Windows Vista SP2 Beta

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Beta is an update to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. It provides customer and partner feedback driven fixes into a single service pack, minimizing deployment and testing complexity. In addition to all previously released updates, SP2 will contain changes focused on addressing reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards.
posted Tuesday, December 02, 2008 7:17 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Team Foundation Server Power Tools

Team Foundation Server Power Tools

Team Foundation Server Power Tools is a set of enhancements, tools and command-line utilities that improve the Team Foundation Server user experience.

HP Magic Giveaway on GEARLIVE
posted Monday, December 01, 2008 7:43 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform

Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform (WARP) In-Depth Guide

WARP10 is a new component that will be part of DirectX graphics technology in Windows 7. WARP10 is a high speed, fully conformant software rasterizer. It is shipping in beta form in the November 2008 DirectX SDK. WARP stands for Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform.
posted Friday, November 28, 2008 7:51 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Mobile Architecture Pocket Guide

Free Mobile Architecture Pocket Guide

If you've been thinking about developing a Mobile Application on the .NET platform the Mobile Developer team has been working with the Patterns & Practices team to update the Mobile Architecture Pocket Guide.
It's free, so downloaded now
posted Wednesday, November 26, 2008 3:42 PM by paul with 0 Comments

VB XML Literals

C# developers moving to VB.Net for projects using XML

Visual Basic 9.0 introduces a feature called XML Literals, which makes programming against XML a lot more natural, and dramatically decreases the number of lines of code you need to write.

Learn more by watching this panel from TechEd: VB XML Literals for C# developers or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Dim
posted Tuesday, November 25, 2008 7:26 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Our Worst Fears

Cyberchondria

The Web is an extremely useful resource in many fields of study, but when it comes to medical diagnostics please remember, moderation in all things. Cyberchondria is digital hypochondria, it happens when you search on the Web for Headache and click on brain tumor.

A study by Microsoft artificial intelligence researchers has concluded that self-diagnosis by search engine can be a hazard to your health.
posted Tuesday, November 25, 2008 3:40 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Windows FireStarter

Windows FireStarter

If you are a Developer or an IT Pro you definitely have to check-out this event.

I'd love to go, it's been almost two years since I was at the Microsoft Conference Center. Maybe they'll fly me there to blog it and video the FireStarter for the community.

All the sessions will be presented by some excellent Microsoft Speakers.

Lucky for all of us the entire event will be simulcasted online on Dec 12, so register here.
posted Monday, November 24, 2008 8:32 PM by paul with 0 Comments

SearchTogether

SearchTogether

SearchTogether is an IE7 plug-in that allows groups of people to collaborate on Web searches.

SearchTogether can benefit a group of people interested in investigating a topic together, such as students working on a report, colleagues working on a project, or just friends planning social activities. SearchTogether supports both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration styles.

I've been blogging about software development on the Microsoft stack for about five years and Google is my Uncle while Windows Live Search has yet to discovered me.
posted Sunday, November 23, 2008 11:38 AM by paul with 0 Comments

YouTube Live Stream

YouTube Live

I watched in HD, just me and half the people on the planet. This EVENT is a moment in Web history.

Akamai handled the live video stream around the world and they did a great job, the quality on my system was fantastic.
posted Sunday, November 23, 2008 7:29 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Windows Azure Cloud Computing User Group

Windows Azure Cloud Computing User Group New York City Chapter

Windows Azure is Microsoft's cloud computing platform. At this meeting, you'll hear about Microsoft's vision of Software + Services and what it can mean for you. As part of this presentation, you'll see a demo of how a cloud application is developed and deployed.

Cloud computing has huge implications for both developers and business people. This is your chance to get in on the ground floor and be part of the community that helps pioneer this exciting new area.
posted Friday, November 21, 2008 1:41 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Data Access Smackdown

Tonights meeting of NYCDOTNETDEV

Microsoft introduced several new data access technologies in .NET 3.5 SP1. Which one should you use? Entity Framework? Dynamic Data? ADO.NET Data Services (Astoria)? Linq? POADN? (Plain old ADO .NET) What about ORMs? Has Microsoft lost its mind? Join Stephen in a discussion on Data Access Methodologies for the 21st Century, including a discussion of ATOM over REST. Note: This will require some audience participation.
posted Thursday, November 20, 2008 1:10 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Singularity RDK 2.0 Initial Release

Singularity OS

Microsoft Research has been building an operating system prototype extending programming languages while developing new techniques with tools for specifying and verifying program behavior.
Singularity RDK 2.0 Initial Release
posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 10:25 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Jaguar Supercomputer

Cray XT5 Jaguar Supercomputer

The new petaflops machine will make it possible to address some of the most challenging scientific problems in areas such as climate modeling, renewable energy, materials science, fusion and combustion.

With more than three times the memory and bandwidth the Jaguar is powered by the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor as the first supercomputer to uses the X86 instruction set with all it's applications, compilers, and tools. Jaguar has hundreds of applications that have been ported and run on the Cray XT system, many of which have been scaled up to run on 25,000 to 150,000 AMD Opteron cores.
posted Monday, November 17, 2008 8:16 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Nehalem Arrives

Intel Core i7

Intel is launching a new desktop microprocessor today containing 731 million transistors spread among four cores. The Core i7 is the most powerful chip Intel has ever produced and it's also the most power efficient, when running a program with two threads only two cores will perform the task as integrated power switches turn cores on or off. Zero power for inactive cores corresponds to billions of dollars in energy savings after all the Pentium 4 chips are replaced around the world.
posted Monday, November 17, 2008 10:43 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Windows 2008 URL Rewrite Module

Announcing Windows 2008 URL Rewrite Module

The URL Rewrite Module for IIS 7 can be useful for your Project Server and SharePoint Server deployment:
URL Rewriter for IIS 7.0 enables Web administrators to create powerful rules to implement URLs that are easier for users to remember and easier for search engines to find. By using rule templates, rewrite maps and other functionality integrated into IIS Manager, administrators can easily set up rules to define URL rewriting behavior based on HTTP headers and server variables, or to perform redirects, send custom responses, or stop HTTP requests based on the logic expressed in the rewrite rules.

URL Rewriter RTW and More IIS Extension Updates
posted Sunday, November 16, 2008 9:07 PM by paul with 0 Comments

AMD Opteron

Quad-Core AMD Opteron

Today AMD is announcing it's first 45 nanometer Quad-Core Opteron Server processor, it will require a third less power then the previous generation Opteron and with a larger cache enabling advanced virtualzation capabilities.

The Quad-Core Opteron is optimized for high speed DDR2 memory creating more efficiency with less power in the Data Center for a welcomed decrease in the overall cost of cooling.

Partners HP, IBM, SUN and Cray are shipping servers today with the new Quad-Core AMD Opteron. AMD is the processor provider for Windows Azure cloud services.
posted Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:58 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Presentation Technology Matrix

Cheat Sheet: Presentation Technology Matrix

Our friends at Patterns and Practices have put together chart to help us understand our technology choices for the presentation layer. Your choice of presentation technology will be related to both the application type you are developing and the type of user experience you plan to deliver. Use the Presentation Layer Technology Summary to review each technology and its description. Use the Benefits and Considerations Matrix to make an informed choice of presentation technology based on the advantages and considerations of each one. Use the Common Scenarios and Solutions to map your application scenario to common presentation technology solutions.
posted Wednesday, November 12, 2008 4:38 PM by paul with 0 Comments

MSDN Architecture Center

The MSDN Architecture Center has information and examples about the latest techniques and trends, demonstrating how technology aligns to your current business needs. Learn what others are doing and how challenges are being addressed, but also share your ideas and participate in the forums.
posted Monday, November 10, 2008 2:13 PM by paul with 0 Comments

Facebook Developer Toolkit 2.0 for .NET

How to Use the Facebook Developer Toolkit 2.0 for .NET

The Facebook Developer Toolkit on CodePlex has been a popular project to help make it easier to do Facebook development using .NET. Bill Konrad has put together an awesome article on how you can get started.

neuronspark inspiring innovation
posted Sunday, November 09, 2008 11:08 AM by paul with 0 Comments

Podcasting Kit for SharePoint

How the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint Helps Tackle Corporate Communications and Training

If you are using SharePoint, the Podcasting Kit provides another set of capabilities that will help you bring real value to your organization.
There is a webcast on Thursday, November 13, about the Podcasting Kit for SharePoint.
For live viewing details, see Mike Gannotti’s post about the webcast.
posted Saturday, November 08, 2008 5:14 PM by paul with 0 Comments