MIX will be returning to the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas on March 5-7, 2008

I guess will be seeing stuff about Silverlight 1.1 

Scott Bellware: Ruby on Rails et l'impact sur .NET

Nous discutons avec Scott Bellware du langage Ruby et du framework "Rails" qui implément le motif de conception Modèle-Vue-Contrôleur pour les applications Web.

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Microsoft unveiled the company’s first surface computing product yesterday:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/surfacecomputing/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

This is not a personal computer that you'll likely to buy at your local retailer.  It looks like the next step in public information kiosks.

Check these videos:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/317737_msftdevice30.html

OMG!  Look at the screecast on the overview page.  Wow!
http://www.popfly.com/

It's a Web based mashup program build with Silverlight.  The Alpha is on invites only (à la GMail).

This is taken from the FAQ : 

Q-Why did you call it Popfly?
A-Well, left to our own devices we would have called it "Microsoft Visual Mashup Creator Express, May 2007 Community Tech Preview Internet Edition," but instead we asked some folks for help and they suggested some cool names and we all liked Popfly.

Have a little time to give?  Check out MatchIT, a brand new Website to help connect Canadian charities with volonteers IT professionals and Web developers.  This is such a great idea.  Kudos for the floks at MSDN Canada for bringing this idea into a reality!

http://matchit.imaginecanada.ca/MSImagine/Home.aspx

Can't resist posting this:
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9723221-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

But just imagine a Vista car...The racing team would need to update the drivers!

http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/pdc/

We are currently in the process of rescheduling this fall’s Professional Developer Conference. As the PDC is the definitive developer event focused on the future of the Microsoft platform, we try to align it to be in front of major platform milestones. By this fall, however, upcoming platform technologies including Windows Server 2008, SQL Server codenamed “Katmai,” Visual Studio codenamed “Orcas” and Silverlight will already be in developers’ hands and approaching launch, which is where we’ll focus our developer engagement in the near term. We will update this site when we have a new date for the PDC that is better timed with the next wave of platform technologies.

After looking for a while for a Wii console, I finally gathered enough intel to find one.  Here are my findings.  I should point that hese are for the Montreal region and they may vary from region to region.

Every major chain store (BestBuy, FutureShop, ToysRus) receives a shipment of about 25 consoles every two weeks.  It is the same week for all the chains so basically, it means that Nintendo is shipping to the stores every two weeks.

FutureShop receives them on Mondays or Tuesdays.
BestBuy on Fridays.
ToysRus on Saturdays.

You know you're in the right week when ToysRus says in their flyer that 20 consoles are available on a first come first serve basis.

That's it.  Good hunting!

OK, I finally bought a Wii and yes, it is as much fun as people say.

This is totally unusual for me because I never had a Nintendo console, I don't like the Nintendo games, I don't like the cuteness of the characters, I don't like the sounds...I just don't like Nintendo, period so it feel strange to see a Nintendo console in my living room.

First impressions:

The console is small and is perfect for a living room.  First thing my wife noticed was how small the box was and she couldn't believe how small the console was.  Form factor approved by the wife!

The UI is very well done.  It is easy to navigate thru the various menus.  There are some cute sounds but they don't get on the nerves.  Easy navigation approved by the wife!

I just couldn't have my wife play with me on the Xbox and the 360.  I bought "kiddy" games, cute games, easy games but she would not be interested at all.  I gave her the Wii controller and she played Wii Sports for 20 minutes right away.  Instant gratification, instant fun.  Wife approved!

The graphics are just terrible but it does not matter.  Wife does not care about graphics!

Build in wireless Internet access is great.  You can even surf the Web using a browser based on Opera and even get the weather and the news.  Wife cares about the weather!

Inspector Gadget should like this contest 

Be one of three winners in the ultimate competition to find the latest, greatest Canadian Windows Vista gadget.  Can your gadget withstand the competition?  Prove your mettle and steely resolve by building the next coolest gadget. Show your fellow developers what you’ve got. Score serious bragging rights—not to mention wicked prizes (a widescreen LCD HD TV, Xbox 360 Pro and a Dell LCD Monitor). And set the standard for future gadgets to come. Competition closes July 16, 2007 5:00 pm EST.

Get all the details here:
http://www.microsoft.com/canada/msdn/gadgetvsgadget/default.aspx

Microsoft annouced last Friday that it will aquire aQuantive for $6 billion (yep, billion!!!):
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/may07/05-18Advertising.mspx

So what does this means (my own thoughts)?

1. Microsoft has some money in the bank 
2. They are serious about getting into the ad business (Google?)
3. They are serious about getting into the designer market with Silverlight and Expression (Adobe?)
4. They will do their ad campaigns internally (they have to recoup part of the $6 billion!)

However, I'm not sure about the impact on medium to small Web agencies since Avenue A/Razorfish was one of the largest Web agencies in the world.  Will we see MCS consultants with spiked hair in the future?  Will Microsoft create best pratices for Web agencies?  Will that knowledge translate into new products for designers and or Web agencies/ad agencies?  Time will tell I guess.

Mario Cardinal and I were quite busy at DevTeach.  We recorded 4 shows for our Visual Studio Talk Show podcast.  Scott Bellware was kind enough to let us use his 33rd floor hotel room at the Marriott Chateau Champlain to record 3 interviews.  I also recorded the panel about Open Source in the Microsoft world.  I hope the panel recording is good enough so that we can use it on a later show.

Here's a picture to show the view we had on downtown Montreal.  Amazing, no?

Eric Moreau: Langage Integrated Query (LinQ)

Nous discutons avec Eric Moreau de Langage Integrated Query (LinQ), le nouvel API pour programmer l'accès aux données qui est intégré dans le .NET Framework 3.5. Depuis plusieurs années, on nous vante les mérite de la programmation orientée-objet mais nos sources de données (les 2 plus grandes étant les bases de données relationnelles et les fichiers XML) n’ont rien d’un objet. LINQ tente de rapprocher ces deux mondes.

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Richard Campbell of .NET Rocks fame and RD for Vancouver, Canada has been very busy in the last months building this blue box sitting between the Web servers and the load balancer.

Richard explains how he got there in this blog entry:
http://www.campbellassociates.ca/blog/PermaLink,guid,1ee1c4cd-fa2f-4934-91d8-7eba7c7cbcb6.aspx

Check it out here:
http://www.strangeloopnetworks.com

I posted my DevTeach Montreal 2007 pictures here:
http://sharepoint.dotnet-expertise.com/DevTeach%202007%20Montreal/Forms/AllItems.aspx

Tired of the anemic search box in IE?  Then check InlineSearch, a free add-in that extend the search capabilities of IE.

http://www.ieforge.com/InlineSearch/HomePage

Hotmail is now Windows Live Hotmail

Out of curiosity, I checked my Hotmail account and found this:
Registered since: November 4, 1998

Time flies!

I was looking to represent virtual servers in VMware in a Visio diagram and I found these shapes:
http://www.vmguru.com/search/SearchResults.aspx?q=visio

I wonder if someone has created the equivalent for Virtual Server.

Pascale Tardif: Code 18

Nous discutons avec Pascale Tardif de ce qu'on retrouve à 18 pouces derrière l’écran de l’ordinateur… les utilisateurs. L'objectif de l'émission est de communiquer les bonnes pratiques pour assurer la qualité d'utilisation des systèmes d’information. Entre autres, on discute d'un modèle de réfexion pour obtenir une gestion intégrée des processus d’affaires, des outils et des ressources humaines.

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I posted a few pictures that I took at Mix07 in Las Vegas (April 30th-May 2nd 2007):

http://sharepoint.dotnet-expertise.com/Mix07%20Las%20Vegas/Forms/AllItems.aspx

Elvis is not dead.  I saw him at Mix07 in Vegas playing Guitar Hero II.  Yeah Baby!

I was setting a picture library in WSS 3.0 when I got this problem: I wasn't able to switch to explorer view and got an error saying that InsertURLHere\DavWWWRoot wasn't available or I didn't have the permissions to access it.  A quick search on the Internet lead me to this solution:

First, make sure that the Web Client service is started on the WSS server.  Secondly, if you stop and start back the service, you'll get an error like the service is not started at all.  The answer to this problem is found in this whitepaper: Understanding and Troubleshooting the SharePoint Explorer View.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C523AC7A-5724-48BE-B973-641E805588F4&displaylang=en

When you stop and start the Web Client Service and attempt to use the Explorer View, you will not receive an error and the Explorer View page will render a blank view.
The Web Client Service in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 does not function correctly if you stop it and then start it again without restarting the computer. Although a bug has been opened on this problem, the changes required to fix it are too large for a hotfix or a service pack and have therefore been delayed until a future major release of Windows. In the meantime, you should always restart the client if, after stopping the Web Client Service, you want to restart it.

Joel Semeniuk's book "Managing Projects with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System" is now out on the shelves.  Looking forward to read this one.

http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/8754.aspx

Do yourself a favor and watch Ray Ozzie and Scott Guthrie Mix07 keynote.  It's been a while since I've been blown away by keynotes demos but the stuff being showed here is just simply amazing.

http://visitmix.com/Blogs/Joshua/ray-ozzie-and-scott-guthrie-keynote/