ASP.NET MVC Framework Source Code Released

For those of you that haven't heard, the ASP.NET MVC source code has been released on CodePlex. This is pretty awesome and, IMO an excellent demonstration of how Microsoft really are taking great steps to becoming much more customer driven. As I said to Scott Hanselman earlier on twitter, exciting times!

Now, I have yet to really get into ASP.NET and Web Applications since I am still working on the Windows element of my MCAD course, but I really look forward to seeing this mature so I can delve into it once I do!

Be sure to check out:

ScottGu's post on it here.
Scott Hanselman's post on it here.

Technorati Tags: ASP.NET,source code,codeplex,microsoft,MVC

Great Add-on for Vista Start Menu

I am a huge fan on SlickRun - its a great little tool that you can use to create "magic words" that execute commands when you enter them into the little command prompt thing.. I found it REALLY boosted my productivity.

However, when I moved to Windows Vista, one of the features I fell in love with was Instant Search. So I thought I would have a look to see if anyone has expanded on the functionality provided by Instant Search to provide something similar to SlickRun.

Well, I quickly came across Start++ a great tool developed by Brandon Paddock, a great guy who seems very passionate about what he does, which is what I like to see. So I instantly added his blog to to my RSS Reader (Google Reader)

Well, its a very, very similar concept to SlickRun, except that is runs from the Instant Search prompt. You can create shortcuts for the commands you want to execute, type it in the search, and if found by Start++, a little icon pops up with the name you entered for it. You then simply hit return, and it runs the command you specified.

Here's a screen shot of me executing my command to open my Live Blog:

Also, it has some pretty neat feature called "Startlets" - these provide the ability to integrate your string into queries for search engines and the like (such as Google, Live Search and Wikipedia) as well as the Indexing features of Windows Vista to play music and videos that meet your criteria (e.g. a particular artist).

Anyway, enough talk, go see for yourself!

Technorati Tags: Vista,Start++,SlickRun,Start Menu,Productivity,Shortcuts

My Vista Experience Begins..

And its finally here! My old computer finally packed in, and I have had to invest in a new machine, so I am now running Windows Vista.

My experience so far:

Setup

Installation was a cakewalk. I don't really remember doing much, and was quick. I put the disk in, answered a couple of questions (time zone settings and language springs to mind). The machine carried on doing its stuff, restarted a couple of times, and I was up and running within 15 minutes.. Definitely a much nicer experience over Windows XP (which in turn was much nicer than Windows 98).

First Contact

Once set up, I was presented with the logon screen, I then of course signed in. Windows Update then pops up asking to check for updates, I let it run off and do that (there were about 50 to install). They then installed fine in the background, but one did fall over - my graphics driver. I rebooted to let the other updates set in, tried again and all installed fine. Awesome.

Things I Like So Far...

• The interface, I really like it, looks real slick and the extra eye candy really does make the computer much more pleasurable to work with.
• Integrated search, I was expecting this to be really sluggish based on previous Windows experiences with this sort of thing, but it works REALLY well.
• Overall performance seems a lot better, things seem a lot more responsive and copying a large chunk of my mp3 collection onto the new box seemed to be a lot faster, I know they have made improvements to the file copy algorithms, but I was surprised to see the extent of it!
• The revised versions of solitaire and freecell are cool =)

... And Things I Not So Happy With (Sad Face)

• Windows Key + I no longer opens IE/Firefox, instead its placed in the "Search" box, there may be a way to disable this, but I not found it yet (not really looked to be honest!).
• Due to my delay in installing my graphics drivers, Aero was not enabled by default, and it wasn't immediately obvious on how to get it running. However - I was quickly able to find it by opening the control panel and typing "Aero" into the search box.

I have lots more to look at yet, and I will try to blog as I go, however, I am working from home today and must get back to it =)

Technorati Tags: vista,experience,aero,review

Great Code Colouriser from CarlosAg for Windows Live Writer

Found a link to this great code colouriser from CarlosAg in the blogosphere to plug into Windows Live Writer. Works really well, and nice and quick (found many that either format incorrectly or do it perfect but slowly).

Here's a sample:

/// <summary>
/// Says Hello to the User.
/// </summary>
public void SayHello()
{
    // Say Hello to the User.
    MessageBox.Show("HELLO!");
}

And a screen grab:

Special thanks to CarlosAg for sharing.
Check it out!

Technorati Tags: live writer,plug-in,code colour,CarlosAg

Holy Crap! 5GB Free Online Storage (Courtesy MS SkyDrive Team)

Just received this on the Google RSS Reader, I actually said "Wow" out loud. 5GB storage for free, integrated into the Live Platform, "wow" indeed.

Thanks guys on the SkyDrive team! Thanks very much!

Technorati Tags: microsoft, live, skydrive, online storage

Great Summary of New VS2008 Goodies

I came across a great summary page of the new features available to us geek's within the new Visual Studio 2008 release. Definitely worth a read, there were things on there I were not aware of that may be useful! (I TinyURL'd it since its quite a long address!) =)

http://tinyurl.com/2zhmpn

I hope they make you more productive!

Technorati Tags: visual studio 2008 , goodies

Another Great App.. Virtual Desktop Manager "Virtual Dimension"

Following on from my recent post on a "Nice PDF Reader App", it got me thinking, maybe I should invest some more time in finding a good, free app to deal with some of my other annoyances (I'm an easily-annoyed person when it comes to software).

So, my next problem.

I always find my Taskbar cluttered, I don't like the grouping that Windows provides as I like to see the names of the windows themselves. I can make my Taskbar taller, but then I lost some screen real-estate.

So, I figured a Virtual Desktop will be the way to go, back when I was running a Linux distro on my desktop for a while (openSUSE Linux), I really liked the virtual desktop, and it seems most Linux distro's have it. I won't apologize for my lack of knowledge on Linux, I didn't like it!

For those of you that do not know what a virtual desktop is, it basically allows you to have separate "views" of your desktop. So, for example, you could have a document you are working on in the foreground, and your emails and stuff tucked away a virtual desktop in the background (still running), when you want your email, you then switch to that desktop. Neat, and tidy! Obviously, there is some overhead with this, and it is easy to forget you have all these app's running, and then wonder why your system is running slow when you are only staring at Notepad. Oops! I forgot I have my email, some mp3s, two games and disk defragmenter running on three other desktops in the background. Be warned! So, I hope you get the idea.. Very useful for people like me that tend to have a lot of unrelated but necessary stuff open.

So, I began checking out what is available, for free. Here's what I found!

Microsoft's Virtual Desktop PowerToy for XP
Didn't like this at all really, I found it slow running, and not a "slick". Some app's seemed to stay available on all desktops without me knowing why. Not very customizable. Promptly uninstalled.

"Virtual Desktop" on SourceForge.net
I thought this one would be the keeper TBH, runs as a service in the background, so no additional clutter on the (already cluttered) desktop. Took me a while to find out what the keys are (no readme was attached - that I could see). But ran OK, simply ALT + Number (1-4) to switch to that desktop. Few little kinks to iron out ("Run" and "Minimize All" only work on the first desktop), but on the whole, I would have stuck with it, until I found...

"Virtual Dimension" on SourceForge.net
This baby has it all. It's quick, it runs well, its very customizable and has all the features I need/want. The only think I could suggest for it is that it has a thumbnail preview of the desktops on the preview window. Other than that, it's staying right on my desktop!
In fact, I am typing this blog within my second desktop (I have a Visual Studio Project open on my first) right now!
Put simply, get it!

If anyone else has any suggestions, then please let me know!

Technorati Tags: applications, virtual desktop, microsoft, powertoy, sourceforge, virtual dimension

Live 2008 Final Beta are Released!

We are almost at release stage with the suite of Live applications from Microsoft.
In the bundle is:

• Live Messenger (Instant Messaging)
• Live Mail (Mail Reader with Integrated RSS - Great Outlook Express Replacement)
• Live Photo Gallery (Online Photo Storage and Organization)
• Live Writer ("Universal" Blogging Tool)
• Live Family Safety (Make Sure the Kids are not Being Naughty!)
• Live SharedView (Desktop Sharing Tool)

As well as the host of services offered by Live such as (and not limited to):

• Live Spaces (Profile/Blog)
• Live SkyDrive (Free, Secure File Hosting)

I personally use the Live Messenger, Live Writer, Live Spaces and Live SkyDrive applications/services a lot. And I have to say, I love them.
We all know that Spaces & Messenger are great, they are pretty mature already due to their massive amount of usage. The two you may not be so familiar with are Writer and SkyDrive.

Live Writer

Live Writer is designed to be the blogging tool you use for all of your blogging needs.

I only had one single gripe with Writer. When posting to Google Blogger, you were unable to post images from within Writer, well guess what folks, this has all changed with the final and third Beta release, image uploading to Picasa is now supported!. This is a huge plus in my eyes.
Here are the main selling points for me:

• You can write straight from your desktop, no signing into websites.
• You can write and save drafts for posting later.
• Categories and tags (from many providers) are supported.
• You can quickly and easily post content to several blogs providers.
• It's genuinely easy to use!
• Install process is almost one-click, and it never fell over.
  NOTE: it was slow though, I was sat looking at "checking for installed products" for a while - be patient!)

The culmination of all of that is a one-stop tool for all your blogging needs! Sold!

Live SkyDrive

I got wind of the existence of SkyDrive via an RSS feed. So I thought I would check it out, at this point I was using Messenger and Writer extensively, and really impressed with both, so was keen to see what else the Live guys at MS where offering.

Live SkyDrive is basically a free file hosting solution, all you need is a Live ID. And you can post up to 500MB in your account. You can then make these files available to the public, or contacts (which also need a Live ID for authentication) or just keep them for yourself.

I have found the transfer speeds can be a little slow in today's terms (30k/sec download) but hey, it's free, and I think it is all ad-supported, but I never noticed anything obtrusive. So thank you very much Microsoft!

Technorati Tags: Live, Messenger, Mail, Photo Gallery, Writer, Family Safety, SharedView, Spaces, SkyDrive