The Daily Grind 419

By Mike Gunderloy
Thursday, July 14, 2004

Welcome to the special e-mail scam version of the Daily Grind!

Software

XML Diff & Patch GUI Tool - Sample from Microsoft. Would be nice if they'd rebuild the MSI file with the right program name, though.
LogMeister - Flexible tool for reading all sorts of log files (including things like event logs and RSS feeds), slicing, dicing, and displaying the results. Trial available, $99 to buy.
CHMReader.NET - Revised and upgraded CHM viewer for PocketPC, now written in C#.
Spymac Mail Pro - Just in case you're not tired of the Web-based e-mail wars yet, Spymac is offering 3GB storage for $18.99 per year.
Visual IL - Craig Skibo has put together a somewhat wacky project: a Visual Studio extension to allow direct editing of IL files.
RANU: Running Admin Tasks easily - Jaybaz provides some shortcuts to make working as a non-admin user simpler.

14" PowerPizza - Disguise your laptop as a pizza, so it doesn't get stolen. Well, not unless the thief happens to like pizza.

Visual Studio 2005 Product Line Overview - A preliminary sketch of how the features will split up between Express, regular, and Team System editions. I still say the omission of source code control from the Express SKUs is a big mistake.
Extras for MSBuild coming in the next few weeks - Looks like there are some MSBuild PowerToys in the pipeline.

Microsoft, America Online, MSN and Yahoo! Announce Industry-First Connectivity to Enterprise Instant Messaging Users - Yeah, well, BFD. This announcement only concerns users of Live Communications Server 2005 which (a) isn't out yet and (b) won't be cheap to install. So far, this doesn't mean a thing for the millions of IM users who've been demanding interoperability in the public IM networks for years.

Mike Gunderloy is the lead developer for Larkware and author of numerous books and articles on programming topics.