Discovering that Raggedy Andy liked playing with dolls more than girls, Raggedy Ann went on a 3 day bender, heading to rehab only after making a scene for the paparazzi.

Ever had a folder full of files and needed a text listing of all those files? Here’s a quick n’ dirty way to do it.

I have a whole folder full of new icons for the next version of SharePoint and need to check them into source control. The big pain here is that I’ll need to go into source control and type in each file name to unlock it for editing, copy in the new file, then type in each file name to check it in. If, however, I had a list of all the files I could make a quick batch file to do it for me.

1. Open your command prompt (on Vista, type cmd then right-click and run as administrator)
2. Change directories to where you need a listing
3. On the command line type: dir /b > filename.txt

Windows will create a new text file named “filename.txt” (you can name it anything you like on the command line). One thing to note: your text file will be included in the list, you may want to remove that line before using it to do any bulk operations. Enjoy!

Edit: A good reference for directory listings: http://www.computerhope.com/dirhlp.htm

After setting it aside to prepare for Christmas, I finally shipped off my Xbox for [free] repair of the three rings of death. It’s now in the hands of the hardware pixies and I hope to have it back soon!

Fortunately I haven’t been completely without fraggy goodness, I do have a second Xbox. It is, however, a European Xbox so won’t play some titles. I don’t think I’ll get to see Trina online again until I can play Rock Band.

There was a snowstorm predicted for Wednesday... but it waited until Thursday instead.

I went into work in the morning for a bit to get some work done, the remote connection servers are swamped by everyone trying to WAH (work at home).  To make sure I didn't get trapped at the office I left at lunch time.  All the stranded cars and the continued snow assured me I made the right decision.

Other than peaceful white coating, the weather has another fun benefit: wildlife. Our bird feeder has a constant crowd of patrons and our hummingbird feeders are helping the littlest customers stay warm (yeah, who knew that hummingbirds stayed here year round?). The cold also brought us a brand new visitor: a pair of coyotes. They must have come up from the park at the end of our street looking for food.

I was able to get some quick pictures of the hummingbirds, quail and coyote, they're in our big snow gallery.

With the fierce competition for connectivity to Microsoft I won't get much work done... but that does free me up to watch the show.

The newlyweds after their beach wedding this morning:

My parents were in town for Thanksgiving and I've been enjoying Thanksgiving dinner for four days now, but it all started with Thursday's spread.

(Before and after... yum)

I think this dog found some.

Building the next version of a product is great fun, but being able to help existing users makes me feel like I'm doing more than building a product and tossing it over the wall.

If you've ever tried to hyperlink an image in Windows SharePoint using the rich text editor you'll know that you can't do it.  SharePoint Server 2007 (the one that ties in more closely with Office 2007) has a slightly different text editor and you can link an image the same way you'd expect in other apps (click the image then click the link button). WSS, however, doesn't make it that easy.  If you've ever struggled with it you should check out my post: Linking images in SharePoint.

You want the quick summary? Create a hyperlink then insert your image in the middle (remove the extra text when you're done).