I use the Recent Documents list on my Start menu quite a lot. I often work on a number of documents types at once, all from the same folder (organized by project, for example). I open one document that way, but then if I want some other document from that folder, it gets tiring going to Recent Documents all the time. As a result I tend to use Start, Run, and start to type the name of the folder -- since things I typed recently are remembered, it doesn't take many keystrokes:

But now on Vista I have something even easier to deal with. There's an extra choice on the context menu for the Recent documents list:

That's a timesaver for sure!

Kate

A client of mine, International Time Recorder, is hiring in Etobicoke. Here's the job description:

Job Title:  Senior Application Developer

Senior developer responsible for contributing to the design, development and implementation of commercial software solutions to a diverse marketplace.

Duties
• Contribute to the analysis and design, while being accountable for the support, development, testing and implementation of solutions and enhancements to software systems.
• Design and develop software components and features.  This includes working with stakeholders in developing Detailed Functional Specifications, designing certain key components of the product and implementing the solutions.
• Support and design of maintenance and test procedures and test cases for the product.
• Participate in schedule development and ensure timely product delivery.
• Assist in the creation and implementation of concrete procedures for tracking and releasing product updates.
• Coach and mentor junior development team members in best practices for support, development, testing and implementation of software solutions conducting code reviews as needed.

Qualifications
Education:  University Degree in Computer Science, or equivalent experience
Experience:  8 – 10 Years

Required Skills:
• Familiarity with the following technologies: C#, ASP.NET, C++,  ADO.NET, ADO, Web Services (SOAP/XML), RPC, all Windows Operating Systems, IIS, COM, Active Reports
• Two years experience in .NET development in commercial software development using C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET
• Eight years experience in commercial Windows Application Development
• Experience in Scaleable Distributed Application design
• Three years experience in designing SQL Server databases
• Proven experience in developing database-driven Web and Windows applications with demonstrated flair for design and layout
• Two years experience as a project lead

Nice-to-Have Skills:
• Time and attendance industry experience
• Experience with Microsoft Visual Studio Team Systems.
 

The firm is doing active development in both C++ and C#. If you're looking for a place to use both old and new skills (and a chance to get regular mentoring from me ), drop me a line and I will forward your information along.

Kate

Woo hoo! STL/CLR is back! It made an accidental brief appearance in a Whidbey beta, but wasn't ready for prime time at all and went off for some retooling. If you grab the September CTP of Orcas, you can give it a whirl yourself. Here are some links stolen from Nikola's blog announcing it:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82243606-d16d-445c-8949-9ee8c10cda2e%26DisplayLang=en to download the CTP.

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/ to report bugs or issues with the CTP including STL/CLR.

http://blogs.msdn.com/vcblog/archive/2006/09/30/777835.aspx  Known issues and some workarounds.

So many paying projects to finish... but I will get working with this soon. Time to adjust my November talks to stop using the old unofficial version and start using the CTP version.

Kate

Fall is here and that means hammock time is pretty much over for another year. I just had to mention the hammock we got this year: small and light enough to take camping, to the beach, or anywhere else. Sets up in a minute or so. Here it is on my front lawn:

It weighs less than a pound and when it's in its stuff sack, I bet it would fit in a roomy jacket pocket. It certainly takes up less room in a beach bag than a towel, and it adjusts to handle trees of varying distances apart. It came from Lee Valley, where so much of my money has gone over the years. They'll ship anywhere. If you decide you want a Lee Valley catalog, drop me an email. I'll refer you to them and the company will give some money to charity.

Kate

I saw this interesting graph over at Language Log:

It compares "empathizing quotient" with "systemizing quotient" -- the extent to which you connect to others' emotions and the extent to which you like to categorize things and people, and fit them into your system of understanding. (This is just for one sample of people and doesn't necessarily apply to the entire world.) You can score very high in both, or very low in both, but as this graph shows, women tend to have higher EQ and men tend to have higher SQ, though the difference between the groups is less than a typical difference between individuals. Engineers and scientists tend to have much higher SQ and also lower EQ. The green symbols on this graph are results from people with Aspergers, or people diagnosed as High Functioning Autistic. Their SQ varies but their EQ is very low. You can take the test yourself if you like. I was surprised by questions like "When I read something, I always notice whether it is grammatically correct" -- that is 100% true of me but I thought it was my little quirk, not something that would appear on a test for personality traits. Then there was "Whenever I run out of something at home, I always add it to a shopping list." Who doesn't?

My results are perfectly ordinary for someone with a PhD in engineering, I think: EQ 36, SQ 77. That puts me about where the S is in the "extreme S" label. Interesting.

Kate

I've been dying to announce this one. I'm leaving Tech Ed Developers one day early to go to Copenhagen and do a C++ day November 10th. There's an announcement in Danish on the msevents site now. Here's the agenda:

Agenda 

The sessions for Tech Ed Africa in Sun City are now available online at http://msevents.microsoft.co.za/teched2006/Sessions.aspx. I have three sessions there, here's how they look:

Notable names on this speaker list:

• Andre de Beer
• Ayal Rosenberg
• Colin Erasmus
• Dave Webster
• Hilton Giesenow
• Jay Schmelzer
• Ken Everett
• Kimberly Tripp
• Ruari Plint
• Simon Harris
• Steve Riley

Folks I've seen speak here before, for the most part. This is always a very enjoyable conference for me and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Kate

You can search sessions and see the schedule now, at http://www.mseventseurope.com/Teched/06/Pre/static/Developers/SessionSearch.aspx. Here's how my talk looks there:

Some names I know in the speaker list:

• Anders Hejlsberg
• Ayman Shoukry
• Brian Randell
• Carl Franklin
• Catherine Heller
• Christian Weyer
• Clemens Vasters
• Ingo Rammer
• Jackie Goldstein
• Jan Tielens
• Jay Schmelzer
• Jeff Prosise
• Kimberly Tripp
• Mike Fitzmaurice
• Patrick Tisseghem
• Richard Campbell
• Scott Hanselman
• Stephen Forte
• Steve Teixeira
• Steve Lasker

RDs, blogs I read, MS people... it's going to be a great time!

Kate

Shankar Vaidyanathan, who's been on the VC++ team for over 12 years, talked to Channel 9 in late July about why C++ devs actually do use and care about the IDE. He also shares some of the challenges for writing an IDE for very demanding customers. Watch this one immediately after the Boris one and you'll be an IDE guru!

Kate