Windows Media Player 11 final has been released and is available for download from Microsoft's website.

Visit:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.mspx

Jamie Cansdale has just released TestDriven.NET 2.0 RTM.  TD.NET is a great application to integrate all the main xUnit frameworks (such as MbUnit and NUnit) into Visual Studio 2005.

http://weblogs.asp.net/nunitaddin/archive/2006/10/30/TestDriven.NET-2.0.aspx

Definitely worth a download if you use TDD.

Voting for DDD4 has now finished and they recieved 211 sets of votes.  Registration opens early November. Watch this space or visit http://www.developerday.co.uk/ddd/default.asp

Looks like the Virtual Side website is getting ready for TechEd Europe.  For everyone who can't attend, Microsoft have created a site which will contain on demand videos and interviews.

The site can be found at:

http://www.mseventseurope.com/Teched/06/Pre/Live/DefaultDev.aspx

It looks like Richard and Dave from NxtGenUG have a video already on the site.  Keep an eye out for more from them while their at TechEd.

I forgot to post this, but on Tuesday Apple released an updated MacBook Pro featuring the Intel Core 2 Duo.  I really want one of these babies...sure Vista RTM would look be great on it.

Base model is £1,349.01 (with Student Discount = £1,240.80) with free shipping.

• 15-inch
• 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 1440 x 900 resolution
• 1GB memory 
• 120GB hard drive
• 6x double-layer SuperDrive
• ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics with 128MB SDRAM

Just need to find some money now :(

This is the first opportunity I have had to blog about the first MSP event I attended on the weekend.  The event was organised so all the MSPs this year can get to know everyone, discuss various activities for the next year and get free stuff.

On the Sunday evening, the Academic team took everyone out for a meal.  This was a great night, good food, good wine, good conversation and all free!  I was on the same table as Matt Duffin, who is a intern at MS UK, so that was excellent to find out what he is getting up to. 

On the Monday, we were on campus for a full day of presentations.  Started early at 8.30 with Breakfast, then straight into presentations about how to be a good MSP.  We then had more food, a discussion around .Net 3.0 and Vista, more food, then onto XNA and ASP.net/Atlas, yet more food (noticing a trend yet?) and a final talk about Office 2007.  All really good talks.

Got some excellent freebies as well. Vista RC1 dvd, 256mb USB Pen, Cup, T-Shirt, Full MSDN subscription for this or next year and best of all I was given a free copy of the Application = Code + Markup book!!! Really looking forward to giving that a read.

Big thanks for Stuart Leddy and Matt Duffin and the rest of the academic team for a great weekend.  Can't wait for the next one.  Shame I didn't get chance to speak to some of the people from Microsoft more (like Mike Taulty, or Mark Johnston)

Just need to organise some events on campus now.  If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to send them to me.

I don't usually post these, but I couldn't resist with this one.

(Click to read as otherwise it messes with the layout when full size)

Microsoft just announced a new competition where you could win a trip to Mix07 and $2500 - all you have to do is submit a IE7 Addon.

Not a lot of information at the moment, not sure if UK developers are allowed to enter.  I'll update the site when the rules uploaded.  I'll enter if they are allowed as could be interesting to see how you can create addons.

IE7 Add-ons can be found here : http://www.ieaddons.com/

More information at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie/addoncontest/

UPDATE:  "we’re going to run a contest and open it up to the entire world (see rules and regulations)."  I missed this first time round - sorry... Good luck everyone!

Busy release day. 

IronPython has reached 1.0 - well done to them! 

"IronPython is a new implementation of the Python programming language running on .NET. It supports an interactive console with fully dynamic compilation. It is well integrated with the rest of the .NET Framework and makes all .NET libraries easily available to Python programmers, while maintaining full compatibility with the Python language."

I haven't used IronPython yet, but definitely looking forward to having a play.

ASP.net Ajax has also had a round of releases.  It has got slighting confusing.  The core is now Beta, which means it is part of a release cycle and you can get product support. The server bits (or Value-Add as Scott Gu calls it) is still CTP and the control toolkit has been updated.

Yet more for me to learn and play with - if only they would give me chance to catch up!! But they don't, they don't even give you a day :)

Well this is a blast from the past - the flying toasters screensaver has been cloned and released for both windows and MacOSX for free.

Bring back memories of AfterDark - I've got the CD somewhere at home....

http://ues.iad.cachefly.net/toast/

Mark Johnston just posted this and I thought it was cool.

http://www.msdewey.com/

Something to play with on a Friday afternoon....

After Yahoo jumped the gun yesterday, Microsoft have placed IE7 on their servers and is now available for download.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx

Strongly recommend you try it out.  It really is a good browser, shame it took so long.

According to Bink,  IE7 final has been released by Yahoo.  He says it comes with the Yahoo extras, but you can use Winrar to extract just the setup exe (IE7-Setup.exe).  Only time will tell if this is in fact the final version or not, but does look like it.

The version 7.0.5730.11

http://bink.nu/Article8553.bink

http://downloads.yahoo.com/internetexplorer/index.php

No, its not from spooks but from Sun Microsystems.  A storage container used as a datacentre!! 

 
Copyright 1994-2006 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

This is one of them ideas which is just pure genius!  I really like it, not sure how much it costs and I don't think I would like to leave it unattended in my back garden (Sarah has agreed that I can have one tho).  However, I can't see any external ethernet points on the picture and i'm not sure WiFi would work.....

Read more about it here : http://www.sun.com/emrkt/blackbox/index.jsp

In the recent Orcas CTP you would have noticed that it has a great background - just the name of the machine, OS and CPU information.  I really liked this as it would be great for my virtual machines so I can keep track of where I am and now I have found the tool to do it.

BgInfo from SysInternals (now Microsoft) - http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/BgInfo.html

This is a screenshot of it running on the VM I setup tonight for my MCTS SQL environment.  I think its great! and free!

If your a sysadmin looking after loads of servers - then I'm sure this could come in very handy.

According to The Register, Vista will go RTM on the 25th!!  Not sure if this is true, but if RC2 was the last drop then it must be soon.

Read for yourself here:

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/10/18/ms_vista_rtm/

This site is good for a laugh during your lunch break.

http://www.subservientprogrammer.com/main.aspx

Enter commands like eat, dance, jump, program and watch him go to work!

It's just been confirmed that I will be a Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) for 2006/2007 which is excellent news!!

The role is basically promoting Microsoft on campus and around University, I also get invited to various events at Microsoft which is excellent and really looking forward to.

I'm really excited about this, hopefully Hertfordshire will support my efforts and it will be a great year for all.

More will be posted on this thoughout the year.

Great opporunity for some free .NET 3.0 training via Microsoft eLearning.  Lots of material for you to work with and its free for a limited time (until RTM).

<quote>
This collection of 3 2-hour premium clinics teaches about the new capabilities provided by the .NET Framework 3.0. These clinics are for experienced Developers and Software Architects who are looking to adopt Microsoft's next generation technology within their solutions.
Topics covered within the collection include:

• Windows Presentation Foundation
• Windows Workflow Foundation
• Windows Communication Foundation

Link: https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=109340

</quote>

BBC news have just reported that Google have purchased £883m ($1.65bn) worth of shares in YouTube, however Google have said the two companies will operate independently.

This is going to be a very interesting deal.  Two of the major plays in the video sector joining partnerships, and with Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, joining the Apple board of directors this could mean we are about to enter another huge media revolution. 

Now YouTube, Google, and Apple all in partnership together and with iTV just around the corner this could be great news for all us geeks. 

But where does this leave Microsoft?

Read more here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6034577.stm

More on the Google and Apple partnership:
http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/marketinginsider/wpn-50-20060918IsGooglePolishingAnAppleAdDeal.html

The NxtGenUG have just posted information regarding a 2 day training course entitled "Advanced ASP.NET Exploits and Countermeasures" run by Dinis Cruz.  Dinis was one of the presenters on the Ed Gibson roadshow, and he has ran this training course at various conferences such as at Black Hat.  The course will be run in both London and Birmingham.

Dinis is a great presenter and I have heard great things about the course.

More information on the course itself can be found over on the Black Hat website however I am not sure if the content will be 100% the same.

More information on the NxtGenUG training course can be found on their website.

Personally, I would love to attend.

NxtGenUG

NxtGenUg was been created by 3 evangelists of Microsoft technology and hold regular meetings in Coventry, Birmingham and now Oxford every month with excellent speakers on a wide range of topics, together with some food and chat it makes for a great evening. 

If you have never been to a user group meeting before I strongly recommend you attend a local one.  The guys at NxtGen are great and I have really enjoyed the meetings I have attended (just a shame they haven't got a meeting in Hertfordshire yet) - well worth the monthly subscription and the group seems to be getting bigger and better every month.

For more information visit www.NxtGenUG.net

This just got slashdotted.  Article on how you can still get IE7 injected with toolbars just like IE6 (assumes that the end-user clicks 'yes/apply/accept/next' to just about anything - which of course they are going to do).  One of the nice things about it was that the reset built into IE7 worked.

http://www.windows-noob.com/review/ie7/

Good to read if you have nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon.

This is one for all you UK students out there.

Samsung are running a competition to allow "Dirty Pretty Things" to play on your campus for free! I saw them live in Coventry just before their album was released - they where amazing!!

Hertfordshire are fifth at the moment - I've placed my vote, help your uni by placing yours...

Visit http://www.bandonyourcampus.com/ to vote.

Microsoft have just announced that the Microsoft Certification Exam 70-540 will be in Beta form again starting October 23 until November 10 2006.

If you are in the area of mobile development then maybe you should look into taking this exam. If I remember correctly, these beta exams are free - so why not give it a go?

The Preparation Guide is available for the Exam at: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-540.mspx

Visit http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonlan/ for information on how to sign up.

Voting for the agenda has now opened on the DDD4 website.  If you are unsure how the voting works, you pick 10 talks you think you would like to attend, then then this gets to decide the day's lineup. You are allowed to change your choices up until the voting ends, which will be around mid October (or so the website says)

Nice to see they have taken my advice (and others I guess) and put the Level of the talk next to it.

Vote here:
http://www.developerday.co.uk/ddd/votesessions.asp

Ones i'm interested in, sure they will get my vote are:
Next Generation Data Access   (Style: Presentation - Level: 300)
Can Erten

The Use and Abuse of Reflection   (Style: Presentation - Level: 300)
Joanna Carter

How To Give Great Presentations   (Style: Presentation - Level: 100)
Guy Smith-Ferrier

TechED Highlights   (Style: Presentation - Level: 200)
Richard Costall & Dave McMahon

An Introduction to Microsoft Robotics Studio   (Style: Presentation - Level: 200)
Steve Tudor

How your web site gets owned   (Style: Presentation - Level: 300)
Barry Dorrans

Securing applications and communications in ASP.NET   (Style: Presentation - Level: 300)
Barry Dorrans