.. ance<T>() where T : Foo, new() { : Tools

Speech Recognition on Windows Vista

Matt Ortiz — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:06:41 GMT

I broke my arm a couple weeks ago. No, that's not the reason I've not blogged in a while: I've just been ridiculous busy - no excuse, I need to get on it. So I came down off the boat in the garage and my feet got caught up in the trailer. I came down on both hands, but harder on the right, breaking both the ulna and the radius at the wrist.

At first, the orthopedic surgeon thought an internal fixator would work. In layman's terms that's some space-age metal plate with screws. The break was more of a crush, though: the ends the two bones (in the forearm) were in small pieces. Screws don't work well in that situation so an external fixator was put on in surgery. I won't go any further as some people won't "appreciate" it, but Google will shed some light if you're curious (and a bit warped).

I can actually type with the right hand but, truth be told, it hurts like hell if for more than an hour or so. And in this gig, that means pain.

I decided to check out the speech recognition in Windows Vista and did some research on the web. Turns out there's not a lot of information out there on the subject. So there are two (no three) things to consider 1) the microphone, 2) the software, and 3) the platform. The microphone was the item I wasted more time on. The built in microphone on my HP Pavilion dv9500 notebook (a powerhouse) was nowhere near good enough - it wouldn't pick up anything.

After some additional research on microphones I decided on a gaming style headset (the Logitech ClearChat Style). It has a noise canceling adjustable boom-style headset microphone and fits over the ears and wraps behind the head. Its intended use is internet chat, music and gaming. It actually worked OK but the microphones kept me from hearing things around me and speech recognition wasn't stellar. So I reached back out to Google but from the angle of "speech recognition microphone". What kept coming up was the Sennheiser ME3 - it's said to be the best microphone out there for speech recognition. So, I bit.

I'm opting, right now, not to use Dragon's NaturallySpeaking which speaks to the second consideration, software. I'm not sure this is the best solution as I've not tried NaturallySpeaking. There's not a lot of information on the web on how Windows (Vista's, in particular) speech recognition works so I figured I'd give it a go before jumping. And besides, there is no 64 bit version of the software yet which actually speaks to the platform or the third consideration.

I can tell you that dictating this post in Live Writer has been a bit painful. Not physically, but that speech recognition is not all that wonderful. The Sennheiser ME3 hasn't impressed me or at least it's not leaps and bounds better than the $30 gaming headset. This paragraph in fact took me about 40 seconds to get written - with corrections. I guess that's not horrible and my arm doesn't hurt.

I'm going to keep trying and I'm going to continue to train this thing in hopes that it will get better. By the way, speech recognition has come with Windows for quite some time - yeah, in the box. You can look into it your yourself and find out some of the commands and see if you would appreciate it more than I have so far. I'll also be sure to post some updates and let you know how this works out.

Technorati Tags: Tech Watch,Tips and Tricks,Tools,Windows Vista

PowerShell Inspired VS 2K8 Fonts and Colors

Matt Ortiz — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 23:24:12 GMT

So I always import my standard fonts and colors options for Visual Studio each time I build out a new environment. I find the defaults a bit straining for all day work. Today, though, I was installing some developer tools and noticed while wiring PowerShell to VSCmdShell that it used the default VS Command Window colors: stark - black on white. Of course that wasn't going to do - so I went ahead and made it the same as the PowerShell colors and fonts. Better...

Then, as I hadn't yet set my Text Editor settings I thought: I like the PowerShell "style", why don't I take a shot at that for my VS Text Editor as well. Of course, some of the Display Items' defaults wouldn't work as they were either to shocking in contrast or almost not visible but not too many changes were necessary.

I came up with this

Here's a a downloadable link to the VS Settings file with only the Options --> Environment --> Fonts and Settings exported. I'm calling it "PowerShell Distilled": feel free to use them if you'd like. I haven't yet checked out how all of the text editors look. In addition to C# did take a poke at XML files and, like I say, I took a poke at it. If you do use it and you make any changes - let me know. I might like to incorporate the changes back into my settings.

As a note: I also like to change my Command, Immediate, Find Results and Output Windows settings but I've not yet done that - so you won't get those settings. I'll post an update pointing at a separate consolidated VS settings file once I do for those interested.

Happy Holidays!

Technorati Tags: Tips and Tricks,Tools,Visual Studio,PowerShell,Windows Vista

My ALT.NET Tools Aren't Really Alternatives Anymore

Matt Ortiz — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:24:00 GMT

It's nagged on me a bit how my last post mentioned only MS products and not those that I deal with after my base install: you know, those developer tools you just can't get along without (R#). It certainly isn't all that important to that post but it got me thinking of putting together and sharing my list of "other" developer tools.

Though it'd been a while, this time, I often rebuild my laptop as a result of new product releases (or pre-releases), conflicting client requirements, or just because I'm not patient enough to troubleshoot PC issues. So I was catching up tonight on some reading and came across altnetpedia's tools list. A solid chunk of the list are tools I use regularly and a number more are ones I use every day. One was missing - Beyond Compare: I've registered and will add it if someone else doesn't beat me to it. Here's my list.

So, as observation, the spirit behind the ALT.NET movement is healthy and a good one. A couple of the movement's doyen are among the bloggers I read regularly, in fact. I find myself cringing at times, though, when reading some of those same altdotneter's "rants". Pause - thinking... And it doesn't feel natural to me that an alternative movement needs to be declared. It feels sort of, umm, .NOTALT.

I find, in an industry that requires its high-end to change quicker than the market, that such broad declarations of the obvious, as described in this What is ALT.NET page, are, well, redundant. I mean - encouraging developers to keep their eyes open to (and fingers in) alternatives is smart. Critical thinking and pushing, not being pulled, (and getting involved) is something to encourage. However, we all, at work at least, need to get to value at some point (soon) and this should be a principle considered as well.

Anyway, the Tools list is a good one: though many are, by no means, alternatives anymore or new, for that matter.

So I've got to go to bed now and hug my tree, spoon my Mac, and dream up my next rage against the Mothership. Then maybe I too can be considered alternative or, perhaps, mainstream...

Technorati Tags: ALT.NET,Stream of Consciousness,Tech Watch,Tools

Orcas Multi-targeting - Feature Complete

Matt Ortiz — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:15:00 GMT

I intended to post about this a couple of months ago and am finally getting around to it. Good news though - my un-posted solution was already in the pipeline, it seems, and multi-targeting is now feature complete.

Supported multi targeting in VS 2008 (Orcas) is no small thing: it's huge to customers with a mature or large codebase.

Some History

Jomo Fisher's post was out there as early as Widbey Beta 1. Though others provided additional insight over time we've been using a modified version of Jomo's targets file since Widbey Beta 2 at a long-term client to target the .NET Framework 1.1: yes - unsupported multi-targeting in Widbey. Since, we've leveraged the targets file at a number of other clients: in particular where Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is used as callouts and workflow components (CRM business logic extensions) are required to be built to the .NET Framework 1.1. There were certainly gaps with the approach like ASP.NET yuck but for middle tier components it worked fine in most cases.

Widbey "multi-targeting" allowed this particular client to uptake VS 2K5 tools and the .NET Framework 2.0 early but to cross-compile down to the .NET 1.1 when needed. This was significant - we had a large development team: MCS consultants (including Statera resources), body shop contractors and FTEs. We implemented TFS in earnest (at Widbey Beta 2 as well) including continuous integration (product, unit test and package and deployment team builds). It allowed us to almost entirely eliminate VS 2003 projects from regular team builds as we had little or no need for 1.1 except for "thin" (ahem) callout and workflow components that ultimately called 2.0 services.

So Scott Guthrie answers the next question in a post from June (like it or not - it's reasonable):

What about .NET 1.0 and 1.1?

Unfortunately the VS 2008 multi-targeting support only works with .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0 and .NET 3.5 - and not against older versions of the framework. The reason for this is that there were significant CLR engine changes between .NET 1.x and 2.x that make debugging very difficult to support. In the end the costing of the work to support that was so large and impacted so many parts of Visual Studio that we weren't able to add 1.1 support in this release.
VS 2008 does run side-by-side, though, with VS 2005, VS 2003, and VS 2002. So it is definitely possible to continue targeting .NET 1.1 projects using VS 2003 on the same machine as VS 2008.

I'd add one other consideration here and it may be tough to swallow: VS 2003 is not supported (but has been reported to work) on Vista. Ouch! Bottom line - get your clients to move along.

Beta 2 - "Multi-targeting is Feature Complete"

So as I now have Beta 2 up and running I intended to follow-up on this post and get it out there. I, again, opened the Community Server 2007 SDK solution to see if there was any change (my unpublished draft is below for context). Hey - the conversion was different: it obviously upgraded the solution and project files but it didn't change the target framework as it did with Beta 1. I like it - this'll work!

Our clients will now be able to use the new toolset and features and be assured that existing projects won't incur unexpected test burden as a result. In addition, they'll be able to use the tool to upgrade their existing projects and target netfx3.x as they get approval, as needed and when they have bandwidth (phased not forced). Solid!

Below is my original draft (couple months old):

So to test multi-targeting I attempted to open the Community Server 2007 SDK solution (Beta 1).

I 'd assert that multi-targeting would be most often used when opening and maintaining existing solutions (created w/ VS 2K5). I mean if you're using Orcas to create new projects you're likely to target the latest .NET framework - right(?). I know - I know: this won't always be the case, but come on - 80-20 or 50-50 at least. As consultants we're almost always using new (even Beta) technologies and need all the help we can get to "grease the wheels" for adoption.

When the conversion wizard completed I had a considerable effort ahead to get things back to working - it not only upgraded the solution and projects but each of the projects target framework - hmm. Ultimately, I was forced to make a decision to either make it all work with a new netfx version or go into each project and re-target 2.0. The later approach requires changes to references and undoing the code changes (backups - you say). As this was an academic endeavor - fine. However, clients would, and certainly have, delayed uptake as a result of forced test burden on larger projects.

Proposed Solution

Simple - during the conversion wizard prompt the user to keep the same target or to upgrade.

Technorati tags: .NET Framework, Beta Review, Community Server, Tools, Visual Studio

I'm Dig'n Regionerate

Matt Ortiz — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 06:18:30 GMT

I'm one of those OCD-developers that has to have my source artifacts formatted and organized for readability. So when I got a glimpse of Regionerate I was thrilled to see that there are like-minded folks in the open source community helping those of us out.

This kick-$%@! simple open source add-in for Visual Studio (2K5 and Orcas) and #develop applies automatic layout rules to your C# code. The site has a set of tutorials that explain how to use the tool, how to start applying your own custom rules (code layouts) and how to integrate it with NAnt to run and apply your rules during automated builds. Note to self: getting it to run with Team Builds (WIX) would be cool. The site also provides a gallery where people can upload custom layouts.

The creator Omer Rauchwerger has done a great job with this one. A+++ recommendation here...

Technorati tags: Tech Watch, Tools, Visual Studio