The Daily Grind 545

By Mike Gunderloy
Monday, January 24, 2005

Here's a nice fat update to start the week. Aren't you glad we're not all out golfing o the weekends?

Software

WinFiltDiff, a utility to filter out unimportant source-differences - GUI front-end for WinDiff that lets you design rules specifying which differences you don't care about.
CodeSmith Template Share - If you use the CodeSmith code generator and haven't checked out this forum, you're missing a bet: there are a batch of user-contributed templates for you to use or start from. There's an overdose of business objects and DALs, but there are also implementations of GOF patterns, DataGrid code, and some other goodies here.
New stuff on Team Agile: XtUnit and Interception block with basic documentation - Roy Osherove has collected and improved some of his downloads on his new site.
Circular Menu Component - Innovative pop-up menu written in C#. I probably wouldn't use it in a production app, but it looks spiffy.
sharpURLs beta 1 - New approach to more structured parameter passing between ASP.NET pages, with compile-time checking. Looks interesting. (via Fabrice Marguerie)

Visual Studio 2005 Nears Second Beta, 'Go Live' Status - eWeek is reporting some dates (and their rumors are usually pretty accurate): another CTP in February, Beta 2 with Go Live license in late March or later, Release Candidate aimed at the PDC in mid-September (which is consistent with past rumors). Pity the book authors watching their schedules lengthen even more.
K-OTik Security Research - This site provides one-stop shopping for a whole raft of security advisories and exploit proof-of-concept code. It's been one of the standard sites for a long time, but this is the first time an English-language version has been out (to go along with the French original). (via SANS - Internet Storm Center)
PHRACK-FINAL - Meanwhile the long-running hacking magazine Phrack is gearing up to shut down. Some of us remember Phrack from way back (it started in 1999)...end of an era.
New/updated Icon Sets with Visual Studio 2005 - Microsoft is finally going to improve the stock icons with Visual Studio. Now, the next question: will we get a license that lets us re-use these in all our apps, not just those developed with Visual Studio? I bet not. I bet most devs will ignore that little problem.
CruiseControl Action Movie - See continuous integration in action.
The Future of C#? - John Wood summarizes and speculates on Dare Obesanjo's article on C Omega.

The .NET Celebrity Auction for Aceh Aid at IDEP - Buy some consulting time from top .NET experts and help out with tsunami relief at the same time. There are some mighty big names in this auction, so if you're in need of any consulting it's definitely worth a look.

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