NewsGator Toolbar Update (1.5.3.233)

If you use the NewsGator Toolbar, there's an update available:

http://www.newsgator.com/download/toolbar/ngtoolbarsetup.exe

No new features, just a slew of bug fixes.

We've had one report that the FireFox toolbar is not compatible with FireFox 3.0 Beta 3.  Since FireFox 3 is still in beta, it's not officially supported so it may not work.  When FF 3.0 moves to a release candidate, we'll start fully testing with it to make sure everything is working correctly.

If you happen to be one of our enterprise customers reading this, please ask your NewsGator contact about using this new version.

Almost Three Weeks of Twittering - otherwise known as... well... lets call it "venting"

I've now been twittering for almost three weeks (you can follow me @nick_harris) and I gotta say I've been enjoying it.

Unlike NickB's first experience with twitter, I decided (as NickB puts it) "to follow friends, co-workers, developers, and a random assortment of people I've met (online or otherwise)" right from the start.  Making fun of how long NickB takes to do his hair is just plain fun :-)

But I think the thing I like the most is "venting" about my coding frustrations.  A part of my personality likes to "vent".

Apparently everyone I follow seems to enjoy "venting" as well.  From the people I follow I've learned that United Airlines, passwords only known by one person, paypal emails, Flash updates, gas prices, Oscar winners, NetFlix, PayPal emails, kid birthday parties, digital camera battery chargers, rainy days, politics, NVidia drivers and wet socks (among many, many other things - only went back 5 days) give others the need to "vent" as well.

Twitter's tag is "What are you doing?".  Maybe they should change that to "What are you bitching about?" :-)  Oh well, it is fun.  A nice outlet and comforting to know I'm not the only one annoyed by the little things in life!

Not to say that it's all bitching though - there's a lot of cool thing as well.  Like people launching sarcastic web sites!

PS:
Going back through my online twitter account made me realize how many tweets I miss through Twitterific.  I'm sure that's by design, but still some good stuff in there.  Wonder how I could get those... oh yeah... the RSS Feed :-)  (fitting that my post about bitching ends with me bitching)

Bone Headed Performance Bugs

Outlooks startup time with Inbox 3.0 will be 50% faster.

This is such a bone headed bug that I debated blogging about it, but Outlook startup time is a big deal.

Inbox keeps track of Outlooks' Entry IDs for all posts and folders in order to improve performance.  These mappings are saved in various configuration files when you close Outlook.  When Outlook starts and initializes Inbox, it loads that data from those files.

In the code for Inbox, a handful of objects manipulate this data.  The bug was that two objects were loading this data on initialization.  Loading means opening the file and processing the XML (which is how the data is stored).   In terms of performance, disk IO is very slow and XML parsing isn't the fastest thing either.  The fix, of course, is to load once and share between objects.

Stupid bug, I admit.  But a fix that all Inbox users will benefit from.

For those beta testers playing along at home, you can get this fix in test build 3.0.439.

One Screen = Four... Remoting and Virtualization

One day, during my first job out of college, my boss used remote desktop to get into one machine so he could remote desktop into another.  We thought it was pretty funny at the time...

I think I beat him tonight:
MacBook Pro > VMWare Fusion (Vista VM) > Windows XP (RDP) > Windows XP (VPC)

Four machines (if you count vitalization as a machine) down to test something... with hardly a network lag to do it.  Amazing!

Jeremy Zawodny is right on.

UPDATE:
Just to explain what I was doing...

I was testing a fix to the NewsGator Toolbar, but I needed a fresh machine to test my installer.
- Mac... no luck there
- Vista VM... IE add-ins are COM objects, so that means Registry changes.  Fixed the bug on my Vista VM so the registry keys were already there
- XP Desktop at work... my other primary dev machine, registry keys exists there too
- XP VPC - my fresh XP SP2 VPC.  Ready for abuse and resetting.  Perfect test environment.

I could of course carry around VM/VPC's to test with.  To an extent I do, but that's a lot of hard drive space, especially when I can do all of it over the net on different machines.

GC.Collect(); - A .Net Outlook Add-in Developers Friend

If your developing an Add-in for Outlook and you notice that the changes you make to some Outlook Object (let's say MAPIFolder.WebViewOn) you may notice that your change doesn't actually happen.

The problem is Marshaling the object into your managed code.  Outlook will not update it's own information about the object until it's been fully released and garbage collected.  So even if you call Marshal.ReleaseComObject on your Outlook object, Outlook won't save your changes until the garbage collector runs.

This has caused numerous issues in Inbox - especially when adding new items or moving items between folders.

If you're developing an add-in and you see a situation where changes you make to your copy of an Outlook Object aren't being saved and reflected by Outlook, try this code when releasing your COM object:

Marshal.ReleaseComObject(myOutlookComObject);
GC.Collect();
GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

BEWARE!!!
If you plan on using your object again after you run this code, you'll have to Marshal it back into managed code, or else you'll get a "COM object that has been separated from its underlying RCW cannot be used" exception.

Twitter

I'm a little behind the curve.  I've stayed away from Twitter mostly because I didn't want to take the time to.  But after loving FaceBook, then hating FaceBook (Walker's post, but it sums up my feelings), I decided to give Twitter a try.

http://twitter.com/nick_harris

I've pretty much turned everything off on Facebook, so try me on Twitter instead ;-)

Yes We Can!

This is probably the most important presidential campaign people my age (29) have ever seen.  I hope everyone who can vote is paying attention.

I've never expressed my own political views (which of course are my own and not of my employer) on this blog, but after trying to explain to my mom tonight why I think Obama is so uplifting, and since I have a small audience, I figured I would pass this on...

Agree or disagree... get involved!  Learn about the candidates!  Learn about the issues! 

Make a difference!

NewsGator Inbox 3.0 Beta 2 Available

NewsGator Inbox 3.0 Beta 2 is now available.

http://www.newsgator.com/download/NGInbox/NGInboxSetup.msi

Release notes

Please report any issues in the forums.

Inbox 3.0 Beta Update - Looking for NNTP Posting Plug-in Users

I've spend the weekend closing out all the bug reports with Inbox 3.0 and I'm planning a Beta 2 early next week.  All known issues have been resolved, they just need to be verified to make sure no other issues arise from the fixes.

One thing I need to get feedback on is Matt Hawley's NNTP Posting Plug-in.  Prior releases have caused issues so I want to make sure it gets tested before Inbox 3.0 goes gold.

I'd also like to here from users - is this plug-in working ok with Inbox 3.0?

Aside from that, Inbox 3.0 is looking really good!  Beta 2 has a *bunch* of performance enhancements... I get spoiled by using my latest code everyday, but my upgrade testing reminds me of how far Inbox has come.

PS
Matt - I tried using your contact form but my email got bounced.  I'd like to get in contact with you to make sure your plug-in works with the latest Inbox code.  Drop me a comment, or send an email to beta@newsgator.com.

UPDATE:  If you want to try the latest test build (3.0.397) you can get it here.

WTF? It's February right?

Weird thing... I'm in a secluded room in my house and hear a huge bang - enough to shake the floor.  My thought - "I don't even want to know what my neighbors are doing".

Back to the living room... big flash outside.  WTF?

Lightning... booming thunder a few seconds later!

Check outside... hail!

Wow! 

I've been in Colorado for over seven years, but I'm still not use to thundersnow.