As reported by Rob Caron, we have posted seven walkthroughs for the Visual Studio 2005 Community Technical Preview May 2004 Edition (what a mouthful). The walkthroughs focus on unit testing, web testing, load testing, profiling and code analysis. This is a great way to come up-to-speed on some of the features of the new Visual Studio 2005 Team System (which, as an aside, sounds like it will have some nice reporting capabilities).
As reported on Robert Green’s blog, some members of the Microsoft Visual Basic .NET team have created a freely available Visual Basic Power Pack that contains seven WinForm controls to help you create more powerful client applications:
· BlendPanel – A panel that provides a gradient fill background with configurable start and end colors
· Notification Window – A window that displays Windows Messenger-like “toast” messages
· UtilityToolbar - A graphical toolbar that looks and behaves like the one in Internet Explorer
· ImageButton - A button that displays an image on a transparent background so all of your buttons don’t have to have the standard rectangular look
· TaskFrame - A container for TaskPanes that behaves like the TaskPane in Word 2003 or Excel 2003. The TaskPanes are collapsible windows that can contain any other control.
· FolderViewer – A control to display folder hierarchies
· FileViewer – A control that displays files in a specified folder
Inspired by the Paper Arcade that I've posted about twice now, I decided to try my hand at creating one of my favorites: Galaga. I owe thanks to Namco, Arcade Art, and everyone who helped create the original Paper Arcade. This is my first attempt, and I hope it can be refined. Comments and suggestions are welcome.
As reported by Damir and Tim Sneath, we have released a vector-based illustration tool that we acquired last year from Creature House called Expression 3. Downloads are available for both Windows and Mac. There’s also a quick feature tour. From some of the comments I’ve read on other blogs (and in the Expression forum), this sounds like a pretty capable tool. Enjoy!
To give you an idea of its sophistication, here's a screen shot of one of the sample files:
The NxOpinion project I’ve been working on was nominated for the 2004 Computerworld Honors Award by Steve Ballmer, and it is one of six finalists in the Medicine category. The awards ceremony is tonight in Washington, D.C., and we’re hoping that Dr. Robertson brings home the gold! To coincide with the event, Computerworld magazine has published a short article on the NxOpinion software that may interest some of you.