Rockford Lhotka has some things to say on the subject (including what the point of a middle tier is if you are using business objects), i think his views are spot on - I have seen this mistake made in a number of cases (and have even made it myself :$)...

" You should be forced into implementing physical tiers kicking and screaming. There should be substantial justification for using tiers, and those justifications should be questioned at every step along the way.

At the same time, you should encourage the use of logical layers at all times. There should be substantial justification for not using layers, and any argument against layering of software should be viewed with extreme skepticism.

Layering is almost always good, tiers are usually bad."

Read the rest here: Fire bad, tree pretty

The March 2005 issue of MSDN Magazine is now available online at http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/03.

Source: March 2005 MSDN Magazine now online!

New version (1.2.1846) is out. Release includes the following new features include:

• Spell checker, included using NetSpell 2.1.7 from http://www.loresoft.com
• keyword on-the-fly replacement, that enable to specify some keywords that will be replaced during post typing.
• file upload like image upload.
• improved link management. Now it manage title, name, target and not only href.
• cross post file upload optimization. It check for existence of files on the ftp repository before upload them
• Configuration options saved in Isolated storage. This enable the recover of old configuration after uninstall of application.

[Source: IMHO 1.2.1846 with Spell Checker]

Rory of  Neopoleon.Com and DotNet rocks fame has launced his own version of Wikipedia. It is called "NeoWikiDiki", you should check it out, it's a hoot.

Just don't add anything though because if you are spending your evening reading this blog instead of Rory's you probably aren't very funny. Sorry.

[Source:  Wikipedia is kind of dumb]

New Wiki site launched by the Patterns and Practices group at Microsoft...

"The PatternShare community site brings together software patterns from different authors in one place to show relationships between existing patterns and to encourage you to contribute new ones. By combining our efforts, the patterns community can increase pattern usage and better meet the needs of developers and architects who use patterns."

Of particular interest is the Enterprise Architectural Space Organizing Table. Which you can read more about here.

[Found via Sanjeeb Sarangi]

Seems improbable, but that is what Shawn Burke (MS developer division program manager) is pushing for - and I am sure he wouldn't be blogging about it if there was no hope...

"I want to deliver Windows Forms source code to you. I've wanted to do it for years and I'm putting together a plan to make it happen. There are a set of issues here, and let me tell you that not everyone here is a big fan of it. But I think I can do it (other teams are trying as well)."

[ More info & comments on Shawn's blog here. Found via Microsoft Watch ]

Microsoft has sent an email to its tablet PC partners in which it confirms the memory leak found in in XP tablet PC edition 2005. In the message they directly link to the register which published it. The OS pen input panel does have a memory leak. MS says it's working on it, for the moment they advise rebooting to reclaim the memory lost. A little silly, one of the official requirments of a tablet is it's fast recovery from a suspended or docked state to an operating or undocked state. Within 5 seconds. My tablet is fast but it will not boot that fast.

The timing of this bug could not be worse. Next week is Windows Anywhere and I don't want to be talking all conference long on this. It's something which should get fixed so we can delve deeper in the really interesting stuff.

Peter

Source: It's official: there is a bug in XP tablet PC edition

Just came across an interesting graphic that shows the interdependance of the ABs in the Enterprise Library (in the EL documentation itself, but not everyone RTFMs)...

Mvp Blogs:

• Peter Foot: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002393
• Alex Yakhnin: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002394
• Chris Tacke: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002395
• Neil Cowburn: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002396
• Jon Box: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002397
• Jim R. Wilson: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002398
• Casey Chesnut: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002399
• Alex Feinman: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002400
• Bill Ryan: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002401
• Maarten Struys: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002402
• Nic Wise: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002403
• Mark Arteaga: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002404

Microsoft Blogs:

• Mike Hall (Embedded Devices Group): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002405
• Sue Loh (Embedded Devices Group): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002406
• Jon Fincher (Windows XP Embedded): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002407
• Aaron Stebner (Windows XP Embedded): http://go.microsoft.com/ ?linkid=2002408
• Amit Chopra (Visual Studio for Devices): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002409
• Josh Heitzman (Visual Studio for Devices): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002410
• Neil Enns (Visual Studio for Devices): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002411
• David Kline (.NET Compact Framework): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002412
• Seth Demsey (.NET Compact Framework): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002413
• Scott Holden (.NET Compact Framework): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002414
• Jonathan Wells  (.NET Compact Framework): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002415
• Steven Pratschner (.NET Compact Framework): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002416
• Jeremy Hance (NET Compact Framework): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002417
• James Pratt (Windows Mobile):  http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002418
• Kevin Lisota (Windows Mobile): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002419
• Robert Levy (Windows Mobile): http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002420
• Windows Mobile Team Blog: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002421
• Compact Framework Team Blog: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002422
• Visual Studio for Devices Team Blog: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002423
• All Windows CE bloggers:     http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002424

Microsoft Employee Blogs

• Alan Page: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002425
• Chris Gray: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002426
• David Hill: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002427
• Greg Neumiller: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002428
• Harsh Shah: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002429
• Jeff Abraham: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002430
• Jeff Sirios: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002431
• Jidesh Veeramachaneni: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002432
• Larry Lieberman: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002433
• .NET Compact Framework Team: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002434
• Ryan Chapman: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002435
• Steven Pratschner: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002436
• Windows CE Networking Team WebLog: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002437
• SwingBeat: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002438
• Tim Ng: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002439
• Neil Marlowe: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002440
• Mark Ihimoyan: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002441
• Nazim Lala: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002442
• ncarora: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002443
• Scott Beaudreau: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002444
• Visual Studio for Devices Team: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2002445

(from the Microsoft Embedded DevWire for January)