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CLARITY: VSTS, VSTO, VSTA, VSX

Seems like Microsoft is having a V Day, every day. Here's a run down of the main V technologies/tools: VSTS (Visual Studio Team System) Firstly, Visual Studio. Visual Studio 2008 (the current version) is Microsoft's IDE for building .NET based applications, be they Web, Desktop, Device or Microsoft Office based. Visual Studio comes in a number of different versions, grouped into three...

COFFEE: Caffeine linked to miscarriage

Summary: Several studies have shown that consumption of caffeine (equivalent to 1 cup of coffee) is associated with a twofold increase in miscarriage. Possible good news: The studies may have been skewed by women with healthy pregnancies reducing their caffeine intake due to morning sickness. New Scientist reports this in the 26 January 2008 edition (p19 bottom right). One study interviewed 1063...

Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44B

TechCrunch reports that Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo for $44.6B.
The most interesting thing for me: a guy at work told me this last week (and named the $ figure correctly). Being the well informed chap I am :-) I told him he was mistaken. Come Monday, after apologising to him for my lack of faith, I'll be wanting to know how he knew…
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Yahoo, Pocket money

MySpace comes up with a great idea – build a Developer platform

Here's an idea… if you have a Social Networking site, why not build an API that allows developers to build applications for it? Brilliant. MySpace certainly is leading the field with this revolutionary idea. Oh hang on, that's right, Facebook did that 8 months ago and now has over 15,000 apps built by devs. Hmmmm, 8 months is an eternity in social networking time-frames, I wonder if...

Amazon buys Audible

Michele and I love Audible. We buys stacks of audio books from them. The interface is intuitive, they have good bargains, and if you are clever (like my wife is) you can time your purchases for maximum buying power (look into how they do their credit system – trust me, you can save a lot).So, I'm pleased on one hand to hear that they have been bought by Amazon (another of my favourite...

SBTUG: Links, contact details from last night

[UPDATE: Fixed the News file link] We had an excellent start to the year, with Cecelia Haddad taking us through Public Relations (PR) and Peter Ward covering the new features in SQL Server 2008 with a focus on those giving the most business value. Here’s some links and contact details. Cecelia Haddad: Marketing Elements Peter Ward: WardyIT Here’s the Tech News presentation with all...

Silly money continues to flow

When will the correction finally come? We've seen no end of silly money being thrown around by Venture capital companies of late, and now it seems that Google and Facebook are chasing grad students with fistfuls of cash. $95K for a grad student with no experience is crazy talk, but the comments on the post seem to support the claim. Sadly this just perpetuates an unrealistic industry that...

Visual Studio 2008 Product comparison

Rob Caron has the goods, pointing to this MSDN article that compares the VS2008 range. The MSDN page is a good summary and includes links to other areas, such as this VSTO overview.
Technorati Tags: VS2008 comparison, Rob Caron, VSTO

ELCOM: Career plans for Developers – Part I

Part of my brief at Elcom is to look after all the developers (ie people management). This is something I enjoy, especially when seeing developers grow and improve themselves. During November and December I sat down with each of my staff and started preparing their career plans. It is their responsibility to work out their goals and aspirations, it is my job to facilitate that happening (within...

TIP: Compressing Virtual PC images

If you’ve got a stack of Virtual PC images clogging up your hard drive(and who doesn’t these days?), here’s how to compress (or compact) them. 1. With the Virtual PC image running, choose Capture ISO Image… from the CD Menu 2. When the dialog opens, find the Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso image (it’ll be in your C:\Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine...

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