Since I shifted to another project/client I'm constantly using my laptop so I decided to "upgrade" my user experience while developing by making it easier to type on a normal keyboard and to have my screen in a decent position instead of constantly looking down. So I decided to buy a Logitech Alto.

I like the soft keyboard and the integrated USB hub to plug my mouse in (a Logitech MX 1000 laser btw). I only had the pleasure to work with it for a single day but I already like it a lot.

Grz, Kris.

Somasegar blogged about it. Finally the new name of WPF/e is known and it's Silverlight. I still have to get used to the new name but think it's better this way because it makes it easier to understand for less technical people that it was little to do with WPF. Microsofts hope is of course that it'll be a Flash killer but they have quite some downloads to go. But on the other hand I hope more games will be coming out soon like these: WPF/e games. Of course it'll be Silverlight games then.

You can also see a small video about it on10.

Grz, Kris.

I'm using dasBlog for nearly a year now and am quite pleased with it. Since recently Mads Kristensen decided to get his hands dirty and create a new blogengine that he likes to share with the rest of the community by making it open source on CodePlex. Way to go!!

If you're interested you can grab the source code here: http://www.codeplex.com/blogengine.

Grz, Kris.

Thanks to Bart Wessel's blog I found out about the existence of these posters:

• Developer Roadmap for the 2007 Microsoft Office System.
• Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 Managed Object Model Poster.
• Developer Map for SharePoint Products and Technologies Poster.

You can download them here.

Grz, Kris.

I just found out that Telerik's creating a code conversion tool: http://converter.telerik.com/. It looks pretty slick with AJAX integration. No wonder because Telerik's been very busy on that part.

Another conversion tool that I used during the last couple of years are these: C# to VB.NET and VB.NET to C#.

Update: Gill pointed out in the comments that #Develop also has this functionality.

Grz, Kris.

I blogged about the nice feature of Conversation in a former post but I just found out, thanks to Joe Stagner (the guy behind the learning videos at the ASP.NET site), about adding a calendar to your email. Check out this post: Office 2007 Coolness...Part 1 of at least 10!

Grz, Kris.

Soon, at MIX 07, WPF/e will be renamed as we were told last week by Jeff Prosise at Dev Days Belgium. Would be great because all too often people think it's the same as WPF, which it's not. WPF/e is a browser plugin, and Microsoft plans to have it available for different browsers and different OS'es. I've even heard/read somewhere that it'll also become available on mobile phones, pda's, ...

Why do I think that WPF/e, or the soon to be renamed version, will become a hit? GAMES! I got to know Flash several years ago, when it was still version 3, and I had to design a website for one of the parties I and a couple of friends organised (back in 1998). It became silently more and more popular, especially when it wasn't only timelines and stuff anymore but became a rich environment a developer could program with Actionscript. Especially games made it popular. Heck, even my mother likes to play those flash games online.

Ok, enough babbling from my side, get the plugin, and get gaming: 

• Magnet game
• Sprawl game

Grz, Kris.

I just received this email from Microsoft:

Dear Kris van der Mast,

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2007 Microsoft® MVP Award!
The Microsoft MVP Award is our way of saying thank you and to honor and support the significant contributions you make to communities worldwide. As a recipient of Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional award, you join an elite group of technical community leaders from around the world who foster the free and objective exchange of knowledge by actively sharing your real world expertise with users and Microsoft.  Microsoft salutes all MVPs for promoting the spirit of community and enhancing people’s lives and the industry’s success everyday.  To learn more about the MVP Program, visit: www.microsoft.com/mvp.
Your extraordinary efforts in Visual Developer - ASP/ASP.NET technical communities during the past year are greatly appreciated.

Of course I'm very happy with this recognition and I hope to be able to help out even more people during the next years to come by writing articles, giving presentations, and being a moderator on the ASP.NET forums.

Grz, Kris.

Hi,

most ASP.NET developers probably already know that there's a wealth of information to be found under the Learn tab of the ASP.NET website. There's video material covering these subjects:

“How Do I?” with ASP.NET AJAX
“How Do I?” with ASP.NET
SQL Server 2005 Express for Beginners
Videos for ASP.NET 2.0 Beginners
“First Look” Videos
Videos on Visual Studio 2005 Add-ins
Videos on Migrating to ASP.NET

Also I found out that there's also some other interesting video material out there: http://blogs.interfacett.com/dan-wahlins-blog/. It has several nice videos on creating and calling web services, C# delegates & events, creating a webservice with WCF, ... Be sure to check it out.

Grz, Kris.

Sometimes you just find out new stuff by accident. This one also falls in that category. Because I'm moderator on the ASP.NET forums I also get quite some email from that site. Especially when I want to track a certain thread that also interests me. In the past I just got all emails ordered by date but apparently you can also group them by conversation which is awesome since I really like that feature about GMail.

Grz, Kris.