I recently received a surprise package, something that was sent out by the head of my organization at Microsoft as a "thank you" for our most recent fiscal year. It's turned out to be one of the coolest gadgets I own. What I received was the Momento Model...

In preparing for the first of our MSDN Roadshow events tomorrow in Baltimore , I've run across a number of cool tutorials and samples for the Expression Studio tools, so I thought I'd share a couple that I really liked: Water Drop Tutorial - Use...

Marc from the Public Sector Developer Blog sez: REMINDER: Exceed offers a FREE DataGrid for WPF Yes, you read that right! Details here . - Marc Free's my favorite price! Public Sector Developer Weblog : REMINDER: Exceed offers a FREE DataGrid for WPF

I know there are probably some folks who roll their eyes when Microsoft uses the term "platform-neutral" : Windows Live ID Web Authentication 1.0 SDK Brief Description The Windows Live™ ID Web Authentication 1.0 software development kit (SDK) gives you...

Good discussion and comparison of the HD video spec supported by Silverlight (VC-1) and the recent announcement that Flash would support HD video (H.264): Recently Flash announced upcoming better video support in the form of H.264. I welcome this change...

...or other device: If you'll be buying one of the 12 vehicles in the Ford , Lincoln or Mercury brands with the option to get your music, phone and text messaging all in Sync via bluetooth, we've now found out you'll be able to get the Microsoft -Ford...

This looks cool: In June, I recounted my out-of-the-box experience with a new Dell PC running Windows Vista, starting with a failed BIOS upgrade , undergoing a successful repair , and establishing that the basic hardware and software setup was rock-solid...

For almost a year now, I've had a nice setup in my home office with dual Westinghouse 19" LCD monitors on a pair of articulating arms. This allows me to have lots of screen real estate, with better placement than the stock stands offered, and the ability...

More good news on the conversion front: I'm very happy to announce that there's a new SWF to XAML conversion tool in town, and although I haven't had a chance to play with it myself (no demo version is available), it sounds promising. Specifically—and...

My colleague Dr. Z observes : Where a Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh project is created with Orcas 2008 beta 2, references are set by default to several assemblies, which are stored in the Microsoft Silverlight directory, such as agclr, mscorlib, system...

Next week, we're kicking off a new event series here in Mid-Atlantic called the MSDN Roadshow. Those of you from the New England area are probably familiar with this format from my colleagues Chris Bowen and Bob Familiar , and their Bob & Chris' MSDN...

From community guru Robin Edwards , of RVNUG : Get Ready For Roanoke Valley .NET User Group Training With .NET University! Rather than our usual meeting at the Roanoke County Public Safety Building we will be providing training the first two Thursdays...

OK, so I guess I could probably do without the "ethical conundrums," when I'm trying to have fun, but having played the demo, I can confidently say that Bioshock is easily one of the most amazing looking games I've seen to date on the XBOX 360. It really...

One thing that's interesting about blogging is the fact that it allows you to instantly reach people around the world. Anywhere that someone has an Internet connection, they can find and read what you've written. It's a very powerful concept. But it can...

Straight from Mongolia, a list of the top 25 Microsoft open source projects : It is nice to see the open source projects' progress in Microsoft world, especially it is been extremely fast growth after the Codeplex launched, and also GotDotNet suggests...

Cool idea , presented by my colleague Glen Gordon : For the past few weeks (including this week) I've been presenting some introductory webcasts on the core technologies of .NET 3.0 - namely Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation...

This sounds intriguing: PowerPoint Presentations On The Zune One of the things that I started using my Zune for within days after I bought it is PowerPoint presentations. By using pictures as slides the Zune is surprisingly effective for this task if...

Can it really have been 25 years? I think if I remember correctly, the first CD I ever bought was Yes' 90125 . I can still remember the look on my mom's face the first time I played the song "Leave It" for her. Even on my cheap CD player, the clarity...

One of the cool things about digital photography is the creative things people have come up with to use digital photos. We've gone from keychains and calendars by mail order, to a whole array of photo options online, from coffee mugs, to poster size enlargements...

OK, so I have to admit that I was taken in by this : Thomas Martel, 28, of Bonnie Braeis a big guy. So he has a hard time using the features on ever-shrinking user interfaces on devices like his new iPhone. At least, he did, until he had his thumbs...

Local speaker and blogger Sahil Malik has just posted the 4th part in a series on Sharepoint 2007 Workflows and Visual Studio 2005...check them out: Table of Contents for on SharePoint 2007 WF Authoring using VS2005. 1. Setting up your environment for...

OK, so I realize most people don't equate Excel to cool, other than perhaps some twisted CPAs (apologies to any readers who may also be CPAs), but in this case, I think we have to make an exception: I am doing more and more Wiimote integration. Buttons...

Here's an unusual way to let your users know something's gone wrong: Inspired by Goopymart's "Teh Internets" , here's an illustrated set of common http error codes for use on your blog or site or what have you. My favorite is the cartoon for 404 - Not...

OK, I just saw this while checking out Chad's Sliverlight/Flash writeup : The rocket launcher has no sensors to detect position or movement. There are some rough ways to estimate and track that I am experimenting with. However I also noted that I have...

Chris Bowen , my New England teammate and counterpart, has posted a great list of resources for Silverlight and IronPython: Silverlight Home - http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight Second Home - http://silverlight.net 1.0 and 1.1 Samples (with code) -...