MySoftwareStartup

Inaugural Harrison .Net User Group meeting Oct 21st 2008

Randy Walker — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:17:36 GMT

I’m happy to announce that Brandon King has organized the first Harrison .Net User Group meeting for Oct 21st, 2008. The meeting will be held at Roosters BBQ, Google Map.

AGENDA
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM Food and get to know each other
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM Discuss forming the DNUG, including officers, meeting times and topics of interest for guest speakers

Come catch me at Tulsa TechFest 2008, Oct 9-10th

Randy Walker — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:52:54 GMT

Please join me in Tulsa on October 9th & 10th for the annual Tulsa TechFest event! I’ve had several people ask me about when I’ll be doing my Small Business talk again, which will be on Oct 9th at 1pm. If you are interested in starting your own software business, you won’t want to miss this!

Here’s a brief synopsis:

Join Randy Walker, owner of an ISV, as he leads an interactive discussion on his successes and failures of running a software business. We will discuss what’s needed to start a software business including – marketing, tax issues, sales cycles, employees, networking, competition, licensing, legal issues, intellectual property, ways to keep the largest profit margin and the Microsoft Partner Program.

Jonesboro & Harrison are getting .Net User Groups

Randy Walker — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 04:34:19 GMT

For those living in the Northeast Arkansas / Jonesboro and Harrison areas, there will be two new .Net User Groups. Details are still pending, but if you’re interested in helping form or attend the meetings, be sure to contact me. Helping lead user groups is a fantastic resume builder, and as anyone can attest, the social networking aspects is the number 1 reason to get involved.

Memphis .Net User Group visit Sept 25th

Randy Walker — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 04:26:57 GMT

For those in East Arkansas and West Tennessee, I’ll be visiting the Memphis .Net User Group on September 25th 2008. David Mohundro, the co-founder of the Fort Smith .Net User Group, will be presenting on PowerShell. You won’t want to miss this presentation, as there is some terrific tie-ins with Visual Studio.

My main purpose will be to meet with the guys starting up a Northeast Arkansas .Net User Group in Jonesboro, Arkansas. If you’re interested, in helping out or attending the new NEADNUG group, be sure to contact me.

David and I will be traveling together and staying with Colin Neller, who has graciously/foolishly opened his home to us. A big shoutout of thanks to Colin and his family.

Hope to see you in Memphis!

Child Labor, India, Soccer Balls & Walmart

Randy Walker — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:21:23 GMT

As I sit here watching Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, I'm saddened to watch Indian children making soccer balls. I realize that the show is obviously over dramatized, but the reality is, there are children making soccer balls in India. So, how can any retail store, like Walmart, or the manufacturer, Mitre allow this to happen?

The U.S. Dept of Labor International Affairs is specifically tasked with preventing this from happening. Walmart has rules and regulations forbidding the use of child labor. I'm doubtful even Mitre fully understands how this is happening. So who's to blame? Probably all of them, with a majority of it being Mitre, and we, the consumer, bearing the entire weight of it.

More than likely Mitre has not it's due diligence in examining the contracted company that produces the soccer balls. Unless a manufacturer owns the entire process of/in manufacturing a product, it's easy to not know details. After all, that's part of what you're paying for.

So where does Walmart's blame figure in? I know for a fact, that Walmart examines it's vendor's manufacturing processes. But it's impossible to examine all 500,000+ products' manufacturing process. Each CPG company (Consumer Package Goods, manufacturer, vendor) is required to sign an agreement which includes restricting the use of child labor.

Essentially, as a retailer, Walmart holds no fault. However, the overall mission of Walmart, and ultimately the consumer IS to blame. Walmart constantly strives to negotiate the lowest possible price with each manufacturer. But who drives that goal? Us, the consumer and our desire to have cheap products, and more of them.

(Randy Walker, this blog writer, sells software to manufacturers who sell their products at Walmart. This post represents Randy's opinion and is not representative of Mitre, Walmart, or the company he is employed by.)

Technorati Tags: Child Labor,India,Soccer,Walmart

Nashville devLink Recap

Randy Walker — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:20:43 GMT

One of the most interesting things about being a software developer is to see the entire undercurrent and subculture of the industry. It really makes it more visible at the local geek gatherings, regional and national conferences. This year I felt extremely fortunate to have been offered an opportunity to speak and help at the Nashville / Murfreesboro devLink conference. I honestly hadn't intended on going due to the 9 hour travel required, but when my good friend John Kellar reached out, how could I refuse? So David Mohundro, Michael Johnson and myself made the long trek. (David and Michael belong to the Fort Smith .Net User Group)

I may not ever be a rock star, but I definitely was treated as one! Thursday night started out with the VIP dinner for speakers, volunteers, and contest winners. The food was terrific, the conversation entertaining, and the activities a blast!

Free stuff is always cool, and the picture to the left shows just a few things we were given as speakers. A huge plaque made of pure chocolate that bore the conference name "devLink", a thank you card, a Barnes & Noble gift card, and a Speaker Badge. I was given a very cool football jersey for helping direct traffic, which also bore the conference name.

Opening festivities, were finished off by a Microsoft sponsored poker tournament, hosted by the Heartland region developer evangelist Jeff Blankenburg. I finished 3rd and won a cool laptop backpack. Fellow South Central region influences & MVP, Tim Rayburn, finished 4th. I am happy to say I did avoid hotel room 112! Although I heard it was a blast from those that went, with guitar hero, real guitars, cigars and plenty to drink being key points of interest.

Other highlights ...
I got thrown out of the speaker room for making too much noise by the Deep Fried Bytes crew, they were recording for their podcast (not completely accurate, but hey, it makes for a good story).
John Kellar and the rest of the devLink crew, puts on a darn good event!
I participated in the recording for DotNetRocks during the Saturday night after party!
Open Spaces was a huge hit, lead by Alan Stevens
Had a terrific time meeting and talking with Billy Hollis
The Heartland Microsoft Developer Evangelist crew is an awesome bunch!
I graduated from the same high school that the devLink Secretary Leanna Baker did, small world eh?
My session that I spoke at was in the main hall (picture right), fortunately I didn't have that entire crowd

Pictures and other Postings about devLink 2008!

My Pictures - http://www.flickr.com/photos/vonlar/sets/72157606987908831/

http://picasaweb.google.com/DotNetJesus/DevLink2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sadukie/tags/devlink/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29955965@N06/sets/72157607063383359/

http://telerikwatch.com/2008/08/devlink-2008-wrap-up.html

http://www.misfitgeek.com/The+Importance+Of+Community+Driven+Events+DevLink+OH+WOW.aspx

http://www.jeffblankenburg.com/2008/06/bus-to-devlink.html

Technorati Tags: devLink

100 Pushup Challenge? Hardly

Randy Walker — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:36:51 GMT

So there's some manly competition going around the Geek community. Evidently Chris Williams challenged Darcy Lussier to do the 100 Pushup Challenge. What kind of junk is this challenge? Over the past couple of months, I've been working on both pushups, situps and squats, with NO BREAKS. I'm up to about 35 of each. But isn't having all of these breaks between sets of 10 and 15 pretty wussy? Ok ok, so each of them outweigh me by 100 pounds, and can toss me around like a rag doll, but pahleeze, 100 Pushups that way is no challenge!

Wasted Opportunities?

Randy Walker — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:20:03 GMT

Great quote. Be careful what you ask for, but most importantly recognize the opportunities you've been presented with.

If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience, or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prays for courage, does God give him courage, or the opportunity to be courageous? If someone prays for the family to be closer, do you think God zapps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?

-- Evan Almighty

devLink Presentation Files, Discount Codes & Links

Randy Walker — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:41:12 GMT

As promised, here is the link to download the Presentation from my Starting and Running your own Software Business session at devLink in Nashville / Murfreesboro Tennessee

10% off Xheo Licensing: AHCO1008 Licensing and Obfuscation

RingCentral.com Virtual PBX Phone System

RentACoder Where I outsource software development

E-Lance Where I outsource graphic development

Microsoft Partner Program

You can follow me at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Jeffrey Palermo set to speak Thursday in Northwest Arkansas

Randy Walker — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 04:30:58 GMT

For those that weren't able to attend last Tuesday's Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group meeting, 8/5/2008, Zach Young (our Vice President of the group) was able to secure Jeffrey Palermo as a speaker for a special meeting this Thursday (8/14/2008). This is a huge boon, as Jeff is one of THE most sought after speakers in North America. Jeff is most known for the Party with Palermo series of events before each of the major conferences.

Jeff hails from Austin, Texas, which was recently named the hardest drinking city in America, go figure. You can read his blog at http://jeffreypalermo.com/

Technorati Tags: Northwest Arkansas,Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group

NWA DNUG: Jeffrey Palermo TDD, DI, and SoC with ASP.NET MVC

Export Event to Desktop Event

Start Date/Time:
Thursday, August 14, 2008 5:30 PM (UTC -06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

End Date/Time:
Thursday, August 14, 2008 8:00 PM

Recurring Event:
One time event

Description:

Title: TDD, DI, and SoC with ASP.NET MVC

Description: Spelled out, it is test-driven development, dependency injection, and separation of concerns with Active Server Pages .Net Model View Controller. This talk will dive into how to design a presentation layer using ASP.NET MVC. In today's industry, TDD, DI, and SoC are proven concepts that lead to more maintainable applications. Along with demonstrating how to use these techniques with ASP.NET MVC, we will discuss just what concerns should be separated. This talk provides a unique perspective on separation of concerns and uses TDD and DI to make it happen. MvcContrib is used in all the demos.

Presenter: Jeffrey Palermo is a software management consultant and the CTO of Headspring Systems in Austin, TX. Jeffrey specializes in Agile coaching and helps companies double the productivity of software teams. Jeffrey is an MCSD.Net , Microsoft MVP, Certified Scrummaster, Austin .Net User Group leader, AgileAustin board member, INETA speaker, INETA Membership Mentor, Christian, husband, father, motorcyclist, Eagle Scout, U.S. Army Veteran, and Texas A&M University graduate.

Subscribe to Jeffrey's blog feed here: http://feeds.jeffreypalermo.com/jeffreypalermo

When:
August 14, 2008
5:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Sign in; Free Food; Networking
6:00 PM - 6:15 PM - Intro and general group info
6:15 PM - 7:45 PM - Presentation
7:45 PM - 8:00 PM - Drawings for prizes

Where:
The Jones Center
922 East Emma Avenue
Springdale, AR 72764
Room 113

NetMeeting URL: http://snipr.com/3a3sz

Click here to RSVP on CodeZone!!!!!!!!!!!!

Category:
User Group Meeting

Location:
Springdale, AR - Jones Center

Steven Curtis Chapman & Adoption & my story

Randy Walker — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:28:18 GMT

I'm sitting here in my hotel room, waiting for my son Ethan to wake so we might finish our 2 day drive to San Antonio. Only a few minutes after my last posting about Steven Curtis Chapman did a CNN news alert come across my desktop concerning their adoption work. Note that he'll also be on Larry King Live tonight.

I supposed I had hoped to save this post for another day, but it seems as if God wants it today. Many of my friends know that I'm adopted, but very few know the story.

Born in South Korea, I was given up for adoption at an early age. My biological father was loving enough to want me to go to American family. And as the story goes, there was a visiting American pastor that was so touched by the Korean people that he wanted to adopt a child. So the resident missionary brought the pastor to an orphanage, where I was at. It's said that for the very first time, I walked right up and sat in their laps, having always cried.

My first memories are of spending time with the missionary family and my foster parents in Korea, waiting to go see the pastor in California, who was to be my new father. God would intervene though. My "to be" mother would not be kind, to the point where I was in an unsafe place.

Amazingly enough, in a twist of God's weird fate, it is now the missionary family that I now call mom & dad. And while my childhood hasn't been perfect, I'm thankful for where God has brought me to. Now I have my own son, Ethan, that I can share how great God has been in my life. He's about to meet his 2nd cousin for the first time.

Over the past couple of years, I've had the opportunity to get to know another adopted Korean, Mike. Mike is a colleague at a customer of mine, and it's been fantastic to know another like me. Someone that I can call a true friend.

So now we come back to the story of Steven Curtis Chapman and the fantastic work he's done setting up an adoption help agency. http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/07/chapman.orphans/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Technorati Tags: Steven Curtis Chapman,Adoption,Randy Walker

Steven Curtis Chapman shares, as do I

Randy Walker — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:01:19 GMT

It's never been an easy thing for me to share my faith, so a big thanks to someone special for sharing their intensity, their light with me.

I've only ever allowed one person to look at my music collection in it's entirety. Had you been allowed that rare glimpse, you'd be struck at how varied and eclectic my tastes are. But since being a teenager, the one artist that has always stuck out was Steven Curtis Chapman. Being my favorite amongst artist like Styx, Default, Beastie Boys, Crystal Method, Josh Groban, PM Dawn, and even Kelly Clarkson (yeah I've already gotten teased b4) isn't an easy task.

I suppose the reason is because he is so down to earth. He's not an artsy guy. He's the guy you go to church with, the guy that you see driving his old Chevy truck down the dirt road. He's the neighbor next door. If you've ever listened to his songs, you would instantly know the man. Who he is, what he is.

The most impressive thing I've noticed is his love for his wife. No more evident than in his lyrics. "I will be here for you" is one of the most popular, and my personal favorite "Carry you to Jesus". What greater love for a spouse could be found?

So it was with great sadness when I heard the tragedy surrounding his daughter's passing a few months ago. Recently the family shared their experience on Good Morning America (seen below).

I cannot imagine the grief and difficulty the Chapman parents faced. Struggling with the loss of their daughter, while having to comfort and encourage their son. It's unimaginable. It's something that I think only Godly, Christ like parents could have endured, and endured with such grace. Something I hope I could emulate in my own life. Something I hope each of you could learn by their example.

So my thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the Chapman family,

Technorati Tags: Steven Curtis Chapman,faith

Speaking at Nashville devLink

Randy Walker — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:05:58 GMT

It's always an honor to be asked to speak at an event. Fortunately John Kellar who chairs the Nashville devLink event hasn't heard about my reputation, lol.

One of the many things I'm passionate about is software startups. Since I haven't had a chance to talk about this subject in a while, I'm really looking forward to it. If you have ever thought of or intend to start your own software business, then please attend. I guarantee it'll be one of the most engaging talks you've experienced.

Here's a bio of the session:

Starting & Running a Software Development Business
Join Randy Walker, owner of an ISV, as he leads an interactive discussion on his successes and failures of running a software business. We will discuss marketing strategies, sales cycles, employees, networking, competition, licensing, legal issues, intellectual property, ways to keep the largest profit margin and the Microsoft Partner Program.

Technorati Tags: Nashville,devLink,Business Help

Chris William's 9 Questions

Randy Walker — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:52:12 GMT

For those that are unaware, Chris Williams, a fellow VB MVP does a 9 Questions series with fellow developers and influencers. I was extremely honored to be picked this week and hope you find the series as interesting as I do. Chris is also an active participant in the VB Insider's List Serv and actively gives feedback to the Visual Basic team in Redmond.

You can read my answers to his 9 questions over at GeeksWithBlogs.net at http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2008/07/31/124151.aspx

Technorati Tags: Chris Williams,Visual Basic,Randy Walker

Nashville devLink conference sold out!

Randy Walker — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:36:35 GMT

August 22-23

For those that don't know, devLink in Nashville is one of the best (if not THE best) community driven conferences out there. I'm super excited to have been invited by John Kellar to host a couple of the Open Spaces sessions. If you haven't gotten a chance to know John, he's a super guy and is helping to put on other conferences as well. So while devLink may be sold out this year, be sure to sign up early next year! At $50 this year, what a steal to get in to see the top speakers in the nation!

If you're in the Northwest Arkansas and River Valley area and have already reserved a spot at devLink, let me know since we'll be carpooling down there.

Technorati Tags: devLink,.Net,Microsoft

Microsoft congregates it's ads under one flag "Microsoft Advertising"

Randy Walker — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:18:18 GMT

Exactly two months ago Microsoft sent me an email introducing it's new branding called "Microsoft Advertising" (note that the page is presently erroring out). Personally I think the new branding is a step forward, as I never cared for "AdCenter". But the really interesting parts of the e-mail was the brief mention to a host of products I've never heard about. As with their ongoing issues, let us see if Microsoft can get the execution right.

Atlas is their rich media advertising. I'm guessing this means flash and silverlight ads, and probably focusing on banners.

DrivePM, according to their website, is more about a full marketing program including e-mail and demographics.

Live Search Cashback is a consumer oriented service that gives cash back for purchases made through their product comparison search engine. Think of it as Pricegrabber, but produced by Microsoft.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Advertising,adCenter

How I think Twitter can solve it's problems!

Randy Walker — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:40:22 GMT

If you're an avid twitterer (or twit for short), you'll be very familiar with it's downtime issues. Well as I see it, there are 3 major problems Twitter has. Downtime, Spammers, and a lack of viable income.

So how do I think it can solve it's problems?

Simple, charge anyone with a follow to follower ratio greater than 2 to 1. This would immediately eliminate 99% of spammers, drastically cut the system resource issues (thus reducing downtime), and create an income for company. While I doubt this will completely resolve it's lack of income problem, it's a step in the right direction. Those who use twitter as a marketing method, can continue to use the service, but must pay for it.

That's my 2 cents.

Technorati Tags: Twitter

Using Jott for Child Custody records

Randy Walker — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:39:43 GMT

Having recently been through a somewhat distasteful divorce (all but being called an abusive and negligent father), I came to recognize the need to establish custody records while I have my son. The need arises because I need proof of both my own and her actions. This way she cannot call my integrity into question again, and should the need arise, I can use the records to establish her own pattern. The various things I need to record are pickup and dropoff times, interaction with his mother (a very very important task), and basically record everything I do with him.

After a search on the Internet and briefly perusing the software offerings, I determined that none of them were adequate. They were all hard to use, not very feature rich, or just plain junk. I had thought about recording things in my Outlook calendar (I already use it to schedule the times I have my son), but thought that backing it up and searching for records would be too difficult. Then I remembered Jott. I already use it to remind myself of to-dos, why not use it for my custody records?

So what is Jott? Jott essentially allows you to send a text email with your voice. How it works is, you call their phone number, tell them who you want to send a message to, and then tell Jott what the message is. It will do all of the voice translation to text for you. Now the caveat is, you have to tell Jott all of your contacts and their email addresses. But for the case of making notes for yourself, when you call in and it asks, "Who do you want to Jott?" you just answer "myself".

Now in the case of custody records, all I have to do is call Jott with my cell phone and make a quick note of what just happened concerning my son or his mother. The record will get sent to my email and I just move that email to an archive folder.

Technorati Tags: Voice Recognition,Divorce

Winner of Certification Exam Voucher

Randy Walker — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:39:53 GMT

Surprisingly enough, Chris Love wins the Microsoft Certification Exam Voucher.

I calculated the winner by counting the total number of entries first. http://GeeksWithBlogs.net/rwalker comments first, then http://www.MySoftwareStartup.com comments next. I then visited http://random.org and asked for the winning comment number. A screen capture of the winning randomly generated number is above.

NBC Olympics site goes live with Silverlight 2 streaming

Randy Walker — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 04:27:32 GMT

Over the past year, Microsoft has broadly touted their partnership with NBC and the video feeds they will provide for the Olympics. So on July 4th, I sat back and while watching their TV broadcast and went over to their website http://www.nbcolympics.com. The first thing you may notice upon visiting the website, is that their homepage is lackluster and that they are using the same drab Adobe Flash photo view. So where's the cool new Microsoft Silverlight technology? Hopefully the following will be a primer of the site for you.

The easiest way to see the site in all it's glory, is to click on one of the Video Spotlight links (look under the NBC Beijing 2008 logo for the Register and Login links, it'll be to the right of that). The next thing you'll notice is ... yuck, the video page is plain and drab too. Definitely nothing to brag about, and nothing like what Microsoft demo'd. Well the key is to hit the "enhanced video" button below the video on the bottom right. Much better, right? Not really, but that's because on the Standard view, you hopefully noticed the all caps word "BETA" at the top of the "Standard" view.

Now back to the Enhanced View. The first thing I noticed was that the video was not HD, somewhat disappointing but acceptable since we're supposed to be able to see multiple video feeds at once, right? (Not! But hey it's still in beta) The next thing I noticed was my CPU cycles started going crazy and the video hiccups, occasionally needing to rebuffer fairly often.

In order to access the more advanced features, click one of the buttons of the left (note that you can close out any of these features and continue watching your video by clicking the X at the top right).

If you click on the first, top left, button, the "Control Room", they're still working on it. However it tells us that you'll be able to watch 4 live video feeds at the same time.
The second button is the "Olympic Sports". You can select the sport you want to view and it's associated videos. Yah! We can finally watch those Table Tennis matches!
The third button is the "Most Watched" videos. 'nuff said
The fourth button is the "As Seen on TV" section. I'm guessing this is the recorded video for the TV broadcasts.
The fifth button is the "Highlights" area. So far, I really don't like the organization. There needs to be some way to sort them all.

You'll notice anytime when you select a video, you can see it PIP (Picture in Picture). This will put the video as a small video on video you were previously watching. You can then reposition the small video, and even swap it out so it's the big video.

One of the best features they made was the "Share" button. But in order to access all of the "Share" features, click on the "Grab Channel" button. This will create a popup using Clearspring's widget. If you don't know about this widget, you weren't the only one, as I am new to it as well. It features a huge array of ways to share the link. Everything from popular Facebook and MySpace to Twitter and Vista Sidebar Gadgets. I counted a total of 62 ways to share and bookmark the site.

Overall, I'm a bit disappointed in the site. But right now you can only view 2 video feeds at once. I suppose their fit and finish could have been much better. The user experience, just isn't as good as what Silverlight is supposed to be able to deliver. What happened to the video fly ins? Isn't this supposed to be a Flagship site for Silverlight?

Lastly, I am very concerned with performance. My laptop handled the two video feeds well enough, but the CPU was going nuts as well as the paging. Only time will tell as they flesh out the bugs and get the site out of BETA stage ... in less than 35 days. I really hope they improve on the "cool" factor of the site. Cause right now, it ain't got none.

Technorati Tags: 2008 Olympics,Microsoft,Silverlight,NBC

RegEx tools for Visual Studio & the Social Web

Randy Walker — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:50:43 GMT

You might want to skip this first paragraph if you are just looking for the RegEx Tools portion.

I still find it amazing how the web can create an online social inner-networking that bobs and weaves an amazing web of connections (confused? me too). Here's what led me to find these wonderful RegEx tools. So the Microsoft Partner Program has an initiative that gave me a bunch of certifications vouchers. I am using at least 1, possibly 2, in my giveaway. I send out an email to the VB Insider's List (an invite only listserv for Visual Basic users). This leads Chris Love to leave a comment on my blog. I then visit his blog and come across a posting for a bunch of RegEx tools. This posting leads me to Ray Osherove's blog, whom I've heard of but never had a chance to look into. Ray has created a bunch of tools, particularly 3 RegEx tools that look outstanding.

In the software that I sell to a niche market, I use RegEx to parse through long streams of text. Some of the RegEx strings I use are in excess of over 600 characters. So when I find a RegEx tool, I'm super excited about it. Ray Osherove has created several different tools to help in this area. I hope you find these as useful as I will.

RegEx Visualizer - Allows creating "Debug Visualizers" for all types in .NET framework as well as custom types. You can find such visualizers for Datasets, strings and XML, now there's one for RegEx
http://tools.osherove.com/CoolTools/RegexVisualizerKit/tabid/187/Default.aspx

The Regulator - Allows you to build and verify a regular expression against any text input, file or web, and displays matching, splitting or replacement results within an easy to understand, hierarchical tree.
http://tools.osherove.com/CoolTools/TheRegulator/tabid/185/Default.aspx

Regulazy - Visual Regex Creation tool for beginners. It contains an easy "point and click" user interface, and allows creating regular expressions for simple searches almost instantly without requiring Regex syntax knowledge from the end user!
http://tools.osherove.com/CoolTools/Regulazy/tabid/182/Default.aspx

Technorati Tags: RegEx,Visual Studio 2008

Microsoft Certification Exam Voucher Giveaway

Randy Walker — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:28:29 GMT

I've recently come into several Certification Exam Vouchers and have decided to host a giveaway. Just post a comment to the blog, and I'll randomly select a winner. All entries must be in by June 30th, 2008.

You can also post a comment to my cross posting site on GeeksWithBlogs to gain an additional entry.

Growing your software business, stuck in a rut

Randy Walker — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:50:36 GMT

The following is a response to the forum question posted here.

I had the opportunity to meet Scott while at the Little Rock .Net User Group, and we talked briefly about my thoughts on how to take advantage of the programs available to software startups. In particular Scott owns a consulting business and he's having growing pains.

Scott's problems is very typical of thousands of small business consultant shops. He's busy being the business owner, full time consultant/programmer, bookkeeper, marketing, sales guy, etc. So how do you start growing this small shop?

When doing consulting my first rule is to set the customer's expectations. Since you are my customer, here's the good and the bad of growing your business. You will have to relinquish power. You will have to accept things that isn't "your way". You will think quality isn't as good as what you can do, but that is typically because they aren't doing it "your way". When in actuality, your customers will be fine with the work being done, and they will continue to give you business. You have to spend money to make money.

So here are my few tips on growing. Your first hire should be a sales person. A part time salesman works just fine and will keep you out of the hole, if you're worried about finding the funds to pay him. At a minimum, you will need to guarantee him one month's salary. Past that, you need to figure out the salary plus/or commission. A salesman is only as good as his commission. Most salesmen work off of a draw against future sales. For more information on how to setup a commission schedule, talk to a car salesman.

When the salesman has customer calls / visit, you will want to be available. Let him do all the talking, except when you need to talk tech. After the customer visit, you should write up the time estimates and as much documentation as you feel is necessary. Let the salesman handle the quote from there on.

The other tip is to hire a part time bookkeeper / secretary. I know there are a lot of groans here, but that 10 hours you pay that employee $15 an hour, you could be making $80 an hour. Time is money, and since you're the owner and consultant, your time is even more valuable.

Once the salesman finds jobs, then you fill it with insourcing or outsourcing. But remember to never sign agreements that give your code away to the customer and always have the work done offsite.

Lastly, this has more to do with Microsoft. The certifications are worthless to a Partner. Partner level isn't very important, except for the benefits they give you. Your customers are rarely going to care about your certs or partner level. Customer availability, responding to their needs, and exceeding expectations are far more important.

I'll try and go over some of the Certification and Partner actual benefits in another blog post.

Congratulations & Thanks to Jay Smith & Michael Paladino

Randy Walker — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:29:46 GMT

A big heartfelt thank you and congratulations to two of the developer community builders in the Northwest Arkansas area, Jay Smith and Michael Paladino with special mention to Zach Young. As a Microsoft MVP, one of our benefits this year, is the ability to award people with a special prize. This prize is an MSDN Premium account with Visual Studio Team Suite, which includes nearly all of Microsoft's business software, free of charge.

Jay Smith works for Tyson Foods, Inc. where he is a PMO Architect and Evangelist, and is the President for the Northwest Arkansas .Net User’s Group. Jay currently serves on the INETA Speakers Committee and works diligently with others on test bed projects to learn new concepts and designs. You can read more about Jay on his blog http://www.jaysmith.us or follow his tweets at http://twitter.com/jaysmith.

Michael Paladino is a software developer for EagleOne in Fort Smith, AR, and is the Fort Smith .Net User Group President. Michael is passionate about building the .NET community in the area and is one of the co-founders of the Fort Smith .NET User Group. You can contact Michael through his blog at http://www.mpaladino.com or via email at paladinomichael@gmail.com. You can follow his tweets at http://twitter.com/mpaladino.

Go visit the Visual Basic Product Team at TechEd!

Randy Walker — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:07:48 GMT

It was this time last year at TechEd that Cory Smith introduced me to the Visual Basic product team. He first introduced me to Ed Hickey, who is the VB MVP Lead at Microsoft. The funny story about Ed is, less than a week after Ed awarded me the MVP status, he transfers out. I knew I was hard to work with, but didn't realize I was .... that .... difficult.

Also last year at TechEd 2007, Cory let me hang out with him at Universal Studios where I rubbed elbows with the Visual Basic product team! He's really been a great mentor to me, and I'm very grateful.

All this is to say, go visit the Visual Basic Product Team website and meet some of the product team. They are all very accessible and have always been very friendly. If you're at TechEd 2008 this year, stop by the Visual Basic booth. Amanda Silver is one of the most visible team members (and very easy on the eyes), so go strike up a conversation.