IEDevToolbar

Download details: IEDevToolbar

"The IE Developer Toolbar provides several features for deeply exploring and understanding Web pages.

-- Explore and modify the document object model (DOM) of a web page.
-- Locate and select specific elements on a web page through a variety of techniques.
-- Selectively disable Internet Explorer settings.
-- View HTML object class names, ID's, and details such as link paths, tab index values, and access keys.
-- Outline tables, table cells, images, or selected tags.
-- Validate HTML, CSS, WAI, and RSS web feed links.
-- Display image dimensions, file sizes, path information, and alternate (ALT) text.
-- Immediately resize the browser window to 800x600 or a custom size.
-- Selectively clear the browser cache and saved cookies. Choose from all objects or those associated with a given domain.
-- Choose direct links to W3C specification references, the Internet Explorer team weblog (blog), and other resources.
-- Display a fully featured design ruler to help accurately align objects on your pages.

The Developer Toolbar can be pinned to the Internet Explorer browser window or floated separately"

Sounds pretty cool... Installing now.

A few seconds later...

Installed it and the installer wants to reboot my system. Sigh, I hate that. It's just a TOOLBAR. Why should I have to reboot? Close all instances of IE? Yeah, that I can accept. But reboot? Well silly install, you are just going to have to wait and suck it up.

BTW, it works without the reboot and looks pretty cool. I really dig the DOM explorer...

Workflow WOW

Today was PDC wow day for me…

At the keynote, the wow was the Windows Workflow Foundation (WWF) announcement. WWF is a full fledge member of WinFX, on par with Windows Communication Foundation (aka Indigo) and Windows Presentation Foundation (aka Avalon).

The demo of WWF was very impressive. If the shipping version looks anything like the beta 1 we saw today, it could mark a fundamental shift for developers and their apps.

I just hope it doesn’t die a PDC death (like My Services, etc, etc). I’m willing to bet that it will ship though… Not only does it fills such a dramatic and long unfulfilled need, but it’s to be used in many other parts of WinFX and other MS products (like the next version of BizTalk, SharePoint V3, Office 12). Sure that doesn’t mean there’s a 100% chance that it will ship (think PDC 2003 and the WinFS hype), but still it increases its chances.

I’ll be attending a couple more WWF sessions tomorrow, and am already thinking about how I can use it in my apps. It’s not shipping until “Mid 2006”, but this is one beta I might use in production early…

Check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/workflow for more details.

PDC05 Undercurrent… RSS and Blog’s

For this PDC, it’s hard to pick on main theme. Forced to pick one I’d say it was Vista/Office 12 (plus future stuff).

But there DOES seem to be a primary undercurrent throughout the conference, RSS feeds and Blogs. You see references to both in many sessions, all the presenters have blogs, code samples seem to include reading/creating RSS feeds, etc. Let alone the new RSS aggregator/reader built into Outlook 12 (yeah!).

I think we’re going to look back and say that this PDC was the coming out party for MS and enterprise RSS…

I know I'm Usually in the Dark, but Come On!

abc7.com: Worker Error Blamed For Blackout

So there I was at PDC, doing some "research" after lunch (yeah, I know, TMI).

POOF. No lights.

"Well this pretty much sucks"

Luckily the backup lights came on after just a few moments.

No one seemed to know what was going on, but given the statement made yesterday by the Bad Guys, everyone was on edge.

As you can imagine, getting a cell signal took a bit of patience. Finally I was able to connect with someone who gave me the scoop (as of that time). No Power. In most of LA. Blackout.

"Well this REALLY sucks"

And I took the MetroLink and MetroRail (subway/light rail) train to PDC today. I could see the Blue Line MetroRail from the Convention Center where I could see that it was still running. So I made the call.

"Screw this, I'm out of here"

Thus began my four hour trip home... The Blue Line (light rail) was running, just extremely slowly (think crossing streets with no crossing lights). The Red Line (subway) was also running behind too (to say the least). So it only took me an hour+ to get to Union station. Not too bad for a usual 15-25 minute trip.

The MetroLink (think Amtrak lite) was running on time, which was great. Unfortunately the next train was scheduled from an hour and a half from then.

From that point on it was just a waiting game. And a wondering game. Still no one really knew the cause of the black out. Every siren you heard, made you wonder...

Anyway, all in all, it could have been worse. All's well that end's well?

And in the end it's a crossed wire! Nice...

PDC Swag #2 – Framework Design Guidelines book

I informally switched my pre-conference session from the “Adding Integration, Analysis & Reporting Functionality to Your Application Through SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence” to “Framework Design Guidelines: The Art of Building a Reusable Class Library” today.

Those registered for this session received the book, “Framework Design Guidelines”. Luckily there were extra, so I was able to get a copy too… Which was very cool, as the book looks nice (and I like books, especially when they are free…).

The samples in the book are C#, but that’s okay, as I’m getting good at just-in-time mental VB.Net conversion (as I’m sure many/most VB.Net coders are too).

Okay, I have to actually listen to this session now… ;)

You Know You Have a Problem When...

You know you have a problem when…

… you’re jonesing so bad to check your email and feeds that you VPN into work, from PDC, on a Sunday…

There’s enough downtime, and power outlets, that I might have lied about not blogging much this coming week. Question will be how well the network holds up Tuesday forward.

Anyway, not much PDC swag yet. Got the notebook bag and t-shirt, but they are holding the really cool software until after the keynote on Tuesday. sigh…

Next session is about to start.

blog@u later…

9/11

Never forget