Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day

3,999

2009-12-31T10:55:00.001-08:00

This is my 3,999th post, can you believe it? Yeah, Wow!

To put it in perspective, looks like I hit 2000 in Oct 2006, so that means 2000 posts in a little over three years, or put another way, about 2 posts a day, every day… (wow… what the heck am I thinking? LOL)

I find it weirdly fitting that this post comes on the last day of 2009 and the last day of the decade (I’m a developer, so I start counting with 0. I say it’s the end of the decade, darn it!… lol ;) I tweeted that I would not do a retrospective post, and I’m going to stick with that promise (I bet you’re all as tired of those as I am?). Let’s just say that the Zero’s were “interesting times” and thank God they are over…

Anyway, I’d like to use this time to say thank you and to wish you and yours a happy new year and happy new decade.

See you, and 4,000, next year…

Related Past Post XRef:
2,000th Post...
500th Post!

“One Million…” visits… Thanks!

Six years just seemed to fly by… It’s my Sixth Year Blog-aversary!
Five Year Blog-aversary, and 500K+ Visit Milestone
Four Year Blog-aversary
Three Year Blog-aversary...
Two Years and Counting...

Recovering from the depths of developer burn out - Some tips from the field

2009-12-31T10:08:00.001-08:00

The Code Bucket - How To Recover From Developer Burn Out

“I consider myself extremely fortunate. I go to work everyday and do something I LOVE to do and I get paid quite well for it. Everyone should be that lucky. But about once a year I go through what I call, "Code Burn Out". I still enjoy what I do, I just don't come home and work on my own stuff. I don't spend all my time reading about software development and practicing to make myself better. I spend very little time on Twitter, and I don't even get on my computer very much after normal working hours.

Now you may say, "That's good. You should do that all the time. That's a great way to create a work-life balance and not get burnt out in the first place."

The thing is, programming was a hobby of mine long before it became my profession. I've tried other hobbies and haven't found any others that really stimulate me like software development. I just know I will hit a "slump" about once a year. It usually lasts for about 2-3 weeks. The problem is, this year it lasted for a month and a half.

…

…”

I think it’s the frantic pace that gets many of us (developers). We have to sprint to just try to keep up with today’s stuff, stuff to just get the job done, let alone the stuff we “should” be doing and the new stuff that’s coming down the pike…

Is it any wonder that we hit the wall every so often?

The important thing [this is a Note to Self as much as anything :] is to pick ourselves up, dust off, drop a nuke on that fricken wall and keep going. What else are we going to do, we love this darn job…! :)

I’ve used all of Lee’s tips, but I think the best is “build something”. We do this job because we love coding… so to fight the burn out, which is usually due to not being able to code/tech/politics/BS/etc, is to code. Code to recover from code burn-out. That just seems right somehow, doesn’t it?

Local file system browsing, WebBrowser control, Windows 7 and in-place navigation? Don’t. Use Windows API Code Pack / Explorer Browser control instead

2009-12-31T09:41:00.001-08:00

EricLaw's IEInternals - In-Place Shell Navigation with the WebBrowser Control on Windows 7

“Because the WebBrowser Control (WebOC) can be used to display a wide range of content (HTML, Office Documents, PDFs, the local file-system, etc) it is often integrated into applications as a somewhat generic object hosting surface. For Windows 7, a small change was made that will impact applications that use the WebOC to allow the user to explore the local file system.

By way of example, here’s a trivial little WebOC host which displays the Windows folder:

…

The change in behavior exists because of a small change made in the Windows 7 Shell. Specifically, the filesystem viewing object will not navigate in-place unless the host container supports SID_SInPlaceBrowser, which is defined in the Windows 7 SDK (see shlguid.h). By default, the WebBrowser control’s QueryService implementation does not support SID_SInPlaceBrowser, so the filesystem viewing object will launch a new Windows Explorer instance when the user double-clicks on a folder in the WebOC.

For WebOC-hosting applications that are impacted by this change, two workarounds are available.

Workaround #1: Switch to use the ExplorerBrowser object (recommended)

Windows Vista’s Shell introduced a new control which implements the IExplorerBrowser interface; this is the recommended method of hosting a Windows Shell filesystem view within your application. Developers building applications using .NET can use the wrapped version of the ExplorerBrowser control available in the Windows API CodePack for .NET.

Please note that this interface is only available on Windows Vista and later…

…

…”

MSDN Code Gallery - Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework

“…

The individual features supported in this version (v1.0.1) of the library are:

Windows 7 Taskbar

Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails, and Thumbnail Toolbars

Windows Shell

Windows 7 Libraries

Windows Shell Search API support

Explorer Browser Control

A hierarchy of Shell Namespace entities

Windows Shell property system

Drag and Drop for Shell Objects

Windows Vista and Windows 7 Common File Dialogs, including custom controls

Known Folders and non-file system containers

…

…

Video Demo of Explorer Browser

…”

I love learning something every day. The joy of growth and discovery is what make this job so darn cool…

I’ve of course known about the Windows API Code Pack for forever (since it was known as the Vista Bridge) but I’m still feel like a newbe and it seems that a week doesn’t go by where I don’t learn more about it. I’ve been focused on the sexy features like multi-touch, etc and the Bowser Control just didn’t register.

Well thanks to Eric’s post, that’s been taken care of.

The Explorer Browser is a pretty cool looking control that I can see using in a number of ways…

Here’s a snap of the Explorer Browser sample included with the Windows API Code Pack source;

A hardware/temp monitor utility even your [insert name here] could use – CPUID’s HWMonitor

2009-12-31T09:06:00.001-08:00

CPUID – HWMonitor

HWMonitor is a hardware monitoring program that reads PC systems main health sensors : voltages, temperatures, fans speed.

The program handles the most common sensor chips, like ITE® IT87 series, most Winbond® ICs, and others. In addition, it can read modern CPUs on-die core thermal sensors, as well has hard drives temperature via S.M.A.R.T, and video card GPU temperature.

Special hardware monitors such as abit® uGuru and Gigabyte® ODIN™ power supplies serie are supported too.

…”

What I liked about this utility is its simplicity. Available in a installer or stand alone 32/64 exe’s, this utility is one that’s more than easy enough to use that it’s prefect for the less technical user (i.e. for that family member you provide tech support for ;)

Sure it’s not an uber-monitor utility like Speedfan, but that’s its value. It’s not scary and you can’t break anything using it, again perfect for those who’s head would explode using Speedfan…

(via Windows 7 Hacker - HWMonitor Monitors Temperatures for Many Hardware Components [Tool])

Afraid of losing your camera? Want to increase the chances of getting it back? The Pictorial Guide (funny, but might very well work!)

2009-12-30T10:13:00.001-08:00

Andrew McDonald - A Pictorial Guide to avoiding Camera Loss

“Have you lost your camera recently? Mislaid it somewhere in a national park? Left it in a taxi? Dropped it in the gorilla pit? Anyone can be a victim of the thoughtlessness and/or sleepiness that can lead to Camera Loss.

‘How can I prevent Camera Loss?’ I hear you ask, wishing I’d get to the point. Well, you can’t prevent cameras from getting lost, but you can do something so your camera can be found very soon after it has vanished.

All you have to do is take some photos – which you never delete from your camera – so when someone finds your camera at the bottom of the gorilla pit they are able to locate you and return the lost property to its rightful owner.

To illustrate just how you can safeguard your camera from the crippling effects of Camera Loss, here are the pics that I always keep on my camera.

…”

This had me cracking up…

Heck I know if I found a camera with this kind of thing on it I’d go out of my way to return it (I’d try anyway [insert story of the GPS unit I found during a walk and returned here and/or story of a signed copy of a book meant as a special gift I found and returned to the author so he could, after 13 years, finish the book’s journey here] but this level of personality and humor, well… lol )

(via The Gadgets Page - How To Get Your Lost Camera Back)

Coding plugin support into your app, because coding is for fun!

2009-12-28T16:11:00.001-08:00

Coding4Fun - Creating An Application With Full Plug-in Support

“In this article, you’ll learn how to create an application with full plug-in support.
Arian T. Kulp www.ariankulp.com
Project site: http://utilrunner.codeplex.com/
Code It: Downloads
Run It: Downloads
Difficulty: Intermediate
Time Required: 3 hours
Cost: Free!
Software Needed: Visual C# 2008 Express Edition or higher
Introduction
It’s been a number of months since I released the first version of my Utility Runner application. Utility Runner makes it possible to run system utilities with as little overhead as possible: Instead of lots of tray icons, numerous EXE’s, and the associated memory and startup time overhead, this application manages multiple utilities from one place.
To open this solution, you’ll need Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition (Visual C# or Visual Basic), at least. If you don’t have it yet, you should get it!
Working with MEF
Little has changed functionally from the last version of the application, beyond some refactoring that’s taken place since the new version of MEF was released. For one thing, the attribute for marking an export is no longer sealed, so you can now create a subclassed attribute that encompasses the export name and any other metadata included with it. Consumers can simply use your new custom attribute for a stronger-typed experience. In my case, I created a WpfServiceMetadata class. Read on for more information.
Managing Addins
My big challenge was figuring out how to implement an addin manager to support multiple utility addins, like in Firefox. …

…”

Why add plug-in capability into your apps? Well, um… duh? How many apps, programs and/or devices do you use because you can extend or add functionality to it? Yeah, like all of them (or so you probably wish ;)

So it’s time for you to really start thinking about YOUR app’s and how easy you or your users can extend them. This article may very well help you in this endeavor…

More Windows Code Pack and Windows 7 developing delightfulness

2009-12-28T14:49:00.001-08:00

CodeProject - Windows 7 : New Features Explained Using .NET

“New features like Jumplist, Taskbar Progressbar, Tabbed Thumbnail, Icon Overlays, Application Restart Data Recovery, Network Management, Power Management, Task dialog, Sensor Api etc explained with simple demo applications

…

Introduction

Hi Guys, Windows 7 is microsoft latest version operating system. As many of you wonder what are the basic facilities that we will get which is absent in Windows Vista, or why you should go for it, basically this was also in my mind, but after I tried it, I found this is much better than the one that I was using.

Features of Windows 7

Windows now runs much faster than the other operating system (Such as Vista) while consuming lesser amount of resources. It reduces the background activities just by triggerring start of important services when they actually required. So Network Discovery will only occur when you actually connect your computer to a network, rather than going this process over and over in background. Thus services will run only when they are required and stopping them will release all the resources that it blocked.

The most interesting thing that I found that not only I need to rely this on background windows services, but we can easily configure our own service to facilitate this just by switching to Trigger Start Services or Scheduled Tasks. I will discuss about it later on. Lets see some of the exciting new features other than this that Windows 7 brought to us:

…

Windows API Code Pack

In .NET 4.0, the features of Windows 7 are not(except a few) exposed properly. So we need to rely on calling API directly by creating InterOp services to them. To make these features available directly for applications windows published an open source project here. This project is basically a COM wrapper, so that the complexity of the code could be reduced. In this article I am going to demonstrate most of the interesting features that Windows 7 introduced through Windows API Code Pack.

Minimum Requirement

The minimum requirement to run the sample applications is Visual Studio 2008(preferrably 2010) with .NET framework 3.5 SP1 and of course Windows 7 Environment.

Getting Started

…

After you finish this, you are ready to create your first Windows 7 Application.

In all the sample applications, I have added the projects directly to the application, so while you try those, if you find error message that projects cant be loaded, Please remove them from solution and in the same way mentioned here.

Application Restart and Recovery API

Application Restart API introduced with Windows Vista is a unique feature to recover lost data whenever the application crash takes place or the application is terminated abruptly. …

…

Application Restart and Recovery API

Application Restart API introduced with Windows Vista is a unique feature to recover lost data whenever the application crash takes place or the application is terminated abruptly. Microsoft built an API Support to all its application to recover lost data. …

…

Windows 7 Taskbar Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails and Thumbnail Toolbars.

The next interesting thing of windows 7 that I am going to introduce is Taskbar. Windows 7 Taskbar is not similar to other windows. It has lots of functionalities like JumpLists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails etc. to enhance user experience. Lets create this in our own application.

…

Network List Management APIs

Detecting networks and getting network related informations of the system is now very simple using Window 7 API Code pack. Network API provides a class Network which interfaces one network …

…

Power Management API

If you are using Laptop / Tablet or any device to run your application this should be the most exciting feature for you. Sometimes, if you are working on a service that requires long running processes, you might sometimes have to look on the battery level from your application …

…

Windows 7 Task Dialogs

Windows Task Dialog is an alternative to the old windows MessageBox. You all are familiar with MessageBox of Windows and its limitation. TaskDialog is introduced to show more enhanced version of Message…

…

Sensor Platform API

Sensors are another amizing addition to Windows 7 API. It enables you to sense the current environment and change your application accordingly. …

…

…”

With all the goodness in Windows 7 and the expected speed of Windows 7’s deployment (i.e. it’s getting deployed quick, fast and will be everywhere by the end of 2010) getting all the help we can get to take advantage of it is a good thing…

Windows 7, VS2010, WPF all mixed together DevX article style

2009-12-28T14:12:00.001-08:00

DevX - Using Visual Studio 2010 to Write Killer WPF Apps for Windows 7

“When you're running on the latest OS, building on the latest framework, and working in the latest version of Visual Studio, you can take advantage of a number of exciting new features. Learn how you can use Visual Studio 2010, WPF 4 and the Windows API Code Pack to plug your applications into the Windows 7 UI.

by Steve Apiki

Some of the most exciting elements of the Windows 7 UI, like the new taskbar, or jump lists, lie visually outside the application proper but are an important part of the application experience. As a WPF developer, you can tie into these elements to tailor your application for Windows 7, fully customizing its behavior both inside and outside the main window.

With WPF 4, you've got almost all you need to access the sharpest features of the Windows 7 UI. WPF 4 includes built-in support for the Windows 7 taskbar, including custom thumbnail previews, visual feedback from the taskbar with progress bars and icon overlays, and custom jump lists. These features are ultimately supplied by the Windows 7 native API, but WPF wraps these APIs with managed code and exposes them as WPF classes. That means you can create jump lists and other UI objects in XAML, and bind them through a number of dependency properties.

Visual Studio 2010 boasts a number of new WPF-related features of its own, including a new visual designer, drag-and-drop databinding, and intellisense for markup extensions in XAML. These features, combined with WPF's new taskbar classes, allow you to build state-of-the-art Windows 7 applications using the full power of the latest version of Visual Studio.

Although WPF 4 fully supports the taskbar, there are other aspects of the Windows 7 API that aren't covered. These include, for example, Windows 7-style common dialogs. You can get to these from WPF using the Windows API Code Pack, an external library of managed wrappers. The Windows API Code Pack also has its own set of shell and taskbar classes which can be used from WPF 3.5 SP1.

…

…”

This article has some of my favorite things, Windows 7, WPF and VS2010…

Turning off, or scaling back, Office 2010’s “Protected Mode”

2009-12-27T11:41:00.001-08:00

Addictive Tips - Disable Protected View In Office 2010

“By default Office 2010 will open documents in protected mode that fail validation, have been downloaded from the internet, are located in potentially unsafe location and include attachments. Protected view opens the document in read-only mode thus minimizing the exposure to some potential security threat.

If you are an experienced user who is annoyed by the protected view, you can always disable it even though it is not recommended by Microsoft.

…

”

While I applaud Microsoft’s drive toward continuing to security in Office 2010, I can see some cases where I’m going to want to scale back the Protected Mode behavior. While it’s not hard to do in a document by document case (which I really like being able to do so easily) there’s some business cases where I’m going to have to turn this off (i.e. in some automation cases, etc).

So now that I know where to turn it off in the UI, I’m going to have to hunt down where those setting are really saved (which I’m 99% sure is the registry)…

A Feed You Should Read TOC

2009-12-27T10:51:00.001-08:00

As I drive on with my A Feed You Should Read series (posts/atom) I’ve started to worry about duplicating my self. My brain is fairly full and seriously needs a defrag; knowing this I consider the chance of my writing a duplicate A Feed You Should Read somewhat likely. (I almost did it with today’s feed! Doh! ;)

To make my life easier, I’ve created and will keep refreshed, a very simple TOC, Table of Contents, for this series.

This TOC is actually a fairly automated (at least it’s data generation) process, using a TOC “Backup Format” I’m adding to my Blogger Backup v1.5 utility. In short, it should be quick and easy to keep this static page up to date. Also for easy reference this page will also be available in my “Resources” bar on left too.

Title	Published	Updated
A Feed You Should Read #17 – Microsoft Download Center	2009-12-27T09:51:00-08:00	2009-12-27T09:51:29-08:00
A Feed You Should Read #16 - Nutrition Diva	2009-12-20T10:49:00-08:00	2009-12-20T10:49:26-08:00
A Feed You Should Read #15 – LiveSide.net	2009-12-14T06:35:00-08:00	2009-12-14T06:48:41-08:00
A Feed You Should Read #14 – WynAspe, Silverlight Cream	2009-12-06T10:39:00-08:00	2009-12-06T10:39:12-08:00
A Feed You Should Read – The Blogcast Repository	2009-11-30T07:01:00-08:00	2009-11-30T07:01:31-08:00
A Feed You Should Read #12 – DimeCasts.Net	2009-11-22T11:20:00-08:00	2009-11-22T11:20:08-08:00
A Feed You Should Read – Delayed a bit	2009-11-16T06:48:00-08:00	2009-11-16T06:48:48-08:00
A Feed You Should Read #11 – The Road to Know Where	2009-11-08T09:39:00-08:00	2009-11-08T09:39:04-08:00
A Feed You Should Read #10 - Tales from the Road: A Traffic Cop's Stories	2009-11-01T09:42:00-08:00	2009-11-01T09:42:58-08:00
A Feed You Should Read #9 – 10-4	2009-10-26T06:39:00-07:00	2009-10-26T06:39:31-07:00
A Feed You Should Read #8 - msdev	2009-10-18T10:33:00-07:00	2009-10-18T10:33:41-07:00
A Feed You Should Read #7 – A Continuous Learner’s Weblog, Links	2009-10-11T10:56:00-07:00	2009-10-11T10:56:02-07:00
A Feed You Should Read #6 - Bite my bytes, Links of the week	2009-10-04T10:19:00-07:00	2009-10-04T10:20:31-07:00
A Feed You Should Read #5 – Team System Rocks	2009-09-27T10:03:00-07:00	2009-09-27T10:16:15-07:00
A Feed You Should Read #4 – This Week on Channel 9	2009-09-20T09:41:00-07:00	2009-09-20T09:41:31-07:00
A Feed You Should Read #3 - Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew	2009-09-13T08:45:00-07:00	2009-09-13T08:45:38-07:00
A Feed You Should Read #2 - Chris Alcock’s Reflective Perspective (The Morning Brew)	2009-09-06T09:16:00-07:00	2009-09-13T07:44:17-07:00
A Feed You Should Read #1 – Jason Haley’s Interesting Finds	2009-08-30T10:50:00-07:00	2009-08-30T10:50:30-07:00

A Feed You Should Read #17 – Microsoft Download Center

2009-12-27T09:51:00.001-08:00

People have asked me, “How do you keep up with all the stuff coming out of Microsoft, especially from the Microsoft Download Center? There’s no RSS Feed provided by Microsoft, so how do you find the stuff so fast? You don’t actually visit the site and check manually do you?” (lol… they know me so well as I just don’t have the time to keep up with sites that don’t provide feeds… )

How? Today’s Feed is how.

Microsoft Download Center (Courtesy of ThunderMain)

ThunderMain - Resources

Background:

The guys at ThunderMain have been providing this feed for forever; likely this is one of my earliest subscribed feeds. Given the scope and popularity of the Microsoft Download Center, I find it amazing that the feed only has 22k subscribers. Really?

Have I said before how much I love the Net? Here’s a company that saw a problem, that there was no easy way to keep up with the flow of downloads from the Microsoft Download Center. They saw a problem and, as developers often do, fixed it.

Then in the best sprit of the Net, made their “fix” available to the world, for free. Paying it forward. Thereby helping me to help you, helping me to pay it forward too… Love that!

Why do I like this feed and think you might also?

This is simply the only way to keep up with the flow of downloads from the Microsoft Download Center.

Just say No to visiting the page and scanning for new downloads. Hate to say it, but that’s lame. Subscribe to this feed and you’ll be able to easily see all the new stuff, as that new stuff becomes available.

But to answer the question, why?

Dude, this is the premier resource of free and trial downloads from the Blue Monster! The downloads, development, IT, consumer, business, games, gadgets, tools, utilities, etc, etc, are a resource that you’d be silly to pass up. And this feed makes to drop dead easy to do…

Snap of the latest post:

Blog Information:

Name:	Microsoft Download Center
URL:	http://www.microsoft.com/downloads
Feed:	http://feeds.feedburner.com/MicrosoftDownloadCenter
Post Types:	Downloads available from Microsoft’s Download Center

Need test/sample/demo data that’s safe for public (and/or client) consumption? Then GenerateData.com!

2009-12-24T11:26:00.001-08:00

DevCurry - Generating Test Data For Your Applications

“Sometimes on the internet you find websites that are extremely useful. The other day I stumbled upon one such site called generatedata.com. This website does exactly what the URL suggests, it generates test data for you. This is great if you're in I.T. because invariably for a project, you need test data to demonstrate features to your users.

…”

GenerateData.com

“Ever needed custom formatted sample / test data, like, bad? Well, that's the idea of the Data Generator. It's a free, open source script written in JavaScript, PHP and MySQL that lets you quickly generate large volumes of custom data in a variety of formats for use in testing software, populating databases, and scoring with girls.

This site offers an online demo where you're welcome to tinker around to get a sense of what the script does, what features it offers and how it works. Then, once you've whet your appetite, there's a free, fully functional, GNU-licensed version available for download. Alternatively, if you want to avoid the hassle of setting it up on your own server, you might want to consider donating $20 or more to help support the project. …

A simple, but cool, means to generate some sample/test/demo data…

Heard from someone about the just released VS2010 B2 VM’s? Would like to get them but hate downloading them via the web site? Brian Keller has a download solution for you (and 7 Hands-on Labs too!)

2009-12-24T10:38:00.001-08:00

Brian Keller: Technical Evangelist for Team System - Now Available: Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Virtual Machines with Sample Data

“…

We also have a preliminary set of 7 hands-on labs (which also double as demo scripts) that you can go through with this VM, with more in the works. Note that each lab/demo is designed to work in isolation from the other labs/demos, so be sure to have a rollback strategy in place (VPC undo disk / Hyper-V snapshots) prior to working on a lab/demo. To download these labs please visit http://cid-8c96cc4d0756cacb.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Blog%20Attachments/2010%20Beta%202%20Labs?uc=3 (you can click on “Download as ZIP file” to grab everything at once). These labs will be making their way into a refresh of the Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit soon. The “Working with the Visual Studio 2010 Virtual Machine” document is a work in progress and will be updated in the coming days, but for now it should have everything you need to get started. Any questions, just ask… feedback on these labs/demos is welcome!

…

I suggest using a download manager for these files since they are very large. My download manager of choice is Free Download Manager. You can use your own favorite download manager, but you may need to adapt the instructions below as appropriate.

Download and install Free Download Manager. This utility provides:

Auto-resume support for interrupted downloads.

Multiple simultaneous download streams for (usually) a much faster download experience.

As the name implies, it's completely free.

Select the appropriate URL’s depending on your preferred virtualization platform and copy (CTRL+C) them to your clipboard.

…

…”

Nice! Two rock’n tips for the price of one blog post read… ;)

Visual Studio 2010 B2 VM’s - The virtual machines have arrived with Hyper-V, Virtual PC 2007 and Windows Virtual PC flavors

2009-12-24T07:38:00.001-08:00

Microsoft Downloads -

Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 and Team Foundation Server® 2010 Beta 2 virtual image for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 and Team Foundation Server® 2010 Beta 2 virtual image for Windows Virtual PC
Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 and Team Foundation Server® 2010 Beta 2 for Microsoft® Virtual PC 2007 SP1 Image

“Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate simplifies solution development, lowering risk and increasing return. The virtual machine image in this download contains both Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 and Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta2 and the requisite trial software. …

…

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate provides an integrated environment of tools and server infrastructure that simplifies the entire application development process. Deliver business results using productive, predictable, customizable processes and increase transparency and traceability throughout the lifecycle with detailed analytics. Whether creating new solutions or enhancing existing applications unleash your creativity with powerful prototyping, architecture and development tools that let you bring your vision to life targeting an increasing number of platforms and technologies including cloud and parallel computing. Realize increased team productivity by utilizing advanced collaboration features and use integrated testing and debugging tools to find and fix bugs quickly and easily ensuring high quality solutions while driving down the cost of solution development. For more information on Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4 visit http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/products/2010/default.mspx This virtual machine does not have anti-virus installed. It should not be connected to any network until it has anti-virus installed. In addition, the operating system and programs installed were patched with all updates as of December 10, 2009.

…”

Added bonus;

Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1 and Team Suite SP1 Hyper-V Image (Trial)

Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server SP1 Hyper-V Image (Trial)

The VM’s are large, with the VS2010 weighing in at 7.3GB, the VS2008 7.5GB and TFS2008 3.4GB. All are also broken into multi part RAR’s.

Still once downloaded and setup these are a great way to test the .Net 4/VS2010 waters without the risk of installing it.

Update #1 @ 12/24/2009 @ 10:45 PST:
Make sure you check out Brian Keller’s Now Available: Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Virtual Machines with Sample Data post for information about 7 Hands-on labs and tips for making the downloading of these a piece of cake…

Must have movie app!? RunPee!

2009-12-23T09:05:00.001-08:00

Life Hacker - RunPee Adds Offline Alerts for Timed Movie Bathroom Breaks

“iPhone/iPod touch: We thought RunPee was a clever site and iPhone app that picks dull movie moments for bathroom breaks. The iPhone app can now store your chosen movies for offline use, and quietly vibrate an alert at break times.

…

The RunPee.com web site has also added support for more languages, and a non-Flash mobile site for scoping out key non-action points right before a flick. Finally, there's a $1 Android app in the market, and other mobile apps are expected to come along soon. RunPee's iPhone app costs 99 cents, requires an iPhone or iPod touch.

…”

RunPee.com

“RunPee.com has undergone a huge update. Best of all RunPee now supports multiple languages and regions. You can now read the PeeTimes in many different languages, like: Spanish, German, French, Russian, and Portuguese. With more to come shortly, like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Danish, etc.
And you can set the region to your local area so that you see the movies that are showing near you. read more on the blog.

…

I have created m.RunPee.com for those who would like to access RunPee.com from their Blackberry, or practically any other mobile phone. m.RunPee.com is a simple HTML version of the website that will let you navigate to the movie you are seeing and view the PeeTimes.

The site is free for all movies that have been out for more than a month. To see the newer movies you need to register and pay $1/year. I would love to offer this for free but I spend a lot of time watching movies to get the PeeTimes so I need to make a few dollars from the site…

…”

RunPee.com - Avatar

A dollar a year (for first run movies, free for slightly older flicks)? To help me determine the best time to make a mid movie run (where I’ve invested 12-15 bucks to attend)? No brainer!

I love living in our current “age”. :)

PowerShell v2 SDK Released - Lot’s of C# based PowerShell sample goodness, one small MSI

2009-12-22T18:01:00.001-08:00

Microsoft Downloads - Windows PowerShell 2.0 Software Development Kit (SDK)

“Windows PowerShell 2.0 SDK contains sample code and reference assemblies that allow you to build applications based on Windows PowerShell

File Name: PowerShellV2_SDK_Samples.msi

Version: 2.0

Date Published: 12/22/2009

Language: English

Download Size: 2.4 MB

This SDK contains reference assemblies and samples that demonstrates how to use the Windows PowerShell 2.0 APIs to build a rich set of applications. In this package, you will find sample code which shows how to use the new PowerShell class, how to write cmdlets that supports eventing, transactions and jobs. In addition, there are examples of host applications that connect to remote computers using individual runspaces and runspace pools. This SDK also includes modified Windows PowerShell 1.0 samples using the modified and improved Windows PowerShell 2.0 APIs.

…”

Here’s a snap of the folders post install. Each folder has a readme.txt which describes the given sample.

If Santa were a .Net Developer, this might be his “I wish I knew about all these” .Net dev tools list

2009-12-22T10:31:00.001-08:00

Dynamic Binding - My favorites .Net development toolkits

Many I’ve seen before, but there were some that were new to me (which gives me that warn fuzzy feeling of discovery ;). Yet best is having this kind of list .Net goodness all in one place…

Creating a WPF Outlook 2010 addin with VS2010 without writing one line of XAML

2009-12-22T10:06:00.001-08:00

Beth Massi - Sharing the goodness that is VB - Build WPF Data Controls for Outlook Addins Easily with VS2010

“Last post I showed how to migrate our Northwind Outlook client to .NET 4 and Office 2010. This Outlook Add-in displays order history information in an adjoining form region so sales associates can see that data immediately when communicating with customers. When we originally built this with Visual Studio 2008, we used a WPF user control to display the data so that we could better match the look and feel of Outlook 2007. However we had to manually figure out the colors we needed and bind the data to the controls by writing XAML by hand.

Today I want to show how we can use drag & drop data binding and the new WPF designer in Visual Studio 2010 to quickly create this control without writing one line of XAML ourselves.

Displaying WPF Controls in Form Regions with ElementHost

Office clients by default work with Windows Forms controls. If you create a new Form Region you can add any Windows form control from the toolbox onto it. If you want to add WPF controls you simply add what’s called an ElementHost control which you find in the WPF Interoperability tab on your toolbox. This allows you to select from and host WPF User Controls in your project.

…

This is the same technique in VS2008 and VS2010. However, VS2010 makes it much easier to create the WPF User Control in the first place because you can now use the data sources window to design and data bind WPF controls. The WPF designer is also much easier to use. Let’s see how we can build a WPF control that displays Order information and have Visual Studio generate all the XAML we need automatically for us, and have it look good too.

…

…”

You had me a “without writing one line of XAML…”

Also shown is how you can host WPF in a plugin host that only supports WinForm controls (say for example, Windows Live Writer ;)

Subst to the Windows Virtual PC Host<->VM folder sharing rescue

2009-12-22T09:56:00.001-08:00

Windows Virtual PC - Folder Sharing between Windows 7 and VM

“Virtual PC 2007® SP1 allowed users to share a particular folder with the Virtual Machine (VM). In Windows® Virtual PC, users can enable sharing at drive level only.

Sharing a Folder on Windows 7 Desktop with a VM

To share a particular folder with the VM, follow steps as below

Shutdown or Hibernate the VM (assuming you have Integration features enabled)

Open command prompt on Windows7 host. Let’s say you want to share folder C:\MySharedFolder with the VM.

subst S: C:\MySharedFolder. This subst command will create a virtual drive “S:” which is mapped to C:\MySharedFolder. Make sure the drive letter is free for use.

…

…”

Ah, Subst… an oldie but a goodie. Talk about invoking DOS days flashbacks! Next thing you know I’ll be “COPY CON CONFIG.SYS”’ing or something! lol…

Still it’s funny how many uses we still find for subst.

Blob, SQL, Message and Fabric – A short intro to Azure storage choices

2009-12-22T09:43:00.001-08:00

InfoQ - Azure Storage Options

“First some terminology. The term Windows Azure Platform covers all of Microsoft’s cloud offering. Within the Windows Azure Platform are three principal offerings. The virtual machine component is called Windows Azure. Also know as compute, it supports web roles for hosting web sites and worker roles for back-end processing. SQL Azure is based on SQL Server and has many of the same features. Finally there is Windows Azure platform AppFabric, which shouldn’t be confused with Windows Server AppFabric. Azure AppFabric is a message bus, with the goal of making authentication and message passing easier, especially across firewalls.

Azure Platform offers a plethora of storage options, making choosing which to use potentially quite difficult. …

…”

I thought this post provided a nice overview of the many Azure storage choices and options…

Looking for that perfect icon? Search a repository of 125,723 or easily browsing 331 icon sets at Icon Finder

2009-12-20T11:28:00.001-08:00

Icon Finder

Now that’s cool. A quick, easy and focused way to search for icon’s. Much easier than doing a image search…

(via Dave Burke - Everyman Links for December 19, 2009)

A Feed You Should Read #16 - Nutrition Diva

2009-12-20T10:49:00.001-08:00

The holidays are here and with them the tendency to throw our well meant and intended eat habits out the window (fudge… Fudge… FUDGE!!!! ;)

Today’s feed/podcast is one that can help all of use fight the battle of the bulge…

Nutrition Diva :: Quick and Dirty Tips for Eating Well and Feeling Fabulous

Background:

Okay so nutrition is not the most sexy of topics, but it’s also something that impacts every single one of us in one or more ways. This short, 5-10 minute, weekly podcast is one that I’ve been listening to for the last couple years. It’s one that I very quickly moved to the very top of my listening list.

While not sexy, the way its presented in this podcast makes it very palatable and easy to digest. I have learned a great deal via this quick and dirty podcast series; also unlearned a number of things too.

Some past topics include;

Caffeine, good or bad for you?
Fiber, what is it and why should you care?
What are Transfats?
Is your drinking water safe?
etc, etc.

Best of all this is one of those rare podcasts that you walk away from actually feel good. You feel motivated and just want to eat healthy… At the end of almost every cast I find myself smiling and generally feeling fabulous ;)

Why do I like this feed and think you might also?

Are you a human and currently inhabit a living body?

Do you eat?

Want to help keep that flesh engine working well?

Have 5 minutes a week?

Listen to this podcast…

Snap of the latest post:

Blog Information:

Name:	Nutrition Diva :: Quick and Dirty Tips for Eating Well and Feeling Fabulous
URL:	http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/
Feed:	http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/xml/nutrition.xml
Post Types:	Short, 5-10 minute nutrition tip podcast

Simpler than sno… way to build a Linux/SUSE appliance – SUSE Studio

2009-12-19T13:24:00.001-08:00

Elegant Code - Taking a Visit To The SUSE Studio

“After listening to the keynote of Monospace 2009, I got somewhat intrigued by the possibilities of SUSE Studio. Miguel de Icaza talked about this in his presentation and because its not that easy to follow a demo through an mp3 recording, I wanted to try it on my own. SUSE Studio lets you create your own customized appliances. An appliance is a pre-configured combination of an operating system (SUSE Linux in this case), applications and their configuration.

After logging on, the first step is creating a new appliance. Here you can choose which type of operating system you want to install (desktop, server or minimal), what type of desktop (GNOME or KDE) and the particular processor architecture you want to target (32-bit or 64-bit).

…

…”

SUSE Studio

Okay that’s just pretty darn cool. I SO want something like this for Windows (but I also SO want to win the Lotto and the two are probably just about as likely).

This is an awesome way to build a OS deployment. Makes it fun to build your OS image…lol

Now what would be officially cool is if there was a cloud deployment option, say to EC2 or (lol) Azure…

Search Server Express – Free enterprise indexing and search for SharePoint (including the free SharePoint Services…)

2009-12-18T15:56:00.001-08:00

Microsoft Downloads - Search Server 2008 Express (x86)

“Bring enterprise search to your organization quickly and easily for FREE with Microsoft® Search Server 2008 Express.

File Name: SearchServerExpress.exe

Version: 2

Date Published: 12/18/2009

Language: English

Download Size: 379.6 MB

Overview

Search doesn’t have to be complicated
Bring enterprise search to your organization quickly and easily for FREE with Microsoft® Search Server 2008 Express. As an IT professional, you need a search solution that allows you to deliver the simple, easy-to-use experience your users expect while helping to meet the security and manageability requirements your IT environment demands.

The download on this page has been updated to include Service Pack 2.

Note: In order to install Search Server 2008 Express on Windows Server 2008 R2, you must use this download. Previously available versions will not install.

Product Highlights
Quick to download and set up

Reduce your risk in choosing a search solution by starting with a free, full application you can download and set up to meet your needs immediately

Go from downloading to searching in minutes with a streamlined setup process

Easy to configure and maintain

Review common administrative tasks, search status, and settings in a single view

Manage content sources and search scopes, authoritative sources, key words, best bets, and other configurable relevancy settings through a powerful, easy-to use management console

Index common information sources with Indexing Connectors for file servers, Web sites, Microsoft SharePoint® sites, Microsoft Exchange Server public folders, as well as EMC Documentum, IBM FileNet, and Lotus Notes repositories

Monitor search performance and improve search relevance with query and results reporting

Help ensure that only the right people can find information with a search engine that utilizes your user authentication infrastructure for enhanced security

Powerful enough to meet your search needs

Empower your users to quickly find the information they need through a familiar, Web search-style interface

Deploy a search capability optimized for business data to deliver highly relevant results across intranet and public-facing Web site content

Scale your deployment to meet your needs with no preset document limits and continuous index propagation

Easily upgrade to a multiserver topology with Microsoft Search Server 2008 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 as your enterprise search needs evolve

For more information on Microsoft enterprise search products, please visit www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch.
…”

The name makes makes me chuckle a little (it’s an inside joke…)

Windows Azure AppFabric SDK v1.0 Released (Service Bus and Access Control)

2009-12-18T11:59:00.001-08:00

Microsoft Downloads - Windows Azure platform AppFabric SDK V1.0

“Windows Azure platform AppFabric is part of the Azure Services Platform. Microsoft .NET Services includes two services: the Access Control Service and the Service Bus.

Version: V1.0

Date Published: 12/18/2009

Language: English

Download Size: 1.9 MB - 4.5 MB*

Overview

This SDK includes API libraries and samples for building connected applications with the .NET platform. It spans the entire spectrum of today’s Internet applications – from rich connected applications with advanced connectivity requirements to Web-style applications that use simple protocols such as HTTP to communicate with the broadest possible range of clients.

…”

From the CHM;

“AppFabric Service Bus and AppFabric Access Control are a set of Microsoft-built and hosted Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services for building Internet-enabled applications. AppFabric Service Bus and AppFabric Access Control provide applications with a common infrastructure to name, discover, expose, secure, and orchestrate Web services. They are designed to significantly lower the entry barriers for new types of interconnected Internet-scale applications regardless of whether they are Web-based, they work through application-to-application federation, or they want to exploit the rich user experience and media capabilities of modern desktop environments. This section discusses these two services in more detail.

…”

File Name:	PowerShellV2_SDK_Samples.msi
Version:	2.0
Date Published:	12/22/2009
Language:	English
Download Size:	2.4 MB

File Name:	SearchServerExpress.exe
Version:	2
Date Published:	12/18/2009
Language:	English
Download Size:	379.6 MB

Version:	V1.0
Date Published:	12/18/2009
Language:	English
Download Size:	1.9 MB - 4.5 MB*