I think it's that time... Time to replace my current blog template with a new Blogger template. Please let me apologize in advance for any formatting/etc weirdness.
If you're reading this via RSS/ATOM/Feedburner/etc feed you'll hopefully not notice any differences.
Here we go...
Walter Stiers - Academic Relations Team (BeLux) - Grava CTP available
" "Grava" is the code name for a new set of tools from the Microsoft Education Products Group that is designed to allow the education community to create and assemble interactive materials that will increase discovery and allow learners to go at their own pace and learning style...
...
The "Grava" tools that are scheduled for release later in 2007:
- "Grava" Player—The "Grava" player enables users to view the rich interactive content created in "Grava" Authoring.
- Developer Tools—The "Grava" SDK is built on Silverlight..."
Working at one of the "Final Four" big US accounting firms, in a post Andersen/Enron world, means that I spend a good bit of my time each year doing mandatory self paced compliance/regulatory/employment policy/independence/etc training.
And well... Let's just say that... um... those CBT's are... um... well... yeah... :|
Seeing the Grava project today, and that it's based on Silverlight, has given me a glimmer of hope that maybe sometime in the future we might see work related CBT's that are... um... better...?
(Okay... it's a long shot, but better to have a little hope than to completely surrender to apathy ;)
You can only do so much with the currently available viable technology for our work CBT's (i.e. Flash). I'm hoping that Grava/Silverlight can knock down some barriers and provide the tools for building a better learning environment. Be it in Silverlight itself or in raising the bar for Flash.
We'll have to wait and see I guess. Still it's cool how MS is leveraging Silverlight. Gives me hope that this tech will stick and be around for a while...
"IE7Pro is an add-on for IE 7 which adds lots of features and extras to make your IE easier, more useful, secure and customizable. You can use IE7Pro as Tab Mix, AD Blocker, Flash Block, Super Drag Drop, Crash Recovery, Proxy Switcher, Mouse Gesture, Tab History Browser, Web Accelerator, User Agent Switcher, Webpage Capturer, Greasemonkey for IE and etc . Using IE7Pro, you can Close/Open tab by double left click, build your own greasemonkey script, switch proxy, switch user agent, block ads and flash, recover browser crash, apply super drag drop, auto scroll page, manage tab history, refresh tab automatically, open new tab from address bar and favorites, view page information and save whole page to images quickly and so on."
Trying this now... It sure looks pretty cool.
The Crash Recovery is the feature that got my attention (having just had IE crash, with a bunch of tabs of stuff I wanted to blog about... ).
Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Interop Forms Toolkit 2.0
"This toolkit helps you bring the power of .NET to your existing VB6 applications, by allowing them to display .NET Forms and Controls from within the same application. Instead of upgrading the entire code base, these applications can now be extended one form at a time. The goal is a phased upgrade, with production releases at the end of each iteration containing both VB6 and VB.NET forms running in the same VB6 .exe process." [Description leached in full]
While this might come in handy, personally I'd hate to have to use it... Having two runtimes for one app, seems... well... icky.
But sometimes we just have to do "icky" ;)
Backstage at MED - A Wickedly Cool Conference Application
"We've been working on an application for a few months now that a lot of you have asked for when attending Microsoft Technical Conferences. The most common request is the ability to have a conference guide on your Windows Mobile device that saves you time and hassle of having to carry around a cumbersome printed conference guide and flipping through it to look for sessions and room locations.
So working with Daniel Wagner & Dr. Dieter Schmalstieg, researchers from the Graz Institute of Technology in Vienna, we've created Signpost 2007.
..."
Backstage at MED - Video about Signpost at MEDC 2007
"Daniel and I got podcasted today at MEDC 2007 and were asked to talk about Signpost 2007. checkout the video here: [here]"
I want this for PDC 2007...
But then that means I'll FINALLY need to get a smartphone... Well it will be for "work" so I should be able to sell it to my CHO [Chief Household Officer... i.e. my wife] ;)
phydeaux3 - Blogger with Header Image Uploading - and See Ya Old Blogger
"Over the past few weeks, Blogger appears to be completing the migration to New Blogger. All blogs that didn't get migrated previously have been moved over under cover of night and are now on the New Blogger platform. Meaning there is no Old / New Blogger anymore. It's just Blogger now. Users who weren't around to migrate their blogs are given the chance to "claim" their blogs via their Old Blogger account, so a google account can then be associated with their blogs.
..."
With no announcement or fanfare, there's now only one Blogger in town. Old Blogger is gone and it appears all blogs have been migrated...
I've been pretty happy with the New Blogger, and my only beef is that I'd wish they'd fix the "remember me" logon option... (And if that little thing is my only major beef, then I must be pretty happy with it ;)
Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Codename "Astoria" - May 2007 Community Technology Preview
"The Microsoft Codename "Astoria" project is an incubation effort at Microsoft focused on exploring how various emerging world-wide-web technologies and concepts can be combined with the Microsoft Data Platform to provide a first-class infrastructure for building the next wave of internet applications.
The goal of Microsoft Codename Astoria is to enable applications to expose data as a data service that can be consumed by web clients within corporate networks and across the internet. The data service is reachable over regular HTTP requests, and standard HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT and DELETE are used to perform operations against the service.
The payload format for the data exchanged with the service can be controlled by the client and all options are simple, open formats such as plan XML and JSON.
The use of web-friendly technologies make it ideal as a data back-end for AJAX-style applications, Rich Interactive Applications and other applications that need to operate against data that is across the web.
The first Astoria CTP is a dual release, making Astoria available in the form of downloadable bits that can be used to build data services that are entirely contained within a single computer or network and as an experimental online service that you can use to create online stores that are hosted by Microsoft and are accessible over the internet." [Description leached pretty much in full]
Interesting... I've built a couple web services just to provide a data access point for AJAX apps. This will be something I'll be keeping an eye on...
Note that one of the prerequisites is Orcas Beta 1...
Update #1 5/1/2007 @ 8:01 AM PDT:
Some more information on Astoria...
Project Home Page, Astoria Online Service
Pablo Castro's blog - Codename "Astoria": Data Services for the Web
"... This document introduces the concepts and motivations for Astoria. ..."
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