Craig Nicholson

GhostDoc 2.1.0 Released

Another great Visual Studio plugin has been upgraded. This time its the amazing free add-in for Visual Studio that automatically generates XML documentation comments for C# and now once again VB.NET. Go grab a copy for yourself from here. It works wonderfully with Visual Studio 2008 (code-named Orcas) as well.

JetBrains ReSharper 3.0 released

This is definitely the best refactoring tool that I've ever used for Visual Studio. Personally I turn off their Intellisense overrides and stick to the Visual Studio default ones, but I find value in it spotting coding warnings especially when I'm reviewing code that is not mine.

This release adds full support for Visual Basic .NET, code analysis for C# and support for XML and XAML. I've been testing the EAP against Visual Studio 2008 (code-named Orcas) and it works just great. You can download an evaluation copy here.

The plugin is a little pricey but worth every cent at the end of the day.

Pirates of Silicon Valley

Last week Thursday I had the pleasure of attending the Red Five Labs private screening of the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. If you haven't seen it then you unfortunately missed out, go check out the trailer here.

One of the interesting twists to the evening was that Red Five Labs held a competition and it was a geek oriented competition. To enter you had to submit your details by consuming a Web Service. A very cool way of ensuring that only geeks and people who knew how to bribe geeks were there.

Congratulations to Noto Modungwa for winning the draw for the LEGO Mindstorms NXT Robotics Kit.

I am personally looking forward to the next Red Five Labs event and the opportunity to meet and greet.

Reminder - The Open Innovation Dinner

Just a quick reminder about the Open Innovation Dinner that is taking place tonight in Johannesburg at Primi Piatti Studio in Rosebank. According to the site it there are still seats available so there is still time to book a seat for the talks on innovation by Prof. Eddie Obeng and Jon Foster-Pedley.

Is Microsoft Surface a practical reality?

The Community-Credit forums has a discussion currently underway on the topic of Microsoft Surface Computing. I was busy responding to the thread when I thought, hey this is blog post worthy, so here it is.

I must say that I'm very impressed with Microsoft's surface computing initiative but I wonder how fast and prolific its adoption will be. Its great to see that the technology is built on the stock standard Windows Vista platform and I presume its using Windows Presentation Foundation to drive the user experience. It makes complete sense to bring this all together in table top computing and I envisage that vendor kiosks will never be the same again. I personally can't wait to be able to see them in restaurants and media stores. Think how much easier it would be to browse magazines and newspapers in book stores without damaging the actual magazine or book. Yes no more crumpled pages in the middle of your rather expensive I.T. book purchase.

The video demos I've seen have looked really cool and innovative but I question the credit card recognition. Was the credit card tagged with a barcode as the credit card was placed face-up from what I could tell. The same goes for the cellular phones. Most cellular phones I've seen don't have a barcode visible; its normally tucked away behind the battery.

This leads me onto a more pressing question. How is security going to affect the integration with devices like the Zune media player and devices in general? What happens when I plonk a Zune onto the surface computer inside a local music store and want to transfer data to my device, do I have to establish some sort of wireless pairing between the devices? I think this is just one of the rather limiting factors from a practicality point of view.

South African tracks for the world on Xbox Soundtracks

Microsoft EMEA is running a worldwide competition to discover the next-generation of music-makers through an initiative called Xbox Soundtracks. The competition has reached the voting stage and the community is called to action to vote on the submissions. The winner of the competition will get the chance to record their soundtrack professionally with the Universal Music team.

Looking at the top rated tracks list reveals two South African bands, Gently Scar'd and MadLove, in the top 3. Wow! Currently Carice Goossens's band Gently Scar'd is in second place with the track Psycho Chick followed by MadLove with Angels Fall. Both submissions are wicked and I encourage you to take a listen and vote for the tracks and encourage all your friends to do the same.

Imagine what Microsoft EMEA will say when a South African artist wins the Xbox Soundtracks competition. Maybe we'll get some more attention and even Xbox LIVE officially.

So take a moment, get voting and help out some great artists by voting here.

Cross posted from http://xboxbloggers.net/CraigN/.

Solution to Silverlight not working under Orcas VPC

Have you tried out Microsoft Silverlight under the Visual Studio 2008 (code-named Orcas) Beta 1 Virtual PC image yet? I have an by default it doesn't work as you would expect. For those not familiar with the Windows Server 2003 security default lock-down policies it might be a little too much for you so I thought I'd explain how to make it work.

So you start off and create a new Silverlight project and run it. And you get presented with an Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration dialog box saying that the site about:internet has been blocked. If you don't then you have most likely unchecked the box Continue to prompt when Web site content is blocked.

Note that the Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration feature was added to protect server computers from stupid users. Yes, I'm talking about users that don't think before they click and unfortunately that includes most users out there. So if you are one of those users, please stop reading now and go back to playing Solitaire or Minesweeper.

To solve the problem for good you should open Control Panel and then Add or Remove Programs and select Add/Remove Windows Components. You can now either deselect Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration entirely or highlight it and select Details. As you are running as Administrator by default then deselect For administrator groups and click OK followed by Next to remove the annoying enhanced security policy from the administrators group.

Now try run your Silverlight project again and it should work as expected. 

MSDN Community Distribution details for June

Its great when you provide feedback to Microsoft and it gets heard. In April I suggested that the MSDN Community Distribution program should include beta and CTP content as they are typically the bandwidth killers for developers in countries like South Africa. So the June 2007 CD is coming with a DVD packed with CTP goodness.

The June 2007 CD contents includes:

• 7 tracks for beginners using Visual Studio 2005 Express and covering topics such as object oriented fundamentals, Windows Forms based user interfaces, handling of events, branching, recursion and getting to know the .NET Framework.
• 5 webcasts covering Windows SharePoint Services
• 10 webcasts about Visual Studio Team System
• The Architecture Journal #11
• The F# compiler from Microsoft Research
• The Networked Embedded Sensing Toolkit from Microsoft Research

And the DVD contains:

• Visual Studio 2008 (code-named Orcas) Express Edition CTPs for Visual Web Developer, Visual Basic, Visual C# and Visual C++.
• Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 and 1.1 SDKs and samples
• Microsoft Expression Blend 2 May Preview for designing rich Silverlight content
• Microsoft Express Media Encoder May Preview for delivering rich media using Silverlight's built-in media player
• Microsoft ASP.NET Futures (May 2007)
• 10 sessions from the MIX '07 conference this year

Be sure to touch base with your local distribution agent and get a copy when the media arrives. Remember that each agent only gets a single copy of the media so you will need to arrange with your local agent and either supply blank media or copy it using a removable hard drive, USB flash disks or laptops. I am hoping my copy will be here by next week so come to my TechReel session next week and get yourself a copy.

Reminder - .NET data binding interfaces talk

Just a quick reminder to all in the Johannesburg area that Mario Lionello will be presenting a talk for SA Developer .NET on the .NET data binding interfaces tomorrow night, Wednesday the 13th of June 2007, at Torque IT in Rivonia. If you haven't done so already, please RSVP here. As always I'm looking forward to the talk as well as meeting up with the community.

If anyone still wants copies of the MSDN Community CDs please either bring blanks CDs, an external hard drive, flash disk or a laptop to copy them from me. I will also have Visual Studio Orcas Beta 1 available for anyone who wants to take a copy and try it out.

Apple goes Safari with Windows

So Apple has finally decided to put the Mac OS X built-in browser Safari out on the Windows platform as well. You can read all about it here and Sean Hederman has an interesting viewpoint on it here as well. Personally I encourage competition and I welcome anyone who believes they can compete to come forward and do so.

So far I've successfully installed and run it at home last night (Windows Vista x64) and at work (Windows XP SP2). No problems so far and it seems to be fast and friendly. Is it an IE killer, I don't think so. Will Mac OS X users possibly feel more comfortable on Windows XP/Vista now, possibly. Will I switch to using it on a regular basis, I doubt it. Will I ever use it, well most likely for cross-browser testing only.

Apple makes bold claims that its browser is twice as fast at HTML, JavaScript and startup than Internet Explorer 7 running on Windows XP SP2. I'd like to see other test results before I completely believe that.

You can download it from here.

BT Games time trial expanded

BT Games just announced that the Forza Motorsport 2 time trial tournament that was announced yesterday for their Northgate store has been changed due to an overwhelming response from the community.

The tournament has been expanded to include 9 of 10 of their stores. The only store not participating will be the Rustenburg store. Check out the updated invitation here.

Cross posted from http://xboxbloggers.net/CraigN/.

New release of the AJAX Control Toolkit

The AJAX Control Toolkit team have released an update to their powerful toolkit for ASP.NET AJAX. According to this post by Kirti Deshpande it only contains bug fixes and feature additions to the existing controls. New controls are currently being worked on and will be included in a later release.

You can check out the release notes and play with the updated controls over here and download the updated build here.

BT Games announces Forza Motorsport 2 time trial tournament

Local gaming specialist store BT Games sent out an invitation for a Forza Motorsport 2 time trial tournament. Forza Motorsport 2 is the hottest Xbox 360 game at the moment and should be available in all stores countrywide tomorrow.

 I have included the invitation below.

FORZA MOTORSPORT 2 TIME TRIAL TOURNAMENT   YOU ARE HEREBY CHALLENGED TO TEST YOUR METTLE, BURN SOME SERIOUS RUBBER, PROVE YOUR WORTH OR JUST EAT DUST!!   WE BELIEVE PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: OPTIONAL PRACTICE SESSIONS WILL BE RUN DAILY FROM 12H00 12 JUNE 2007 UNTIL 17H00 15 JUNE 2007   COMPETITION DETAILS:   TIME TRIALS: STARTS: 09H00 16 JUNE 2007 - ENDS: 12H30 YOU MAY TRY AS MANY TIMES AS IT TAKES OR TIME ALLOWS ON A ROTATIONAL BASIS.  1ST COME - 1ST RACES. GET THERE EARLY TO SECURE YOUR PLACE!!   FINALS: TOP 10 FASTEST TIMES WILL COMPETE FOR TOP 3 POSITIONS   STARTS: 13H00 16 JUNE 2007 - ENDS: AS SOON AS WE HAVE OUR TOP 3 WINNERS   (IF YOU AREN'T HERE YOU WILL BE DISQUALIFIED AND NEXT TOP TIME WILL BE SELECTED)   WHERE: BT GAMES NORTHGATE SHOP 244. ENTRANCE 5, OPPOSITE WOOLWORTHS, NORTHGATE SHOPPING CENTRE, NORTHUMBERLAND ROAD, NORTH RIDING, RANDBURG. CONTACT: SHANNON TEL: 011 794-4450   PRIZES: 1ST - XBOX 360 PREMIUM + FORZA MOTORSPORT 2 + R 2000.00 BT GAMES CREDITS 2ND: FORZA MOTORSPORT 2 + GEARS OF WAR + R750.00 BT GAMES CREDITS 3RD: FORZA MOTORSPORT 2 + R 500.00 BT GAMES CREDITS

Cross posted from http://xboxbloggers.net/CraigN/.

Forza Motorsport 2 launched in South Africa

On Friday the 1st of June 2007, Microsoft South Africa invited a group of media, retailers and community members to the Kyalami Race Track for the launch of Forza Motorsport 2, the sequel to Microsoft Game Studios' award-winning, fully-customisable driving simulator Forza Motorsport.

The day started off with a hearty breakfast and an introduction by Cindy White to the new Country Lead for Xbox 360 in South Africa, Marc Batten. John Press, the product manager for Xbox 360, highlighted the main features of the new game to the assembled masses and I was definitely not the only one itching to get behind the wheel and try this game out. As this was a launch event there were ample consoles setup for the occasion and two had Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheels attached. I must say that the new wireless racing wheel is going to be a huge hit with racing fans when it eventually launches in South Africa, the force-feedback coupled with standard rumble produces some very realistic driving feedback.

Microsoft also revealed a custom Xbox 360 styled Subaru Impreza WRX tripped out with an Xbox 360, LCD screens all over the car and an outrageous sound system. Look out for it in traffic, you won't see another one like it.

One of the activities for the day included changing of an F1 tyre. Congratulations go out to Dale Imerman, Devon Stanton (aka koldFusion) and Werner Joubert (aka MiNeM) who were a formidable team and broke the 24 second record by setting a time in the region of 19 seconds.

To make the day a little more interactive and exciting, a competition to set the fastest lap times around a virtual Kyalami Race Track using the driving simulators was run. After a practice round each person was given the opportunity to set their best time on the simulators and the people scoring the top eight lap times got to race around the real track in authentic 3.5 litre V6 Dodge powered carbon fibre race cars built by Reynard of Honda F1 BAR fame. A professional driver from Fantastic Racing guided the eager racers around the track and provided guidance between the sessions.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get all of their names but I must mention that Anita from Mi Digital was the only woman in the race and she qualified on her own steam. The race was won by Andre from Look 'n Listen and third place went to the local xbox-360.co.za community web-site administrator and South Africa's very own Project Gotham Racing 3 champion Werner Joubert.

For more photos from the event take a look at galleries one, two and three.

Forza Motorsport 2 officially hits the South African shelves on Friday the 8th of June 2007 so make sure you pick up your copy this weekend.

Cross posted from http://xboxbloggers.net/CraigN/.

An in-depth look at EntitySQL

Two of the Microsoft ADO.NET team members, Mark Shields and Fabio Valbuena, have put a rather detailed post discussing EntitySQL. EntitySQL has been developed to address the need for programmers to reason, express and write queries in terms of the new Entity Data Model abstractions.

One of the cool benefits of EntitySQL is that the developer can truly work in a data provider agnostic fashion as the language merely provides a means of querying the enhanced data model that is provided by the Entity Framework.

Now why use this new Entity Framework when we have LINQ? Well from what I've read it seems to solve a different problem. The Entity Framework intends to represent a unified data model supporting entity inheritance and composition. Yes you can have a logical entity that comes from multiple tables. I like this idea as I often create concepts of inheritance in my database design. Take for example a Person entity that could be a User or a Contact or how about all of the above. Finally there will be an entity data model that supports this.

The good news is that the ADO.NET Entity Framework is included in Visual Studio code-named Orcas beta 1, so you can play with it today. Apparently there was a bug in the EDM wizard that shipped with beta 1 but a patch is available here. If you are looking for a copy of the beta then please get in contact with me.