Successfully Installed Windows Vista Ultimate
Nov 16, 2006
As a dogfooder who tried Windows the Vista Beta, man has this product come a long way. Kudos to the Windows team for dramatically improving just about everything in the product. Here’s some key things to remember: Backup your files - Always good advice, but don’t forget to export your IE Favorites and your OPML blog roll from your favorite blog reader before starting. My PC: Dell XPS M170 (pre dual-core), 2GB RAM, 80 GB Hard drive.…more
Virtual Earth 3D Launched
Nov 10, 2006
I’ve been having lots of fun navigating the Virtual Earth 3D world, kudos to them for building a fun, free service! As Clint posted on the Coding4Fun Home page, it’s literally two lines of code to control Virtual Earth 3D. Very cool.
Visual Studio Express - Happy One Year Anniversary!
Nov 07, 2006
Updated to include the new SkinCraft Light free control (see below) and the correct RTM Express download count which is actually 7.5 million! sniff, sniff, they grow up so quickly! One year ago today, Steve Ballmer was on-stage announcing our official launch of Visual Studio Express to the world…it seems like just yesterday! Since launch, we’ve had over 6.8 7.5 million completed Express downloads! New Benefits for Registered Express Customers…more
DevDiv Hotfix Public Availability Program
Nov 02, 2006
As many customers, like Frans Bouma and many others have pointed out, its too hard to get a hotfix for Visual Studio as this involves actually calling support to gain access. Well, there’s a pilot program aimed at helping fix this launched by the DDCPX team (read Josh’s announcement here) that should help this. It’s only a pilot program right now, so not all hotfixes are available, but it’s great seeing us nudge the door open a little wider on transparency.…more
VS Express New Partner Announcements: Z-Wave Home Automation & Flight Simulator X
Oct 18, 2006
Last week, at Digital Life, we announced **two new partnerships **which expand the reach of hobbyist and enthusiast developers even further than before. ** Intermatic and ControlThink Partnership **Microsoft has partnered with Intermatic to better enable DIY developers to create custom home automation projects using Intermatics HomeSettings Kit. The goal here is to provide the hardware, API, and tools to make home automation easy. In fact, the HomeSettings kit even includes Visual Studio and SQL Server Express in the box :)…more
SQL Server Express on Vista
Oct 18, 2006
The SQL Server Express team has published how to get SSE working on Windows Vista.
Made In Express Winners Announced
Sep 19, 2006
The Winners Are In! Today we officially announced the winners to the Made In Express Contest including the Grand Prize ($10,000 US), First Prize, and Community Choice winners. The competition was tight and the voting even produced a tie for first place. Rather than breaking the tie, we’ve decided to recognize two First Prize awards! Read on to see who Robert Scoble, Phil Torrone and Chris Pirillo voted for: Grand Prize Winner…more
XNA Game Studio Express Download Now Available
Aug 30, 2006
It’s alive!!! Start downloading now. You will need to download Visual C# 2005 Express Edition to build games using Game Studio Express. Support: XNA Forum More info: XNA Blog
Microsoft Robotics Studio CTP Now Available
Jun 20, 2006
The world for hobbyist and enthusiast developers just got a little more interesting today with the announcement that Microsoft’s getting into robotics. Robotics Studio is a development tool designed to provide a uniform and consistent way to program robots including a visual design surface to model robotics programming whether your need is for work, (like Kuka’s industrial robots) or for fun (like the Lego NXT). The programming model uses the concurrency and coordination runtime (CCR) and you can program robots in VB, C#, C++, or even browser JavaScript.…more
I *Love* Maker Faire
May 01, 2006
Kudos to Dale Dougherty, Phil Torrone, Dan Woods, Sherri Huss, Katie Dougherty, Louise Glasgow, Bre Pettis and the rest of the O’Reilly team for a “phenomenal” Maker Faire. The total attendance was a whopping 20,000+!! That’s huge! The thing that really struck out at me was the sheer diversity of the attendees and their projects, from basket weaving to clothing-refashioning (Daryl Hannah) to robotics, to electronics to music and robo-art. To paraphrase Dale’s words, “all of these different activities are tied together by the inherent human need to create”.…more