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Friday, November 16, 2001 [3:43 PM] Heyyyyyyyy.... I think I'm going to have to create something like Weblogs just for fellow Microsofties that blog! I just found out that Greg Franklin, of Flying Chihuahuas, works here as well. He's a new addition to my Frequented Links. Nice site Greg, I especially like the name! [2:58 PM] So.... You may be wondering what the new graphic and link above my "Frequented Links" are for? Well it's for World AIDS Day. This is a horrible disease that kills thousands and thousands of people every year. The fight is still not over. Show your support by signing up your website today! 'Nuff said [10:05 AM] Question? Has anyone heard of the Deco Web Awards? WARNING: This site will throw popup's in your face! I just got an e-mail from them saying my site was selected to take part in the 2001-2002 awards. Is it legit? Please drop me a line if you know anything about this award. Thanks. [9:11 AM] Road Trip... Yesterday I went on a field trip with my youngest daughters fifth grade class to a lovely place in our San Joaquin Valley called SCICON. Our trip was a day trip but next year the kids get to spend a week hiking about the foothills and learning about plants and animals. It's a wonderful experience. I remember my trip to SCICON very well, and so does my wife and oldest daughter. Yesterday we managed to get a hike to dead-mans-falls. It's a wonderful trail that takes you to the base of a fairly tall waterfall. The guide relayed the story of how it came by the name dead-mans-falls and we were back off down a brand new trail that followed the stream that's fed by the waterfall. If I could only find my $%^&*@#$ USB cable I'd post some pictures here for you, but it's still packed away somewhere. It was a great day, right Bug! Potter Harry Potter opens today. I'm certain it'll break all movie records, including Titanic! The books appeal to children as well as adults and I'm sure you'll find an interesting mix of folks in theatre lines today. In fact last night some theatres opened at midnight, now that would have been fun! While I'd love to go tonight we're going to save it for our traditional day-after-Thanksgiving movie. Heck that's just a week off, I can wait. I think I can, I think I can... Visio Viewer Well I was told that today was the official release day for the Visio Viewer. I'm very excited about this little gem! Once the page is ready I'll post the URL here. This viewer will allow you to view Visio .VSD and .VDX (Our XML format) right from your web browser! Another nice thing about it is it's full object model so you can embed this technology right inside your own applications! Now that's sweet. TTFN Wednesday, November 14, 2001 [4:42 PM] Afternoon build... I just thought I'd link to some more stuff while my build is going. Gotta make sure all my stuff works with all the new stuff checked in over the past few days. Cass McNutt: "How the heck did Dr. Suess get from dreamy-eyed sketcher to world-renowned creative genius?" - I'm not sure how he did that Cass, but I do know the dude had some weird hangups with black studded leather. No joke. My wife ordered a book with a collection of his artwork and there's some strange stuff in there. Microsoft Norway: Our first stop on our visit to the Nordic region. Microsoft Sweden: We spent most of our time here. Both Stockholm and Oslo are absolutely beautiful. Harry Potter I don't know about your family but mine has Harry Potter fever. We're very excited about the pending release of the movie and will most certainly see it together. We have a tradition at the Fahrni household, we always see a movie together the day after Thanksgiving. Harry Potter will be this years event! I'm looking forward to it. We have H.P. fever so bad Kim and I have both created Magical Creatures. Mine is the owl, her's the cat. The web site has been a blast to play around with, too bad it's hooked into AOL. Ick! There's been a lot of controversy over Harry Potter in the Christian community. I wonder what the real overriding issue is? Is it the fact that it has magic? If you know what the deal is share it with me. Thanks. Ahhhh, fresh code! Life is good! [11:38 AM] Brent Simmons: "Though I don’t have hard data, it’s a rule of thumb that straight C outperforms object-oriented languages." - Ok Brent... You asked for it! I think this kind of blanket statement is what hard core C guys like to use. But the truth of the matter is well defined objects perform just fine. I'm talking from a C++ perspective here. In Visio we have a mix of object-oriented C and C++, mostly C++. The code is extremely quick and getting faster each release, yes faster machines help, but we do have some real studs down in the bowels of the code making it scream! In C, C++, or Object-C you have to make code and data work with each other. The design of the inner working is what either makes the code fast or slow, not the language. Just my two-cents, and not it's not a flame. I was of the same opinion at one time. Bin Laden: "It is the duty of every Muslim to fight. Killing Jews is top priority." - This is one sick man. Makes me want to beat the snot-bubbles out of him. Hey know any Jews that would like to stand toe-to-toe with this guy? Heck I'd consider converting for the chance! On the lighter side CNN is reporting that the last inhalation anthrax victim is now home. That's wonderful news! [10:16 AM] UPDATE: PING is working. It missed my first ping though? Weird... Hmmmmm, is Weblogs.com PING broken or is my CheezyPing app busted? I keep getting a response of... Thanks for the ping. We checked and found that the "Rob Fahrni, at the core" weblog has not changed, so it has not been added to" It's super funny if you do it twice in a row, you get the following reply... Thanks for the ping, however we can only accept one ping every five minutes. It's cool that you're updating so often, however, if I may be so bold as to offer some advice -- take a break, you'll enjoy life more So has anyone else seen this? [9:48 AM] Good Morning Yes it is a good morning! My body is finally starting to feel normal again and I'm not a GRUMP this morning, positive change from the last couple of days. My poor wife has been putting up with the bear since Saturday evening, she's an angel. I'm feeling much better now honey. Hopefully I don't hit a brick wall this afternoon like I've been doing lately. DOH! Richard Caetano: "A lot of times people like to make blanket statements (kinda like what I'm doing right now) and this type of generalization tends to get us in trouble." - Get some sleep Richard, it makes your brain work better! Trust me on this I know what I'm talking about. Slashdot: "Convert Movies From R to PG13 to PG On The Fly" - That's pretty darned sweet if you ask me! Especially if you have children. At least you we wouldn't have to worry about running the kids out of the room all the time. Jerry Fahrni, my little brother: "Oh yeah, remember when I told you I was sending out a bunch of resumes?" - Someone should hire Jay. He's super smart. In fact a software company that specializes in pharmacy, or hospital management software, should hire him as a consultant. He has a ton of super ideas that could help make hospital management better. Jay likes to pick apart chemical structures, like the one on the right, on a daily basis. He's a "Super Pharmacist"! Yes I've stolen Dave's format for stories. I like it, so sue me! (Not really that was just a tongue-in-cheek comment!) Have a great day, and remember to kiss a programmer. Tuesday, November 13, 2001 [2:05 PM] Counter to Scoble A friend at Microsoft was looking through my blog yesterday and followed the link to Scoble's Letter to Bill Gates. Here's his counter. I see some really good developments at MS: I believe CE is turning the PDA battle into a rout (my friends writing cellphone software say Linux is now #2 and Palm #3), the Xbox will probably be a 3-4 year fight, but MS has just sealed off another possible threat to Windows from the consoles, the .NET technology looks great, as the OS takes out Unix it opens the possibility for SQL Server to take out Oracle. On the other hand... The whole "Services" story and activation are examples of MS doing what is good for MS. No customer is saying "I want to subscribe to Office and pay $50 per year" or "Please add copy protection to Windows". When a company loses track of it's customers and launches "initiatives" instead of products...how long before they become old IBM? Cass McNutt: Thanks to my friend cheeseboy -- Caet-man, I "get" Manilla now. Very intersting! Thanks... Welcome to the club Cass! 'Nuff said [11:09 AM] .NET Just a couple of interesting reads for .NET fans. Robert Cringely: Microsoft's C# Language Might Be the Death of Java, but Sun's the One to Blame. Richard Caetano: I've been doing quite a bit of ASP.NET coding lately and must say I am amazed at how powerful the system is. Thanks Mr. Gossman for turning me onto the Cringely story. Personally I'm very enthusiastic about .NET and C#. We in the Visio division need to figure out what we're doing with regards to .NET. I know we have some very intelligent folks working on that vision right now. End .NET [9:45 AM] Mornin' y'all Like a lot of folks out there I use a handheld on a daily basis. My weapon of choice is a Handspring Visor Deluxe. It does everything I need in a handheld. I mainly use mine for contact information and my daily calendar of events. Perfect! So now I've been checking out some newer handhelds; not that I need one mind you. I guess I get stuck in that "gotta have the latest" thing that traps everyone else. Personally I've been wanting a handheld that marries cellular technology and PDA technology in ONE easy to use device. I think Handspring may just about be there! The Handspring Treo is due early next year and it combines all the lovely things of a Visor and a GSM cellular phone. Sweet! Here's another handheld that has caught my eye, the Compaq iPAQ H3870. Have a great day everyone! Monday, November 12, 2001 [3:49 PM] Speculation day? Scripting News: "Two or three well planned dumps could potentially decimate the entire CA water supply." - Dang Dave! Knock it off, you're scaring me! End of line [1:20 PM] I love Scobleizer! It's a site I read on a daily basis. Okay so I'm a couple of days behind! I've been outta the country for a week. Blogging time was, unfortunately, hard to come by. Too busy working! Robert has a great open letter to Bill Gates. Nicely done Robert! We should listen to folks like Robert and Dave and whoever else has a point of view! Maybe we should write Linux software? I dunno, it's worth consideration isn't it? [12:50 PM] Speculation, of a different sort So since we're all speculating today why not try this one on for size? The Taliban is collapsing, right? Are they really? Maybe this is just an elaborate scheme to lure troops into key areas for a big strike? We've heard over the past couple of days that bin Laden claims to have biological and nuclear capability, right? So what if they've planted some biological or nuclear weapons in those positions and are just waiting for enough troops to settle in the region? Hmmmmm, kinda makes you think doesn't it? [10:57 AM] More on the plane crash. Speculation, speculation, speculation! John Rob and Doc Searls are speculating on the possibility of this horrible accident being the work of terrorists. It could have been, but it could have just as easily been a Gremlin! While I certainly hope it wasn't terrorists you never really know do you? Read their posts. Darn! [10:53 AM] Home I'm home at last! I'd have to say the trip was a wild success. Dan and I collected a TON of very useful information. It was surprising to learn how many folks know absolutely nothing about Visio or what it can do for a business. Once you show them some real world drawings and the actual functionality behind those drawings the light bulb goes off. Our audience was everyone from Sales to Marketing to Systems Engineers. All of these folks work together to build Enterprise systems for our customers in the Nordic regions. Funny thing is they don't know much about Visio, yet they're meeting their sales expectations! That just tells me Visio could be a huge success now that they know a little more and have some contacts on the development team. Flying I hate to fly, always have. This trip was strange because on two separate occasions, in the US only, we had people want off the plane. Both occurances were in Chicago at O'Hare. The first incident was on our trip to London. Apparently the lady wasn't feeling well and wanted off the plane. Well now how would you feel know someone was on the plane then got off? Exactly! I was uneasy about the whole thing. Our flight was delayed while it was inspected. Then on my return to the States I boarded my flight at O'Hare bound for L.A. Everything was going just fine when the captain announced that someone was scared and wanted off the plane, that's understandable in light of recent events. But that also means that the person could have left something behind! So we are delayed again while the plane is checked over! Oy! Terror is winning! Flying, part 2 This morning's news of a flight crashing on it's way to the Dominican Republic is a bit unsettling. My thoughts race to my experience of passengers getting off the plane. My hope is that it was mechanical failure and not sabotage! It's really looking like a horrible accident and not terrorism. There is some comfort in that, not much, but some. My thoughts and prayers are with the families and their loved ones. It's never easy to lose someone. I'm thankful to be home.