Author: Peter Birkholm-Buch (Page 16 of 17)

Microsoft has just relased a whitepaper which gives a great overview of VS2008. VS2008 is centeret around three pillars:

Improve Developer Productivity

In Visual Studio 2008, developer productivity doesn’t end with the code editor and wizards. By extending this concept to application architectures and the underlying platform, Visual Studio 2008 delivers not only a productive development tool, but also enables developers to tackle new business problems while decreasing the total cost of solution construction. In Visual Studio 2008 developers, designers, and database professionals will see new tools and frameworks become available to simplify their tasks.

Manage the Application Life Cycle

Visual Studio 2008 enhances the end-to-end value of Visual Studio Team System by increasing its role-based coverage and delivering enhanced traceability throughout the software development life cycle. With deep integration across roles in the software life cycle and the Team Foundation Server, Team System enables customers to amplify the impact of their teams and improve software quality.

Employ the Latest Technologies

As users look for new ways to comprehend and retain information, developers must still grapple with basic desktop and application security. Visual Studio, Windows Vista, and the 2007 Office system, enable developers to deliver a safe, robust and compelling user experience in any type of application. These fundamental advances enable customers to rapidly create connected applications that deliver the highest quality, rich user experiences regardless of project complexity or organization size.

Highly recommeded reading:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/f/d/bfdb8b1b-323a-435e-b328-cadc8b67bbee/An%20Overview%20of%20Visual%20Studio%202008.xps

“Cider” is the codename for the WPF designer in Visual Studio 2008.  These screencasts covers some of the new features in Cider and walks you through building a small application to apply the features.

Part 1 shows you how to create a WPF application using VS2008.

Part 2 shows you how to use Blend to style a WPF application created with VS2008;  see how you can seamlessly go back and forth between the two tools to get the best out of a developer (intellisense, code wiring, etc.) and designer ( styling, templating) tools for creating WPF applications.

This is a completely personal post about children surfing the web.

My kids are 6½ and the surf the web on their own computers. Until now there’s been no need to guard against unwanted sites and content, but now they’re starting to write things like “spiderman” and “ben10” in the search field in IE7 and then browse the different sites in the search results list. Now, I’m at a point where I need to be able to control which sites my kids may or may not stumble upon.

There’s already built-in parental control in Windows Vista; here’s a great post on that – and I was going to upgrade their computers to Vista, but not quite yet.

So I needed a Windows XP solution, and after a bit of surfing I found

They offer a completely free filter for Windows XP (and Vista) which based on a central repository of rating and categorization of sites. If your kid accidentally tries to open site which has been classified as inapropriate – the filter blocks access and displays a block page with an error message.

Since the software is of US origin I find the filter a bit too restrictive, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

To quickly get an introduction Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 go and view these excellent webcasts:

TechNet Webcast: Windows SharePoint Services: Overview and What’s New (Level 200)

This webcast covers the technical fundamentals of Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, the next generation of Web workspace technology from Microsoft. Find out what is new with Windows SharePoint Services, what has changed, how it works, and why you should use it to develop and deploy information sharing solutions. We recommend that you view this session before viewing the “Office SharePoint Server 2007: Overview and What’s New” webcast.

Presenter: Mike Fitzmaurice, Senior Product Manager – Portals, Microsoft Corporation

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Overview and What’s New (Level 200)

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is much more than an upgrade from Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Microsoft Content Management Server 2002. This webcast provides an overview of the features in SharePoint Server 2007, and covers technical fundamentals, new sets of server functionality, and other factors developers and IT professionals must consider. Since Office SharePoint Server 2007 is built on Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, it is recommended that you attend the “Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 – Overview and What’s New” webcast first.

Presenter: Mike Fitzmaurice, Senior Product Manager – Portals, Microsoft Corporation

Just in from the web is the unfortunate shooting at Virginia Tech — my feelings go out to the families left behind.

On a more serious note – when will the US realize that the only way to stop this is absolute gun control? The historic right to bear arms and protect yourself against the government expired 198 years ago…

Link to What’s up with all these Shootings!? ~ Chris Pirillo

I bought a Nova 500 Watt external PSU from www.nesteq.de and it came today.

Here’s what it looks like:

The installation went very smooth and I replaced the old noisy internal PSU with the external one in about 15 minutes.

Now I can enjoy my Vista MCE in silence 🙂

Although Windows Vista was just launched it’s not everyday that Microsoft reveals new operating systems. So I was really exited to hear about Windows Home Server (WHS). Here’s the lowdown from Engadget:

• Units are headless and embedded only — you cannot buy WHS and put it on an old PC — yikes 🙁
• There is no common web interface. Interaction is entirely client software based, or done over SMB — make sure to turn off the “there’s no external monitor error beep in the bios”.
• It cannot directly stream media to Media Center Extenders, but it can stream media directly to Windows Media Connect-enabled devices — Why?!
• It does not use RAID, but instead uses a RAID-like drive pooling system with built-in redundancy. Expanding capacity is as simple as adding additional drives internally or externally via USB — Hmm, will have to wait and see..
• The client software, which is installable only on Windows PCs (duh) monitors PC health, manages backups, and supports full disk images and versions. If your computer crashes hard you can pop in an restore CD and it’ll pull the disk image over the network – OK, great.
• Your WHS device gets registered with your Windows Live account and is made easily-findable by authorized parties (i.e. you and anyone you designate) while on the go. You can even connect to it via Live and pipe a Remote Desktop connection to a PC on your home network through this Home-finding Live feature — cool and not so cool. Although I’m sure that Microsoft will go to every extent to make sure that this is secure and “hacker proof” this sounds like a prime target for hacking.

Needled to say, I’m going to try and install one as soon as I can get my hands on the software.

Has anyone tried the Magnum 600 EX external power supply?

Have built my own Media Center PC, but it’s way too noisy for my living room (or so my wife thinks..).
So I’m looking for a way to make it more quiet.