Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day: 06/22/2008

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Microsoft Office (DOC, XLS, PPT) Binary File Format Specifications Released – We’re talking the full technical specification… (The [MS-DOC].pdf alone is 553 pages of very dense specification information)

Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Office File Formats Documentation

“…

The Microsoft Office file formats documentation provides detailed technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary file formats.

The documentation includes a set of companion overview and reference documents that supplement the technical specifications with conceptual background, overviews of file format relationships and interactions, and technical reference information.

…

"

There’s no fluff in these documents. They are very detailed, dense, highly technical and no nonsense file specifications.

The DOC spec is 553 pages, PPT 620 and XLS 1096 pages. If you’re writing code to read or write to the Office binary file formats then you ship has just arrived… (personally reading these makes my brain hurt, but that’s just me. ;)

VSLab – Interactive F# in Visual Studio

CodePlex – VSLab

“Project Description

Visual Studio Lab (VSLab) exploits the power of F# and its interactive top level to provide an interactive environment similar to MatLab and Mathematica, in which you can easily create Add-ins and interact dynamically with them inside Visual Studio. Moreover, since F# is a compiled language, the final code can be compiled as a standalone application.

Goal of the project is to provide the basic infrastructure to turn Visual Studio in VSLab, and a number of addins (called viewlets) used to show data and support development of scientific based applications.

Visual tutorial

The easiest way to look at VSLab is a powerful version of F# interactive that allows to open Visual studio toolwindows and interactively draw inside them. VSLab provides several facilities to create and manage Viewlets, Visual studio toolwindow that are interactively updated by F# functions. I think that the implementation is worth to study because fsi.exe run in a separate process and it isn't trivial at all to convince VS to accept efficient drawing from an external process. In fact VSLab has been developed to be an example of DTE use, the Visual Studio extensibility, and F# was the natural candidate for exploiting this power because of its interactive abilities. More technical documents will follow, for the moment let me introduce VSLab in the quickest way (assuming that you know a little bit of F#).

…

…”

I have no idea what to do with this, but I thought it was pretty cool and since I like posting about cool stuff… :)

I’ve yet to take a look at F# (or functional programming for that matter), but from what I hear in the casts I’ve caught, it sounds interesting. I like the idea of focused languages for targeted tasks. Languages for specific problem domains. I like that, for example, there doesn’t seem to be the drive to make WinForms via F#. That F# isn’t meant as a replacement for C#/VB (having two “primary” languages in the battle is enough I think ;) It seems there will be a place for F# assemblies, solving specific problems, in your C#/VB solutions. Using the right tool for the right job and all that.

(via martin esmann - Visual Studio Lab (VSLab))

Windows Live Writer 1.1 CTP Users – No, you’re not going crazy, it IS sometimes poking in those extra paragraph tags…

WinExtra - Pinging the Windows Live Writer Team and users

“…

When I first installed the CTP release and started using it I couldn’t understand why some of my posts where being displayed with varying length of whitespace between paragraphs. The problem even came through on the RSS feed of the posts. Then one day I was switching between the Edit and Source display and I noticed multiple lines of the paragraph tags in my post – much like you see with the accompanying screenshot I took of a previous post.
…”

I thought I was doing something stupid, or my cut-n-pasting pattern was jacking my posts, but it looks like I’m not the only one seeing this (so if someone else sees something that means you’re not crazy… right?)

In short, like Steve suggests, keep an eye on your posts with you’re using the new WLW 1.1. CTP. Switch to the Source tab/view every once in a while and always, always, always review your published post in the browser.

Case in point, when writing this post, I found some “extra” empty P tags, which were only visible in the Source view…

Friday, June 27, 2008

Microsoft Virtual Earth WinForm Control – Because I’m just a WinForm kind of guy…

CodePlex - MS Virtual Earth Winforms User Control

“A Winforms User Control for displaying and manipulation maps using Microsoft Visual Earth.
I have written a simple c# user control to include in your winform applications. It it no more than a web browser control with added functionality for displaying maps using Microsoft Visual Earth. The current release contains:

Add and remove layers

Find locations and show them using pushpins

Get and display driving directions

Supports mouse events

Save map output to disk

…

…”

Because I just a WinForm kind of guy, yet like pretty maps… lol

BTW, don’t be sad that there’s nothing on the Source tab, the source is in the release download. :)

A Black Box for Your Car – 20 Seconds of Video and Data to prove you didn't (hopefully) do it.

AutoCamcorder.com - Have you ever been wrongly accused in an auto accident?

"...

RoadScan automatically senses driving accidents in real time, stores the video and acceleration data for 14 seconds before the accident and 6 seconds after the accident. As many as 10 accident videos can be stored. Manual storage function is provided for data storage regardless of impact it may have sustained during its operation. The image and data of accidents can be analyzed using an accompanying simulation program.

..."

Having recently been in an accident, How not to end your morning commute..., I found this product pretty interesting. While it appears that I have gotten lucky and don't have to fight to prove it the other drivers fault, I think having this in the car would have really helped. Talk about an open and shut decision! At $299 it feels a little pricey. Yet given that is just 3/5's of my insurance deductible, maybe it's not really all pricey at that.

Now if I can get a break on my car insurance by having this, then I'd get it in a heart beat...

(via Gizmodo - Roadscan Drive Recorder: Like a Black Box For Your Car)

Using LINQ to Objects, Aggregate and Count() to get the count of a specific MDIChildren form type

This may not be the best way, but I thought it was a pretty cool way, so am sharing it.

Problem: I have a dynamic number instances of a specific form that are MDIChildren. There will be other kinds of MDIChildren forms as well. When the last, and only the last, instance of the specific form closes I want to do “something”.

Solution: Hook the FormClosed Event. In that event use Linq to Objects, Aggregate and Count() to get the current count of just that specific form type and if we’re closing the last form, do the “something.”

Hooking up the event when creating a new instance of the form in question (in the MDI Parent):

Dim ex As New ExampleForm
ex.MdiParent = Me
ex.Show()
AddHandler ex.FormClosed, AddressOf ExampleFormFormClosed

An instance of the given form closes, firing the FormClosed event (in the MDI Parent):

We’ll use Linq to Objects, filter by the form name and get the Count. if the count is 1, then we’re closing the last instance of that form

  Private Sub ExampleFormFormClosed(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.FormClosedEventArgs)
    RemoveHandler DirectCast(sender, Form).FormClosed, AddressOf ExampleFormFormClosed

    Dim EXForms As Integer = Aggregate a In Me.MdiChildren Where a.Name = "ExampleForm" Into Count()

    If EXForms <= 1 Then 'When closing the last instance of the form, the count will still be 1 
      'Do the stuff you want to do when you close that last type of that MDIChild

    End If

  End Sub

Again, I’m a Linq noob, but I thought this pretty cool and wanted to capture it for the future… If there’s a better way, please feel free to comment. :)

Get Filename from Filepath in T-SQL

Anatoly Lubarsky - T-SQL: Get Filename from Filepath

“…
Since there is no split function analog in T-SQL - I will use SUBSTRING, REVERSE and CHARINDEX to manipulate strings:
SELECT REVERSE(SUBSTRING(REVERSE(@fpath), 0, CHARINDEX('\', REVERSE(@fpath), 1)))
…”

I’ve reinvented this wheel a number of times and don’t think I’ve built one quite like the above…

Reversing it (no pun intended) will get you the filepath without the filename

SELECT
REVERSE
(
SUBSTRING
(
REVERSE((@fpath),
CHARINDEX('\', REVERSE((@fpath), 1) + 1,
LEN((@fpath) - CHARINDEX('\', REVERSE((@fpath), 1)
)
)

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Two free SQL Server DBA eBooks from Red-Gate, “How to Become an Exceptional DBA" and "SQL Server Best Practices"

Red-Gate - Boost your DBA expertise

“You know what it's like to be a DBA. Your skills are in constant demand at work, so how do you set aside time each week to maintain and learn new skills? Brad McGehee, SQL Server expert and Director of DBA Education of Red Gate Software, offers you an Ebook packed with hard-learned advice on how to achieve more during your working hours. Be an Exceptional DBA. Download your free Ebook now.

"How to Become an Exceptional DBA" by Brad McGehee

86 pages of advice on how to stand apart from the average DBA

…”

Free, not even reg-ware. But if you interested you can also get a 14 day trial SQL Backup trial and the ebook (or just the ebook). As an added bonus there’s not just one eBook but two! The 86 page “Become an Exceptional DBA” and the 49 page “SQL Server Best Practices”.

The "Becoming an Exceptional DBA" eBook feels like, at initial glance, to focus as much on soft skills as technical ones. “SQL Server Best Practices” seems much nor dense and very tech focused.

Selected “Become an Exceptional DBA” TOC Screenshots

“SQL Server Best Practices” Screenshot

(via Jose R. Guay Paz - Free Ebook: How to Become an Exceptional DBA)

Telling TeamBuild to get and build an older version/changeset

Grant Holliday's blog - How to: Make Team Build get a previous version

In Team Build 2008 there is a property called GetVersion. Here’s what the description from Aaron Hallberg’s blog says about it:

GetVersion. Passed to the Version property of the Get task. Defaults to SourceGetVersion (see below), but can be overridden to retrieve a particular version from source control.

To use this property to build a previous version of the source code you have three options:

Additional MSBuild Parameters dialog

Queue a new build and in the "Additional MSBuild Parameters" box, put:

/p:GetVersion=CXXXX

Where XXXX is the changeset you want to build. See screenshots here.

…”

I hate to say this, but I’ve been wondering about what, how, when and where to use the "Additional MSBuild Parameters" box when executing a build.

Well Grant has come to the rescue and provided a cool, and real world, example of using this field to tell TeamBuild to get an older/different changeset. I can totally see how this could come in handy.

What would happen if a Google Street View Camera car came to the Microsoft campus? Well it did…

Gizmodo - Google Street View Car Drives Into Microsoft Campus, Gets Laughed At By Windows Live Maps

“Reader Don sends in this fantastic tip about a Google Street View car actually driving around and taking pictures inside a Microsoft campus. The GooCar—shown here photographed by Microsoftees—wasn't just covering regular roads, they were going in-between buildings and getting as many angles as they could of the campus. That's ballsy. What's even funnier, says Don, is that the Google guys were driving around the team that does Windows Live Maps, …”

That’s pretty funny. I think what’s cool is that no major noise, hub-bub, etc was made by MS about it. That they seemed to understand the irony and treated it with good humor.

Xobni v1.4 – Index Folder Selection, Performance Enhancements and LinkedIn Integration, oh my…

Xobni Blog - Out is In: Xobni + LinkedIn = Job titles, Employer, and Pictures

“Today we’re launching a new version of Xobni that we’re very excited about. Early during the life of Xobni we realized that email is about people, but no existing email clients gave people the priority they deserve. We quickly seized on what we believe is a huge opportunity to build a more socially aware email environment. We’ve long believed this idea extends beyond email to other sources of relationship data, both on the desktop and on the web.

…

What you will find in version 1.4:

LinkedIn integration

Xobni users will now see LinkedIn public profile data automatically displayed in Xobni profiles. You will see the job title and the employing company of the person you are emailing with. …

…

Keyboard shortcuts

This feature is for our power Xobni users – thanks for your feedback! We have implemented the following keyboard shortcuts for use with Xobni.

…

Folder selection

Another feature many of our users want is the ability to select or deselect folders or outlook data stores that you want included in Xobni’s search results and person profiles.

…

Performance improvements

We are constantly working to improve the performance of Xobni. We also work hard to limit our interaction with the native Outlook email client. We have made two great steps in improving both of these areas. …”

The Folder Selection is a huge addition for me. I have 6-7GB+ of work emails (10+ years) and have to have a way to tell Xobni to ignore the older PST’s. With that and the performance improvements, I think it’s time to put it back on my work PC and see how it goes (it’s been on my home PC for forever :)

Code Review with help from the SlickEdit Tools, Version Control Toolbox

“Hello World” - Let’s Do a Code Review With SlickEdit Tools (Part 1)

“As a developer, I look for tools that help me get things done quicker, and make tasks easier. This series of articles shows you how to take a handful of the features in SlickEdit Tools for Microsoft® Visual Studio® and use them to effectively put together and perform a code review.

I can’t say that I’ve met too many developers that eagerly looked forward to reviewing code. Most developers understand the importance of code reviews, but many have experienced the pain of poorly run code reviews. Although SlickEdit Tools does not have a “code review” feature, it provides several features that can be used together to make a code review run smoothly. A well done code review process can be the difference between developer loathing and developer buy-in.

Because code reviews are such a big topic, this article will focus on some of the steps that lead up to a code review. Code reviews typically focus on the work of a single developer, so we’ll start there. We are going to be code reviewing the developer with ID SLICKEDIT\shackett (or Scott) in source control, and we’ll be reviewing his work since March 3, 2008, which is the date of our last (fictional) release.

…”

Have you maybe been looking at the SlickEdit Tools, glancing at the Version Control Toolbox and thinking, “well that looks kind of neat, but how does it really help me?”

Scott (who rocks by the way) has written up a cool article/post that not only shows some of the coolness that is SlickEdit Tools/Version Control Toolbox, but also walks us through a fairly real world usage scenario (well it is real world for me as I’ve wanted to do something like this… )

I’ve been play with the latest version of the Version Control Toolbox for a bit now, and it fairly well rocks! On one machine I’ll connect to three different CodePlex servers (for personal work) and two different TFS servers (for work work). And the Version Control Toolbox handles that pretty painlessly. So far it just seems to work. My favorite kind of software. :)

Now what I need to do is to stop playing with it and actually learn it, its shortcuts and really use it.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Free “Foundations of Programming” eBook

Karl Seguin - Foundations of Programming Ebook

“I'm excited to finally release the official, and completely free, Foundations of Programming EBook. This essentially contains all 9 Foundation parts including a conclusion and some typical book fluff (table of content, acknowledgement and so on). A number of spelling errors were corrected, along with some small technical changes and clarifications - largely based on feedback, so thanks for everyone who provided it! Otherwise it's exactly the same as what's been posted here over the past several months.

…”

You know me, a sucker for free learning and books… ;)

If the Mars Phoenix can Tweet… I guess I can too…

http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix

Time to get back into Twitter. I’m /gduncan411 if you’re interested…

(via Los Angeles Metblogs - 5 essential L.A. Twitter feeds.)

Cubeecraft – Because every Cube needs a Storm Trooper, Iron Man, Max, Indiana Jones, Master Chief, ….

Cubeecraft

“Cubeecraft papercraft toys are FREE to download.

Each toy features interlocking tabs for construction - eliminating the need for tape, glue or other messy adhesives. To download click on the model you would like then save the template image.

Each toy is designed to be printed on a standard piece of 8 1/2 X 11 A4 letter paper

…”

My color printer is already hard at work… :)

(via Marc’s 2nd Blog - cubeecraft)

ASP SQL Injection Source Code Analysis (CTP)

Microsoft Downloads - Microsoft Source Code Analyzer for SQL Injection

“Community Technology Preview (June 2008)
Microsoft Source Code Analyzer for SQL Injection is a static code analysis tool for finding SQL Injection vulnerabilities in ASP code. Customers can run the tool on their ASP source code to help identify code paths that are vulnerable to SQL Injection attacks.
…
In response to the recent mass SQL injection attacks, Microsoft has developed a new static code analysis tool for finding SQL Injection vulnerabilities in ASP code. Web developers can run the tool on their ASP source code to identify the root cause of the attack and address them to reduce their exposure to future attacks. The tool will scan ASP source code and generate warnings related to first order and second order SQL Injection vulnerabilities. The tool also provides annotation support that can be used to improve the analysis of the code.
…”

Nice. I like that MS is stepping up and working to help us, developers, in this area. I don’t do much (cough… any…) ASP development these days, but I still thought this might be useful to note

Of course I can’t be satisfied with just this, but also want the same/like source analysis for C#/VB projects too. Maybe given the name, we’ll get this in the future… ;)

Note: This appears to be a Classic ASP focused tool...

PDC2008 Open Space Thought – A “How do we keep up with it all” session, meeting, thing?

I’ve been thinking about suggesting, requesting, having, etc an Open Space session at PDC2008 where we get together and talk about how we keep up with it all.

Jason Haley recently asked this question, Question: How do you stay up to date?, and I’d really like to hear what others are doing to help with the deluge of newness. It’s already hard to keep up and PDC2008 is just going to make it worse (in a VERY good way… I love the new stuff we hear about at PDC :) How do we drink from the firehouse and keep our sanity?

What tools do you use?
What techniques?
How do you handle those you work with who don’t or won’t keep up?
How do you balance the passion of newness with reality?
How do you handle your JITL (Just In Time Learning)?
How much time is reasonable to spend on “keeping up”?
Should we even try to keep up?
What works for you? What doesn’t?

What do you think? Do you think this is something that might be an interesting PDC2008 Open Space thing?

Tidy your HTML – EfTidyNet the Tidy Library .Net Wrapper

CodeProject - EfTidyNet: .NET Wrapper for Tidy library

“Before I go into details, I want you to know what EfTidy actually is. EfTidy is a wrapper component of Tidy library, and if you don't know what Tidy is, here is a little description:

"TidyLib is an open source utility for tidying up HTML. Tidy is composed from an HTML parser and an HTML pretty printer. The parser goes to considerable lengths to correct common markup errors. It also provides advice on how to make your pages more accessible to people with disabilities, and can be used to convert HTML content into XML as XHTML. Tidy is W3C open source and available free. It has been successfully compiled on a large number of platforms, and is being integrated into many HTML authoring tools."

- By Mr. Dave Raggett

This is the .NET version of the EfTidyCom component (also present on The Code Project). Before moving further, this library is dedicated to the memory of my mother Late Mrs. Saroj Gupta, whom I lost recently (29^th January, 2008), just want to say Mummy!, I love you.

I have had a lot of demand to provide the .NET version of EfTidyCom library as COM is losing focus and .NET seems to be the future. This library is written in VC++.NET (by mixing managed and unmanaged code). Please find a reference and test cases in this article. Thanks and just pray for my mother that she live happy wherever she is.

This is also an updated version of EfTidyCom. Some features (Node and Attribute classes) have been removed as I think they are not of much use!

…”

This is something I can see coming in handy…

Scrum Sprint 1, Week 2 – A rolling stone gathers no moss (aka the Scare Factor of having a timeboxed integration)

As we begin our second week of our first Sprint, things are going pretty darn good. Below is our Sprint Burndown Chart and it’s almost too good, almost too on target. (But we have a few weeks left so I’m sure we can fix that… lol… ;)

Today is the first day the trend hit the end date of the iteration/Sprint. In the initial days it was a little scary in that the trend was way over, weeks into the future. Now I knew, based on my reading, that this was expected and usual, that until you get some momentum and things started getting done the trend would fluctuate. That new teams didn’t get their estimating right, their Product Backlog Item (PBI) & Sprint Backlog Item (SPI) selection right, etc. But knowing it and seeing it are two different things.

Also I made sure that the Product Owner (PO), the stakeholders and anyone with any interest had the URL to the charts/reports. Now that’s scary, but the transparency that is the foundation of Agile & Scrum is something I’m committed too, so scary or not, it was done…

Adding to the pucker factor, yesterday I scheduled the Sprint Review Meeting for July 21st, the Retrospective for the 22nd and the next Sprint Planning Meeting (SPM) for the 28/29th (due to work schedules and reality, I need to break the SPM across two days, the 3-4 hours of part 1 on one day and then the 3-4 hours of part 2 the morning of the day after.).

So we’re now pretty committed to this schedule. And if not, it will be pretty visible. Scary Factor++

Am I worried? Yeah, a little. But in reality I think, based on the work, Daily Scrum, Burndown, etc, we’re actually going to finish early. The team is beginning to meld together, beginning to work through the flow of SBI’s and to see this it all as a team solution. A team deliverable. A team success, or failure. I hope and expect this will continue to grow and flourish in the coming weeks…

Plus I’m cheating a little. I’m only supposed to be 25%’ish committed to this project, but it’s just so much FUN to work together with the team, to see the product improve almost daily, to see it progress, to be part of the work and feel the team dynamic building. I really want to work on this, I’m excited about it, so it’s easy to make excuses and commit a little more time to this project than I should. Bad Greg… LOL

Another point I’d like to make is that the Team has been very good about updating their SBI’s. They are adjusting the Remaining Hours as need, moving them them through their different states, etc. With my ScrumMaster hat on, I encourage this, watch the burndown, comments in the Daily to make sure we have an accurate estimate of the work remaining. To also make this visible and transparent, the days I’m in the office, I print out the Sprint Burndown Chart and Sprint Cumulative Flow and post them to a very visible cork board in our work area. As we go in and out, it’s the Burndown is right there…

Luckily updating SBI’s has not been an issue and while you think it might be too much “admin” work, it’s really not. I mean come on, in one day how many SBI’s are you really going to work on, given that a “good” timebox for a SBI is 4-16 hours? Even at 1-2 hour SBI’s, you’re going to work on 4,5? Updating 4,5 SBI’s with a rough estimate of the work remaining shouldn’t be all that hard and should take… oh…maybe… 5 minutes?

What I’ve found works for me is that as I execute on an SBI, I make a note in me notepad for the next Daily, and then update the SBI’s remaining work. Wash, rinse, repeat. It’s easy to just make it part of the flow…

Enough for now, time to write some code… :)

Thoughts for future posts:

Scrum – Letting go… (of your need to Direct and to be Directed)
Scrum for Team System – Notes from in the Trenches
Scrum and Testing – Why our cross functional team (Dev & QA) rocks (with Visual Studio Tester Edition nuggets thrown in)
Scrum, the team and reality – Handling sick days, vacations, holidays, etc.
Scrum, remote Team Member/ScrumMaster thoughts

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

ReadBurner – Drop dead easy way to share from within NewsGator/FeedDemon

Nick Bradbury - Share Your NewsGator/FeedDemon Clippings with ReadBurner

“About a year ago, I wrote about how link blogs are attention streams. The premise behind that post was that while attention algorithms can uncover what people are paying attention to, the articles people are sharing provide an even better way of determining their attention.

As I mentioned in that post, seeing what other people are paying attention to has brought me a ton of relevant articles that I would otherwise have missed. The folks at ReadBurner had a similar idea, and they built a great service which displays the most frequently shared content across the web.

In the past, ReadBurner has relied solely on Google Reader and Netvibes for its shared content. That just changed.

NewsGator has partnered with ReadBurner, and as a result, it’s now dead simple to share your NewsGator clippings with ReadBurner. This means that FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, NewsGator Inbox and NewsGator Online customers can easily share their clipped articles with ReadBurner.

…”

While my usual style is to re-blog, I’ve been finding recently that there’s a ton of cool stuff that I’d like to blog about, but don’t have the time (nor mental bandwidth). So I’ve been created folders in my Favorties for the given day, in a BlogThis parent folder.

While with Mesh my Favorites are synced between a number of my machines, that doesn’t really help anyone else who might be interested in the same cool stuff.

ReadBurner may be just the ticket. I’ll be able to easily track stuff I’d like to blog about and if not, others can at least see a tickle feed of the things I’m following.

In the next couple days I’m going to give it a try and let you all know…

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Rosario – The Nine Part April CTP Investigation (aka… “Wow, Rosario rocks!”)

Willy-Peter Schaub's Cave of Chamomile Simplicity - Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation – Conclusion

“Over the past few weeks ... sorry for the delays which were caused by events and other distractions q;-) ... we looked at the Rosario April 2008 CTP. This final post summarizes the major areas and features we looked at, cross references each related blog post and ends with our views on Rosario so far.

Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation (Part 1) - Create Team Project

…

Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation (Part 2) - Project Management

…

Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation (Part 3) – Architecture

…

Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation (Part 4) - Version Control

…

Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation (Part 5) – Build

…

Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation (Part 6) – Developer

…

Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation (Part 7) – Tester

…

Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation (Part 8) – Database

…

Rosario April 2008 CTP Investigation (Q&A) - List of Questions and Issues
…

Conclusion

All in all, my personal evaluation score is five happy smiley's. The new features are exciting and for a Community Technology Preview (CTP), this release has proven very stable ... so much so, that we are running Rosario CTP 12 on our XEN server in semi-production mode. We are using it for evaluation and evangelism purposes, but by using it in out internal production environment.

…”

Wow. Talk about a v2 (IMO Rosario is like a TeamSuite/TFS v2, whereas 2008 was like a v1.5).

So I wonder about the release date and the impact of VS2008/.Net 3.5 SP1. i.e. chicken or egg… As far as I know SP1 will be first and then Rosario (since I’ve heard of Rosario features being added to SP1 thereby implying that the release date of the feature was moved forward into SP1)

PDC 2008 is a great release milestone so if I had to guess I’d say VS2008 SP1 then and Rosario in early 2009 (since it’s not beta or RC yet). But then again this is a TOTAL WAG and maybe SP1 will ship soon and Rosario a surprise release for PDC (given it’s already CTP12)?

LOL, you’ve got to love sideline release schedule pontificators… ;)

What podcasts are on your Zune?

Alan Lok’s post (Red. Green. Refactor. - Software Development and Programming Podcasts) prompted me to update my castRoll, My castRoll - A list of the Webcasts on my Zune, and tweak my blog layout a little to make my blog/cast rolls a little easier to find.

And while I was at it, I decided to also snap some screenshots to share the pretty pictures… :)

As I think about it, I wish these features would be added to Zune Social;

Give me a way to list/show the podcasts I’m subscribed and listen too. (So I don’t have to manually edit my castRoll, can easily share it with friends, etc)
Let me see the recent podcasts my Zune friends have listened to. (And let me subscribe to them easily too)

Pretty much take the music experience on Zune Social and extend it to include podcasts. I think both of these features would be a cool way to pass the social word about podcasts and see what friends are listening too (and of course then make it easy to add said podcast).

Since we’re talking Zune, I guess I also have to share my Zune Card, don’t I? (which may not come through in feed readers… if not, click Zune Card)