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the windows live writer team has just announced that they will be supporting a new section in the for writer plugins.  this is a great opportunity to get your plugins ready for primetime and ensure that you are listed in the directory.  jeff has been doing a good job keeping track, but now he won't have to worry about it :-).

submissions aren't automatic, so be sure to review the criteria.  namely, you need to ensure that you are putting them in an installer package (apparently the preferred is an MSI - more on my opinion here) and bootstrapping any .NET 2.0 installation if needed.

of course with submitting things to microsoft properties, there are things you have to agree to, so be sure to read the guidelines appropriately.  this is a pre-approval process...so be one of the first to be on the gallery!

read the announcement here:

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um, yeah. and check out some on the related videos too...

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a while back i ranted about my woes with high speed internet companies and choices.  when is a monopoly not a monopoly?  apparently when it is a utility. argh, i get frustrated thinking that i have 1 choice for electricity, 1 choice for telephone, 1 choice for gas, etc. -- argh.

anyhow, because of the cox acquisition of cableamerica and my concerns about cox services and customer service, i figured i'd jump on the opportunities presented to my by qwest dsl (higher speeds).  anyhow after some bumpy starts (i placed the order 45 days ago and it is just getting connected today.  hmmm...vision of what is to come on customer service?

anyhow, so it got connected (and i finally plugged everything in correctly -- yes, i had to open mouth, insert foot on one incident).  so here's some speed results.

i first used bandwidthplace.com for my pre-tests:

cox internet:
[using setting: cable, arizona region]
first test: 795KB/second
second test: 1.2 MB/second

then i used speakeasy.net for comparison:

cox internet:
[using los angeles location]
first test: 1215KB/second
second test: 2184KB/second

now the same tests using dsl:

qwest dsl:
[bandwidthplace.com - same settings]
first test: 2.7MB/second
second test: 3.9MB/second

[speakeasy.net - same settings]
first test: 5881KB/second
second test: 6067KB/second

wow.  i had to run a few more just for giggles...here's the results:

Download Speed: 5984 kbps (748 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 674 kbps (84.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 6000 kbps (750 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 741 kbps (92.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 6031 kbps (753.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 674 kbps (84.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 5709 kbps (713.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 475 kbps (59.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

so it's hooked up and piped through the house now (although i have to get a dsl filter for my patch panel, which is en route)...seems to be doing fine!

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there have been a lot of interesting projects showing up on lately.  i want to learn more.

when you submit a project request, you enter details about the project.  unfortunately, those details *do not* get transferred to your project wiki/homepage when the project is approved.

so what happens is a short teaser blurb is in the 'most recent' and project directory, but when you click on the project, you get nothing :-(.  i agree, the details you submitted should be automatically put on the homepage of the project.

but until that happens (if it even will), please, please, please, once you get approved, take 2 minutes and update the homepage.

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okay, so one thing was bothering me about the flickr retrieval and sizing for thumbnails, the performance.

so, i implemented a background worker process and wow, what a difference in the user experience.

please get this 1.1.60817.1 update instead of the other...trust me.