I just ran across an announcement for a new Microsoft product, Office Accounting 2007 Express. This is a free, and surprisingly full featured accounting package aimed at small businesses. If you run a business, or plan on starting one, this looks like a great addition to your tech-toolkit. I'll post more on this again once I have time to review it more thoroughly.

The coding guidelines at my job have a rather interesting requirement: code must be wrapped at 100 characters. If you fail to meet this on any line of code, you fail the code review. In the year I've worked at this company I've learned to guess how long a line is quite well. As of today, no more guessing.

Here's a quick registry hack to add a vertical line in the editor at any column you wish, just double click the REG file and you're set. The contents of the file look something like this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
  VisualStudio\8.0\Text Editor]
"Guides"="RGB(128, 128, 128) 100"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
  VisualStudio\7.1\Text Editor]
"Guides"="RGB(128, 128, 128) 100"

The setting works something like this: The RGB() part defines the color of the line, the number at the end defines the column the line is displayed at. If your style defines a limit on the length of a line, this is a great way to see at a glance if you're going too long.

Note: This adds the key for both Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005.

Update: The original REG file I linked to had a formatting error that caused the data to import improperly. I've replaced the file with a working copy.

This weekend I've made a few upgrades to the site, a software upgrade, a few new plugins as well as some tweaks to clean things up. Hopefully these changes will make the site a bit more useful, and remove some clutter from the main page, so that you are presented with content, and all the 'extras' will be tucked away.

WordPress 2.0.5

I've upgraded to the newly released WordPress 2.0.5, the software that power this site. As a rule, WordPress is an extremely easy install. This upgrade would have been simple, had I not forgotten about a few core files that I modified. After reverting to the previous version, I had the files patched and uploaded within a few minutes.

All in all, this process went quite well. The database performance updates made the install well worth it.

New Plugins 

I've added a couple new plugins to add some additional functionality, here's the list:

• Auto Shutoff Comments - This is a handy plugin that closes comments after 30-days, this will help cut-back on the spam that comes through.
• Related Posts - This, in theory, adds links to similar posts below each post (when viewed on it's own page, not on the home page). So far I've not been completely impressed with the links, but I'll leave it for awhile and see how it does.
• Socible - This is one I really had to debate, there's not much more I hate than sites that remind  me of a NASCAR race car. I've set this up to only display on the single post view, and will only offer Reddit, digg and del.icio.us. This is another one I'll keep for a bit then see if it's worth keeping around.

New Content & Cleanup

I've rebuilt my about page to include some addition data and take a more readable format. I've also added a new page that details my bayonet collection. To clean things up slightly, I've updated the code that adds the Technorati tags so that it will only show in the single post view, and no longer appear on the main page. 

Those of you that are into computer gadgets have surely heard of the now quite famous Optimus keyboard - the (once) OLED powered keyboard that has caused quite a stir. Recent, word came from the team that Optimus will not be using OLEDs, the belief since then is that it will use LCD instead. Well, after many, many months of waiting to see proof that Optimus will live, finally, we see a key.

This is the first real sign of life, and I believe a good indicator that we will indeed see it released. Personally, I can't wait. I'm hoping that we'll see more soon.

For those of you that are interested, IE7 has been released. After following the progress of the next generation of IE since March of last year, I've got to say, I'm really excited to see it go public. The only real surprise for me with this announcement is that many expected the Mozilla Foundation to release Firefox 2.0 prior to Internet Explorer's big release, yet no word from them. I'm wondering if there were more issues in the RC2 release that delayed the launch.

It's good to know that the security and compatibility issue of the older versions of IE can now fade away into the past (where they belong).

For those looking to get into the startup/ISV scene, Paul Graham's latest work is a great read. The 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups takes an interesting look at some of the larger issues to avoid while forming a new company. Personally, I'd call this one a must read.

After 2 years, my favorite forum software has been officially released. I've been a big fan of bbPress since it's early days, I even had at least one patch accepted. So I guess one could say I was a developer on the project (although, a very minor one).

It's great to see this project make it. If you're looking for high-quality PHP-based forum solution without the weight of something like vB, then bbPress is the answer. 

The final public beta build (5744) of the next generation of Windows has been released (via shell: revealed). With this announcement it looks like Vista will indeed be on time. For awhile I was wondering if Vista had any chance of making it, but it seems that it will indeed. While this is certainly good news, the RTM build is the one that has my interest.

Playing with a release candidate can be fun, there's no doubt about it; but the real fun starts when you can see how things work and behave on the final - (hopefully) working build. I've got a ton of software to test, and a number of applications to update to take advantage of the latest goodies Vista offers - that's the fun part.

I've been both a subscriber and fan of Valleyschwag since it was launched, that is, until yesterday. And not by my choice mind you, they canceled everybodies subscription. When the second issue was shipped in late May, they reported having over 1,500 members each paying $15 a month for the service. I can only guess what the subscriber count would look like now, after having a few months to grow.

They've thrown that all away now, sending the following notice to all the subscribers:

"We'd like you to be one of the first to know that we will soon unveil the Valleyschwag General Store, where you will be able to purchase future issues of our famous schwag bags. And by popular demand, we will be offering some of our most requested schwag items for sale.

This store replaces our subscription service, giving you more control over the issues and items you'd like to receive. We will notify you by email when a new issue of Valleyschwag is available, giving you the first opportunity to place an order at the General Store.

Since a subscription is no longer required we will automatically cancel your Paypal subscription if you haven't already done so. To accomodate our members around the globe, the store will continue to accept Paypal as well as credit cards for all purchases."

That's right, they are now hoping that by sending out reminders and canceling the automatic payments, they will be able to stay afloat. They had guaranteed money in the bank every month, now, they'll have to hope that people will remember to take time out of their busy day to buy the next issue. I don't think they'll see near the numbers they could with the subscription model.

One of the things I like about any subscription is that you don't have to think about it, it just works. Once a month or so I get a package, no forms to fill out, no remembering to check and see if the next issue is ready, it's just there. I think a lot of people feel this way, and I think this will be rather painful for the ValleySchwag team, and endanger the future of the business itself.

Valleyschwag was a really interesting concept, but I have to believe it grew too large, too quickly for the model to work. I wish the guys at RubyRed the best, but I believe the end is coming for the schwag express.