I have installed Windows 7 on “bare metal” on one of my machines. This was a laptop that I work with and it was a very easy install. First off, it was the quickest OS install that I have ever experienced. You can tell that Microsoft spent some significant time working on the performance and quality of the install and bravo to the team that worked on that feature! I also used the 64-bit version of the operating system. More and more people are turning to 64-bit and it is really starting to be the...
I got one of the first Zune players when it came out. There were things that I liked/disliked about it. The worse thing about it was the software that it came with. It was clunky and not to practical so I really didn't end up using it that often. Though, with that said, Microsoft recently released the new 2.0 version of the Zune software which was basically a complete new software package. With the new software and the changes to the firmware that was made to the Zune player along with the client...
Yes, we have Windows Server 2008 coming. Yes, also SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008, the .NET Framework 3.5, and more - but probably one of the more exciting new items to come at this same time is IIS 7. As Scott Guthrie states in his recent blog post on IIS, this is a major update to the technology. IIS 7 will allow for a plug-in architecture and allows you to take out all the pieces of the IIS stack that your applications don't need. It also allows you to build your own extensions and plug...
I woke up yesterday morning, I noticed that Vista had installed three different security updates overnight. Opening Microsoft Word, I noticed that I was unable to use my mouse anywhere within the document anymore. I couldn't select any text. I couldn't right-click. I could only move my cursor around with the arrow keys on my keyboard. For me, this made Word completely useless. The problem was with a SnagIt add-in to Microsoft Office that was installed on my machine. It all of a sudden seemed to have...
As noted to me from Scott Hanselman, Microsoft just released the CTP1 of the XML Schema Explorer. Seems that there are a lot of changes coming in the XML space for the .NET 3.5 release and the XML tools that are currently present in VS2005 will be no more as they are replaced by some new XML tools - the XML Schema Designer being one of them. Here is a screenshot of the new XML Schema Explorer. You can see from this screenshot that the schema is open on the left-hand side of the shot, while the schema...
While I am thinking about Silverlight, I am looking forward to Devin Rader and company's new Silverlight 1.0 book from Wrox that is coming out this Fall! Devin is one of the main characters from Infragistics and due to the nature of his job of building controls for this company - he is usually neck deep in all the latest and greatest stuff coming out of Redmond. Stay tuned. Buy today: http://www.wrox.com/WileyCD... http://www.amazon.com/Silve...
Microsoft just launched a beta version of an application called Tafiti. A nice test application from Microsoft that demonstrates - probably most importantly - the use of Silverlight. For those new to Silverlight - Microsoft's official one paragraph description of this technology is: "Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming...
If I were to pick one tool to add to Visual Studio for my day-to-day coding, it would be ReSharper by JetBrains. I have been using the tool since version 2.0 and it is currently in version 3.0. It provides a ton of tips/corrections/advice as you type code. It provides better tooltips, better Intellisense, and extremely better refactoring than what you get out of the box with the default Visual Studio. For those of us out there that grab hold of the latest betas as soon as possible, you might be wondering...
I've known Kevin for a number of years as a friend and more recently as a co-worker. "G" has just started his blog at http://geekswithblogs.net/k... and is one of the .NET voices of St. Louis. Kevin's focus is on the Smart Client and especially in the area of Smart Client frameworks. In fact, he is giving a presentation on a framework that he has been working on for some time. It is quite worth the look. Glad to see you blogging finally Kevin...
Some folks are lovin their Vista machines while others are cursing as they are having problems (mostly with the drivers and some lockup issues). It really does only depend upon what you are using your machine for. Though, Microsoft has just released some performance and reliability patches out there: http://support.microsoft.co... http://support.microsoft.co... The first one takes care of the following issues: This update resolves the following issues: • The screen may go blank...