You've reached the internet home of Chris Sells, who has a long history as a contributing member of the Windows developer community. He enjoys long walks on the beach and various computer technologies.
Wednesday, Mar 10, 2004, 9:18 AM in .NET
Ryan Dawson on RTC in Longhorn
This time, Ryan digs into the RTC stack in Longhorn to build an IM app to enable synchronized browsing and chatting. Includes source code and a meaty write-up, including Ryan's complaints about the current RTC stack.
Wednesday, Mar 10, 2004, 9:15 AM in .NET
Benjamin Summarizes Service Boundary Guidance
I'm really getting to like Benjamin's Mitchell's blog as a Reader's Digest of various issues that he's following. This time, he summarizes advise from across three MS architects providing guidance on where to draw boundaries between services.
Wednesday, Mar 10, 2004, 9:11 AM in Tools
The VS7 Debugger doesn’t work. What can I do?
Mark Parks, a PM on the Visual C# Debugger QA team, has posted ways to fix common VS.NET debugger problems. He's even got a fix for why I can't debug the localhost version of my site. Thanks, Mark!
Wednesday, Mar 10, 2004, 8:40 AM
Portland Nerd Dinner in My Neck of the Woods
Finally, Jim has set up a PND that's not through rush hour traffic from my house. 3/23, 6:30pm, Washington Square Mall food court. Wahoo!
Tuesday, Mar 9, 2004, 8:11 PM in .NET
C# Corner on the WinFS Data Model
Jesus Rodriguez provides an overview of the WinFS data model, including using it for searching and notifications.
Tuesday, Mar 9, 2004, 8:06 PM in Tools
Genghis v0.5 Released
After much delay (man, this Microsoft gig keeps a person busy), I'm happy to announce Genghis v0.5:
Enjoy.
Tuesday, Mar 9, 2004, 5:21 PM in The Spout
Study: We're Eating Ourselves to Death
Here. Ouch. I resemble that remark...
Tuesday, Mar 9, 2004, 4:35 PM in .NET
Interactive XAML Editor Preview from Mobiform
Mobiform is one of two 3rd party vendors that have been building a XAML parser that runs under the current version of .NET. Today, Mobiform went one better by releasing a working preview of an interactive XAML Editor that runs under the current version of .NET. Plus, the XAML that I created in the editor works on the PDC Longhorn bits.
Now there's something other than the 101-Key Text Wizard to use when designing XAML for Longhorn. Mind you, what Mobiform has put together isn't Illustrator or even Paint Brush yet, but it's an amazing start.
Monday, Mar 8, 2004, 4:58 PM in .NET
Ian on Graphical Composition in Avalon
Normally I like to consume something before I recommend it, but his stuff is always so good that I'm going to point out Ian's new piece on graphical composition in Avalon before I've even read it. Here's the conclusion to whet your appetite:
"The new composition model in Avalon removes many of the visual design constraints that applied to most Win32 applications. It also improves performance by making more effective use of modern graphics cards, reducing the frequency with which the OS has to call the application back to keep the display up to date, and enabling a much higher quality of user interface."
Enjoy.
Monday, Mar 8, 2004, 4:18 PM in .NET
Using Windows Forms Markup (WFML)
Love markup but can't wait for Longhorn/Avalon/XAML? Check out Joe Stegman's WFML (Windows Forms Markup Language).
Monday, Mar 8, 2004, 8:58 AM in The Spout
Putting the Fun Back In Programming
I know that I'm no longer untainted because I work in the big house, but I just don't get this. Do developers really want to build the same thing over and over, project to project, app to app or do they want to spend their time building cool, new stuff? Is .NET or Whidbey or Longhorn any different from continuing the foundation that we've built before? Does anyone really miss building their own file system or declarative content flow or toolbar? Will anyone miss building their own animation, object serialization or secure communications framework? I mean, building these infrastructure pieces is fun, but even more fun is pulling these pieces together to build something that's never been built before.
Monday, Mar 8, 2004, 8:51 AM in .NET
WinFS Scenario #3: Easing the Development Process
Jeremy Mazner has posted another in his series of compelling WinFS scenarios. Personally, this is one of my favorite, simply because it talks about the massive developer benefits of having an object-based stored built into the OS.
Sunday, Mar 7, 2004, 5:00 PM in .NET
European Longhorn Tour
The slides from the European tour showing off Longhorn are available on codezone.info. The usual topics are covered, i.e. Avalon, Indigo, WinFS, as well as an overview of Whidbey and a keynote from David Chappell on the foundations of creativity. I wish the vocals were up, too, but the slides are informative all by themselves.
Sunday, Mar 7, 2004, 9:59 AM
Enabling SSL On Your Server For Free
I have never really understood the machinations that you have to go through to enable SSL, but Scot Gellock has posted a script to simplify part of it, i.e. getting the certificate. And he does it with freely available tools, which is always a nice bonus. : )
Sunday, Mar 7, 2004, 9:52 AM in .NET
Rich Turner on Preparing Today for Indigo Tomorrow
Rich Turner, PM on the Indigo team, answers lots of FAQs related to Indigo and how to prepare for it today, including:
- How do I prepare my code and systems to ease my adoption of Indigo?
- Which current technologies should I use, where and when?
- How will Indigo interoperate with systems based on existing platform and technologies?
- How much of my code will I have to change to migrate my code to Indigo?
- How will Services Perform & Scale?
Thanks for pointing me at Rich, folks. I'm enjoying his Indigo blog a great deal!