In the same "dogfooding" spirit as the previous experiments done by some of my colleagues how chose to switch to a Tablet PC, a Windows Server 2003 or running as non "Admin" on their default machine, I will start in September the experience of using an AMD64 laptop running Windows XP for 64 Bit Extended Systems as my default machine.
I have this Compaq Presario R3160US for a couple of months now, and I've installed nearly all what I need on it. It's running a Microsoft internal build of Windows XP for 64 bit Extended Systems, and since this morning, it is also running SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 and Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 in 64 Bit mode. Of course, the Office 2003 suite and Outlook are installed on it since day one, as well as a couple of other tools that compose my prefred toolbox.
First step, I leave on Friday on vacation, and this is the machine that I'll take with me this year. Yes, I dare :)
I'll try to blog on a regular basis to tell you the good, the bad and (hopefully not too much) of the ugly of this experience. Stay tuned.
Oh, by the way, if you actually own an AMD64 machine, chances are high that it is running a good old 32 bit Windows XP. Microsoft has announced an OS exchange program from 32 bit to 64 bit.
As most of us here are excited about testing and playing with the latest toys like Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 and SQL Server 2005 Beta 2, some people seem to be living on another planet, or to have spent too much time in a cavern. There are two articles on Builder.com introducing VI for programmers.
<TROLL>
Anyway, I always prefered Emacs ;-)
</TROLL>
Not a single failure in years of daily utilisation, and today, I keep having this kind of error... Do you experience the same?
My .NET news portal is offline, once again. This time, my hoster has explained me that the MySQL database that is used by the PHP-Nuke engine is corrupted, and that they' are investigating.
It's really time for me to move to the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit. I've worked on this migration last sunday, but it's still in progress. Thanks to this book, I'm now close to my goal.
[Update] Good news, my hoster has been able to restore the MySQL database. I left the parking static page, just in case... ;-))
The "Route 64" roadshow was in Los Angeles yesterday and will be in Boston tomorrow. The team was in Paris for a full day presenting the Microsoft 64 Bit Platform and Strategy on May 12th. I was there and I presented the session about managed code on Windows 64 Bit.
I wanted to widen the audience and I wrote the first of a serie of articles in French to introduce and present the platform. You can find this article here in French. An English translation is in works - thanks to Regis ;-)
It's the fourth .NET Framework based RSS aggregator that I try and adopt.
I first began with the first version of RssBandit when it came out as a code sample for an MSDN Magazine article. It was really simplistic, and the features were really limited. Then I moved to Syndirella which I used for a long time. Then I felt in love with SharpReader, but a couple of months back, I switched from SharpReader to RSSBandit 1.2 which is really nice on my home PC since SharpReader - for some obscure reasons - ate too much RAM with all the feeds I subscribed to.
Until this morning, my default reader was RSSBandit 1.2.0.9 on all my machines, but I've just tested a new one called Sauce Reader from Synop, and I think I like it. Though it's free for personal use, if I decide to keep it after four weeks of tests, I think that I'll buy a licence from those guys. It's pretty cheap and this nice work has to be encouraged.
This is the occasion for me to mention something I have observed on my machines, and I'd like to have a feedback on your personal experiences on that matter: from the four .NET based RSS aggregators that I've mentionned previously, I've experienced very different memory usage levels, and on some of them, I've has problems because of a poor UI responsiveness. Did you experiment the same?
Sam Gentile points to the latest version of Lutz Roeder's Reflector, version 4.0, which supports all versions of .NET Framework, inckuding .NET Compact Framework and future releases like 2.0 (Whidbey) and 1.5 (Longhorn preview).
I have the chance to put my hands on a brand new AMD64 powered Compaq laptop, running a beta version of Windows XP 64-Bits Edition, on which I installed a beta of Yukon 64-Bits for AMD64 and also a .NET Framework 2.0 for AMD64, taking advantage of it's 64 Bits processor.
I tryed to run Reflector 4.0 in the CLR64, but for some weird reasons, it refused to launch, even afterI provided a .config file - I have to dig out to understand what happens. Anyway, a simple ILDASM /OUT and ILASM did the trick and now I confirm that Reflector 4.0 also runs in 64 Bits .NET Framework ;-)
The DevDays 2004 in France was a roadshow of 7 cities and 8 stops (two dates in Paris, on March 30 and 31th). The .NET Developer Evangelists team with the Regional Director has seen something like 5000 developers. Great success as these posts can confirm.
And just one week after that, one of the main DevDays contributors, Pascal Belaud, also author of Olymars has opened a blog. Welcome Pascal, nice to have blogger in our team who will have something interesting to say, not like me ;-)
Subscribed, obviously!
This morning, I was googling looking for _I_cant_even_remember_what_ and I found a PDF white paper presenting an Australian project called Alchemi. This is a .NET based Grid Computing implementation designed and developped by the GRIDS department of the University of Melbourne with financial participation from Microsoft, according to an eWeek article. Sadly, the main website seems to be down I can't figure out what happened to this project or where it moved. Anyone has some hints?
I found this:
Benefits of Windows "Continuous Reinvention"
The Windows "continuous reinvention" strategy is intended to provide a simpler and more integrated computing experience for all users while maintaining compatibility with existing hardware and software, as well as providing customers with continued innovation through evolution. End users will experience easy-to-use connectivity to all types of information; corporations will continue to have a manageable, flexible environment with which to meet changing business conditions; and developers will have a rich and extensible environment while retaining a choice of languages and tools.
If you think that this is an excerpt from a PD03 keynote, you're pretty wrong ;-) This is taken from a Press Release back in 1997! The idea of innovation in the Windows platform wasn't born with Longhorn. It's nice to see that for some years, many efforts and research have been done to provide users a richer experience, and delivering always improved tools and platforms. I hope I'm still here in ten years to see what the Windows platform has become.
More Posts
« Previous page -
Next page »