Brennan’s Blog

I hit MSDN a lot to look up documentation. Since I typically use Firefox which does not have an MSDN option in the search box I wanted to create another quick way to search MSDN. Below is a bit of Javascript which you can save on 1 line as a bookmark. This is commonly called a bookmarklet. It will prompt you for your search terms and then take you to the results.

Search MSDN [save this bookmark]

javascript:var query=prompt('Enter MSDN Search: ','');
if(query){document.location.href='http://search.msdn.microsoft.com' +
'/search/default.aspx?query='+query;}

An insightful opinion piece explains that while we have been laughing at Microsoft for their shortcomings this past year the offers from Apple have also been fairly lackluster. For example, releasing a new iPod with a longer battery life, larger storage and new color selections is about as innovative as Vista including an improved security model. These are the new features we should be expecting and should not find surprising.

There is also the question of how similar Vista is to MacOS X. This is by no accident but there is also nothing that Microsoft and Apple can do. They are constrained by the user interface that the common user will understand and accept. The windowing model is dominant across MacOS X, Windows and Linux (KDE/Gnome) desktops because it works and people expect it. If you want to start pointing fingers, you could suggest that Apple copied X Windows which came from Xerox PARC back in 1973. Apple did not have their visual interface until 1984. Finally in 1992 Microsoft released Windows 3.1. The "sharing of ideas" is rich in the history of these user interfaces.

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I just found an article named Microsoft follows Oracle into Linux market which shows that Microsoft is going to partner with Novell to work together on Linux development. My initial reaction was that this had to be some sort of hoax. But I looked at the press release on Novell's website which confirms it.

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There are a few obvious features which I would like added to Visual Studio. I have seen quite often that add-ins like CodeRush and ReSharper attempt to add useful features, but I would really prefer that I get the following requests as a part of the base IDE.

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For years now the dream of the home entertainment system converging with the home computer has eluded reality. Over the years attempts were made to break into this market but nothing has really stuck. My idea of a modern home theater includes a DVD player, Digital Video Recorder (DVR), a gaming console and access to my home computer which holds digital video content which has been purchased and downloaded from the internet. Finding everything for such a system is difficult.

As yet, I have not been able to walk into a nearby Best Buy and find such a system. They have systems set up with a great screen and stereo system but the rest of the system is missing. Ask the staffer in the Home Theater department at Best Buy about DVR options which work with Time Warner Cable and they can give no answers. Ask them about integrating with your home computer and there are still no sufficient answers. It is clear there is nothing mainstream yet.

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Go get it.

With so many ways to log into websites with unique accounts for each site there has been a growing need to provide a single sign-on solution which works across technology platforms. Some websites are based on ASP.NET or Java or PHP. And users may be using Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. Years ago Microsoft attempted to penetrate this space with Passport but was rejected due to concerns over privacy, security and the general uneasiness a company has about another company intervening between them and their customers. Now only Microsoft properties make use of Passport while banking and commerce sites have been using simple username and password mechanisms which do not nearly protect a user's identity as well as the solutions currently available.

Now an improved solution is taking hold which has addressed the privacy, security and identity ownership concerns. It is called InfoCard. And Microsoft's implementation is CardSpace. It will be included with Windows Vista and the .NET 3.0 framework, but what is really exciting about this identity management solution is that it is really catching on beyond the Microsoft realm.

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I see so much being done with Windows and .NET to add more "features" intended to enhance security. I believe that the premise that "less is more" applies to security and it not being followed here. Access control concepts have come from the ineffective features in Windows 95 to complex Access Control Lists and now FullTrust with .NET. But what do all these new additions really give us?

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If you have deployed an ASP.NET 2.0 website with the Membership and Role providers you have had to find a way to manage the users. For a small site you want something which is a simple drag and drop approach. Unfortunately the website adminstration feature you get with Visual Studio will not remotely run on ASP.NET websites hosted on IIS, so you will want some controls to do that. The Login Controls as a part of ASP.NET 2.0 provide for commonly used activities you need on the public side of the website, but nothing has been provided by Microsoft to manager users and roles. I have packaged up a few simple User Controls to do just that.

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While Apple and Microsoft continue to play nice for the public, I know they are still fiercely competing to capture as much as the market as possible. And I do not think giving the name Boot Camp to their dual booting software was any coincidence. Apple is in the early stages of going to war with Microsoft. And the subtle jab through the naming of this product reminds me of when IBM released Eclipse years ago to usurp control of the Java market from Sun. Now Eclipse is the most widely used Java development tool. These subtle names show their lasting intensions.

Last year Chris Siebold predicted that the Apple share of the laptop market would spike, and so it did to 12% of the market. A combination of many factors contributed to this dramatic growth, including a switch to Intel chips, ongoing security headaches of the Windows operating system and a convenient feature to boot back into Windows to use that application which still only runs in Windows. I think it is great to see Apple making proper headway to give Microsoft some real competition. Afterall, it was not until Firefox had gained up to 10% of the browser market that Microsoft decided to reform their team for Internet Explorer and finally push out a new release. Sometimes the 800lb gorilla needs a push.

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