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February 2007 - Posts

Wednesday, February 28, 2007 5:16 PM

My tool of the week - Play Speed in Windows Media Player

Ok - I don't really have a "tool of the week" post, nor is Play Speed really a tool in its own right - but I am sure pleased it exists. I set myself a task of watching a number of Webcasts this afternoon - then Dynorod turned up to unblock the drains.
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Wednesday, February 28, 2007 4:32 PM

Visual Studio "Orcas" March CTP includes ADO.NET Sync Services for offline applications

The latest "Orcas" CTP includes: Microsoft Synchronization Services for ADO.NET Provides an application programming interface (API) to synchronize data between data services and a local store. The Synchronization Services API is modeled after the ADO.NET
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 4:31 PM

Visual Studio Orcas - March 2007 CTP available for download

The March CTP of Orcas has lots of goodness in it and is available to download from msdn (very large download!). This CTP includes: New VB 9.0 Language Support New C# 3.0 Language Support LOTS of LINQ stuff (a big build for the LINQ team) ADO.NET vNext
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
Tuesday, February 27, 2007 1:02 PM

LitwareHR Sample Application "ported" to Windows XP

The LitwareHR sample was designed for Windows Server 2003 - but many of you wanted to try it out on Windows XP (actually - that included me as well). The good news is the team have produced detailed instructions on how to get it to work on Windows XP.
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Tuesday, February 27, 2007 9:50 AM

Two ISVs and SAAS - Sage and SAP

Two announcements from ISVs caught my eye in the last week. Firstly UK based Sage announced Sage 50 Online . Excitedly I wondered "wow - is this a full-on SAAS application rearchitected explicitly for multi tenancy and the efficiencies of scale?". Alas
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, February 27, 2007 9:32 AM

Microsoft UK and BT - SAAS Application Marketplace

One of our sister teams has been pulling together a "marketplace" for hosted applications in the UK. A lot of work has happened and a lot more work is to be done - but last week they went "public" about the work and it ended up reported pretty widely
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Tuesday, February 27, 2007 8:20 AM

SAAS Workshop March 5th: A cunning plan begins to form

22nd Feb DAY 3 of 7 This continues on my series of posts about how we are pulling together the SAAS workshop for the UK Architect Insigh Conference. Today was a day of SAAS stuff - admittedly plenty of it was not directly related to the session - but
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, February 27, 2007 12:01 AM

800 Applications that work with Windows Vista

There is a new KB article listing 800 or so applications that work with Windows Vista. Check out http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933305 . Obviously lots more work - but for these 800 the development company has take the time to "tell us". Another useful
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Friday, February 23, 2007 10:19 AM

UK Architect Insight Conference gets its own blog - 2 weeks to go!

The AIC got its own blog on Wednesday - good for it! Hope to get an entry up there linking to my own prep for AIC... maybe not - might worry the attendees :-) If you are attending then keep an eye on http://blogs.msdn.com/ArchitectInsight/
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Friday, February 23, 2007 10:08 AM

Yet more .NET Framework 3.0 training - Developmentor UK courses from April

Got the DM flyer though and spotted they have 4 courses coming up on .NET Framework 3.0 in April and May. DM training is invariably great fun and top notch. Please post comments if you attend... always useful to share. Shame I don't have any training
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Friday, February 23, 2007 9:55 AM

.NET Framework 3.0 WCF Training 27th to 30th March in the UK

Pluralsight have dome some very good training on our behalf and have a WCF session taking place in our training rooms in the UK next month. This should prove to be an excellent few days - not to missed if WCF is your "thang" (and why wouldn't it be!!!)
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:35 PM

I read every comment - thanks for each and every one of them!

In case anyone was wondering - I promise you I read every comment and publish 99% (of the none spam comments). Unfortunately the 1% is enough to convince me to leave moderation on. Hence - don't feel your efforts are ever wasted when you enter a juicy
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007 6:36 PM

Want to check if a network of PCs are Vista capable?

Spotted this new little beast - the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool. The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool is an inventory, assessment, and reporting tool that will find computers on a network and determine if they are ready to run the Windows
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007 5:20 PM

Daily Mail eReader .NET 3.0 Application (Beta)

The Daily Mail eReader is a downloadable WPF-based application that gives readers an easy-to-use electronic version of its Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday tabloid. The eReader is still in Beta (It has crashed a couple of times for me) but is generally very
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Wednesday, February 21, 2007 1:32 PM

New LINQ, WCF and AJAX Labs released

As part of the DinnerNow work, the team released this month the QuickStart Labs for three of the technologies used in the DinnerNow sample. In a couple of weeks time I will be having a good dig into DinnerNow - but why wait for my ramblings! From the
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 1:23 PM

DinnerNow Sample Application - Version 1.2 Released to Codeplex.com

DinnerNow is an application I expect to be spending a fair bit of time mulling over in March as I will be using it as part of my session at SPA 2007 . Version 1.2 has just been released (FYI - DinnerNow is getting a lot of interest over at codeplex -10000
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Tuesday, February 20, 2007 8:50 PM

Is Software As A Service (SAAS) a fad? Your thoughts please...

Matt offered up the following opinion in SAAS: for Dummies : "SaaS, at best should be viewed as a metaphor for the state of software delivery at a particular point in time (ie. now) ... SaaS is a fad; it is a metaphor that encapsulates the evolving software
Posted by Eric Nelson | 4 Comments
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007 8:16 PM

SAAS Workshop March 5th: Second thoughts - panic

20th Feb DAY 2 of 7 On the 15th I wrote a blog entry about the SAAS workshop we are running after I realised I had at best 7 days . Doesn't time fly! Unfortunately lots of other stuff is getting between me and SAAS - and therefore I haven't made anything
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007 5:16 PM

Vista Gadgets using WPF - an Update - SideBar Styler

I previously posted about Sidebar Gadgets and WPF . Thanks to Andre I was pointed at Stanimir Stoyanov's Blog and his Sidebar application Sidebar Styler which adds WPF support amongst other things. Not tried it yet - but definitely worth sharing.
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007 4:52 PM

Another local.live.com site that caught me eye - birdseyetourist.com

http://www.birdseyetourist.com/ is another site taking advantage of the great low level pictures on http://local.live.com Rather liked this one
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
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Monday, February 19, 2007 11:30 PM

BackOfMyHand.com - making use of local.live.com

I have seen several "community mapping sites" - but hadn't realised we had our own "in the works". Well worth a play ... Potential categories Eric could do: Best bacon sandwiches in Bath area Places where I have injured myself in the Bath area
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Monday, February 19, 2007 9:13 PM

SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 available - Vista Compatibility

Details and download information available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/servicepacks/sp2.mspx . SP2 makes SQL Server 2005 fully compatible with Vista - which is great news for ISVs making use of SQL Server 2005 Express
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Monday, February 19, 2007 3:13 PM

Want to play with Windows Server 2003 - download our Virtual Machine

One of my early adopters was trying to play with the SAAS Litware sample - but didn't have a Windows Server 2003 machine "handy" which is required for Litware. After a bit of searching I found just what he needed - a downloadable Windows Server 2003 Image
Posted by Eric Nelson | 3 Comments
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Monday, February 19, 2007 2:04 PM

That "Web 2.0 Video"

Ok - I am apparently at least 1.2 million views behind the rest of the planet - but given that still leaves a lot of us to go, I thought it would be worth pointing at http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE - 4min 31second of ..."What the heck is Web 2.0"
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Monday, February 19, 2007 1:47 PM

SAAS Architecture in 9mins and 54 seconds - with added fun for FREE!

Fred and Gianpaolo "do their thing", talking about SAAS and the creation of Litware sample SAAS application - and the video editor has some fun along the way! Video: Architects in Action - The Making of LitwareHR
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Monday, February 19, 2007 1:31 PM

List of WPF Applications just keeps growing...

I have been attempting to maintain my own list of WPF Applications which also tries to call out UK efforts - but a more complete list can be found over at http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/WPF.ApplicationPortfolio I think the list deserves a
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Monday, February 19, 2007 1:01 AM

"Hello World" using Vista Speech Recognition

Richard popped me an email to say he had added part 2 - writing "Hello World" using Vista Speech Recognition! Well worth a watch http://www.nxtgenug.net/Article.aspx?ArticleID=150 - MouseGrid to the rescue!
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Sunday, February 18, 2007 12:05 AM

Vista Speech Recognition Video

When I phoned Richard last week he was playing around with Vista Speech Recognition. Now I know why. Richard has just posted a great 1st video nugget to SoapBox on Vista Voice Recognition. I have never tried Vista Voice - and was very impressed with the
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Saturday, February 17, 2007 11:52 PM

NxtGenUG Fest07 Event announced for 23rd May in Reading

The NextGenUG have announced their Fest07 event. NxtGenUG have a great track record on delivering fun events - so this should be a great day out - and completely free to members. Mike or Dan from our team are speaking and I hope to clear the day to be
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Saturday, February 17, 2007 11:06 PM

Soapbox Beta now open to anyone (Video stuff!)

Just noticed Soapbox is now open to all. It is still in Beta but is shaping up nicely - full of useful videos such as ... Enjoy Video: TShirt Folding
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Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:46 AM

SAAS Workshop on March 5th: don't panic!

15th February DAY 1 of 7 Richard (knows about customers), William (knows about hosters) and myself (knows about ISVs - and knew I didn't want to be alone with this!) are running a SAAS Workshop at the Architect Insight Conference on March 5th (spaces
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007 3:54 PM

Second Life problems with Vista?

When we said to application developers "You need to test your applications with Windows Vista", we were: NOT saying it because we had nothing better to do NOT saying it because we just wanted you to install Visa We were saying it because we knew that
Posted by Eric Nelson | 4 Comments
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007 9:02 AM

Example of Windows Vista Upgrade Advsior

Following on from my last post and hopefully to give a little more context. Wouldn't you rather see your applicaton with a big tick :-) On my Vista box, Upgrade Advisor has spotted : And better still:
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007 7:57 AM

ISV with an application that works on Vista? Tell us!

If you have an application that works on Vista then you really should find the time to let Microsoft know - who will in turn make sure your customers know, when they run tools such as Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor and Windows Vista Application Compatibility
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Wednesday, February 14, 2007 7:23 AM

Meet Eric - he likes to wear his underpance on the outside

Ok - came across some daft nonsense on the Internet (that makes a change...) but got suckered into taking 2mins of my life to do it. I am curious how my team stack up. Personally my feeling is David is probably "The Flash" and Nick is "The Hulk" - but
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Tuesday, February 13, 2007 6:05 PM

Microsoft and MicroISV

Microsoft has had a long term love of ISVs - it is after all great ISV applications that sell operating systems. Nobody ever bought Windows to run Windows. They bought it to run Word or Sage or Unreal Tournament or... (Actually, I think we might have
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, February 13, 2007 5:11 PM

Microsoft has this much free software!!!

My post on productivity tools prompted Blake to get in touch and point me at his uber lists of "Free software from Microsoft". Truly impressive (and for many surprising?). Great work Blake and thanks for sharing. Free Windows Vista Software Free Office
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Tuesday, February 13, 2007 12:04 PM

My top "productivity" tool finds of 2007 - Feb

Coming back from an Achilles operation has given me a chance to pause and reflect on which tools I use in my job. These are not dev tools but tools that are just proving very useful to help get things done. In no particular order: RESEARCH: Onfolio (Beta)
Posted by Eric Nelson | 5 Comments
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Tuesday, February 13, 2007 12:16 AM

3D Chess is back for .NET 3.0

Very pleased to see that on Saturday Valentin updated his samples for the final version of .NET 3.0. We certainly used the Chess sample a lot in the early days of WPF evangelism to show the 3D possibilities. You can download Chess and others from http://www.valil.com/winfx/
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Monday, February 12, 2007 12:58 PM

David and his Workflow Article on the Tracking Service

My colleague and friend David dropped me an email to say (in his own words) "Hey, workflow dudes, my workflow article is out at (long) last" David has written about the Tracking Service - an important and powerful element of Workflow Foundation. Whenever
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Monday, February 12, 2007 12:49 PM

SAAS Sample Application available for download with code

I am pleased to say that we have released our sample application for SAAS. Using the latest Microsoft technologies such as .NET Framework 3.0 and SQL Server 2005, LitwareHR implements single-instance multi-tenancy patterns. I haven't yet started to dissect
Posted by Eric Nelson | 4 Comments
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Monday, February 12, 2007 8:28 AM

A DVD to watch - An Inconvenient Truth

I rarely post "none work stuff" - but this is one of those posts I simply must do. At the weekend we watched "An Inconvenient Truth" - a documentary about Global Warming. We got it on DVD rental, primarily for the kids to watch - my wife and I confident
Posted by Eric Nelson | 4 Comments
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Monday, February 12, 2007 12:05 AM

Another Vista Sidebar gadget - UMusic

We have been working with Universal Music to create a Vista gadget for News, Music and Video playing. This work was carried out in partnership with design agency Splendid . Splendid were new to Vista gadgets but still managed to create a decent gadget
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Sunday, February 11, 2007 11:50 PM

More information on Visual Studio Orcas from Scott and Doug

My Microsoft UK colleague Doug has posted a great summary of Orcas from a session Scott Guthrie gave in the UK. Scott posted his own ( with plenty of screen shots ) a couple of days later. I would also recommend you take the time to skim the answers Scott
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Saturday, February 10, 2007 12:03 AM

Time to Wiki?

I noticed http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_ISV is only a stub. This seems a real shame as I think MicroISV is an important sector of our software economy and deserves something more. I am close to doing my first ever update of Wikipedia because of this
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Friday, February 09, 2007 11:37 PM

MicroISV - remind me - what is one of them?

A couple of posts back I mentioned the term MicroISV - which led a few folks to ask me "Eric - tell me more". A MicroISV is an ISV completely opposite to what I normally engage with but fortunately I have been able to follow/help a nearby MicroISV over
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Thursday, February 08, 2007 8:15 PM

A pleasant find - FeedGhost RSS Reader

It is funny how things work out. My post on an opportunity for MicroISVs led to some very good constructive feedback from a UK MicroISV (which I will pass on to the ProjectGlidepath team) which in turn lead me to find, download and try FeedGhost RSS Reader
Posted by Eric Nelson | 3 Comments
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Thursday, February 08, 2007 5:27 PM

Something different - the Next Generation User Group :-)

Ok - I'm beginning to think Richard Costall brainwashed me in our tel chat - or perhaps he is just a good evangelist. Why - well here I am doing a second blog inspired by him. Something I love to see is folks taking something we have all seen done many
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Thursday, February 08, 2007 5:16 PM

Visual Studio "Orcas" will work with .NET Framework 2.0

Just come off the phone chatting to Richard Costall , who besides his real job, runs the rather splendid Next Generation User Group . He mentioned he had posted up a very recent interview with Scott Guthrie that touched on Orcas, Atlas (now ASP.NET AJAX)
Posted by Eric Nelson | 3 Comments
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Thursday, February 08, 2007 2:01 PM

Train Departure Boards Vista Gadget

I have been on the lookout for great gadgets for Windows Vista - and in my searching came across this beauty from Stuart Preston over at Conchango. It shows UK train departures for a station of your choosing. Very polished. Very nice work - well done
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Thursday, February 08, 2007 12:24 AM

My first post from Windows Mobile Phone using Diarist

I like to travel light - which sometimes means the only gadget is my Windows Mobile Phone (an M3100 with Orange). Hence I just had a search on my phone (using http://mobile.live.com/Serach ) and came across Diarist. Seems to work just fine. Thanks Kevin
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Wednesday, February 07, 2007 10:55 PM

A Greener Paypal - or just an EV SSL Cert user?

I noticed today that the address bar in IE was a rather fetching green when I used IE7 to go to http://www.paypal.co.uk At the back of my mind I remembered that IE used colour in the Address bar to help users identify "dodgy" sites. The help explains:
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
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Wednesday, February 07, 2007 9:00 PM

Visual Studio "Orcas" - Early Adoption Assistance starts...

Our team has spent the last year helping ISVs evaluate and develop solutions which take advantage of Vista, .NET Framework 3.0 and Office 2007. The challenge has been we have needed to do all of this work with Visual Studio 2005. The good news is we now
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 8:42 PM

MicroISV with an app that runs on Vista? Fancy a Free Zune?

Are you a MicroISV (< 10 employees, no VC funding) and do you have an application that you believe runs well on Vista? If so, then read on. The Project Glidepath site ( www.projectglidepath.net ) has been updated to feature the Windows Vista Spotlight
Posted by Eric Nelson | 5 Comments
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Wednesday, February 07, 2007 8:06 PM

Snow due in England in 4 hours

We are waiting on a spot of snow after a "Severe Weather Warning" was issued today. Looks like that means 15cm of snow will fall overnight in this part of England (Bath). Kids are so hyped up (as is the wife) that I have promised we will all get up overnight
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, February 06, 2007 11:31 PM

4 new Workflow Foundation Books – thankfully still dark nights!

Throughout our early adoption work with UK ISVs we gave out a rather decent book on Workflow Foundation published late in 2005. However as later CTPs appeared it started to look dated. The good news is 2 books came out just before Christmas, another 1
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Tuesday, February 06, 2007 4:48 PM

My first blog post from Word 2007

Hello all, this is my first test post to this site using the (very good) blog capabilities of Word 2007. I have been using Word 2007 to blog to my internal Sharepoint 2007 blog for some time and finally got round to figuring out how to get it to also
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Tuesday, February 06, 2007 10:27 AM

Sidebar Gadgets - Why HTML+JavaScript? Why not WPF?

Toms and a couple of others asked the same question - hence I thought I would raise this to its own post. Back at PDC 2005 we demonstrated WPF gadgets. Reason - we love WPF as its extremely powerful for building UI - especially UI that needs to cleverly
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
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Monday, February 05, 2007 4:41 PM

Free high quality .NET Framework 3.0 Training

I just noticed that the online training produced by Microsoft Learning is still free. I seem to recall the plan was it would be free until launch. This is high quality online training with videos, animated demos and lots of involvement from the product
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Monday, February 05, 2007 4:23 PM

Applications built for Vista and the .NET Framework 3.0

We already have several real world application released by our customers and partners which take advantage of Windows Vista and/or .NET Framework 3.0, not to mention many sample applications. I have started to compile these into a single list with special
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Monday, February 05, 2007 1:54 PM

Framework 3.0 Sample with source code - DinnerNow.net

The server evangelism team has been "cooking up" a new sample application called DinnerNow.net. DinnerNow.net is a fictious online marketplace where consumers can order food from a variety of restaurants. The sample demonstrates the use of many new technologies
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Thursday, February 01, 2007 10:51 PM

Beautiful XBAP WPF App - British Library "Turn the Pages"

This is a thing of beauty. My old friend and colleague Richard has been working for many months with the British Library and the partner Armadillo to get this WPF application ready for the consumer launch of Windows Vista and flat out over the last couple
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
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Thursday, February 01, 2007 4:54 PM

Developing a Vista SideBar Gadget

Matt in our team has done a terrific job with this post on developing a sidebar gadget . And remember sidebar gadgets are just HTML + JavaScript . SideBar Gadgets are not tricky .NET things, just plain old HTML mixed with some JavaScript. I think inside
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
Thursday, February 01, 2007 7:50 AM

Another rather clever tool - bubbl.us

I am using my return from sick leave and the start of a shiny new year to look again at how I do my role. In essence I frequently: Research lots of "stuff" Organize what I find Reach conclusions about its relevance and importance Share my thoughts and
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
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