Monthly Archives: April 2005

Where does it all come from?

I have a nasty cold and can’t go too far from the kleenex today as I have a runny runny nose (in between some impressive sneezing fits). I am getting really sick of my nose being so runny.Where on earth does all of that stuff come from anyway. Are my brains melting? Thank goodness for Puffs Plus or I would probably have no skin left on my nose by now!

http://www.AcehAid.org

VS2005 Standard (avail as beta2) vs. VS2005 Professional (not avail as beta2)

I blindly downloaded the standard version of VS2005 Beta2 because the only other option was Team System (not for me and also a an extra GB which would have added at least 6 hours). Mike Gunderloy pointed out that this is standard and we don’t have access to Professional as yet, so I went and checked the product version comparison chart for a reminder.

Here are the key differences between Standard and Pro

User Experience=”Streamlined” instead of “Full” – I have no idea what this even means!

Deployment Tools – Standard has “Click Once”, Pro says “Yes” (probably MSI Installation as per current versions)

Extensibility: In Standard you can only consume extensions, but not build them

Reporting: Standard has Crystal. Pro also has SQL Reporting Svs

Debugging: Standard does NOT have remoteo debugging

SQL Server: Standard does not have the explorer for SQL Server and there is no SQL Server 2005 integration

Included with intstall: Pro has SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Windows 2003 Server Developer Edition included. Standard does not.

 

http://www.AcehAid.org

Searching on ink – Journal can do it!

Loren talks about the great response to the inkable comments on Channel 9 and some of the feedback on slashdot from it. Besides the obvious illegible handwriting, the other issue is being able to search the text. That’s a biggie becuase those ink comments are probably just GIFs by the time they get posted.

Two thoughts popped into my head while reading Loren’s thoughts.

1) Journal can search on ink – so obviously the inkdata combined with sdk functionality allows for that. One of my favorite things to demo to developers in Journal is to write a sentence in a circle and then have Journal search for one of the words that is sideways and curved.l

2) The ink data is likely being stored in that GIF (fortified GIF persistance format also persists the ink data). But how on earth can google find it? We need an API that exposes the ink data. That is, of course, assuming that all of the writing is recognized properly.

I’ll have to look into the project that Layne is working on that Loren mentions in his post.

http://www.AcehAid.org

One of the most environmentally “green” bulidings in the country is 20 minutes from my house

Vermont-based NRG Systems, which is a big player in the windmill industry, was growing rapidly and needed a new building. They decided to ‘walk the walk’ and ended up creating an unbelievably environmentally friendly commercial building. They are in Hinesburg, VT, near where I live. They have a whole section of their website dedicated to sharing info about this building which is really fascinating.

http://www.AcehAid.org