DOCUMENT OUTLINE

Notes on DotNet

December 2006

Many RSS experts reacted with concern after the U.S. Patent office posted two RSS-related patent applications from Microsoft. The applications (which were filed 18 months ago and have not been granted yet) covered two topics: "Finding and consuming web subscriptions in a web browser" and details of a "Content syndication platform [handling] tasks such as creating, reading, updating, deleting feeds and the like". Microsoft's Jane Kim is one of the patent authors, and at about the same time the applications were filed she wrote a blog post discussing RSS support in IE7 and Vista. The patents may be a pre-emptive move to defend against future infringement lawsuits on specific APIs. At the same time, it seems easy to find examples of prior art defining similar concepts, such as Apple's "Techniques for detecting, managing, and presenting syndication XML (feeds)".

Posted by John Dorsey at 02:58 PM  Permalink |

John Jainschigg has some details on the Open XML vs. OpenDocument standards faceoff. Open XML is the default document format in the Office 2007 Enterprise suite, for which Microsoft is now offering a 60-day trial version. You can also try out each of the apps in the Office 2007 suite in the browser-based, online test-drive.

Posted by John Dorsey at 08:01 PM  Permalink |

The Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 was posted over the weekend. Scott Guthrie calls it "pretty major," noting that VS has 15000+ files to check for patches, so it'll take a little patience and a lot of disk space.

Posted by John Dorsey at 02:42 PM  Permalink |

Check out Scott Swigart's latest video tutorial. He walks through setting up and configuring event and user acticity logs using the Enterprise Library Logging Application Block. Scott also recently interviewed some of the SQL Server team members about the design goals of SQL Server Compact Edition (formerly SQL Server Everywhere), and the important role it will play in Microsoft's future plans. They also discussed security aspects of SQLCE.

Posted by John Dorsey at 02:54 AM  Permalink |

On Monday Microsoft released the Community Technology Preview for the "WPF/E" SDK. WPF/E is aimed at allowing richer cross-platform (Windows and Mac) UIs for web-based apps.
The WPF/E site also has a number of sample apps to showcase its abilities. For instance, WPF/E provides video playback without requiring Windows Media Player to be installed, which should be welcome news for Mac users. There are several also several demo videos on the WPF/E zone on Channel 9.

Several members of the development team are blogging on WPF/E including Scott Guthrie, Joe Stegman, Mike Harsh, Laurence Moroney and Barak Cohen.
Additionally Lee Brimelow posted a cool demo showing WPF/E interacting with Flash via JavaScript. Click-and-drags on an icon in the WPF/E app are mirrored in the Flash app in real time.

Posted by John Dorsey at 04:10 AM  Permalink |

Starting in the second half of January, MSDN Events and TechNet Events are teaming up to host the rolling launch parties "Ready for a New Day Launch Tour 2007" and "Microsoft Across America" which will visit 59 cities in the U.S. The day-long events will have Developer and IT Pro tracks in support of the triple launch of Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Exchange Server 2007. Sign up to attend for free.

Posted by John Dorsey at 09:46 PM  Permalink |

When Office 2007 is launched, it's sure to be chock full of new features, but are users still looking to a monolithic suite for all office solutions? Barbara Darrow takes a look at this topic in the article "Can Office 2007 Prevail in a Web 2.0 World?"
Corporate Vice President Chris Capossela seems confident that Office 2007, along with the various "Live" online offerings will provide the best of both worlds. According to Capossela, "SharePoint inside the company does Web 2.0 but with adult supervision."

Posted by John Dorsey at 01:01 PM  Permalink |