Bander ALSHARFI

Moving to IBloggedSomething.Com

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 07:40:00 +0200

hey people I'm moving to a new domain:

Microsoft Windows Boot Screen (Startup)

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 19:47:30 +0200

Just installed Windows Vista RTM on my laptop =) yeah the RTM at last!!
I have been waiting for this moment since 2003, remember the Longhorn Build 4028? hehe

What took my attention is that the Windows startup screen is beeing changed with every major release, minor changes such as changing the colors of the progressbar or the logo it self. When I installed the RTM I was kind of eager to see the new logo because I couldn't find it since the Beta 1 release. grasping my breath and waiting for that screen to show up, and bang!!! the same Beta and RC bootup screen =( I thought that my Vista RTM copy is not working properly! and as always started using windows live search (code name google-ing) hehe dont tell anybody =p to find out what's wrong with my bootup screen. One of the interesting content was basicly residing at Long's blog " I Started Somthing "

Long's blog post:

Millions of computers starts each day with an image to remind users of which operating system they’re using. Here’s a look back at 22 years worth of the most agonizing waits in history.

Windows 1.01: Since the blue-screen-of-death has yet to be ~~invented~~ introduced, this color combination was fairly acceptable. Credits: PCForum.hu	Windows 3.1: The first and last vertical bootscreen. The designer must have just found the color palette, bevel and drop shadow commands in Photoshop. Credits: PCForum.hu
Windows 95: Clouds and infinite-scroll animation introduced. Copyright missing-in-action. Credits: WinSuperSite	Windows NT 4.0: Dark and scary. Borders make a return. First bootscreen to feature the Microsoft logo. Credits: Dabestsite
Windows 98: Better looking clouds for a better operating system. Copyright still missing-in-action. Credits: Windows Nation	Windows 2000: Clouds removed. Copyright return. SKUs introduced. Barely-accurate progress bar invented. Credits: The Best Website Ever
Windows ME: Just as colorful as the operating system experience. Progress bar abolished. Credits: Windows Nation	Windows XP: First white-on-black bootscreen. SKU branding (re)introduced, infinite-scroll color varied by SKU. Credits: The Elder Geek
Windows XP SP2: All operating systems are created equal - Microsoft no longer discriminates SKUs. Copyright years removed. Credits: Win History	Windows Server 2003: No points for knowing where this was inspired was. Credits: Toasty Technology

Windows Vista just has to be different. The first thing you’ll notice is there are two bootscreens, separating the low-level code and branding experience. The first bootscreen is an ultra-minimalistic scrolling animation featuring thin green lines which is only accompanied by a short copyright text. The second bootscreen features a full-resolution 32-bit animated glowing Windows pearl, synchronized together with the official startup sound. Credits: Ed Bott

It’s interesting to see how progressively smaller the Microsoft text gets.

Office Developer Live!

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:33:27 +0200

Do you want more power behind your Office-based applications? Check out Office Developer Live!: Master Office Application Development, your pain relief for application development. This series shows you how to build forms using Microsoft Office applications like Word and Excel—the most familiar user interfaces in the industry—that are quick to write, secure, and easy to manage, maintain, and deploy. Learn how to design and write smart client applications, access the Microsoft .NET framework, debug, write managed code, and design Excel and Word-based user interfaces directly from the .NET 2005 IDE using Visual Basic or C#.

http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/officedeveloperlive.mspx

October 2006 Community Technology Preview of Microsoft Visual Studio Code-Named “Orcas”

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:28:04 +0200

Microsoft Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" is the next generation development tool for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System, and the Web is avilable for download.

The highlights of this CTP include:

ADO.NET 3.0 Advancements
- ADO.NET Entity Framework: The ADO.NET Entity Framework enables developers to program against relational data in terms of entities. This representation often more closely matches the shape of the data that is desired for application logic than the shape of tables, columns, and rows found in the database.
- Entity SQL language support: The Entity Framework and Entity SQL together represent a richer data model and query language and have been designed to enable applications such as CRM, ERP, data-intensive services such as Reporting Services, Business Intelligence, Replication, Synchronization, and data-intensive application developers to model and manipulate data at a level of structure and semantics that is closer to their business. NOTE: Look for future CTP’s to contain LINQ to Entities support here as well.
- Object to Entity mapping : This mapping enables developers to program against the database using .NET Objects. This is great for applications that want to write business logic with data returned from the store or want to use objects for binding data to a user interface.
- Enhanced .NET Data Provider model to work with ADO.NET Orcas features. ADO.NET 2.0 providers can be updated to support the Entity Framework, object mapping, and in future CTP’s LINQ.
- For more information, see http://msdn.microsoft.com/data/ref/adonetnext/default.aspx
LINQ over XML (XLinq)
- Core functionality of the XLinq API such as load, modify, and save XML documents
- Annotation support with a lightweight, typed, but general purpose annotation mechanism that can be used to associate information such as line numbers, schema types, and application objects with specific nodes in an XLinq tree.
Multi-targeting
- Support multitargeting within the IDE by enabling Visual Studio to leverage MSBuild using the tasks and targets that were shipped in Visual Studio 2005. Additionally, command line solutions will build using the toolset appropriate for the .NET Framework version that is being targeted.
Improved 64bit application working set
- On 64bit systems better code layout in system assemblies will result in improved working set.
Lightweight reader/writer lock with deadlock-free upgrade support.
- The new System.Threading.ReaderWriterLockSlim class supports basic read and write locks, allowing for better scalability for read-only concurrent worker scenarios. As its name implies, this lock performs anywhere from 2x to 5x better than the existing ReaderWriterLock class, and scales better on multi-processor and multi-core machines. This type also supports upgradeable-read support: if code needs to inspect some state before deciding to acquire the write-lock, upgradeable-reads allow concurrency-safe reading with an optional deadlock-free upgrade to write. Recursion is also disabled by default, helping to write correct code, with an optional recursive mode turned on at lock instantiation time.
A high performance trace listener which logs XML to disk in the event schema.
- The System.Diagnostics.EventSchemaTraceListener is the first listener in the namespace which is highly tuned for logging performance. Similar to the XMLWriterTraceListender, this trace listener logs XML to disk. In particular, this type logs in the event schema, which is shared by some other new technologies. This tracelistener has performance which is drastically improved over previous logging tracelisteners, especially on machines with multiple processors. Additionally, this is the first trace listener which allows many different disk logging options, such as circular logging across multiple files
Getting VSTO and/or controls off machine policy/legacy policy migration
- Developers of managed browser controls can now create manifests for their controls and Authenticode sign the manifests. An enterprise can then choose to trust the controls by manifest signature, rather than modifying CAS policy. This provides a bridge from the CAS policy trust model to the trusted publisher model in Orcas.
Security Platform Parity - Suite B support: AES
- Cryptography developers can now use the FIPS-certified implementations of advanced SHA hashing algorithms and AES encryption algorithm in managed code. These classes follow the same familiar patterns as the existing cryptography algorithms, making it easy for developers to use the new classes right away.
A new date time data structure that can specify an exact point in time relative to the UTC time zone.
- The current DateTime is insufficient at specifying an exact point in time. DateTimeOffset represents a date time with an offset. It is not meant to be a replacement for DateTime; it should be used in scenarios involving absolute points in time. DateTimeOffset includes most of the functionality of the current DateTime API and allows seamless conversion to DateTime as well.
New IO types that expose almost all pipe functionality provided by Windows.
- Pipes can be used to achieve inter-process communication (IPC) between any process running on the same machine, or on any other windows machine within a network. We’ve added managed support for both anonymous pipes and named pipes. Anyone familiar with streams should be comfortable using these new APIs to achieve IPC.
A new high performance set collection.
- HashSet is a new generic collection that has been added to the System.Collections.Generic namespace. It is an unordered collection that contains unique elements. In addition to the standard collection operations, HashSet provides standard set operations such as union, intersection, and symmetric difference.

Setup Instructions

To install, follow these instructions in the exact order shown

Download and install Virtual PC 2004 SP1 (or Virtual Server 2005 R2 )
Download the Base image (one-time only): Save the self-extracting base image VSCTPBase.exe and extract to a folder on your computer. This base contains the Operating system and is common to all "Orcas" CTPs.
Click the Download button on this page to download all parts of the Visual Studio Code Name Orcas October CTP. The first part is a self-extracting EXE and will prompt for the other parts.
Click on the self extracting VSOct2006CTP.part01.exe to extract all the files. Extract these files to the same folder as the base. The VSOct2006CTP* files contains all the new VS content and will change from CTP to CTP. You will need to read and accept the EULA before extraction proceeds.
Launch the Virtual PC Console using Start|Programs|Microsoft Virtual PC.
Click the New button to launch the “New Virtual Machine Wizard”.
Navigate to the Options page and select "Add An existing Virtual Machine" radio button.
Click the Browse button and navigate to the location you extracted the files to and select VSOct2006CTP.vmc image
You will be prompted for the location of the base image and you should point to the Base01.vhd that you extracted earlier and click OK
Clear the “When I finish, open settings” checkbox and click OK
Select the new image entry and click Start
To logon to the machine, click on Action Menu (Shortcut: Right Alt+Del) on the VPC console and use the credentials above.
If you are using Virtual Server R2, you might need to use the "Inspect disk" option to find the differencing disk. Click here for instructions

To download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C09B5A2D-EB6A-44B6-8BBD-3764A2FDA9CE&displaylang=en

Vista and Office retail packages are out!

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 11:51:52 +0200

AJAX and Atlas recorded MSDN webcast!

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 07:35:00 +0200

How can you take advantage of Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) in your enterprise Web applications? Which solutions could benefit the most from AJAX capabilities? How does AJAX relate to other solution models like smart clients and traditional Web applications? In this webcast, we address these questions with an overview of ASP.NET code name "Atlas," a free AJAX-based framework from Microsoft. Learn about the capabilities of the "Atlas" framework, and see demonstrations and sample code that illustrate what is involved in implementing an "Atlas"-based solution. We conclude with a look at how "Atlas" compares to other solution models, and recommendations on choosing the best approach for different scenarios.

To register: http://mseventsmicrosoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032306960&CountryCode=US

2007 Microsoft Office System Virtual Labs

noreply@blogspirit.com () — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:59:48 +0200

The 2007 Microsoft Office System delivers an entirely new level of programmability and extensibility to Office client applications and new scenarios via Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It's simple — no complex setup or installation is required to try out 2007 Microsoft Office System running in the full-featured MSDN Virtual Lab.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/virtuallabs/office/default.aspx