Robert A. Wlodarczyk's Blog (MSFT) : PDC05

The North Face Demo (& Whitepaper)

RWlodarczyk — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 08:17:00 GMT

Karsten and Darren (of Fluid) posted a whitepaper on how the "The North Face" In-Store Explorer. Definitely a great read. If you wanted to see the video again, here it is...

Windows 2003 Server Compute Cluster Edition

RWlodarczyk — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 18:01:00 GMT

Back before I joined Microsoft a little over 2 years ago, I began working on a project at my university on High-Performance Computing (HPC). We didn't get too far as this really was more of a few year project and I left the Ph.D. program to join Microsoft. In any case, at the PDC this week there was a session on the new Windows 2003 Server Compute Cluster Edition. The demo around this shows using the standard Message Passing Interface (MPI) and the new job scheduler which allows you to specify the number of machines for the job to run on. As an added bonus, the Compute Cluster Edition plays nicely in Active Directory, so when you submit a job with a specified process, it gets run on all machines requested using the credentials of the account that submitted it. From the new administrator tools in the Compute Cluster Edition it seems you can also control various aspects of the machine pool.

Personally, when I get back to Redmond I'm going to try this out on a small number of machines.

UPDATE: The beta is available from http://connect.microsoft.com. When you get there, click on available programs in the left pane, log in with your Passport, and choose "Microsoft Cluster Compute Solution Beta". You'll be asked to fill out a form and then given access to the bits.

Also, BTW, the Computer Cluster edition requires and x64 processors...

WPF Halos demo

RWlodarczyk — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 02:40:00 GMT

It's now showcased on WinSuperSite! (In particular this and this.)

This is demo of using a listbox containing images with a 3D style applied. All images are decoded using WindowsCodecs.dll!

Microsoft Max

RWlodarczyk — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 22:24:00 GMT

Microsoft Max, built on the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) was just announced at the PDC! Great job guys!

This app really showcases what can be built on top of the Imaging APIs within WPF. Truly cool stuff! Check it out...

UPDATE: Some more press on Max from CNET News.

See you at the PDC

RWlodarczyk — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 09:06:00 GMT

I'm heading off to LA tomorrow for the PDC. Can't wait...

BTW, I'll be at the "Hands On Labs" mostly... but will also be at the "Ask The Experts" evening.