Media Center WebGuide Now Free

Windows Home Server Blog - WebGuide

"The Windows Media Center and Windows Home Server teams are excited to have Doug Berrett join Microsoft.  At CEDIA Expo we announced WebGuide for Windows Media Center is now available free from http://www.asciiexpress.com  The press release  about all of the great Windows Media Center news is available on the Microsoft web site.

What is WebGuide?   WebGuide allows you to remotely view live and recorded TV programs and to remotely schedule and manage your recorded television programs, music, pictures and videos on your Windows XP Media Center edition or Windows Vista Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate PC.  

..."

WebGuide

"WebGuide allows you to remotely view live and recorded TV programs and to remotely schedule and manage your recorded television programs, music, pictures and videos on your Media Center or Windows Vista PC. Install WebGuide on your Media Center PC and access it from any machine that has a web browser, including your cell phone or mobile device.

Convenient	Live streaming TV can be viewed on any web browser Recordings can be scheduled from any web browser "Place-shifting" for your personal media library, including TV, music, pictures, videos and DVD's PocketPC and Smartphone enabled Windows Vista ready
Easy	Installation takes only minutes User-friendly MCE interface Languages include Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish
Fast	Live scheduling without delays Search by show, date or time Quick access to recent and upcoming recordings

..."

That's pretty darn cool (and free is nice too).

Time to resurrect my Media Center I think... :)

Looking Behind the Curtain to See the Magic Behind the New Windows Live Installer

www.istartedsomething.com - The cookie magic behind Windows Live Suite installer

"...

Unsatisfied with “it just works”, I decided to investigate further. I first analyzed the HTML to see what effect it had on the download link when I selected the different options, but no luck there, it pointed to the same “WLinstaller.exe”. To prove a point, I then downloaded the executable without going through the form to compare it with the other executable I already, it was the same. So if the executable didn’t change, then it can only be the website.

One more look at the HTML and specifically the Javascript reveals the secret, cookies. By clicking “Install”, the Javascript generated a unique cookie for me under the name of “wlxp” that contained sets of globally unique identifiers (GUID) which I now know are the references to the particular applications I selected.

..."

So that's how the main Get Live website (http://get.live.com/WL/all) communicates to the WLInstaller.exe on what options you selected.

Interesting. And looks like something that's easy to extend and is pretty flexible.

The only issue I see is for those who download and install without going through the website (I wonder if they would get some default apps pre-selected and installed? Or just a full list of the available applications to "Select any additional products you would like to install" frame and nothing automatically installed?)

Anyway, after a couple days, I'm still pretty darn happy with the install experience and the new set of Live applications (though I've only really used WLW).

(via shahine.com/omar/ - Windows Live Suite Installer)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Windows Live Suite Installer Released (Which includes Windows Live Writer Beta 3)

Vista Sidebar Gadgets for Developers

Oscar Berroteran - Sidebar Gadgets for Developers!!!

"Code Converter

 

MSDN Search Gadget

 

VS Recent Projects

..."

While I can't read the post, the pictures said it all...

Windows Live Suite Installer Released (Which includes Windows Live Writer Beta 3)

Jump into Windows Live (http://get.live.com/wl/all)

As you've probably seen everywhere in MS land, today the Windows Live Suite Install came out.

And I have to say... It's pretty darn nice. It is very convenient and for me worked like a charm.

My only beef (a very very tiny one... mostly just a whine issue) is that on the web page I deselected Mail and the Toolbar. When the actual installer started Mail and the Toolbar where selected in the "additional products" section (see picture). I was confused about about 1/4 of a second, thinking that somehow Mail & Toolbar were still going to install or something.

Well as soon as I read the actual title of the area and the button text, I figured it out. But if I had been button happy, those could have been easily added. My whine is that if they were deselected on the web page, they should be deselected in the Installer. I DO like the fact that I get a second chance to install them. I think that's cool. I just wish their selection status reflected those that I selected on the initial web page. No blood, no foul and not a a big thing...

Besides that it worked great, and best of all no reboot was required (for me at least).

 

Included in the Suite is Windows Live Writer Beta 3. Which means it's time to update my Plugin installers (and tweak my Picture Post plug as it's broken again... sigh).

Lets see if WLW B3 can upload pictures to Blogger... Here it goes!

Update:
YEAH! Uploading photo's to Blogger/Picasa works! ROCK ON! Good job guys!

(via Windows Live Wire - Test drive the new Windows Live suite)

New Information on Creating Custom Reports for Team Foundation Server

Visual Studio Team System Developer Center - Getting Started With Custom Reports for Team System

"To better track your team's progress in Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, you can create reports that highlight the data that is most important for your project. By creating your own reports, you can drill down on specific information that is not analyzed by the default reports in Team Foundation Server. In addition, you can customize how your reports are run, displayed, and delivered to each member of your team.

...

Creating Reports

You can use the procedures in the following table to experiment with different approaches for creating a report.

Tool	Source of Data	Procedure
Excel	Analysis Services Database	How to: Create a Report in Microsoft Excel for Team System
Excel	Work Item Query	How to: Create a Work Item List
Report Designer	Analysis Services Database	How to: Create an Aggregate Report for Team System using Report Designer
Report Designer	Relational Database	How to: Create a Detailed Report for Team System using Report Designer

Managing Reports

After you have created your report, you can then share it and manage permissions and other properties of the report. For more information, see Managing Reports in Reporting Services for Team System and Managing Excel Reports for Team System in the Project Portal.

..."

Additional "How To" help for creating custom TFS reports.

(via Visual Studio Team System User Education - New Content Available on Creating Custom Reports)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Free Guide to Creating, Modifying and Installing TFS Reports and Understanding the TFS Data Warehouse
Understanding the Team Foundation Server Data Warehouse
Sample TFS Reports

Wintellect's PowerCollections is now on CodePlex

Roger Dahlman's Blog - PowerCollections on CodePlex

"I have recently taken responsibility for the Wintellect PowerCollections project. Wintellect has decided that that is time to make this a community project on CodePlex so that the library can continue to grow with contributions from others.

You can access the PowerCollection's site at http://www.codeplex.com/PowerCollections.

The PowerCollections have been available for download from Wintellect for some time but I am sure that many are not aware of their purpose. In a nutshell, PowerCollections are a set of collection classes that that utilize .NET generics to add to the collection classes already available in .NET ...

...

Below is a list of the current collections in the library:

• Set
• OrderedSet
• Bag
• OrderedBag
• BigList
• Deque
• MultiDictionary
• OrderedDictionary
• OrderedMultiDictionary

..."

Nice to see a good library continue to grow and improve... (and go OSS  :)

Related Past Post XRef:
"The C5 Generic Collection Library for C# and CLI"
Power Collections 1.0 Released
Power Collections version 1.0 is feature complete
Wintellect - Power Collections

ProcessExplorer v11.0 Released

Sysinternals Site Discussion - ProcessExplorer v11.0, AccessCheck Update, PageDefrag Article

"ProcessExplorer v11.0: We’re excited to announce the release of Process Explorer v11, which introduces major startup and UI performance improvements, new columns and process details for Vista I/O priorities, memory priorities, and Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) DLL and executable attributes, an enhanced security properties page that shows raw SID values, fully asynchronous thread symbol resolution, integration with UAC, and more!

..."

Microsoft Sysinternals - Process Explorer for Windows v11.0

"...

• What's new in Version 11.0:
• New treelist control for better UI responsiveness
• Asynchronous thread symbol resolution on threads tab of process properties
• More flags on groups in security tab and SID display
• Thread IDs on threads tab
• On-line search uses default web browser and search engine
• Vista ASLR column for processes and DLLs
• Vista Process and thread I/O and memory priorities in process and thread properties
• Vista Process and thread I/O and memory columns
• PROCESS_QUERY_LIMITED_INFORMATION support on process permissions on Vista
• Run as limited user runs with low IL on Vista
• Reports information for all object types on Vista
• Show details for all processes elevation menu item on Vista
• Supports replacement of task manager on Vista
• /e to launch elevated
• /s switch to select a process at startup
• Compiled w/ASLR, DEP
• Faster startup
• Miscellaneous bug fixes and minor improvements

..."

Process Explorer, aka "We Don't Need No Stink'n Task Manager"... (Or was it aka Task Manager++? Or Task Manager's Big Brother? Or the Task Manager of Christmas Future? )

(Yeah... sorry about that... It's been a long Monday...  ;)

NRTFTree - C# RTF DOM/SAX Like Parser

SourceForge - NRTFTree Library

"NRtfTree library is a set of classes written entirely in C# which may be used to manage (read and write) RTF documents in your own applications. A java port of the library can be found in http://nrtftree.sourceforge.net/ ..."

NRTFTree Library

"NRTFTree is an open source (GPL) [GD: As of the 0.3.0 release it's now LGPL] library written entirely in C# which may be used to manage RTF documents in your own applications.

NRTFTree will help you:

• Open and parse RTF files.
• Analyze the content of RTF files.
• Add, modify and remove document elements (text, control words, control symbols...).

..."

NRTFTree provides both a DOM like and SAX like mode...

I use RTF quite a bit, mostly consuming and storing it. But in some cases I have to tweak the RTF and well that can be... um... fun... If/when I have play in RTF land again something like this library could come in handy.

Now being LGPL it's something I can use and contribute too (I'd likely need to create a COM Callable Wrapper for it and that would be cool to contribute... but that's for another day...).

(via dzone - NRtfTree Library 0.3.0 b1 released.)

[Humor] Now this is a No Parking sign...

LOL

(via Metroblogging Los Angeles -  Parking Lament)

Creating PowerShell Cmdlet's? Need Help with the Help? Check out the Cmdlet Help Editor

Windows PowerShell - New and Improved Cmdlet Help Editor Tool

"The latest version of the Cmdlet Help Editor has been posted on the same link. It contains a few fixes. I recommend you all upgrade to this version:

http://www.wassimfayed.com/PowerShell/CmdletHelpEditor.zip

..."

Windows PowerShell - Intoducing the Cmdlet Help Editor V1.0

"Cmdlet Help Editor enables you to create help topics for Windows PowerShell cmdlets in the XML format that Windows PowerShell reads. Help text created in Cmdlet Help Editor can be displayed immediately by a Windows PowerShell get-help command without any additional transforms or formatting.

By reflecting on a Windows PowerShell snap-in (PsSnapin) assembly, Cmdlet Help Editor creates a customized documentation interface that includes the cmdlets in the snap-ins, their parameters, and parameter attributes.

Cmdlet Help Editor was designed for Windows PowerShell cmdlet developers to make it easy to create excellent cmdlet help. This tool is made available free of charge, but it is not warranted or supported by Microsoft.

..."

When/if I start creating Cmdlet's, this will come in handy...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Using VB.Net to Create a PowerShell CmdLet
VS2005 PowerShell VB & C# Templates (Project, Cmdlet & PSCmdlet)
VS2005 (C#) PowerShell Cmdlet New Item Template

XSLT and XSL-FO Task Based Reference Site

www.dpawson.co.uk - FO Questions, &  XSLT Questions and Answers

I'll likely be using XSLT and possibly XSL-FO in my Blogger backup utility, so this caught my eye (since I have little practical experience using XSLT and none with XSL-FO).

What I like about this site is that it's not just a link site but a reference site. 

David Pawson (author of XSL-FO Making XML Look Good in Print) has put together this nice reference site, based on tasked based questions and answers.

For example, here is a couple entries from the XSLT - HTML page;

"1. How to use HTML as input documents?

2. Embedding HTML in XML documents using HTML dtd

3. HTML to XML conversion

...

5. How to embed HTML in XML

6. Including BR in an XSL template
...
10. HTML in XML
...
13. Parsing HTML as XML

..."

That's just a tiny bit of the information available...

(Joteke's Blog - Handy XSLT Reference Site focused on specific tasks)

[Humor] It's not a Bug but an Undocumented ...

This photo gave me a good chuckle...

(via Virtual Earth / Live Map - Only 1 in 5 Program Managers can place the Capital of North Korea)

Image Resizer PowerToy for XP and Vista - Easy Resizing of Images, Pictures, Digital Photos, etc via Windows Explorer

Cum Grano Salis - Image Resizer Download Page

"(Note: When reinstalling, you may need to log off and on after the installation to have everything work properly)

1.0.831.0 - Fixed issues with setting defaults. 

1.0.801.0 - Added submenu for resizing quickly. 

1.0.0.0 - See initial blog post for more info." [Post leached in full]

Cum Grano Salis - Image Resizer for Vista (and XP) - Just a right click away from Explorer

"I don't know about you, but I am sorely missing the XP toy for image resizing. Windows XP had its power-toys, but Vista does not. And while some functionality has been baked into the shell, explorer right-click has not. On top of that, a feature I have been wanting for a while was also missing from the Power Toys (Copy Picture to clipboard).

Because of that, I created an Image Resizer app that is tailored to what I need.. For the purpose of this post, I shall use my daughter in the capacity of a lolcat

..."

My daughter was just asking me about resizing for emailing some of her photos. Right-clicking in Windows Explorer is just about at her comfort level...

(via The Road to Know Where - Microsoft Updates "Image Resizer" PowerToy)