It has been a while since I have posted here, but it isn't because I haven't wanted to. I have just been very busy. First there was Microsoft Mix where I got to learn more about Silverlight, Blend, and the future of web development on the Microsoft platform.

Last week I was at TechEd Orlando where I spent a good deal of time in the TLC area talking about Windows CardSpace. It was a lot of fun and I also got to give a chalk talk on Friday about identity in the real world. While there I also was asked to sit in on a panel discussion on identity and CardSpace that was recorded for Dot Net Rocks! I don't know when the episode will air but when it does I will be sure to post information about it here.

Finally I have been busy creating a series of screen casts for Microsoft about ASP.NET and VSTS. The first of the videos is available at http://www.asp.net/learn/videos/view.aspx?tabid=63&id=147 and covers creating an HttpModule. Look for more videos at http://www.asp.net in the future. The first VSTS video should be posted soon and I will be sure to let you know where that is available.

I also have been busy preparing for Tech Ed South East Asia in September.

Add to that all of the issues that come up with having a family, job, and life and I hope you will forgive the lack of information.

On Tim Sneath's blog he has announced that "WPF/E" or Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere is now called Microsoft Silverlight. This is the typical renaming from a "code name" to a "product name" and not much more but now we know what it will be called. You can read the announcement from Tim at http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/04/15/introducing-microsoft-silverlight.aspx. The official (although not yet really functional site) is at http://www.silverlight.net/ and more information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight and the press release is at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/apr07/04-15WPFEPR.mspx.

I saw David Yack demonstrate this at the Code Camp on Saturday. It looks like it is very easy to embed rich content into web pages and also to code against that object model.

I am really curious what the big announcement that Tim alludes to in his #10 item on his blog post. Now I can hardly wait for MIX. Only 2 weeks and counting.

I really enjoyed today's Code Camp and the opportunity to speak about SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition (Sql Server 2005 CE). The slides I used (yes, there were only 3 and 1 was an intro slide and the other was the sponsor slide) and the code for the demo I created from scratch can be downloaded by clicking the link below.

CodeCamp2007SQLCE.zip (501.99 KB)

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did and also had a chance to learn a lot. I would like to thank Pat Wright for arranging the Code Camp and Ben Miller for taking time out of his vacation to give us the keynote.

I just found this announcement in my e-mail. I have not heard Mr. Godin speak nor have I read his blog but it sounds like he might be a very famous person. In any case I thought I would pass this along to help Phil and just in case you know who he is and want to attend. Be sure you are aware of the catch at the bottom that the pledges for attending the dinner should be submitted by Monday (yes, 3 days from now).

He started one of the first internet companies, yoyodyne, which was acquired by Yahoo, he then became a VP at Yahoo.  He more recently started a Web2.0 company, squidoo.  He is always talking about internet marketing – he’s one of the experts on it, and he has one of the most popular blogs on the internet.

If he’s geeky enough for you, we really need to rally our Geek Community and make some small personal efforts because …. We have a HUGE opportunity to get Seth to come speak to us here in Utah!  People have tried to get him to come speak here in the past but to no avail.  Now, it will take the efforts of us all in order to bring him here on May 24^th of this year!

To get him here, we need to get 500 people willing to pay $50.00 to hear him.  Not only will you have an opportunity to hear him speak, you’ll get 5 copies of his new book, The Dip.  We are gathering pledges to pay to hear him to see if we can get 500 people to pledge (instead of gathering money up front).

If you’re interested in hearing Seth speak, there are a few things you need to do. 

·         First, pledge to pay $50.00 at http://www.pledgebank.com/SethGodinUtah

·         Next, blog about it!  We’re trying to create a blog storm about this, even a quick simple post advertising this will help a lot

·         Third, tell everyone at work or who you think will be interested about it!

·         Finally, all the details and updates are being managed at a new site, http://www.wordmob.com keep an eye on the site for details

Here’s Seth’s blog post announcing this opportunity: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/the_dip/2007/03/the_dip_tour.html

There’s a big catch here, we have to have evidence of a large motivation to do this my Monday (like, in 3 days)!  We have a tentative date from Seth that he’s been kind enough to hold for us, but we have to show we’re going to be able to make it so, please, if you’re interested, stop what you’re doing and go sign up here: http://www.pledgebank.com/SethGodinUtah RIGHT NOW!  Then blog about it asap, encourage other to blog about it and talk about it all day!

This is a pure grass roots effort, it will only work if those who are interested (YOU?) take 5 minutes and actually do something about it – so please help out!

I have been running into the same problem lately with a couple of different programs. The root of the problem to me seems to be programs that are trying to figure out what I want to do and give it to me. Now, I will be one of the first to admit that I think computers should make our lives easier but when the technology starts to do something that I have specifically tried not to do then I have a problem. The specific problem that is bugging me lately is the number of programs that look at my text, see something that looks like a URL or e-mail address, and makes a hyperlink out of it. You can see the behavior by opening up Word and typing in the URL to your favorite site or this blog if you can't think of anything else and you will see it underlined and in blue text. Hovering over the new link will bring up the tool tip to prompt you to click on the link and go to the web site. Also if you type in something with an @ sign in the word (like some passwords) it treats it as an e-mail.

The program that is causing me the most heartburn at this time is Adobe Reader. I have a client that has created many PDF documents with a URL in the text. Before version 7 it treated the text as we created it in the document and it displayed it as text. In an effort to help us Adobe has decided to make the text a hyperlink. The problem is that the URL is long and wraps to a second line. The "automatic" URL doesn't take this into effect and so the "link" is broken. We have had to license a different version of the control and I will need to make the URL into a real hyperlink that included the entire URL so it isn't broken any more.

For the record, I haven't tested every reader out there but the FoxIt Reader from foxitsoftware.com doesn't add in the spurious hyperlink. Also opening the PDF in notepad will show the format of the document without the hyperlink so I am pretty sure that Adobe is the one to blame.

What: Utah Spring Code Camp

When: April 14^th 2007 9:00-5:00

Where: Neumont University

Registration: http://utahcodecamp.eventbrite.com

The local .NET Users Group and SQL Server Users Group is conducting a “Code Camp” for local software programmers next month at Neumont University. The code camp is by the community for the community. Always free and Always for the community.

We will have Sessions on .NET, SQL Server, and Oracle. Presented by experts around the valley!

The Saturday, April 14^th event is scheduled from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. The conference is free please register at. http://utahcodecamp.eventbrite.com

Lots of Sponsors and Lots of software and Tech Gadgets to giveaway!

You can check out www.msutahevents.com for a session schedule and speaker list for the Code Camp.

According to the post at http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsqualitytools/archive/2007/03/27/welcoming-unit-testing-to-the-pro-sku.aspx and the more detailed post at http://blogs.msdn.com/nnaderi/archive/2007/03/27/unit-testing-trickling-into-pro.aspx the next version of Visual Studio code named "Orcas" will have unit testing in the professional version. I think this will be a major step forward as making sure that code runs correctly is everyone's job and not just for the "enterprise" developer or professional tester. Anything that we can do to make sure bugs are removed before code is shipped is a good thing. I have used NUnit and you can currently use it with the professional version of Visual Studio but I think having it in the box will encourage more people to do the right thing.

Just a note: I got this link in IM the other day but problems with DNS on my blog stopped me from posting it. I am working on that now but it seems to be somewhat intermittent. If you can't get to this site, please try back again later

I was taking advantage of the warm weather this weekend to do chores. Among the long list of "honey-do" items was cleaning out our storage shed. I didn't finish it but I ran across some interesting things. Burried in a stack of old computer magazines was a "Map of the Internet". Curious as to what it would contain I opened it up and saw it showed the major areas on Prodigy, CompuServe, America Online, and the MS Network. There were areas for technical support, taxes, and advice on hardware and software. I thought that it was not that different than the current Internet except that now instead of dialing into a particular service we can just go to Google, Yahoo, or Live Search and find the same types of information.

It was also interesting to me that of the sponsors of the map only a few still exist as companies and they are generally not household names. The one exception is America Online which is still around and sending out CDs at certain intervals. Samsung is still around but is not associated with computers as much as consumer electronics. U.S. Robotics is still alive and kicking according to Wikipedia but I haven't heard about them for a long time. Then again I haven't been in the market for a fax modem for a long time either. Okidata appears to be alive and well but I am not sure what they do beyond printers.

Other sponsors who have gone out of business or been bought up are CompuServe, Connectix, NETCOM, and Prodigy.

It was a nice trip down memory lane. I don't think I will see another add that attempts to show cyperspace as a collection of 41 dots that tells me that 1 of those dots could be my home page. It makes you realize how much things have changed in a few short years and how much we are poised to see them change in the future. It's exciting to be part of that change.