March 2004 - Posts
Why the Competitive Guide between Office and OpenOffice published some days ago from Microsoft on their website (OpenOffice.pdf) seems to be disappeared? Is there a reason?
The strange thing is that if you try to search "OpenOffice" on the Microsoft site with its internal search engine, the link appears as the first item.
I'd like to signal a little curiosity I've discovered on this document... I've checked the document property of the PDF file and seems that it was created with QuarkXPress 4.11 and the .pdf generated with Acrobat Distiller 4.05 for Macintosh. Curious... :)
This is one of the most interesting reading out in these days from Microsoft: Windows Server 2003 Managing System Services.
Windows Server™ 2003 family of operating systems starts some applications during system startup that are not tied to an interactive user. These applications are called services or Win32 services because they rely on the Win32 application programming interface (API) to interact with the operating system. Similar to UNIX daemons, services often implement the server side of the client/server application model. A basic understanding of service functionality, monitoring services, managing services, and troubleshooting services can improve your ability to perform diagnostic procedures to resolve service-related problems.
A great explanation of the Windows Services loaded during startup is a great thing...
SQLcheck is an interesting (and FREE) Performance Monitor for SQL Server.
With this tool, you can investigates, organizes and explains critical information about your server’s hardware, operating system and SQL Server. With SQLcheck's performance dashboard, you can quickly view detailed explanations and receive recovery suggestions.
Why this tools is interesting for me? Because with this new release (2.0) it can now operate as a secure Screen Saver... really cool!!!
During my daily check of something nice on CodeProject, I've just discovered this new Open Source C# Grid Control written by Davide Icardi: SourceGrid.
SourceGrid is a free open source grid control. Supports virtual grid, custom cells and editors, advanced formatting options and many others features... It's really nice and powerful.
Good work Davide! :)
Some friends of mine (MSDN Subscribers) are trying in these days the Whidbey Technical Preview from MSDN, and after some days of trying, I can see that this is not a BETA but an ALPHA in all its function. :(
The first and orrible thing discovered:
If you try to go to the MSDN Help and do a Search, you can see this error:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Microsoft Document Explorer
The underlying connection was closed: The remote name could not be resolved.
Microsoft Document Explorer
There is already a command handler for the menu command 'e8b06f44-6d01-11d2-aa7d-00c04f990343 : 201'.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why this? Because someone of the MS Programmers Team has forgotten an internal machine name (TBOX3) on the code, and on this machine the MSDN Library is trying to search for a Web Service (calling /msdn/service/msdn.asmx).
The funny (and tragic) thing is that the developer has forgotten also the Username and Password (in clear text!!!) on the code.
An other problem is that the Class Viewer is totally unstable (crash continuously).
So? I think that Whidbey will be a future products, and now is not the time for a release... a Beta Release must be more functional, not a collection of bugs. I hope that this "BETA" will be soon replaced with an other release.
My personal advice for all programmers? Read about Whidbey, stay tuned, but now is not the moment for using it...
CORRECTION: As someone pointed me, I've used the word "BETA", but this is not a Beta Release, it's only a Community Technology Preview. Sorry...
An interesting and free Books ready to download from Microsoft: Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Resource Kit.
The arguments of this books are:
• Book Cover (front)
• Introduction
• Part I: Deploying Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0
• Ch 1: Overview of Deploying IIS 6.0
• Ch 2: Deploying ASP.NET Applications in IIS 6.0
• Ch 3: Securing Web Sites and Applications
• Ch 4: Ensuring Application Availability
• Ch 5: Upgrading an IIS Server to IIS 6.0
• Ch 6: Migrating IIS Web Sites to IIS 6.0
• Ch 7: Migrating Apache Web Sites to IIS 6.0
• Appx A: IIS Deployment Procedures
• Appx B: Changes to Metabase Properties in IIS 6.0
• Part II: Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Resource Guide
• Ch 1: Introducing IIS 6.0
• Ch 2: IIS 6.0 Architecture
• Ch 3: Running IIS 6.0 as an Application Server
• Ch 4: Working with the Metabase
• Ch 5: Managing a Secure IIS 6.0 Solution
• Ch 6: Optimizing IIS 6.0 Performance
• Ch 7: Web Server Scalability
• Ch 8: Configuring Internet Sites and Services
• Ch 9: IIS 6.0 Administration Scripts, Tips, and Tricks
• Ch 10: Analyzing Log Files
• Ch 11: Troubleshooting IIS 6.0
• Appx A: Common Administrative Tasks
• Appx B: Unattended Setup
• Appx C: Using FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions
• Appx D:IIS 6.0 Performance Counters
• Appx E: IIS 6.0 Event Messages
• Appx F: Centralized Binary Log File Format
• Appx G: IPv6 and IIS 6.0
• Glossary
• Index
An interesting reading...
I've just read in a post on Slashdot that Mozilla Firefox has a new extension which allows you to change the name to something palatable. The extension, called Firesomething, lets users change the name seen in the browser titlebar, Help menu, and About dialog, thus erradicating all traces of "Firefox" in Firefox (currently version 0.8).
A really curious feature...
Interesting... Cooperative Linux (CoLinux), a system for running a Linux kernel completely natively within an NT environment, has now been released at version 0.60.
New features to this release include a Kernel upgrade to 2.4.25, an easy to use Windows Installer, no restrictions on the amount of physical ram available for the guest Linux system, support for running i686 and higher Linux binaries, several new console interfaces, a bridged network adapter, and support for block devices larger than 2Gb.
CoLinux is really a good product, it allows you to freely run Linux on Windows 2000/XP, without using a commercial PC virtualization software such as VMware or similar. It's a tol to check!
Just read on Netcraft:
In this month's Web Server Survey the number of IP addresses with sites using ASP.NET has overtaken those using JSP and Java Servlets. The number of IP addresses found with ASP.NET has shown very strong growth in the past year with a 224% increase from 17.2K to 55.8K. JSP & Java Servlets despite being overtaken is the next fastest growing in percentage terms with a 56% increase.
Interesting... ASP.NET seems to be a mature technology now and IIS 6 a really good web server. Wonderful!
Microsoft has posted the Community Technology Preview for Visual Studio 2005 on MSDN Downloads:
Full DVD Image (English)
- Date Posted - 3/24/2004 1:45:00 PM
- File - VSENARD1.img, ISO-9660 CD Image
- Size - 2.67 GB
We've to check for it...
In these days Motorola has show the new MPx, the first smartphone on the market with the new platform Windows Mobile 2003.
Personally, I don't like Motorola phones a lot, but this model seems really an interesting phone... I think that the possibility of personalization could be a lot.
I'm really interesting to see soon on the market a smartphone based on a Linux platform to do a great comparison.
Motorola MPx |
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Motorola MPx - particolare della tastiera |
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Motorola MPx |
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Why not add the
Cogitation Blue skin created by
Mark Wagner on the DotNetJunkies Blogs? It's really a nice skin (as you can see on Mark Blogs).
I'm interesting to know what is (in your opinion) the best ASP.NET books out today, a book that covered all aspects of the ASP.NET development, with code examples explained in details.
Can you give me your opinion?
From Microsoft is ready to download an updated E-mail filter for Outlook 2003.
This optional update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk. By installing it, you help the filter provide a higher level of protection against junk e-mail.
Microsoft recommends that you use the Office Update site to determine if your computer requires this update before installing it.
For more information on this update, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article (835235) Overview of the Outlook 2003 Junk E-mail Filter Update: KB835235.
Some days ago I've written my opinion about the new Internet domains under approval.
Today I've read that the proposal for the .mail domain has been put forward by anti-spam workers who want to use it for storing information about legitimate e-mail servers.
The .mail domain proposes seems to be a more reliable locus for distributing whitelist information. It is expressly not intended to be user-visible, but rather to be solely for the purpose of automatic sender validation by mail receivers.
I don't think it could be a solution against spam. Changing the name will not solve the problem. And what they think to use the .mail TLD? Only servers with a .mail TLD be able to send mail to each other? Or you only accept mail from .mail TLDs because they have been verified?
I've just check The Register now and I've discovered an article that talks about a new flaw on IE:
faws in the filtering technology used by Web-based email services make it possible for hackers to smuggle viruses past defences. Seems that this vulnerability could allow attackers to run code of their choice, simply by sending an email to an unsuspecting Hotmail or Yahoo! user. When the victim attempts to read this email, the code executes to potentially dire consequence (e.g. theft of the user's login and password, seizure of machines etc.).
The problem is from a Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability involving IE. So... pay attention and check for the future patch!
I've just read an article on FCW.com that talks about expected hardware to run Longhorn final release.
They say that "In the meantime, industry analysts are predicting that Longhorn will need every bit of the power and processing capacity of the average desktop computer in 2006. Some say that could mean a 5 GHz microprocessor, 2G of main memory, a PCI Express bus and a widescreen display. The desktop would also likely need a constant Internet connection.
Microsoft officials have already disclosed that some of Longhorn's new security features and graphics functions will not run on existing hardware. Any agency that chooses to run applications in Longhorn's trusted computing mode will have to buy new hardware with a built-in security chip to reinforce the operating system's security.
An extensive hardware upgrade might also be in store for agencies with PCs lacking 3-D graphics capabilities. Longhorn is expected to introduce screen rendering with vector graphics instead of the bitmap variety that Windows operating systems now use."
Is not too much? What about the future investments that company that want to migrate to it must do? I hope that from here to 2006 MS will work a lot to reduce harware requisites to run this new OS.
Again, a built-in security chip? I hope that MS will work itself to improve the OS security, not entrusts to external hardware improvements (but they are welcome, expecially regarding security in general).
I love the future adoption of vector graphics, it's a significant improvements (but Linux use it from a lot of time), and I (now) don't think that 3D graphics desktop will have a lot of future, I think they could be noise (I hope that you could switch to a standard desktop vision when you want).
An interesting tool to download from Microsoft: Data Access Application Block for .NET v2.
The Data Access Application Block is a .NET component that contains optimized data access code that will help you call stored procedures and issue SQL text commands against a SQL Server database.
The Data Access Application Block encapsulates performance and resource management best practices for accessing Microsoft SQL Server™ databases. It can easily be used as a building block in your own .NET-based application. If you use it, you will reduce the amount of custom code you need to create, test, and maintain.
Really interesting... check it soon!
This notice is really ridiculous...
Today Michael Bradley, a California man, has been charged with extortion after allegedly making demands for $100,000 from search giant Google.
He has developed a software to flood the Google advertisements with fake clicks, potentially costing the company millions of dollars. He advice Google that if they did not pay, he would release his software to spammers to generate fake advertising hits. The ridiculous part is that he was so sure that the folks at Google would pay up, so he even turned up at their offices for a meeting to sell his software. So, what's the end of this story? Federal law enforcement agents were already on the case and videotaped the alleged extortion attempt.
Good luck man... :)
Has someone of us tryed Nemerle?
Nemerle is a new hybrid (functional, object-oriented and imperative) programming language for the .NET platform.
Key features of the language include:
- simplicity
- C#-like syntax
- easy to use object system (derived directly from the .NET)
- easy access to both functional and imperative features
- powerful code-generating macros
- variants
- pattern matching
- static and on-demand dynamic typing
- type inference.
I think it could be an interesting project, but it's not so much famous in the developer community.
Sintax is like C or C++... Personally I don't like the XML representation:
For example, the following tree:
<tree>
<branch>
<leaf/>
</branch>
<branch>
Foo
</branch>
</tree>
would be represented by:
Element ("tree",
[Element ("branch", [Element ("leaf", [])]),
Element ("branch", [Text ("Foo")])])
I think it's not so intuitive...