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May 2007 - Posts

Microsoft Surface powered by WPF

Posted Thursday, May 31, 2007 1:39 PM by James Senior
From the initial interviews I knew that Microsoft Surface was a Vista PC under the hood and I had my suspicions that the graphics were powered by WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation - the graphics subsystem that is present in .NET 3.0 and Vista). Reading Read More...
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Developer Developer Developer Day 5.0

Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2007 1:43 PM by James Senior
Last time, this event rocked and I would definitely recommend attending if you want to see and hear some impressive speakers talk about cool technology. The agenda is already published here and you can register for the event here . From the looks of it Read More...
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Yes Microsoft!!! You finally get it! Now change the rest of it.

Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2007 9:16 AM by James Senior
They are finally understanding it! Another excellent name and another cool brand - Microsoft Surface . I can hardly contain myself - someone in marketing actually is changing Microsoft bit by bit. Could this be another trait of Ozziesoft - cool product Read More...
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Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 Beta

Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2007 8:51 AM by James Senior
The new public beta for Windows Vista Hardware Assessment has been released and you can go sign up and download the beta from the Microsoft Connect website . What is Windows Vista Hardware Assessment? I've covered this before ( see here for all the detail Read More...
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Windows Server 2008 Podcast

Posted Tuesday, May 29, 2007 2:09 PM by James Senior
Powershell is an object orientated scripting language which is extensible and is the foundation admin tool for Exchange Server 2007 and System Center Operations Manager 2007. One of our MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) talks about Windows Server 2008 Read More...
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To "Steve Jobs" or not to "Steve Jobs" that is the question

Posted Friday, May 25, 2007 9:50 AM by James Senior
This week Steve talked about the new Microsoft - or Ozziesoft as it's now being coined. Ozziesoft represents a world where products aren't announced and shown off until they are ready to go out of the door - apparently. Steve uses the example of Silverlight Read More...
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XP SP3 later this year?

Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:29 AM by James Senior
Just speculation, but upon closer inspection of the announcement of the agreement between Microsoft and Juniper networks , this little excerpt slipped out: "Microsoft is announcing that Windows Vista supports this protocol today and Windows Server ® 2008 Read More...
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Certified for Windows Vista - networking demo

Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007 9:24 AM by James Senior
Configuring a wireless router or modem can sometimes be a little tricky for the average user, so one of the certifications for Vista aimed to take away the pain when setting up your home network and this video from Ben Reed on the Vista Team blog . Ben Read More...
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Windows Server 2008 London Clinics

Posted Thursday, May 24, 2007 8:03 AM by James Senior
QA-IQ, one of our training partners is running a Windows Server 2008 week of events starting in July. So, what's on the menu? Clinic 1: Windows Server 2008 Branch Office Management Clinic 2: Windows Server 2008 Server Management Clinic 3: Windows Server Read More...
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Family.Show app shows of WPF, source code is available

Posted Wednesday, May 23, 2007 7:05 PM by James Senior
Saving the best to last :-) The Vertigo crew were commissioned by Microsoft to create an app in WPF that showed off some of the technology. What they came up with was a an app that helps build and visualise family trees. Apparently genealogy is the fastest Read More...
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Rendering XPS in Silverlight

Posted Wednesday, May 23, 2007 2:50 PM by James Senior
A partner I know is currently looking to render XPS and now a very clever chap inside Microsoft ( via Mike Taulty ) has been playing around with doing it in Silverlight . The app is very cool and has nice controls to boot. Bear in mind it's just a proof Read More...
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HD Panoramic Photo Viewer from MS Research

Posted Tuesday, May 22, 2007 4:34 PM by James Senior
Wow the innovation keeps on happening ( back story to lack of MS Innovation)... today via the Virtual Earth blog I found a rather cool video which shows off the work of the MS Research team that are doing stuff with HD Photos that size up to 4 Gigapixels Read More...
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Speeding up the Start Menu

Posted Tuesday, May 22, 2007 4:07 PM by James Senior
If you've not quite caught the wave on the whole "searching for applications" from the start menu and you still prefer to go through via "All Programs", you might have noticed some performance problems when you open a folder and it sometimes takes a second Read More...
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Can I customise UAC?

Posted Tuesday, May 22, 2007 3:54 PM by James Senior
I had some interesting questions today from customers about the level of customization an IT guy can do regarding which areas of functionality are protected by UAC. I.e. if I don't want the Firewall protected by UAC can I change a setting in Group Policy? Read More...
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Security in Silverlight

Posted Tuesday, May 22, 2007 2:46 PM by James Senior
Following the announcement at Mix a few weeks back, one of the questions on many people's lips is (as with any cool technology) what are the implications, who better to explain about this than the .NET security team? One of the interesting email newsletters Read More...
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The bullshit you get for doing your job

Posted Monday, May 21, 2007 8:41 PM by James Senior
Working for Microsoft you tend to develop thick skin because of all the stuff people say to you; insults, imputation, indictment & bad mouthing. I guess you could argue that it comes with the territory, it's par for the course or something you inherit Read More...
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Popfly

Posted Friday, May 18, 2007 5:33 PM by James Senior
Shall I file that under innovation ( back story )? Yes I think I will. Technorati tags: Microsoft Innovation , Silverlight , Popfly Read More...
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Recruitment Open Evening at Microsoft UK

Posted Friday, May 18, 2007 1:31 PM by James Senior
This is a cool company to work for. I've worked at other large blue chip companies, small and medium companies and they don't come close to the way you feel after finishing a week of work at Microsoft. The HR team are running a recruitment open day here Read More...
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Vista news from WinHec

Posted Thursday, May 17, 2007 10:49 AM by James Senior
WinHec - the event where hardware meets software - has recently been live and there have been some interesting announcements come out of the conference, in particular about Windows Vista SideShow. If you're not familiar with SideShow then take a look Read More...
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Next Purchase: Windows Vista SideShow Fridge Magnet

Posted Wednesday, May 16, 2007 11:43 AM by James Senior
Yes you read it right... one of the things that emerged at WinHec was a Wireless Fridge Magnet which leverages the Windows Vista SideShow platform (back story about Vista After Hours) that can stream content from your Vista PC to the device. Cool (no Read More...
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New York Times Reader in Silverlight on a Mac

Posted Wednesday, May 16, 2007 8:57 AM by James Senior
Shock horror, but here's some innovation from Microsoft ( back story from comments in this post ). The New York Times Reader which was originally a Vista launch app based on WPF has been ported to Silverlight on the Mac. Now because WPF and Silverlight Read More...
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Google Secrecy and control freakery

Posted Tuesday, May 15, 2007 6:13 PM by James Senior
James O'Neil shared a Microsofties experience of trying to attend one of their Google @ Work events . Find out what happened when Ryan Pollock in the marketing team of Google Enterprise found out! Now I welcome competitors to our events, so what's up Read More...
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Media Center Big Screen Photos Version 2

Posted Monday, May 14, 2007 6:44 PM by James Senior
This neat application pulls down your Flickr photos and displays them very nicely within Media Center . I've been playing around with version 1 recently which was originally written in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and deployed as an XBAP but Read More...
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London Web Administration Summit - IIS 7.0 on the menu

Posted Monday, May 14, 2007 4:23 PM by James Senior
I'll be at this shindig - see you there! 23 May 2007, London: Web Administration Summit - An In-depth Look at Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 in Windows Server “Longhorn” Microsoft Windows Server code name "Longhorn” is the next generation of Read More...
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SQL Server 2008 to support Virtual Earth

Posted Friday, May 11, 2007 1:07 PM by James Senior
Nice - Geo data types built right into the next version of SQL Server which is likely be called SQL Server 2008. The data will be first class which means it can be indexed too :-) Here's an excerpt from the Virtual Earth Blog: Spatial will be supported Read More...
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Vista gets a write up, Mac gets a dressing down

Posted Friday, May 11, 2007 10:17 AM by James Senior
Mark Wilson's gone and done a thoughtful write-up of the Vista After Hours event we did last week (was it really last week!). Now, Mark is a Mac guy but he was pleasantly surprised with the features we showed off in Vista that got him starting to question Read More...
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Convert Flash SWF to XAML for WPF and Silverlight

Posted Thursday, May 10, 2007 6:19 PM by James Senior
It was only a matter of time...... I first heard about Electric Rain at the launch event for Expression in the UK and the chaps from the product team did their presentation using their software, a very sexy WPF based slide shower called Standout . Now Read More...
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Vista App Readiness Website Launched by DPE

Posted Wednesday, May 09, 2007 8:27 AM by James Senior
Our Developer and Platform Evangelism Team have launched a public website that helps you work out which applications are compatible with Vista or not. The database obviously complements the work the ACT does in that it's an online version of the compatibility Read More...
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Parksey compares Office 2007 to Open Office

Posted Tuesday, May 08, 2007 11:01 PM by James Senior
Chris is one of our team members who is always experimenting so I wasn't surprised to see his latest blog post comparing the mail merge functionality in Office 2007 to that of Open Office . I suspect there is going to be a little bit of activity on his Read More...
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Vista Squad Event

Posted Friday, May 04, 2007 3:56 PM by James Senior
They're back, and now with more content! The Vista Squad are holding their second event at Microsoft HQ and speaker Steve Lamb will be talking about the Vista technology that is BitLocker whilst Ray Booysen will be lighting up your world with rich user Read More...
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Upcoming Microsoft Events for developers

Posted Friday, May 04, 2007 3:42 PM by James Senior
Some interesting events coming up soon including how to develop applications using Silverlight and Windows Live: Web Design and Development with Silverlight (Formerly Code-Named “WPF/E) and Windows Live: Reading, 16 May 2007 MSDN: Visual Studio “Orcas” Read More...
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Home Server Wake on LAN

Posted Friday, May 04, 2007 12:46 PM by James Senior
Having talked about Home Server in our recent Vista After Hours events I was pleased to come across this add-in for Home Server that allows you to send a wake up call to other "sleeping" PC's on your network. This is great because Home Server can act Read More...
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Vista After Hours

Posted Friday, May 04, 2007 10:34 AM by James Senior
Reading last night - phew what a gig... By the end it was pretty warm in the room sorry about that - the air conditioning people went home at 5.30 - great! I hope it didn't detract from what we showed you and by the number of questions we got I assume Read More...
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Vista: "After Hours" Thoughts and Feedback

Posted Wednesday, May 02, 2007 1:30 PM by James Senior
I'm writing this on the way back from sunny Leeds where Matt and I went freestyle with the demos and unleashed a load of cool technology upon an unsuspecting audience. We went at quite a pace because we had so much to cover and I wanted to let you know Read More...
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