"Visual Studio 6.0 removed from MSDN [Subscriber] download on 12/16/2005"

Federal Developer Weblog : Visual Studio 6.0 removed from MSDN download on 12/16/2005

"Please note that Visual Studio 6.0, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, and all other products containing MSJVM will be withdrawn from availability on MSDN Subscriber Downloads beginning December 16, 2005. MSDN subscribers interested in this content and eligible to download these products are encouraged to make any needed downloads before this date. Recipients of MSDN Subscriptions media are encouraged to retain their latest discs containing these products for future use. Affected products will no longer be included in new MSDN Subscriptions media shipments or in future media updates, and once withdrawn, will not be available in any form from MSDN Subscriptions.

Visual Basic 6.0 will continue to be available until June 30, 2006, after which point it will also be withdrawn from availability. Microsoft will continue to support products throughout each product’s support lifecycle, but will no longer offer these products."

[flame on]
Okay, this kind of pisses me off. Didn't MS and Sun kiss and make-up (Reference the MSJVM above)?

Or is this a move to push developers off older products?

Crap, I can download Windows 3.1, QuickBasic 4.5, VB2,3,4, C++ 1.52, etc, etc! But after 6/30/2006 I won't be able to download VB6? COME ON...

You know, as much as MS doesn't like it, VB6 will be used in production apps for years to come. Making it harder/impossible for me to find VB6 a couple years from now because I have to fix a production app will not earn anyone any points.

GRRRRR!!!! This is just pissing me off the more I think about it (man I sooo need a life).

So I'm going to finish this up by saying I think this is a bad move that makes one MS customer pretty unhappy...

[flame off]

Update #1 12/7/2005 @ 12:54PM (PST):
So I go to download the items in question so I have enough ISO's copied around so I can find them in the future.

VB6? Well... Looks like the only version of VB6EE are the Chinese editions. That doesn't help me much.

MSDN Contact/Support email submitted

sigh...
Update #2 12/8/2005 @ 1:56PM (PST):
"Thank you for contacting MSDN. We would be glad to assist you. The stand alone English version is no longer available for Visual Basic 6.0, but you can download Visual Studio 6.0 English version which Visual Basic 6.0 integrated in Visual Studio 6.0."

Oh... Okay. Downloaded.

Public Domain Movie Torrents

Public Domain Movie Torrents with PDA versions

An interesting site that hosts a number of reported public domain or copyright expired movie torrents...

It's interesting that they also offer IPod compatible versions of many of the movies.

I'm trying to get a couple now (Night of the Living Dead and Plan 9 from Outer Space), but due to the many firewalls between me and the world, torrenting is usually a long and ugly process (I have 8 days of downloading left)... :(

(via digg - Copyright Free Movie Torrents)

Embedding SQL Server Express into Custom Applications along with ClickOnce Deployment

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition: Embedding SQL Server Express into Custom Applications

"This white paper discusses how to integrate and deploy Microsoft SQL Server Express-based applications by using configuration files and the ClickOnce deployment technology in Microsoft Visual Studio.

...

SQL Server Express no longer uses merge modules to embed the SQL Server Express Database Engine. Instead, it contains a single-setup executable that can be bundled with your custom application. This executable accepts command-line parameters for a smooth installation experience.

The best way to embed SQL Server Express within your application depends on how you plan to deploy the application. Ideally, you would always download the latest SQL Server Express version from the Web. This would help to ensure that your customers are running the latest version. However, it is probably more feasible to install SQL Server Express from an internal file share, or place the Express bits on the same media as your custom application.

This white paper describes the configuration file and command-line parameter support for the sqlexpr.exe setup installation executable. Because merge modules have been deprecated, configuring SQL Server Express this way is the best option for SQL Server 2005. To help you more easily embed SQL Server Express, this white paper also provides instructions for creating a wrapper class that will assist custom application developers in deploying a SQL Server Express solution. In addition, this white paper describes the advantages and disadvantages of using the ClickOnce feature of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 to deploy your SQL Server Express custom applications.

..."

I'm becoming a big fan of ClickOnce. I've only deployed one beta with it so far, but that was so smooth, that I'm going to keep using it for future deployments.

My project didn't include SQL Express, but others might so this white-paper might come in handy in the future...

CLR Profiler 2.0 Download

Download details: CLRProfiler

"The CLR Profiler includes a number of very useful views of the allocation profile, including a histogram of allocated types, allocation and call graphs, a time line showing GCs of various generations and the resulting state of the managed heap after those collections, and a call tree showing per-method allocations and assembly loads."

CLR Profiler for .Net 2.0... What's cool is that the C#/C++ source is also provided.

Composite UI Application Block RTM for C# and Visual Basic .NET Now on MSDN

“Composite UI Application Block - December 2005 Release for C# and Visual Basic .NET Now on MSDN!

The Microsoft patterns & practices Smart Client Team is pleased to announce the MSDN release of the Composite UI Application Block for C# and Visual Basic .NET.

Please visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/cab.asp for more information and to download this release.

Highlights of the release:

- Source code for the block in both C# and Visual Basic .NET
- Tests for Visual Studio Team System and NUnit in both C# and Visual Basic .NET
- Comprehensive QuickStarts
- Intergated documentation
- Fixed bugs found since November 2005 Release”

Very cool… Downloading now.

Related Past Post XRef:
Composite UI Application Block Webcast
Composite UI Application Block (C# Version) Released
Composite UI Application Block (CAB) Tech Preview 1
A little More Info on Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) and the Composite UI Application Block (CAB)

"How To Detect If an Application Has Stopped Responding by Using Visual Basic .NET"

How To Detect If an Application Has Stopped Responding by Using Visual Basic .NET

"In some situations, you may want to detect if an application is blocked. For example, when you are automating Microsoft Internet Explorer, you may want to know if Internet Explorer has stopped responding.

This article describes how to detect whether an automated instance of Internet Explorer has stopped responding (hung) and how to close Internet Explorer. Although the code is written for Internet Explorer and Visual Basic .NET, you can use this approach for other applications as well.

...

procs = Process.GetProcessesByName("IEXPLORE")
...
Try
If procs(0).Responding = True Then
MessageBox.Show("IEXPLORE is responding")
Else
MessageBox.Show("IEXPLORE is not responding")
End If
Catch
MessageBox.Show("IEXPLORE is not running")
End Try
...
Try
If procs(0).Responding Then
procs(0).CloseMainWindow()
Else
'Force closure.
procs(0).Kill()
End If

Catch notRunning As Exception When Err.Number = 91
MessageBox.Show("Could Not Find the IEXPLORE Process")

End Try

..."

Nice... I dig the .Net Framework. It just makes some things sooooo much easier.

(via Braulio Díez Botella - How to detect if a process is not responding)

GreatNews - RSS Reader

GreatNews: The Intelligent RSS Reader

Have I found my Windows RSS client finally? Like many RSS readers, I keep my eyes open for a "new, better, cheaper, strong and faster" client...

To date, I've been using my fav, Bloglines. But I'm always open to trying new things...

I just read Ryan Farley's post about GreatNews and it sounded interesting, so I'm giving it a try. Best of all it sync's with Bloglines, so I can continue to use either the Web UI or GreatNews.

So far so good. It took a bit to figure out how to get it to sync to Bloglines (right click on a Channel, like the All News Channels, select "Add", then "Bloglines Sync Channels"), but once there, it pretty quickly downloaded all my feeds and polled to get all the unread feeds. Unread based on my last reading on Bloglines...

GreatNews has a newspaper type reading pane, which is one thing of many, I liked about Bloglines. You can read/view/scan/etc an entire folder/group in a single pass. Or you can go from feed to feed. Or post to post...

The one thing I don't like is the keyboard shortcuts are not user configurable. I want to be able to override the existing ones. Oh well...

In any case, it feels like the best of the Bloglines reading UI but with the power of a full client app.

We'll see in a week if I'm still using it... ;)

(via { public virtual blog; } - New RSS Reader - Hello GreatNews)

Managed Addin Framework (MAF)

Jack Gudenkauf (JackG) WebLog : PDC05 - Managed Addin Framework (MAF)

"The Managed Add-in Framework defines a programming model, built on top of .NET that allows applications to dynamically load and communicate with generic components at runtime. We provide a solution for creating independently versioning, mutually distrustful components, and allow them to work together. We tackle the two problematic – versioning and isolation – together.

At PDC05, Thomas Quinn, an architect on our team, responsible for VSTO and VSTA, and Jim Miller, a CLR architect, responsible for several platform components related to versioning support in the CLR, among other things, jointly presented the platform framework for managed Addin’s. See the PDC FUN309 session.

...

System.AddIn.dll and the System.AddIn namespace

• The NS will first be made available to the public in the VSTA/O12 release in the second half of 2006.
• The VSTA product and MAF have been announced at PDC 2005.
• First available in VSTA/O12 and then made available broadly in Orcas as part of the platform (CLR).
..."

I missed this at PDC 2005. Time to break out the DVD's... ;)

It's good to see MS getting serious about the add-in model/pattern. I just hope it DOES come in the Office 12 time-frame. But even if it does, I might wait until v2/Orcas version before investing too much time into it. I'd rather not get burned by getting sucked into a dead-end/interim API (been there, done that, got the t-shirt).

(via del.icio.us/foobarbaroni/dotnet)

Visual Basic (and C#, J#, XML) Code Snippet Editor

Visual Basic Code Snippet Editor

"Are you eager to produce your own Visual Basic Code Snippets but prefer not to think in terms of angle brackets? The Visual Basic Snippet Editor is a Windows Forms application with UI for creating, editing, testing VB code snippets. You can specify snippet code and metadata (e.g., title, author, description, keyboard shortcut), replacement variables, and referenced assemblies. You can preview your snippet as it will appear when inserted into the code window, and you can even test whether it will compile. ..."

Sometimes (well many times) I feel stupid...

I wanted to create some of my own snippets. So I did a little R&D, found the XML spec, and crafted them... in notepad.

Okay, using notepad for xml can be fun, but doing it once was enough. After doing it three times, I was done...

Then just now I happened across the VB Snippet Editor. Talk about a "smack myself in the head" moment... The Snippet editor sure makes creating and testing a whole lot easier!

It defaults to VB Snippets, but via its Options dialog (top right toolbar button, next to the Help), you can turn on/enable C#, J# and XML snippet trees.

VS6 MSSCCI Provider for TFS

bharry's WebLog : VS6 MSSCCI Provider for TFS

"I'm pleased to announce that a pre-release version of a MSSCCI provider for Team Foundation Server will be available shortly. This provider will allow the version control functionality of TFS to be accessed from within VS6 (and many other IDEs). This provider is going to be an unsupported tool and won't be an official part of the TFS release. None-the-less we realize that it will be a valuable addition for many customers and will work hard to make sure it is good. At this time it does not support VS2002 or VS2003 however we are working on adding that support and expect to have it in a few months. I'm expecting the provider to be available for download sometime within the next week or so."

Very cool... And very important to our moving to TFS...

"USB Air Darts"

USB Air Darts - Gizmodo

"You cubicle warriors out there can get pretty intense in your day to day work environments. This may be the perfect weapon to add to your arsenal. This contains three darts and is USB powered. Firing is done simply using the mouse and the included software. ..."



Now if only it had an API...

Let's see, a motion capture webcam to aim and launch USB air darts to keep the damn cat's off the kitchen table...

Oh yeah, THAT would be cool.

;)

Build Your Own PBX with Asterisk@Home. Also Asterisk@Home 2.1 Has Been Released...

The Geek Gazette - Build Your Own PBX

"What would it mean to you to have your own full-featured PBX system at your home or small office? What would it mean to you if you could build an entire PBX system (minus the phones) on hardware you probably have laying around, AND that it can probably also save you money on your phone bill? Sounds too hard to believe doesn't it, but using old hardware and some open source software, you really can build a commercial quality phone system that would normally cost thousands of dollars.

The Hardware
As I mentioned in the opening, we are going to build our PBX system from equipment that we have laying around the house. After cannibalizing three spare systems, what was left was a PII 450, 386mb RAM, 12gb HD, 48x CDROM drive, and an Intel Pro 10/100 network card. This is all you 'need' to get going as long as you are going to get VOIP dial tone service from a company like BroadVoice (more on this later). If you want to use regular analog phone lines you will need modem card. Not every card will work properly, however, the most recommended card is the Digium Wildcard X100P FXO card which can be purchased brand new on eBay for $6.95 each. So far, total out of pocket expense for the card plus shipping: $12.90.

...

While Asterisk can run on numerous systems from Linux to even flash ROM for some LinkSys routers, we will focus on installing Asterisk on our salvaged equipment as simply as possible. To aid in our install, Asterisk@Home is a pre-package ISO image that automates the installation of Asterisk and adds a usable web interface to monitor and configure your system.

..."

This is a short guide for installing Asterisk@Home on old hardware you may have laying around...

When checking this out, I also noticed that Asterisk@Home released v2.1 on 11/30.

So now I have two tasks. This first is to download 2.1 and play with in a VPC (I had problems getting 2.0 to install in as VPC guest OS... could just be a bad download though). The second is to install it on an old 400mhz machine that I've not turned on for years (it has a beta of Win2003 server on it... yeah, it's been off for a while).

Related Past Post XRef:
"Running Asterisk@Home Under Windows"
Slashdot | Asterisk Open Source PBX 1.0 Release

Update #1 12/3/2005 @ 12:57PM (PST):
My Asterisk@Home install problem was pervasive... I couldn't run/install 2.0, 2.1, 1.3 or even any of the LiveCD's!

Okay, that's not a problem with them/the downloads but must be me/my setup. All would "freeze" when trying to mount the HD (or there about).

You know, it's a wonder what uninstalling and reinstalling can do... ;)

Installing Asterisk 2.1 now (it's in its Package Installation phase now).

"Converting PDF to Text in C#" with PDFBox/IVKM.Net

Converting PDF to Text in C# - The Code Project - C# Programming

"How to parse PDF files?

When extending the indexing solution for an intranet built using the DotLucene fulltext search library I decided to add support for PDF files. But DotLucene can only handle plain text so the PDF files needed to be converted.

After hours of googling I found a reasonable solution which uses 'pure' .NET - at least there are no other dependencies than a few assemblies of IKVM.NET. Before we start with the solution let's take a look at the other ways I tried..."

This is a cool example for extracting text from PDF's using PDFBox. I like how the author talks about the other methods he tried, Adobe PDF IFilter and ITextSharp, before ending up with PDFBox.

This is the first time I've seen PDFBox. It looks pretty cool and something I might be able to use....

From the PDFBox site:
"PDFBox is an open source Java PDF library for working with PDF documents. This project allows creation of new PDF documents, manipulation of existing documents and the ability to extract content from documents. PDFBox also includes several command line utilities.

Features
PDF to text extraction
Merge PDF Documents
PDF Document Encryption/Decryption
Lucene Search Engine Integration
Fill in form data FDF and XFDF
Create a PDF from a text file
Create images from PDF pages
Print a PDF"

PDFBox - .NET Version
"Even though PDFBox is written in Java, there is also a .NET version that is available. It utilizes IKVM to create a fully functioning PDF library for the .NET framework. The released version contains a bin directory with all of the required DLL files. For the command line applications that are available in the Java version a native windows executable is also included. This page contains information that is specific to using the .NET version of PDFBox. "

Some interesting stuff...

Related Past Post XRef:
Java Implementation for Mono/.Net (IVKM.Net)
iTextSharp - PDF Lib for .Net

Standalone QuickTime Player Download

Apple - QuickTime - Download - Standalone QuickTime Player

I'm finally getting around to installing QuickTime on my new notebook... What is with the ITunes + QuickTime bundling? I don't fricken want ITunes just so I can play QuickTime streams!

After a quick google, I found the link to the standalone QuickTime installer.

(via Download Apple Quicktime Without iTunes for Windows, OS 8, OS 9, or OS X)

Skype 2.0 Beta (Now With Video)

Skype - The whole world can talk for free.

"Skype 2.0 beta.

Now with free video calling. Say hello, smile or even wave to anyone, anywhere in the world. Try it out but remember, it’s just a beta. (Some of you might prefer to wait for the shiny final version.)"

'Cause I just don't have enough crap running in the background. ;)

I would like to try the conference call feature and see if the video from everyone is available. I've been looking for a free, easy and firewall/NAT friendly, multi-party video conferencing tool...

Time to dig out my Cam I guess.

(via Laurent Kempé - Skype 2.0 Beta out — now with free video calling)

Blogpoly

Blogger Buzz: Play Blogpoly

"Based on a blogging-themed version of the Monopoly board from littleoslo, gaming site Kurnik just launched Blogpoly. From their post about the launch:

For a geek like me, there was no better theme for a Monopoly-like game that I planned to add ..."



LOL... That's cool...