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« September 2006 | Main | November 2006 »
I've seen this confusion several times, so I thought I'd do some explaining of what is going on with ActiveX support in LabVIEW. I'll get the quick version for those with A.D.D., and then go into the details.
Quick Version: Browsing for an ActiveX library is really browsing for the type library (TypeLib). Thus it has no effect on the locating of the component at runtime.
Alright, the dream I've dreamt since starting this blog is coming true - a blog that gives an informal look inside the world of VIs. Yes, I must confess that it's inspired by Microsoft's Channel 9, but it's the best form of flattery, right?
Anyway, you can learn more about the mission here, or just start watching.
So, after I wrote that, I discovered a feature of the Blue Man Group site to make my own ad for the show! HA!
Thus, my creation is unleashed on the world.
Okay, this is a personal posting, so if you are uninterested in my personal life - or if you plan on seeing the Blue Man Group's How to be a Megastar Tour 2.0 - pass over (spoilers).
Sorry that I haven't posted much lately on the tech side of things. Right now I'm simply working on features for the next release of LabVIEW and working with a team of folks to ensure our products roll out on Vista when it releases. However, if you have anything specific you'd like to learn about, please feel free to shoot me an email.
But enough of that, let's talk about me.
Okay...um....ooookaaayyyyy.....hmm......well....???
If the goal of marketing is to get people talking, then this succeeds. If the goal is to get them to talk about your product....hmmm....well....
You be the judge. Actually, I did find it kinda funny in a horror-facination kinda way...
I downloaded the community technical preview (CTP) of the next version of Visual Studio.NET ("Orcas") the other day. I was startled to discover that at the end of the download, what I had was a virtual machine image, not an installer.
Virtual machine technology is what allows you to run a different operating system on your machine without rebooting - it simply runs as an application. Both Microsoft, and the ruling king - VMWare, are investing heavily in bringing this technology to more common uses. It's been around forever, but only in the last couple of years as it been seen outside specialized areas, such as testing or software evaluation (note, Try LabVIEW is accomplished through virtual machines hosted on a server).
I'm very curious to see how this CTP sequence plays out. The VM software from Microsoft is free, updates are smaller (VM's support "diff" hard drives, which contain only the changed sectors and merge with the original) and I don't need a dedicated machine to test it on.
The downsides are that the first download is huge (3Gb for VS.NET - must include the OS as well as everything else), it takes a beefy machine to run a VM on top of it, and you don't have access to hardware (except the common things like network cards)...this last is a bit of a problem for us here at National Instruments :)
So it raises the question - would you want to try out software, either for evaluation or for betas, via a virtual machine? Have you had much experience with them? Let me know.
