November 2005 Entries
Today I was checking the VB
Team Blog and I've found this post by John
Rivard that explains one of the problem that a developer has when changing
the environment: we would like to work with the old verison of the .NET
Framework with the new environment but this is impossible, Visual Studio targets
only one version of the Framework!
John explains that this is a problem that comes from the CLR nature itself
and avoid this "limitation" will not be so easy:
The Visual Studio process can only load one version of the CLR. This is a
...
This is
a little but interesting tricks that IE7 will adopt to help users to identify
dangerous and suspicious websites.
IE7 has a new Anti-Phishing User
Experience feature for known phishing and suspected phishing sites. When
the Phishing Filter is in use, IE will fill the address bar with red for known
phishing sites and with yellow for suspected phishing sites. The user is
immediatly alerted and can choose what action to take (if go to the site or
not).
This is the IE7 address bar for a known phishing website
detected by the Phishing Filter:
and this is the IE7 address bar for a...
I was really busy today and I'm checking the news only at this time, but I'm happy that despite my few time I've discovered this nice tool: Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt Here.This is essentially a remake of one of my favourite Powertoys tool, Open Command Window Here: by installing the .INF on the zip package you can add the new feature to the Windows Explorer and you can easily open the VS2005 Comand Prompt on the selected directory with just a click.Really useful...
There's a little application that could be forgotten by the masses but that
can be really useful for a developer: this application is called Microsoft
Application Verifier.
Application Verifier is a runtime verification
tool for unmanaged code that assists in quickly finding subtle programming
errors that can be extremely difficult to identify with normal application
testing. It is designed specifically to detect and help debug memory corruptions
and critical security vulnerabilities. It makes it easier to create reliable
applications by monitoring an application's interaction with the Windows
operating system, profiling its use of objects, the registry, the file system,
and Win32...
The announce of the incoming OneNote Mobile for Smartphone is undoubtely exciting: now you can have a real note taking application for your mobile device, you can take text notes, voice record, images etc with your phone and sync them with your pc or (viceversa) take important notes with your laptop and bring them with you when you're out only with your phone. This is undoubtely cool! My question here is: why with Windows Mobile 5 for Smartphones, Microsoft can't embed at least some reader for its major Office products? I think that having a Word Reader or an Excel Reader on...
I'm not a big Linux user but in the past I've always talked in this blog on
how Knoppix Live CD is
one of the coolest Linux application I've ever seen. What is missing on Knoppix
however is a virtualization software...
But what happens
when the most famous open source virtualization project (Xen) meets the most
famous open source liveCD project (Knoppix)? This is the born of Xenoppix.Xenoppix is a
new Knoppix 4.0 customization including the Xen package and 2 pre-made
guest OSes: NetBSD and Plan9. X window
System is prepared by KNOPPIX and GUI of GuestOS is mapped to the X11 using VNC...
Two weeks after the official "Launch Day", BizTalk 2006
Beta 2 is finally out (I don't know why was decided to include
BizTalk 2006 on the new products launch, never seen an official launch for a
beta).
BizTalk is a product that really attracts me, I hope to have a chance to
learn more about it in the future...
Yesterday evening I've quickly written a
post about a little (but useful for me) tool that I've built to post on
my blog also when I'm out of office and I've not a pc on my hands.
I'm not a big expert on Smartphone development and the tool can be improved a
lot (expecially on the user interface), but my scope was only to have (in short
time) a tool ready to be used. Here a short review on how the tool works:
The application deployed on the Smartphone is a light and tiny application
(40Kb) that has a reference to a web service...
Jan Tielens has done a remake...
After the wonderful Smartpart project (a SharePoint Webpart that can
host any ASP.NET user control), now we have the new Son of Smartpart 1.0, a new
version of the control that will allow you to run
ASP.NET 2.0 user controls and WebParts in the current version of
SharePoint.
From Jan's post:
What is working and what is
not?Not all features that I would like to be in v1.0 are available
yet, so what is already working and what’s not? The Son of SmartPart (SOSP)
comes in two flavours: one to run ASP.NET 2.0 User Controls (SOSP-UC) and...
There's a problem that I'm observing every day more: when I'm out of office for work or conferences, often I've not a PC with an Internet connection on my hands and so I can't update my blog. Sometimes this is not a problem but sometimes (when there's something interesting to say or to write for myself) it's a big lack.So, how to solve this problem? When I'm on travel I've always with me a thing: my Windows Mobile Smartphone. So, why not blogging by using it? This evening I've decided to start doing something... I've opened my Visual Studio 2005 and start a...
During the official Visual Studio 2005 "Launch Day" a big
screenshots has attracted the general attention (I've posted a
little (bad) photo taken with my phone during the event). Now,
"Ready To Rock The Launch" is here:
If you want this screenshots to use as a wallpaper, just download it from
here.
(P.S. Thanks to Giorgio
and Andrea).
After my previous post on how to write a
.NET control (.NET DLL) to extend Microsoft Navision's functionality, I've
received some feedbacks that signalled me a little strange behaviour: when you
import your new .NET DLL for using it in Navision, on the C/AL Symbol menu (when
you reference the control) you can see all the default COM
methods and properties (Equals,
GetHashCode,GetType,ToString etc.). This is not so good, I know...
How to solve this?
The key for not exposing all the standard COM methods
and properties is to use the DispIdAttribute class, that permits to
specify the COM dispatch identifier...
The roadmap is clear now... in the next future we've to be ready to upgrade
our systems to 64-bits.
Yesterday at the IT Forum in Barcelona Microsoft has announced
that while the first release of the upcoming next version Windows Server
family code-named Longhorn will be both 32-bit and 64-bit, the future
update release to that, known as Windows Server "Longhorn" R2, will
bring the complete transition to 64-bit-only hardware. Other future
software, such as the attended Exchange 12 (announced so cool!!) will
be 64-bit only.
This is a signal of movements, the input key for a big hardware transition.
Actually 32-bit...
After the previous post
about .NET 2.0 and compatibility with the past, I've received an interesting
feedback by SeeR that signalled me a strange behaviour and an undocumented case
of incompatibility.
This "bad case" is this: create a .DLL
with a UserControl in VS 2003 and embed it in an HTML page using <object> tag (to use it in your
browser), write some code thar requires special rights and publish it on
server. Now on the client computer make sure you have .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0
installed. Grant required rights in .NET 1.1 configuration MMC snap-in. Try to
run those page.
Result? A Security...
Google today has officially launched a new service previously published,
Google Base.
Google Base is a new service that enables content owners to make
their informations (online or offline documents) searchable online. To submit
contents you can use an interactive user interface or the bulk uploads
option to send contents using standard XML formats.
The service could be an interesting idea but I don't know how many people or
companies will use it in the real "everyday" world. Google is launching lots of
new services but I think that they're not so attractive, so useful for the
everyday life (Gmail is for me the...
This is the dilemma that in these days every customers has: should I install .NET 2.0 on our machines? Our .NET 1.1 applications could have problems? Sometimes I have difficult to answer and keep my customers in peace... but finally today the official answer is well summarized on a post from Kirk Allen Evans that I report here: These are the official behaviours of applications under different configurations of the .NET Framework:Application typeComputer with 1.1Computer with 2.0Computer with 1.1 and 2.01.1 stand-alone application (Web or Microsoft Windows client)Loads with 1.1Loads with 2.0Loads with 1.12.0 stand-alone application (Web or Microsoft Windows...
I don't know if it's a problem that affects Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone Edition or only the I-Mate SP5m device, but here's the facts:I had a big problem on receiving and sending MMS with my new I-Mate SP5m. I was sure to have set the phone correctly (my GPRS works good) and I've also downloaded the configuration CAB for my operator from the I-Mate site and installed it... Result? MMS didn't work. Seems tha they tryed to start but they're not able to be sent or received.After lots of trouble, a doubt comes on my mind: maybe a memory trouble?I've...
In our Partner meeting yesterday in
Microsoft, we've see a lots of demo using Virtual
Server 2005 R2 and the new version of this virtualization software
was exciting.
The first question to Microsoft was: when we'll have the final version of
Virtual Server 2005 R2? Response: in december. Ok, I'll have it for
Christmas...
This morning: Virtual
Server 2005 R2 is officially out as RTM. A big surprise! Why Microsoft
Italy was not adviced?
Second surprise: Pricing.
Virtual Server 2005 R2 will be selled with a sensible low price and I
think that this will be the key for a large adoption also on...
I've never worked as a System Administrator and maybe I'll never work on this field, but I'm just come back from Microsoft where today we had a meeting (reserved to MS Partners) focused on Windows Server 2003 R2.The new version of Windows 2003 Server was explored in depth during this day and I've to admit that many features was not well known to me (for example Shadow Copies management, Remote Differential Compression, Active Directory Federation Services).This new "R2" version is not a platform revolution (it's not a kernel modification but only a mix of features improvements) but it's significantly better...
Microsoft 's Research Lab has published this report, showing the actual Singularity's kernel performances compared to FreeBSD, Linux and Windows XP.There's a graph that shows a Disk I/O Benchmark where they measured the cost of random and sequential disk reads and writes on the various OS and these are the results:Do you think that some Linux guys are true by saying that there are better, faster, ways of doing these things in Unix but these tests are targeted for Microsoft's architectures?Comments are opened...
2 months ago Microsoft has revealed the future plans for its Microsoft Business Solutions family and one of the news was the new brand: Microsoft Dynamics.
Yesterday (with surprise) at the "Launch Day" I've found a document where the new "Dynamics" logo was published. My question now is why Microsoft has not done an official launch for the new logo? We have to receive it with this silence around?
Before:
Now:
The new logo is good (well coloured, although I think that Microsoft Business Solutions's name sounds more professional ) but I'd like to have an official presspass for it, for giving it the right importance.
Now we're...
These are my first minutes after the return from the Microsoft Technical Conference 2005, the "Launch Day" for Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk 2006 (I can't stop to ask myself why a launch for BizTalk 2006 that it's on beta).This was a wonderful day, a great show with lots of interesting contents that makes me thinking a lot for the future projects.I'm glad to have met some friends like Lorenzo Barbieri and Pierre Greborio and I know that many others was on the conference.What will be the next event? I will be on Microsoft on monday for a...
Tomorrow is the day of the Microsoft
Technical Conference 2005 here in Italy, this year more
important because it's the "Launch Day" of Visual Studio 2005, SQL
Server 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006.
It's an important event where where we can be more in touch with the new
products and receive more news about them. Are you ready for the Launch?
See you there tomorrow...
This is the dilemma... I need a good RSS Reader for my
Windows Mobile Smartphone (free is better) but I can't find anything good. I'm
searching for a software that essentially permits me to download subscribed
feeds and read them when I'm offline.
Is there someone that uses a RSS Reader for its Windows Mobile Smartphone? I
need your suggestions!
This evening I've downloaded Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition and Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition with the intention to burn a CD for a future installation.Here the surprise... I've downloaded the image (.img) file (located here), opened my Nero Burning Rom 6.0 but, when trying to burn the image, I've found a problem: Nero 6 seems not to recognize the image. I had a minute of panic... Why this? I need a solution. So, I've tryed one of the most professional way to solve this problem (no, not rewriting every bit of the header file ): renaming the...
This morning I had a presentation for customers and partners about how to
interop with Microsoft Navision and how Navision could be exposed on the web.
One of the slides I've presented showed this schema:
The question I've received was immediate: why Visual Studio .NET is the piece
that brings together all the infrastructure?
A big enterprise architecture with an ERP software like Navision, an intranet
portal and a web portal will be always more .NET oriented and Visual Studio
applications will be always more the key for interoperability.
The scope of my presentation was to launch a clear idea of an enterprise...
In the "Launch Week", where all the attention is around the official
releases of Visual Studio 2005 family and all developers are start thinking to
migrate their project under the new .NET 2.0 environment, an interesting
news comes out: a Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio .NET
2003 will be released and the plans are for releasing it around April
2006.
This is an important news I think, a good sign that Microsoft has its
attention focused also on customer's support. I know that VS2005 is the future
and new projects must be done on this new platform, but if you...
Visual Studio Express Editions are one of the biggest present that Microsoft has done for the developer's community.You can have all the power of Visual Studio environment to build your applications for free (the last offer permits you to download all the versions without charge until the 6th of November, 2006 plus some benefits) and you can use all the Express products for building commercial applications. This is a big advantage for hobbists or developers that can't permit to buy the more expensive (and powerful) Professional suite.The "Express" are always more a must to have...
Two days ago I've received an email with the news that my I-mate SP5m was arrived to my shop and yesterday I've retired it.After a day of usage, I can say pros and cons of this smartphone for who's interested on it.Pros:Light and smallWonderful screen: the screen attracts your eyes for its brightness and dimension, really wonderfulWindows Mobile 5.0: really stable, more fast than the previous version.WiFi: I've tryed the connection on an home network and it was good. This week I will be out for conferences and I'll test it with outside hot spots.Battery: seems to have a long durationCamera: 1.3...
This question comes from what sometimes I read on various blogs... Now that finally Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 are on the RTM stage, seems that lots of people wants new betas soon. When I see that someone wants the first alpha versions of Orcas, Hawaii etc. I'm really surprised. Visual Studio 2005 is just born and you want other? The Beta Mania seems too much widespread! However, I'm happy to see official MS's posts like this, where a big sign is given: the VS team will work a lot (after this RTM stage) to correct future problems...
I've always used IEView to view Internet Explorer-only pages on my Firefox,
but this extension seems really better than the previous. IETab
permits you to open a IE-only web page under a tab in Firefox (so no new window
opened).
To use it, just right click a link and choose "Open
this link in IE tab"... magically you'll obtain a tab where the page
works under the IE engine. Cool!
However, I've to signal a strange thing: the first test I've done after the
extension installation (under Firefox 1.0.7) was to try to open Windows Update under a tab in Firefox.
Result? This...
Today Microsoft has published a PressPass
announcing that Microsoft Navision 4.0 (one of the products of
its Microsoft Business Solutions family) is the winner of the 2005 Tech
Innovator awards competition in the small to midsize business category.
For who works by developing solutions with Navision and for Navision (like
me) this is certainly a good news, a sign that the solution is good and can
satisfy all the needs of a company. But I'd like that this award could also be
another stimulus to improve the package, to bring it more "open" to the world
(SP1 is a big improvement...
UPGRADE... what a terrible word for a customer!
This is always the same problem when you work with large infrastructures,
expecially with public administrations (PMI): if you try to propose an
upgrade, they are worried and obtain it is always an hard fight.
In these days I'm trying to propose them the idea (expecially with
new projects that we've to start) to upgrade their systems to the new SQL Server
2005 (Navision 4 SP1 works with it with interesting performances),
but the response that I'm receiving is quite common to all and resumable as
follow:
SQL Server 2005 is too young, not well tested,...
The rumours are now official: Microsoft is working on a web-based version of Office, that will be bring together to the future Windows Live platform, the web-based set of services that Microsoft is launching (now you can see only a little preview of the platform).
This new set of services (both Windows Live and Office Live) will be totally independent from the platform and the browser and they will be the first step on a new concept of work where the web will be the core.
I've talked a lot in the past about what I think on this new concept and...