May 2006 - Posts

Vista Visions #9: Use Checkboxes for Multi-Select Files and Folders

This Vista Vision was submitted by Chris O'Connor of SDM. You can select multiple files in XP or Vista by holding down the CTRL key and clicking on the files that you need.  It works, but it's a little cumbersome - especially if you forget to hold Read More
posted Wednesday, 31 May 2006 3:06 PM by darren | 1 Comments

Vista Visions #8: The New Vista Boot Screen

If you are running a build of Vista that is higher than 5365 you can enable the new Vista boot screen.  To do this, run MSConfig by opening the Start button and typing 'msconfig' into the Search textbox and pressing enter. When MSConfig is Read More
posted Wednesday, 31 May 2006 2:57 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Vista Vibes #8: Angus Logan

How long have you been running Vista for on your desktop (honestly)?   About a month a few months ago and now Beta 2 – 24 hours. Tell me about a Vista feature have you discovered recently.   Side bar, enhanced network security, disabling Read More
posted Wednesday, 31 May 2006 8:26 AM by darren | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Hosting the WF Workflow designer

Did you know that you can host the workflow designer in your own apps?    http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/WFDsgnRehst.asp Read More
posted Tuesday, 30 May 2006 5:12 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Check out the performance-related features of Vista

In Vista, there are several options for giving your OS that little boost to get things running faster.  For example, if you are running Vista on a mobile PC client then you can take advantage of ReadyDrive to resume from Sleep faster.  Vista Read More
posted Tuesday, 30 May 2006 4:10 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Vista Vibes #7: Dr. Neil Roodyn

NOTEDr Neil is an independant consultant who, at times can be found in Australia and  at other times he can be found elsewhere . How long have you been running Vista for on your desktop (honestly)? I don’t use Vista as my primary OS yet Read More
posted Tuesday, 30 May 2006 5:25 AM by darren | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Vista Vibes #6: Charles Sterling

NOTE: Chuck is a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Australia living on the Gold Coast and also works on a lot of offshore stuff How long have you been running Vista for on your desktop (honestly)? I loaded it at PDC 2003 and built some apps but haven’t Read More
posted Sunday, 28 May 2006 9:03 AM by darren | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Vista Visions #7: Performance Rating and Tools

On the weekend, Geoff discovered the Performance Rating and Tools on Windows Vista.  These rating tools measure the capability of your computers hardware configuration and expresses it as a whole number.  The higher the number the better.  Read More
posted Sunday, 28 May 2006 9:03 AM by darren | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Vista Visions #8: Office 2007 Smart Art

One of the new features in Word 2007 is called Smart Art.  Smart Art allows you to merge text with graphics to render information visually.  You can access these features via the Smart Art menu item on the Insert Ribbon: Read More
posted Sunday, 28 May 2006 9:03 AM by darren | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Vista Visions #6: The Snipping Tool

Grant introduced me to the Snipping Tool the other day: You can find the Snipping Tool either via Start | Accessories | Snipping Tool or by simply typing Snip into any Search window.  The Snipping Tool provides a simple way to Read More
posted Saturday, 27 May 2006 7:44 PM by darren | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

Vista Visions #5: The Notes Gadget

Mitch just blogged another Vista Vision - the Notes Gadget: In Mitch's own words: One of my favourite gadgets is the out of the box Notes gadget that allows me to quickly scratch something temporary onto a piece of “virtual” paper. In the case below Read More
posted Saturday, 27 May 2006 7:40 PM by darren | 1 Comments
Filed Under:

Help improve Vista

If you've installed Windows Vista you can head off to this page to provide feedback about your experiences with the product:     http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/sentiments/default.mspx Here are Microsoft's own words about that page: Read More
posted Saturday, 27 May 2006 9:09 AM by darren | 0 Comments

Second presentation today. Started out tough, finished well though.

Tonight I got a call from Geoff about Vista.  He'd seen the photos that I put up earlier which showed the Readify guys having an impromptu Vista training session.  Geoff was ringing to see whether or not I could call in on my way home and show Read More
posted Thursday, 25 May 2006 9:30 PM by darren | 7 Comments

IIS7 - Now Grant has no excuse!

Given that he admitted that he hasn't been playing with IIS7 in Vista, I sincerely hope that Grant will take the time to download and watch this .NET Show episode about IIS7. In the show Scott Guthrie and Bill Staples spend and hour and a half walking Read More
posted Thursday, 25 May 2006 4:39 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Subscribing to this feed

I'm still finding my way around the TechTalkBlogs tool and, up until today I had been subscribed to the "All blogs" feed - which is pretty noisy.  If all you are after is the Vista goodness that I'll be posting here, you can simply subscribe to: Read More
posted Thursday, 25 May 2006 4:02 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Vista Visions #4: Remove Personal Information Using Explorer

This Vista Vision was submitted by Grant Holliday In Explorer, right click a word document and view the Properties then Summary tab. You will be able to view extra metadata associated with this particular file. This is great, as it allows you to Read More
posted Thursday, 25 May 2006 3:44 PM by darren | 3 Comments
Filed Under:

Lunchtime Vista Session with the Readify guys

I caught up with Rocky, Grant, and Mitch today down at the Microsoft offices here in Canberra.  We decided to run an adhoc Vista session and so it was on!  Within minutes Mitch and Rocky were dissecting my WinFX slide deck while Grant was hammering Read More
posted Thursday, 25 May 2006 1:37 PM by darren | 1 Comments

So you think that Vista sucks huh? Tell me about that.

To keep things interesting I'm really looking to post Vista stories from all over.  What are you Hobart-arians doing down there with Vista?  And what about you guys up in Cairns?  Sydney? Melbourne? Adelaide?  Auckland?  Has the Read More
posted Thursday, 25 May 2006 8:36 AM by darren | 0 Comments

Vista Vibes #5: Paul Stovell

NOTEPaul is a fellow Readifiarian who, in a David and Goliath repeat, recently took on the might of the DPE team with a challenge to put up or shut up with a list of valid reasons for moving to WPF.   How long have you been running Vista for Read More
posted Thursday, 25 May 2006 8:21 AM by darren | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

Great Office UI Blog

I discovered Jensen Harris' blog today and have found it to be a treasure chest full of jewels about features in the Office UI.  Each post turns out to be a little tutorial - very similar to the Vista Visions format.  Today I spent Read More
posted Wednesday, 24 May 2006 8:52 PM by darren | 0 Comments

5384.4

Is the build number for Vista Beta 2 Read More
posted Wednesday, 24 May 2006 6:03 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Vista Visions #3: Live Previews

I love these.  Little preview windows of the minimized apps in your windows bar.  They are live because they get refreshed in real time. Read More
posted Wednesday, 24 May 2006 5:49 PM by darren | 1 Comments

Vista Visions #2: Favorite Links

In Vista Vibes #3 Ian told us about a feature called Favorite Links.  Favorite links allow you to drag folders into the Favorites area and have them available everywhere at the click of a button.  Here's a screenshot of the Favorite Links: Read More
posted Wednesday, 24 May 2006 4:43 PM by darren | 2 Comments
Filed Under:

Vista and Office 2007 Visions - Show us your cool stuff

As some of you know, I’ve been asked by Frank Arrigo to maintain the guest bloggers spot on this site for the next couple of months – and so I’m on the lookout for interesting content.  I've had an idea called “Vista and OFFICE 2007 Visions” Read More
posted Wednesday, 24 May 2006 4:12 PM by darren | 5 Comments
Filed Under:

Vista Visions #1: RSS Sidebar Gadget

Vista Beta 2 ships with some standard Sidebar Gadgets, one of which is the RSS Gadget which is shown here: I'm running Office 12 and managing my feeds in Outlook via the new RSS Feed integration.  Because Outlook uses the new RSS Feed Read More
posted Wednesday, 24 May 2006 3:56 PM by darren | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

Office 2007 Beta 2 Available for Download

Today Microsoft released beta 2 of Office 2007. This beta is publicly available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx This site also has some great information regarding Office 2007 on it. Take a few minutes to look around Read More
posted Wednesday, 24 May 2006 1:45 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Chris is having a Vista Beta 2 installfest this weekend

Beers, Bikes, BBQ and Dogfood is how he announced it.  What a great way to kick off Vista Beta 2!  While talking about the just released Beta 2 of Vista, I read on Brad Abrams blog that it was today announced that Beta 2 of WinFX comes Read More
posted Wednesday, 24 May 2006 9:21 AM by darren | 0 Comments

Vista Vibes #4: Chris Auld

How long have you been running Vista for on your desktop (honestly)?   My desktop is what my notebook PC sits on :-)  I have a seperate HDD with Vista installed that I swap into and out of my primary notebook PC- an Acer Ferrari 4005. It's Read More
posted Wednesday, 24 May 2006 9:02 AM by darren | 0 Comments
Filed Under:

Start of my Vista presentations

Today I had a Vista presentation to give in Sydney.  This was a private presentation and not a public community event but it gave me the opportunity to run through some of my WinFX content for the Innovations gigs.  Shown here are Karl (left) and Read More
posted Tuesday, 23 May 2006 5:34 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Vista Vibes #3: Ian Griffiths

NOTE For anybody who hasn’t already heard of him, Ian Griffiths recently co-authored the hugely successful WPF book titled programming Windows Presentation Foundation and was responsible for training the folks who will be presenting at the upcoming Vista Read More
posted Tuesday, 23 May 2006 4:44 AM by darren | 7 Comments
Filed Under:

Vista Vibes #2: Grant Holliday

Hi Grant, couple of quick questions if I may.  How long have you been running Vista for on your desktop (honestly)? Since Friday when you sent me this email. I had an dual-boot install already (http://www.holliday.com.au/blog/windows-vista-5365-installation-experience.html). Read More
posted Monday, 22 May 2006 9:46 PM by darren | 4 Comments
Filed Under:

Do I plan to run Vista as my OS in Beta2?

Today Rocky e-mailed to ask me about Vista and how I felt about the current build that I'm running.  I thought about it for a while and then replied with a response that was designed to give him some idea about my plans for running Vista as of Beta Read More
posted Monday, 22 May 2006 8:16 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Are you ready for Aero?

Take the test and find out:     http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspx   Read More
posted Monday, 22 May 2006 3:27 PM by darren | 0 Comments

Vista events - leave your spinning textboxes at home.

While I've been prepping for the upcoming Vista shows I've been giving a lot of thought about explaining to developers why they should be there to see this stuff.  The 2 reasons that immediately spring to mind are: Vista and WinFX Read More
posted Monday, 22 May 2006 2:58 PM by darren | 1 Comments

Vista Vibes #1: Frank Arrigo

Hi Frank, couple of quick questions if I may.  How long have you been running Vista for on your desktop (honestly)?As my primary machine – 19 May 2006. I have it running on a Toshiba A7 (dual core) Tell me about a Vista feature have you discovered Read More
posted Sunday, 21 May 2006 12:21 PM by darren | 5 Comments
Filed Under:

Let's get this show on the road...

Throughout the next month I'll be entering up posts about the upcoming Vista events to give everyone a heads-up on what's going on.  These posts will focus on telling informing people where to head to catch the action, and just general gossip that Read More
posted Sunday, 21 May 2006 12:18 PM by darren | 3 Comments

Thump, Thump, Thump. Is this thing on?

The dust has settled on the Security Summit just as the next set of major events for the Australian developer community rolls in.  So I want you to stop thinking of tunnelling in through ports and running DOS attacks for a moment and to relax and Read More
posted Friday, 19 May 2006 6:31 AM by darren | 2 Comments