Brian H. Madsen - .Net Powered by Caffeine : Aussie Development

Office DevCon 2008 – Nov 1-2

Brian Madsen — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:30:19 GMT

Was just informed this morning, by Graham Seach, that the Office DevCon 2008 site has gone live. If you’re into office development (that’s Microsoft Office…VSTO FTW!!!) then this is the event of the year that you don’t want to miss.

Speaker opportunities are still available so if you have something funky to show off then this is the place to do it at.

Office DevCon is an annual community-driven conference that allows Microsoft Office developers and power users to come together in one location to hear expert speakers present on a wide range of Office-related topics.

Over 2 days, you will hear presentations on advanced core Office technologies for Office 2003 and 2007, including Word, Access, Excel, SharePoint, PowerPoint, Groove, InfoPath, OneNote and Outlook. We may also be able to provide some previews of Office 14, the next version.

The inaugural Australian event was held in November 2007, and was an unprecedented success - check out last year's programme at http://www.block.net.au/devcon/programme.htm. The 2008 event has already generated an extraordinary level of interest from many local and international speakers and organisations, and promises to ‘raise the bar’ even higher.

This year, the format will be even more exciting. We’ll still have our popular deep-dive sessions and hands-on labs, but we’ll also have RapidFire and OpenSpace sessions to provide greater opportunities to learn about Office technologies and techniques, and to interact with world-class experts.

It is free to attend Office DevCon, but accommodation and transportation costs are up to you, as are the cost of your meals.

To enable the Office DevCon 2008 organisers to arrange event catering and seating, you must register to attend the two day event by completing the registration form - http://www.officedevcon.com.au/registration/default.aspx.

For a bit more info you should head over to the Office DevCon site now (www.officedevcon.com.au).

The agenda has also been published (naturally, if new speakers are added, this agenda will change): http://www.officedevcon.com.au/agenda/default.aspx

Technorati Tags: VSTO,Office DevCon

Sahil Malik – Adv. Developers SharePoint 2007 training in Norway

Brian Madsen — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:00:51 GMT

Sahil is as always a very, very busy man and right after the launch of his SharePoint 2007 Training DVD he’s taking it a step further and delivering hands-on training in Norway.

It’s a 5 day training course and i wonder if we couldn’t get him down under?

Here’s some details on the content of the training:

Course Outline

Day 1

Configuring your SharePoint environment
The important parts of a SharePoint server installation
The basics of SharePoint
Writing your first feature and solution
SharePoint as a WCF client and host

–Why is WCF so compelling in SharePoint, and what are the limitations?

Day 2

Features and Solutions – deploying new pages to SharePoint
Authoring & Deploying Web Parts
Authoring & Deploying Web Parts – advanced scenarios.
AJAX and SharePoint
Silverlight 2 in SharePoint 2007

–Using Expression Studio, Visual Studio 2008 and SharePoint designer effectively.

Day 3

A WCF service that uses CAML, an introduction to CAML.
Putting WCF and Silverlight together with SharePoint 2007 webparts.
Managing your data in SharePoint

–Custom Field Types

–Content Types

–List & document library definitions, instances and event receivers.

Understanding and configuring search in SharePoint.
Search, for the hardcore developer.
A Silverlight and LINQ front end to SharePoint search

Day 4

InfoPath 2007 & Forms Services – basics and advanced implementations.
Writing workflows for SharePoint 2007
Writing Workflows – Advanced scenarios.
User Profiles and My Sites

–Feature Stapling

Customizing and Branding SharePoint.
SharePoint as a web content management solution.

Day 5

The Business Data Catalog
Using the Entity Framework in SharePoint
Excel Services
SharePoint with SQL Server 2008 reporting services

–What is new in SQL Server 2008.

–Setting up SSRS with SharePoint 2007.

SharePoint security – deep dive.
A mini project involving .NET 3.5 and SharePoint 2007:

–Develop a mini project in the class:

–Problem statement

–Architecture and design

–Separate out into teams

–Develop! (If time permits!)

If that doesn’t wet your appetite then you’re simply just not serious about MOSS!!!

Now i’m serious!! it would be awesome to get Sahil Malik down here and i’m searching for companies that’s serious about MOSS/SharePoint 2007 and want to get him down. I’ve spoken to Sahil on a number of occasions and he’s definitely willing to come down.

So, if you’re part of a company that works with MOSS/SharePoint 2007, and you think you’re serious about it, send me an email and i’ll gladly put you into contact with Sahil.

http://www.programutvikling.no/kurskalenderoversikt.aspx?mid_1=1352&mid=1535&id=273948

Can only envy the Norwegians for getting this opportunity!

Technorati Tags: Sahil Malik,SharePoint 2007 Training

CSharpZealot.com - OS Project: Crank

Brian Madsen — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 13:58:21 GMT

Major kudos to Michale Minutillo for getting version 0.3 out of Crank.

So what is Crank? First of all, it's an open source project Michael started a couple of months ago. Michael published it first on CSharpZealot.com and i'm curious to see how that develops.

Secondly, here's what Michael has to say about Crank:

Prepare to "Crank up" development on your next project with Crank. This tool uses a DSL called CAL to build an in-memory representation of a data model and then generates the SQL (compatible with SQL 2005 currently) to create that model in the database. The language is fully described and I already have some ideas for future feature (and where some of the bugs lie). The code is still a bit of a mess but please download the executable and have a play. I'd love to hear anyones feedback if they think it's a good(/bad) idea or if they have any ideas for features etc.
Crank has a codeplex site at http://codeplex.com/crank
Cheers and Get Crankin'

CSharpZealot.com

- OS Project: Crank

When a presentation goes so well i'm left speechless!

Brian Madsen — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 23:58:29 GMT

Last night I attended the Perth .Net Community of Practise's event, presented by a friend of mine, Nick Randolph and it was a brilliant presentation.

Nick presented on Visual Studio 2008 and he simply keeps on improving. The presentation was so well done that i'm at a loss for words.

An excellent mixture of demos and presentation materials.

I've been to a few of Nick's presentations before - even co-presented with him at Curtin University - and I have to admit that he is getting very, very good.

The topic as i said, was Visual Studio 2008 and as many know, Nick co-wrote Professional Visual Studio 2005 together with Dave Gardner, and Nick announced yesterday that he is in the process of writing Professional Visual Studio 2008.

If the presentation last night is any indication, i'd be standing in line at the bookshop once it's released.

The authors has set up a web site for the new book - www.professionalvisualstudio.com - so keep a look out for news on the book there!

Well done Nick - not only did you pull a crowd (we didn't have enough chairs!!!) but you made the event extremely pleasant and educational!

my hat's off for you!

Ozzie Rules Blogging : One of the Team Foundation Server program managers is coming to Australia

Brian Madsen — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 03:54:26 GMT

Chuck posted on his blog that Joe Schwertz is coming to Australia and will be touring client sites as well as the UGs around.

How awesome would it be to get him over here to the west and show us what TFS is really about?

Send me an email if you want me to petition Chuck to try and get him over...Or just simply comment here and i'm sure Chuck will eventually read about it...

Ozzie Rules Blogging : One of the Team Foundation Server program managers is coming to Australia

Silverlight version incompatibility...

Brian Madsen — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:25:10 GMT

I'm working on a little side project which has just ground totally to a halt.

i've done all the research, all the tutorials and it's about time to put it all together...and then..durrr...not going to happen just yet.

I wanted to create a silverlight sidebar gadget and thought i'd use Expression Blend, Silverlight and VS2008 "Orcas".

Well, to create a Silverlight application in "Orcas" you need the Silverlight Visual Studio extension for version 1.1 Alpha.

To create a Silverlight project in Expression Blend, you need Silverlight 1.0.

Unfortunately version 1.1 Alpha is NOT backwards compatible with version 1.0 in terms that version 1.1 Alpha will not allow you to create a Silverlight project in Expression Blend.

Bummer i say..I guess i have to wait till Silverlight catches up..or Blend catches up..

either way, it's on the backburner for now - been trawling the interweb to locate a solution, but so far it's a no-go.

any suggestions?

Frank Arrigo interviewed for CSharpZealot.com

Brian Madsen — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:54:21 GMT

I just published the results of an interview with Frank Arrigo over at CSharpZealot.com.

It was good to see a different side to Frank..he almost seems mortal now (?)

http://csharpzealot.com/content/FrankArrigoInterview062007.aspx

Currently listening to:
H I T M U S I C S T A T I O N . N E T - http://www.HitMusicStation.net - Enjoy the best & *** the rest! -

Australian Architecture Forum 2007

Brian Madsen — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 03:15:22 GMT

Now this is an event I would have sold a kidney just to attend!! right down my alley that's for sure as architecture is one of my main developer/project passions.

Nick Mayhew announced the event on this blog here - though, i see (sadly) that events like this which really pushes the technology ahead, is again leaving out Perth!!!!

The Australian Architecture Forum agenda has been specifically designed for you to:

Learn about the latest practices in architecture ,
Interact directly with architectural subject matter experts ,
Form relationships with peers from other organisations,
Share war stories and experiences with other architects,
Understand how your career might develop in the industry,
Learn more about the local architecture community , and
Do all of the above in a single day in Sydney or Melbourne!

Where and When?
Sydney
Wednesday 27th June 2007
Star City

Melbourne
Friday 29th June 2007
Crown Promenade Hotel
Timing?
08.00 Registration
08.30 - 17.30 Forum
17.30 - 20.00 Networking/Drinks
Cost?
AU$295 including GST

It really hurts to see events like these being dropped from other cities, except of course for Sydney and Melbourne...

I know the old line "Sydney and Melbourne are bigger" yada yada yada...seriously!! why can't these events, and events like these in particular, be brought across to Adelaide, Perth, Canberra?

it looks to be a brilliant event and i seriously wish i could attend - but flying across the country for a one day event is a bit of an expensive affair.

What would be great though, would be if MSFT would podcast/record etc the event and release it after the event it self..that way us hicks and peons of lesser importance could get to see the event anyways?

REMIX 2007 in Melbourne, June 25 and June 26

Brian Madsen — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:51:36 GMT

One of the sad fact in life is that ALL the cool events are held in the US, right?

Now, Mix07 is done and gone in the US and by all the podcasts and videos released it was absolutely fantastic. Again we're missing out..sniff sniff...NOT!!!

This year the MSFT team is going full out, not only for TechED but we're going to have our very own UBER-Geek convention...

REMIX....enter stage right.

And it's going to be a blast, seriously, if there was any event i'd give my right kidney to attend its REMIX. Its held in Melbourne, and yes i know, i always complain that the good stuff happens over east...but with this one i'm not even going to raise an eyebrow..

just the fact that we're getting it here is a big win and that's enough for me (can always grumble next year, right!).

For a measly $140 you get two days of action packed content. They haven't released much of what's going to happen, but here's the times where things ARE going to happen.

Day 1 - Monday, 25th June 2007

Room 1 - Design Track*

8:00 - 9:00am
Registration and refreshments
9:00am - 10:00am
Sessions / Discussions
10:00am - 10:15 am
Change rooms
10:15am - 11:15am
Sessions / Discussions
11:15am - 11:30am
Morning Tea
11:30am - 12:30pm
Sessions / Discussions
12:30pm - 1:30pm
Lunch
1:30pm - 2:30pm
Sessions / Discussions
2:30pm - 2:45pm
Change Rooms
2:45pm - 3:45pm
Sessions / Discussions
3:45pm - 4:00pm
Afternoon Tea
4:00pm - 5:00pm
Sessions / Discussions
5:00pm - 5:15pm
Change Rooms
5:15pm - 6:15pm
Social drinks

Room 2 - Developer Track*

Day 2 - Tuesday, 26th June 2007

Room 1 - Design Track*

Room 2 - Developer Track*

Not only is the presentations going to be great - but they have a great line-up as well. A few faces are familiar in there and i'm positively envious!! Dr. Neil is brilliant, Dave Glover is brilliant, Philip Beadle is brilliant..hell, the whole bunch of them are brilliant.

Eventhough MSFT hasn't release much in terms of content, i'm pretty sure you can expect to see a lot of new technology being shown off!!

Anyways, here's the list of presenters so far...Some hasn't provided pictures so i didn't grab those...shame on you boys!!

Douglas K. Olson

Product Unit General Manager, Microsoft Expression Suite

Douglas K. Olson is the Product Unit General Manager of the Expression Suite of products at Microsoft. With over 16 years of leadership experience at Adobe and Macromedia, he brings to Microsoft an extensive background in inspiring and driving the development of foundational products in the Creative Professional market. These products include Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, ImageReady and Macromedia Authorware and Sitespring. Doug holds a BS degree in Business Management from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.

Guy Gadney

President, Australian Interactive Media Industry Association - AIMIA

Guy Gadney is General Manager of Digital Services for PBL Media and President of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA). Prior to that, he was Director of Content Production for Telstra BigPond, overseeing the broadband and narrowband sites for AFL, V8 Supercars, GameArena, Music Downloads. He joined BigPond after leading and completing the delivery of the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) and games channels for the launch of FOXTEL Digital.

Guy began working in new media in the late 80's and has produced projects for laserdisc, CD-ROM, internet, multiplayer games and interactive TV. He was Head of Multimedia for Penguin Books UK in the mid-nineties before going on to produce large-scale websites for the band Oasis, the Guardian newspaper's Football and Cricket sites, and the FoxKids European internet rollouts.

In 1999 he joined BBC Worldwide looking after all the interactive TV and broadband developments. After the BBC, Guy produced the online massively multiplayer game Diaspora which pitted thousands of online players against each other simultaneously. His interactive TV work during this time included leading the production of the four interactive TV portals for Fish4.co.uk, and two EPGs for UK cable TV and the Radio Times.

Russ Weakley

Co-Chairman, Web Standards Group

Russ Weakley is a standards-based web designer, developer and trainer from Max Design who has worked in the web industry for 10 years.

Russ co-chairs the Web Standards Group. Russ has also produced a series of widely acclaimed CSS-based tutorials including:

He recently wrote his first book, Teach Yourself CSS in 10 Minutes.

Laurence Moroney

Technology Evangelist WPF/E, Microsoft

Laurence Moroney is a technology evangelist at Microsoft specializing in Silverlight (WPF/E). He came to Microsoft from a background specializing in cross-platform content and architecture. He is the author of ten books on ASP.NET, AJAX, Web development, Security and Interoperability, including the forthcoming book on next generation Web development called â€˜Programming Web.NEXT' from MS Press, as well as over 100 articles in various media from MSDN Magazine to LinuxWorld.

Shane Morris

User Experience Evangelist Microsoft Australia

Shane Morris is one of Australia's most experienced user interface design professionals, having worked in usability and user interface design since 1991. In that time he's worked on traditional graphical user interfaces, web sites, kiosks, multimedia products, mobile applications and physical devices. Shane has taught user-centred design techniques in the USA, UK, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. His clients have included Sensis, Lonely Planet, Hewlett Packard U.S., Telstra, The Australian Football League, Telecom New Zealand and the Royal Australian Air Force.

Shane has degrees in both Computer Science and Cognitive Science and is an active member of Australia's Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group. Shane has also lectured in Information Architecture and Usability Evaluation at Swinburne University in Melbourne.

Dave Glover

.Net Developer Evangelist Microsoft Australia

Dave Glover has worked for Microsoft for over 14 years mostly in our various Developer Platform Groups, the first 10 years were with Microsoft UK and he transfer to Microsoft Australia in 2004. He has worked in various roles including people management and across a broad spectrum of infrastructure and developer technologies with a variety of customers and partners.

His main technical skills include development of Web applications, Web Services, Standards based SOAs and Mobile devices. He is also interested in Operating Systems (not just MS ones), communications and collaboration technologies, gadgets and in general have a fairly good and realistic view of Microsoft and the general IT Industry directions.

Nick Hodge

Enthusiast Evangelist Microsoft Australia

Nick Hodge is an Enthusiast Evangelist for Microsoft, Australia. A self-proclaimed Professional Geek, Nick is known for the online series The Geek Stories and his personal blog covering Australia, technology, learning, the web and other topics.

Prior to Microsoft, Nick spent 8 years at Adobe Systems; and 3 years at Apple Computer. He holds an MBA from LaTrobe Univeristy and a Post Graduate Diploma of Technology Management from Monash University. A holder of multiple ACE's (Adobe Certified Expert), Nick has contributed to the local community over many years.

Scott Barnes

Developer Evangelist Microsoft Australia

Scott Barnes is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Australia. With over 15 years of leadership experience in working with Adobe, Macromedia and Allaire development technologies, he brings to Microsoft an extensive background in interactive web design & development. He has experience in Java, C#, Flex (ActionScript 3.0, MXML), Coldfusion, ASP, WPF, XAML, SQL, MySQL, JavaScript, XHTML, XML whilst also having design experience with Adobe CS2 suite and Flash Professional (has used this product since version 3.0). Scott has also has written articles on these technologies for various publications throughout his career.

Joseph Cooney

Software Development Consultant

Joseph Cooney is a Microsoft MVP and has been working with Microsoft Technologies for the past 8 years with a strong focus on .NET technology. Joseph is an active member of the .NET community regularly contributing to online discussion forums and maintaining his software development sites learnwpf.com and jcooney.net. Joseph has also developed a mind-mapping tool at Thoughtex.com using WPF.

In addition, Joseph is a regular presenter at technical workshops and user groups.

Joseph heads up Microsoft partner Paradigm Logic in QLD, and lives in Brisbane with his family.

Dr. Neil

Dr. Neil is an independent itinerant consultant, trainer and author. He travels the world working with software companies.

In his book, eXtreme .NET, Dr. Neil introduced eXtreme Programming Techniques to .NET developers.

In 2005, Dr. Neil launched a web site to help developers build on Virtual Earth; it has since become the most popular community site for Virtual Earth developers.

Dr. Neil's latest venture is a partnership with a UK design agency to create an online remedy for designers block.

Recognized by Microsoft as an expert in the field of software development, Dr. Neil is a Windows Live Developer MVP and a Regional Director for Australia.

John-Daniel

Director Mindscape

John-Daniel is an experienced software developer and has operated several technology businesses. He is a director at Mindscape, a New Zealand based software products company that he launched in early 2007. John-Daniel enjoys public speaking and has spoken at several events and user groups about a wide variety of topics from Standards Compliance to SQL CE.

In 2006 John-Daniel won the ".Net Blog of the Year" in New Zealand for his personal blog about software development and business issues.

Jason Suess

Technical Evangelist, Developer and Platform Evangelism

Jason Suess started his time at Microsoft as an engineer on the Access product team in 1992. After helping to ship Access v1, v2, 95, and 97 he moved over to Microsoft's developer evangelism organization and has been involved in the evangelism of DHTML, COM+, ADO.NET, WSE 3.0, and Vista. Most recently he's been focusing on Windows Media Center working with broadcasters to bring their content to Media Center users and advertisers to explore interactive advertising concepts for the television.

Philip Beadle

Readify - Senior Consultant Microsoft

Philip Beadle is a versatile consultant, having presented at Microsoft Australia's request to a number of nationwide conferences on how best to realise the benefits of Microsoft's .NET framework. As well as possessing MCAD certification, Philip has been recognised by Microsoft through its Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for his contributions to the ASP.Net community.

Philip has consulted as system architect on a number of .NET projects developing state-of-the-art solutions for complex, mission critical requirements. He presents regularly at user group meetings around Australia and is an active member of the Melbourne .Net User Group.

Philip is an evangelist for the DotNetNuke program and in particular the current platform based on ASP.Net 2.0. He strongly believes in the benefits of open source coding, and has had an article published in the inaugural edition of the new MSDN Magazine for Australia and New Zealand.

Please be sure to book a seat for this event - dont wait too long because they can only cram that many people into the premises -

Registrations are $140 and you get to go away with a goodie bag worth more than $550 (you think Expression Studio, or parts thereof is in the bag??).

Click here to register

Perth Central Tafe Presentation - Professional .Net Development

Brian Madsen — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:13:25 GMT

Today I had the longest presentation i've yet to do - nearly 4hrs long - for Perth Central Tafe, a tertiary educational institution.

I broke the presentation down into 4 main groups:

.Net Framework - Overview of a development platform
ASP.Net - Working with the web
ADO.Net - Data manipulation and beyond
Tools of the trade - Visual Studio 2005, Expression Web and SQL Server 2005 Express

Here's a few screenshots - i used Office Powerpoint 2007 and the themes built it comes with per default..Actually quite happy with Powerpoint 2007 compared to earlier versions..

First slide..

history of ASP.Net

ADO.Net architecture

It was quite a success, but 4hrs is definitely a bit too long for only 1 presenter. I did give plenty of breaks, but for some reason each of my own "breaks" was taken up with answering questions...Still it was good to see the enthusiasm and how the interest spread quickly.

We also went over time by roughly 40 minutes as more questions came in - this time for how to implement interfaces and how to bind a custom collection to a GridView.

All in all, it was great - the organise, Helen Burgess covered her ankle brilliantly by providing me with plenty of coffee.

So, thanks for the introduction goes to Helen and to Perth Central Tafe for having me present.

Bad Code? or just the AFL curse hitting hard?

Brian Madsen — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 09:43:34 GMT

A former colleague alerted me to the fact that the www.afl.com.au website was down - caused by an unhandled exception - that's just poor poor coding in my opinion.

Reason seems to be that the datasource isn't available - so who on earth doesn't check to see if the connection is open before requesting data...

and have they heard about try-catch yet? seriously, for such a public web site that's BAD...seriously bad!!

Nick Randolph's .NET Travels : Visual Studio vNext (aka "Orcas")

Brian Madsen — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 13:15:37 GMT

Nick Randolph's been a busy bee lately - from looking at his recent post count he's been extremely busy. What he's also done is look around the big blue interweb for information about "Orcas" - that's Visual Studio "Orcas" and he's put together a nice list for us slackers of links to essential information.

Thanks for that Nick...

Link to Nick Randolph's .NET Travels : Visual Studio vNext (aka "Orcas")

Is this normal, or am i being anal?

Brian Madsen — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:12:39 GMT

One of the tools i use is ReSharper - i love this tool and cannot...live...without...it..

A feature i really like is the code analysis bar on the right hand side of the code window.

I especially love seeing the little square go green - and stay that way.

Of course, this has its drawbacks, especially when working in a team environment since whenever i see this:

I rush over and fiddle with the code till it turns green.

It does really matter what it is since the warnings can be quite varied..i just cant help myself..

sometimes when i'm waiting for a file to be checked in, or a build to complete on the server...or just passing a few moments "thinking" of some problem or possible solution...i flick over to a file that i know has a warning in it and start going through a few warnings.

I mean, there's really nothing wrong with using .ToString()...but sometimes it's redundant to do so...and i remove it...

so, am i being anal or is this normal?

Code Camp Oz 2007 is near!!

Brian Madsen — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 13:07:25 GMT

One of the traditions here in Australia is the Code Camp - it's been very successful over the years, both in Oz and internationally.

Location: Wagga Wagga
Date: March 31st - April 1st

The contents this year will include the following:

ASP.NET AJAX
Workflow Foundation and BizTalk 2006 (making the kids play together)
Visual Studio 2005 Tips & Tricks
Protecting against code level attacks in .NET
Building a Real World WPF Application
Managing and Extending Team Foundation Server
Microsoft Robotics Studio (tentative)
New Code Analysis Stuff in Orcas (tentative)
XNA Studio
LINQ/ADO.NET Entities (tentative)
Extending CRM (tentative)
A Guide to Microsoft Synchronisation Technologies
Practical Magic/SOA
Microsoft Excel Services 2007

If you're in the area, or even if you aren't, you should check it out.

To register for the event email Mitch Denny and/or Greg Low at registrations@codecampoz.com

I'm not sure if i can make it but will definitely give it a go..

So spread the word!!!

OzGadgets.com.au - Another OZ Dev site/community sees the light of day

Brian Madsen — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 15:10:00 GMT

Here we go...first off, what's going on? communities, sites and mailing lists are popping up all over the place here in Australia.

Seems like somebody/something has sparked the interest for development here in Australia..good news!

So - what has also seen the light of day? well, OzGadgets is alive! it's a site dedicated to creating Gadgets (if you don't know what it is, go to www.live.com and check it out).

Darren Neimke started it - good work Darren, hope it also takes off...