A few Microsoft folks have blogged about their first ever Amazon.com orders and that got me curious about my first order. I had no idea that the "My Account" page had an archive of orders going back that far, so I went to check it out. On the "My Account" page, simply change the "View by Order" dropdown list to "Complete order history sorted by year" and click the Go button. The resulting page has the most recent orders on it, but another dropdown list will contain an item for each year going back to your first.

Turns out that I've been an Amazon.com customer for nearly 10 years! On February 24, 1997, I ordered the first volume of "Pattern Languages of Program Design", by Coplien and Schmidt (act now, only 2 in stock!). I later purchased other volumes, though not all five that are listed for sale on the site.

Looks like my largest order was in early 2001, when I often used Amazon.com to purchase software tools and books for the team I was managing at the time. An order containing multiple JBuilder 5.0 upgrades was $4,225 (!). For a time in 2000 and 2001, I was purchasing a lot of things for the office through Amazon.com. They had great prices, quick shipping, and it was more convenient than the PO-based system we had previously used for many things.

It also surprised me how many books (mostly Java and process related) were purchased for the team around that time. It looks like we got just about every Java book published for a while there... I still think well-written development books are a cost-effective learning tool -- provided that you're able to learn from a book format. Many people aren't... and need a lecture or "show me" approach to learning.

It's been a while since I purchased a tech book, though, as I think O'Reilly's Safari service is a great value for us book-learner types. Their new "Library" offering gives you nearly unrestricted, electronic access to a ton of books. They also include a lot of books from non O'Reilly publishers, including Addison-Wesley which publishes some great .NET books. If you absolutely need paper from time to time, the service includes "download tokens" that let you get chapters in PDF format for printing and offline viewing.

That hasn't completely curtailed our use of Amazon.com, though. We became members of their "Prime" program late last year, which gives you free 2-day shipping and cheap overnight shipping for about $80/year. If you have lots of family/friends that live in other parts of the country and use Amazon.com a lot, it's a great value. It paid for itself pretty quickly over the holidays. And with free 2-day shipping, it means that Amazon is the first place we go now for many household things we need. No shipping fees, no tax, decent prices.

The only downside I've found with Amazon Prime is that not every item is "eligible" for Prime. Many of the items on the site are actually sold and shipped by 3rd-party vendors... but only items where Amazon.com is the seller are eligible. And while each product page tells you whether or not the item is eligible, it'd be great if they provided an option to search only eligible products. Maybe it's there and I just haven't found it... but overall, we're still happy with the service.

Technorati tags: amazon.com, books, oreilly, safari

I was surprised this morning to see that the new "Watch Now" service from Netflix was enabled for my account. The "Watch Now" page had previously shown just a "coming soon" graphic... but this morning it had a "Get Started" link and the main UI tabs at the top of the screen included a "Watch Now" tab. While I know the service has been met with skepticism, I've been looking forward to it for a few reasons:

• Our movie tastes are widely varied at home. From action movies to chick flicks to kid flicks... with Watch Now, I'm thinking we can worry a little less about the variety of our three at-home discs.
• I often watch discs late at night once I've gone to bed... depending on how tired I am, it sometimes takes a few nights to get through a movie. With this service, I can send a movie back if I know there's only 10-15 minutes left and just catch the end of it over the wire.
• We've had a few cracked/scratched discs that had to be sent. In over four years with Netflix, we went for three years without a problem... but have had several in the last few months. It's bound to happen, but this service means that we might be able to save the day if that kids movie is scratched and there's (yet another) snow storm going on outside. These last few months have also been the only time I've been tempted by Blockbuster's rent-by-mail service. Being able to take a bad disc to a local store and swap it for a good one is pretty appealing.
• I like the idea of previewing some movies in advance to see if they're worth adding to the queue.
• It's a free addition to what we're already getting. Free's good.

Netflix provides one hour of "Watch Now" viewing for every dollar spent on monthly fees. Since we're on the standard "3 movies at a time" plan, that's about 18 hours of viewing over the wire -- more than enough for us. Watching movies on the computer isn't likely to replace the television experience anytime soon, but as a free addition to our service, it's certainly a welcome feature.

So far, it looks like the list of movies is fairly basic... there aren't many of the newest movies available on the list, but there are enough to give it a shot. The "Watch Now" section has a "Top 25" list and the top five movies on that list (as of this morning) are:

1. Sherrybaby
2. Born into Brothels -- A good documentary, but depressing.
3. Super Size Me -- If your kids can't pass the golden arches without convulsing for a Happy Meal, have them watch this with you. It'll cure them.
4. The World's Fastest Indian -- A cute movie that was better than we expected. Also decent a decent one to watch with kids.
5. The Motorcycle Diaries

Going to the movie page for a title that's "Watch Now" enabled will display two buttons -- both the "Add" button you're used to seeing for adding it to your queue and a "Play" button to start playback in the downloadable player. Looks like it works only with Windows XP and Internet Explorer.

While I've not yet gone through the full playback experience, I did notice that the main "Watch Now" page provides feedback on your current expected video quality... I was several rooms away from our 802.11g router, but had a decent signal and was showing "Good".

More to come once we've downloaded the player and watched a few titles.

Note: Looks like Netflix has also lowered their most basic "1-out" plan to just $4.99 a month.

Technorati tags: netflix, watch now, streaming, movies

I've got an open position on my team for an experienced ASP.NET/C# developer in Boulder, Colorado... if you've got experience building production-quality, commercial web applications, get in touch with us. Even better if you share our interest in data visualization and analysis. So on the off chance someone sees this in an aggregated feed or via Technorati, here's the ad:
--------------------------

Title: Software Engineer
Business Unit: Global Energy Intelligence
Reports To: Vice President, Engineering
Location: Boulder, CO

Global Energy Intelligence, a leading provider of energy information solutions, is seeking an experienced Software Engineer to join our commercial development team and be a part of our aggressive growth.

The ideal candidate:

• is a C#/.NET developer with proven experience building production, commercial-quality applications.
• is comfortable with advanced SQL syntax and SQL Server.
• has a thorough understanding of OOA/OOD concepts.
• is flexible and open to new ideas or change.
• has some passion and drive to excel in their career.
• has strong development experience building dynamic, data-driven ASP.NET web applications (though Winforms experience is a plus).
• is self-directed, organized, and extremely attentive to details.
• recognizes the value in agile, iterative development processes.
• communicates well with technical and non-technical peers alike.

Global Energy Intelligence is made up of experienced professionals whose sole focus is making a positive impact in the energy intelligence and information solutions industry. We pride ourselves on getting the job done for our customers and using the latest technology to do it. We strive to build software in a way that's delivered quickly, highly-reusable, and low-maintenance. We have a generous benefits package, including company-subsidized medical/dental coverage, flexible spending accounts, and a 401k plan. We also offer a casual work environment and a flexible paid-time-off structure.

If you're an experienced developer looking for new challenges and the above qualifications align with your skills, we want to hear from you. If you know the difference between a 'programmer' and a 'software developer', we want to hear from you. If you're in the top 20% of your current team and you're tired of carrying the other 80%, we want to hear from you. If you learn new things, build new software, write quality code, and constantly refactor for improvement, all because you HAVE to -- because you can't NOT spend time on those things -- then we want to hear from you.

We're building an all-star team. Lazy, uninspired, dead-weight developers need not apply.

This is a full-time employment position. Local candidates are preferred. No relocation is provided. No contractors. No agencies. No recruiters. No phone calls. No lightweights. No exceptions.

To apply for this position, please send your resume via email to jobs@globalenergy.com with "Boulder SW Engineer" in the subject.

Technorati tags: jobs, helpwanted, boulder, colorado

... the US Department of Justice decides to reach beyond its own borders to crack down on internet gaming. After sneaking anti-gaming law into "port security" legislation last year, they're now getting serious about enforcing it. Companies (most of them offshore) are losing a ton of their value in the market and many big names have pulled out of the US. 

So poker (where a player can control the outcome to some degree) is out, while horse racing and lotteries are still in. Makes perfect sense.

Technorati tags: poker, gambling, legislation, rants

Four successful Colorado entrepreneurs launched the TechStars program this week in Boulder. This initiative will take ten new startup teams (of up to 3 people) and provide a "summer camp" environment to help get their ideas and businesses off the ground -- that is, if summer camp includes some initial funding, access to a variety of experienced mentors, hosting and legal services, and a summer full of educational sessions.

While TechStars doesn't require that the teams be from the Denver/Boulder area, they do expect the teams to spend the bulk of the summer here (based on the FAQ). With its "college town" status and mountain scenery making it hard to leave, Boulder has long been a thriving place for entrepreneurs and small businesses... and this program looks like a great way to jump-start some new additions to the startup community. I also like that the application process is informal and accessible. No need for a formal business plan or pitch session -- just a strong idea and willingness to make a run at it this summer.

Anyway, it sounds a great opportunity for some enterprising folks with creative product ideas. I look forward to watching the TechStars blog for updates as the program gets started.

Technorati tags: boulder, colorado, techstars, entrepreneurs

I couldn't agree more with Scott Hanselman's recommendation for teaching your baby sign language early on. I'm often preaching to friends and colleagues who are expecting their first child that they should look into it as soon as possible. Anyway, his post solicits feedback and thoughts from other parents, so here's our story...

When our older daughter (now nearly seven) was still a bun in the oven, we received the book Baby Signs as a gift. It's a fairly quick read and makes a convincing case that a baby's motor skills are capable of making basic signs much sooner than they're capable of speaking those words. The book suggests starting off with simple words, such as "eat" and "more," and introducing them when your baby's about 8-10 months old. They warn that you'll typically not see any response from your baby until their first birthday (or later).

Convinced, we gave it a go around the 9 month mark... and seeing her use her first sign (for "eat") just before her first birthday remains one of my proudest and happiest "Daddy Moments". Success begets success -- so once that first one was working out and she saw some results (i.e., we provided food when she signed "eat"), additional words were added to the repertoire fairly quickly. We quickly added "more", "please", "drink", "sleep", and "book". I find it interesting that Scott reports that his son, Zenzo, picked up the signs for physical things (light, fan) more quickly than abstract things like needs (eat, drink). His experience sounds like others I've read, where introducing the signs earlier than the book we read suggests can lead to earlier results.

In any case, there's not an ounce of doubt in my mind that a baby that learns to sign early on is a much happier and more content baby. A non-trivial amount of a baby's crying and fussiness is due to frustration over her needs not being met -- "you're just not getting it, people... I have needs!". Without any ability to communicate, you're left to guess at what has the baby upset. So if your baby has the ability to express her needs to you, a lot of that frustration is resolved.

Currently, we're using signs with our second daughter (now 17 months) and she uses all the signs mentioned above, plus a few others. She's also shown us recently that she really "gets" the notion of requesting things with her hands: she came up with her own invention for "music." It calls for both hands in the air with the hands making a finger-snapping motion... sometimes, there's bouncing involved or one hand pointing at the stereo. It's nothing like the ASL sign for music, but we get the point.

It's also very cool to have a baby that tells us when she's ready for bed (usually before the time we'd have otherwise put her to bed). If she starts to get a little fussy around 7-7:30pm, we'll ask her if she's ready to "go night-night". Usually, we'll get the sleep sign in return. She lays down and rolls over to sleep without a whimper.

As Scott mentions, there are some who worry that teaching a baby sign language may slow their progress in learning to speak. That hasn't been our experience... while it's anecdotal and the sample size is two, both girls began to speak simple words and sounds at around the same time has other kids their age. I was asked a couple of times by strangers whether our daughter was deaf or had hearing problems. When I'd explain that we were simply teaching her sign language so she could communicate with us, I'd usually get a look like I was nuts. Can't argue with results, though.

My only real regret around implementing baby signs is that we didn't stick with it with Allie (the older). Had we continued to add signs after she began speaking, she (and we) would probably be fairly fluent. We certainly planned to (and this was the reason we opted for ASL in lieu of coming up with basic signs on our own), but it just fell to the wayside. Thankfully, doing the signs again now with our second daughter gives us an opportunity to stick with it as a family. Allie and I have even talked about taking a weekend signing class together at some point.

So... give it a shot. It really is as simple as getting a sign language dictionary to keep handy, picking some basic words to start with, and then using the signs each time you say the word.

As I mentioned over the weekend, I've transitioned over to Office 2007 and am mostly pretty happy with it. I like the Outlook To-Do Bar more and more each day.

However, I ran into a problem yesterday that I couldn't find any resolution for online and I figured it'd be worth archiving here so the Google tubes can find it later.

Basically, I opened up VS.NET 2003 yesterday and got errors from two of my add-ins. These were CodeRush (the DXCore, to be specific) and the VSWindowManager PowerToy. Both of the error messages indicated that there was a FileNotFoundException being thrown while they tried to add items to the Visual Studio menus. Only the CodeRush exception told me which file was missing and it simply said 'Office'.

Now, I had used VS.NET 2003 last Friday (our desktop product is in 1.1 for now, but our newer web product is in 2.0) and it worked fine. The file name in the exception reminded me of pretty much the only thing that had changed on the machine since then -- the Office 2007 install.

I thought it was odd that VS.NET, which doesn't require Office to be installed, would be freaked out by an Office upgrade. In any case, I fired up the VS.NET 2003 installer and chose the Repair option. It's worth noting here that the Visual Studio 2003 installer is quite possibly the slowest-running install in the history of computing. Go get lunch while it runs... when you're back, grab a book, take a walk, or paint your house. Choosing the Repair option in the installer doesn't appear to be any faster than a first-time install.

Once that was done, I reinstalled CodeRush/Refactor and the VS Window Manager just to be safe... and all is well. Since then, I heard back from the DevExpress support folks (who rock) that they've seen this issue before. The problem occurs when the Office.dll and Extensibility.dll files are removed from the machine's Global Assembly Cache (GAC). Those files are needed by Visual Studio add-ins that want to hook into the IDE.

My best guess is that the uninstall of Office 2003 removes those files from the GAC (though they may still be around somewhere else on the machine) and they're not re-registered by the Office 2007 installer. The Office 2007 install does give you the option to uninstall 2003, or you can leave it there... and I did opt to have it uninstall.

Hopefully, anyone who suddenly finds that their VS.NET 2003 install isn't loading add-ins will Google for "Visual Studio 2003 add-ins loading exceptions Office" and come across this post at some point.

In my previous post, about the process of upgrading to Office 2007, I mentioned that Outlook had asked at startup if I wanted my RSS feeds sync'd with the Windows Common Feed List. Given that I rely primarily on FeedDemon and NewsGator's products for RSS, I chose 'no' and moved on.

Later, I went looking around to experiment with the Common Feed List in Outlook 2007 and IE7... but couldn't find the option anywhere in Outlook to change my mind about that initial selection.

This evening, I finally came across the option and figured a follow-up would be a good idea here.

In Outlook, go to Tools->Options and select the Other tab. On the Other tab, click the "Advanced Options" button and you'll find a checkbox on the resulting window -- Sync RSS feeds to the Common Feed List.