The ASP.NET HTTP Runtime. Dino Esposito looks at the constituent components of the HTTP runtime, the logic that drives the processing of individual requests directed to ASP.NET applications, and shows all the steps by which a HTTP request becomes plain HTML text. [MSDN Just Published]

Open source licensing. I'm getting ready to release at least one (and possibly more) open source projects. I just found this site that collects a vast array of "approved" open source licenses. I'm leaning towards the BSD license right now.[iunknown.com]

Gosh, there are so many. I wonder if there are so many proprietory licenses - most seem to be to be rooted in some mythical 'one' - the one from whose decendents everyone copies as the starting point for their own license.

Convea Open Source. Adam Smith wrote me the other day out his company's open source project. I did a quick walk through of the demo and it has some really nice DHTML stuff. Its all classic ASP (I think), but it could help add a profesional touch to a lot of apps. [ScottW's ASP.NET WebLog]

Hmmmm, there may be something worth wrapping here, needs a closer look.

Marketing for Geeks. This is excellent: Marketing for Geeks, a series of articles (three at the moment) by Eric Sink. I've never really been interested in marketing but Eric got me hooked with geek friendly examples such as Paint Shop Pro and CityDesk and I ended up learning a great deal. The writing style is similar to that of Joel Spolsky, so if you enjoy Joel on Software you'll certainly enjoy this. [via Simon Willison's Weblog]

Good fun, I liked this bit: "... You have hired a marketing VP and assigned him ridiculous and unattainable goals just so you can watch him squirm." But, I don't agree with a lot of it - essentially its talking about markets rather than how to reach them (marketting) and it seems to be talking about products which are taken up because they are new and cool, only then do they become dull and boring and bought by everyone. This seems to leave out a whole market segment - those looking for something that works and is useful.

Diagonal shapes with CSS. Information on Border Slants (via Paul Hammond). Border slants are the effect whereby diagonal lines can be created using pure CSS, by taking advantage of the fact that thick borders around a box meet at an angle. This article describes the effect in detail and shows how it can be used to achieve a number of interesting shapes, then goes on to show off with an impressive Valentine's Day Heart. See also Tantek's awesome pentagon site map and A Study of Regular Polygons. [Simon Willison's Weblog]

The Study of Regular Polygons doesn't seem to work on IE6 but the Heart does, and the link from that page to an explanation ios worth following - I think that one leads to the rotating box demo. Wonderful what some people manage to squeeze out of DHTML+css.

 

New tool for homebuyers. A new government website allows homebuyers to check what kind of neighbours they will be living with. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

In my area, there's 5 villages, 1782 of us in 681 households. Apparently we're nice but I can't see broadband coming here can you?

Bits:

The Avalon toolbox, which will replace the current graphics device interface (GDI), is expected to be a major productivity gain for ISVs and developers, sources said.

The Longhorn compilers, for instance, will use XML script files to create user-interface functions with a few lines of XML code that before would have required hundreds, if not thousands, of lines of C# coding. And the Longhorn software developer kit, which is also due out this fall, will come with prebuilt XML Application Markup Language (XAML) schemas for many UI functions, said sources briefed on Longhorn. [CRN]

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At work, we constantly hit walls with WinForms. The worse part is we know that WinForms is done for if Longhorn includes the much demo'ed Desktop Compositing Engine (ala Avalon) and the Aero UI with its DirectX core API with a completely new managed CLR API and this XAML language. [David Morford]

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"Win32 has like 76,000 APIs, and they're taking it down to 8,000 with Longhorn technology," said one source familiar with the plans.

Also in Longhorn, Microsoft plans to integrate a replacement for the Windows graphics device interface (GDI), code-named Avalon, that replaces the need to do manual coding with prebuilt, extensible XAML scripts. That means developers wouldn't have to access many APIs directly and instead can modify XAML scripts, sources said.

The Windows GDI currently interacts with device drivers on behalf of Windows applications. The next-generation XAML has new metatags and extensible schemas for user-interface structures and behaviors that are designed to simplify and increase the customization of the "jazzed up and 3-D oriented Longhorn GUI, code-named Aero," sources said.

"It's hard to use the shell now for an application," said another source familiar with the Longhorn plans. "Anything a shell can do, an application can do. So now a Windows application can inherit the behavior of the operating system with zero lines of code."  [iAppliance]

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The compositing engine suggested requirements are a DirectX 9 capable GPU with 128MB of VRAM. What longhorn looks like at the moment is basically XP with a new Theme and a few new UI elements. This is a long way from what the final product will look like, and I expect it to have significantly higher system requirements by the time it is released. [Tablet PC Buzz.com - forum]

Microsoft revamps ID management offering. Ships new identity server along with advice on deployment - InfoWorld [via Loosely Coupled news aggregator]...

... In conjunction with its new offering, Microsoft also introduced "Identity and Access Management Solution Accelerator," a new set of prescriptive guidelines created with Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP to help customers build and test identity management infrastructures... Microsoft Identity Integration Server (MIIS) improves upon the software giant's Meta Directory Server through the addition of new features including automated account provisioning, the synchronization of identity information, and Web-based self-service password management capabilities...

Might be useful at some point.

Registration-less COM to .NET Wrapper Tool Beta. Aurigma has posted the beta for a COM to .NET wrapper generation tool that doesn't require the COM server to be registered, which is nice for hosted scenarios. It also generates the wrapper code for you to see and edit for your own purposes. Interesting.

Posted by Chris Sells on Tue, July 1, 2003 @ 12:50PM [Marquee de Sells: Chris's insight outlet]

Weird, Bill Gates on Longhorn (USA Today). Blimey he looks to have aged a lot, or I haven't seen a picture recently, and there is definitely something odd about that hair.

But this is the weirdest bit:

How far (is Longhorn) down the road?

BG: Years. At this time we're doing the prototyping — feasibility studies, performance studies. We don't have a date because what we have is a technological breakthrough that we have to really make sure we refine and get right. Then we'll get to the point where we'll set up an engineering schedule.

Perhaps someone should tell Scoble, perhaps someone should tell the chaps at the PDC. Worse, what he wibbles about in the article I would hardly call a technological breakthrough; heck much of it just sounds like yet another go at Active Channels but this time more tightly integrated into the UI than panels on the Active Desktop.

I dunno, is it me, but I really can't get over enthusiastic about a bit of software that tells me that the menu down the local restaurant has changed tonight. I suppose I'm dull boring and middle aged with kids and live in rural nowhere - I don't care whats on the menu tonight, I'd just like to go out!.

If the PDC is prototype code yet to go through feasability studies etc then its not worth going.