Peter Himschoot's Windows Foundation Trilogy

Amazing XAML article in Japanese

Peter Himschoot — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 01:38:00 GMT

I stumbled upon this japanese translation of my Amazing XAML article

http://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/nlarchive/bexp2/issue_6/AmazingXAML_Japan.aspx

LOL!!

Visug Geek Dinner

Peter Himschoot — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 03:26:00 GMT

Christmas is in the air :) and so it's time again to have a nice dinner with people who you can be geeky with.

So join us for a geek dinner in Antwerp. Of course you don't need to be a geek to join us.

For more info see http://www.visug.be/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx

Hope to see you there!

Dear Apple, dear Microsoft

Peter Himschoot — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 21:00:00 GMT

Dear Big non-EU Company,

Just so you would know, Belgium is a country where people speak three (YES THREE) different languages, Dutch, French and German. Most of us even speak two of these fluently, and a lot of us understand English to some degree.

Is it so hard for you to learn that, if you present a legal form, you should present it not only in French, but also in Dutch and German. I am sick of registering to find only one language present. I'm not capable of understanding the legal language used in these 'terms' in my motherlanguage, so surely not in any other language. Or sending mailings only in French, not Dutch nor German. I really don't understand this consistent option of taking French, because the majority in Belgium speaks Dutch. Skype is really good at this, if you visit their home page www.skype.be, you get automatically redirected to their french page. Luckily in this case you can change afterward, but ask first, then redirect! Don't get me wrong, I respect all languages and cultures.

I think this is a lack of respect for your customers, and I think you should consider looking into this matter.

Respectfully,

Peter Himschoot

This post is being triggered by yet another "international" company that believes everyone in Belgium speaks French, and I know this company has representatives in Belgium, so they CAN and SHOULD know.

P.S.: This post is my personal opinion, and should in no way be seen as representing the company I work for. This means you should not refer to this post saying U2U anywhere, use my name...

Vista gone RTM today!

Peter Himschoot — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 18:46:00 GMT

Wohoo! Vista has gone RTM today.

Link

Unconventional Wisdom

Peter Himschoot — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:20:00 GMT

This is a must read !

"As software developers, piracy is something that affects us all. If you are a software developer who works for a big company, you likely do not see it directly. But you still have an interest in who is using your company's software. If you are in a small company or are a developer who sells software, piracy hits a lot closer to home.

However, the conventional wisdom, which often equates to the "knee jerk" reaction, is not the proper one."

http://www.codeproject.com/gen/design/UnconventialWisdom.asp

Microsoft releases Oct CTP of Visual Studio Orcas

Peter Himschoot — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 15:34:00 GMT

"This CTP targets early adopters of the Microsoft technology, platform, and tools offerings. It enables developers to experience the upcoming toolset and underlying platform improvements. We designed this release to enable developers try out new technology and product changes, but not to build production systems. This limitation is fully covered in the EULA that accompanies this CTP."

Link

Can't wait to get this book on WCF

Peter Himschoot — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 05:00:00 GMT

Michele Bustamente (Das Blonde, with some Indigo in her hair :)) is currently finishing her book on WCF.

This is on I will buy the moment the ink hits the paper.

Good news: we can download some chapters of her book already here !!!

Link

Learn all about developing for UAC in Vista

Peter Himschoot — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 04:27:00 GMT

Microsoft has this up for a couple of weeks, but I thought you might find it interesting.

"The Windows Vista Developer Story includes content for developers, and other technology experts and managers, interested in an in-depth exploration of some of the new and extended features in Windows Vista. It is released to the Windows Vista Developer Center in the form of brief articles, published approximately once every two weeks. Those articles are only a summary of the Windows Help file, which can be downloaded here. "

UAC seems to be very popular by the way, since Bart has a nice post on developing .NET apps for UAC, updating my old post on the same subject.

Link Link

Microsoft releases Visual Studio 2005 IDE Enhancements

Peter Himschoot — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 16:23:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2005 IDE Enhancements are a set of Visual Studio extensions that are designed to make you more productive. These enhancements are directly integrated into the Visual Studio IDE. This set of enhancements includes Source Code Outliner, Visual C++ Code Snippets, Indexed Find, Super Diff and Event Toaster tools. All these tools except the IDE Event Toaster can be invoked from Visual Studio’s View.OtherWindows menu group. The Event Toaster tool can be configured from the Tools Options dialog under the PowerToys node. The Visual C++ Code Snippets can be invoked on any C++ source file. Previously, these enhancements were only available via the Visual Studio 2005 SDK. This installation does not require Visual Studio 2005 SDK.

Source Code Outliner : The Source Outliner tool is a Visual Studio extension that provides a tree view of your source code's types and members and lets you quickly navigate to them inside the editor.

Visual C++ Code Snippets:The Visual C++ Code Snippets tool lets you insert snippets in your code by using a pop-up menu that contains programming keywords. VB.NET and C# languages have this functionality in Visual Studio 2005.

Indexed Find : The Indexed Find tool is a Visual Studio extension that uses the Microsoft Indexing Service to provide improved Search capabilities to the integrated development environment (IDE). It sends the results of a search to the Output Window.

Super Diff Utility: The Super Diff Find tool is a Visual Studio extension that compares text files. It uses color coding and graphics to show the difference between the files in deleted text (red), changed text (blue), inserted text (green).

Event Toaster Utility: The Event Toaster tool is a Visual Studio extension that notifies users about specific events within the Visual Studio IDE.

Link

Don't miss this VISUG session tonight!

Peter Himschoot — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 19:01:00 GMT

Wim Verhaegen is doing a session on "Security Development LifeCycle".

"The software industry has been struggling with how to create and release software that is more security-enhanced and reliable. The Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) provides a methodology that works; it is a critical way to help reduce the number of security defects in code at every stage of the development process, from design to release. When compared to software that has not been subject to the SDL, software that has undergone the SDL has experienced a significantly reduced rate of external discovery of security vulnerabilities. During this presentation Wim Verhaeghen will introduce you in the process of developing software that needs to withstand malicious attack."

Link

WPF Styles article on MSDN.BE

Peter Himschoot — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 18:53:00 GMT

Gill Cleeren wrote this nice article on Styles and Triggers in WPF

"Windows Presentation Foundation, or WPF, previously known by its code-name “Avalon”, is an all-new presentation framework included in Windows Vista. WPF is also available for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 as part of the .NET Framework 3.0. WPF consists of numerous new technologies that as a whole provide a unified programming model for applications that will run standalone or inside a browser. In this article, we will focus on the aspect of styles and triggers.

Styles make it possible to create applications with a uniform look and with a high level of maintainability. Triggers allow WPF styles to change one or more properties in response of a user interaction. In this document, we will use both these technologies to create a richer user experience."

Link

Thinking about the future: google and Microsoft go green

Peter Himschoot — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 02:18:00 GMT

While google is planning on building huge solar panels for powering their servers, Microsoft is (already) doing the same.

One can only congratulate both (ok, if these solar panels were created using an environment friendly way)...

Asus dreams up modular PC of the future

Peter Himschoot — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 04:44:00 GMT

"Asus has shelved plans to develop the PC of the future - literally. The Taiwanese vendor's Green PC concept computer, shown to Reg Hardware this week, is just that: a shelf. And some clever wireless connectivity and non-contact inductive power source"

Link (Fixed the link, sorry about this :))

Windows Vista RC2 is here! Installing the SDK

Peter Himschoot — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 03:41:00 GMT

Vista RC2 is probably the last public drop of Vista before it goes RTM. This build contains updated drivers, and yes, finally my Tecra M4 plays video's without problems (no hickups, etc...). Now to the interesting problem: installing the SDK and VS integration...

Since there is no official SDK available for RC2 (yet), I've tried installing the Sep 2006 SDK, and I must say, works like a charm! Visual Studio integration too. Although I might be a little too early, there is a lot to test :)

Next on my list is intalling Camtasia and recording a session on WPF, which I want to make public.

OMG: Google Code Search

Peter Himschoot — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 01:22:00 GMT

Developers, look no further, don't type in any code any more, simple use google codesearch!

... blood freezing in my veins ...

An evening with Kurt Claeys

Peter Himschoot — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 01:18:00 GMT

Yesterday Kurt Claeys gave a presentation on Workflow Foundation for Visug.

I must say I found it very interesting, especially his last demo using a television workflow :)

Expect his slides and demos on the visug website shortly.

Or even better, read his article recently published on WF!

MSDN Session (sept 25 2006) Pictures

Peter Himschoot — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 02:16:00 GMT

Tom posted some pictures of the event here. Cool!

WCF and WF demos from Ingo's session

Peter Himschoot — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 02:11:00 GMT

Ingo posted the demos he so brilliantly gave on his blog.

Learning WPF

Peter Himschoot — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 01:55:00 GMT

Jessica grouped a series of articles on learning WPF:

"Getting started in WPF

I’ve put together a series of articles on WPF, from a Windows Forms developer perspective. This started out as a simple document entitled “So you know Windows Forms and you wanna learn Avalon” way before there was as much content out there as there is now. I hope this twist in perspective is useful for folks.

Very special thanks to Mark Boulter for his content which has been incorporated into these articles.

Hope you have as much fun as I did learning WPF,

Jessica (AKA JFo)"

Link

TFS SP1 beta is available

Peter Himschoot — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 01:50:00 GMT

SP1 for TFS is available in beta!

http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2006/09/26/772371.aspx