I downloaded Adobe Media Player yesterday and although I didn't get a chance to fully check it out I do have to say I'm pretty impressed. Overall the UI is pretty pleasing (though the fade effects are a bit choppy on my machine). There doesn't seem to be a ton of content just yet, but I'm sure that will come in time. I'm intrigued by the 'offline' viewing capabilities. That should definitely come in handy when travelling.

I have to admit, I'm pretty excited about these on demand internet movie/tv technologies that are coming out lately. hulu is another one that is pretty cool. I even went out and picked up an extra long HDMI cable which I hook up to my XPS laptop so I can watch on my HDTV. The quality is not quite 100%, but just the fact that I can watch programs and movies when I want to on my regular TV with very limited commercial interruption is very cool.

Sometimes the title tells you all you need to know...

The data link layer provides the functional and procedural means to transfer data between network entities and to detect and possibly correct errors that may occur in the physical layer. Originally, this layer was intended for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint media, characteristic of wide area media in the telephone system. Local area network architecture, which included broadcast-capable multiaccess media, was developed independently of the ISO work, in IEEE Project 802. IEEE work assumed sublayering and management functions not required for WAN use. In modern practice, only error detection, not flow control using sliding window, is present in modern data link protocols such as Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), and, on local area networks, the IEEE 802.2 LLC layer is not used for most protocols on Ethernet, and, on other local area networks, its flow control and acknowledgment mechanisms are rarely used. Sliding window flow control and acknowledgment is used at the transport layers by protocols such as TCP, but is still used in niches where X.25 offers performance advantages.

Both WAN and LAN services arrange bits, from the physical layer, into logical sequences called frames. Not all physical layer bits necessarily go into frames, as some of these bits are purely intended for physical layer functions. For example, every fifth bit of the FDDI bit stream is not used by the data link layer.

[edit] WAN Protocol Architecture

Connection-oriented WAN data link protocols, in addition to framing, detect and may correct errors. They also are capable of controlling the rate of transmission. A WAN data link layer might implement a sliding window flow control and acknowledgment mechanism to provide reliable delivery of frames; that is the case for SDLC and HDLC, and derivatives of HDLC such as LAPB and LAPD.

[edit] IEEE 802 LAN Architecture

Practical, connectionless LANs began with the pre-IEEE Ethernet specification, which is the ancestor of IEEE 802.3. This layer manages the interaction of devices with a shared medium, which is the function of a Media Access Control sublayer. Above this MAC sublayer is the media-independent IEEE 802.2 Logical Link Control (LLC) sublayer, which deals with addressing and multiplexing on multiaccess media.

While IEEE 802.3 is the dominant wired LAN protocol and IEEE 802.11 the wireless LAN protocol, obsolescent MAC layers include Token Ring and FDDI. The MAC sublayer detects but does not correct errors.

A lot of friends IM'd me yesterday asking me if I had completely lost my mind. I can't say much, but I can say that there is a clue in that post. Can you find it? It won't make sense now, but stay tuned. It might take a while, but everything will eventually slide into place.

The physical layer defines all the electrical and physical specifications for devices. In particular, it defines the relationship between a device and a physical medium. This includes the layout of pins, voltages, cable specifications, Hubs, repeaters, network adapters, Host Bus Adapters (HBAs used in Storage Area Networks) and more.

To understand the function of the physical layer in contrast to the functions of the data link layer, think of the physical layer as concerned primarily with the interaction of a single device with a medium, where the data link layer is concerned more with the interactions of multiple devices (i.e., at least two) with a shared medium. The physical layer will tell one device how to transmit to the medium, and another device how to receive from it (in most cases it does not tell the device how to connect to the medium). Obsolescent physical layer standards such as RS-232 do use physical wires to control access to the medium.

The major functions and services performed by the physical layer are:

• Establishment and termination of a connection to a communications medium.
• Participation in the process whereby the communication resources are effectively shared among multiple users. For example, contention resolution and flow control.
• Modulation, or conversion between the representation of digital data in user equipment and the corresponding signals transmitted over a communications channel. These are signals operating over the physical cabling (such as copper and optical fiber) or over a radio link.

Parallel SCSI buses operate in this layer, although it must be remembered that the logical SCSI protocol is a transport-layer protocol that runs over this bus. Various physical-layer Ethernet standards are also in this layer; Ethernet incorporates both this layer and the data-link layer. The same applies to other local-area networks, such as Token ring, FDDI, and IEEE 802.11, as well as personal area networks such as Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4.

So I've just clicked 'Install' on Vista SP1 on my desktop. I've been told to step away from the machine for an hour while it 'does it's thing'. Good thing I've got my laptop here with me. Amazingly (or not so much) Microsoft has made it quite a quest to get the damn thing in the first place.

We shall see. Here's hoping for the magic bullet...

I've been working with Vista for about a year now and despite its 'intricacies' and 'quirks' I've actually grown to like it. Recently I discovered a few hidden gems that may be helpful to developers.

The first is a handy little tool that can be used to capture screen shots quickly and easily (versus the old 'print screen, paste into image editing program method).

The application is called the Snipping Tool and although not as advanced feature wise as similar programs, it is a helpful tool. You can use the tool to create the following types of captures:

• Free-form Snip. Draw an irregular line, such as a circle or a triangle, around an object.
• Rectangular Snip. Draw a precise line by dragging the cursor around an object to form a rectangle.
• Window Snip. Select a window, such as a browser window or dialog box, that you want to capture.
• Full-screen Snip. Capture the entire screen when you select this type of snip.

Once captured you can do minor editing, save the image or share via email.

Along the same line as the Snipping Tool - and somewhat of a hidden gem from Microsoft is the Windows Media Encoder (free download to registered Windows users). What enticed me to this tool is the ability to do real time video screen captures (with audio). The quality is not perfect, but for simple training type videos or demos the tool looks like a winner (compared to other paid options that is).

In June of this year I will have been working at the same company for 12 years. Working for the same company that long these days is almost unheard of but I consider myself fortunate to be 31 years old and almost half way to being pension eligible (yes those things do still exist). Barring any unforseen circumstances, I'll probably be at this company my entire career. But that's a discussion for another day.

Back around Christmas, Ray Camden ran a fun Friday Challenge involving the 12 days of Christmas. He followed up with an idea later in the day of using his Yahoo API to create an image representation of the song.

I thought the idea was super cool, and had been meaning to create something similar using this technique. Enter Word Art - a fun, yet altogether useless implementation of the Yahoo Image Search API which takes a string that you enter and does a random inage search for each letter in the string - creating a cool collage of images which represents that string. There is no groundbreaking super cool code behind this (in fact I'm not even going to attach the code unless someone wants it) - just something fun to waste time that I whipped up last night. Enjoy.

For some reason my VPS seems to have been down for the 10 hours or so. Everything seems back to normal now. If you tried to take my survey and had problems I apologize. Everything should be good to go now.