A while back I tossed around the notion of having a beta of Chef available for testing by Thanksgiving. So far I’m doing quite well with this goal. Now that the setup situation has been resolved, I can work on a few other issues that have to be done before I add the few final features that will be in the 1.0 product. It may not be too far-fetched to see the first beta available in the coming weeks, so if you’d like to give it a try I would be very appreciative. Just shoot me an email or comment here.
Author: eajhnsn1
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Chef, Sql Express, and Installers
Over the past week or so I have been reviewing the landscape of Installers that I can use to get Chef installed on people’s machines. The landscape has changed quite a bit since the last time I looked, with a lot more small install authoring tools available. Before, it was just InstallShield or Wise Installer – now there’s NSIS, InnoSetup (I know, not new..), AdvancedInstaller, and several other viable tools.
And after carefully reviewing many of them, I’ve run into road blocks with my setup needs that can’t be fulfilled without spending upwords of $500. So I now have a setup using Visual Studio 2005’s deployment projects. It’s not quite what I wanted when I first started down the road but it’s not too bad either. In fact, I may actually end up liking this method a bit more. Read on for details.
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Soccer
Tonight was our first soccer game. We won 1-0. I’ve never played soccer in my life and was the goalie.
Now I’ll explain why the hell Ana and I (and Jay, with Katherine joining next week) ended up on an indoor soccer field. At my work a group of people have been fielding a team for a few years now. They play at the local indoor soccer facility against other people who don’t play soccer professionally – think along the lines of intramural sports. Three of these guys sit around me at work and suckered me into playing this year with them. I’ve turned them down repeatedly since I’ve never once kicked a soccer ball, let alone play a game. So now the four of us (Ana, Jay, Katherine, and I) will be playing soccer for the next month and a half.
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Tickets
I noticed on Friday that Garrison Keillor is coming to the Sangamon Auditorium here in Springfield so I purchased a pair of tickets for Ana and I to see him. For those that haven’t heard of him, or Prairie Home Companion, or Lake Wobegon – google them. He’s a great storyteller that can make the hours pass with is voice. We can’t wait to see the show.
I then noticed that Yo-Yo Ma is going to be at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra next April, so I got us a pair of tickets to that too. I enjoy a lot of his music and he should be awesome to listen to in person.
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Visual Studio Addin
At work yesterday I created my first Visual Studio Addin. Now that I know how to do it, I’m going to create one for something I’ve always wanted: launch windows explorer on a folder in the solution explorer. There apparently used to be a powertoy for this feature, but that was for VS2003.
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Justin’s a Gamer
Last week, Justin Long proclaimed his desire to be a gamer. So he ordered a new PC and it arrived early this week. It’s kinda hard to be a gamer when all you have at your disposal is Minesweeper and Solitaire, so he had to order Myst IV and Battlefield 2 (to join us in games). Well, Myst arrived yesterday and he spent the rest of the day playing it. The guy who says he’s usually in bed by 10 was up until 1 this morning and had no recollection of time passing.
We’re not too sure if this is better than his last great pasttime: Beer drinking at Spammy’s. I’ll keep you posted.
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Series lead
Last night the Cardinals took a 3-1 lead in the World Series. Pretty unbelievable. The games so far have been very fun ones to watch. You can definitely tell the difference between the young and relatively inexperienced Tigers and the veteran Cardinals. One thing’s for sure, regardless of the outcome, the Tigers are going to be dangerous next year with all of their excellent young pitchers.
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New Cubicle Member
As of last week, there is a new member of my cubicle here at work. It’s a nice green plant that Ana potted and sent with me. We’ve given it a name here too – Edward McConaughey. That’s right, distant relative to Matthew.
It’s been pretty nice having a little green at my desk. I hope it stays that color and doesn’t get sympathetic towards the dying leaves outside the window. Only time will tell.
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Icon update
As I watched the Cardinals beat the Tigers tonight I sat and redid most of the toolbar icons for Chef. Every now and then it’s nice to take a break from coding, and for those times there is plenty of graphics and documentation work to be done. Here’s what the current toolbar looks like.
What do you think?
The Johnson Blog 