March 2007 - Posts

posted Thursday, March 29, 2007 3:12 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

New .NET User Group

For developers in England's South-West, there's a new free user group, called the .NET Developer Network (DotNetDevNet - catchy!), run by Guy Smith-Ferrier. Mike Taulty starts the ball rolling with "An Evening of LINQ" on Monday 23rd April.  Sounds Read More
posted Wednesday, March 28, 2007 6:37 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

Just Installed Windows for the Last Time

...or at least, the last time in quite a while I hope :-) I rebuilt my laptop to use Windows Vista (64-bit - why not?), added Office 2007 and VS2005 (patched appropriately).  Then I used the Complete PC Backup feature to save that configuration for Read More
posted Tuesday, March 27, 2007 7:01 AM by martin :: 1 Comments

MSDN Roadshow 2007 Comes Home

Today we're delivering the last of the 5 original dates for the 2007 MSDN Roadshow, at our own offices in Reading.  Keep your eyes peeled for announcements of any re-runs by checking here, as well as on my blog. Here's a picture of Mark working with Read More
posted Monday, March 26, 2007 9:41 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

Making Test Certificates for WCF - Updated

Some time ago I posted this to remind me how to create my own X.509 certificates for use with WCF.  In those examples I was creating certificates that were each based on a "Root Agency" certificate, which is ok, but I wondered if I could have a little Read More
posted Thursday, March 22, 2007 4:52 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

MSDN Roadshow in London

Yesterday, the 2007 MSDN Roadshow reached its penultimate venue at London's Olympia Conference Centre.  Here's a picture of Mike Taulty getting ready to start his "Advances in Data" session... Next week, we'll be presenting the roadshow from our Read More
posted Monday, March 19, 2007 8:17 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

UAC and Virtualisation Sample Code

A couple of times recently I've used a simple piece of code to demonstrate UAC and Filesystem Virtualisation in Windows Vista, and some attendees have asked me to post that code.  Now I have, and you can find it here.  The code is C#. The code Read More
posted Friday, March 16, 2007 7:23 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

Extracting SharePoint Library Content via WebDAV

I wanted to write some C# code that could query the contents of a document library in SharePoint.  I couldn't find any clear indication of how to do this from a machine other than the SharePoint server itself, so I came up with my own approach using Read More
posted Thursday, March 15, 2007 3:29 AM by martin :: 1 Comments

Where to Start with Office?

As part of the MSDN Roadshow, I briefly demo Document Information Panels in the Office 2007 applications.  At each venue I've visited so far, people have wanted to talk to me about this stuff.  At the Harrogate venue, one attendee asked "how Read More
posted Tuesday, March 13, 2007 6:14 AM by martin :: 1 Comments

MSDN Roadshow in Harrogate

The 2007 UK Roadshow visits the North of England!  We're in Harrogate today.  My first time here, and from what I've seen it's a very nice city.  Right now I'm sat at the back of the auditorium, trying hard to ignore Mike Taulty talking Read More
posted Monday, March 12, 2007 2:25 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

Live in a Box

That's "live" to rhyme with "five" - I'm not telling you to switch abode :-) Some of the folks that work on the Windows Live platform have released a handy-looking resource called "Live in a Box".  It covers Live Search APIs, Virtual Earth map APIs, Read More
posted Thursday, March 08, 2007 9:11 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

VS2005 SP1 Update for Windows Vista

This is the pack you've been waiting for if you want to use VS2005 to develop on Windows Vista.  I've been using that combination for some time (without this pack) and it's been mostly ok, but I'll definitely install the pack now. Download it here. Read More
posted Thursday, March 08, 2007 4:33 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

Orcas Gets Pretty

Here's a new feature that's in the March CTP of Visual Studio Codename "Orcas".  When you have a number of documents open inside VS, hit Ctrl+Tab.  You'll see something like this (click for larger picture)... While holding down the Ctrl key, Read More
posted Thursday, March 08, 2007 1:13 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

My New Broadband

We just switched providers for our domestic ADSL connection.  It's early days yet, but right now I'm getting over 5Mbps downstream, which is like a breath of fresh air.  The previous provider could only manage 1Mbps, saying they were limited Read More
posted Tuesday, March 06, 2007 8:54 AM by martin :: 4 Comments

Choose your .NET FX version in Visual Studio "Orcas"

At the time of writing the latest CTP builds of Visual Studio Codename "Orcas" are... VPC Image Self-Extracting Install If you go for the self-extracting version, be aware that it will break things if installed side-by-side with VS2005.  I'd recommend Read More
posted Monday, March 05, 2007 4:31 AM by martin :: 1 Comments

Did I mention the screen?

Here in Glasgow, we're presenting the MSDN Roadshow talks in the IMAX Cinema. It's certainly the largest screen I've ever used for a presentation! Here's a photo of Mike during his ASP.NET AJAX presentation... Technorati tags: MSDN Roadshow Read More
posted Monday, March 05, 2007 3:39 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

Hello from Glasgow

The second leg of the 2007 MSDN Roadshow sees us in sunny (well, fairly sunny) Glasgow.  As I write, Mike Ormond is doing us proud by talking about ASP.NET AJAX.  Another pleasing turnout here today, and lots of good questions already.  Read More
posted Friday, March 02, 2007 4:04 AM by martin :: (Comments Off)

Microsoft Office 2007 File Formats - Part 3

This post is all about relationships... In my previous posts, we've already seen that the new Office document format is that of a .zip container, otherwise known as a package.  Inside a package, there can be many package parts, arranged in a hierarchy Read More