My friend Jeff Prosise has taken John Conway's mathematically-based Game of Life, automated it and given it a slick UI using Microsoft Silverlight 1.1. I'm sure Jeff had fun writing this, all the while learning the new environment. You can read more about SilverLIFE at this blog post, and then play with it here. (You will be prompted to download Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh). 
Not only did Microsoft just recently post Beta 2 of Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas) a few days ago, but yesterday Microsoft made a CTP of the next generation of Visual Studio Team System (codename Rosario) available for download. Craziness ... which do I spend my time with? It's like having two mistresses to pick from. Anyway, here are the details, if you want to start playing with Rosario: (keep in mind that it won't ship until some time [6,12,18?] months post Visual Studio 2008, so at least 2009): Finally, and most important, provide feedback to the team using http://connect.microsoft.com.
Over the past few years, a few of my clients have deployed Team Foundation Server Proxy to improve the performance of their remote/distributed teams. It boosts network performance by caching copies of source control files in a remote location, local to the developer needing the files but away from the main source control location. In short, the proxy helps each user avoid a costly download of the files to their workspace across the slower connection. So why wouldn't this work for Team Build? In today's VSTS chat, I asked if anyone had done this. I should have expected that Buck Hodges would have, and even blogged about it.
Still trying to decide if Team System is right for you and if you can afford it. I would say you can't afford *not* to have it. Check out this list of case studies from other companies and teams who agree with me. Thanks to Rob Caron, for putting together this consolidated list of the "top" Visual Studio Team System case studies. They support a wide range of propositions by showcasing real customers who have gone through the adoption process and have great stories to tell.
Microsoft just released their Team System Web Access Power Tool (formerly known as TeamPlain). This is a Web interface to Team Foundation Server. If you have team members that don't want Visual Studio/Team Explorer installed on their desktop, but they still want to participate with the project lifecycle, this is a great, web-based approach to getting everyone connected quickly/easily. Here are some of the features: - Add new work items or edit existing ones
- Work with any type of work item, including custom ones
- Add new work item queries or edit existing ones
- View, download, upload, check-in and check-out documents on SharePoint team portal
- View reports, export as PDF or Excel
- Browse source control repositories, download files, view changesets, diffs, histories, and annotated views
- View build results, start or stop builds
- Search for keywords in work items
- Authentication Modes: Integrated Windows Authentication or Forms Based Authentication (Recommended to use with SSL)
Read more about it in Brian Harry's blog posting.
Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, Architecture Edition, Development Edition, Database Edition, and Test Edition. In addition, discuss what's new in Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. Microsoft will be holding two sessions: - Join the chat on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time. Add to Calendar
- Join the chat on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 from 4:00pm - 5:00pm Pacific Time. Add to Calendar
I just wanted to blog a couple of things here: - The future of BizTalk (read: updated roadmap) is available here
- BizTalk Server 2006 R2 will launch in September of this year (read more here)
- Microsoft has opened the BizTalk Labs, which allows scientists (such as you) to experiment with various technologies
The next Ask An Expert Live Chat is scheduled for Thursday, August 23, 2007. Join Microsoft MVPs, ASP Insiders, Regional Directors, and other industry experts - all on hand to answer your tough .NET- and Visual Studio-related questions. This chat is not being hosted by Microsoft and as such questions regarding upcoming products and future product specs may not be answered. Details: Thursday, August 23, 2007, 5:00 - 6:00 P.M. Pacific Time / 8:00 - 9:00 P.M. Eastern Time / 00:00 - 01:00 GMT Click here for an ICS file to update your calendar, and click here for more information on Microsoft technical chats.
Nice work Microsoft. The download page just came online today. You can download Installation Disc Images, VPC Images, or Express Editions. 
There's even a link to download the .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 at the bottom of the page.
Next week, August 2nd, hundreds of middle and senior-level IT Managers from SMB, corporate, academic and government organizations as well as line of business managers will be attending the 1-day forum known as Interface. Although it's not a software/developer event, the schedule looks pretty interesting, and so does the impressive hall of vendors. The Interface forum runs from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM at the Boise Center on the Grove.
Computers for Kids is currently accepting computers (both working and non-working units) for refurbishment and distribution to K-14 in Idaho. Donations are tax deductible. Computers for Kids is a Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher (MAR) , which means Microsoft provides a good deal on Windows 2000 and sometimes Windows XP operating systems. The Community MAR program was created to increase the number of usable PCs available to non-profits, schools, and low-income families across the globe by reducing the cost of software to refurbishers. The MAR program also benefits the environment by giving new life to a significant number of computers that may otherwise be destined for landfills. Contact Computers for Kids at 8540 W. Elisa Street, Boise, Idaho or by calling them at (208) 345-0346.
This post is a bit off-topic from the usual techno-geek stuff I blog, but for the last two weeks the fine folks from D&R Residential Drainage Systems have been under our house installing a system that ensures that we won't pool water after a heavy rain, yard watering, etc. More importantly, that it won't lead to a festival of bugs, molds, and mildews! The Problem The neighborhood we live in has horrible soil - heavy clay content and quite rocky. We're basically on top of table rock here in Boise. This means that the ground does not absorb water well, especially under the house. This spring, I went down in the crawlspace and saw that there had been water pooling: 
I didn't see any pipe breaks or problems. After consulting some experts, especially Dan Flynn of D&R, I realized it was just the water from outside coming in and pooling at the lowest point. He tells me many houses are like this in the area. The Solution Dan proposed an under-the-house drainage system. Basically this means the digging of a small trench, just the inside of the foundation, and sloping it down from the corners of the house. 
The trenches are filled with rocks and wrapped with a special cloth, which allows the water to be collected and sent down stream. These trenches then feed into two catch buckets at the centers of each end of the house. The buckets contain a 1/2 hp pump for pumping the water out. They also have a battery-operated water alarm connected to it, in case of failure and overflow.  
The pump has a float valve which kicks on when the water reaches a certain level, and pumps the water out of the crawlspace and into a clean-out pipe in our yard. They also installed an AC-powered vent, to further control the humidity.  
I'm glad I acted when I did, because I don't want to fail an inspection in a few years when I go to sell the place. I also understand that systems like this are fairly common in other parts of the country. Who'd of known?
I can appreciate a fusion of technologies as much as the next guy, but this is a real head-scratcher. Check out the Wii Key project, which uses a Wii Remote to handle the basic slideshow operations.
Ok, I finally got fed up with all of the spam in my historical dasBlog postings. It's really embarrassing to send a link to a a colleague, only to have them snicker at all of the spam comments and trackbacks.
For those of you who don't know what a trackback is, it's basically an acknowledgement that enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. When used properly, trackbacks form a communication link between the two blogs, so that new comments on one blog can basically ping the other, allowing readers to easily follow discussions on both. The problem is that spammers have abused this mechanism and bloggers end up with trackbacks and pingbacks to various gambling, herbal medication, and adult sites.
Earlier this year I joined the ranks, and disabled my trackback and pingback services in dasBlog. I then followed Scott Hanselman's advice on using Akismet spam blocking service.
The big effort was then how to cleanup the <Comment> and <Trackback> elements that were spam, so, like others before me, I built a tool to assist with this.
- Download ScrubDasBlog.zip or ScrubDasBlogSource.zip to your hard drive
- Edit the blacklist.txt to include your own blacklisted URLs *
- Backup your existing feedback files: \content\*.dayentry.xml
- Run the ScrubDasBlog utility, specifying the path to your \content folder and the path to your blacklist.txt file, for example:
scrubdasblog c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mydasblog\content c:\scrubdasblog\blacklist.txt
* If you have predominately more SPAM comments and trackbacks in your dasBlog history, then you can generate a starter blacklist by going into your \content sub-folder and typing the following:
type *.xml | find "AuthorHomepage" > blacklist.txt
After you generate the blacklist.txt file, you should remove any good sites and remove any duplicates, before running the ScrubDasBlog utility.
I would recommend downloading the Source code version and reading through my code. Please comment on any improvements you might make.
Last month at Tech-Ed, I asked many of my SharePoint friends, and a few vendors, how to do this. I got answers ranging from "You can't" to "You'll need to buy our utility". They all told me that I should just add the content database back to my SharePoint instance and then use the WebDav or some other utility (sometimes commercial) to extract the documents in bulk. This wouldn't work, because I had upgraded to WSS 3.0 and this was a WSS 2.0 database. Well, it may have worked, but I was saving it as a final option. Instead, I searched the Web and found a posting by Mark Jen where he posted the code on how to do this. His code does what I suspected was possible - just rip through the items in the dbo.Docs table, and stream out the Content fields. It handles the creation of the folders as well! Thanks Mark!
While enjoying the fireworks yesterday in Oceanside, California with my friend Scott Cate, he let me know about a CodePlex project called Terminals. Terminals is simply a wrapper, around the Terminal Services ActiveX Client (mstscax.dll) and provides multi-tab interface - which can be very handy when remoted-in to multiple servers at once. Also, it supports screen resolution up to 4096x2048, clipboard, drag & drop into the session, and some other nice features.
Yet another Architect MVP has bitten the dust, to join the cooler crowd over here under the Team System MVP banner. Martin Danner is an experienced developer, project manager, and consultant in the software and information technology field, Danner has an extensive history in the software engineering field. He worked as a senior software engineer at Micron Technology, where he developed applications for the Web and PC, and he managed a group responsible for configuration management and software quality for all corporate software systems. Danner has also worked as a software engineer, developer, and consultant for Northrop Corporation and Price Waterhouse. Danner earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. He is a Microsoft Solution Architect MVP, a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer for the .NET Framework (MCSD.NET), as well as a PMI Project Management Professional (PMP). It wasn't too long ago that Jeff Levinson defected from the Architect MVP camp. What is going on over there?
Talk about "community-driven", Lorin Thwaits and the other coordinators of the Desert Code Camp are wanting your input on when 'camp should be held this next year. You can choose between dates in September and October.
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