Lycangeek

Virtual Visual Studio

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.

A Real .NET 3.0 Application

.NET 3.0, previously known as WinFX, has not shipped yet, but it's almost there. So far, I've seen mostly demonstration applications and prototypes written on it. But today I ran across a real application - the NY Times, of all people, have rolled out a free newspaper reader based on the Windows Presentation Foundation. I've been playing with it for a bit now and I've got to say it's so much nicer than a browser. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

I can't believe that company

I can't believe that company! They are a practical monopoly. They leverage their monopoly in one market to dominate another and crush competition. They use proprietary standards. They actively resist competitors from integrating with their solutions. Of course, I'm talking about

Videos from Lang.NET 2006

Last month, I attended the first .NET language symposium held by Microsoft - Lang.NET 2006. You can read about day one, day two and day three. I'm happy to report that they now have the videos of the presentations freely available to download. Reading my daily reports might give you an idea of what you want to watch, or reading the speakers page itself.

However, I strongly recommend the one on Second Life, simply because it's both entertaining and mind-blowing. The first half is a higher level overview of Second Life and what it all means (very mind-blowing) and the second half is one of the most impressive uses of the .NET system I've seen in a long time. In a previous life I wrote a product that dynamically modified .NET code as it was loaded in, so I can say that what they've done is very non-trivial and very impressive. Wish I had the chance to have done that!

Windows Integrity Control

This posting does a good job explaining the new feature, but here's a quick summary.

In addition to the normal ACL security checks that we've come to know and love, Vista has added a new layer called integrity control. Effectively, every ACL controlled item (you, files, folders, processes, threads, registry keys, etc.) now has an integrity level of one of the following: low, medium, high or system.

So, a process running at low integrity (IE7 uses this in it's protected mode) doesn't have access to anything marked above that (e.g., the user's files). This is why IE7 items downloaded from the internet (which run in low integrity) can only access special temp folders and not your documents.

Unlike the UAC aspects of Vista, which are hard to miss, this new layer is going to be mostly hidden to everyone except the hackers - it primarily blocks standard attack routes into Windows. However, if you do experience an issue with it, or know of software that is going to have problems, please feel free to post it here - or better yet, let Steve Riley know!

MSDN Wiki

Here's a handy little reference for those doing Windows programming - the Wiki version of MSDN. At the moment the added content is pretty sparse, but I imagine that the folks at MSDN are hoping for a Wikipedia-like explosion of content...well, the glass could be half full...what's that? A cautious optimist?

Now, I'm not a lawyer, and I fell asleep halfway through reading the license information for the contributed content, but it looks like it's a "post it here and it's free for the world, no guarantees, no patents, no noth'n"...but I could be wrong. Anyone out there an expert at these kinda things?

According to the FAQ, the content you provide is immediate and any reviews are going to be community based, rather than some sort of MS filter, so caveat emptor on the correctness of the content! However, I've personally found that the PInvoke equivalent has been very accurate and helpful - not perfect, but much better than starting from stratch.

Best Places to Start a Career

Just wanted to do a bit-o-bragging on NI - I try to stay pretty tech focused, but this one was pretty cool so I thought I'd diverge a bit...

Now, I started my career here at NI, so I've always been pretty pleased, but I didn't realize they ranked it! (We're #14) So apparently we're one of the best places to work, and to start working.

Windows Vista Resource Page

Just wanted to let everyone know that we've got the Windows Vista resource page up at ni.com now: www.ni.com/vista

This is a starting point for the information regarding our software and hardware support for Vista, as well as some things for your own apps to look out for. It's still pretty early in it's life - I know there's a lot of information still to be put up - but let us know what you think of it. ESPECIALLY IF IT DOESN'T ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS - LET ME KNOW! If we don't hear from you, then how do we know what are frequently asked questions? :)

FolderShare Live!

Ran across this today - I've been hearing about Google coming out with internet "hard drives", but haven't seen it yet (not counting this interesting bit-o-software I found while searching around). This is the Microsoft offering and it sounds pretty good - here's the quote on what it is. You can read the full description here.

FolderShareTM allows you to create a private peer-to-peer network that will help you to synchronize files across multiple devices and access or share files with colleagues and friends. You no longer need to send large files via email, burn them to CDs/DVDs and mail them, or upload them to a website. FolderShare allows you to share and sync important information instantly with anyone you invite, making it the perfect solution for personal or small business use.

Google Books and How Spoiled I Am

As you may have already heard, Google is making books in the public domain freely downloadable. I think this is an outstanding idea and I can't wait to see the list grow.

However, I find myself becoming spoiled by this sort of access. How many times have you tried to remember what it was like before the internet explosion?...