It can be hard, when using MSBuild, to know what Tasks (aka Targets aka functions) are available, especially when using the built-in .targets files associated with the compilers. So, I wrote a custom Task that iterates over all the other Tasks that are currently loaded and outputs their [Output] properties …

Okay, totally off-topic, but how can a prisoner refuse to appear at his own trial? And then he gets a two-week delay of the trial? This does not bode well for establishing the supremacy of the rule of law. Talk about "contempt of court."

Since the Earth orbits the sun elliptically and therefore a) accelerates and b) has to turn about a degree more than a full circle to bring the sun into the same position, sunrise and sunset are not symmetrical around local noon. Here in Hawaii, the sun set today at 5 …

In Vincent Maraia's The Build Master (recommended) there's a helpful little chart on the size in lines of code for Windows NT:

Ship Date Product Dev Team Size Test Team Size Lines of code (LoC) Jul-93 NT 1.0 (released as 3.1) 200 140 4-5 million Sep-94 NT 2 …

At the PDC, I bought a bluetooth "Freedom" keyboard, unaware that at the time there were no drivers available for the Tablet PC. Although Freedom eventually released a driver, the keyboard is unacceptable for typing.

I then purchased a wireless keyboard from Motion (reduced to \$89). It arrived promptly but …

My latest column for SD Times discusses Windows Live.

According to Russ Beattie, an average of 3,700 "ad unit impressions" per day results in around \$111.79 in revenue. I recently added Google AdSense text ads on my Web pages, and will be interested in seeing the results, since I know that most people read this site in …

Project Gotham Racing 3 has an undocumented (as in, not in the documentation, not as in "unknown") split screen mode that allows head-to-head racing on a single XBox360 with multiple controllers. At the opening screen select "More" and then "Change Profile" and, start hitting "A" on the other controllers to …

OptionsScalper's kid got a 3.93GPA on her report card and he feels relieved she won't be a hairdresser. I once heard a computer programmer testifying in his bankruptcy hearing that his ex-as-of-last-month-wife was a hairdresser in Palo Alto and made \$160,000 per year. (I was there under the …

Tina's been a little, errr ... skeptical ... about how enjoyable it is that our living room now reverberates to the sound of up to 8 Ferraris simultaneously trying to negotiate a corner in downtown New York City (in surround sound!). So I thought I'd investigate XBox360 as a media extender.

First …