Playing with GIS (Data)

freeware genus - Freeware to Get Started With GIS And Explore Mapped Data

"As the Web and the world have become increasingly data-driven, GIS is just another tool to process that data. GIS stands for Geographic Information System, a system which manages spatially-aware data. GIS is a booming sector even though it’s been around for a while and makes for a great direction to steer your career.

Data can be anything worth recording. For example, say I made a list of all the reported car accidents in my county. Each accident would be a data point and make for interesting conversation on an elevator ride, but that’s about it. Let’s say I got even more detailed with the data I collected and recorded what type of accident it was (rear-ender, head-on collisions, cross-over accident, etc.) and the GPS coordinates of where each accident occurred. After collecting enough data and putting it into GIS so I can visualize it, I might be able to conclude some patterns about the accidents and find solutions to reduce their number like lengthening an intersection’s yellow light, reducing the speed limit, or adding a street lamp.

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

ArcGIS is hardly the only GIS software but it’s one of the most popular and well known. It’s like photoshopping an image with any image editor. ArcGIS is made by Esri and comes with a variety of licenses that allow a variety of functionality but cost a pretty penny. Fortunately for the freeware crowd, Esri produces a free application that allows you to explore GIS data called ArcGIS Explorer Desktop.

..."

esri - ArcGIS Explorer Desktop

ArcGIS Explorer Desktop is a free GIS viewer that gives you an easy way to explore, visualize, and share GIS information. ArcGIS Explorer adds value to any GIS because it helps you deliver your authoritative data to a broad audience.

With ArcGIS Explorer, you can

• Access ready-to-use ArcGIS Online basemaps and layers.
• Fuse your local data with map services to create custom maps.
• Add photos, reports, videos, and other information to your maps.
• Perform spatial analysis (e.g., visibility, modeling, proximity search).

..."

Also interesting is the online explorer (written with SilverLight  :)

http://explorer.arcgis.com/

So how would you use this? How about doing a little research into what's happening in Japan?

Or maybe nuclear?

Once you've selected a map, you can then navigate, zoom, mark it up, add additional maps, etc

And what I thought really kind of cool, is that you can then build presentations with the data.

And this is just using the free online version...

VS2010 SP1 Crashing when opening a TFS2008 Build Report/Details? Here's a hotfix...

Microsoft Connect - VS2010 SP1 crashes on build details from team foundation server 2008 build explorer

"When trying to display build details from the build explorer connected to a team foundation server 2008 team project, visual studio crashes with a NullReferenceException.

..."

Hotfix KB2522890

"Title: KB2522890

Release Date: 3/21/2011

Size: 878 KB

Version: Hotfix

Category: Build

Milestone: Hotfix

Description

Visual Studio 2010 SP1 crashes or shows the following error when attempting to view a build report on a TFS 2008 server:

"TF50316: The following name is not valid. Verify that the name does not exceed the maximum character limit, only contains valid characters, and is not a reserved name"

..."

With Visual Studio 2010 SP1, when I tired to open a TFS2008 hosted Build Report my VS would crash. The above hotfix has fixed that...

Simple sharing for your NuGet's, with help from a NuGet of course!

You've been Haacked - Hosting a Simple “Read-Only” NuGet Package Feed on the Web

"As you may know, NuGet supports aggregating packages from multiple package sources. You can simply point NuGet at a folder containing packages or at a NuGet OData service.

A while back I wrote up a guide to hosting your own NuGet feed. Well, we’ve made it way easier to set one up now! And, surprise surprise, it involves NuGet. I’ll provide step by step instructions here. But first, make sure you’re running NuGet 1.2!

...

...

..."

The meta nature of this simple appeals to me... Also for very quick and simple in-house NuGet package sharing, or probably even better for limited scope external sharing, this seems easier than setting up an Orchard Gallery server (remember that for in-house sharing you can you can share packages via file shares/UNC's too).

This seems like a good fit if you're looking for a quick and dirty web based approach to share your packages, those packages are fixed (i.e. don't change often) and you don't want to play the Gallery game...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Want your own “Gallery” (think something like the Visual Studio Gallery and future NuGet home) site and server? Check out the Orchard Gallery/Gallery Server Projects…

From dev tool introduction to Marketplace submission, "Building a Windows Phone 7 Application from Start to Finish" on MSDN

Skinner's Blog - New Docs for Windows Phone 7 Development

"The Developer Guidance team has just released Building a Windows Phone 7 Application from Start to Finish in the MSDN Library. This content is intended to help developers with common challenges by putting the features together in a complete application from whiteboard to marketplace. It includes a running sample, guidance on core concepts for getting started with Windows Phone 7, and callouts for best practices and requirements. We hope it will provide a complimentary experience to the in-depth product documentation and quickstarts.

This is a great place to start for folks who haven’t done any WP7 development yet but want to. It covers almost all the major areas that a typical app would need to do. A notable topic that is *not* included is any information about the Push Notification Services, but more is on the way.

..."

MSDN -  Windows Phone Development - Building a Windows Phone 7 Application from Start to Finish

March 15, 2011

This documentation and accompanying sample application will get you started building a complete application for Windows Phone 7. You will learn about common developer issues in the context of a simple fuel-tracking application for your car named Fuel Tracker. This topic describes things you should know before you start creating your Windows Phone application.

Some of the tasks that you will learn include the following:

• Defining Your Application
• Creating a New Windows Phone Project
• Creating Pages
• Navigating Between Pages
• Laying Out a Page
• Using Controls
• Adding Images and Icons
• Creating a Consistent Look
• Displaying Data
• Creating Data Classes
• Saving and Loading Data
• Restoring Your Application After Deactivation
• Validating Data Entry Input
• Incorporating Photos
• Publishing Your Application

Audience

This documentation and accompanying sample application is best suited for developers with the following experience levels.

Some experience with:

• .NET
• C#

Little or no experience with:

• Silverlight
• Windows Phone

...

..."

Looks like a great resource for those jumping into WP7 Dev

464 PDC Sessions from PDC08, PDC09 & PDC10 now available on Channel9 Events (and each with an "All Sessions, One List" view too!)

C9Team - PDC Sessions now published on Channel 9

"Hey folks, in an earlier C9 team post we explained how we are moving event content from various places (MIX, PDC, TechEd, etc...) into Channel 9 to give you a single repository of as much technical content as we can bring together. Well, phase 2 of that move has occurred and 464 PDC sessions from across PDC08, PDC09 and PDC10 have arrived on Channel 9!

..."

So not only do we get all the PDC08,09,10 content in one place but we also get it in a "all sessions, single list" view too! I think I'm finally out of the Session Video List biz (i.e. no more of these, PDC 10 Session Video List)!

Also I really dig that this isn't just a list/redirect to the content, but a complete repurposing and repackaging of it. I.e. a consistent look and feel for all the conferences, all with added C9 hosting goodness.

Kudo's to the C9 team for making this happen.

 

Some Wish List items:

• I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that they provide an Events OData feed so we can mash up all these events into our own things, viewers, etc...
• High level event Feed. So I can subscribe to and see when new events become available
• Custom RSS feeds. I'd like to have a means to build a feed that I can subscribe to with my media player of choice. Like, "give me all the WMV-Low videos related to WP7, from any conference in 2011", etc.
• Cross conference, content/tag, speaker and time based view. Similar to the above item, but web based. I want to see all the Windows Azure sessions in 2011. Or every session by Doug Seven. Or... you get the picture.

Also I hope this has legs and all future conferences make it here... I believe that's going to happen given that MIX11 is already there, but the proof is in the pudding and all that...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Channel 9 now the one stop Microsoft event shop - One site, many events (MIX06,07,08,09,10 for now more coming)

PDC 10 Session Video List
Microsoft TechEd 2010 is OData enabled
MIX10? There’s an OData Feed for that…
PDC09 Session Video List (Okay, so I lied)
Microsoft PDC09 video list, courtesy of Microsoft
Mix 09 Quick Video Link List
My PDC List Maker utility source updated to consume the PDC Channel 9 RSS Feed (resulting in the Keynotes now being included in the list), but fixes, etc.
My PDC Video Link List Maker project & source is now available on CodePlex
PDC2008 Quick Video Link List (Updated: Now with Keynotes)

[Humor] "An Interview with the Windows 7 Start Menu"

The Productivity Hub - An Interview with the Windows 7 Start Menu

An info-humor "interview" with the Windows 7 Start Menu. 

Make capturing Windows Phone 7 Marketplace app submission screenshots simple and easy with the "WP7 Simulator Cropper"

Mike Ormond's Blog - Capturing Screenshots on Windows Phone 7

"One of the requirements for application submission to Marketplace is a representative screenshot of your app in action. Being old-fashioned, I usually just use the built-in Snipping Tool in conjunction with the emulator (don’t forget to set it to 100% before capture). Last weekend though, at the Windows Phone Workshop in Birmingham, Pete mentioned a tool that can help automate the process for you.

The “Windows Phone 7 Simulator Cropper” is written by Cory Smith and grabs & saves screenshots of your app running in the emulator – you can capture either with or without the emulator chrome.

..."

I've seen enough comments from people about their app's being rejected due to screenshot issues that I wanted highlight this utility. Plus I think it will come in handy when writing up WP7 Coding4Fun blog posts... ;)

[Humor] "A Space Alien’s Guide to Microsoft Convergence" [Conference]

DynamicAccounting.net - A Space Alien’s Guide to Microsoft Convergence

"Today I’m launching A Space Alien’s Guide to Microsoft Convergence as a way to present the upcoming Microsoft Dynamics Convergence customer conference in a different light. This short guide is just as the title describes, a Convergence primer for beings from other planets.

I’ve been experimenting with some very different ways to present usage cases for Microsoft Dynamics GP. You’ll see some of those in the very near future. They aren’t just out of the box, I burned the box.

Frankly I think that my brain is rebelling from writing articles, blog posts, best practices guides and whatever else. It’s now insisting on writing fiction. In this particular case I’m bored with all of the guides to Convergence, including my own, so I decided to push the envelope.

The PDF version is a free download but you’ll need to register. Don’t worry, I won’t spam you or sell your name. I’m trying to collect information to better understand who might be interested in more of this type of thing.

..."

(via Inside Microsoft Dynamics GP - Space Aliens Guide to Convergence)

I don't follow the Dynamics products or news, but I thought this was pretty funny.

Here's snaps from the PDF;

Scott's "Type what I mean and not what I type" (aka AutoReplace/Correct) Windows Live Writer Plugin is back...

InsertableContentSource - AutoReplace In Live Writer Makes Triumphant Return

"Ages and ages and ages and ages (ok, you get the point) ago I told you of a hidden feature within Live Writer called AutoReplace. At the time, I mentioned that as it was unsupported/hidden, it could go at any moment, and guess what, it did. So I removed the plugin from my SkyDrive area, no point it being there if nothing is gonna happen, right.

But as the philosopher Schwarzenegger once said, “I’ll be back.” And it was. So I’m re-introducing my original plugin for this unofficial feature but with some extra value awesomesauce. As you can see from my original post, you can add what you want to replace and with what, but you have to enter them all manually. Really, Scott? Really?! Manually? So I listened to all the feedback (me!) and decided that entering it all manually is painful, especially as MS Word has one or two you could use from there. And while I’m at it, why not add some preset options that aren’t in Word.

So I did.

...

There’s even a handy search thing as Word has 925 default things to replace! Oh, and if you add others to Word and want them in Live Writer, just do another import, it only imports all the ones it doesn’t already have.

..."

Been a while since I've blogged about a WLW Plugin from Scott so when mentioned that he just released this...

I've got it installed and am using it as I write this. Can you tell?...  :|

 

Related Past Post XRef:
One way to avoid Windows Live Writer "Temporary Post" spam - Use Scott Lovegrove's WLWBackup
Windows Live Writer Backup v3 Released – Don’t leave your WLW without it…

Love Windows Live Writer? Wish it did more? Then write a plugin… and here’s some tips for doing just that… (with even some VB in there for flavor :)
Writing Windows Live Writer Plugins, or want too? Then Scott has written an article just for you!
Guide to Writing a Windows Live Writer Plugin in C#

Windows Live Writer Twitter Notify URL Shortner Setting Utility OR How to tweak the URL Shortner used by the Twitter Notify plugin without edit your registry
Windows Live Writer, Twitter Notify and bit.ly? Yep, here’s how…
Windows Live Writer, the Twitter plugin and changing its URL Shorter
Scott, Mr Windows Live Writer Plugin, has released the source to his Insert Video Plugin

Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player - Your 5GB free cloud storage and digital music locker (and web based player)

The Road to Know Where - Amazon Releases Cloud Drive – 5GB Free!

“Amazon Cloud Drive is your hard drive in the cloud. Store your music, videos, photos, and documents on Amazon’s secure servers. All you need is a web browser to upload, download, and access your files from any computer.

…”

Amazon Cloud Drive - Help

What is Amazon Cloud Drive?

Amazon Cloud Drive is your hard-drive in the cloud. Securely store your music, videos, photos, and documents online and access them from anywhere.

All you need is a web browser to upload, download and access your files from any computer. Back up your files to ensure that your music, photos and personal documents are available to you wherever you go.

The Amazon Cloud drive offers 5 GB of free online storage that you can access from any computer. If you need more storage space, paid plans are available for storage up to 1,000 GB.

Automatically store your Amazon MP3 Purchases

When you purchase digital downloads from the Amazon MP3 Store, you can choose to automatically save your purchases to your Cloud Drive. All your purchases will be backed up and available to download anywhere, anytime.

Safe and secure storage

Amazon Cloud Drive provides customers with reliable, secure server storage. Each file is stored within Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3); the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites.

Access to your Cloud Drive is controlled through your Amazon.com user ID and password. All communications are encrypted using HTTPS, so that your data can pass securely over the Internet.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to make a purchase to use Cloud Drive?

No, if you have an Amazon account, you have access to 5 GB of free online storage on Amazon Cloud Drive. If you purchase an album from the Amazon MP3 Store, you may be eligible for a free upgrade to 20 GB of Cloud Drive space for one year (this promotion is open to U.S. customers only). New Amazon MP3 purchases delivered to Cloud Drive do not count against a customer's storage space. If you need more storage space, paid plans are available for storage up to 1,000 GB.

What kinds of files can I store on Cloud Drive?

Amazon Cloud Drive allows customers to upload their digital files: music, photos, videos, documents, and more can be stored securely and available via web browser on any computer. New Amazon MP3 purchases delivered to Cloud Drive do not count against a customer's storage space.

…”

Amazon Cloud Player - Help

“…

Amazon Cloud Player for Web is a browser-based digital music player that lets you access music stored in your Cloud Drive for playback or download. Amazon Cloud Player requires an Internet connection and supports most browsers found on Mac or PC computers. You can launch the Amazon Cloud Player from the Amazon MP3 store or by going directly to www.amazon.com/cloudplayer. For a current list of supported browsers go to Amazon Cloud Player System Requirements. Additional platforms supported by Cloud Player are listed below.

Add your music collection to Cloud Drive

Amazon Cloud Player also supports the upload of music and playlists from your computer to Amazon Cloud Drive, making them accessible for playback and download. All new accounts are given free storage to begin uploading their content and greater storage tiers are available at an annual rate. See the Amazon Cloud Drive settings page for more information on special offers and pricing for larger storage solutions. All Amazon MP3 purchases saved directly to your Cloud Drive are stored for free and dont count against your storage limits.

…”

Wow. This could be big… Given how Amazon has proven themselves in delivering services across products (i.e. Kindle books) think just how ground shaking this could be. This is what Microsoft’s SkyDrive could have been.

Will be keeping my eyes open for more details and utilities (like means to map a drive in Windows, play music in other players, SDK/API, etc, etc)

Good to meet you Source. And you, Source... And you... Using Source Meet to meet about source [Beta]

Next Iteration - Source Meet

• Source code collaboration from anywhere, in real-time
• Integrated Instant Messaging
• Virtual project team grouping and collaboration
• No third-party applications required
• Full integration into Visual Studio™
• Based on a secure P2P overlay network, which provides a very high level of security

Source Meet enables software developers to directly and quickly view and edit source code together, wherever they are and in the development environment they are familiar with. Not only all of the modifications to the document, but also conditions such as highlighting or position changes are synchronized in real-time with all participants. The additional combination with Instant Messaging, virtual team grouping and context-sensitive collaboration significantly enhances the efficiency in cooperation for development teams.

..."

Sounds kind of interesting, collaboration built right into Visual Studio. Not something I can use today myself, but I think it looks pretty neat (so will be watching it now... muhahahaha  ;)

Getting that PDF onto your Kindle 3 so you can actually read it…

freewaregenius - Optimize PDF’s for reading on your Kindle 3: crop then (optionally) convert to AZW

If you have a Kindle 3 (the one with the 6″ screen) chances are that you love it, as I do. Except that reading most PDF ebooks and documents on Kindle 3 is rather annoying and can be downright impossible, with unreadable, miniscule text and lots of wasted white space in the margins. This is the case because the Kindle 3 attempts to display each page of a PDF document fully on its 6″ screen, and the zoom function seems like it was purposely designed to be as unpractical and un-user-friendly as possible, segmenting your PDF pages into strange quadrants that make reading a chore.

In this post I am suggesting that the best way to read a PDF on a Kindle 3 involves cropping it first so that the white space in the margin as well as page numbers and any text in the header and footer is removed. This process can in itself result in a PDF that is perfectly readable on the 6″ screen; but if not, I will also describe how to then convert your cropped PDF to the Kindle friendly AZW format, resulting in a continuous text, and without legacy headers, footers, and page numbers showing up as artifacts in your document.

…”

Getting PDF’s onto the Kindle 3 is easy, drag and drop file copy easy. But getting them on there so you can actually read them is a whole other matter…

Since I’m have about a billion PDF’s in their original form on my Kindle, making my eyes bleed every time I try to read them, these suggestions are ones I’m going to put to some good use.

Who says Astrobiology isn’t cool!? NASA says it’s cool enough that it gets its own graphic novel!

NASA Astrobiology - Astrobiology Graphic Novel

“The first issue of the Astrobiology Graphic Novel is now available! Request your copy today, or download the pdf or the mobile app! Through fantastic original artwork and a compelling storyline, the novel chronicles the origin and evolution of astrobiology itself – tracing its roots from early cave paintings, through speculations of ancient Greek philosophers on the existence of other worlds, to contributions from more modern scientists such as Huygens, Galileo, Oparin, Haldane, Miller, Urey, Franklin, Watson, Crick, and Sagan. It goes on to explain how shortly after NASA was created in 1958, the NASA Exobiology Program, a research program supporting the search for life beyond Earth, came along. It would eventually morph into the Astrobiology Program in the mid-90’s.

The novel was produced by the NASA Astrobiology Program to celebrate the 50th anniversary of astrobiology. The second issue in the series, focused on the history of Mars exploration, will be available soon.” [GD: Description leached in full. Click through for the download links…]

I’m torn between the concern that my tax dollars went to this and just a fricken cool it is… Damn you NASA!  :P

(via USA.gov - NASA’s Astrobiology Program has released a graphic novel....)

Dual'ing Windows Phone 7 Emulators - Setting up your environment to deploy and debug in multiple WP7 emulators

functionalfun - How to deploy to, and debug, multiple instances of the Windows Phone 7 emulator

"I’m developing a multi-player Windows Phone 7 game. Now I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to test a multi-player application when I’m only allowed to run one instance of it. And that seemed to be the case with Windows Phone 7 applications. Microsoft provide an Emulator, but it’s a single-instance application: however many times you click its icon, you only get the one window.

Googling found me a useful article on how to run multiple instances of the emulator. But it didn’t tell me how to deploy applications to them, or how to debug those applications. There was however, a post in the forums, somewhat reminiscent of Monsieur de Fermat scribbling's, that gave me hope that what I wanted to do was indeed possible.

So I set out on a journey of discovery.

About an hour later, I had this,

...

Step by Step instructions

..."

As Samuel says that is not supported by anyone in any way, but that doesn't subtract from its "zomg that's awesome" factor...

Visual Studio 2010 and MSDN Licensing Whitepaper Updated

Microsoft Downloads - Visual Studio 2010 and MSDN Licensing White Paper

Visual Studio 2010 and MSDN Licensing Whitepaper - Mar-2011.doc, 388KB

Visual Studio 2010 and MSDN Licensing Whitepaper - Mar-2011.pdf, 637KB

Visual Studio 2010 and MSDN Licensing Whitepaper - Mar-2011.xps, 808KB

Version: 1.0

Date Published: 3/24/2011

Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 provides a comprehensive, highly flexible set of application life-cycle management (ALM) tools. With the introduction of Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft made significant changes to simplify decision-making for customers and make products more accessible. This white paper provides an overview of the Visual Studio 2010 product line and the licensing requirements for those products in common deployment scenarios. For a definitive guide to licensing terms and conditions for products licensed through Microsoft Volume Licensing, see the Microsoft Licensing Product Use Rights (PUR) document and applicable licensing agreements. For retail customers the license terms are specified in the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) included with your product or with your MSDN subscription

..."

From the PDF:

Licensing White Paper Change Log
March 2011

• Introduction of unlimited load testing for Visual Studio Ultimate for MSDN subscribers.
• Introduction of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack.
• Introduction of full Visual Studio product line via the Enrollment for Education Solutions in the Campus Agreement program in Microsoft Volume Licensing.
• Addition of Windows on the Developer Desktop section.
• Addition of Software Activation section.
• Clarifications in General Licensing Guidance for Team Foundation Server 2010 section.
• Clarifications on Team Foundation Server CALs requirements, including the CAL Exception for Certain Work Items.
• Clarification that a Project Server CAL is included with production use of Project Professional 2010.
• Clarification on software use rights for MSDN subscriptions provided via the Microsoft Partner Network.
• Minor clarification in Distribution of MSDN Software as Part of an Installation Image.
• Minor clarification in Assigning MSDN Subscriptions to External Contractors example.

Any help making Visual Studio & MSDN licensing clear (well clearer at least) is good help...

(via Wes MacDonald - Visual Studio 2010 and MSDN Licensing White Paper (updated))

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Visual Studio 2010 Licensing White Paper (includes Team Foundation Server, Lab Management and IntelliTrace)

Don't just give your disk images/ISO's drive letters, RAM disk'em too...

addictive tips - Mount Disk Images To RAM For High Speed Disk Access With OSFMount

"Many free disc mounting programs provide multitude of options for mounting and managing disc images. Many of these programs have quite similar features and it is not often that one comes across a software that can take the edge from its competitors by providing a unique feature. OSFMount is an application that allows mounting disc images on not just virtual drives but also into the RAM. This means that you can get faster access to disc images and improve the overall performance of the mounted images. This may include disc images of operating systems (for virtual machines) or games, that can be run more efficiently by mounting them in the RAM rather than on local disks.

Creating RAM disks can be particularly handy for IT professional such as the ones who may require running database applications. OSFMount supports a huge array of extensions, including, ISO, BIN, IMG, DD, 00N, NRG (Nero Burning ROM image), SDI (System Deployment Image), AFF / AFM / AFD (Advanced Forensic Format images) and VMDK (VMWare image).

..."

PassMark Software - OSFMount

"OSFMount allows you to mount local disk image files (bit-for-bit copies of a disk partition) in Windows with a drive letter. You can then analyze the disk image file with PassMark OSForensics™ by using the mounted volume's drive letter. By default, the image files are mounted as read only so that the original image files are not altered.

OSFMount also supports the creation of RAM disks, basically a disk mounted into RAM. This generally has a large speed benefit over using a hard disk. As such this is useful with applications requiring high speed disk access, such a database applications, games (such as game cache files) and browsers (cache files). A second benefit is security, as the disk contents are not stored on a physical hard disk (but rather in RAM) and on system shutdown the disk contents are not persistent.

OSFMount supports mounting images of CDs, which can be useful when a particular CD is used often and the speed of access is important.

...

..."

This is one of those "Damn but that makes allot of sense" utilities. With the rise of x64 Windows OS's, RAM is no longer the restraint it used to be. Also given the popularity of using ISO images to distribute software, marrying up ISO mounting with RAM disk functionality just makes sense. 

This also looks like a nice EDD/ESI/eDiscovery tool given that you can mount the images read-only and it supports a number of formats used in the eDiscovery biz (like DD/AFF/etc)

 

LOL... My title for this post was going to be "Don't just mount your ISO's, RAM'em" but had second thoughts... :|

New TFS Work items just two text entries and a click away with "Notepad for Work items"

Ozzie Rules Blogging > Notepad for Workitems: how to programmatically create workitems in Visual Basic for Team Foundation Server 2010

"I was sitting in Richard’s Scrum course last week when he mentioned “I wish we had notepad for creating work items”. Since I had that hour kind of free I decided to write it for him.

While I wanted the finished product to be a Windows gadget I decided to initially shim the UI in WPF…See Below.

..."

Simple, straightforward and in VB! Now that's a winning combo... :)

Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) provides free Microsoft Cloud Tech training

Jeff Alexander's Weblog - Check out the Microsoft Virtual Academy!

"Cloud computing is the biggest change to hit IT professionals in recent years. Everyone is talking about the Cloud and this makes figuring out what you need to be successful in your role hard.
Wouldn't it be great if there was a simple, effective way to get the skills and training you needed to take advantage of the opportunity Cloud computing offers IT professionals - and get the recognition and rewards you deserve?

The Microsoft Virtual Academy offers no-cost, easy-access training for IT professionals who want to get ahead in cloud computing.

..."

Microsoft Virtual Academy - FAQ

"What does MVA stand for?

Microsoft Virtual Academy – MVA is a fully cloud-based learning experience focusing on Microsoft Cloud Technologies. You can access a variety of training content online and become one of the renowned experts in the IT Pro community around the world. MVA provides its users with a virtual university experience: the student can select a course and study the material and then do the self-assessment. By doing so, he will collect points that will promote him to a Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum Level. Students on MVA can get access to all the information, statistics and advancements of their training career, allowing them to maintain a long-term relationship with Microsoft. Learning through MVA is free of charge, and you can study the contents at any time and at your own pace.

The MVA platform is hosted on the latest Microsoft Azure technology, which guarantees that your learning experience will flow uninterruptedly for the best online learning experience ever!

Who is eligible to participate in the MVA?

Anybody wishing to grow professionally and to follow along in a training environment completely free of charge can take part in the MVA. There is no prerequisite for access to the training resources, nor is there a minimum level of technical expertise required.

...

Will it cost money to study at this academy?

No, there is no cost for this service. Students can use any of the resources available on the cloud without restrictions.

...

Microsoft Virtual Academy

Microsoft Virtual Academy - Introduction To SQL Azure

Microsoft Virtual Academy -Dashboard

Looks kind of interesting... Now just need to find the time to do it. :P

Free "no code" WP7 App Dev and also Marketplace registration from AppMakr and Microsoft (limited time) (Think "App'ify your RSS feed in just a few clicks, with a good number of customization options too")

Ignition Showcase - Windows Phone 7 Apps with AppMakr and Free Marketplace Registration

Starting today, you can build a Windows Phone 7 app quickly and easily using AppMakr. Check out the details below, along with information about getting Free Marketplace Registration for a limited time.

Imagine developing an app in less than 30 minutes, with no coding required and no cost to you!

Creating a Windows Phone App has never been easier! Microsoft is excited to announce our partnership with AppMakr. We give you the tools and resources and you give your customers a great Windows Phone 7 App.

Why Windows Phone 7 and AppMakr?

• No Coding Required
• No Cost to You
• Build Apps on Windows Phone 7 in under 30 minutes
• Customizable
• Create Apps using RSS Feed based platforms

...

Microsoft Limited Offer

Free Marketplace Registration

It’s now easier than ever to earn money by integrating ads into Windows Phone 7 Apps. For a limited time, Microsoft is offering free Marketplace registration ($99 Value) to developers who install the Ad Control SDK into their Windows Phone 7 Apps through AppMakr. Take advantage of this special incentive today by contacting adsinapp@microsoft.com.

..."

I'm kind of leery of these kinds of "No Code App building" things, but if its simple, free and doesn't take a great time investment it sounds worth a look at least.

After playing with it a bit, it seems kind of neat. The key is "Create Apps using RSS Feed based platforms ". If you have a feed, you can generate an app from it very quickly and easily...

For example, investing about 20 seconds in building an "app" for my blog... (Snaps from the pretty cool built-in web based WP7 Emulator)

(You can tweak these in the app builder, adding additional feeds, photos, change the names and order, etc)

The app builder lets you tweak the colors, the icons, the menus/tabs, etc. I have to say, if you need to app'ify a web feed, this seems to be the drop dead easy way to do it...

(Shout out to Craig Shoemaker for the logo he created for me for PDC09 :)

Cloud Sync/Backup your Visual Studio settings with Pepper

rmaclean's blog - Pepper: A Visual Studio Settings Synchronization & Backup Extension

"Pepper is a new free extension for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 that I have created to solve a major pain which I am calling SLM (setting lifecycle management ). The problem is that settings inside Visual Studio are vast & complex, and configuring your IDE is a labour of love, taking years of fine grain tweaks. I can personally trace back my settings to sometime in 2005 and have been tweaking and fiddling ever since.

Once when I moved jobs I forgot to copy my settings and VS felt broken until an ex-co worker was able to get a backup of my old laptop restored and sent me the file. Wouldn’t it be great to have a backup system in the cloud? Say on Azure?

This brings about another interesting scenario, what if I have multiple machines? Can I backup on one machine and restore on another? Giving me a synchronization system for Visual Studio settings?

Pepper does exactly that, it automates the export/import of settings and allows you to place them in a SQL Azure database! ..."

CodePlex - Pepper: A Visual Studio Settings Synchronization & Backup Extension

Pepper is a Visual Studio 2010 add-in which allows you to easily export your VS settings to the cloud (powered by Azure) and then downloaded & imported elsewhere.

This can be used to backup settings or to share settings across various machines!
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Pepper is also available in the Visual Studio Gallery and within Visual Studio. It is recommended you grab it inside Visual Studio, so that you will be kept up to date with new releases!

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This looks like a very interesting project. While we wait on an official setting/extension sync from Microsoft (which I can only hope they are working on) here's another "sync" extension. And it's source available to! (Project is ad supported, remember if you like it, click it... )

I'm getting a feeling that this would be a great Coding4Fun blog post... hum... ;)

 

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Visual Studio Extension Sync Extension - ExtensionSync