Interesting article that talks about the brittleness of URL’s and how much more we are depended on URL’s (though Google sure helps) and what is being done to fix it in MSDN2 . [Listening to: Goa - The Bourne Supremacy - The Bourne Supremacy (03:00)]
If you recall my previous post on VSTS installation blues , I got an answer from MS on that. It seems like installing Yukon Beta 2 did it. Per Microsoft, uninstalling Yukon won’t also help and it is better to rebuild the OS and then go from there. You can read it on the discussion thread here . I guess, there goes another evening in rebuilding a machine.
I installed Microsoft’s Antivirus (Beta 1) over the weekend and here are some screen shots from the installation. Btw, I did not find anything on my machine, and honestly on this machine, I did not have any intentions of trying that out.
This is not a big deal, but does have me ticked, why does Microsoft have to sell ads on MSDN?? Are they running low on the cash on the coffers? Honestly this was the last place I expected it and is quite irritating. Check out the screen shot with the two arrows pointing to the ads. (You can click on the image to see in full-size).
As per Seattle Times, the next version of IE will ship in 2006 , but isn’t that too late already? Already Firefox is my primary browser and I love it - not to mention the millions others who are seening the light. My bigger concern is the millions of other people who don’t realize the issues with IE and all the spyware, etc and causing themselves harm.
Adam Nathan writes , about a “special” version of the .NET Framework 2.0 (Beta 1) , which if you use to run your managed code, then gives Microsoft feedback on what portions of the .NET Framework and Win32 api you use and are dependent on. The idea is to help MS maintain backward compatibility as newer versions of the framework ship and also help them prioritise their things to do....
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Microsoft’s developers have fixed the code issues when you use Firefox to view the sample code in MSDN. The code would all be screwed up and “mushy”, but now that has been fixed and Live bookmarks also work that earlier use to break. The fix for the code is supposed to be only in CSS, and you can read up on all the gory details ....
I was playing with ClickOnce which is new in Visual Studio 2005 and thought it was pretty cool. Basically, ClickOnce is a deployment technology that enables self-updating Windows applications that can be installed and run with minimal user interaction. ClickOnce applications can be self-updating; they can check for newer versions as they become available and automatically replace any updated files. You can specify the update behaviour; an administrator can also control update strategies, (e....
I was recently playing with the new compact framework part of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 (which is released with the VSTS Edition) and am having a tough time getting to the emulator to wok when I try and debug the application. This is a simple hello world application and I tried using all of the following emulators with no luck: Pocket PC 2003 SE Emulator Pocket PC 2003 SE Emulator (Legacy) Pocket PC 2003 SE VGA Emulator Every time I try and “Deploy” to that the emulator comes up fine and I can connect to it, etc....
Microsoft today just released another update on a security hole. This honestly is good, that the holes are being identified and being plugged. Yes, I am sure there are the “bashers” who would scoff at it, but the reality is, in the millions of lines of code across various products, such thing creeps in and its better to accept the responsibility (Microsoft) and do something about it rather than being in denial....
Though Don Box does try and explain Indigo in five minutes , he misses “Why” Indigo as he explains again . :)
Tom Krueger is a Microsoftie and spends a lot of his time dreaming up and working on Smart Clients. He was a very quirky and informative post on the Fastest way to build 10,000 records on a Device? Tie one end of a piece of string to the WiFi antenna, if your device has one, and tie the other end to a tin can. Enumerate the 10,000 records on your desktop computer and verbally dictate each record into the tin can....
Is something as simple as do the T, K and V parameterised types make sense versus mnemonics in Generics a hot item to talk about? You bet, people cannot seem to get enough of it .The crux of the issue here is do T, K, V, etc in examples like List, IDictionary<K,V> make sense versus something like List, IDictionary<Key, Value>. Apparently both sides make seemingly valid arguments and from what I gather, its also a hot discussion topic within Microsoft....
Microsoft released today another critical security update - Buffer Overrun in JPEG Processing (GDI+) Could Allow Code Execution (833987). A buffer overrun vulnerability exists in the processing of JPEG image formats that could allow remote code execution on an affected system. Any program that processes JPEG images on the affected systems could be vulnerable to this attack, and any system that uses the affected programs or components could be vulnerable to this attack....
This is an interesting factoid that Microsoft added as part of Windows XP Service Pack 2 that lets users prevent data from being written to USB devices (via a registry key). But this is just the start, Longhorn is supposed to add more comprehensive “features”. Much has been made of the security risks posed by portable storage devices such as USB keys, or flash drives, music players like the iPod, and other small gadgets that can store vast amounts of data....
I did download the latest service pack for Windows XP, SP2 yesterday. First of all its pretty big, the ISO image was 475 mb so this is something you don’t want to download at a slow connection. Microsoft has said that you should be able to order the CD and get it shipped to you (its free). I was able to install the service pack on one of my test machines without any problems and am now in the process of installing it on a few other XP machines I have running....
Microsoft is Beta testing the <strong>Web version of MSN Messenger</strong> and about time I think since Yahoo has had the web version of their messenger service for a while now. This is of course useful if you are one a shared computer or not on your own computer and cannot (or do not) want to install the MSN Messenger. This is supposed to also work in Netscape 7.0 or later, or Mozilla 1....
Well as you might have heard that Office 2003 SP1 is out. You can <strong>read here</strong> all the juicy details on what is fixed. As with all Service Packs it is highly recommended to install this, more-so if you use OneNote. I am surprised that Microsoft is actually calling this a OneNote 2003 SP1 - it is worth being a whole new version of the product! Those who have met me in person (unfortunately *grin*), know I cannot stop singing praises of OneNote and this service packs adds so many more features which makes is even better....
In Visual Studio 2005, if you have a windows form and have a fair amount of threading going then that things can get pretty frustrating. As you know, because of the way that Windows handles its user interface, you should only be updating the user interface from the main thread. If you try to do it on other threads, bad things happen, and they can be pretty hard to track down....
If you don’t know what Wings is, then read the <strong>earlier part</strong> of this series. There have been a number of changes since Part 1 and this part, namely the release of a new Longhorn build. For the Assemblies you will usually need the System.Storage.WinFS.dll assembly in most of your projects. It represents the basic interfaces and classes (for example, Item and ItemContext). In addition, System.Storage.Core.dll is required for most Wings work....
Microsoft has the RC now available for <strong>download</strong> (its free) their new Virtual Server 2005. Virtual Server 2005 guest virtual machine environments are optimised for Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000 Server, and Windows NT 4.0 Server, yet enables users to run a broad range of x86-based operating systems. Although this Virtual Server 2005 download is in the release candidate phase of its development, it includes all the features of the final version, such as SCSI support, 2-node clustering, and an enhanced COM API for improved control....
As <strong>theofficeweblog</strong> writes Lookout ver. 1.2 is available for <strong>download</strong> until 1200 hrs PST today after which you would need to find a friend or wait till Microsoft decides how they want to release it. Sure, I would love to download it but what is Lookout? Well, that is the exact same reaction I had when I first read this in the papers yesterday. Basically, Lookout is an extension to Outlook written in ....
Unfortunately it is not. The UI is better - but that is just the new resource files used with cooler icons (compared to the previous version), but VSS itself is as limiting a product as it has been till now. I remember asking one of the product managers of VSTS on VSS when I was in Redmond, and they had said that it will be a completely revamped product - something which Microsoft internally will (or can - I forget now) use in the product development teams and should be able to compete with ClearCase, CVS, etc....
Since a String class, is immutable and when it is not needed, it cannot be programmatically scheduled for GC or in other words, it is not possible to predict when it will be deleted from the memory that can be a security risk especially if the string contains sensitive information such has credit card numbers, passwords, etc. This is where a new class in .NET 2.0 which ships with Visual Studio 2005 called SecureString comes in....
Distributed System Designers (DSD’s) are an integrated set of graphical designers which are part of the new Visual Studio 2005. With these designers which you can use to visualise and define applications, compose systems, design classes, model logical representations of datacenters, and bind systems to logical servers in the logical layout of the target datacenter. Their high-level goals are: Support designing and implementing applications Composing applications into deployable systems Modelling logical representations of the target datacenter Defining and validating deployments of the systems you compose against the logical datacenter models....