Hello there my faithful readers! It’s been forever and a day, and I wanted to just drop a line to say we’re still alive and kicking… The running theme these days seems to be sickness. Rhys has a cough right now, but he just got over (or is getting over) a real nasty stomach bug. It turned him into a human lawn sprinkler if you catch my drift. Poor kid just can’t seem to catch a break! On top of that, Heidi was diagnosed with Bronchitis! YAY! So much for riding this out until we get back on insurance. Chalk that up to another one of my brilliant foresights… I have remained sickness free, which is important when you have a new job.

I’m still working on websites on the side, and have been working with a local politician. A friend of mine and I are thinking of marketing to the local political scene to see if we can drum up some beer money. The market is ripe, and we have the skills. Might as well try capitalizing on it. At the worst it’s a learning experience — such is life.

Not too long ago, Rhys when #2 on the big boy potty for the very first time! So, he got himself a brand new red bicycle! He’s so excited about it. Even in his weakened condition, he insists on riding his bike outside a little bit each day. He gets about two good pedals in and then has to rest to catch his breath and drink some Gatorade! LOL  He’s a trooper! Of course, we don’t let him take it too far! What’s more, with me concentrating on studies, mom seems to be the one taking him out most of the time. I swear I will do more here soon, but studies take priority right now.

Speaking of studies, I’m studying up on .NET programming. Both the Win32 side and the Web App side. It’s so good to be back in Visual Studio, even for my Open Source projects. I have to hand it to Microsoft with Visual Studio, it’s just some bad ass shit. I gave my old copy of Studio to the neighbor kid who has shown an interest in programming — my good deed for the month. Hopefully he doesn’t squander the opportunity to take the free time in his life right now, and get a leg up on the working world.

That’s about it. Nothing too interesting, and I’m sure I am forgetting quite a bit of shit, but I’ll write more in here, I promise. Even if it is fluff, like this. :)

How did this idea get approved!? Dear God…

Ok, obviously I’ve lost my mind. But, I’ve got two things to report with Windows Vista and Microsoft in general that now allow me to feel a bit better about my move back to the darkside.

1) I was listening to a podcast (Windows Weekly) which was talking about some of the new initiatives Microsoft was making. The key one that caught my ear was their move to opening more of their APIs! Well, that may not be “Open Source”, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction! They are a for-profit company, so I certainly don’t expect them to open their source, but open APIs are a step toward a more conformed marketplace. Conformity is good when it comes to computers. I prefer to use the term “Standards” but it is what it is.

2) Symbolic Links! No shit! There are symlinks in Vista! This has to be the #1 feature that bothered me about Windows ever since I discovered the wonders of Linux. Symlinks are such a useful feature and have been in use in the *nix world for SO freakin long! It really bothered me that Windows did not have this functionality. Especially since it was such a trivial thing to implement! But, now it’s here! I discovered it thanks to a post on the How-To Geek. Here’s the gist! Oh, and you have to run the command window as Administrator.

C:\Users\username> mklink
Creates a symbolic link.
MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target
       /D      Creates a directory symbolic link.  Default is a file
               symbolic link.
       /H      Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
       /J      Creates a Directory Junction.
       Link    specifies the new symbolic link name.
       Target  specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
               refers to.