Three DaaS (Data as a Service) providers, Factual, InfoChimps & Google Squared

GIGAOM - Data-as-a-Service: Factual, InfoChimps & Google Squared

“…

However, although we’ve seen online office suites added to the portfolio of web worker productivity tools, database apps have been curiously absent from the mix. Even suites like Google Apps lack a dedicated application for managing, publishing and sharing specialized data, leaving users creating crude spreadsheet-based approximations. The average web worker may not have as much need for an online equivalent of Access as they would of Excel, but it seems strange that a collaborative database tool is missing from online apps suites like Google Apps and Microsoft’s Office Web Apps.

Fortunately, a new generation of tools are providing just that kind of functionality. “Data-as-a-service” providers are emerging that are enabling users to create, manage and publish specialized datasets, providing both authoring tools and opportunities to participate in a web of data, not just of pages.

…

…”

Data, data, data… You know me, I’m attracted to data for some weird reason. Probably because I believe data is the foundation for knowledge, on which wisdom is built… or something like that… ;)

Also let’s not forget Microsoft’s Codename Dallas service either…

Windows Command Reference Updated - 225 Command Line Tools, 5 Windows OS Versions, 1 CHM.

Microsoft Downloads - Windows Command Reference

“This download describes the use of the command-line tools used to perform various tasks related to Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

…

Version: October 2010

Date Published: 10/20/2010

Language: English

…

The Windows command-line tools are used to perform various tasks related to Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2. You can use the command reference to familiarize yourself with new and enhanced command-line tools, to learn about the command shell, and to automate command-line tasks by using batch files or scripting tools.

…”

Sometimes it’s just easier to have this kind of resource local. Makes it easier to scan, nav and search…

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Vista, Win2k3, Win2k8 Command Line Reference CHM

Microsoft Test Manager Gets Patched - Crash, Memory leaks, bugs and a few new buttons included in the hotfix

Testa's Paradise (ObjectSharp) - Microsoft Test Manager – hot fix available

“On Oct. 12th Microsoft has published a hot fix for issues that were causing Test Manager to crash and memory leaks that caused data and productivity loss. After downloading the hot fix I noticed that in the Test Case iterations section that are new buttons and bugs fixed. See what I’ve found so far below:

…

Click this link: hot fix KB2387011  to download.

…”

I haven’t seen much traffic on this, so…

A Visual Guide to speeding up Visual Studio 2008/2010

Daniel Fisher - Ultimate Guide to speed up Visual Studio

“I believe that better tools lead to better results. That’s why I care about my tools performance a lot!

Recently I had a conversation with Peter Kirchner and Kay Giza on how to speed up Visual Studio. Specifically by configuring you Anti-Virus software. But beside that there are loads of things that you can do.

So I decided to share the tweaks on environment:

…

…”

I think I’d really rather get a faster notebook and leave some of these options on, but sometimes we just don’t have the option (Santa, please bring me an uber notebook for Christmas…please?). This post also looks outside the VS box, i.e. and your antivirus and Search, which is something that’s easy to forget.

Other standard performance things come to mind too. Defrag, add RAM if you can, faster HD (HD speed is supposed to make a HUGE difference for VS), tone down Win7 Visual settings, etc.

(via The Morning Brew - The Morning Brew #710)

Ten Tips for Process Explorer Triumphant Tweaking

MSIGeek - Ten Best Practices / Troubleshooting Tips with Process Explorer Tool

“Process Explorer tool from SysInternals, will give you a complete overview on what processes are currently running in your PC along with the details on who invoked it and how much system resources it is consuming. This tool will be very essential, if you want to identify which file or directory has a particular program opened. In this article, you will learn 10 best practices and tips which will help to use this tool better.

…

Tip 1: Process Explorer Parameters – …

Tip 2: Configuring the Options – …

Tip 3: Configure Symbols – …

Tip 4: Highlighting Colors – …

Tip 5: Configure Difference Highlighting Duration – …

Tip 6: Verifying Processes – …

Tip 7: Process Identification – …

Tip 8: DLL/Header View – …

Tip 9: Performance Graphs – …

Tip 10: Configure Columns – …

…

…”

A number of handy, dandy tips for using Process Explorer…

 

Related Past Post XRef:
The “Windows Sysinternals Primer: Process Explorer, Process Monitor, and More” from TechEd 2010 North America
Sysinternals 101 – “Notes from the field,” a quick intro to a few Sysinternals utilities (Process Explorer, TCPView, Process Monitor, VMMap)
Hands On Learning How to Use the Sysinternals Process Monitor Utility

The latest Sysinternals utilities are just a URL away, Live.Sysinternals.com

Use the Sysinternals Utilities? The EULA bug dialog you? Then try this…

A handy PowerShell script to keep your Sysinternals Suite up to date

Sysinternals Suite 2010 Refreshed - All the latest versions, one 12.4MB zip…

Visual Studio 2010 UML doesn’t support State models. This extension does (add State Models to Visual Studio that is)…

Visual Studio Gallery - StatePatternModeler

“This extension provides a project template to create a State Model. It also provides an item template that lets you generate code from that State Model. …

…

Check out these two tutorial videos that I did to demonstrate the extension:

How to use the Templates: http://www.screencast.com/users/halllowelt/folders/Jing/media/662a4a3c-9a35-4dab-88fb-de6e710f1ac1

How to use the UML Modeling: http://www.screencast.com/users/halllowelt/folders/Jing/media/d200f89b-4e32-4685-8473-ac0bbbb08fd7

…

…”

Not having State Models in VS 2010 is a sore point for some. Well now, with this Extension, we can “State” to heart’s content… :)

An unusual code generation scheme… via the Bing API and MSDN.

within Windows - Use Bing API and MSDN metadata to generate code automagically (Part 1)

“Working more and more with Garrett Serack on the CoApp project, I found myself needing to query MSDN in a non-traditional manner — programmatically. To be more precise, I needed access to the function prototypes of various APIs for code generation purposes. For the past few months, I tried a number of search facilities, web services, and even experimented with symbol server lookups. In the end, however, I settled on an unlikely solution – Bing.

…

While not hard, it’s extremely time consuming when your list of APIs reaches about 10 or more. I know this first hand, because I re-implemented over 200 APIs in my previous Windows Vista API on XP (VAIOXP) project. It’s a tedious, error-prone, and debilitating process.

To eliminate steps 1 and 2, and decrease the amount of tedium in step 3, I took advantage of MSDN’s rich (and little known about) metadata. A lot like Flickr, almost every page on MSDN is tagged and categorized with words and phrases. While not so useful for humans, it’s extremely useful to computers and, unlike all the other search engines available today, is indexed! Yes, …

…

…”

This just struck me as cool; I dig the thought of using the web as a code generation tool. Think about the vast resources of MSDN as a potential code generation repository… hum…