Microsoft have provided and excellent standards agreed format called XPS. Vista comes ready installed with an XPS viewer for XP you can download it. The issue is if your preferred browser is Firefox you will not be able to view XPS files.
The solution is simple:
- Download the IE tab addin for Firefox
- Install it
- Then the clever bit open options
- Set up a URL thus: /^file:\/\/\/.*\.(xps)$/
- Jobs a good ‘un.
Now if you click on and XPS file Firefox will open and IE tab and load it!!
After upgrading to Microsoft® Office 2007 is the default for all documents is the .???x format for example new Word documents now end in .docx instead of .doc.
Although the new file type offers many improvements over the old one, it can be troublesome to use if you work with many people that have older versions of Office. There are workarounds available from Microsoft, but it's usually easier just to send them something you know they can open.
One way to solve the problem is to simply change the default file format to the previous Office formats. In the case of Word 2007 that’s to DOC.
To do this go into Word 2007 and click the Office Button | Word Options | Save | Save files in this format | Set this to "Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc)" and click OK.
For Excel and it’s the same principle.
Microsoft code name “Geneva”, an open platform for simplified user access based on claims. This release consists of three components: Geneva Framework for .NET developers, Geneva Server for IT Pros, and Windows CardSpace Geneva for users.
Find out more here
So the secret’s out!
Microsoft’s Cloud will give us a number of key aspects.
First is the foundation or Windows Azure, this can be seen as the cloud OS but is much, much more than that. It is an infinitely scalable Computation, Storage and Management system providing hyper-visor powered virtualization for cloud hosted apps be it web or otherwise.
Next we have the application building blocks or Azure services. Here we find the gestation of BizTalk services and SQL data services. We have .Net services covering the service bus, workflow and access control (federated identity and more). Next along we have SQL services today giving us database, data sync and reporting with ETL, reference data and others hot on its heels. And then we have Live services the Mesh, Contacts and Calendar functions and again more to come.
The future promises Sharepoint and CRM services as building blocks to add even more to the mix.
And finally sat on this is and will be Microsoft’s own application offerings of Sharepoint online, CRM online, Office Live and Windows live.
This is a major future gamble for Microsoft and as such the other announcements this week almost act as supporting acts – take the example of ‘Oslo’ introduced as part of the cloud message allowing users to model on and off premise.
This is a great start to an exciting PDC. My only concern is that Live services feel a little like an aftr though or blot on…
So the secret’s out!
Microsoft’s Cloud will give us a number of key aspects.
First is the foundation or Windows Azure, this can be seen as the cloud OS but is much, much more than that. It is an infinitely scalable Computation, Storage and Management system providing hyper-visor powered virtualization for cloud hosted apps be it web or otherwise.
Next we have the application building blocks or Azure services. Here we find the gestation of BizTalk services and SQL data services. We have .Net services covering the service bus, workflow and access control (federated identity and more). Next along we have SQL services today giving us database, data sync and reporting with ETL, reference data and others hot on its heels. And then we have Live services the Mesh, Contacts and Calendar functins and again more to come.
The future promises Sharepoint and CRM services as building blocks to add even more to the mix.
And finally sat on this is and will be Microsoft’s own application offerings of Sharepoint online, CRM online, Office Live and Windows live.
This is a major future gamble for Microsoft and as such the other announcements this week almost act as supporting acts – take the example of ‘Oslo’ introduced as part of the cloud message allowing users to model on and off premise.
This is a great start to an exciting PDC. My only concern is that Live services feel a little like an aftr though or blot on…
Microsoft have announced that every attendee will receive a cool,
PDC2008-branded, 160GB external hard drive loaded with software! As far
as it is know, this is the first time that external hard drives have been
given out in such large quantities at a conference. All the goodie software will be on the drive!!!
Just wasted a few minutes trying to install the latest and greatest beta of IE8. Kept receiving the very unhelpful message: "Extraction Failed"
And then the penny dropped - simply Run As Administrator!
“Zermatt” is the codename of a .NET framework that helps developers build claims-aware applications to address challenging application security requirements using a simplified application access model. It is currently in beta, and the first final version is expected towards the end of this year. This framework consists of a comprehensive set of libraries that facilitate the use of "claims" in applications - in Microsoft's words: make them "claims-aware". This greatly simplifies the development of applications that will work within federated environments and the new identity metasystem technology that Microsoft is developing, and will give a push to adoption of the new identity technology.
Download the bits of the Beta of “Zermatt” Developer Identity Framework.
Technorati Tags:
Identity,
claims,
.net
Have a look at the following investigation by Sam Allen.....
"The author developed a program to snapshot memory usage per process every 3 seconds on Windows. Using this he recorded 3 hours of memory usage for five different browsers under real-world usage scenarios: Safari 3.1, Firefox 3, Flock 1.2 (a browser based on Firefox 2), Opera 9.5, and Internet Explorer 8. A million data points indicate that Firefox 3 has a surprising advantage over the other browsers tested. These are real-world tests and not contrived benchmarks."
Technorati Tags:
Firefox,
IE,
Opera,
Flock
If you keep getting nagged for log ons when using sharepoint this will solve the problem almost 100% of the time. The trick is to use the Windows managed Stored username and password feature. To access this,
1. Simply go into Control Panel
2. Click User Accounts
3. Go into Managed Passwords and click Add
4. Type the URL of the server (without HTTP), for example portal.us.com
5. Enter your credentials and click Ok
Now anytime Windows attempts to access ANYTHING on this server it will use the use those credentials and your prompting issue should go away.
The downside to this is if you change your password, you need to remember to come change it here.
As we use more and more virtual machines, particularly for development, there is a risk because they don't get updated by pushing critical security or virus updates and then they are fired up six months later we can have a security problem.
Microsoft has a solution for their virtual machine environment adding to the virtual machine management tooling - the Offline Virtual Machine Servicing Tool. This turns on your VMs, updates them and shuts them down automatically. You can find information about getting on the Beta at the link below.
Get it here
This is the User Guide, Samples and Walkthroughs for the tools for developing custom SharePoint applications with the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, version 1.1 (VSeWSS 1.1). The user guide has sections:
- Starting out in SharePoint Development
- Walkthrough of the VSeWSS User Interface including the WSP View
- The Team Site Project
- The Blank Site Project
- The List Definition Project
- The Web Part Project
- The Workflow Projects
- Project Item Templates
- Best Practices with VSeWSS
- Changes from 1.0 to 1.1
Get it here!!!
If you are a developer for SharePoint your best friend has been Virtual PC or VMWare. It’s now time to introduce a new friend, Bamboo Nation's SharePointOnVista go here for more info