On-demand apps demand a richer browser.  

.... We clearly need more advanced widgetry to help us deal with a range of data types and to guide us through sophisticated interaction scenarios. [via Jon's Radio]

Personally, I rather like this bit from the latest (beta) incarnation of Zeepe:

<zeepe:notifyicon id="tray" src="images/imunch.ico" tip="MeadCo iMunch News Aggregator and Browser" 
ondoubleclick="onDoubleClickTray()" > 
   <menu id="traymenu"> 
      <menuitem text="Exit" title="Exit the application" oncommand="AppExit()" shortcut="Alt+F4" /> 
      <separator /> 
      <menuitem text="New Feed..." onCommand="NewFeed()" /> 
      <menuitem text="Options..." oncommand="onAppOptions()" /> 
      <menuitem id="domunch" text="&Update articles now" oncommand="startMunching();" /> 
      <separator/> 
      <menuitem id="shownewitems" text="Show &New Articles alert after update" oncommand="UpdateShowNewItemsAlertOption()" /> 
      <menuitem id="shownewitemsnow" text="Last alert..." oncommand="ShowLastAlertBox()" /> 
      <separator /> 
      <menuitem id="hide" text="&Hide When Minimized" oncommand="UpdateHideWhenMinimizedOption()" /> 
      <menuitem default="true" text="&Open iMunch" oncommand="onDoubleClickTray()" /> 
   </menu> 
</zeepe:notifyicon> 

But then again, I am biased since I wrote the code. But that little lot above, in addition with a bit of glue javascript provides a tray icon that behaves like the one with Outlook 2003. Depending upon your view of the world the above is, or is not, HTML. What is clear is it is 'markup' and what is also clear is that with Zeepe it can be included within a DHTML page giving you a 'richer browser'.

Critics claim this is yet another IT cock-up by the Government which has spent three years and millions of pounds on a project which always looked destined for the rubbish bin.  [via Blair's broadband scheme canned | The Register]

I refer the honorable minister to the advice I gave a year ago (it probably didn't get through the civil servant).

Top of the Pops leaves BBC One

 [via BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | Top of the Pops leaves BBC One]

Who cares, provided that Later.... doesn't get axed.

Microsoft's Road Map for Windows Forms and Avalon.  John Montgomery ...  has posted the road map agreed on by the Windows Forms and Avalon teams about which UI stack to use and when (an excerpt is presented here):

"Microsoft's roadmap for client UI development has three main phases:

1. "Today, use Windows Forms v1.1 ...
2. "When Avalon v1.0 releases (scheduled for mid-2006), we recommend that applications looking to differentiate their user interface such as Web sites and graphically intensive applications such as complex data visualization look closely at Avalon. Other applications should continue using Windows Forms.
3. "Following the release of Avalon 1.0, ...

 [via Marquee de Sells: Chris's insight outlet]

So web sites should use Avalon (presumably XAML), other uses should wait until the tools are available. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Avalon will only run on WindowsXP and later. I've just upgrade all of my PCs with more RAM to cope with XP SP2 (the Tablet PC was the worst affected), have I put in enough RAM to handle Avalon requirements (do I have the graphics cards?).

We Don't Need No Exploitation.  

A group of former pupils at a London comprehensive school are poised to win thousands of pounds in unpaid royalties for singing on Pink Floyd's classic Another Brick In The Wall 25 years ago.

This is a great story. [via Creative Commons Blog - rss]

It is a great story. Apparently, "When the song was released the Inner London Education Authority called it "scandalous".", goodness knows what Blunket, Clarke et al would make of it now.

Getting to Know Avalon - A Guided Tour of the SDK.  

... I thought it would be helpful to put together a quick guided tour of the SDK reference documentation and overviews to give you some sense of the major feature areas and technologies worthy of further investigation. Unfortunately, the online WinFX SDK is still under construction and as a result the contents list doesn't provide a hugely intuitive overview of where to start looking. .... My suggestion is that you use the links below as launch points for your own exploration: follow a trail to understand an area, then come back to this entry and move on to the next section. [via Microsoft WebBlogs]

Weird, I would have thought the best place to put this quick guided tour would be with the SDK, not a couple of random places on the web. Time to write a blog entry but not to write the SDK. I do hope the quality of the software is better than this attitude.

Students who use computers a lot at school have worse maths and reading performance, research suggests.  [via BBC NEWS | Education | Doubts about school computer use]

Can't wait for Becta, Tony Blair, David Blunket and Charles Clarke to get their teeth into this one. There is also, of course, the £250m ye goode olde BBC is spending on the content.

... I've seen several demos of this and it will change development on Windows -- it especially makes building great-looking managed-code applications far easier than before. [via Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]

So there we are, Whidbey (with all that stuff for making applications easier) which is not even out yet is not what you want - why would you want something that is not as good as what is available round the corner. MS really is tripping over itself now with all this 'advertising' of products that have not yet shipped.

... http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/.

I'm happy that this release will able to run on Windows XP (and Windows Server 2003 too).  I have this build running on my laptop with xp sp2, and it has very little impact on my daily use unless I'm building an application and running it. Rob

[via LonghornBlogs.com]

I would think there will be a rush for this; XAML on XP. Though, beware of no major XAML changes in this build which sort of implies there wil be in the next. Still, they are making progress.

A bit of fun when one gets bored with finding needles in plugable protocols:

(The training safety skid is for the son <g>).