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Mike Ormond's Blog

In my world, things would be simpler than this...

February 2008 - Posts

Getting on a Jetplane
I'm heading out to Vegas a little early for Mix08 so things will go quiet here until things kick off. I'll be spending a couple of days at the Grand Canyon and then a couple of days wandering around Vegas before the conference starts. If you're at Mix08, Read More...
Using WPF to help skin your website
Chris Cavanagh has an interesting idea over here . He's built a tool that will take some WPF and render a set of images from your XAML "scene" based on a set of criteria you specify. ie you can specify an area of the rendered scene to be converted Read More...
UK MSDN Roadshow Registration Is Now Open
I see the registration pages are up on our events site . We'll be visiting Cardiff, London, Manchester, Glasgow and Newcastle this year. The event description is as follows: "This is your opportunity to meet the MSDN team and find out all about the Read More...
We're Hiring [A UK Developer Evangelist]
Mike has all the details . It's a double-edged sword TBH; great technologies, work with lots of smart people inside and outside Microsoft, lots of cool things to do etc, the downside is your colleagues are all caricatures.... Spot who's missing and win Read More...
JavaScript Intellisense for the Virtual Earth Map Control
You know that Visual Studio 2008 has a great new feature - JavaScript Intellisense. Then when you really want it, eg when you're building an application using the Virtual Earth map control you find it doesn't work. Not a hint of the properties and methods Read More...
MSDN Search Gadget
If you use Tim Heuer's MSDN Search Gadget as I do, you'll probably have noticed that it recently stopped returning results. Again, it seems, due to improvements to MSDN & TechNet Search . I made some minor changes to the script to get things working Read More...
VSTO Power Tools
If you do any Office development, then you need to check out the VSTO Power Tools v1.0.0.0 which include: Open XML Package Editor Ribbon IDs Tool Window Office Custom UI Manager Office Interop API Extensions SharePoint Feature Sweeper SharePoint Workflow Read More...
Silverlight 2 First Look - Information and Tutorials
Even better than the article I linked to earlier, ScottGu has revealed more details about Silverlight 2 along with a set of tutorials. Quite a lot to work through but a real teaser for what's coming at Mix08 . Technorati Tags: silverlight Read More...
Windows Live Skydrive Now Live
I've found Skydrive useful for all sorts of things (having started out a little skeptical) from sharing (and getting hold of) my wedding photos to sharing demos, repros and PowerPoint presentations. The good news is the storage space available to you Read More...
Going to Mix?
I'm lucky enough to have a ticket as Mix08 is now sold out. If you've been at one of the Silverlight sessions I've done over the last few days you'll have heard me plug the visitmix site as we published session recordings from Mix06 and Mix07 after the Read More...
Silverlight 2
An interesting article on Silverlight 2 that echoes some of the points I've been making in recent Silverlight sessions (and expands on them in a few areas). Technorati Tags: silverlight Read More...
Serious About Interoperability?
I was asked on Wednesday night if I thought Microsoft was really serious about interoperability. Then coincidentally I noticed today: " Microsoft Makes Strategic Changes in Technology and Business Practices to Expand Interoperability ". Technorati Read More...
A Few Running Tips
Andy's just secured a place on the Great North Run (fantastic!) and asked me (of all people) for a few tips based on my Marathon experience. I did a bit of a brain dump and this is what I came up with (disclaimer: I'm not a professional athlete not trainer Read More...
Silverlight OnFullScreenChange and AddEventListener()
I spent too long this weekend trying to hookup an event handler to the OnFullScreenChange event in my Silverlight 1.0 application using something like the following: this .plugIn.content.addEventListener( "OnFullScreenChange" , Silverlight.createDelegate( Read More...
Vista SP1 on MSDN Subscriber Downloads
If you have an MSDN Subscription you can now download Vista SP1 from the subscriber downloads centre . You can find the related announcements on the Windows Vista Blog here and here . You can also download an Overview of Windows Vista SP1 , Notable Changes Read More...
Updated Source Code Formatter for Windows Live Writer
A long time ago I created a Source Code Formatter Plug-In for Windows Live Writer . Thanks to Tim I recently found out that the download links were broken (I changed domain names a while back and no longer own OfficeDinosaur.com). I fixed the links and Read More...
A Little Linq to Sql
Building a little application for capturing real time data, I decided to play around with LINQ a bit. I found myself in the situation where I had a new object (say a data point) that, based on my database schema, referenced other objects that may or may Read More...
More Upgrade Questions on SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 to 2008
Q. Can I deploy reports from the 2008 Designers to a Reporting Services 2005 Server? Both Sean O'Regan and John Adams asked whether you could deploy reports created in the 2008 designers to a Reporting Services 2005 Server. The answer is no. Sorry. The Read More...
Windows Live Search Maps Vista Gadget
if any of you happen to use my Windows Live Search Maps Gadget then I recommend you update it to v1.14.0.0 (the current version posted a couple of days ago). This version takes up less space on your Sidebar but more importantly fixes a couple of issues Read More...
Upgrade Questions on SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 to 2008
There were a couple of questions asked at last night's slightly chaotic SQL Server event in London (who set off that fire alarm?) on the subject of Reporting Services and moving from 2005 to 2008. One specific question was: "Can I take a SSRS 2005 Read More...
Spatial Data in SQL Server 2008
I'm going to re-plug my Spatial Data Generator for SQL Server 2008 as I've had a lot of very positive feedback about it and I know it's been used in various events around the globe - maybe this is my 5 minutes? (That reminds me of Melvin Udall: "What Read More...
Last Night's Event, 'What's new in Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Fx 3.5 for the Web Developer'
Firstly, here's a link to the slides etc . Thank you to everyone who came along last night and apologies for my ListView problems. I've been trying to recreate them this morning and all worked fine in a new ASP.NET 3.5 site I created. My suspicions turned Read More...
Yahoo!
Wow . It remains a mystery to me why I'm not consulted on these sorts of decisions? Oh I remember why, I bought a bunch of US e-stocks and they all sank without trace... The Yahoo news story is here . Technorati Tags: microsoft , yahoo , acquisition Read More...
Tax ads man says tax too complex
Clearly rattled by my throwing down the gauntlet , Adam Hart-Davis has admitted that he wishes tax was simpler . Thing is, I like the man, I really do. The offer of a cup of tea still stands, tax return or no. Technorati Tags: tax , brain surgery , greenhouses Read More...
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