Generating Thumbnail Images from PDF Documents using VB.Net [via Microsoft WebBlogs]

 Very nice, reliant on full Acrobat (v5) but very useful for CMS people.

Kelly said Iraq 'immediate threat'.  Dr David Kelly said in an unbroadcast interview Iraq was a threat and could use weapons of mass destruction "within days or weeks". [via BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition]

 What is very odd is why this is coming out now - why wasn't this presented to the Hutton Inquiry; perhaps it was?

Print preview performance in IE seems to have gone through the floor; it can now take up to a minute for the preview to appear. I'm sure it used to be fairly snappy. Hmmm.

What can go wrong when you mismatch the calling convention?.  

... "Aw, come on, who would be so stupid as to insert a cast to make an error go away without actually fixing the error?"

Apparently everyone. [via Microsoft WebBlogs]

 Ahem, terrible admission but I'm not sure whether I'm included in everyone - I don't think I am but can I absolutely swear, nope we do some dumb things when in a hurry. Its a great article and required reading for anyone who writes unmanaged Windows code.

There's a fair bit of junk in the Microsoft WebBlogs stream, but there is some great stuff as well - at least its not all .NET/Longhorn.

King Crimson's Robert Fripp runs a weblog.

For the Robert Fripp fans....

 

Fast Web browser to be commercialised.  It's Mega 

.... said that in about seven months' time, patents for the Xwebs mega browser should be filed and the software will be primed for commercialisation ....

[via The Register]

Since its mostly (as I understand it) a wrapper on the IE web browser control and there are a gazillion wrappers out there doing things like aggregated search and stuff, its going to be interesting to see these patents (and where they are filed).

 

IE Http Headers Tool.  

... let folks know about a really cool free IE add-in called ieHTTPHeaders written by Jonas Blunck.  It makes it so much easier to see the HTTP headers for different pages, and is way easier than using a sniffer.  ... [via DonXML Demsak's Grok This]

 Jolly useful.

With its Online Services offering, NewsGator is hoping to expand interest in content aggregation to a less-technical crowd, Reinacker said. The service will include exclusive content for subscribers, such as technology news, comics and special interest columns. "RSS and content aggregation has had a stigma for a while of being a techie kind of thing, but we're trying to add more mainstream content to make it more exciting for the average user," Reinacker said.

Pricing for a NewsGator Online Services subscription will start at $5.95 a month per user. NewsGator 2.0 for Outlook works with Microsoft Outlook 2000 or later and will cost $29 a copy.

 [via NewsGator Extends Reach With Subscription Service]

Hmm - 'exclusive' content generation and the software to read said content - given the number of tech news, comics and special interest feeds there are anyway, one wonders how they are going to be 'exclusive' or more importantly original/worthwhile.

 

But three days later on 15 July, a civil servant in Mr Milburn's private office warned via e-mail that the then health secretary wanted to look at the star ratings again.

Mr Yeo said Mr Milburn had apparently been unhappy about the rating given to the Northumbria Health Care Trust and asked if it could be urgently revisited as an issue.

This is a politically motivated personal attack with political intent, again to harm the NHS as well as this party John Reid

The e-mail continued: "The secretary of state would also identify South Durham as a high profile trust, given that it serves the prime minister's constituency.

"Why has it fallen from three stars last year to two stars?"

Mr Yeo said: "The very next day on 16 July, a new paper arrived from Mr Wilmore confirming that the star ratings had been recalculated."

Manipulation?

"This paper stated and I quote: 'Alterations to the methodology have been made resulting in the changes to individual trusts that were requested'.

 [via BBC NEWS | Politics | Tories call for Milburn NHS probe]

Of course its a politically motivated attack - it took place in the House of Commons (sheeesh!).

£25m 'freed' for schools technology.  The government is freeing schools to spend up to £25m on new technology. [via BBC News | Education | UK Edition]

Oh gawd, here we go again, holes in the roof in preference to fewer computers. With the (relatively) massive amount injected into Schools IT since 1997, and a lot of it (all?) ring fenced standards fund money, why is this £25m necessary - or has that lot been wasted or been spent on something else due to budget problems in (ahem) mending the roof.

Mr Clarke said information and communication technology (ICT) in schools, could help improve GCSE results, by "half a grade" if used properly.

Yeah, right, a very dubious and arguable Becta report is the problably the source of this; haven't seen it trotted out for a few years. Perhaps it's new to Mr Clarke.