Foo Theory

June 2006 - Posts

• Windows Vista, a Chronicle in Beta (2)

  I've had Windows Vista Beta 2 on my laptop (only OS) for about a weeks now.  I really like the out-of-the-box "mountain tunnel" (as my son calls it) background - really sharp.  I do like the Sidebar, can't wait to see some more Gadgets for download.  Windows SideShow rocks and works well with my Mobile PC and phone.  Windows Collaboration is really cool – it seems a harkening back to NetMeeting; I wonder where this will go.  Windows Contacts and Calendar hold some real promise but only if they don’t cause additional duplication between Office Outlook, Windows and Live Messenger; I really like the WebDav publishing and sharing capabilities.  Overall it’s been a good week. Vista issues - not totally unexpected from a Beta OS: I've been unable to install Daemon Tools or other such ISO image mounting software and Roxio's Image Loader doesn't work either.  This has been a bit of a pain.  As a pure-play Microsoft consultant/developer it's tough to load a new dev machine without some such app as the only other solution is to download and burn everything to DVD before install. Internet Explorer 7+ locked up today and I haven't been able to get it to run again.  Luckily, I installed Firefox last week as a means of reviewing my sites with a non-IE browser. I was able to get Virtual PC 2004 up, despite the install warning, but the first image I tried to launch sat there for a half hour before I gave up and turned it off.  I’ve installed Service Pack 1 and will try again in the morning; I’ll update the post with the results.  Technorati tags: Beta Review, Windows Vista Posted Jun 20 2006, 07:17 PM by Matt Ortiz with no comments Filed under: Windows Vista, Beta Review

• WinFX is renamed the .NET Framework 3.0

  It would seem that the branding confusion has come to a close; WinFX was renamed the .NET Framework 3.0 this week.  The .NET Framework is without question the most successful developer platform and has always been at the core of WinFX.  Microsoft feels that the .NET Framework 3.0 more concisely identifies the combined technology for what it is – the next Microsoft developer platform.  You can see in the image above why this makes absolute sense.  The .NET Framework 2.0 would have included the Common Language Runtime, ADO.NET, ASP.NET, Windows Forms and XML. Technorati tags: .NET Framework Posted Jun 12 2006, 12:26 AM by Matt Ortiz with no comments Filed under: .NET Framework