The Daily Grind 1012 by Mike Gunderloy Monday, November 13, 2006

A hint to those of you writing blog postings with Word 2007: Calibri looks like poop on a machine that doesn't have Vista or Office 2007 installed.

• Mono 1.2 is out - And here are the release notes.
• Genome 3.0 for .NET 2.0 - New release of this high-end ORM tool, with full .NET 2.0 support and LINQ integration. Download the evaluation here, pricing from � 299 for Express, � 1800 for Professional.
• Mashery - New service to manage developer APIs for Web 2.0-ish stuff.
• E-Trail Digital Archive - Open API system for keeping a complete searchable archive of your company's e-mail. They do some nice things, especially integrating with Outlook and Exchange to age things out of active storage and into the archive transparently to users, so that they can be recalled without any particular hassle. They also have a very sophisticated set of search operations available. Ideal if you're worried about regulatory compliance. Prices start around $2000.

• Neo by AlphaSmart - They're pitching this as a "better laptop for schools" because it doesn't have all that distracting Internet and e-mail stuff, but as a keyboard with an embedded tiny screen and not much more than word processing it reminds me of my ancient Tandy WP-2. A fine machine in its time, but that time is not now.

• Vista, Visual studio 2003, Virtual PC 2007 (and the right hardware) - Peter van Ooijen has some tips if you want to run this configuration.
• The Skinny on Windows SPP and Reduced Functionality in Vista - So, if Vista decides there's a problem with your license key, ", the default Web browser will be started and the user will be presented with an option to purchase a new product key. There is no start menu, no desktop icons, and the desktop background is changed to black." Yeah, I'd call that "reduced functionality." In fact if there's more than a semantic difference between that and the "kill switch" that Microsoft said they weren't building into Vista I don't know what it would be.
• ASP.NET Performance: Reducing Size of Web Page - Some good tips on slimming things down from the TargetProcess folks. Pity most of this involves working against the framework.
• In Praise of the Lowly Comment - My latest little something for Developer.com.
• The Office 2007 UI Bible - An organized index to all of Jensen Harris's posts about the new user interface.
• Unit Testing for .Net Compact Framework - Another improvement coming in Orcas timeframe.
• Arrays and Lists in SQL Server - Nice roundup article of approaches to the common problem of parameterizing SELECT * FROM Foo WHERE Bar in (a, b, c).

• Aggreg8 - Microsoft calls it "127.0.0.1 for IT Pros". Mary Jo Foley found someone to call it MySpace for IT Pros. Probably about right; most IT Pros have no more design sense than most teenagers. Anyhow, assuming you have a Passport (er, Windows Live ID) you can join and hunt for people with similar interests among the "working groups" or just shoot the breeze.

Sponsors

Automate your Software Builds with Visual Build Professional Visual Build Professional makes it easy for software professionals to create an automated, repeatable process for building and deploying quality software. It's the powerful, affordable build solution that integrates fully with Microsoft Visual Studio and works with virtually any development tool. Version 6.2 adds many new custom actions, including WiX, StarTeam, and Flare support, enhancements to many existing actions, colorized output in the console app, and much more. Download your free evaluation copy today!

TeamDirection Project manages SharePoint Task Lists so you don't have to. Publish projects to SharePoint Workspaces. Team members Update task information with a Web Browser. Report changes with a single click. Download the BETA and use SharePoint today.

BUG TRACKER A solid bug tracker is part of any smart strategy to ship software on time. And Axosoft's OnTime 2006 is more than a bug tracker...that's why it's the leading software for enabling development teams to ship software on time. When you manage a software development project with OnTime 2006, you'll have access to all of the tools you need to keep your team focused on the project, rather than having them focused on managing the process. Join over 5,000 development teams world-wide and start shipping software on time with OnTime 2006, the bug tracker of choice for entrepreneurs, SMBs, and large corporations. Download Axosoft OnTime 2006! (FREE single-user edition / 30-day trial for teams)

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