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People will need a better reason than "MS says it's good" to switch away from Photoshop

They can try it out for themselves, or check out some of the demo videos. I think it looks pretty hot, it has most of the filters Photoshop has, plus many other interesting effects like it's use of splines to create effects is really interesting. It looks like it would suit web developers trying to quickly create great effects really quickly for not much effort to get a job quickly out the door, although it also seems to have many fine grained functions which would appeal to artists.

Java applications are still coming into use that have been under test and dev since before there *was* a .NET

I think this is precisely the reason why so many companies are looking at .NET... alot of people have been burnt by Java projects, which have gone way over budget and way over time. I've not had much exposure to development projects in java but it, but my take on it is that it may not necessarily be the technology that's at fault, from what I've seen I think alot of Java developers tend to get a bit carried away and massively over engineer things. Not that I'm against software engineering, I love my UML, class/activity/interaction diagrams, use cases etc etc.... but you have to be pragmatic about this stuff, a dogmatic approach generally leads to failure.

On the other hand I think .NET developers tend to under engineer things... so perhaps all these companies will shift to the other extreme and get burnt yet again. I hope not because I quite like .NET and would rather it not earn the same reputation as what Java seems to have now.

So you may be right... perhaps this swing away from Java in many of these companies will bite them. But I can say there's alot of managers out there right now who hear the word Java and instantaneously have their blood pressure jump a notch.

Again, quoting the press release (also found here):

"Our business is based on providing the best possible service at the lowest possible price. This strategy requires us to maximize all of our resources, particularly our technology assets," said Warren Adelman, GoDaddy.com president and COO.

Last I checked, Bob Parsons was the President of GoDaddy, and Warren Adelman was just the COO. Kind of a major slip up, unless Warren didn't tell Bob about what Microsoft said his new job title was. I guess that's why Microsoft has the press release, and GoDaddy has yet to make an official statement...?

:-)

I would not consider XP to be a major release

XP was the first NT based OS to ship with Direct-X, before that Windows 2000 was really only suited to businesses. If you remember back to those days, many people had dual boots to switch Windows 2000 for serious stuff and Windows 9x to play games. With the release of Windows XP came the end of releases for the Windows 9x OS line.... so I'd have to say I disagree with on that one.

Yeah. Photoshop is _soooooo_ dead. I bet Adobe is shaking in their boots

Well it's true they have no immediate worries Expression only got released just this month. But I think they do have cause for concern, I've used Photoshop and I've tried it out. I think it's true that many out there will stick with Photoshop. But given it's integration with .NET development I think pretty much every ASP.NET shop out there will at least consider switching from Photoshop to this product. I'm not a graphic artist, but I know how to use 90% of the functionality available in Photoshop and the Graphic Designer in Expression to me looks like the goods, at glance many of it's features look like it will be better and more powerful to work with than Photoshop.

There has been talk in the past of Microsoft releasing a command-line version of Windows Server (i.e. the GUI is optional), but AFAIK, that's just been talk with no real action.

Actually, there is a .iso on Microsoft Connect (the new Beta site for MS) for Vista participants called "Longhorn Server Core", which is a naked versions of the server (no GUI, no add ins, no apps, etc...). I don't know if they're actually going to release it when everything goes RTM, though.

Umm.. you can get IE7 for a while from here already:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/ie7betared irect.mspx

And when I type a HTTP url in Windows Explorer here, it opens FireFox now :D

Actually, you can try the Beta of IE7: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/ie7betared irect.mspx And yes, you can uninstall it properly afterward.

Disables nearly all pre-installed ActiveX controls to prevent potentially vulnerable controls from being exposed to attack. You can easily enable or disable ActiveX controls as needed through the Information Bar and the Add-on Manager.

The beta of Internet Explorer 7 is neat to play with but it has one quirky feature where it does not allow users to install unsigned Active X controls. Unfortunately since it's still beta, virtually all Active X addons (like Shockwave, Flash) are unsigned which means they cannot be installed by default. Trying to do so causes IE 7 to spit out an error message.
Not all is lost however, if you load up the Internet Options (Tools -> Internet Options...), click the "Security" tab and in Internet security settings click the Custom Level... utton. In the "ActiveX Controls and plugins" section, find the "Download unsigned ActiveX Controls" option and change it from "Disable" to "Prompt". After that's done click the OK button and you're set!

Disables nearly all pre-installed ActiveX controls to prevent potentially vulnerable controls from being exposed to attack. You can easily enable or disable ActiveX controls as needed through the Information Bar and the Add-on Manager.

The beta of Internet Explorer 7 is neat to play with but it has one quirky feature where it does not allow users to install unsigned Active X controls. Unfortunately since it's still beta, virtually all Active X addons (like Shockwave, Flash) are unsigned which means they cannot be installed by default. Trying to do so causes IE 7 to spit out an error message.
Not all is lost however, if you load up the Internet Options (Tools -> Internet Options...), click the "Security" tab and in Internet security settings click the Custom Level... utton. In the "ActiveX Controls and plugins" section, find the "Download unsigned ActiveX Controls" option and change it from "Disable" to "Prompt". After that's done click the OK button and you're set!

Q. What does the announcement about Intel-based Macs mean for Virtual PC for Mac?

A. Virtual PC for Mac Version 7 is still the best emulation solution for users who have PowerPC-based Macs, but it does not run on Intel-based Macs. We are working with Apple to determine the feasibility of developing Virtual PC for Mac for Intel-based Macs. Virtual PC for Mac is highly dependent on the operating system and hardware and will require additional development to run on Intel-based Macs.

Did you read all of my post, specifically the last line?

I know all about Virtual PC. The current version does not run on MacIntels and Microsoft has not yet committed to producing a version that does. See the 5th question from the top on this page.

~Philly

Someone might be working on a Wine-style wrapper. However, until that becomes available (if it ever does) you can use Virtual PC (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/v irtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc) to do what you want. It boots Windows as an app within Mac OS X, and even integrates things like the clipboards, drag-n-drop functionality, and shared folders between the two operating systems. I'm not 100% sure, but I think they even integrate the start menu into the OS X dock.

~ Mike

Didn't they also say that Windows XP worked just fine with 128 megs of ram?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/s ysreqs.mspx

Microsoft says shared source but sometimes they don't say what they mean, for that you have to read the fine print.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnlong/html/AppComp.asp/

In prior releases of Windows, Winsock clients did not have an API set to access the kernel. This will change in Windows Vista. Also, Windows Vista now supports IPv6 by default. Instead of providing separate APIs for IPv4 and IPv6, a new Helper API set was designed to provide a common functionality across all the new technologies, as follows: # Kernel mode functions for Windows Sockets in Kernel (WSK) clients.

It must have taken like ages to get this done, And I bet they're getting it out now!

I write high-definition video editing software, and I'll be running Vista Ultimate.

I would have expected you to have known this from here, here, or here.

Microsoft has instead decided to adopt Shared Source, which not only opens up source code, but allows anyone to use freely, freelier than free Open Source.

The only major difference is once a Shared Source is shared, it can be modified, opened, shared or even closed in future release.

Oh, You mean DRWatson.exe

I'll go further and say Vista is even more relevant than Windows XP, and Windows 2000.

Microsoft has had 10 very long years to think about the internet. Vista is what they've come up with as a result of it. Developer's of .NET will know that Vista is the part of a larger design. Vista is the first OS release that is part of Microsoft's .NET initiative, which is to evolve the internet into a transport for technologies designed and/or inspired by Microsoft. Vista's support of XAML is a very major feature to be released with Vista, many have overlooked it and do not understand it's ramifications.

Many will scoff at this but, we are approaching the end of HTML's reign over the internet. HTML is simply not a rich enough medium to deliver the complex user experience people want. AJAX is a symptom of this, it's just yet another attempt to hack out a solution to the many architectural flaws of HTML as an application development platform. HTML was never designed to be used for what people do with it today, it's evolved organically, and like most things which have been designed organically it's simply not an elegant solution.

Many things have been developed to superceed it.... Macromedia Flash, W3C's SVG, Mozilla's XUL. All these technologies offer similar features to Microsoft's XAML, slick, vectorised graphical interfaces, designed to scale up/down for tomorrow's display devices. What these technologies don't have which XAML does is the full power of direct-x and all the resources and security features packed into the Microsoft .NET framework behind it. It will offer a very seductive and compelling experience for users. It will also seduce those wanting to deliver content to the net with Microsoft's Expression suite of products, enabling graphical artists to work seemlessly with developers.

XAML downloads in a browser, it's somewhere between a web form and a windows form. If all Microsoft's dreams come true, decades from now much of the content you'll see on the net will be in XAML. Vista is the first step to realising this dream.

I'll go further and say Vista is even more relevant than Windows XP, and Windows 2000.

Microsoft has had 10 very long years to think about the internet. Vista is what they've come up with as a result of it. Developer's of .NET will know that Vista is the part of a larger design. Vista is the first OS release that is part of Microsoft's .NET initiative, which is to evolve the internet into a transport for technologies designed and/or inspired by Microsoft. Vista's support of XAML is a very major feature to be released with Vista, many have overlooked it and do not understand it's ramifications.

Many will scoff at this but, we are approaching the end of HTML's reign over the internet. HTML is simply not a rich enough medium to deliver the complex user experience people want. AJAX is a symptom of this, it's just yet another attempt to hack out a solution to the many architectural flaws of HTML as an application development platform. HTML was never designed to be used for what people do with it today, it's evolved organically, and like most things which have been designed organically it's simply not an elegant solution.

Many things have been developed to superceed it.... Macromedia Flash, W3C's SVG, Mozilla's XUL. All these technologies offer similar features to Microsoft's XAML, slick, vectorised graphical interfaces, designed to scale up/down for tomorrow's display devices. What these technologies don't have which XAML does is the full power of direct-x and all the resources and security features packed into the Microsoft .NET framework behind it. It will offer a very seductive and compelling experience for users. It will also seduce those wanting to deliver content to the net with Microsoft's Expression suite of products, enabling graphical artists to work seemlessly with developers.

XAML downloads in a browser, it's somewhere between a web form and a windows form. If all Microsoft's dreams come true, decades from now much of the content you'll see on the net will be in XAML. Vista is the first step to realising this dream.

You can achieve your business and computing goals with confidence, knowing that Windows Vista provides more protection against the latest generation of security threats and provides efficient centralized management of security features.

sad perhaps, but I'd never heard of MechCommander. I found some more info here.

But is it any good?

There's an official statement here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/mar0 6/03-21WindowsVistaDeliveryPR.mspx

Shared Source is at least 3 different licences :

Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL) like BSD
Microsoft Community License (Ms-CL) kind of like LGPL or MPL : you must relicence files that contain Ms-CL code as Ms-CL, but can use them in any way you want.
Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL) - you may only look at it

And I hve no clue which of these apply for this game. I even downloaded the ReadMe.rtf (rtf? from Microsoft?), but it only says that you need directx from feb 2006 to compile the "MC2 Viewer". (And I won't download 1GB to maybe find out what licence it is ...)

Your point?

Microsoft ended W2K server support ONLY 5 years after it was released, and W2K in now in Life Support until 6/30/2010. Of course, all those W2k users can shell out even MORE $$$ to 'upgrade" to VISTA this fall, since they are already on the infameous Microsoft upgrade treadmill, and continually shelling out more and more $$$ for upgrades and 3rd party stability and security support. Pavlov was right.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&x =14&y=12&p1=7274

While it may be true that the SQL database market has become a commodity market, SQL databases have never solved object persistence nicely: SQL always remained a foreign language in Java and C#. The object-relational mismatch has forced us to write billions of lines of code over and over again.

Alternate technologies are currently seeing a revival:

- A new portal on object databases was recently launched:
http://www.odbms.org/

- Object databases are going open source:
http://www.db4o.com/

- Microsoft has released LINQ to relieve developers from having to write SQL strings. Code that interfaces with the database is now checked at compile time:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/future/linq /

- Native Queries show that Java and C# can be directly used to express typesafe queries:
http://www.ddj.com/documents/s=9948/ddj0602e/0602e .html

You want the state to get involved in software development?

your government is already involved.

This keeps coming up because nobody on the internet botherws with self-governance. Yet it is those same people who complain every time a politician proopses something like this. There is already a standard content-rating system that allows sites to rate themselves. Internet Explorer has supported filtering based on that at least as far back as IE 4.0. It's too bad that Mozilla does not, especially because it is becoming popular amongs the Mom & Pops who are trying to avoid spyware.

Censorship of the internet is inevitable, and it is going to be a pain since every government is going to have a different set of rules. If everybody just stuck the RSAC or ICRA tags on their pages then we would have a strong argument about why this isn't necessary. Or at least, we could make the laws uniformly require that sites use the standard, rather than enforcing their own regulation. It would put the power back in the hands of the parents.

Here it is then

You do answer your own question there at the end. :-)

Reading through Microsoft's Criticism Report (PDF), it seems that Barrett was unknowledgeable about standard things such as "context handles" and "void pointers".

This document provides a scathing critique of Barrett's programming abilities or lack thereof. The document is provided by Microsoft, so the only way to tell if Trustee criticisms were cherry-picked or not would be to compare what was presented in this document with what was contained in the Trustee reports. However, from just an initial examination of the crticisms selected, Barrett indeed is not a programmer and was ill-qualified to provide expert testimony. Caveat: This is given only what is available for analysis in the document linked above.

Anyone got links to the Trustee reports?

(you've put spaces where %20 were needed)

"neil barrett" site:microsoft.com Google search gives two (pdf) results, the one you were linking to is here

googling brought this up. http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/3/2/53239 546-efee-460c-a583-11c20cdea9ab/03-02-06Supplement ary Response SO final NC.pdf Basically it says 'he is in a anti-microsoft conspiracy', and 'he don't know how to program' Grtz Drz WARNING: no tag line. . .

SOTI MobiControl is a great app for controlling your smartphone from your PC.
I've used it many times to give LiveMeeting sessions on the
progress of smartphone app development. You can also capture screenshots and
videos of the smartphone
It's a specialist app I know but damn it RULES!!
http://www.soti.net/

Actually, no, if you're genuinely interested you can download and try out their free IDE.

And to continue my rant about Visual Studio (well more about .Net), while the .Net framework is rather nice and ASP.Net has the potential to be nice, the controls are stuffed. Writing standards compliant, cross browser HTML with .Net is really, really hard. So hard that for an awful lot of things I have had to roll my own controls, because the other ones just do not produce valid code. Either that or they override the values you have set.

Try here.

Cheers,

I'm sorry that linux is complex and hard for you to understand.

Maybe an OS with 1 really halfassed filesystem like Microsoft Windows would be more to your liking? I hear its 'plug n play' too, whatever that means.

Unfortunately there are no servers for downloading windows, it looks as though they have stuck with the quaint old 'media only' form of distribution, which should rest well with people who find the internet bewildering and incomprehensible, like yourself!

http://www.microsoft.com/

Perhaps someone oud introduce a Web 2.0 killer, that would be excellent...

Actually, Microsoft is working on this as well, it's called Avalon (aka WPF). Although it will be a few years until it hits critical mass, it should offer developers the ability to write a single interface for traditional client apps & server/web apps.

What is it with Microsoft and its penchant for product names that are virtually useless for doing searches?

Google for "Microsoft Access"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Word"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Excel"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Publisher"
Microsoft Office Online: Publisher 2003 Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Windows"
Microsoft Corporation is 1st result
Microsoft Windows Update is 2nd result

Google for "Microsoft Sequel" unsurprisingly turns up no decent results, because you should be searching for "Microsoft SQL" in the first place
Microsoft SQL Server Home is 1st result

Maybe you'd like to brush up on your search tips or, at the very least, locate the double-quote character on your keyboard.

Just saying.

What is it with Microsoft and its penchant for product names that are virtually useless for doing searches?

Google for "Microsoft Access"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Word"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Excel"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Publisher"
Microsoft Office Online: Publisher 2003 Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Windows"
Microsoft Corporation is 1st result
Microsoft Windows Update is 2nd result

Google for "Microsoft Sequel" unsurprisingly turns up no decent results, because you should be searching for "Microsoft SQL" in the first place
Microsoft SQL Server Home is 1st result

Maybe you'd like to brush up on your search tips or, at the very least, locate the double-quote character on your keyboard.

Just saying.

What is it with Microsoft and its penchant for product names that are virtually useless for doing searches?

Google for "Microsoft Access"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Word"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Excel"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Publisher"
Microsoft Office Online: Publisher 2003 Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Windows"
Microsoft Corporation is 1st result
Microsoft Windows Update is 2nd result

Google for "Microsoft Sequel" unsurprisingly turns up no decent results, because you should be searching for "Microsoft SQL" in the first place
Microsoft SQL Server Home is 1st result

Maybe you'd like to brush up on your search tips or, at the very least, locate the double-quote character on your keyboard.

Just saying.

What is it with Microsoft and its penchant for product names that are virtually useless for doing searches?

Google for "Microsoft Access"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Word"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Excel"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Publisher"
Microsoft Office Online: Publisher 2003 Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Windows"
Microsoft Corporation is 1st result
Microsoft Windows Update is 2nd result

Google for "Microsoft Sequel" unsurprisingly turns up no decent results, because you should be searching for "Microsoft SQL" in the first place
Microsoft SQL Server Home is 1st result

Maybe you'd like to brush up on your search tips or, at the very least, locate the double-quote character on your keyboard.

Just saying.

What is it with Microsoft and its penchant for product names that are virtually useless for doing searches?

Google for "Microsoft Access"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Word"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Excel"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Publisher"
Microsoft Office Online: Publisher 2003 Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Windows"
Microsoft Corporation is 1st result
Microsoft Windows Update is 2nd result

Google for "Microsoft Sequel" unsurprisingly turns up no decent results, because you should be searching for "Microsoft SQL" in the first place
Microsoft SQL Server Home is 1st result

Maybe you'd like to brush up on your search tips or, at the very least, locate the double-quote character on your keyboard.

Just saying.

What is it with Microsoft and its penchant for product names that are virtually useless for doing searches?

Google for "Microsoft Access"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Word"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Excel"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Publisher"
Microsoft Office Online: Publisher 2003 Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Windows"
Microsoft Corporation is 1st result
Microsoft Windows Update is 2nd result

Google for "Microsoft Sequel" unsurprisingly turns up no decent results, because you should be searching for "Microsoft SQL" in the first place
Microsoft SQL Server Home is 1st result

Maybe you'd like to brush up on your search tips or, at the very least, locate the double-quote character on your keyboard.

Just saying.

What is it with Microsoft and its penchant for product names that are virtually useless for doing searches?

Google for "Microsoft Access"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Word"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Excel"
Microsoft Office Online Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Publisher"
Microsoft Office Online: Publisher 2003 Home Page is 1st result

Google for "Microsoft Windows"
Microsoft Corporation is 1st result
Microsoft Windows Update is 2nd result

Google for "Microsoft Sequel" unsurprisingly turns up no decent results, because you should be searching for "Microsoft SQL" in the first place
Microsoft SQL Server Home is 1st result

Maybe you'd like to brush up on your search tips or, at the very least, locate the double-quote character on your keyboard.

Just saying.

Or you could use the express edition for free. You can find it here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/. I've only used the full versions, but I have heard from others that the express edition was fine for them.

You can't pipe program output, redirect to file, etc.

First, I can't recall the last time I needed or wanted to redirect output to a file from a command line app while I was doing development. Perhaps it's because I do a different kind of development than you do, but regardless, I would hardly classify XP is a bad development platform over something like that. Even so, you're completely wrong as it's very easy to pipe output in XP.

Search through source file relies on 3rd party solutions, and few of them have the ability to work with regular expressions.

Huh? Aside from the fact that hitting F3 in Windows will bring up a find dialog that can search the contents of files, Visual Studio (and virtually every other IDE that runs on Windows) has the ability to search with regular expressions.

You can't pipe program output, redirect to file, etc.

First, I can't recall the last time I needed or wanted to redirect output to a file from a command line app while I was doing development. Perhaps it's because I do a different kind of development than you do, but regardless, I would hardly classify XP is a bad development platform over something like that. Even so, you're completely wrong as it's very easy to pipe output in XP.

Search through source file relies on 3rd party solutions, and few of them have the ability to work with regular expressions.

Huh? Aside from the fact that hitting F3 in Windows will bring up a find dialog that can search the contents of files, Visual Studio (and virtually every other IDE that runs on Windows) has the ability to search with regular expressions.

Funny you mentioned microsoft:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/events/hero/sfdetails/

wonder if they licensed the word superheros...

CSS rocks. Now, if only the most popular but unreliable web browser out there supported it!

I think they're working on a replacement called Strider HoneyMonkey. At first I thought it was just Arwen's pet-name for Aragon, but apparently not.