:C#, VS Deployment and all geek talk

Visual Studio.NET Service Packs are due this year, but their site is up already (The site clearly mentions it is still in process)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/servicing/default.aspx

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Update: Due to the completion of the beta program, the nominations are not longer accepted.

Please nominate yourself at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/beta/preregister.mspx  for the next change to participate. Beta 2 should be open to public in the end of summer.

I will be deleting all the email addresses posted on this blog to prevent spam to your inboxes.

Sincere apologies, and check around summer for Beta 2.

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Do you want to check out Vista before it is released to market and be a partner in helping Microsoft ship a fantastic Operating system.

Well, here is your chance. If you are in US and want to test drive Windows Vista, drop a comment with your email address and I will arrange to send a Beta invite to you.

Play with Vista and find out how this OS will impact your life.

PS: You should be familiar with installing/reinstalling the OS. A beta product is not guaranteed to be stable.

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Microsoft Research has released a first public build of their Virtual India research project. Language choices for the UI and map labels include English, Hindi, Kannada, and Tamil.

Virtual Earth blog:

“Before trying it out, I strongly encourage you to read more about the project at their site for background. Then check out the application. Street level maps are limited to Bangalore for this release, but they are working to integrate more base map data into future builds. This is a great first release and I’m looking forward to seeing where they take this. A discussion forum for the project is availible if you’d like to send feedback to the team working on this.”

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With the beta version of Windows Live Mail available and me already having got my hands dirty toying with it, here’s what my wish list would look like:

• Search: Ability to search for email across all folder. I could not find a button by which I could search in the current version of Windows Live Mail.
  
• Ability to configure an email to be sent at a predetermined time (something like the current facility in Microsoft Outlook): That way I can compose all the birthday emails at one go and configure them to be sent on the BDays of my friends and relatives, and never get an response like “You forgot my birthday“
  
• Stationary: No stationary. OK I am asking too much, but if Live Mail want to better GMail, I demand it. Or atleast provide a few templates and enable saving custom stationary.
  
• Sort: Current version does not allow me to sort the email on the basis of “From”, “Subject”, “Date”. How about adding that feature?
  
• Meeting requests: Ability to accept meeting requests and add them to my calender. The earlier version of Hotmail did have this feature and getting 2GB of mail box space is not worth losing that fantastic feature.
  
• You have mail: How about Outlook web access like notification that you have new mail. In the current version, you dont know if you have new mail Such a notification will be really appreciated.

More to come as I continue to use the new feature.

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While we are on the topic of System.Web.Mail, it is important to note a new namespace in version 2.0 of the .NET Framework.  There is a brand new namespace for sending mail via managed code, it is called System.Net.Mail.  Have no fear, System.Web.Mail is still accessible in v2.0 but it is deprecated.  (Which means v2.0 won’t break your code but you should strongly consider using System.Net.Mail in new development.)  The documentation for System.Web.Mail is updated to reflect this.

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Do you have some students who want to learn Visual Basic .NET or C# on their own? Or perhaps you want to learn them as part of your own professional development. Well if so, Microsoft has a free series of lessons for absolute beginners. They look pretty good to me. I am sure that may others will find them useful as well.

Visual Basic Express – http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/learning/default.aspx

Visual C# Express – http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualcsharp/learning/default.aspx

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Download links

• WinFX Runtime Components (Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation) 
  
• WinFX SDK (documentation and command-line tools)
  
• VS2005 Extensions for WinFX Runtime Components (templates and IntelliSense for WPF and WCF in Visual Studio 2005)
  
• VS2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation (templates and IntelliSense for WF in Visual Studio 2005)
  
• WinFX RC Nov CTP “Readme” (general notes and warnings)

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With a plethora of blogs floating on the internet, it is hard to find the blogs which make a difference. Below is a collection of blogs of authors whose books we have read and blogs of people who make the technology.

I spent some time to find out such information and post it so that it will be useful for people who want to hear (read) from the horse’s mouth.

Below are the links of blogs of personalities whose blogs I find interesting to read:

There are many others whose blogs I read and I will be updating this site as soon as I get some time. If you feel that there is more to the list, please leave me a comment and I will check it out.

Who’s who in the list above:

Charles Petzold: The guru of Windows programming. Since Windows 3.1, he has been writing books on Windows programming. If anyone can talk on Windows programming, he can.

Don Box: The architect of the next version of Windows (Vista) and the geek (not Greek) mythology that shadows it can be answered by him and him only. When not confusing (enlightening) me on the future of Messages & designing the next generation of Windows, he takes time to write a blog and is quite humorous in his style.

Stanley Lippman: C++ guys should watch out for his blog

Somasegar: When the Corporate VP of Developer Division at Microsoft writes, the developers across the blog read, coz what he writes about affects their bread and butter. His is the blog to look out for happening in the Microsoft Developer Tools camp.

Brad Abrams: No one speaks of the CLR internals with as much clarity as the Lead Program Manager of CLR team at Microsoft.

Scott Hanselman: ASP.NET guys and .NET developers in general cannot afford to miss this blog. His post in the questions every .NET developer should know (link) should be familiar to anyone appearing for interviews for .NET positions.

C# FAQ: The C# team at Microsoft has a FAQ blog, which is updated by C# team and C# MVPS.

Sahil Malik: Kiss-ass attitude is what I like about his blog. His latest book Professional ADO.NET 2.0 is selling wonders. His language may be rough, but he gets his point across.

Robert Scoble: Think blog! Meet Robert Scoble. No, RSS does not stand for Robert Scoble Syndication, but this guys writes all about Microsoft, good and bad. Hats off to him.

Larry Osterman: His is a very geeky blog and he explains everything in detail.

Comments are very welcome and if my limited reading should be expanded, please mention who I missed in this list.

PS:.As I am writing this, I know Robert will scold me for not formatting it nicely. Sorry Robert, but I am a HTML dummy.

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