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MaxiVista: More than Just a Good Product Name

Powertoys — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 21:31:00 GMT

So I've been trying out MaxiVista for a few weeks now and have some impressions that you may or may not consider a review. If you don't know... Maxivista is software that creates an additional monitor for your machine by using a second PC (or laptop) and making your primary PC think that it has a second, third, or fourth display adapter that is really just your network card projecting an image to the extra PC's.

I don't really like the concept of providing traditional reviews because I worry that too many people get caught up in ratings without looking into the real pro's and con's. One persons 2/5 may be another's 5/5.

To provide some context: I have been primarily using this to turn a second full PC into a part time third monitor for my primary PC that already had a real dual display. The two PC's are connected to each other through our corporate network. Occasionally I tried adding my tablet as well, but I found the results less useful. These are my impressions.

Maxivista works as advertised and creates what looks and acts like an additional display on your machine. The networked display works great for text focused applications like Outlook, Word, or the MSDN Help Viewer. It is less useful for videos, animation heavy apps, or applications that tend to be less static like Visual Studio going from design to debug mode. The best way to describe how your networked monitor will work is to imagine a having an excellent terminal server session open. For development I would recommend using the second or third display for your help viewing while you keep most of your work on the primary displays.

Most of my negatives with the software outside of the slight latency would be that most software is not designed to work across multiple displays. I would include Visual Studio in this boat. Beyond a second monitor dedicated to help viewing a third display doesn't add much to your experience. Some people have told me they use the VSWindowManager add-in in combination with Maxivista to create window layouts that put all their tool windows on the third display and leave the center dedicated to the editor. Because I reinstall VS all the time I've never had the inclination to leverage much other than out of the box configurations.

I had to disable the software when using Windows Movie maker to import a video. At some point during a long video encoding Movie Maker would tell me that the encoding had to be stopped because the screen resolution had changed. I'm not sure what was causing this, but the encoding went fine after I turned off Maxivista. This sort of glitch, along with the latency, would suggest to me that if you are focused on video creation you would probably want to get a real second display.

I mentioned that I simply use a second PC as my extra display when it is not in use rather than my Tablet. I do this because I don't have a dock for my tablet and found it frustrating to keep setting it back up so that it aligned with my other two monitors. I also did not like the experience of switching my focus from a 19" display to a 12" display. I think I would have overcome this if I had a full sized laptop rather than a tablet since the displays would be more comparable.

People have told me that at three monitors you will have reached the limit of productivity gain that can be attained by creating more screen real estate. I've found that unscientific observation to be true. When I first attached a second display adapter I could not believe I lived without it for so long. Adding the third did not give me the same thrill, but I do feel more productive than with two. Adding a fourth display would probably be overkill. So my recommendation would be that if you don't currently have a 2nd or 3rd display on your machine, but you do have a laptop or cheap PC laying around then you should give the extra real estate a try. If you like it then it is certainly cheaper than purchasing another adapter/monitor combination.

Hope you enjoyed! Josh

BuildOne to Make Builds More Efficient

Powertoys — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 20:40:00 GMT

Just got mail about this add-in. Looks like a good time saver if you work with large multi-project solutions that reference each other.

"While developing a large product with VS .NET, I couldn't help but notice that as the Solution larger and larger, my compile time eventually reached 3 minutes (Yikes). Yes, I could customize the Active Configuration and only build the assemblies that I know I have changed. Instead, I developed an Add-in for VS .NET that decides and builds only the assemlies that are required for the changes I have made. It also auto-saves the files that are dirty. If your interested, here is the link: "

http://www.geerbuilt.biz/comersus/store/productView.aspx?idProduct=2

Free Visual Studio Partner Product DVD

Powertoys — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 00:50:00 GMT

I should have covered this a long time ago, but I was reminded today by Brian that we offer a free VSIP partner product DVD. I can't tell from the site which ones are the full versions and which ones are only demos, but it doesn't cost much to find out.

More Details: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/extend/partnerdvd/

What's Included....

Visual Studio Partner	Product Name
/n software	IP*Works! V6 .NET Edition
Actional Corporation	SOAPstation
ActiveState	Visual Perl Visual Python Visual XSLT
AlachiSoft	TierDeveloper
AmberPoint, Inc.	AmberPoint Express
AppForge, Inc.	AppForge Crossfire
ARTech	DeKlarit 3.0
ASNA	ASNA Visual RPG for Visual Studio .NET
Atalasoft, Inc.	Atalasoft DotImage Professional Suite
Automated QA	AQtime TestComplete
Borland	CaliberRM Janeva OptimizeIt StarTeam Together
ComponentArt	Web.UI for ASP.NET
ComponentOne	ComponentOne Studio Enterprise 2004 v2
Compuware Corporation	DevPartner Studio Professional Edition
Dart Communications	PowerTCP FTP for .NET PowerTCP Mail for .NET PowerWEB TextBox for ASP.NET
Data Dynamics, Ltd.	ActiveReports for .NET SharpUI for .NET
Developer Express Inc	Windows Forms Component Suite CodeRush for .NET eXpress Persistent Objects
Dot Net Builders	Constructor() for Visual Studio .NET
Dundas Software	Dundas Chart - ASP.NET Enterprise Edition
Eiffel Software	Eiffel ENViSioN!
Enterprise Blocks	Enterprise Blocks 1.1
F5 Networks	iControl API/SDK for .NET
FarPoint Technologies, Inc.	FarPoint's Spread for .NET
Gigasoft, Inc.	ProEssentials v5
Hewlett-Packard	HP Openview Adaptive Management Integration Toolkit Developer Edition for Visual Studio .NET 2003
ILOG	ILOG Gantt for .NET
Infragistics	NetAdvantage 2004
InstallShield Software	InstallShield X
Kinitos	Smart Client Management Platform - Developer Edition
LEAD Technologies	LEADTOOLS Raster Imaging Pro for .NET LEADTOOLS Document Imaging
LogicLibrary	Logidex 3.0.1 for .NET
Madinina Software Inc.	CodeObject
Micro Focus	Net Express with .NET University Edition
Monash/Guardsoft	VSGuard
National Instruments	Measurement Studio 7.0 for Visual Studio .NET 2003
Northwoods Software Corporation	GoDiagram Win 2.2 GoDiagram Web 2.2
PreEmptive Solutions	Dotfuscator
Proposion	Proposion N2N
Sanctum, Inc.	AppScan Developer Edition 1.7
Sax.net	Sax.net Communications Community Edition
Serena Software	Serena Dimensions for .NET
Software FX	Chart FX for .NET
SoftWIRE Technology, Inc.	SoftWIRE
Telerik	r.a.d.editor r.a.d.designer r.a.d.menu r.a.d.panelbar r.a.d.rotator r.a.d.spell r.a.d.treeview r.a.d.chart
Velocitis	Flywheel Professional 7.2
Xamlon, Inc.	Xamlon

MZ-Tools 4.0 the "all-in-one" add-in for VS .Net 2002 and 2003

Powertoys — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 21:32:00 GMT

Via The Daily Grind

"MZ-Tools 4.0 for Visual Studio .NET - I used MZ-Tools for VB6; it's a great set of add-ins. I hadn't realized that there was a version for VB .NET with such features as fast control name editing, some refactoring, private clipboards, autosave, an extensibility API, and much more. Licensing from $39.95 (via John Barone) "

Official Site: http://www.mztools.com/v4/mztools4.htm

Feature List: http://www.mztools.com/v4/features.htm

Josh

PowerTrack 2004 for Project Management inside Visual Studio.NET

Powertoys — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 02:04:00 GMT

Official Site: http://www.axosoft.com/products/powertrack.aspx

Official Line: "This Must-Have Add-In for Visual Studio.NET 2002/2003 gives software developers the ability to track projects, defects and features without ever leaving the Visual Studio IDE. PowerTrack embeds itself into Visual Studio like a native Visual Studio tools window and provides an intuitive interface for tracking software projects, defects and features. Axosoft provides single-user installations of this product free."

Blog Buzz

Andrew Sutton (VB MVP) Says: "... Powertrack is an excellent piece of software that really makes OnTime much easier to use. From me it gets 5/5 and IMHO is a must download for anybody using OnTime & VS. In fact I can imagine I will seldom use the OnTime application interface and will nearly always use Powertrack from now on to track my defects & features!"

WinExtra Says: "Every once in awhile a really cool tool rises to the surface and you wonder why no-one has done it before; and I gotta say that Axosoft's PowerTrack 2004 is definitely one of those tools.... "

Add-in Express: Make Office Add-in Development Easier

Powertoys — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 01:02:00 GMT

This looks pretty cool - Josh

Web Site: http://www.add-in-express.com

Quick Description: "Add-in Express is completely based on the rapid application development paradigm, installs several .NET or VCL components, and adds to IDE several wizards. The wizards generate specific projects with a couple of clicks, the components implement everything required by COM add-ins, Smart Tags and RTD Servers. In other words, Add-in Express implements all interfaces and techniques required by the supported technologies, you write functional code only."

Add all of Safari’s book Content to your Help in VS 2005

Powertoys — Thu, 21 Oct 2004 20:26:00 GMT

The Quote:

Safari’s Visual Studio Help Integration (VSHI) tool lets you search across Safari’s online repository of over 2000 technical titles to find exactly the example or code fragment you need to answer the question at hand. Best of all, these results are delivered to you from within Visual Studio 2005 Beta Help. Register today to download the free Safari VSHI trial version and gain full access to Safari’s e-reference library for 30 days at no charge. Click here to download the VSHI tool now (https://secure.safaribooksonline.com/?mode=promo&promocode=vshi2005&portal=msdn).

A few weeks after you start using the tool, Visual Studio and Safari will send you a questionnaire requesting your feedback on the product.

Josh Says:

Adding this will create a new results tab in your VS 2005 help search page that gives you access to all of the great content described above. I think this type of integration is going to be pretty popular once VS 2005 ships.

FinalBuilder for Automated Software Builds Now

Powertoys — Thu, 09 Sep 2004 19:40:00 GMT

Sure, in Whidbey you'll have the all powerfull MSbuild solution, but FinalBuilder looks like a pretty cool solution you can use today. Roy likes it. :-)

From the Web Site: http://www.atozedsoftware.com/finalbuilder/

Software projects are inherently complex, and creating a build process process can be fraught with errors and oversights. FinalBuilder is a powerful Automated Build & Release tool, making it easy to define and maintain a reliable and repeatable build process.

FinalBuilder features over 200 built in Actions which allow you to (these are just a few) :

Compile Applications from source code.
Compile Setup/Installer programs.
Work with Version Control Systems, to Get, Check Out, Check In & Label files.
Compile Help Files
Create & Edit Ini Files & Registry Keys
Burn CD's & DVD's, or Create CD/DVD images (iso images).
Zip & UnZip files
Run Automated Testing
FTP files to/from servers
Send Emails, post on News servers
Schedule builds.

Visual Assist X from Whole Tomato Software

Powertoys — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 19:26:00 GMT

People send me mail that asks "What about Visual Assist X?". This blog gets comments like "Tool X is nothing compared to the Whole Tomato stuff". In chats I've seen "Why don't you guys just buy the Whole Tomato stuff and ship it in the box?". I'll admit, they do some great work through our extensibility interfaces and giving them props in this blog was long overdue. So, if you haven't already, you should check out the free trial of Visual Assist X from Whole Tomato Software.

Some of this stuff (better code coloring, code templates, etc) you'll see in Whidbey, but there is a bunch of other stuff in there as well that we just aren't doing like the "hovering class browser", spell checking, automatic case correction, etc. Good times! Josh

ReSharper: C# Refactoring and More Tool

Powertoys — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 23:13:00 GMT

Even when Whidbey gives you refactoring you'll probably still want some of the other features that Resharper provides. Check it out. Josh
[Via Paschal L]

When the Java world come to the .Net world, they produce something superb as Reshaper.

ReSharper is an add-in for Visual Studio .NET 2003 that brings intelligent C# code editing, highlighting and refactoring features to Visual Studio. ReSharper aims to provide C# developers with the same level of power and productivity enhancements that have been available to Java developers using IntelliJ IDEA.
ReSharper is currently under development but most of features planned for the release are already implemented. Planned date of ReSharper release is June 20, 2004.
The features are quite long so visit their site to know more. You can also participate to an early program, so you can download a preview for testing.

Free home edition of XMLSpy

Powertoys — Sat, 05 Jun 2004 08:33:00 GMT

I'll admit, until recently I've heard a number of internal people remark on how great a tool XMLSpy was. I've never personally used it, but it does seem to have a following. Anyway, they now have a free home edition that should tide you over until VS 2005 comes out. :-) Josh
[Via ISerializable]

XMLSpy has a free home edition! (via DevHawk)

coolness