Good news for all those that own the original iPhone (the one made by Linksys).

There is a Windows Vista driver available at:

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Download_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1115417109934&packedargs=sku%3D1127783455701&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

I just ran across this little bit of humor in the Skype billing site.

I went to my bill for March (it is February now), I guess I cannot call into the future 'yet'!!!

In Windows Vista the Add/Remove Windows Components screen in Windows XP has been replaced with the Windows Features list.

Some of these option definately require a little more explaining than the tooltip info provided.

Luckily someone has figured out what every option means and posted quite a comprehensive guide on bleepingcomputer.com.

Go to: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial134.html

I finally updated my website some. I now use the RssToolkit from Dmitry Robsman to display my latest blog posts on the front page of my business website (www.develop-one.com).

The RssToolkit allows you to define an RssDataSource using drag-and-drop, just enter the url of the feed and create a gridview which binds against the RssDataSource. It's great!

The code has been updated since last year, but it runs like a charm!

Go to: http://blogs.msdn.com/dmitryr/archive/2006/03/26/561200.aspx

Update:
The project has been moved from Dmitry's blog to CodePlex. Go to: http://www.codeplex.com/ASPNETRSSToolkit.

My hosting provider send me an email today informing me that ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 is now available to all DiscountASP.NET customers. I guess I'll have to put some AJAX in my site, just because I can

The message did contain an interesting warning though:

Microsoft officially released ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 and we have installed AJAX 1.0 in the webserver GAC.
(More Info | KB Q10460)

Note: Microsoft has yanked out some features from the AJAX RTM and used the same version number for both v1.0 and the RTM. If you built apps with the RTM, they may not be backward compatible.

ASP.NET AJAX v1.0 is available for download!

Go to: http://ajax.asp.net/default.aspx?tabid=47

About ASP.NET AJAX:

"ASP.NET AJAX is a free framework for quickly creating a new generation of more efficient, more interactive and highly-personalized Web experiences that work across all the most popular browsers.

With ASP.NET AJAX, you can:

• Create next-generation interfaces with reusable AJAX components.
• Enhance existing Web pages using powerful AJAX controls with support for all modern browsers.
• Continue using Visual Studio 2005 to take your ASP.NET 2.0 sites to the next level.
• Access remote services and data directly from the browser without writing a ton of complicated script.
• Enjoy the benefits of a free framework with 24x7 technical support provided by Microsoft."

Mark Gibbs has a cool column on Network World where he compares a quote by George Lucas with developing software.

George Lucas has been quoted as saying that "A movie is never finished, only abandoned."

Software is never finished, it is release when deemed usable and new versions appear as features get added and bugs get fixed.

George is, as far as I know, one of the first directors to release new and improved versions of Star Wars, adding scenes as if he was adding features.

I'll be working the Ask the Expert booth at the Windows Vista lauch event in Portland, ME. Hope to see you there!

Yesterday I reinstalled my new laptop with Vista x64. I figured since the Centrino Duo processor is 64bit I should at least run a 64bit operating system.

Ofcourse I forgot to backup my email and my last backup was a couple of days old. Hope I didn't loose anything too important, anyway. A bunch of stuff doesn't run on 64bit.

For instance the driver for my Linksys iPhone doesn't work, luckily my laptop has build in speaker and microphone, nevertheless I logged a support mail at Linksys, let's see what happens.

Microsoft Office 2007 runs like a charm on 64bit. Cool!

Next I discovered that I need a 64bit version of VirtualPC. No problem, just downloaded the VirtualPC 2007 x64 beta and installed it. My heart started beating a little faster when I remembered I had at least one virtual machine in saved state mode. Guess what? No problem! Just added the existing Virtual Machine, it recognized my save state and booted like a charm!

Windows Live Toolbar has some issues in 64bit. It seems that some of the toolbar buttons, most importantly the 'MSN Weather' button does not install :-(  Luckily my Windows Live Favorites is working though!

Plaxo (www.plaxo.com) runs fine on Outlook 2007 so that's great too.

My NVidia driver is working, but the fancy desktop management stuff doesn't install :-(

All in all I'm pretty pleased with how things are running.

The Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 Launch Event in Maine will be held on the 13th of February 2007 in Portland, ME.

Location:

Portland Marriott at Sable Oaks
200 Sable Oaks Drive
South Portland Maine 04106
United States

There will be Developer, IT Pro and manager sessions!

Sign up: http://www.microsoft.com/business/launch2007/signup/default.mspx

Our usergroup (the SDN) uses a sharepoint site to communicate amongst the guys organizing the events. Great tool. Internet Explorer however kept asking me to re-enter my password. The solution appears to be to add the site your list of Intranet sites.

Below a screenshot of how to do that:

Next make sure that you've enabled automatic logon in the security settings of your Local Intranet Zone (this is default).

My new laptop arrived this weekend, after removing the usual junk I sat down and installed Windows Vista, Office 2007 and VirtualPC 2007 (RC). I have to say it's running like a charm!

Laptop specs: Latitude D820, Intel Core 2 Duo T7200, 2.00GHz, 667Mhz 4M L2 Cache, Dual Core, 15.4 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD (1920x1200), 4.0GB of memory, 512MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 120M TurboCache, 100GB Hard Drive 9.5MM 7200RPM.

With a docking station I have my 20inch regular screen to run Vista in dual screen mode. Excellent

I've submitted another suggestion on the VS2005 feedback site:

Improve the documentation feature of Visual Studio.

Right now in ASP.NET you can switch between 2 views: design and code.

Similarly I would like to be able, for a *.cs file to switch between code and documentation.

This would improve the usefulness of the documentation, by making the documentation more visible the quality go up, because developers will put more effort into it.

Again, feel free to vote for this feature if you think it is a good idea: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=251027

Sadly it does not appear to be possible to define a custom AutoFormat scheme for Visual Studio. I'd love to be able to implement a customers presentation guide line as a scheme so when I add a new table to a page I can just select AutoFormat and choose 'Develop-One Corporate color'

I've submitted this as a suggestion on the Microsoft feedback site. Feel free to vote for it: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=250988

The day started off great! Just received an email informing me I've been awarded the MVP Award 2007.

Thanks to my MVP contact person Gerard Verbrugge and the whole MVP team at Microsoft!!!!

Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Service Pack 1 is now available as a download from MSDN.

Go to: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BB4A75AB-E2D4-4C96-B39D-37BAF6B5B1DC&mg_id=10055&displaylang=en

Service Pack 1 also provides over 70 improvements for common development scenarios including:

• New processor support (e.g., Core Duo) for code generation and profiling
• Performance and scale improvements in Team Foundation Server
• Team Foundation Server integration with Excel 2007 and Project 2007
• Tool support for occasionally connected devices and SQL Server Compact Edition
• Additional support for project file based Web applications
• Windows Embedded 6.0 platform and tools support

The complete release notes can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/928957/.

As it turns out, it's pretty unclear what has been fixed in this service pack. The 'What's New in Visual Studio 2005 SP1' page doesn't provide any information. Back in September Somasegar promised to provide a list of fixes, but in his post about the release of SP1 he makes no mention of what has been fixed.

Update: a list of fixes in Visual Studio 2005 SP1 can be found at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918526/en-us

A friend of mine in India had some problems with calling a Java web service from .NET 2.0 using web references generated using Visual Studio 2005. Some serialization error occured, but the message was very much useless.

I recommended using WSCF to them and as it turns out the WSCF gave a much more detailed message pinpointing the error to a namespace issue on the Java side.

WSCF is a tool created by Thinktecture supporting the Web Service Contract First approach to developing web services.