Well, as if I didn't have enough to do in my life of umpteen business adventures plus overseeing four kids and a beautiful wife.. I would like to share with you some things from this past week..

- My 'boss' (I'm never sure how to refer to Danny, he is both a client, and my boss, and a great lead developer to work with..) is on vacation this week and was nice enough to 'forget' to send me what I should be working on this week, in our deployed online web application. Thanks Danny!

- I have been working on a big project secretly, and have now completed it to the point of beta testing, and it is now online for beta trials.. especially the payment gateways..  I am testing out Google Checkout, 2CO, and PayPal integrations. The site is CallCenterContracts.com and will be a online bidding site for CRM and BPO projects (and a slew of other projects.) Clients and providers of all types will sign-up, post projects, bid, and select each other through the site.. and can even make escrow payments for projects.  It is a great business model and I am gearing up for the live launch (and new features will be revealed..) on August 15th.  I invite any readers who don't know about it to check it out and leave me feedback.. just go to the site and enter 'checkoutthebeta' in the textbox in the lower left corner to get in and browse around. 

- Google never ceases to amaze me. They unveiled two things under their hat, namely video.google.com (check out some of the comedy clips..) and spreadsheets.google.com (a service I will CERTAINLY use!!) Check it out the brief intro here at http://www.google.com/googlespreadsheets/tour1.html

- Awesome pieces of software I ran into this week:

• myLittleAdmin over at http://www.mylittletools.net/scripts/en/mla_sql_2005/ 
  myLittleAdmin for SQL Server 2005 is the first web-based management tool specially designed for MS SQL Server 2005.
• Aptana is a new integrated development environment for building interactive web pages. It's likely to be a big hit among Web 2.0 developers since it facilitates speedy coding of JavaScript behaviors and CSS styles.
• SILO, a 3D Modeling animation tool over at www.nevercenter.com This thing rocks and is amazingly easy to learn.  A MUST_HAVE
• The new WS_FTP 2007 is out, and it rocks. Head over to www.ipswitch.com and download your 30-day trial. Beware: the price rocks a bit too.. 
• Lutz Roeder's .NET Reflector is a CERTAIN MUST-HAVE for .NET geeks like me. Wow! Amazing! and FREE.. woo-hoo... http://www.aisto.com/roeder/dotnet
• Bulk Rename Utility - Another free tool from http://www.bulkrenameutility.com ROCKS and is a great FREE tool as well..
• PhotoSynth - Well it is Microsoft, and not yet out yet.. in fact it is still in labs.live.com.. but you SHOULD watch this short video: http://labs.live.com/photosynth/video.html

Great Games...

Just GOOGLE them: PIZZA FRENZY, CAKE MANIA, and INSANIQUARIUM DELUXE

plus Disney's online hit www.toontown.com (for those of you who have little ones too..)

- also some great sites I came across:

• Paint Shop Pro Tutorials are online over here at LoadBoys site: http://www.loadboy.com/Psptuts/PspX/ (Thanks.. I now know how to use that darn new Point-To-Point Bezier Curve Pen Tool dude!)
• http://www.lojackforlaptops.com $50 and I can find and beat up the perp after he/she snatched my laptop... OH YES!!
• Intuit's http://www.mycorporation.com document filing services allow new business entities to get their filings and registrations done in record-breaking time. Great pricing too!
• expo.live.com - Microsofts new online classifieds/social site looks promising too.

I also got in Microsoft Money 2005 (hey, it came with my new laptop...)  First installation that I have ever had that plays "elevator music" during the installation. (BTW, if you were the one responsible for this, how about an opt-out button for the muzic... after all, it's not LaunchCast radio... hehe)  But the initial impression of the UI is that it is going to be user friendly.

oh, and I even managed to fix one of my dev PC's that BSOD'ed me with a 0x007E STOP error...  the solution.. reinstall WinXP and select repair, but use a licensed MediaCenter 2005 XP cd instead of the old 2600SP2 XP cd...  and much faster too..

So, thats the week in the life of a developer who has way too much time on his hands.. hehe... and I even managed to field a recruiter's call for a position over there in Redmond..  hey THAT would be cool too..  :)

Hit me up with comments about my site, and any comments.  I love to hear from people like YOU.