Venu Anuganti Blog

One of my dream tool to try and use is this LINQ, Language Integrated Query introduced by Microsoft’s platform group at PDC. As am basically a Database Developer and till date from day 1 of my career worked only for database companies (Oracle, SOLID, MySQL, Certive and now ANTs) and supposed to be part of SQL Server team as well but denied the offer due to relocation to Redmond last year.

As LINQ extension to Visual Studio will allow me to write queries to databases and XML data from within Visual Studio, so its time for me to see how ANTs Database works on this platform. Will try once I get the new RC of Visual studio 2005.

Here is the interesting pointers that I collected so far for LINQ as a starting point:

• The LINQ Project at MSDN
• Announced at PDC: The LINQ Project
• LINQ feedback
• Linq underneath the covers
• LINQ: a post-modern revolution in software development
• 101 LINQ Samples
• More LINQ news items

After seeing a comment from Vaibav (I guess he might be related to Monad team), thought of doing some experiment with the command line help of the commands before we get any document on this from the team.

First lets look into the the following two screen shots:

• Old MS Command line from Windows 2003
• Monad Command line from Windows 2003

You can observe that, the command “mkdir /help” raises an error in old command line where as it creates a directory called ‘help’ in the new one. And re entering the same command in the new sheel raises a nice error saying directory already exists as shown below:


MSH C:\> mkdir /help
new-item : Item with specified name C:\help already exists.
At E:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\msh\profile.msh:53 char:1
+ new-item <<<< -type directory -path $args


I wasn’t sure what the line new-item <<<< -type directory -path $args means (may be debug info ?).

In the similar lines “mkdir –help” also created a directory called “–help” which is similar to the old command shell behaviour. But the old one does remove the directory –help with a simple command like rmdir –help where as new one does not and one has to double quote the name as shown below:

MSH C:\> mkdir --help

Directory: FileSystem::C:\

Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d---- 9/15/2005 10:32 AM --help

MSH C:\> mkdir --help
new-item : Item with specified name C:\--help already exists.
At E:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\msh\profile.msh:53 char:13
+ new-item <<<< -type directory -path $args
MSH C:\> rmdir --help
remove-item : A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter '-help'.
At line:1 char:12
+ rmdir --help <<<<
MSH C:\> rmdir "--help"
MSH C:\>

So, wondering how the backward compatibility will work if we have any batch scripts written based on this even though its not a good practice to have weired characters in file or directory names. Anyway, we will experiment more once the Monad team publishes any help on the new shell and stay tuned for the updates

Its time to list all the new products that Microsoft unveiled at PDC as of now, so that I dont foget them as there are too many to remeber Here is the list grouped by the list which we talked in this blog

Yet to Talk Microsoft Expression Windows Workflow Foundation LINQ and C# 3.0 WinFX September CTP Windows Sharepoint Services

Talked here Microsoft Developer Center Monad Command Shell Start.com with Gadgets Microsoft MAX Office 12 Visual Studio 2005 RC New PDC Build of Vista

I am not sure if I missed any here. Anyway, will review one by one later on by trying on Vista.

“Monad” Shell is a new interactive command-line from Microsoft. In my earlier post last month said when we can see the Monad. Finally Monad Beta2 is released today and its avaialable for download from here. I just downloaded Monad and installed in on my Vista as well on Windows 2003 Server and found nothing interesting, except that it allows ‘ls’ syntax now (during the install on Vista I found it created a folder on the desktop and then removed it automatically after the installation is done, but I did not notice it after the reinstall, also it refreshes the desktop once the installation is done).

You can find few screen shots below:

• screenshot1
• screenshot2
• screenshot3-installation

In screenshot2 you can find that “dir /help” is not working; means old command line options format (/) is not recognized. I could not able to find any doc on new features to explore, but worth to try. If you have any questions, feel free to send it to Monad team here. Once I find any help doc, will explore more and update back.

[Submitted by Kris]

Today At PDC, Microsoft unveiled Microsoft® Codename “Max”. Max lets us list, organize, share the photos and turn them to slide shows.

Here is my quick install experience:

• First, tried to install it on my Vista OS; but it nicely denied that it supports only XP with SP2
• Now, moved to my XP box; and setup told me that it needs WinFX runtime components and will be installing one (Hmmm..I remember uninstalling this WinFX few days back to save some space)
• The install started and took almost 5-7 minutes to complete (thats a long ?)
• During the install process my IE (embedded with Avant browser) freezed out. Hmm..not sure whethere this is becuase of Max install; but am pretty much sure it should be becuase of the MAX install only.

  And surprisingly it did not even allowed me to take a print screen to share only the browser. So took the full screen print and you can see the browser freez from this screen shot.

• After the installation is complete, still I can see that the IE is taking almost 90% of my CPU; and I need to kill IE and reboot the system
• Now I started Max and it loaded after few seconds (took almost 30 secs to load). May be my CPU speed is not enough I assume or may be its becuase of first startup of MAX (some initializations..in case …hhh)
• But after the program loaded amazed to see such a stylish UI. You will be thrilled. We should appreciate the work done by Max team as well the ground work provided by WinFX team.
• Now, by default it picked the snaps from the “My Pictures” and I added rest of my pics from other directories and created a list and that was real fun to see all my pics in one place and the slideshow is aweful (Max is taking almost 30% CPU and PresentationFontCache.exe to some extent during the slideshow)
• Overall, very nice program and I assume everyone likes this better than any of the earlier photo tools.
  

We have to wait and see what new wonders will be introduced to this MAX in coming days..

[Submitted by Randy]

The much anticipated Microsoft Office 12, screen shots are available from xbetas website as well from BetaNews; which were unveiled in the ongoing PDC 2005.

Office 12 comes with a completely redesigned user interface as well as new methods to make working with documents easier. The person behind the UI is Julie Larson; and dont you think the Julie’s team did a wonderful job by seeing the screen shots ?

Today I thought of installing Yahoo! Music engine on my Vista Operating System to see how it performs on the new OS as I use the same heavily on XP than the other players like Windows Media Player, Music Match or iTunes that I have.

But am bit unsuccessful in getting the Music! engine install to work and during the final step it reports installation unsuccessful. Here are the steps that I did:

1. Visited Yahoo! music engine page
2. From Install The Free Yahoo! Music Player frame, clicked on Get It Now! button
3. It opened another install page, and again clicked on Install button
4. During the install process, selected the Custom Install option and un-selected all options like (Yahoo! messenger, toolbar and mail) as it has Music! Engine install as default option
5. The install started and after few seconds reports that Install is unsuccessful (screen shot is here), and asked to refer Yahoo! help for further assistance

Darnn..thats weired. Even Yahoo! mail does not work on IE7 and now Yahoo! music engine. Good that Yahoo! messenger works great on Vista.

I reported long back to Yahoo! Mail team regarding the compatibility with IE7 and heard back from them that the team is working on this issue and its on the top priority list and its time to send a mail to Music! team.

The new version of Firefox 1.5 Beta1 is released with new features like automated updates, faster browser navigation, clearing private data along with many more.

When I tried with the new beta found that it really rocks. During the first startup of the browser reported imcompatible themes and plugins that I had for earlier version
(1.0.6). It also asked and allowed me to upgrade to the new ones which are available and those they are not left as un-supported (for example I use outlook 2003 theme, advaced tabbed preferences and IE view). I found a minor bug that in themes and plugins it still reports the browser version as 1.4 as opposed to 1.5 BETA; but thats negligible in beta releases. The install also went clean on Windows Vista build 5112 and it also imported the IE 7 bookmarks and history.

Online reviews about Firefox 1.5 Beta1:

• eWeek : Firefox 1.5 Beta Looks Better than Ever
• cNet : Firefox For better or worse