Tag | Microsoft Posts
My team was competing at the round 1 competition for Imagine Cup. The host location: Bradley University; Peoria, IL; The Student Center Grand Ballroom. The schools competing in this competition included Bradley University and Bradley's biggest rival Illinois State University. Event Night: The match-up consists of 4 teams from Bradley and ISU chickened out and sent none claiming not enough time to prepare. So, scratch the earlier comment it was only Bradley fighting Bradley. The event format consisted ...
Keith Brown write interesting article for Longhorn Developer Center at MSDN: Security in Longhorn: Focus on Least Privilege A least privileged environment is going to significantly increase the security of the "Longhorn" Windows platform. Get started today by writing managed code, first of all, and when building desktop applications, make them LUA (Logical Unit Application programming interface) compliant [via Dana Epp's blog] Power Users Group (or 'Admin Lite') finally would be deprecated and deployment ...
It is official, well, it has been for a couple weeks but you can all understand. I have accepted a job at Microsoft and will be starting on May 3. I am very excited because I will still be involved in the community and get to work with all the great people I have gotten to know at Que and Sams. I will be working with community including Code Wise, INETA, authors and publishers. Redmond here I come ...
Pls ignore this Test Posting using IntraVnews 1.1 - Blogging from outlook ...
In case you've been under a rock lately (like me) there's an important new download for those free-file buffs out there. Here's some highlights: Microsoft C/C++ Optimizing Compiler and Linker. These are the same compiler and linker that ship with Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional! C Runtime Library and the C++ Standard Library, including the Standard Template Library. These are the same static-link libraries included with Visual Studio. Microsoft .NET Framework Common Language Runtime. Visual ...
Why didn't someone clue me into this. My author bio for my first book “SAMS Teach Yourself Visual C++ .NET in 24 Hours” began: Mark Schmidt has been a software engineer at Hewlett Packard for the last 3 years.” Now, if you go to SAMS website and look at my bio, it says the same thing. It's been 2 years since I wrote that, so the 3 should be a 5. Luckily I caught it in my 2nd book (”Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Developer's Cookbook”) by just saying “Mark Schmidt ...
If you're like me (you're 6' 2“ and named Kevin). Seriously, if you're at all wondering what the fuss is with Longhorn you have to check out these Longhorn concept videos.
Wow. Just... Wow! This is a huge step foreward towords that Star Trek like computer zen of the future. Avalon looks great!
Good job Microsoft, I'm totally excited about this OS.
Totally.
As a member of the INETA User Group Relations Committee I'll be at most of the INETA events during TechEd. Check out
Bill Evjen's blog or the
TechEd site for more information. This
INETA page also has more information about the INETA Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions.
Quote: “Newell: "delaying the game to 2005" 167 Comments 4/18/2004 20:35 PST | Half-Life 2 | by redef VG Pro has a small article that contains a quote supposedly from Gabe Newell. The quote suggests that HL2 could be pushed past a 2005 release date if Valve felt it was necessary. Here’s the quote: We've already spent millions into this project, and we're willing to spend as much as we need to make this the best first person experience ever. If that means delaying the game to 2005, we'll do it without ...
I'm sure you have probably seen that the OneNote SP1 preview is available. I downloaded and installed this today and I must say that I like what I am seeing. I use OneNote quite a bit anyway, but they have added some really nice features. This page outlines some of the changes. Some of the ones that I immediately liked was the better integration with Outlook, the ability to send notes from my Axim PocketPC directly to OneNote and of course there is now an API to play with ...
Well I finished the book Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .NET and I still feel less then satisfied. My problem with TDD stems from the test first then code idea. I like the idea of being able to test the public interface to a class, assembly etc. This can really be useful in a team development environment. An example of this happend to a co-worker today. Someone changed what was returned by a property. Not sure if anyone figured out why, but a simple NUnit test would have discovered this, and ...
Update 12/30/2010: While it was amusng for six-and-a-half years, I have closed comments on this post. Move along... Move along... Recently, Eric Gunnerson posted code on how to create an array with a non-zero lower bound. Paul Vick brought up the AndAlso and OrElse operators which are new to VB.NET. This got me to thinking of the state of affairs way back in 2001 when .NET was still in its beta phase. Three years ago, Visual Fred was the derisive name given to VB.NET 2002 by VB6 programmers who did ...
In the article by Mark Fussell named What's New in System.Xml for Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 Release, he shows us tons of new features coming into System.Xml. Well in my excitement, I figured public article released a week prior to the public preview, this stuff is in there. Wrong! About 75% of this articles content (which is great) is not available in the bits we have today. This makes it real hard on me because I am preparing a presentation for DevEssentials in June about the ...
I was talking to a few guys that I work with at RamSafe today and they did not know that Yukon would allow you to write stored procedures in C# or VB.NET. I felt that this was common knowledge but I guess not! We are Microsoft Partners and they did not know... I know that at this point the information is there for people who seek it but at what point will Microsoft start marketing this? I see parts of our business that could be made better with BizTalk, also, but it is too soon for me to start making ...
I keep getting e-mails from Ashampoo for their name-your-own-price software blowout. This blowout has been going on for about year, apparantly, if my memory serves me. Is this what software is coming to? Are we all going to become flea market salesmen? I don't think so... I hope not... Who can tell, though. Software as a service may save us but the software has to deliver continuing quality, security, and stability before that happens, though. That will segment the markey firmly into two or possibly ...
Have spent a couple of days looking at the various ways to integrate C# with Excel and have found in the process a number of good references on the web providing ways to achieve this, I have included those at the bottom of this post My basic requirement at the moment is the following, I have a client that has many Excel Spreadsheets to support their business and they are looking to leverage the functionality in other applications, without having to re-write the current spreadsheets, so I need to ...
Ok, so I created a great little PDA program and now its time to install it. I saw Microsoft's white paper:http://msdn.microsoft... I spent two nights working with it and still had lots of issues... How to install the compact framework, and the fact that you had to have the .NET framework on the machine running the install to the PDA. Doesn't make much sense. So... I went out and downloaded Installshield Express Holy moly was it ...
I have been reading Test-Driven Development in Microsoft .NET and I'm a bit disappointed. I am really trying to see the benefit of TDD, but I have to admit that it is escaping me. I see the benefit of using a tool such as NUnit or CSUnit, and plan on implementing the tool in our process. The part I'm having a hard time with is writing the test first then the code. It seems to me that by doing that you design your app to meet the tests and not to solve the business need. I know the idea is to write ...
Well, just goes to show what can happen when you don't pay attention. I thought that the new
TablePC SDK was up, but at about the time I was looking at it I was reminded by
Julie that this is 1.5 not 1.7, which is what I assumed since it had today's date. Rats.
JOURNAL - Microsoft Architect's Journal - a platform where authoritative software architects from all corners of Microsoft's architect community will discuss the connection between opportunities once out of reach and the solutions that now make them possible.
Journal/
Gretchen from the Microsoft Jobs Blog talks about leveraging people's strengths and recognizing their weaknesses. In my opinion this is something that businesses still do not do properly. Rather than help tailor duties, schedules and processes to better suit the individuals, managers always shoot for a common ground. Unfortunately this usually turns out to be what is most cost efficient and what satisfies the execs, but rarely is it the best process for the company or the individual. Well, off to ...
BizTalk 2004 - Accelerators are ready and downloadable with Universal Subscription! We have been waiting for these for sometime. They are about $5000/per proc with the standard version of BizTalk. BizTalk Accelerator for HL7BizTalk Accelerator for Financial ServicesBizTalk Accelerator for HIPAABizTalk Accelerator for RosettaNet ...
In a recent blog entitled "Did BizTalk get more complicated with 2004", my boss, Andy James (who has just moved his blog to GeeksWithBlogs), wrote that "the fine new orchestration engine and toolset [in BizTalk 2004] is now no longer A RAD business process development tool". Now, I know the background to his comments, and I know that this statement is in part because of recent experiences in a piece of development in which I had no small involvement. I would say that BizTalk 2004 is sophisticated, ...
This post expands on my first version of a custom base form. Recently I was working with a Windows Forms form where I was trying to create some special effects while resizing a form. As I was working, I realized that I really needed some events that corresponded to the beginning and ending of the resizing process. Since I see this as a possible future requirement in multiple future forms, it is a perfect candidate for adding to my base form. While researching this, I came across a simple example ...
The BizTalk 2004 Server 2004 Management Pack is a set of instructions that define how to monitor and manage BizTalk 2004 Server 2004. This management pack enables you to: Identify and measure the health of the system. Monitor critical components and services. Address and correct issues with actionable responses. Understand when to escalate issues. Analyze and troubleshoot the data and information received from BizTalk 2004 Server 2004. Get it http://www.microsoft.com/do... ...
I tried the whole blogging thing in its infancy and then left it almost as quickly as I entered. That was awhile ago and its time for another run at it. I will do the obligatory introduction post, but attempt to keep it short. I'm a software design engineer at HP by day, technical author by night. My latest book is “Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Developer's Cookbook“ whose title is 4 characters longer than my 1st book “Sams Teach Yourself Visual C++.NET in 24 Hours“. There ...
I enjoyed the following quote which I stumbled across on the web... "At this stage in its evolution, .NET’s main advantage is its potential for greatly enhanced programmer productivity. One development firm, Empowered Software, grew a client’s application to a million lines of code as it evolved through various releases of Visual Basic. “Over the past nine months, we rebuilt it with Visual Basic .NET, and it's now less than 400 lines of code,” says Keith Franklin, president ...
First to fend off any SPS discriminations I might be accused of- Mike I am writing this with my knowledge of SPS, do not know if it applies to WSS, since I do not have a WSS Configuration to try it out on separately. Secondly fiddling with SPS database is not recommend, do it at your own risk K OK, I had this scenario recently (actually about 2 weeks back). An intern colleague of mine had to do a bulk upload of a bunch of documents to a SharePoint team site, which is not very unusual if you are trying ...
Myth #1 Myth: OO testing is unnecessary. OO promotes incremental development and reuse, so we have a more effective way to develop trustworthy classes. Reality: Human error is as likely as ever. We have to check class functionality and interactions between classes Myth #2 Myth: Testing is a structured waterfall idea and isn’t consistent with incremental OO development Reality: Tests can be designed and exercised at many points in the process Paradigm of “design a little, code a little” ...
Here in the United States, April 15th is the dreaded day by which we must file the forms (and possibly pay) for our Federal and state taxes for the previous calendar year. Inevitably, the television news will station a reporter at a post office to interview the late filers as they come to mail their tax returns (the requirement is a postmark no later than midnight before penalties start to apply). Each year you can hear the same lame stories from the poor unfortunate souls the depressed journalists ...
Hi Thing to do in the GTA 1. The Visual Basic User Groups meets Tonight at 7:00 PM, the Topic is Using Crystal Reports with .NET, if you are interested is held at the North York Centre, second floor auditorium. It is Right on the Subway line so you don't have to drive. You can get more information and join the User Group at http://www.tvbug.com/ 2. The Toronto .NET User Group monthly meeting is Thursday, April 15 where MSDN is bringing its National User Group tour to our User Group. The topic will ...
In a BusinessWeek article, spookily dated 19th April, I’ve read that Microsoft is currently backtracking significantly on Longhorn functionality. Longhorn is now expected to ship in first half of 2006 with reduced features. The article specifically suggests that the new OO filing system (WinFS) will be cut down to work on local machines only – i.e., won’t be network-enabled. The full WinFS won’t be introduced until the end of the decade. I remember the early 90’s when ...
64-bit porting issues for server and application code will be covered in Route 64 tour that I'm going to attend. Local event in Moscow will be May 18 and will cover following topics: Microsoft Product Roadmap and Market Opportunities Including 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Server, .NET Framework, and Microsoft SQL Server Architecture Review Including AMD Athlon64, AMD Opteron, Intel Itanium Processor Family, and Intel Xeon With Intel® Extended Memory 64 Technology Application Compatibility ...
Update: I have a later post on Microsoft Bob here. When I came back from a trip today, I found an interesting item in the RSS feed for MSDN Subscription Downloads: “Microsoft Bob 1.0a was posted to MSDN Subscriber Downloads on March 31, 2004.“ I found that difficult to believe, so I looked at the XML of the feed itself. <item><title>Mi... Bob 1.0a< /title><pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 2004 16:36:35 PST< /pubDate><description... Bob 1.0a was posted ...
I have been working / preparing a proposal for the localization aspects of the addin we are developing for outlook. There are quite a few interesting things which made me think about what all ways office knows about what locale it needs to be running on, about how it picks up the language in which the UI has to be displayed and so on ....Interestingly this is some of the titbits of information I could gather.The language and locale-related information about the user's computer are present in the ...
Thanks for all the professionals who came through this year assisting with the Microsoft Imagine Cup Competitions. If you could do us a favor at INETA Academic, by writing up a few paragraphs about your experiences with the students, organization, and whatever else you experienced so we can forward your thoughts to Microsoft Academic for future competitions. This would help us and them out tremendously. This year was our first attempt to reach out with help, and we hope to have more time and organization ...
A new company, Fortify Software, has recently launched its products into the marketplace. Fortify's solutions help developers secure their program code both during development and during runtime. The company's source code analysis software uses 540+ program coding rules to seek out security-related coding errors in code written in C, C++, and Java. Fortify's runtime analysis looks for security problems in active application. The products support Windows, Linux, and Solaris platforms, and will become ...
I've read recently how the Xbox 2 is probably not going to have a hard drive. The reaction has been pretty negative. I think people need to think a little more creatively. I suspect that Microsoft is going to use some kind of solid state RAM to replace the hard drive. The storage space on these cards is quickly approaching the current Xbox's 8 gig HD size and the price keeps coming down. I'll bet that 16 or 32 gigs of flash storage will be cheaper than the current 8gig HD. Why would Microsoft go ...
This is another page that Microsoft needs to update on their site.
Lindows will give itself a new name for selling its product outside the US. The company has decided not to fight Microsoft in the courts anymore on this issue as Microsoft has recently won some injunctions in Scandinavia. This is discussed here in a Seattle Times article. My favorite quote is at the bottom: Lindows.com has been asking customers for name suggestions. Robertson said his favorite was that the new name be "Lindos" along with the slogan, "Because it's the W that is causing all the problems." ...
INETA will be holding the 3rd Annual UG Leader conference at TechEd 2004 in San Diego. The UG leader conference will be held on the Sunday before TechEd at a hotel near the event. Contact me if you wish to attend this event. We are expecting around 75 or so UG leaders to help plan the next year of INETA. TechEd is going to be rather exciting for INETA as we will be involved in the following activities: * INETA UG Leader Conference* Birds of a Feather sessions (BOFs)* INETA at the community booth ...
I posted previously on how MSN Messenger 6.1 seemed to have 'lost' its upgrade feature that prompts you when Messenger should be updated. I was wrong. I had downloaded but forgotten to update my laptop with the latest update (the entire setup). After roughly a week or so Messenger prompts me with the same old upgrade prompt I used to get before. I feel pretty dumb now because most likely this was still in Messenger, just hasn't been needed lately due to the jumps from 5, to 6.0, then 6.1 (even though ...
Two words 'not much'... at least not remotely as much as I would like, lazing most the past week in thoughts I have no control over or watching TV and chatting aimlessly on MSN (something I rarely do). But I still managed to do a few things geeky :). Introducing GMail Free email with 1000 MB of email space from Google.com! It's relatively not a new thing for geeks with there own POP accounts or people using Outlook Express or other popular mail readers but for end users stuck up with Hotmail, CoolMail ...
Complex certificate requests (with SubjAltName and UPN attributes) generation article is posted at MSDN: Use the Certificate Enrollment control and CryptoAPI to create certificate requests, and then use them to enroll with a Microsoft Certificate Server in Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, or even a third-party certificate authority [more...] ...
Microsoft's new Channel 9 project is live. I'm totally enjoying it so far, the transparancy from Microsoft is great.
Ben McConnell from Church of the Customer talks about Costco's treatment of their employee's compared to Wal-Mart. Typical Wall Street thinking is that Costco spends money on their workers rather than beefing up the bottom line for the investors and financial fat cats. Ben is totally right on with his analysis. The real bottom line that most businesses don't get is not what short term stock prices say, it's the employees, their satisfaction and how that is replicated in all facets of the business. ...
A great excerpt about integrating Windows and Unix from Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Insider Solutions by Rand Morimoto is available in the April issue of Windows Server Systems Magazine and online here. ...
MSDN recently posted article with preliminary information about security changes in C and C++ run-time libraries in Whidbey (VS2005). From Michael Howard blog. Update: Shawn Fakcas also posted article about changes in CRT: As we get closer to an official Whidbey release, the C++ team will be producing more documentation on these changes, and I'll post links in this blog [Update 07/06/2004] Preliminary version of formal documentation is posted at MSDN Labs site (full list of changes in CRT is here) ...