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

“Threesome: Me, My Wife and My Blog”

2009-11-21T07:20:00.001-08:00

The Blog Herald - Threesome: Me, My Wife and My Blog – Part 1

“Who is she?” my wife questioned.

We’ve had this conversation a dozen times.

“No one, babe. I’m just working on my blog.”

“You LIVE on that computer.”

Cue dramatic exit.

If this sounds familiar, the you too are looking for ways to justify all that time you spend blogging to your significant other. Here’s how…

…

That SO sounds like a daily conversation at the Duncan house… LOL

The important thing is that I try to remember is that while your spouse, significant other, life partner, co-kid coach, etc is indeed a partner. They may not understand the content or purpose of your blog, but they understand that it takes you away from them. So involving them in your blog or blogging, making them part of the process, or sharing your successes with them can take your blog from a “you” thing to an “us” thing…

PDC09 Session Video List (Okay, so I lied)

2009-11-20T22:53:00.001-08:00

I’m not sure what’s going on with http://MicrosoftPDC.com/Videos but it doesn’t seem to be showing all the sessions as expected (or at least as I’d expect it to ;). [Update: That list is much more, if not completely, fleshed out. But due how that list is currently sorted, it may appear to be missing sessions when in fact it’s just a sort thing]

So being the guy that I am I went ahead and tweaked my Microsoft Conference Resource List Maker (http://pdclistmaker.codeplex.com/) to add in PDC09 support. Now the added code is WAY ugly and way to hard coded, but hey it works (cough… and currently provides links than the MSPDC09 site.. cough… ;).

This time I took the provided session Xls, saved it as XlsX and then used the Open XML 2.0 API to parse it for the codes and titles. Currently the keynotes are not included, nor are the day-0 workshops, and it’s possible there are other sessions missing (if a session wasn’t in the Xls, then they are not currently in the below list). The good news is that that will not be hard to fix in the come days, so in short, expect future updates to this post.

And to not rub it in or anything, but the above mentioned code tweaking was done in VS2010 B2 on my new PDC09 Special Edition Acer Aspire 1420P :)

Again, please use this list for good and not evil. These links may or may not work (or those that work now may not in the future, etc, etc). YMMV. yada, yada, yada…

List History
11/20/2009 11PM PST:
First/initial list posted

11/21/2009 6:30AM PST:
List updated with Keynotes, added a few missing sessions, included MP4’s (the few currently available), removed the N/A’s
Looks like the MicrosoftPDC.com/Videos list has been updated in the last few hours, except there’s still a few issues with it (cough… the sort is kind of jacked… cough)

Title	WMVHigh	WMV	MP4	PPTX
CL01 Microsoft Silverlight Roadmap and Futures	WMVHIGH	WMV	MP4	PPTX
CL02 Microsoft Silverlight 3: Advanced Performance and Profiling Techniques	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL03 DirectX11 DirectCompute	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL04 Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Kernel Changes	WMVHIGH	WMV	MP4	PPTX
CL05 Embodiment: The Third Great Wave of Computing Applications	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL06 Networking and Web Services in Microsoft Silverlight	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL07 Mastering Microsoft .NET RIA Services	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL09 How Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Was Built with Windows Presentation Foundation 4	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL10 Windows Presentation Foundation 4 Plumbing and Internals	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL11 Advanced Windows Presentation Foundation Application Performance Tuning and Analysis	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL12 Developing with the Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL13 Windows Touch Deep Dive	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL14 Advanced Graphics Functionality Using DirectX	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL15 Modern 3D Graphics Using Windows 7 and Direct3D 11 Hardware	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL16 Optimizing for Performance with the Windows Performance Toolkit	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL17 Building Sensor- and Location-Aware Applications with Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL18 Windows Ribbon Technical Deep Dive	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL19 NEW: Building Line of Business Applications with Microsoft Silverlight 4	WMVHIGH	WMV
CL20 NEW: Improving and Extending the Sandbox with Microsoft Silverlight 4	WMVHIGH	WMV
CL21 Building Amazing Business Applications with Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft .NET RIA Services	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL22 Advanced Topics for Building Large-Scale Applications with Microsoft Silverlight	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL23 SketchFlow: Prototyping to the Rescue	WMVHIGH	WMV
CL24 XAML Futures in Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft Silverlight and Tools	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL25 Become a Web Debugging Virtuoso with Fiddler	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL26 The "Audience API": Live Framework Present and Future	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL27 Multi-Touch on Microsoft Surface and Windows 7 for .NET Developers	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL28 New Developer Tools in Windows Embedded Standard 2011	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL29 Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Kernel Changes (Continued from 1:30 Session)	WMVHIGH	WMV
CL30 Microsoft Expression Blend 3 for Developers: Tips, Tricks and Best Practices	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL31 Mastering WPF Graphics and Beyond	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL32 Developing Testable Silverlight Applications	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL33 Windows Error Reporting	WMVHIGH	WMV
CL34 Media Foundation: Supporting Hardware Codecs and Cameras	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL35 Custom Behaviors for Advanced Microsoft Silverlight UI Effects	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
CL36 Deep Dive on Bing Maps Silverlight Control	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT02 Data Programming and Modeling for the Microsoft .NET Developer	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT03 Manycore and the Microsoft .NET Framework 4: A Match Made in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT04 Windows Workflow Foundation 4 from the Inside Out	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT05 Automating "Done Done" in the Team Workflows with Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate and Team Foundation Server 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT06 Accelerated Windows Application Development with Microsoft Visual C++ 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT07 The State of Parallel Programming	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT08 Code Visualization, UML, and DSLs	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT09 Scrum in the Enterprise and Process Customization with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT10 Evolving ADO.NET Entity Framework in Microsoft .NET Framework 4 and Beyond	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT11 Future Directions for C# and Visual Basic	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT12 ADO.NET Data Services: What's New with the RESTful Data Services Framework	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT13 What's New for Windows Communication Foundation 4	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT14 Workflow Services and "Dublin"	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT16 Advanced Diagnostics, IntelliTrace and Test Automation	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT17 Spice Up Your Applications with Windows Workflow Foundation 4	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT18 Microsoft ASP.NET Futures	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT19 C++ Forever: Interactive Applications in the Age of Manycore	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT20 F# for Parallel and Asynchronous Programming	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT21 PLINQ: LINQ, but Faster!	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT22 Microsoft ASP.NET MVC 2: The New Stuff	WMVHIGH	WMV
FT23 Extending the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Code Editor to Visualize Runtime Intelligence	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT24 Building Extensible Rich Internet Applications with the Managed Extensibility Framework	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT25 Microsoft Application Server Technologies: Present and Future	WMVHIGH	WMV
FT26 Scaling Your Data Tier with Microsoft Project Code Name "Velocity"	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT27 Application Server Extensibility with Microsoft Project Code Name "Dublin" and Microsoft .NET Framework 4	WMVHIGH	WMV
FT28 Microsoft .NET Micro Framework and Intelligent Devices	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT29 Microsoft AJAX Library, jQuery, and Microsoft Visual Studio 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV
FT30 Using Dynamic Languages to Build Scriptable Applications	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT31 Dynamic Binding in C# 4	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT32 Code Like the Wind with Microsoft Visual Basic 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT33 Microsoft Visual Basic IDE Tips and Tricks	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT34 Microsoft Project Code Name "M": The Data and Modeling Language	WMVHIGH	WMV
FT35 Microsoft Visual C# IDE Tips and Tricks	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT36 Future of Garbage Collection	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT50 Building Data-Driven Applications Using Microsoft Project Code Name "Quadrant" and Microsoft Project Code Name "M"	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT52 Microsoft Perspectives on the Future of Programming	WMVHIGH	WMV
FT53 Microsoft Visual Studio Lab Management to the Build Setup Rescue	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT54 Power Tools for Debugging	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT55 Developing REST Applications with the .NET Framework	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT56 Web Deployment Painkillers: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 & MS Deploy	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT57 Microsoft ASP.NET 4 Core Runtime for Web Developers	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT58 What's New in Microsoft ASP.NET 4 Web Forms and Dynamic Data	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
FT59 ASP.NET MVC 2: Ninjas Still on Fire Black Belt Tips	WMVHIGH	WMV
FT60 A Lap Around Microsoft Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
KEY02 Keynote Day 2	WMVHIGH
KYN01-PGM Keynote Day 1	WMVHIGH	WMV
PR01 Developing xRM Solutions Using Windows Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR02 Overview of SharePoint 2010 Programmability	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR03 Developer Patterns to Integrate Microsoft Silverlight 3.0 with Microsoft SharePoint 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR04 Developing .NET Managed Applications Using the Microsoft Office 2010 Developer Platform				PPTX
PR05 Microsoft Unified Communications: Developer Platform Futures	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR06 Developing Solutions with Business Connectivity Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV
PR07 Developing Solutions for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Using the Client Object Model	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR09 Document Assembly and Manipulation on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Using Word Automation Services and Open XML	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR10 SharePoint Is Not Just On-Premise: Developing and Deploying Solutions to Microsoft SharePoint Online	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR11 Leveraging and Extending Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Identity Features	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR12 It's All about the Services: Developing Custom Applications for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Using Microsoft ASP.NET, WCF, and REST	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR13 Integrating and Extending the Microsoft Office Communicator Experience with Windows Presentation Foundation and Microsoft Silverlight	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR14 Unleashing the Power of Excel on the Web	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR30 The Exchange 2010 Developer Story: Building Rich Exchange-enabled Applications for the Enterprise and the Cloud	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR31 Managing the Solution Lifecycle for xRM Applications	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
PR32 Making a Killer Office Developer Demo
PR33 Build a .NET Business Application in 60 Minutes with xRM and SharePoint	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC01 Lap Around the Windows Azure Platform	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC02 Windows Identity Foundation Overview	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC03 Development Best Practices and Patterns for Using Microsoft SQL Azure Databases	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC04 Petabytes for Peanuts! Making Sense out of "Ambient" Data.	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC06 Scaling out Web Applications with Microsoft SQL Azure Databases	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC08 Patterns for Building Scalable and Reliable Applications with Windows Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC09 Windows Azure Tables and Queues Deep Dive	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC10 Software + Services Identity Roadmap Update	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC12 Microsoft SQL Azure Database: Under the Hood	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC13 Windows Azure Present and Future	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC14 Storing and Manipulating Blobs and Files with Windows Azure Storage	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC15 Windows Azure Monitoring, Logging, and Management APIs	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC16 Developing Advanced Applications with Windows Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC17 Enabling Single Sign-On to Windows Azure Applications	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC18 Building Hybrid Cloud Applications with Windows Azure and the Service Bus	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC19 REST Services Security Using the Access Control Service	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC20 Bridging the Gap from On-Premises to the Cloud	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC23 Using the Microsoft Sync Framework to Connect Apps to the Cloud	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC25 Automating the Application Lifecycle with Windows Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV
SVC26 How Microsoft SharePoint 2010 was Built with the Windows Identity Foundation	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC27 The Future of Database Development with SQL Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC28 The ‘M'-Based System.Identity Model for Accessing Directory Services	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC29 Enrich your Applications with Data from Microsoft Project Code Name “Dallas”	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC30 Lessons Learned: Migrating Applications to the Windows Azure Platform	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC31 Lessons Learned: Building On-Premises and Cloud Applications with the Service Bus and Windows Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC32 Lessons Learned: Building Scalable Applications with the Windows Azure Platform	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC33 Lessons Learned: Building Multi-Tenant Applications with the Windows Azure Platform	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC36 Microsoft adPlatform Opportunities for Developers	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC37 Introduction to Building Applications with Windows Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV
SVC50 Building Java Applications with Windows Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC51 Developing PHP and MySQL Applications with Windows Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC52 SQL Azure Database: Present and Future	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC53 Tips and Tricks for Using Visual Studio 2010 to Build Applications that Run on Windows Azure	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVC54 The Business of Windows Azure: What you should know about Windows Azure Platform pricing and SLAs	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR01 Accelerating Applications Using Windows HPC Server 2008	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR02 Using Classification for Data Security and Data Management	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR03 Data Tier Applications in Visual Studio 2010	WMVHIGH	WMV
SVR06 Extending Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.x	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR07 Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR08 Advanced Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR09 Developing Rich Reporting Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR10 Lighting up Windows Server 2008 R2 Using the ConcRT on UMS	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR11 Improving Application Compatibility and Quality for Windows Server 2008 R2	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR12 Building Your Administration GUI over Windows PowerShell	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR13 Windows PowerShell: An Automation Toolbox for Building Solutions That Span Small Businesses, Enterprises, and Cloud Services	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR14 Building Live Media Viewing Experiences Using Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming and the Smooth Streaming Player SDK	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR15 Microsoft BizTalk Server Futures and Roadmap	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR16 Connecting Applications with the Microsoft BizTalk Enterprise Service Bus Toolkit	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR17 Data-Intensive Computing on Windows HPC Server with the DryadLINQ Framework	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR18 Developing Applications for Scale-Up Servers Running Windows Server 2008 R2	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR19 Microsoft Project Code Name "Repository": Using Metadata to Drive Application Design, Development, and Management	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR31 Making Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Fly	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR32 Microsoft Semantic Engine	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
SVR33 Building Location Aware Applications with the SQL Server Spatial Library	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
VTL01 Code Contracts and Pex: Power Charge Your Assertions and Unit Tests	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
VTL02 Axum: A .NET Language for Safe and Scalable Concurrency	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
VTL03 Infer.NET: Building Software with Intelligence	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
VTL04 Rx: Reactive Extensions for .NET	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
VTL05 A New Approach to Exploring Information on the Web	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
VTL30 Managing Development to Inspire Innovation and Create Great User Experiences	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
VTL31 Coming Together in the Cloud	WMVHIGH	WMV		PPTX
VTL32 Concurrency Fuzzing & Data Races	WMVHIGH	WMV

Related Past Post XRef:
Microsoft PDC09 video list, courtesy of Microsoft

Mix 09 Quick Video Link List
My PDC List Maker utility source updated to consume the PDC Channel 9 RSS Feed (resulting in the Keynotes now being included in the list), but fixes, etc.
My PDC Video Link List Maker project & source is now available on CodePlex
PDC2008 Quick Video Link List (Updated: Now with Keynotes)
PDC 2008 Quick Video Link List updated with link verification
PDC2008 Quick Video Link List (Updated: Now with link verification)

A high level Data Guide for the Dev Guy - “Guide to the Data Development Platform for .NET Developers”

2009-11-20T09:27:00.001-08:00

Bob Beauchemin's Blog - Guide to the Data Development Platform for .NET Developers whitepaper available

“I've been busy for the last few weeks putting together a "manifesto" whitepaper about the .NET-based data access stacks and also the possibilities for .NET programmers in the SQL Server product itself. The whitepaper's direct link is here, although its also available via both the MSDN Data Developer Center and the SQL Server 2008 Application Development website. I don't see the arbitrary distinction between application developers who use databases and SQL developers that some do, so writing this paper and covering both was a good fit.

This whitepaper is quite a bit more high-level than others that I've written, meant to be an all-embracing introduction to .NET and SQL Server and point out the possibilities for .NET programmer. While writing this I was stunned at how many integration points there are between .NET and SQL Server. Every part of the SQL Server product uses .NET in one form or another. Check it out.

…”

MSDN - Guide to the Data Development Platform for .NET Developers

“SQL Server Technical Article
(11 printed pages)

Writer: Bob Beauchemin, SQLskills

Published: November 2009

Applies to: SQL Server 2008

Summary: This whitepaper covers all facets of the .NET data development platform. This includes not only client-side and service-based APIs but also .NET APIs for programming at a server level inside the SQL Server 2008 database and for developing and testing a SQL Server database application. It also includes information on future directions of the .NET and SQL Server development platform.

…

With all the Microsoft data access means and methods sometimes we need to take a step back and take a higher level look at things. That’s what I liked about this whitepaper, the 30,000 foot view it provided.

Microsoft PDC09 video list, courtesy of Microsoft

2009-11-20T08:55:00.001-08:00

MicrosoftPDC.com – Videos

“This page provides a handy 'all-in-one' list of sessions that are available for watching on demand. Sessions need to be encoded, edited and uploaded before they appear here, so if the session you want isn't here just check back after another day.

…

…”

Microsoft has heard our past cries about easily getting at the recorded sessions for PDC and this year created a single, one page has it all, list of sessions with links to the currently available session videos. I believe this list is still being fleshed out (i.e. sessions added, etc) so please make sure to check back every once in a while…

This means I’ll not be creating my own PDC video list post this year. It would be kind of silly for me to duplicate what’s already there…

BUT that doesn’t mean I can leave this alone. LOL. What I now want is an easy way to generate a custom RSS feed of the sessions I’m interested in, so I can then hook that to my Zune (and let it do all the download, transcoding, file management, etc heavy lifting. :)

So I’m going to try and knock out a quick .Net utility this weekend to see if some ideas I have in mind to do this are viable. And of course, if it does work out I’ll post it on CodePlex… :)

Need a ton of email data (10’s of gig’s)? Need it in PST form? Need it to be public data? Want to look behind the curtain into Enron? The EDRM Data Set Project is for you…

2009-11-20T07:59:00.001-08:00

The Electronic Discovery Model (EDRM) – Data Set Project

“Mission:

The mission of the EDRM Data Set Project is to compile a 100 gigabyte data set that can be used to test various aspects of electronic discovery software and services.

Enron Downloads:

Posted here are the EDRM Enron PST files. They are organized in 32 zipped files, each less than 700 MB in size. Also posted is a spreadsheet listing the zipped files and 168 .pst files contained in the zipped files.

The total size of the compressed files is approximately 19 GB. The total size of the uncompressed files is approximately 43 GB.

Most files may be downloaded by anyone. Except where otherwise noted, use of files is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. To provide attribution, please cite to “EDRM (edrm.net).” …

…”

I know that most of you won’t give a Rats As… um… Butt about this, but I thought it was cool and since it’s my blog… :p

I also have some “history” related to Enron and this also directly helps me in my day job, so.. yeah. The data is not a perfect conversion (because conversion it appears to be and they can be rarely perfect, for example it doesn’t appear to contact rich text), and every email has a “attribution” footer in it, but still attachments are hooked up (unlike some past Enron EML downloads I’ve seen) and the folder structure seems to be pretty much preserved.

Here’s a snap of one of the PST’s;

Fishbowl – THE Windows FaceBook client?

2009-11-18T18:58:00.001-08:00

Fishbowl

I caught this rock’n utility via blog post a week or two ago (that was later nuked because the OP wasn’t supposed to mention it yet… doh!) and I’ve been using it ever since.

This is now my one and only Facebook client. I love how this utility just seems to “work” for me. I’ve tried others, but they didn’t click. This one is easy like a web UI, but takes advantage of the power that a full client app can provide.

And did you see it there in the title area? The Source Code link? Yes, that’s right you get the full and complete source for this awesome app! (source hosted on CodePlex of course :)

CodePlex - Dive into Fishbowl

“Welcome! Fishbowl is a desktop application that lets you experience Facebook in new ways. We're providing the source to give people a chance to dig in and see how everything works. This isn't intended to be an example of best practices. It is an example of something that mostly works, and we hope that it's valuable for that. There are rough edges in the code that make it difficult for visual editors like Blend and Visual Studio to work with. We'll be working on making this better in the future. In the meantime there's still plenty to look at, and everything's here that you need to get started.

…”

Here’s a shot screen of it in action ..

And a quick snap of the source tree;

Snip of it loaded into VS2008 (which compiles and runs it on my system with no problems :)

NHunspell - 0.9.2 released and two cool C# & VB.Net Code Projects too

2009-11-16T14:17:00.001-08:00

CodeProject - Spell Check, Hyphenation and Thesaurus for .NET with C# and VB Samples Part 1: Single Threading

“Introduction

Spell checking, hyphenation and synonym lookup via thesaurus are the Open Office spell checker Hunspell functions. The NHunspell project makes these functions available for .NET applications. As the Open Office spell checker Hunspell is used in a vast amount of open source applications it could also be the first choice for .NET applications. Beyond Open Office Hunspell is currently used in the Mozilla applications Firefox and Thunderbird, the browsers Google Chrome and Opera and last but not least in the new Apple MAC OS/X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" operating system.

Since the first steps (NHunspell - Hunspell for the .NET platform) NHunspell has improved a lot and goes straight to the first release candidate. The current release 0.9.2 is a milestone because the support of Hunspell is nearly complete.

Using NHunspell spell check, hyphenation and thesaurus in single threaded applications

NHunspell is designed to serve two different use cases: Single threaded applications, like word processors and any other tool with a UI/GUI and multi threaded applications like servers and web servers (ASP.NET).

This Article covers the Single threaded applications. They use the basic NHunspell classes Hunspell, Hyphen and MyThes. The members aren't thread safe. If these classes are used by multiple treads a synchronization mechanism like lock must be used. But NHunspell provides special multi threading classes which are announced in the second part of the article: Spell checking, hyphenation and thesaurus in multi threading applications

…”

CodeProject - Spell Check, Hyphenation and Thesaurus for .NET with C# and VB Samples Part 2: Multi Threading

“…

Background

Spell checking, hyphenation and thesaurus functions are based on dictionaries. These dictionaries and the marshalling buffers between .NET and the native DLLs are exclusive resources. The synchronization mechanism prevents the use of these resources by more than one thread. This has an huge performance impact on multi processor or even multi core computers. From performance point of view it is best when as many Hunspell, Hyphen or MyThes objects are used as processor cores are available. So each processor core has a object available to process requests. The SpellEngine class in conjunction with the SpellFactory class provides this feature out of the box. By default it instantiates as many objects as processor cores are available. The access to these object is internally controlled by a Semaphore.

General Multi Threading Usage of NHunspell

The following code shows the methods of the SpellEngine and SpellFactory classes. It is obvious that in real server applications these objects aren't created and destroyed on every request. They are created at service start and disposed at service end and all requests are served by the same object (singleton pattern). So it is clear that you will never find this using{} block in a server application. But this is for demonstration purposes only. How it woks in a real ASP.NET application is explained later.

…”

SourceForge – NHunspell

No need to spend tons on a spell checker or automate into Office, Word, etc; check out NHunspell instead. Your free, as in LGPL, .Net library spell checker…

Note the license from the project home page;

“…

Licence

NHunspell is licenced under: GPL/LGPL/MPL. Free use in commercial applications is permittet according to the LGPL and MPL licenses. Your commercial application can link against the NHunspell DLLs. \

…”

Not at PDC? You can still take part – Party Underground @ PDC, See the keynotes and more…

2009-11-16T10:27:00.001-08:00

Veni, Vidi, Velcro... - Watch the Underground @ PDC Live on your computer…

“Can't Make it to PDC but still wanted to join in the fun? The online version of The Underground@PDC party is the event for you. We will be streaming the event live at http://undergroundAtPDC.com

Don't miss presentations by Scott Gu and others LIVE online. …”

The Underground @ PDC09

Jim O'Neil's Blog - Not at PDC?

“…

If you’re not going to LA though, you can still be part of the buzz and excitement happening there.

Watch the two keynotes via Silverlight smooth-streaming from the comfort of your own office (or get a group of folks together over lunch). Both keynotes begin at 11:30 Eastern time.

Day 1, November 17th, Ray Ozzie and Bob Muglia

Day 2, November 18th, Scott Guthrie, Kurt DelBene, and ???

Channel 9 will be broadcasting live (and unscripted) from the PDC Big Room each of the three days (beginning around 1:30 EST). They’ll be interviewing presenters and attendees alike, and you can help drive the conversation by submitting your tweets to @ch9live.

Check out the Not@PDC site. There’s nothing there at the moment I’m writing this post, but last year quite a few presentations were made available BY non-attendees FOR non-attendees. You can follow their twitter feed as well via the hashtag #notatpdc

…”

So you can party and not worry about drinking and driving! :)

Update #1 11/16/2009 @ 1:30PM PST:
MS ISV Developer Community - Developers, Architects Meet at PDC

“… you are attending the conference, stop by the MSDEV booth or see MSDEV at PDC on uStream live. For the top ten reasons why you should stop by the booth, see Top 10 Reasons to Stop by the MSDEV Booth at PDC. …”

So you can even virtually hang out at some booth’s too… ;)

A Feed You Should Read – Delayed a bit

2009-11-16T06:48:00.001-08:00

Just a quick note to say that the next A Feed You Should Read is going to be delayed a few days due to PDC.

If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on a PDC related feed… ;)

A MVVM framework “…three hour tour…”

2009-11-14T08:29:00.001-08:00

JAPF - A quick tour of existing MVVM frameworks

“…

One year ago MVVM wasn’t very famous. I remember the first article I read about it, about using MVVM to simplify the management of treeview controls. In the last six months, MVVM has been quickly promoted to THE methodology to use when developing WPF applications. During this amount of time, famous WPF developers started to merge their existing MVVM classes into libraries. Those libraries are now known as MVVM frameworks and contain classes designed to help developers to use MVVM in their projects.

In this article, I’m going to make a quick tour of the available MVVM frameworks.

…

”

Wow, I knew there were allot of MVVM framework, toolkits, etc, but not this many. As you might know I’m a fan of MVVM, it’s the first WPF pattern that I actually saw “work” and you know how you always remember your first…;)

What I’d really like is to see is “patterns” baked into the Visual Studio IDE. I would like to be able to set Visual Studio to use specific pattern and then have it help me conform to that pattern. So for example, there would be the “Code Behind” pattern (i.e. today’s behavior), the MVVM pattern, the MVC pattern, etc. And based on the selected pattern VS’s behavior would change, working to help you fall into the pit of success for that pattern.

I wonder if the new MEF based extensible IDE support in VS2010 would let me build something like that? Hum… Sounds like a good topic to bring at next week at PDC (Being me, I’ve already chatted up people about this, Patterns baked into the IDE, idea at TechEd, etc :)

(via @JungchanHsieh – tweet)

Win 7 USB/DVD utility to be re-released next week, this time under GPLv2 (yes, that means source too)

2009-11-13T13:51:00.001-08:00

Port 25 - Update on the Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool

“As you've likely read, we've been investigating a report that the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, might contain GPLv2 code. The WUDT is a free tool which was offered by the Microsoft Store that enabled customers to create bootable USB drives or DVD backup media from the electronic software (ESD) edition of Windows 7 that comes in an ISO format.

…

When it comes to our attention that a Microsoft component contains third party code, our aim is to be respectful of the terms under which that code is being shared. As a result, we will be making the source code as well as binaries for this tool available next week under the terms of the General Public License v2 [GD:Emphasis added] …

…”

Nice. I’m glad they are not fighting, hemming and hawing over this and instead are making the right call. Sure they might not have much choice, but still, they could have fought harder, meaner, lamer, etc. Hard right over the easy wrong. Hard right, own up, re-release it honoring the license they found themselves stuck with, move on and learn from it.

(via @giovanni – tweet)

SQL Server 2008 Enterprise feature coming to SQL Server Standard 2008 R2 – Backup Compression

2009-11-13T08:21:00.001-08:00

Roman Rehak - Backup compression no longer Enterprise edition only

“Last week at PASS I had a discussion with a program manager on the SQL Server team and he told me that in SQL Server 2008 R2, backup compression will be available in the Standard edition. I suspect this announcement will leave many of you very happy. It is certainly good news for my company since we have quite a few auxiliary servers with large databases, but not critical enough to justify enterprise licenses.

For more details about feature breakdown in R2, look here - http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2-editions.aspx.

…”

Nice. I’ve been trying to build the case for SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, with compression being one of my selling points. While this move is only backup compression and not data compression, still it’s nice to see Enterprise features move down the stack. Now if I could get transparent encryption and data compression I’d be a happy camper (and would finally shut up about Enterprise… ;)

Maybe by the time we get everything in place for our SQL Server 2008 Migration maybe R2 will be out and we can move directly to it.

New Amazon Web Services (AWS) .Net SDK Released

2009-11-12T06:18:00.001-08:00

Amazon Web Services Blog - New AWS SDK for .NET Developers

“The new AWS SDK for .NET Developers will provide you with the libraries, code samples, and documentation needed to build an AWS-powered application using any programming language capable of making .NET calls including C#, Visual Basic, Windows PowerShell, and so forth.

The SDK includes the following goodies:

A new AWS .NET Library - This library provides a set of developer-friendly APIs that hide much of the low-level plumbing associated with programming for the AWS cloud, including authentication, retries, and error handing. The library supports the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Auto Scaling, Amazon CloudWatch, Elastic Load Balancing, the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, Amazon SimpleDB, the Amazon Simple Storage Service, Amazon CloudFront, the Amazon Simple Queue Service, the Amazon Relational Database Service, and Amazon Elastic MapReduce.

Code Samples - The SDK includes practical examples in C# to show you how to build applications that make use of AWS.

Visual Studio Support - The SDK includes Visual Studio templates to give you a running start on your application.

Documentation - The SDK has a Getting Started Guide along with reference documentation for the library and for AWS.

We also set up a dedicated .NET Forum and created a Windows & .NET Developer Center. …” [GD: Post Leach Level: 95%]

Amazon Web Services - AWS SDK for .Net

“The AWS SDK for .NET makes it even easier for Windows developers to build .NET applications that tap into the cost-effective, scalable, and reliable AWS cloud. Using the SDK, developers will be able to build solutions for AWS infrastructure services, including Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and Amazon SimpleDB. With the AWS SDK for .NET, developers get started in minutes with a single, downloadable package complete with Visual Studio project templates, the AWS .NET library, C# code samples, and documentation.

”

A nice touch is that besides the DLL, docs (in Help 2 form) and some samples, they have also released the source to the library too (so you can see the magic behind the curtain, etc).

PDC guide for the busy guy

2009-11-11T10:52:00.001-08:00

First check out last year’s PDC Guide post, “The Devil’s Field Guide to the PDC” – Eight tips toward a better PDC experience, and also the referenced The Spider King - The Devil’s Field Guide to the PDC. While it’s dated a bit (last year’s PDC was five days with pre-con, this year it’s four, etc) 99% of it is still valid.

Second here are some reminders, tips and thoughts;

A) If you’re local, i.e. live in the Greater LA monster-plex, only a sucker would make the drive (cough… unless you’re working a vendor booth, like Craig… cough… ;). Take the Metrolink to Union Station and Metrorail to the Convention Center. It’s not hard, only two transitions, Metrolink to Red Line to 7th & Metro get on the Blue Line and you get off at the first stop, Pico. Also your Metrolink ticket is a free transfer to the Metrorail. Come on, how often do you get to ride the subway in LA! (Yes, LA has a “real” subway… ;)

B) “Only suckers stand in line”. No swag is worth it, no session is worth it, no food is worth it. Most, if not all, sessions will be recorded. Vendors have tons of swag. There will be tons of food al over the place. Schedules are flexible. Don’t. Stand. In. Line.

C) PLEASE don’t be the stinky guy! I swear I get stuck behind the stinky guy at least once a show. In the US it’s customary to shower daily or so. We have this personal space thing and that includes your… um… scent. If I can smell you a row or two away, then… um… err… I hate to say it… but you’re the “Stinky Guy”

D) Swag day is the last day. The last day of the show, the last day that the partner pavilion will be be open is swag day. You might not get the best swag, but you’ll get allot as no one wants to take any of it home.

BUT keep your eyes open for the “cool” swag. Sometimes there’s swag items that are in limit supply (the Azure backpacks from PDC08 for example) and those will always run out. Get those early…

E) Don’t be afraid of the Microsoft’ies! There will be about 1.9 zillion Microsoft employees and MVP’s around. Wandering the floor, speaking, manning a booth, etc. THEY ARE THERE FOR YOU! Don’t afraid to spark up a conversation with them. No, your question is not stupid. Who cares if you think someone else might of asked it before, if you need to ask it, ASK IT! From personal experience, they love to help you, to answer your questions and to just chat with you. You will find some major names just hanging out and waiting to talk TO YOU. If nothing else, just say “hi”… :)

F) Overcrowded sessions, look for the overflow room (or catch the video). Some sessions will be so packed that people will be filling the rows and standing on top of each other. If massed crowds make you queasy, then look for the overflow room or catch the session after the fact. The videos of the PDC sessions are outstanding, are free and will be available within about 24 hours of the session. The HQ ones are just as good as almost being there.

G) When walking between the South and West Halls, take the back route. There’s a very cool, outside and usually not crowded path between the West and South halls. It’s around the back, outside. This is my preferred route from one side of the show to the other. I think we’ve scheduled nice weather, so enjoy it with a short stroll outside… :)

H) Pace yourself. It’s going to be long couple days. Open your mind, let the information flow in and don’t stress if you miss something. Remember, there’s the video if you missed, skipped or spaced something.

Enough for now… See you there next week. :)

SQL Server Management Studio for SQL Azure now available

2009-11-11T09:37:00.001-08:00

SQL Azure Team Blog - SQL Server Management Studio Support for SQL Azure!!!

“…

Just a quick post to let you know that the long awaited build of SQL Server Management Studio with support for SQL Azure is available today for MSDN and TechNet subscribers and will be generally available for the rest of the world as of tomorrow. The download page can be found here. I will post a link to the tools only install when it becomes available tomorrow.

This support is included as part of the November CTP release of SQL Server 2008 R2.

…”

That’s pretty cool…

As SQL Azure get closer to a more traditional SQL Server the entry level decreases and my interest increases.

I believe you can get just the tools, just the SSMS here, Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 November Community Technology Preview - Express Edition (This is SSMSE so maybe I’m not sure… If/when I get a Tools/SSMS only link I’ll update this post)

Every industry deserves it’s own apparel, doesn’t it? Now there’s apparel for the EDD Guy or Gal in you…

2009-11-11T08:41:00.001-08:00

PRWeb - Logik Launches eDiscovery Apparel Website eDDstuff.com

“Washington, DC (PRWEB) November 11, 2009 -- Just in time for the upcoming holidays, Logik, a Washington, DC -based eDiscovery company, is proud to announce the launch of the world's first and only eDiscovery apparel and merchandise website at www.eddstuff.com. Visitors of all ages will discover fun, hip designs professionally printed on a variety of apparel and merchandise, including comfy t-shirts, warm hoodies, large coffee mugs and even downloadable versions of the fun eDiscovery images for both computer and iPhone wallpapers.

“When we told our friends, family and clients that we were launching an eDiscovery clothing and merchandise website,” laughs Andy Wilson, Co-Founder and CEO of Logik, “the one question we heard over and over was… ‘Why? Who does that?’ When we first came up with the idea, it just made sense to us. Logik is energetic and passionate about what we do. We wanted a different way of showing that.”

So, why would an eDiscovery company launch a website featuring whimsical designs on clothing? There’s a simple answer to that: it’s just one more example of how Logik thinks differently than other companies.

…”

eDDStuff.com

eDDStuff designs

eDiscovery Ninja

Terabyte Twos

eDiscovery Nerd

eDiscovery Evolved

eDiscovery…It Happens

When I Was Your Age…

I’d Rather Be Denisting

It’s All In The Family

Logikbot Broken Apart

…”

Okay, that’s just awesome. I love a company that has this willingness to smile, dare I say laugh, at itself, especially one that is part of the legal industry complex [insert your own statement here about legal system and humor]

Some of the designs had me snort-laughing (which you all know how much I hate when I do that.)

Personally I think this really DOES same something about the company, something great. I applaud these guys and their willingness to be “human.”

I think I’m going to have to get my team some mugs… ;)

Related Past Post XRef:
Something we all need sometimes, some “Logik Redaction”

Veterans Day, November 11th

2009-11-10T14:58:00.001-08:00

As a veteran I will be honoring and celebrating my fellow veterans this Veterans Day, Wednesday, 11/11.

Please remember freedom is not free. Freedom is bought and paid for in time and blood by those who have served in the US Armed Forces. Veterans Day is the day of the year for you to remember and thank those who have, or are currently, defending your right to be free.

Thank you. Thank you for all you sacrifice now, in the past and in the future. Thank you for your time, effort and willingness to be the sharp point of the spear. Thank you for your blood, sweat and tears. Thank you to your families who also sacrifice so much. Thank you for defending me, my family and my freedom. Thank you, God bless you and God bless the United States of America…

Greg Duncan
SGT, US Army & California National Guard (1985-1996)

PowerShell your PDC

2009-11-10T09:59:00.001-08:00

Development in a Blink - 25 lines of PowerShell to Navigate PDC09 Sessions

“I find the PDC09 site a bit frustrating to navigate the sessions I want to attend.

So I whipped up this 25 line PowerShell/WPK GUI. Type in the search box to find matching session titles. Click on a title and the browser navigates to PDC session page.

…

”

Got to love the power of people conforming data to better fit their needs (and then sharing that. :)

On a related note as I’ve mentioned, I do wish there was a Microsoft Conference API (ConfAPI) or SDK. The RSS feed is a nice, but it sure would be cool if those of us interested in crafting our own UI to Microsoft Conferences didn’t have to reverse engineer the conference sites/feeds and were instead embraced by Microsoft. Fan “Conference UI”’s, with appropriate disclaimers, etc would IMHO only increase the value of the given conference, spread the word, show off MS tech and would be done for free. Now that’s a deal!

Now I’m not saying the teams that build/built the existing conference sites are bad or anything. Heck, it’s the reverse! They are doing a great job in what I’d guess is a pretty thankless position. Those team(s) are great and are constantly working to improve and adapt.

I just want to make their job easier, I want to do some of their work for them for free! :) lol

But I need them to meet us half way. Give us, your community, a supported API/SDK/Web Service layer that will span conferences (Mix, PDC, TechEd, etc) and I bet you’ll be surprised at what your community will do for you…

Related Past Post XRef:
MonoTouch your PDC

Cool Command line utility of the day: clip

2009-11-10T09:08:00.001-08:00

The Old New Thing - Little-known command line utility: clip

“Windows Vista includes a tiny command line utility called clip. All it does is paste its stdin onto the clipboard.
dir  clip
echo hey  clip
…”

So much that I don’t know…sigh (TG cause otherwise this job would get SO boring ;)

This is a pretty cool Windows Vista/Win7 (and probably post Vista server OS’s too) utility that pipes into the clipboard. If you’ve ever redirected/piped a command line utility into a text file just so you could then easily cut-n-paste from it, then this utility is just for you (been there, done that, got the T-shirt)

So since I’m on a PowerShell kick, I did a quick 5 second search for doing something similar in PS and it’s not quite so easy (kind of, sort of).

Since PS has the power of .Net behind it, you can use .Net’s clipboard goodness to make it happen, Windows PowerShell Blog - Copy console screen to system clipboard. Yet if you look at that code in the post you’ll see it’s not really all the pretty. Not hard, yet not as easy as the clip utility or some kind of more integrated solution.

A much prettier solution is the PowerShell Community Extensions (PSCX) Out-clipboard, shown here, The Endeavour - Manipulating the clipboard with PowerShell

And of course, clip can just be used from PS too… ;)

Related Past Post XRef:
PowerShell Community Extensions V1.1.1 Released

MonoTouch your PDC

2009-11-09T12:55:00.001-08:00

ConceptDev (Craig Dunn's blog) - Another MonoTouch 'conference app' – PDC09

“I'm not planning on making a habit of this, but having spent the time putting together the Monospace conference app and seeing tweets from various Mono people that they were heading to PDC09, I figured it wouldn't take too long to copy some PDC data into the existing MonoTouch C# app 'framework'.

A new view (Sessions), a new icon (Speakers) and a new location (Underground) are the main changes - the rest is just SQLite and graphic tweaks. The source is available for download …

…

UPDATE: to be clear, this app is not available on the AppStore -- it is just an example of the kind of thing you can write in C# for the iPhone using MonoTouch from Novell. If you have a MonoTouch licence then you can download the source (124Kb) and install it on your phone.”

That’s pretty cool and made me chuckle (don’t let Mr. Ballmer see you… lol ;)

Now if I only I had a not-dumb phone… (Santa, can I have a Droid or Verizon WinMo 6.5 phone? I’ve been… mostly good… ;)

(via Miguel de Icaza's web log - MonoTouch application for the PDC)

A Feed You Should Read #11 – The Road to Know Where

2009-11-08T09:39:00.001-08:00

In this week’s Feed, our journey takes us down a slightly different path. Not as dramatic a difference as last week’s, yet still different than most of the past posts.

A blog can sometimes fall into a general category or type. Link blogs, where a post, for the most part, contain X number of links to other blogs. to original content blogs, status blogs, pet blogs, personal story blogs, etc.

There are also re-blogs. A re-blog is where the blogger finds stuff and re-blogs about it referencing and quoting to original content, usually with one re-blog per post. My blog, the one you’re reading, is 98% re-blog.

Today’s feed you should read is a also re-blog, yet with a great deal more to it than that…

The Road to Know Where

Background:

The Road to Know Where is a re-blog mostly focused on Microsoft tech, IT content, with cool and dev stuff thrown in for flavor. But beyond the daily’ish posts of cool stuff found and shared, there is also a great list of free Microsoft software (well actually a number of lists, as you can see above). These are must read lists of free utilities, applications and such that you have to check out…

Blake Handler’s blog, The Road to Know Where, has been going strong since mid 2005 and I’ve been following since nearly then (looks like my first post related to it was Feb 2006) and I’ve not looked back since I found it (I’ve re-blogged him 26’ish times ;)

Blake is a local guy too (as local as can be in the monster-plex that is the Greater Los Angeles area), which is cool. As small as the world has become with the Net, locality is still important.

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

I dig his posts because his IT POI helps me see beyond my usual scope of interest. His area of interest while mostly Microsoft focused, is scoped very broadly. From Windows Home Server, client OS, server OS, MS mobile, games, system admin utilities, to training and fun stuff, it’s all there and more.

Look, are you using Microsoft tech? Do you like free software? Are you a Dev, IT’er or power user? Then you need to subscribe to The Road to Know Where feed and ALSO check out his free software lists.

This is one of those few blogs that should be at the very top of your daily reading list. One of those blogs that if you don’t have time to read everything you subscribe to, you at least always read this one. One of those blogs where you can almost be certain you catch something new, interesting and useful…

Snap of the latest post:

Blog Information:

Name:	The Road to Know Where
URL:	http://bhandler.spaces.live.com/default.aspx
Feed:	http://cid-70f64bc910c9f7f3.users.api.live.net/Users(8139776703460931571)/Main?$format=rss20
Post Types:	Re-blog of Windows, IT, and cool stuff posts

Paint.NET 3.5 (Final) now available

2009-11-07T07:52:00.001-08:00

Paint.NET - Paint.NET v3.5 (Final) is now available!

“Thanks to everyone who helped out with the extensive alpha and beta releases with all the bug reports, crash log submissions, and feedback. It has all been a huge help in creating the best Paint.NET release ever.

As usual, there are two ways to get the new version:

Preferred: Use the built-in updater from within Paint.NET. If you are using version v3.36, simply go to the Help menu and click on “Check for Updates.” For v3.5 alpha/beta, go to the Utilities menu instead of the Help menu. Or, just wait for the update prompt to come up automatically within the next week or so.

Download directly from the website: http://www.getpaint.net/ . There is no need to uninstall the old version; that will be taken care of automatically.

…

Changes since version 3.36:

New: Refreshed user interface with new icons and visual styling. On Windows 7 and Vista, it is enhanced for Aero and "glass".

[GD: Way to many for me to leach.. click though for all the details]

…

”

You all have Paint.Net, right? One of the must have Windows utilities? No? (–10 geek cred, sorry ;)

All kidding aside, congrats to Rick on his release and for thank you for your outstanding work on this rock’n product!

Let's Paint the town red... Paint.Net 3.3 Released
Paint.Net 3.2 RTW
Paint.Net 3.1 Released
Paint.NET 2.5 RTM
Paint.NET v2.1 Released
Paint.NET 2.0 Released
Paint.NET v1.1 is now available!

Almost everything you ever wanted to know about the MSG (stand alone Outlook Email message) file format but were afraid to ask (Part 1)

2009-11-06T15:59:00.001-08:00

Microsoft Open Specification Support Team Blog - .MSG File Format (Part 1)

“In my previous two blog entries, I’ve focused on becoming familiar with the Compound File Binary Format which we discovered was similar to a FAT file system within a file. With that exercise behind us we’re ready to step up a level in the ecology of file formats. Analogous to ascending from chemistry to simple cell organisms, CFBF has given us the building blocks with which the great variety of application file formats are assembled.

Recently, I took the time to expand my view of application formats by investigating the workings of Outlook’s .msg format. Specifically, I was required to explain how a Rights Managed Email message could be dissected in order to read the contents hidden within. Having only a cursory knowledge of the Outlook message file format (.msg), and that being based of course, on CFBF, I needed only to discover where the critical components of the email message could be found. I will divide this blog into two parts. In part 1, I will overview the message file format described in MS-OXMSG in preparation for part 2. In part 2, I will describe in some detail, including code fragments how to find the compressed email attachment in a rights managed email and how it can be decompressed in order to read it plainly.

.MSG

In this overview section, my goal is to describe the message store structure in a way that will enable you, the reader to recognize quickly the storages and streams in a sample .msg file and understand what you’re seeing. As always, to get the nitty-gritty detail of property names and fields sizes and the like, please refer to the actual documents that I’ll list as we navigate them.

…

”

[MS-OXMSG]: .MSG File Format

This post, and part 2 when it comes out, warrant a much closer look (due to what I do in my “day life”)

Upgrading your OS or maybe moving to a new PC? Don’t have your device driver disks? Double Driver to the rescue!

2009-11-06T10:16:00.001-08:00

BooZet Freeware - Welcome to Double Driver

“One of the main reasons why you would want to collect installed drivers is if you don’t have the Driver CD that came with the computer or they are unavailable online. This comes in quite handy if you purchase a computer and want to backup the initial set of drivers. It can be quite difficulty for example to find drivers for hardware installed in a notebook if the operating system has to be setup again. Luckily Double Driver can now lend you a hand with that and save you a lot of time.

Double Driver is a very simple and useful tool which not only allows you to view all the drivers installed on your system but also allows you to backup, restore, save and print all chosen drivers simply and reliably.

Double Driver analyzes your system and lists the most important driver details such as version, date, provider, etc and offers you the chance to update to the latest version. All drivers that are found can easily be backed up the application and easily restored at a later point in one go.

Double Driver is freeware. Feel free to use and give this program to anyone you know. Your donation or feedback would be greatly appreciated. [GD:Description leached in full, click through for the download link]

…

”

Backup’s are good. Say it with me, “backups are good”.

But when we usually think of backups we think “my files” or system files, or disk image, etc. This is a targeted backup solution that will scan, backup and restore your system/device drivers.

The utility fired up and scanned very quickly on my Win7 x86 notebook. I’ve not tried to backup/restore… And do I need to say that this, should simple and easy to use, should be used (i.e. if you restore) with care and caution?

Still if you need it, you’ll need it. And the price is just right…

(via Scott Hanselman, @shanselman - tweet)

SQL Server 2008 FILESTREAM Best Practices

2009-11-06T09:57:00.001-08:00

MSSQLTips - Best Practices – When Using FILESTREAM Feature of SQL Server 2008

“Problem
In SQL Server 2008 one can store BLOBs (e.g. Images, video, Word, Excel, PDF, MP3, etc) in the NTFS file system rather than in a database file. This can be done by using the new FILESTREAM feature which was introduced in SQL Server 2008. In this tip we will take a look at some of the best practices which a database administrator can follow to get the best performance when using the FILESTREAM feature of SQL Server 2008.

Solution
If you are new to SQL Server 2008 and haven’t used the FILESTREAM feature yet, then I would suggest you start with the following tips.

…

FILESTREAM Best Practices

Some of the best practices which can be leveraged by database administrators when using the FILESTREAM feature of SQL Server 2008 are listed below:
…
”

I’m starting to see a little movement in my day life toward SQL Server 2008 and a little interest in the FILESTREAM feature so when I saw this, I wanted to make sure I captured it for future reference and sharing…

This is a great post which summarizes a number of FILESTREAM best practices I’ve seen and heard about in the last couple years. Both configuration (i.e. turn off Last Updated and 8.3) and usage (what file sizes are best stored where) tips are included.