The Daily Grind 982 by Mike Gunderloy Monday, October 2, 2006

Small children turn Halloween into a month-long event.

• Pacman 1.1.1 - Possibly the silliest Firefox extension in existence.
• Web.UI for ASP.NET AJAX - ComponentArt has built a version of their ASP.NET controls specifically to integrate with Microsoft's "Atlas" offering. You can try a live demo or download the beta.
• mxGraph - JavaScript library for in-browser diagramming. They have a cute demo that works pretty well. Free and paid redistributable versions available.
• Microsoft Pre-release Software Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" - September Community Technology Preview (CTP) - Oh boy. Time for another round of alphas. This time it's being released as a 3.5 GB Virtual PC image (contrary to what Microsoft says, that should run fine in VMware too).
• VMware Converter 3.0 Starter Beta - VMware is about to start testing its next-generation physical to virtual product. It also converts between the various VMware disk formats, and from 3rd part disk image formats.
• CaseDetective 1.2 - New version of this reporting tool for FogBugz. Trial download is here, $69 to register.

• NHibernate + Generics = Explained a bit better - Using generics to simplify some of the repetitive code NHibernate would otherwise make you write.
• Web Service Software Factory - Data Access CRUD! - Udi Dahan doesn't care for the code that the WSSF generates. I tend to agree; it's been my displeasure to have to maintain some software where people merrily generated these n-tier solutions when a much simpler architecture would have been more than sufficient. Just because you can push a button and get 100,000 lines of code doesn't mean you have to.
• Borland Gives Up On Core SDP: I Wonder How Much That Cost 'Em? - Larry O'Brien has some commentary on Borland's latest abrupt change in direction.

• CREAMaid - New service designed to help companies create buzz by paying royalties for bloggers to join a widget-linked conversation. I hope there's room for more rocks wherever it is that they sink to...
• Mash-it-up with ASP.NET AJAX Contest - Microsoft has announced the winners. (via DotNetKicks)
• Visual Studio vs. Vista: What's going on here? - You had to know I'd have some commentary, right?
• SecurityKicks.com - Another site for the community-based mining of useful information on the Internet.

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Mike Gunderloy is the editor of Larkware, the daily .NET newspaper of record.