Entries for Martin Ennemoser

VS 2008 SP1 [VS 2008 SP1]

Martin Ennemoser — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:45:07 GMT

Any news regarding the release date for VS 2008 SP1? There's been a post here on C9 regarding a possible date, but I cannot find it any more. Also the blog post it referenced is no longer available.

I wonder whether it's so secret that nobody's allowed to talk about it?

in reply to VS 2008 SP1

Bug in DIR command? [Bug in DIR command?]

Martin Ennemoser — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:31:46 GMT

Today I've been researching an error where an ASP.NET image handler would display a wrong screenshot. Interestingly it turned out that the Directory.GetFiles method as well as the DIR command list a wrong file in wildcard mode:

As can be seen, the first file shouldn't belong in this list. The directory contains close to 5000 files, and when I copy the 4 files from above into an emtpy directory the error doesn't appear.

in reply to Bug in DIR command?

Hard Rock Memorabilia not working? [Hard Rock Memorabilia not working?]

Martin Ennemoser — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:55:52 GMT

The Hard Rock Memorabilia would be an incredible Silverlight 2 demo, but I cannot get it to work. I tried it on 2 machines (Vista SP1) with IE7 or Firefox, but I always get a ManagedRuntimeError #4002 after starting to zoom.

Anyone else having the same problems?

in reply to Hard Rock Memorabilia not working?

Is Tina Wood still with on10? [Is Tina Wood still with on10?]

Martin Ennemoser — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:12:32 GMT

I've noticed that she didn't post any videos for a couple of months, and her blog has also seen no updates since August.

Anyone knows what's up with her?

in reply to Is Tina Wood still with on10?

VS2008 out early next week... [VS2008 out early next week...]

Martin Ennemoser — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 11:07:55 GMT

...well, at least according to this blog entry from the MSDN Subscriptions Blog.

It's going to be a busy week, switching all my Beta 2 projects to RTM ;)

in reply to VS2008 out early next week...

"Leopard Firewall" Schadenfreude ["Leopard Firewall" Schadenfreude]

Martin Ennemoser — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:12:49 GMT

Everyone disgruntled by Apples constant bashing of Vista in general and Vista security in particular should search for "Leopard Firewall" in Live Search (or Google or Yahoo for that matter).

You can also click here and enjoy what we in German call "Schadenfreude" ;)

in reply to "Leopard Firewall" Schadenfreude

Visual Studio 2008 already finished? [Visual Studio 2008 already finished?]

Martin Ennemoser — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:30:34 GMT

While watching the new screencasts from Daniel Moth (see Screencasts section), I noticed that when he opens Visual Studio 2008, the splash screen doesn't contain the "Beta 2" text anymore.

Might this be an indication that an RTM version is already available at Microsoft internally? Or is it an RC (which I doubt because Scott Guthries mentioned in his blog that the final release is not very far off).

Has anyone more information? Any interviews with Scott and/or Soma planned in the near future, Charles ;)?

in reply to Visual Studio 2008 already finished?

REMIX07 Boston Videos [REMIX07 Boston Videos]

Martin Ennemoser — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:53:05 GMT

So we have all these new videos from REMIX07 Boston in the Screencasts section, and they are pretty much worthless, because the resolution is so bad that you can't see anything.

If it's not possible to provide them in better quality, it would be better to remove them completely. They just obscure the more interesting ones with good quality, e.g. from Beth Massi

in reply to REMIX07 Boston Videos

Commerce Server Express? [Commerce Server Express?]

Martin Ennemoser — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:43:44 GMT

That's something that has been bothering me for a long time, but I never brought this up in a community to be able to hear what other people think about it:

Why isn't there an affordable online shop solution from Microsoft? My company's customers are mostly small businesses. Most of them would love to have a decent online shop, but no one is willing to invest $ 20,000 just for a Commerce Server license and then another couple thousands for implementing a shop on top of it (not to speak of the hardware required to run it).

Sometimes it makes sense for a company to just go with a standard online shop that can be configured to a certain extent and only costs a couple of dollars a month. But what I'm talking about is something between this and Commerce Server. In my opinion there's a huge gap which is currently filled by products like xt:Commerce, but it's hard to find something based on ASP.NET.

It seems Microsofts only offerings in this area are either an ASP.NET Starter Kit or Commerce Server 2007. What about something in between that costs around $ 1,000? Most customers don't need SAP connectivity or maximum scalability or other fancy stuff offered in Commerce Server. Why not take out everything targeted at Enterprises and create a new product called Commerce Server Express? In my opinion such a product would be very successful. What do you think?

in reply to Commerce Server Express?

Gates Vows A New Internet Explorer Every Year--Or More [Gates Vows A New Internet Explorer Every Year--Or More]

Martin Ennemoser — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:24:10 GMT

I just came across this article in Information Week from a year ago. I've not yet heard of an announcement for a new version or some loud thinking about possible new features, so I wonder if Microsoft keeps their promise and continues updating IE. Especially since the Windows browser market got more crowded recently and Firefox continues to pump out new releases on a regular basis.

in reply to Gates Vows A New Internet Explorer Every Year--Or More

Scoble's Blog = Official iPhone Blog? [Scoble's Blog = Official iPhone Blog?]

Martin Ennemoser — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 21:41:36 GMT

Anyone else noticed that Scoble's blog seems to have somehow morphed into an iPhone only blog?

I'm not very well informed about the iPhone, but we are still talking about a phone, aren't we? It almost seems as if a seemingly good product coming out from Apple is such a rare event that is must be hyped to death.

in reply to Scoble's Blog = Official iPhone Blog?

Microsoft Marketing Gone Wrong - Again [Microsoft Marketing Gone Wrong - Again]

Martin Ennemoser — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:34:34 GMT

While surfing on an Austrian news site today I saw this banner ad:

What the hell are they trying to tell me with this? Here is the translation of the texts from top to bottom:

"Find out how"
"The intuitive user interfaces of Windows Vista" (yes, plural!)
"Defy all challenges"

So this banner doesn't look interesting and it has nothing interesting to say. Do they really believe someone's going to click on it? Waste of money I'd say.

in reply to Microsoft Marketing Gone Wrong - Again

ADO.NET Entity Framework Cut From Orcas [ADO.NET Entity Framework Cut From Orcas]

Martin Ennemoser — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 09:49:02 GMT

This blog post mentions that the ADO.NET Entity Framework has been cut from Orcas and is instead pushed back to the first half of 2008.
The wording of this blog post reminds me of a similar announcement a couple of months ago when WinFS was effectively cancelled. I think the second comment to the post sums it up best.

I didn't have time yet to take a closer look at the ADO.NET Entity Framework and so cannot tell whether this is a big loss, but considering that LINQ is all the rage at the moment, it maybe has been decided to not confuse people with too many new Data Access technologies at once.

in reply to ADO.NET Entity Framework Cut From Orcas

Rory and Scoble fighting it out [Rory and Scoble fighting it out]

Martin Ennemoser — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:14:20 GMT

Seems like there's not much love left between Rory and Scoble. Rory posted a rebuttal to Scobles "Microsoft's Internet Strategy Sucks"-Post, and what follows in the comments and Rory's follow-up post indicates that the former and current Channel 9 superstars won't be seen having a beer together in the foreseeable future.

in reply to Rory and Scoble fighting it out

support.microsoft.com not working? [support.microsoft.com not working?]

Martin Ennemoser — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:48:29 GMT

For a couple of days now http://support.microsoft.com gives me an ASP.NET error message. Normally I wouldn't be concerned, but it happens at least since christmas now and I would really like to have access to KB articles again.

Anyone else experiencing the same problem?

in reply to support.microsoft.com not working?

vanishingpointgame.com [vanishingpointgame.com]

Martin Ennemoser — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 22:52:43 GMT

What's up with this new viral marketing campaign at vanishingpointgame.com? There's a banner with a code to figure out on on10.net and an interesting discussion going on at neowin.

So far it looks like something will be announced on Jan 8th at the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas. And one part of the solution has led to a page containing a number of timers for cities all over the world.

Strange...

in reply to vanishingpointgame.com

Bummer: WSS 3.0 limitations on SBS 2003 [Bummer: WSS 3.0 limitations on SBS 2003]

Martin Ennemoser — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 22:39:51 GMT

So I wanted to upgrade our internal SBS 2003 to WSS 3.0 over the weekend and started to read the upgrade documentation. Luckily I did not just go ahead and try it. Here's why:

First of all there's a special document outlining the upgrade process for SBS 2003. SBS 2003 is special because of it's tight integration with WSS 2.0. This leads to the first limitation in that you cannot upgrade the default "companyweb". Rather you have to do a side-by-side installation.

Nevertheless, I was still confident that this is no big deal and that I would be able to transfer all my data from the old to the new version after installation. That was until I read the following:

MSDN wrote:

The following are known limitations in running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with Windows SBS:

- The integration of incoming e-mail with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 does not work because of a conflict with Exchange.

- If you moved the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 databases from WMSDE to SQL Server 2000 or to SQL Server 2005, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Search does not function after you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Of course I am running WSS 2.0 with SQL 2005 Workgroup Edition in order to overcome the 2GB DB size limit! And not beeing able to search makes WSS 3.0 useless in this configuration.

So no WSS 3.0 for me. At least until there's a solution for this.

in reply to Bummer: WSS 3.0 limitations on SBS 2003

BIG troubles with MSDN Subscription renewal. Any ideas? [BIG troubles with MSDN Subscription renewal. Any ideas?]

Martin Ennemoser — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:35:30 GMT

I've been a MSDN Universal subscriber since 2002 and have renewed my subscription every year since then.

This year I somehow forgot do the renewal on time, but since it hasn't been a problem in the past to renew the subscription a little bit late I bought the MSDN Premium upgrade package (since Universal no longer exists) in retail for € 1,800.- in good faith.

And guess what: The license code for the renewal is not accepted, because I obviously missed some important deadline. Talking to support didn't get me any further, they insist on buying a new subscription.

What makes me really angry is that I didn't receive any notification that my subscription is about to expire. Access to the MSDN downloads is still working, so I didn't have any indication that something might be wrong.

Now, aside from having to pay more for a new subscription, I might not even be able to return the upgrade package to the reseller, because of the problems involved with returning software which has already been opened.

Has anyone here had similar problems in the past and can help me? I really don't like the idea of throwing away € 1,800.-

in reply to BIG troubles with MSDN Subscription renewal. Any ideas?

Vista Video from 2003 [Vista Video from 2003]

Martin Ennemoser — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 07:42:21 GMT

Via Digg:

Here is a video of Vista from 2003. In the end it says "Simply the best Windows we've ever built" (past tense!). Something must have gone terribly wrong afterwards.

in reply to Vista Video from 2003

Dare Obasanjo meets BillG [Dare Obasanjo meets BillG]

Martin Ennemoser — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 22:01:03 GMT

Dare Obasanjo has an interesting blog post about his meeting with BillG. Dare Obasanjo is a Microsoft employee and happens to be the son of the president of Nigeria.

The post is very interesting, but the ending is just hilarious:

As I was leaving the building I overheard the following exchange between the receptionist of the building and a visitor:

Visitor: Where is Bill Gates's office?
Receptionist: I'm not at liberty to divulge that information.
Visitor: I need to see him, I just downloaded Windows Vista and I have a number of complaints.

in reply to Dare Obasanjo meets BillG

MSDN TV is no more [MSDN TV is no more]

Martin Ennemoser — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 20:39:41 GMT

I've just read that MSDN TV is not going to be continued:

MSDN wrote:

UPDATE: MSDN recently posted its final episode of MSDN TV. We'd like to thank all of our viewers for your support and hope you have enjoyed the last 3 1/2 years of episodes.

Does anyone know if a successor to the show is planned for the future? Otherwise there wouldn't be left much regarding video content on MSDN.

in reply to MSDN TV is no more

IE7 to be distributed via Automatic Updates! [IE7 to be distributed via Automatic Updates!]

Martin Ennemoser — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 19:56:09 GMT

The IE team announced that IE7 will be distributed as a high priority upate via Windows Update.
In terms of increased security this is a welcome strategy, but web designers should hurry to make their sites compatible, because this means that IE7 will be in widespread use shortly after release later this year.

in reply to IE7 to be distributed via Automatic Updates!

.NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 both released this year? [.NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 both released this year?]

Martin Ennemoser — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:48:41 GMT

There's this really confusing blog post of some guy called Alain. Not confusing because of the fact that he mentions that Atlas will be part of .NET Framework 3.5, but because of his comment that Atlas will be released before the end of the year. For me this leads to the conclusion that .NET Framework 3.5 will also be released this year.
Don't get me wrong, I like having new stuff to use, but wouldn't 2 major Framework releases (3.0 & 3.5) within such a short time be a little bit too much?

in reply to .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5 both released this year?

Warren Buffett gives away his fortune - To the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [Warren Buffett gives away his fortune - To the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation]

Martin Ennemoser — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 19:21:41 GMT

Just read this article on CNN. I thinks it's great. Instead of creating a big foundation himself, Warren Buffet decided to give a large amount of his wealth to the foundation of his close friends, Bill & Melinda Gates.
I hope other rich people will follow this example and
a) spend vast amounts of their wealth
b) do so in a meaningful way, that is, give it to established organizations where results are guaranteed

in reply to Warren Buffett gives away his fortune - To the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

WinFS no longer a product [WinFS no longer a product]

Martin Ennemoser — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 22:10:24 GMT

Quentin Clark announces in his blog that select technologies from WinFS will be integrated in ADO.NET 3 and Katmai (next release of SQL Server), but WinFS will no longer be continued as a separate product. That means that there once again will be no relational file system in the foreseeable future.
Wild guess: WinFS has been a pet project of Bill Gates. Doesn't seem to be one of Ray Ozzie.

in reply to WinFS no longer a product