October 2008 Blog Posts

Microsoft and OpenID. *yawn*

So yesterday Dare announced that Microsoft, via Live ID were becoming an OpenID provider. Big whoop. So why am I so ambivalent? Being an OpenID provider is meaningless for Microsoft unless they start to accept OpenIDs for their services. At the moment be it on Microsoft.com, the Microsoft forums, Channel9, MSDN subscriptions, anything Microsoft web site needs personalisation demands a Live ID. Exposing a Live ID via OpenID simply allows existing "subscribers" to spread the Live ID tentacles into other sites; it does nothing to open up Live's web sites to interoperability with other identity providers; and that...

posted @ Tuesday, October 28, 2008 9:13 AM | Feedback (0)

Windows Azure? The cloud OS?

At 11:30 GMT a new blog popped up on MSDN; the "Cloud Computing" blog. Admittedly there's not much there, a bunch of dead links; but everything is being described as Windows "Azure". So does this mean it's not Windows Strata? Or that Azure is the SDK? Either way the name is interesting; if only because choosing a shade of blue (screen) is rather daring *grin* 16:30: Woohoo, I scooped everyone. However ... why on earth did Microsoft choose a product name that Americans cannot pronounce? It's az-ure, not azer. Technorati Tags: jumping the gun,Windows Azure,Windows Strata,Cloud Computing

posted @ Monday, October 27, 2008 11:43 AM | Feedback (1)

DDD#7 Registration Open

The agenda is set, the waiting is over, registration is open full. If it's anything like last time you have about 12 hours to register before all the spaces are gone ... Update: Four hours later the spaces are gone. Sorry if you missed them. Technorati Tags: DDD,DDD#7

posted @ Wednesday, October 22, 2008 10:32 AM | Feedback (3)

Upgrading hard drives; or why WHS just isn't enough sometimes.

So last week, because of a 50Gb Virtual Machine containing an entire development environment my hard drive icon turned bright red in Explorer as I only had 1Gb of free space left (showing my age here but even that is huge to me, remember I started with a machine with a 8" floppy drive which you could format to a grand total of 80k). Whilst I'm backup up my laptop with Windows Home Server (not that I can open the backups right now, my machine blue screens every time I try) WHS does not backup non-NTFS partitions; which is...

posted @ Monday, October 13, 2008 9:33 AM | Feedback (0)

DDD7 - Top 10 WCF Tips & Tricks

I got the email last night that my session Top 10 WCF Tips & Tricks was selected for DDD7. DDD sessions are voted on by potential attendees so it's always an honour to get selected; and this will now be the 7th DDD I've presented at. So put the date in your diary and come down to the Microsoft offices in Reading for a free, packed, Saturday of community speakers. What:DDD 7When:Saturday, November 22, 2008 9:00 AM to 5:00 PMWhere:MicrosoftThames Valley ParkReading, Berkshire RG6 1WG   England Technorati Tags: DDD,DDD7,WCF

posted @ Friday, October 10, 2008 6:49 AM | Feedback (0)

Oh I can keep my shiny badge!

"Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others."   Technorati Tags: MVP,Microsoft MVP,Microsoft Most Valued Professional

posted @ Wednesday, October 01, 2008 3:23 PM | Feedback (4)