My friend Jeff Blankenburg asked the question, “What’s In your quick launch bar?”.  I have been planning on making a post similar to this for a while.  Recently, I have reinstalled windows on all 4 of my primary machines (work PC, laptop, and 2 home PCs), and I have been trying to keep the settings the same across each of them so that I feel “at home”.  Part of this is using Live Mesh to synchronize my folders, but it also includes keeping the desktop and installed programs very similar. I thought I would share with everyone how I configure my desktop.

Desktop

My desktop background is always solid black.  I don’t like having a picture in the background distracting me, I like the simplicity, and black is very Remote Desktop friendly.

I tend to place items that I am currently working on on the desktop, but I remove them when I am done.  For instance, if I download software or grab an image, I place it on the desktop first. However,there are 4 icons that always remain. These are:

• User Files: I store everything in here and keep most of it in sync with Live Mesh
• Computer
• Recycle Bin
• Visual Studio 2008

I could easily add more icons, however I prefer to just hit the “Windows Key” and type in the name of the program I want to open.  I guess I just prefer simplicity and neatness above all.

Sidebar

As with my desktop, I don’t like a lot of clutter in my sidebar.  I want to keep it down to useful and non-redundant gadgets.  So, I am not going to have a calendar or clock in the sidebar, since those show up in my taskbar.  And I am not going to have something like a calculator in there which I rarely use. The gadgets I currently have are:

• Multi Meter
• Weather Bug: Everyone loves to talk about the weather.
• Stock Ticker: I don’t know why I bother to constantly keep myself depressed, but I do follow the stock market.
• Remote Desktop: I need to remote desktop into machine frequently.  With this gadget I just type in the machines name.  I don’t have to open a program first.

On my laptop I also have the Wireless Network Meter gadget installed, but I rarely have it displayed.

Quick Launch

I keep a maximum of 10 items in my quick launch bar. This isn’t so much to save space, but because of the “Windows Key” + [Number] shortcuts.  Having these remain the same from machine to machine means that I always know what my shortcut keys are to some of my most used programs.  For instance, I know that “Windows Key” + 2 is always my Visual Studio Command Prompt, etc  The 10 items I use are:

1. Show desktop
2. Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt: I need a command prompt all the time, and the Visual Studio one automatically sets up all of the shortcuts needed for development.
3. Internet Explorer 8: This is my primary browser.
4. EditPlus: My alternative to notepad.
5. Visual Studio: My favorite piece of software.
6. Live Writer: I use this to author all of my blog posts.
7. Zune: My primary media player.
8. Paint.Net: I still edit a lot of images.  While I use Live Photo Gallery for viewing image and SnagIt for capturing images, I prefer Paint.Net for raw image editing.
9. VPN Client: I need this to connect to my work network.
10. SQL Server Management Studio: I deal a lot with databases.  I like to have a separate version of Management Studio open for each database I connect to.  This helps prevent me accidently making changes to the wrong database.

Startup Programs

• Sync Center
• Oovoo: I love this program for performing high quality video with my friends and family.
• Power Options: On a laptop, I find myself changing options a lot.  Power Options also offers a context menu shortcut to “Windows Mobility Center” which has the ever important “Presentation Mode” that I use at every speaking engagement.
• Live Messenger: This is my primary IM client.  I also like how it alerts me when I get a new hotmail message since that is my primary email account.
• Live Mesh: This is how I keep files on all of my machines in sync!
• Networking
• Windows Sidebar Control
• SnagIt: I need to capture screenshots all the time: sometimes for blogging, sometimes for work.
• Volume Control

These programs very just a bit depending on if it is on my laptop or not.  I don’t keep up Power Options or Sync Center on a desktop machine.

I also routinely start up Windows Live Mail as it has quickly become my default email/contacts/calendar program.  I have fallen in love with Live Photo Gallery too for working with my family pictures.

So what does your desktop or quick launch bar look like?  Anything worth sharing?

I made it back from Microsoft PDC 2008 just in time for my daughter’s 2nd Halloween.  She was only one year old last Halloween, so I was excited about being able to take her out trick-or-treating now that she can actually walk and enjoy the evening.  We didn’t have a costume, but our neighbor’s gratefully let us borrow a tutu, princess crown, and princess wand.  I happened to pick her up a pink “Microsoft Kid” t-shirt while out in LA.  The end result was a costume we like to call “Microsoft Princess”.  The bag she used for collecting candy happened to be a Together @ PDC2008 which helped complete the Microsoft theme.

Here is the complete outfit:

Quite a few people commented about the Microsoft shirt, and it brought in quite a few laughs from the neighbors who knew me.  She did manage to bring in quite a haul, and enjoyed playing with the goods:

i

My wife, Danielle, wanted to try on the outfit:

And she thought I should try it on as well:

Happy Halloween!

I was beginning to think it would never happen, but someone took notice out there, and over time my contributions to the community have mounted up to a Microsoft MVP award in Connected Systems for my relentless love of Wcf. It is truly quite an honor.  There are a lot of great MVPs out there, and I am not sure I deserve to designated like many of them.  However, I want to thank Microsoft and everyone out there in the community for this honor.  I had many people helping me along the way and giving me opportunities.  I especially want to thank my wife and family though for being flexible with my free time and allowing me to do all that I do outside of work for the community.

The MVP award “is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others.”  The award is not easy to get and you can’t apply for it.  The award is based on your contributions for the past 12 months, and the award is granted for a period of 1 year.  After this time you may receive it again based on your contributions for that following 12 months.  Some of the rewards associated with it are quite nice such as the MVP Summit in Redmond, MSDN subscription, special downloads and training, etc.  The real gift though is being acknowledged for the love and dedication for the technology and community.  Most MVPs will probably agree that they do what they do out of a passion for these things, not to get any kind of award. 

There is not right or wrong way to get this award.  There have been many posts online about what it takes to get noticed.  For myself, I can’t tell you exactly what led up to this, but here are some of the highlights of my community involvement in the past year:

• Officer at IndyNDA (~100 attendees per month and over 1500 members)
• Blogging (over 100 posts)
• Wcf Forums (1800+ posts and Moderator)
• 6 Webcasts
• 15 Speaking Engagements across the Midwest
• Always looking for ways to help others embrace and understand Microsoft technologies!

I do these things because I love doing them.  Hopefully, I will be honored with this award again in the years to come, but if I don’t, it won’t affect how I feel about what I love to do.  Its going to be a very exciting year for .Net developers, and I am very excited to be part closer to the Connected Systems team which we will be hearing more about with Wcf, Oslo, Cloud Services, etc.

One other added bonus is the new title under my name in the MSDN Forums:

Here is a link to my MVP Profile: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/dan.rigsby

I got hit by the latest developer oriented meme trekking through the blogosphere.  My friend Michael Eaton started this one, but it has taken a life of its own.  I figured eventually someone would tag me specifically to fill this out.

Here is the trace of how this request eventually got to me:

Michael Eaton (post) -> Sarah Dutkiewicz (post) -> Jeff Blankenburg (post) -> Josh Holmes (post) –>  Larry Clarkin (post) –> me (answers below)

1. How old were you when you started programming?
I was 11.  I remember it distinctly as it was when I got my first computer, a Commodore 64.  The entire OS was BASIC driven. I loved to copy programs out of the back of Basic Magazine and “try” to get them to work.  I eventually got into RPL and some C++ in high school.

For most of my youth and through college, I considered computers and programming as a hobby.  I started college working on Pre-Med degree, but ended up settling for a Psychology degree like Jeff Blankenburg.  After school I tried to use that degree, but could barely make ends meet.  I ended up going back to school a year later to attempt to get a CS degree.  I made it all the way up to senior project, but decided to just take my knowledge and get job.  This was back in 1999 and the Internet bubble was in full swing.

2. How did you get started in programming?
I think the answer to the previous question and this blog post sum things up.

3. What was your first language?
Commodore BASIC

4. What was the first real program you wrote?
In high school I wrote a few programs.  One that I remember was for my HP 48SX calculator (loved that calculator, but it was stolen in college).  I had done most Basic up until then, but when I got this calculator I really got into RPL (Reverse Polish Lisp).  It was a fun language and quite a jump from Basic. It was a simple rock/paper/scissors game.  There were no laptops back then and paying attention in class was boring.  Instead I found it more exciting to write programs on the calculator.  Naturally I ending up writing a lot of applications for that calculator in high school.

5. What languages have you used since you started programming?
Basic, RPL (Reverse Polish Lisp), C++, Cobol, Java, Javascript, Visual Basic, C#

6. What was your first professional programming gig?
I looked for my first job for about 2 months.  With no CS degree or programming experience, it was hard to get my foot in the door.  I eventually found a job at a small aviation repair company.  I think they were looking for the cheapest developer they could find, but I was happy to get a chance to work on something and get some experience (and a paycheck).  This ob was originally just suppose to be a 6 month stint, but they tried to keep me on longer. I might have stuck around, but I was eager to work with other developers.  At this aviation shop I was the sole IT department running CAT 5 cable, building/maintaining PCs, creating a Database, setting up email, developing a client application in VB6 as a front end to the database, building a classic ASP web site, etc.  I went to Interactive Intelligence after this job and have been there ever since (8.5 years and counting).

7. If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming?
I was born to code, and I try to live life with no regrets.  Everything that I have done in my life and the events that occurred have made me who I am today.  If I changed one event in my past, I may not be where I am today or may not have met my wife.

However, I do love to program.  Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have stopped developing and would have jumped right into Computer Science in college.

8. If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be?

1. Get involved in the community.  User groups may be over your head, but that’s good to learn from.  Or user groups may be too basic for you, but that’s good to learn from too.  Community involvement is a great way to network and help others.  It also helps you share ideas and propose issues to your network of peers.
2. Start a blog.  Even if you think you are a bad writer, you will get better.  I am a terrible writer, but it is something I am working on.  Blogs help you share knowledge, store knowledge for yourself, provide samples of your code for future employers, etc.  There are many reasons to start a blog, but every professional developer should really consider getting something out there.
3. Use a tool like Google Reader and subscribe to blogs.  One of my interview questions is: “how do you say up to date with new technologies and industry trends?”  Reading blogs is a great way to stay up to date, but manually checking dozens of web sites everyday is tedious.  RSS makes things much easier because it only pulls updates.  You can check your RSS feed many times a day, but it will check all of your blogs for updates and report it to you in one interface.  Personally I am up to around 150 blogs that I follow.  It does help to have a folder hierarchy to help organize your blog feeds though.  You can start by subscribing to this blog.

9. What’s the most fun you’ve ever had … programming?
I have a lot “most fun” days.  For the most part every day is a new “most fun” day.  In particular I like days when I can code with others.  Sitting in the back room or Ivory Tower solo programming is great, but it’s a lot of fun to program with others.

10. Who are you calling out?
I am going to hit up a few of my Indianapolis tweeps who blog:

• Aaron Lerch
• Jeff Moser
• Mike Hall
• Chad Campbell (not in Indy now, but he use to be)
• Paul Hacker
• Eric Willeke

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with technology.  I was born in 1975 in rural Indiana and as such, my first encounter with a computer was in second grade at school.  It was an old Apple 2 computer and I remember that we could only use it under constant supervision from the teacher. In 1982 there weren’t many computers in school and home computers were still few and far between. Those that the school did have were expensive, heavily guarded, and always in use.  I probably only got to work on it a couple of times a week.  I do remember begging the teacher to let me stay in over recess to work on the computer while the other students played outside.  This first brush with a computer quickly turned into a love, but I knew we would never have one at home.  It was such an impossibility that at the time, I doubt I even dreamt about owning one.  

It wasn’t until I saw the 1983 movie, WarGames, that my love turned into more of an obsession.  After my parents took me to see the movie in the theatre, I distinctly remember coming home, pulling out a box and an old blue toy typewriter, placing the typewriter at the base of the box, and pretending that the box was a monitor and the typewriter was a computer.  I spent hours playing with that setup as if it were real.  Many kids my age were playing outside or watching TV, but here I was pretending I was programming. At this point, I didn’t even really know what programming was, but I was entranced by the idea that you could key in some commands and the computer would process those commands into something visibly displayed on the screen.

For the next few months, all I could think about or talk about was computers.  I’m sure sure my parents would have called me “obessed”.  I got an early subscription to Byte Magazine and tried to read all I could.  Of course most of it I didn’t understand, nor could I put it in practice.  However that all changed in the Christmas of 1985.  My parents, to my utter shock, bought a Commodore 64 for myself and my brothers to share. 

Here is a picture of the blessed event.  I am in the back holding the computer and looking quite excited and proud.  How many 10 year olds could say they have a computer at home?  My brothers on the other hand, were too interested in a slinky that Santa had left them.  This trend continued, as I don’t ever recall either of them wanting anything to do with the computer. I do have to give my youngest brother, Phillip, props for wearing a Transformers shirt in this picture though.

For the next year, my time spent with the Commodore 64 involved me keying in Basic programs from the back of Byte magazine (which rarely seemed to work).  However, around the age of 11, my Mom’s boyfriend at the time had a friend he brought over who knew a few things about computers.  I spent a lot of time with him, and he showed my things on the computer that I didn’t know were possible such as programs to play music (very mono-instrument midi-like music) and software to create banners and cards.  As a young child in a small town, I was sheltered and was really oblivious to all you could do with this little computer.  The man invited me to attend a local user’s group with him called “Hoosier Hills Commodore Club”.  I went one week and couldn’t wait to come back again.  I wanted to be around others that were into computers and who could teach me more.  The membership fees were only $25 a year, and my parents were more than happy to pay this if it meant that I was actually getting out of the house and start building “social” skills.

Imagine, if you will, a club of about 12 people, most of who were men over 30 with the exception of a single woman and an 11 year old kid. I remember that a couple of the members included some people who worked at local electronic stores and at least one guy from the phone company. I’m sure it would have been quite a sight to see that group together.   One of our “field trips” as a club included a evening tour of the phone company, focusing on how it worked and what types of computers they used.  I had never seen so many computers in one place, and for the next several weeks wondered how I could get a job there when I got older.  Most of the time, the club pertained to software for the commodore, but the highlight was a multi-month training course on how to program in Basic.  We got a thick binder that went over every Basic command and included a number of sample programs.  This is when my eyes were really opened to what programming was and what I could do with it.  That week (with the Basic book in hand and my Commodore 64 in my bedroom) is where I can really say, “That is when I started programming”.

The story of my life with computers  continues on today, and there are a lot of other “geeky” stories to share been my time with Commodore 64 and today.  Perhaps I will write more about these times later, or if you know me and what to hear more, just let me know.