what it was, but if you should be in doubt here goes:

According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, a podcast is "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player," but the generally accepted definition has expanded to include video as well as audio. Originally derived from a combination of "broadcasting" and "iPod ™," the word was declared "word of the year" when it was added to the dictionary at the end of 2005.

I have never owned an Ipod untill I brought my iPhone 3G this summer. At that point I, sadly, HAD to install iTunes. As you all know iTunes is a virus on a PC, but if I wanted my iPhone 3G to work at all, I had no choice. Therefore iTunes got installed.

As I now were the owner of an “ipod”, formed as an iPhone, I could start look more into podcast. Actually it all started when I found the Sparkling Client – Silverlight podcast by searching for “silverlight” inside iTunes Store. I subscribed for the podcast and got them all on my iPhone 3G. On my way to work the next day, on my bike cycle, I started the first podcast. When I arrived at work 15 minutes later, I realized that I had actually learned something while doing something simple as riding my bike, which I do 25-30 min. two times a day(to and from work).

This is were it started to get very interesting for me. Instead of listening to Ozzy, Metallica, Plain White T’s etc. to and from work, I could now learn something real, while doing something trivial as riding my bike. When I say real, I mean something I can actually use at my job or on my hobby projects, and not just the “lastest news” and “weather” in the normal FM radio (which the iphone 3G actually don’t have :P).

So at this point I became wiser, times two. I learned that listening to podcast could actually give me some knowledge, while I’m doing other trivial things. I also learned something about templating in silverlight as Jesse Liberty were on this podcast :) 

Nothing new

Yes, your right, this is nothing new and you all knew it all along. I know. I just learned that now and are now listening to podcast when I do the dishes, the laundry etc. Generally task that I don’t need to think to much about is great for listening to podcasts.

Great podcasts I enjoy at the moment

As already stated, I listen to the Sparkling Client – Silverlight podcast. This is the only podcast I have been able to find which is only about Silverlight. If you know others, please let me know.

Hanselsminutes Podcast is also a podcast I enjoy alot at the moment. It not only about silverlight, but generally interesting stuff for a developer. Besides that, these podcasts is actually very funny. It’s seems that Scott Hanselman is a funny guy by nature, which just makes it all much better. See for instance his BabeSmash session at PDC2008 which shows his own “Babysmash application” but also gives an overview of the .NET framework.