I have only posted 2 pictures of the trip so far, so here they are:

I added some newer pictures of our condo construction today over on my Flickr page.

The fine programmers over at SharpDevelop have released new builds for the 1.1 version of SharpDevelop and a 2.0 Alpha version that works with .NET 2.0.

Hopefully, the 2.0 development environment can be run off of a USB stick like version 1.1.

Tonight I partially finished a little project I have been working on, it is called DevHelper which probably isn't the best name but whatever. It is meant to quickly answer your questions about .NET programming problems when you have them. Try it out here.

Update: Source available here: http://www.stevenrockarts.com/devhelper.zip

Basically DevHelper searches the blogs of professionals in the industry and searches Microsoft help pages for any query that you might have. This results in a more accurate range of answers. So for example if you wanted to know about data binding or design patterns you would get the most popular answer to that query.

A list of the sites it searches is available here. I am planning on adding the functionality to be able to add your own sites in the future but for now you are stuck with my favorites hehe. I also would like to be able to link to queries, it shouldn't be to hard to add.

DevHelper is built on the MSN Search API using CSS, ASP.NET and C#. The results are a custom control which are dynamically added to a placeholder control. I need to work on the design a bit to make it look more like MSN Search but for now the main functionality is there so I can dogfood it for a bit and then tweak it as I go.

The logo looks like a Google logo because it was easiest to make and I will probably use the Google Search API sometime in the future as well.

The only issue I am having right now is that the MSN Search API as far as I can tell only returns 50 results so you only get the 50 most popular pages for any particular query. It also puts weird blocks around words from your search query that should be highlighted.

If you have any comments or suggestions I would love to hear them. Please leave them in the comments.

Catherine and I woke up early today and did the Superwalk for Parkinsons. I managed to raise $185 towards Parkinsons research. I would like to thank everyone who donated, your donation is very much appreciated since this run means a lot to me. People who missed donating can still donate to the cause on the Parkinson Society of Canada website.

I thought the run was a lot harder than last year, there were a lot more steeper hills and stairs and there ended up being construction on the pathways in Rundle Park. I ended up finishing in 35 minutes and 48 seconds and finished somewhere in the top 10. Catherine took a wrong turn because the layout of the run wasn't very obvious but still managed to finished around 40 minutes.

The governor general of Alberta was there in his Edmonton Eskimos jacket and while we were waiting around for the race to start his wife asked us if we were Stampeders fans because we were wearing red and black. A lot of people laughed when vehemently denied her accusations.

The participant package was better this year, we got a couple 2 for 1 coupons to the Comedy Factory so we can go see a show now. They also had red bracelets like the Livestrong bracelets for Parkinsons support.

I also ended up winning a prize. We thought it was going to be a gift certificate to a restaurant or movie or something but it was a one free pass to the Edmonton Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. I ended up giving it back and letting them redraw for it because I can't see myself going there anytime soon (especially by myself).

So hopefully we raised a lot of money for Parkinsons research and if everything goes right hopefully we won't have to do this run next year ;)

This article on Ars Technica compares some radios from 1954 when portable radios were the hot new thing to the iPod minis of today.

The resemblance is uncanny!

Update 2: SOLD!!!!!!!!!

Update My truck is online at: http://www.canadatrader.com/result/detailinfo.aspx?ID=13630052

That is a really flattering picture. Probably the best that the old girl has ever looked.

I put my truck up for sale today but the add won't be online until September. It will be online at http://www.autotrader.ca/default.aspx and in the printed publication as well. I really hope it sells because I put a lot of work into it today cleaning it up and fixing various things inside of it that probably should've been fixed as they broke.

I will eventually post the direct link to the ad so if anyone out there that reads this wants to buy it or know someone who migh want to buy it I would appreciate it if you would send them to the ad of to this blog post.

Catherine and I went to see Robert Plant last night. I dragged her along because I couldn't get anyone else to go. Plant has a good backing band and still has the vocals of the past but I was disappointed because the show seemed really really short.

I won't be able to complain tonight because we are going to see The Mars Volta and System of a Down. So all of today I am listening to them to get prepared and pumped up.

Wow the new Nintendo control looks really weird. It should be fun to try out.

http://media.cube.ign.com/articles/651/651334/vids_1.html

Jeffery Palermo has figured out a way to download MSDN webcasts and listen to them on your MP3 player.

Maybe playing this computer programming board game with Catherine and my family will help them to understand what I am talking about when I come home from work. Too bad the game is pretty much just logic and doesn't really explain the concept of an object.

Please sponsor me in the Parkinsons Superwalk by clicking this link.

Parkinsons is in my family and I would really like to help out my family members that are affected by it.

Any amount helps but if you donate $10 or more you will get a tax receipt and just so you know how your money was spent I will follow up with a blog entry about the event and let you know how Catherine and I did in the run.

If someone donates a large amount maybe I will do something crazy like run in really tight flourescent pants or something. Or, maybe if someone doesn't donate enough I will run in really tight flourescent pants.

Thanks for your time. Please donate.

I just got back from the C# Edmonton User Group meeting. It is fun to hang out with other developers for a couple hours and just talk about code.

I also got to check out Mack and Dickson's podcasting robot.The tablet PC was taken out of it because they needed it for other things. I was surprised at how simple the robot was.

At the meeting they also showed off Windows Vista. I knew about most of the features from reading about them but it was cool to see them live.

Mack presented about Avalon and Indigo, Avalon looks like a really cool front end for a poker game I am building for fun. Time to actually install WinFX on my computer.

So today eBay bought Skype and people are asking "How does this help eBay?"

Well, Skype is a company that lets you make free calls on the internet to anyone else that has Skype installed on their computer. Imagine now you are on eBay and you find a grilled cheese sandwich with the Virgin Mary's image burnt into it. You wonder to yourself "is that image burnt into whole wheat bread or white bread?" Then you notice the little button on the auction page that says "the seller of this item is online, would you like to ask them a live question?" you then Skype the seller and find out that the grilled cheese sandwich is "60% whole wheat". This fits your whole wheat policy and you place a bid on the grilled cheese sandwich.

The business model of eBay has now expanded to take over the classified ads in the newspaper. You can call the seller and ask questions about that nice 1989 Chevy blazer that they are selling. This is a great move on eBay's part.

Today I went for breakfast with Mike and then played Forza Motorsports on the XBox all day.

Forza is like crack! It is the best racing game i've ever played. Besides playing Froza, I managed to bbq some buffalo burgers for Catherine and Mike. They turned out a lot better than I expected thanks to my secrect ingredient (crack...I mean Forza....I mean Peach Chiptole sauce from the Okanagan).

After I cooked supper I attempted to fix Catherine's camera. It is a Canon Powershot A70 and it is having an E18 error.Apparently, all Canon Powershot A70 cameras have an E18 error after about a year of working fine. There is a class action suit against Canon over this issue, so if you are thinking about purchasing a camera, please, please, please boycott Canon cameras.

It really sucks for Catherine and I because all of our vacation pictures are on that camera and we are building a condo. It would be nice if we could take pictures of our condo while it's being built.

I didn't get a lot of sleep last night because of a prototype I am creating for a potential client, and now today I have really bad tunnel vision. It's weird but kind of fun, at least the prototype is looking good!

I went to the Pearl Jam concert last night here in Edmonton. I have been waiting for this concert since I was about 14 and Pearl Jam didn't disappoint. The setlist more or less reflected what I would have wanted them to play if I had my choice. The only thing I am getting sick of at rock concerts is when bands have 2 encores. Why not just have 1 and make it a really good one instead of making the fans clap their asses off for 2 more songs?

Setlist:

Release, Go, Save You, Spin The Black Circle, Nothing As it Seems, Daughter/(Dream Baby Dream" by SUICIDE), Even Flow, Betterman, I Am Mine, Grievance, Small Town, Sad, Corduroy, Given To Fly, Wishlist/(Hard Times Are Over by John Lennon), Animal, Do The Evolution,

1st encore: Love Boat Captain, Crazy Mary, Jeremy, Porch
2nd encore: Fucking Up, Yellow Ledbetter

Other more "professional" reviews:

http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/news/culture/story.html?id=16dd793d-0dd9-4a22-91ad-0e15fdc75ad3

http://edmsun.canoe.ca/Entertainment/Music/2005/09/06/1203884-sun.html

Whoa!

http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/new_orleans_msi_aug31_2005_dg.jpg

SuperDome before:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/superdome_before-798168.JPG

SuperDome after:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/superdome_after%20%282%29-788003.JPG