Visual Studio Crashes on Async Callback to User Control

I am working on some code for a client that involves a tabbed interface containing a User Control in each tab. This nicely separates out all of the UI logic for each of the tabs so you don't end up with one monster file with every control from every tab. Trying to be a considerate UI citizen, I am trying to populate the ListBox controls asynchronously using a BackgroundWorker.

Mac Me Baby! Day 7

I am officially up and running on this (hopefully) long and fruitful journey with my Mac. I am currently installing the Codex application developer tools on my system so I can use make. I needed it today to compile dhcpd and couldn't believe it wasn't already there. A little search through my original box and there was the original install disc.

I have had some minor problems with Virtual Box. The newest one is that I can't save new documents to the shared directory between my mac and Win7 image. It seems to be common and I will look into it later.

I had to take a screenshot. Shift-Command-3 takes a full screenshot and puts it on your desktop, Shift-Command-4 lets you select a region and does the same. I miss putting it in clipboard a bit but it's a minor issue.

If you are contemplating making the switch, go for it. I can say the water is safe and you won't be stranded. If you have made the switch. I hope that last 7-days of my experience helped you. Please feel free to comment and post feedback and I will grow these articles to hopefully be a resource for others.

Happy Mac-ing!

Mac Me Baby! Day 5

Monday was the first day back at work with the MacBook Pro after a weekend of installing software. This is trial by fire for me since there isn't much time to fix anything that has gone wrong. I moved my Dell into another bag and left it in the car for the day. Far enough away that I wouldn't chicken out and grab it at the first sign of difficulty but close enough that I could get to it in an emergency. I ran into some minor missing software, things that OpenOffice didn't handle like Microsoft Project and Microsoft Visio files I needed to reference. I was lucky that some of them were in PDF format so I could at least reference them, if not edit them.

Mac Me Baby! Day 2

Man have I been busy with this new Mac. I figured out how to turn on tap to click and the trackpad is now my best friend. I adapted to it's functions so quickly that the trackpad on my Dell is now a joke as far as functionality.

I ended up installing Sun Virtual Box, installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and got Microsoft Outlook up and running. That has always been my crutch and deal-breaker, I am an Outlook addict and it drives all of my daily activities. I have OpenOffice installed on the Mac side of things though and will do my best to stick with it for my daily office-esqe stuff.

Mac Me Baby! Day 1

I sit at the virgin screen of a new MacBook Pro with no idea what to do next. I have been a Win/PC expert since Star Trek: The Next Generation was running new episodes. I can bring up a new Windows system in my sleep.

Installing an iPhone in the Jeep Commander

I wrote this up in the Jeep Commander forum. Enjoy!

http://www.jeepcommander.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9322

Auto-Auctions: A Survival Guide (a.k.a: I bought a Jeep Commander)

I detest car dealerships. The whole experience for me is akin to using a porta-potty at a festival. You feel dirty the second you open the door and even if you get the business done successfully, you know there was a better way. I think I found it.

Oh no! My SSL Certificate Expired.

For the last few days I have been getting emails from my server to the tune of:

################# SSL Certificate Warning ################

Certificate for hostname 'myserver.example.com', in file:

/etc/pki/tls/certs/myserver.example.com.cert

The certificate needs to be renewed; this can be done

using the 'genkey' program.

Browsers will not be able to correctly connect to this

web site using SSL until the certificate is renewed.

##########################################################

Generated by certwatch(1)

which leads me to believe my certificate has expired. I logged into my site and sure enough, it expired 30-days after I created it. I don't think I have ever had a certificate with such a short life.

The IPv4 shortage isn't a hoax!

Imagine that you are starting your new business, you call up the phone company to get a new phone number and they tell you, "Sorry, there are no more phone numbers left in the whole world, we're out."

What would you do?

What would businesses do?

What would the world do?

My iPhone Car Kit

You never realize how well you have integrated technology into your life until you try to replace it. One thing I had down was my Treo 750 in my car. It had a suction mount, bluetooth GPS and charging. When I purchased my iPhone I hadn't given a lot of thought as to how I would use it in the car. I already had an iPod kit for my Pioneer stereo using Pioneer's CDIB100 iPod connection accessory. Unfortunately, Apple changed the charging method on the newest iPhones and iPods which left my car-kit able to play, but not charge. So began the project.

I thought I was pretty well set already having the iPod interface. Even the charging problem didn't bother me, I mean, how hard is it to send 5v down the USB line instead of 12v down the firewire line. It turns out... very. Luckily Scosche had a simple solution in their charging adapter. Wait, what is that in the fine print? Doesn't work with Pioneer iBus adapters including... mine?!

Well, that's not going to stop me. After doing some pin-out investigation and having nightmares about letting the magic smoke out of my beautiful new iPhone 3G, I decided it was time to come up with something custom. My first stop was the forums on theiphoneblog.com and ilounge.com. They lead me to a great little company called ProClip that makes in-car mounting for any car and any device. I liked this modular design since it would allow me to move my iPhone into my Jeep Commander when I get it this summer. The price of the rotating clip was a little steep, $100, but I decided I liked the idea of being able to orient my iPhone either direction for future turn-by-turn applications for the iPhone so I bought it and the Jeep Cherokee adapter. This mount also has a very nice pass-through adapter so you don't have to plug and un-plug your connection, it's more of a dock and it works extremely well.

My next stop was audio and power connections. This is where you get screwed. Apple has the right cable,but it's expensive to the tune of $50. That at least gets me audio out, now for charging. The XtremeMac InCharge Auto Charger for iPod/iPhone fits the ticket providing an Apple certified 5v USB connection for auto. Now everything is installed, clean and works great.

I accidently deleted all the pictures I took of the installation. Sorry guys and gals.