Bonesnap

Ok, so my week is going really well.

I created two gadgets for the Window Vista Sidebar. I’ve developed apps in the past but for some reason I enjoy working on this type of program.

I think it’s because they are compact little applications that are easily wrapped up. My first gadget was a Texas Hold’em stats gadget. I play poker and any edge is a good edge. My little gadget will show your hand rankings and other misc. information.

It’s been downloaded 111 times yet not one single comment. It would be nice to have some type of feedback even if it’s derogatory.

I also created the Chuck Norris Fact gadget. Yeah, I jumped on the ban wagon; yet I added a few little twists. I just published it this morning and it’s been downloaded 36 times with no comments. Again, no clue if it’s even working ok.

I have a page of other gadgets ideas that I’m hashing out.

Right now I need some help. If you have a Vista machine; do me a huge favor and follow the link below and download my gadgets. Check them out, and then remove them if you want. Just post a comment on Live or here that they seemed to work ok. Of course you can always say they are best thing since sliced bread. Your call.

Thanks!!!

Link - Chuck Norris Facts Gadget

Link – Texas Hold’em Stats Gadget

Also, if you have any ideas for future gadgets please feel free to share.

It’s been a good week for accomplishments.

I’ve almost finished some home projects. I’ve managed to publish two gadgets on Live. Life is good.

For years I’ve developed software for big corporations and only one time have I really ever ‘published’ something. Years ago at big blue I noticed that a lot of our clients browsing through these gigantic books of database tables.

I sat there thinking… “What the hell….? The biggest tech company in the world doesn’t have an easier way to do this?”  After some research I found out there was indeed a softcopy but the tables wasn’t were not linked. There wasn’t a way to look up any type of relationships at all.

I took the softcopy churned it through a C++ program I wrote and bingo! I created a Windows Help Program that provided total relationship look up. It was awesome. The company liked it so much that paid me quite a bit of money for it. It felt great … however it was short lived.

At our yearly meeting seems that our big manager decided to misplace the credit and announced that our DBA came up with it. I will say the look on the DBA’s eyes when they met mine in the audience was classic. I was pissed and he knew it. He came up and apologized to me and said he didn’t know they were going to do that.

To add insult to injury, I sent a copy of the program to our team at a huge client site in the north east. That team was mostly comprised of contractors who worked for big blue. I asked them if they could use the application for the project they were on. If so, let me know and I’ll convert their database for them.

I never heard anything back. A month later one of my co-workers actually goes to that client site. He emails me back a copy of the client database AND proceeds to tell me that the client just had their database converted. However, the format looks similar to mine but was very archaic.

He sent me a copy of the converted database and he was right. It was a hack job of my application. I called and found out that the lead on the project (who was a consultant for us), got my email and application. Decided to write his own version, convert the client’s db, and charge them for it!

Then, proceeded to tell everyone else that he came up with this idea first. Anyway, I received another reward for my app and soon left the company.

Since then I’ve had other ideas: websites, programs, games. Yet, nothing I worked on ever really gave me the satisfaction of that one app at big blue (The Santa Site did sorta).

Until now.