Eric De Carufel: Volta et le futur de la plateforme .NET

Nous discutons avec Eric De Carufel de la technologie Volta et de son impact sur la plateforme .NET. Volta est une des technologies développées par Microsoft Research dans le cadre du projet Tesla.

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Last year, I bought a Dell Vostro 1700 with an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT 2560MB graphic card with a respectable rating of 4.5 for Aero and 5.1 for gaming.

Of course, one of the first thing I did was to download the latest drivers from the Nvidia Website.  To my surprise, Setup refused to install the drivers.  After a little digging, I found that these drivers, altought good for all Nvidia graphic cards (desktop + mobile), don't install on laptops.  Looks like Nvidia leaves that to the laptop manufacturers.

Looks like I was behind using ForceWare 156.69...

...so I went looking for upates on Dell's Website and I only found this:

Funny, Dell's latest drivers are dated June 2007 and version 101.43.  Hummm, not good but I decided to give them a try anyway.  Well, after the install, the Nvidia control panel reported that I was using ForceWare 101.43.  Doh!

Worse, the Vista Aero rating went down from 4.5 to 4.4!

Since that was stepping back, I did a little research and found the LaptopVideo2Go Website.  It's run by a bunch of enthousiasts that modify the INF file coming with the Nvidia setup so that the drivers are installable on laptops.  Interesting!

WARNING: This might void your warranty, cripple your laptop forever, bring deadly plagues to the earth, render your dog blind, get your hair on fire, etc.  Don't do this unless you backup your laptop, send flowers to your mother, give to United Way and learn to dance the salsa.  You've been warned!

So I downloaded the latest drivers from the LaptopVideo2Go Website along with the modified INF file and I installed them.  After the installation, the Nvidia control panel reported that I had ForceWare 169.09.  Cool!

Now what about that Vista rating?  Aero went back up to 4.5 and the gaming one went from 5.1 to 5.2.  Yeah!

While doing a little browsing, I found a product that let you program with PHP inside Visual Studio 2005 & 2008.  They even have a standalone version for those who don't have Visual Studio installed.  The price is dirt cheap: $99.  The only strange thing is that there is absolutely no info at all about the company on their Website.  Strange is you ask me.

www.jcxsoftware.com

Interesting article in Wired this month by Leander Kahney called How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong.

I keep telling people that the Microsoft that we have in 2008 is not the same Microsoft we had in the 80s-90s and I keep telling people that altought Apple puts out great and fantastic products, it is the new (old) Microsoft.  The Wired article explains the whole thing a lot better me.

After looking at Business Objects' Webpage about Crystal Reports 2008 for Visual Studio, you may conclude that the version included in Visual Studio 2008 is a "light" version of CR 2008.
http://www.businessobjects.com/product/catalog/crystalreports_visualstudio/

Well, not exactly.  Here are the CR 2008 Basic DLLs. Note the version?  Yep, that's 10.x

Here are the CR 2008 Full version DLLs. Note the version?  Yep, that's 12!

So CR 2008 Basic, the version bundled with Visual Studio 2008, is not a scaled down or a light version of CR 2008.  A quick call to Business Objects confirmed this.  They said that it was version 10 along with some version 11 enhancements.  IMHO, this will create a lot of confusion.  They should have used a different name.

Now that Crystal Reports 2008 SP0 provide support for Visual Studio 2008, I installed it.  Here's a screenshot of the setup process.  Note that they kept the same product name as the one used in Visual Studio.

I was told (but did not test) that if you already installed CR 2008 Basic as part of the Visual Studio 2008 installation and you install Crystal Reports 2008, the Setup will upgrade your files from 10.x to version 12.  There's no side by side installation possible.

Since it was impossible to move reports files from CR 2008 Basic to pre CR 2008 SP0, I wanted to test if they fixed that with SP0.  Yep, it now works.

Laurent Duveau: Les nouveautés de la conférence MIX 2008

Nous discutons avec Laurent Duveau des nouveautés annoncées dans le cadre de la conférence MIX 2008 à laquelle Laurent a assisté. MIX est une conférence tenue annuellement pour les développeurs et les designers Web qui présente les dernières nouveautés produites par Microsoft pour la programmation Internet.

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Doing a little search on some of the new IE8 features, I found this page listing a series of IE8 whitepapers:
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ie8whitepapers

Amongst other things, you'll find documents on Activities, WebSlices and the Developer Tools.

Interesting enough, eBay supports Activities and WebSlices right now:
http://ie8.ebay.com/

[From Eric Moreau]

Ever wish you could test a LINQ query without pressing F5 in Visual Studio?  Book author Joseph Albahari who wrote C# 3.0 in a NutShell has released LINQPad, a free tool that let you do just that.  Coolness factor: 11!

[From Eric Moreau]

PowerCommands is a set of cool and useful Visual Studio 2008 extensions.  Free + source code is included.

http://www.visualstudiogallery.com/ExtensionDetails.aspx?ExtensionID=df3f0c30-3d37-4e06-9ef8-3bff3508be31

At Mix08, I had the chance to record a quick interview with Qixing Zheng. Qixing is a UX advisor for Microsoft Canada.  If you're doing anything UX related and you're in Canada, make sure to bookmark the Canadian UX Connection blog.

Mix08-Qixing.mp3 (2.6 MB)

[Follow up from my previous post]

OK, more info....

A quick call to Business Objects lead to this:

• CR 2008 Basic is NOT a scaled down version of CR 2008 "Full".  It is in fact version 10 + some features from version 11
• There are NO versions (9,10,11,2008) of CR that are compatible with VS 2008
• BO will release an update to CR 2008 that will make it compatible with VS 2008
• It will be possible to load the reports created with the "Basic" version in the "Full" updated version.  I must say that the person at the end of the line was very vague about this. 

After that call, I did a little research and found that CR 2008 SP0 was released just a couple of days ago.  That version is now compatible with VS 2008.
http://technicalsupport.businessobjects.com/cs/forums/thread/19171.aspx
http://support.businessobjects.com/communityCS/TechnicalPapers/cr_2008_supported_platforms_windows_sp0.pdf.asp
http://support.businessobjects.com/downloads/service_packs/crystal_reports_en.asp

I'd like to thank Rod Paddock for doing his Annual Canadian User Group World Tour again this year.  He spoke on Monday in Montreal, then Tuesday in Ottawa and finally Wednesday in Toronto.

The fun part was getting to Montreal.  Rod attended Mix08 in Las Vegas the week before and instead of flying home to Seattle then fly again to Montreal, he decided to fly from Vegas to Montreal. 

Rod'd original itinerary was to fly from:

1. Las Vegas to Detroit
2. Detroit to Montreal

Well, the North East was hit with a major snow storm so Rod final itinerary looked like this:

1. Las Vegas to Detroit
2. Detroit to New York
3. Saying no to a 10 hours bus ride (+ 3 hours at customs) to Montreal
4. New York to Detroit
5. Detroit to Montreal

Thanks a lot Rod for really really wanting to do this tour!

BTW, Rod is a fantastic speaker and he is on the INETA's speakers bureau.  If you're an INETA user group, make sure to invite Rod at some point.

Any Crystal Reports experts here?  Not sure if I get this right....

There are 2 versions of CR 2008: the one that is bundled with Visual Studio 2008 called "Basic" and the "Full" one that you buy from Business Objects.

• CR 2008 Basic cannot load CR 2008 "Full" reports.
• CR 2008 "Full" is not compatible with VS 2008 until Bussiness Objects release a SP/update in Q2 2008.
• CR 2008 Basic reports can't migrate to CR 2008 "Full".

So I can't use CR 2008 "Full" right now in my VS 2008 projects and by using the Basic version, I will be cornered because I won't be able to upgrade my reports to the "Full" version.

That can't be right!

More info @ www.guvsm.net

Prochaine assemblée: lundi 10 mars
 
Conférencier: Rod Paddock, éditeur de CoDe Magazine, Seattle USA
(English presentation)

Part 1: News from Mix08
In the first part of his talk, Rod Paddock will report on the announcements made at Mix08 the week before.  Mix is the Microsoft conference dedicated to Web development.

Part 2: Top 10 NET Open Source tools
The title says it all. This session will cover some of the best open source project for .NET developers. Unit testing, version control, control kits, AJAX tools and so on. This session will cover a plethora of open source .NET projects.

Rod is president and founder of Dash Point Software, Inc. DPSI is an award winning software company based in Seattle, WA, specializing in application development and software training. Dash Point specializes in Visual Studio .NET, VB 6, Visual FoxPro, and SQL Server development. Dash Point Software was the winner of the 1999 Visual FoxPro Excellence Award and a finalist in 1998. Dash Point was also a finalist in 1996 at Windows World Open. Rod has been a very popular speaker at a wide variety of developer conferences in North America and Europe since 1995. His most recent speaking appearance was at the XML Connections conference in October 2002. Rod is the editor for CoDe Magazine and his writing credits include articles for database publications such as Data Based Advisor, FoxTalk and Dbase Advisor. He has also authored a number of books including Visual Basic 5 for Web Development, Visual Basic 6 for Web Development, and Visual FoxPro 6.0 Enterprise Development. Rod is also the V.P. of Technology for Red Matrix Technologies and the architectural visionary behind the DataClas middle-tier component and SQLAudit product lines.

Seeing the CEO of a large company answering non scripted questions from an audience is remarkable.  Too bad people will only remember this:

While Laurent Duveau's French (from south of France) accent was a hit with the ladies at the Mix08 attendees party at Tao, my French Canadian accent only got the attention of this Rum & Coke.

Beside Elvis, I had a chance to meet other celebrities in Vegas like the famous Ben & Jerry.  Frankly, they are a little annoying but give 'em a glass of bourbon (the cheap stuff you know) and they go away annoying other poor souls.

One of the coolest demos shown at the Mix08 keynote was the Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia Website created by the folks at Vertigo using SilverLight 2 Beta 1.  It is using a technique called Deep Zoom.  Very cool and impressive.

http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

Check the keynote and Scott Stanfield's session on Deep Zoom here:
http://sessions.visitmix.com/

All the Mix08 sessions are now available online in streaming and download mode.  You can also the PowerPoints.  It's like attending the conference for free!

http://sessions.visitmix.com/

Yep, Elvis saw the (Silver) Light at Mix08.  That's what he told me after playing a hot guitar solo on Rock Band!