Ben Hall's Blog

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.