Vishwas Lele talks about thinking of Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server as an application platform for .NET development. With all of the power and flexibility of MOSS, it can no longer be categorized simply as a web portal.

http://dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=273

 Don Demsak on LINQ to XML Part 1

Don XML is back on dnrTV to give us our first sneak peek at Visual Studio Team System 2008 and one of it's most outstanding new features: LINQ to XML. In this first of a two part series Don shows how to query xml in VB and C#, both the old way and using XLinq.

http://dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showID=80

While mastering today's .NET Rocks! show I noticed an annoying whine in the guest's phone track. You might not be able to hear it at first but if you turn up the volume and listen to it, you can definitely hear it, and it is annoying.

The standard noise reduction techniques didn't seem to work on this, mostly because the telephone audio interface we use has a gate that kills this noise when the talent isn't speaking. Since to remove noise, you have to have a nice clean sample of it, obtaining this sample is pretty hard.

So to take out the noise I went into Spectral View in Adobe Audition, a feature leftover from when the software was Cool Edit Pro. Spectral view shows you the frequency range vertically, with the lowest (bassiest) frequencies at the bottom and the highest (trebliest) frequencies at the top. Color shows the intensity of the frequencies over time, which is on the horizontal axis. Take a look at this clip from the phone track in regular edit mode. You can listen to it by clicking here.

Click on the image to enlarge it

Did you hear the whine? No? Turn up your headphones and listen again. You can really hear it toward the end of the clip.

Here's the same section of audio in Spectral View:

Again, click to enlarge.

Look closely. Do you see a horizontal band in the 1.1K to 1.2K range? That's the whine!!!

Now, here's the cool part. I can select this band like I'm selecting an area of a picture in a paint program and delete it!

Here's a picture of the frequency range selected:

Hit the delete key and it's gone! Now, it only removed that frequency range. Think of this like an equalizer with a different user interface. Here's what it looks like with the band removed:

And of course, click here to listen to the clean version.

All in a day's work.

Michael Dunn tells Carl and Richard about Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007 which has incorporated Live Communication Server with Speech Server. Speech Server is one of the key development elements of OCS, providing the ability for .NET developers to build applications that can both speak and understand speech with minimal coding.

http://dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=272

I had to pick the day that my ISPs DNS server crashed to move all my email accounts to Google Apps. Currently the only domain working is pwop.com. You can email me at carl@pwop.com, but the franklins.net email domain is temporarily down.

So, about the move... Since I started franklins.net in 1996 I've been using MDaemon as an email server. About two months ago I decided to install the latest update, after which I discovered that updates weren't free. In fact it will cost me about $2800 to purchase one year's worth of "upgrade protection" which gives me free updates for a year. After that it's another couple grand for another year, etc.  I definitely wanted the latest version with the latest features and security devices, but I'm not willing to spend that kind of money for a mail server that serves about 40 email addresses in total, all SMTP/POP3, no AD, etc.

I thought about Exchange, but that's really overkill, and it requires a Windows domain, which I don't have or need. Just then Scott Hanselman and I were talking about Google Apps and Windows Live Domains in this week's Hanselminutes episode. Since he had moved his whole family and circle of friends up to Google, I decided to try and do it with Live Domains.

Transferring the DNS records and setting up the account was a snap. It really was easy to do, and went really smoothly. The Hotmail web client is also extremely pleasant to use. However, there are several real features missing that are preventing me from using it. The dealbreaker is that you can't forward email outside of hotmail/msn. I got an email from the team at MS who said that this feature was coming soon, but my mail server's temporary license expires in 5 days.

So I've spent the last 16 hours or so moving all my domains to Google Apps. While I didn't find the setup process nearly as easy as the Live Domains process, it seems there is UI for every kind of tweak you can do to a mail account, and that makes me extremely happy.

HOWEVER... the fine folks at my ISP had a DNS server crash and had to rebuild their servers from scratch. You may have noticed several of our websites being up and down today. The sites are mostly fixed, but the MX records are still very much screwed up. I'm hoping it will be resolved tomorrow.

So, I don't really have much to report on using Google Apps becuase carl@pwop.com is the only email I have right now that works, and I haven't had time to use it. I'm too busy trying to fix everything else.

It's been a few days since I started my experiment in triphasic sleep, and I thought I'd give you an update. For the most part I have kept the 6.5 hours up/1.5 hours down schedule with almost perfect accuracy, except for one session that started 15 minutes late, and one that started 15 early.

For the most part I am completely functional, just a little groggy, but never to the point of falling asleep. I am drinking one to two cups of coffee upon waking, and I'm taking about 1 to 1.5 mg of melatonin before falling asleep. I'm hoping that once my body adapts I wont need either.

It's getting better, though. Waking up is getting easier and easier, although I am still groggy. Feels like taking percoset or something. I can function just fine, and I yawn once in a while, but my mind is sharp.

So far my family and friends have been pretty understanding about scheduling things around my naps. I don't think that's going to be a problem.

The hardest cycle to wake up from is the 2:30 AM cycle, for obvious reasons. That's right in the middle of my normal cycle. I am trying to resist the urge to sleep more. For now, coffee seems to help.

Again, having a friend to do the experiment with, who's also up in the middle of the night helps a LOT.

Stay tuned.

<2007 Ultimate Tool List/>

Scott and Carl talk about Scott's 2007 Ultimate devoloper and power users tool list.

http://hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=96

Brandon Wehn, a new engineer here at Pwop Studios, and I have started an experiment in triphasic sleep. It's not a new idea. Most people have one sleep cycle of 6 to 10 hours, and that would be monophasic (one phase). Polyphasic means more than one phase per 24-period, and triphasic specifically means 3 phases per 24 hour period.

Basically, I am sleeping for 90 minutes three times daily, once every 6.5 hours. The idea is that the average sleep cycle is 90 minutes. If you train your body to this new schedule, which apparently can take from one to two weeks, it learns to use those 90 minutes to get into a REM sleep cycle right away. The first sleep cycle we normally get tends to be the deepest, with the most REM- that precious time when the brain supposedly sorts out your input stimulus from the last waking period.

Steve Pavlina famously documented an experiment he did with polyphasic sleep, in which he slept 20 to 30 minutes every 3.5 hours six times a day. That seems to be a bit over the top, basically compressing a natural 90 minute sleep cycle into 30 minutes. Its a fascinating read. Ultimately he went back to normalcy not for the reasons you'd expect. It worked for him except for the fact that the rest of the world didn't sleep like him, and he basically got lonely having so much free time at night.

My schedule is currently 2:30 to 4:00 AM, 10:30 AM to Noon, and 6:30 to 8:00 PM. I started yesterday at 2:30 AM after being up since 11 AM that day.  I recently completed my fourth sleep cycle with success. I do feel groggy after the early morning cycle, but I'm hoping that will correct itself in a couple weeks as my body learns to adapt. If after 2 and a half weeks I am still a wreck, I'll go back to my usual sleep schedule. For now, Brandon and I are getting a lot done at the studio, and a lot needs to be done in order to get the new space fully online (expect a long post on that project soon).

Do you have experience with this kind of sleep schedule? I'd like to hear your story.

Read the next installment of this story here

Jon Harrop introduces Carl and Richard to F#, a functional language that runs under the CLR. F# performs like C#, but being a functional language, has interactive scripting (similar to Python) but is rooted in the strong type inference and safety that other functional languages like ML focus on. Being in the CLR means you can build certain parts of your application in F# and then reference them from other languages, the same way VB.NET and C# interoperate.

http://dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=271

<Donald Farmer on Data Mining/>

We chat with Donald Farmer about data mining with the Analysis Services components of Microsoft's SQL Server 2005. Donald takes us away from the traditional business-use of data mining (like a 'people who liked this book also liked' application) and into the idea that we can mine our application and event logs for data that will help the IT pro optimize and anticipate problems in the information systems.

 Carl Franklin on Encryption in .NET

This week Carl trades seats with Mark Miller to show us 3 different ways to encrypt your data in .NET: One Way Hashing, The Data Protection API and Symetric Encryption.

http://dnrtv.com/default.aspx?showID=79

Remi Caron, one of the organizers of the SDC conference in the Netherlands, tells Richard and Carl how using standard toolsets and software packages helps him stay focused on his customers' software problems and deliver more powerful solutions faster.

http://dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=270

<Bob Roudebush on Disaster Recovery for Virtualization!/>

Bob Roudebush talks to us about how disaster recovery works when Microsoft Virtual Server and/or VMWare is involved. We dig into the details around backing up within the guest VM and via the host.

Carl Turns 40!

It's an all-new show recorded live at Pwop Studios in front of a studio audience! Carl confesses to a crime involving hornets, Karen moves on, Millah almost comes to blows with Karen's husband, and Richard finds a guy online who built a 500-some-odd foot slip and slide!

<Moving your Email into the Cloud - Google for Apps and Live Custom Domains/>

Scott and Carl talk about Scott's Family's recent move to Google Apps and Carl considers moving to Live Custom Domains. What are the benefits of moving your life into the cloud?

http://hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=95

Donald Farmer talks about data mining with SQL Server and related technologies, including a fascinating discussion about using algorithms for predicting future trends.

http://dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showID=269