If you are seeing a message in Windows Vista saying "Your Windows license will expire in X days," it might be because you have a pre-release version of Vista SP1.
This is happening to people running activated copies of Windows Vista with a beta or release candidate version of Service Pack 1. Uninstalling SP1 seems to fix the problem.
Joe Homnick has a great post explaining how he is using USB Flash drives for Virtual PCs in the classroom. The flash memory in typical USB flash drives are fast for reading but notoriously slow for writing.
Joe puts the virtual hard drive (VHD file) on the flash drive and puts the virtual machine configuration (VMC file) on the local C: drive. The undo file will then go on the C: drive by default, which is much faster to write to than the flash drive.
I am absolutely going to try this out. Currently when I demo with Virtual PC I run the VPC off my local hard drive or an external USB hard drive.
Here is a picture of Joe’s 18-person classroom in the palm of his hand:
Peter Kellner has a post showing how to use LINQ to parse XML data exposed by your Tivo:
http://peterkellner.net/2008/01/18/tivospaceviewerwithlinq/
As a recent Tivo convert, this is just too cool.
I was getting too much comment spam from KnowledgebasePublisher (aka KBPublisher) and decided to enable visual confirmation codes (captchas). I run KnowledgebasePublisher on a Windows server with FastCGI.
The captcha images were not appearing after I enabled the feature. What I had to do was enable the GD2 extension in PHP.INI and restart IIS.
Hope that helps if you have a similar problem. This is mostly a reminder for myself if I encounter it again in the future.
Mohammad Akif at Microsoft is running a webcast series for developers and IT pros interested in becoming architects. Here are the upcoming events:
June 16th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Introduction to the aspiring architect Web Cast series
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380836
June 17th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Services Oriented Architecture and Enterprise Service Bus – Beyond the hype
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380838
June 18th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – TOGAF and Zachman, a real-world perspective
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380840
June 19th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Services Oriented Architecture (Web Cast in French)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380842
June 20th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Interoperability (Web Cast in French)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380844
June 23rd , 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Realizing dynamic systems
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380846
June 24th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Web 2.0, beyond the hype
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380848
June 25th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Architecting for the user experience
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380850
June 26th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Conclusion and next steps
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380852
Currently I don’t have a vision for using ARDENTCODER.com / ARDENTCODER.net and they expire in the not-too-distant future.
If you have a vision for these domains and will commit to using them for something that contributes to humankind in some small way, email me or leave a comment.
The latest of episode of Devcasting is posted (finally):
http://devcasting.com/index.php/2008/05/16/devcasting-11-rob-windsor-on-many-things/
…because you are not registered for DevTeach Toronto.
OK, maybe not in peril.
Then again… what are you doing to enhance your skill set? Who are you sharing ideas with? Who or what is challenging the constructs, patterns, and assumptions you rely on everyday? What is breaking your team out of your own echo chamber?
Sales statistics say it’s not books. The big Microsoft conferences like Tech Ed feature lots of Microsoft product managers on stage talking about their products. It’s good info, but it’s not real meat. It’s not war stories from the real world. It’s not emerging ideas from thought leaders.
You need places to connect with people who are in the trenches. People who are passionate about what they do. People eager to share their tales. You get that on blogs and at code camps. You can also find it at community-focused conferences like DevTeach.
DevTeach is my favourite conference after MIX. It has all the standards of an international event but is also designed to encourage networking with the many renowned speakers who volunteer their time to speak. In between sessions you can easily end up eating lunch with Richard Campbell or watching Carl Franklin do a magic trick.
The next DevTeach is coming up soon: May 12-16, 2008 in Toronto, Canada. Lots more info over at www.devteach.com.
One of the event’s owner (Jean-René Roy) is a Microsoft MVP and for the past 14 years has been a user group leader in Montreal. He’s a great guy and he puts on a great show. I highly recommend it.
If you spend some of your time in the network management side of the shop, this is for you: Microsoft announced a couple weeks ago that the next version of ISA Server won’t be called ISA Server. Microsoft’s new network security product will be called Forefront Threat Management Gateway. It will be available as a standalone product and bundled in suites such as the forthcoming Windows Essential Business Server.
Microsoft has released the source code for its MVC framework:
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