Another site highlighted during Jim's keynote is Microsoft Gadgets . This new blog explains how to build gadgets to run within start.com (a new Microsoft portal), on the Windows Sidebar, or as part of the Windows Sideshow (the auxilliary displays that...

We've published our full plans for the Expression product suite: Sparkle is no longer just a rumor... http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/default.aspx

I've been on vacation for the last two weeks in Oregon. I always thought Oregon was a somewhat nondescript state to act as a buffer between Washington and California; a close friend who hails from the area was so incensed with my dismissal of their home...

A while ago Charles Torre and I shot a video with Jerry Dunietz, one of the principal architects for Metro (now more correctly known as the XML Paper Specification or XPS). Metro is a major new advance that integrates display and document infrastructure...

I see that there's a new release of Paint.NET available (2.5α3). OK, so the name may be the most uninspiring since Windows Presentation Foundation (!) but this application is becoming more impressive with every release. Paint.NET is a comprehensive image...

Metro is the codename for the Open Packaging Conventions (a ZIP-based container convention for file format packaging) and the XML Paper Specification (a fixed format document specification based on XAML). Feng Yuan, one of the technical leads in the team...

After the PDC, I've had a renewed flood of email queries from people who want to know how to spread the word about Avalon internally within the organization. Here's a very short list of resources I've compiled that you might want to use as a starting...

Just realized to my horror that Community Server has been "moderating" a ton of comments that people have made to various PDC-related topics. I've published the comments, and will work through answering them within the next 24 hours. If you think I've...

I recently answered a question something like the one above for an Australian developer mailing list, but I know this question isn't unique to Australian developers, so I figured I'd post my take here for a broader audience. Hopefully this is interesting...

Wei-Meng Lee , the Microsoft Regional Director for Singapore, has a prolific output across a broad range of .NET technologies. This year alone he's written two books for O'Reilly on ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Basic 2005 . But he's now discovered the jewel...

I've finally got round to updating my list of bloggers at Microsoft who focus on Windows Presentation Foundation. This list includes those on the Avalon core team, as well as a number of individuals from the Expression "Sparkle" team, the SDK team and...

Thanks to Tom Archer (the content strategist for the WinFX parts of MSDN) and Parimal Deshpande (the marketing manager for Windows Presentation Foundation), we now have the PDC hands-on labs available for Windows Presentation Foundation . If you're a...

After I posted the availability of the Nov CTP bits, I had a question from Niels Berglund (a great mentor on all things SQLCLR) asking where the x64 version was. I'd searched around for this for ages myself and had presumed that we just weren't making...

In the last session, focusing on virtual memory, it was noted that there was almost no connection between virtual and physical memory. The only connection is that the system commit limit is the sum of physical memory and the size of the paging file(s...

Now that the keynote is over, my formal duties for the event are mostly complete. Lots going on still, and I hope to meet a number of you in person – but I thought I’d take a little downtime and watch a few sessions. Rather than just greedily hoarding...

At PDC 2000, we rolled out the .NET platform, including a new language called C#. A lot has happened since then! Each release has had a theme – in C# 2 we added generics ; in C# 3 it was LINQ . Most recently in C#  4 with VS2010 we introduced deeper...

Thanks to Adam Kinney (again!) for this awesome Halloween greetings card, brought to you by Silverlight and Silverlight Streaming. The full source code can be found on Adam's blog .

Although WPF itself is unchanged since the December CTP, the "Cider" Visual Studio integration in the new release shows the benefits of a full coding milestone. The main differences in this release include an improved grid experience and the ability to...

Photography is something of a hobby of mine. I'm not nearly as competent as even many of my colleagues (for example, Mike Swanson takes some fantastic macro photography ), but I gain great satisfaction from taking portrait photographs and candid, informal...

Like many others, I've been searching for an Xbox 360 Premium system since its Nov 22 launch date in the US. That night I went to the Best Buy in Bellevue at midnight just to check out the buzz at the main launch store. I had no expectation of getting...

I do my best to keep up with the comments and direct mail that this blog generates; I'm not perfect and sometimes things slip through the cracks, but I do enjoy reading others' comments and often learning something new myself. (I should also mention that...

On a more practical note than my last blog posting , I want to encourage everyone to check out the Windows Vista compatibility cookbook . Despite our best efforts, there will always be some breaking changes between releases of an operating system, particularly...

Let's say for a moment that you're a small business trader that needs to be able to receive payments both over the Internet and as point-of-sale transactions. You need a way to be able to handle expenses, manage accounts receivable and generally keep...

I've been trying with this series to satisfy the desire we all have for instant gratification by including plenty of applications that you can download and try out with just a couple of clicks. But of course, not every application fits into that category...

Just in case anyone was wondering, you're safe to install the service pack for Visual Studio 2005 on a machine that has the .NET Framework 3.0 Extensions and/or the "WPF/E" project templates. One thing to be aware of is that Visual Studio 2005 SP1 includes...