WindowSMART (The HD/SSD health monitoring, reporting and alerting tools) goes open, yes, open source...

WindowSMART WindowSMART 2013 and Home Server SMART 2013 are powerful hard disk and solid state disk (SSD) health monitoring, reporting and alerting tools for Windows. WindowSMART 2013 is a standalone application, available in both x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) versions. Home Server SMART 2013 is a Dashboard add-in for specialized versions of Windows. WindowSMART 2013 was originally developed as a Shareware application. On October 28, 2013,...

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11 for 12... 11 Free SQL Server 2012 Microsoft Virtual Academy Classes

A Story of BI, BIG Data and SQL Server in Canada - 11 Free SQL Server 2012 Online Training Courses to Sharpen Your Skills Our friends at Microsoft Virtual Academy have a number of no-cost online training courses available, delivered by Microsoft experts across a broad range of subjects. We’ve pulled together the courses relevant to SQL Server 2012 and consolidated them for you below.  In total there are 11, count ‘em, 11 courses! The...

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TechBooks, your Windows 8.1 window to discovering, and reading, MSDN and Patterns & Practices eBooks

Public Sector Developer Weblog - TechBooks Windows 8.1 app - Discover MSDN and Patterns & Practices eBooks TechBooks is a handy Windows 8.1 app that brings all the freely available "MSDN" and "Patterns & Practices" technical eBooks, in one place for your reading pleasure (online or offline). App is all about the technical content  (ebooks) one can leverage to enhance their skill-sets. App has the following features. Uses...

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"Halloween Costumes for Programmers" Comic

Global Nerdy - Halloween Costumes for Programmers (and IT People) As a way of promoting their new in-the-browser development tool, the folks at Koding have posted this comic. You can tell it's been a long week when the Hard Drive took me a few seconds to get......

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“Ship it, Maybe” - Yammer's software shipping parody

OneNote Testing - A really great parody of shipping software From my new friends in Yammer, here is “Ship it, Maybe”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R3aBwcDtwU  (Sorry but I can't get embedded video to work). Light sabers, bell curves, and beer.  Wow. Well done folks! “Ship it, Maybe” This had me laughing and singing along (well, not out loud as my cube mates would have killed me, but you get the idea... :)...

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Mr. 7,000! This is my 7,000th post...

Before this post; After; 20 visits between taking these snaps? Oh wait, that's probably me searching for past related posts...lol :P Wow. 10 1/2 years, 7,000 posts, 4.5M+ page views. That's kind of scary. Anyway, as I tend to do at these kinds of milestones, I want to thank you, my subscribers, readers and supporters. You guys rock!   Related Past Post XRef: 10 Years... My blogging is now in the double digits! (wow) Nine...

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Welcome OctoGit... I mean, Octokit.Net for GitHub

You've Been Haacked - Introducing Octokit.NET Today on the GitHub blog, we announced the first release of Octokit.net. GitHub provides a powerful set of tools for developers who build amazing software together. But these tools extend way beyond the website and Git clients. The GitHub API provides a rich web based way to leverage GitHub.com within your own applications. The Octokit family of libraries makes it easy to call into the...

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Mastering MDS with the Master Data Services Operations Guide whitepaper

Blog do Ezequiel - Master Data Services Operations Guide released A new Master Data Services whitepaper is now published: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn520800 ... Master Data Services (MDS) Operations Guide Master Data Services (MDS) Operations Guide Summary: SQL Server Master Data Services (MDS) provides a central data hub that ensures the integrity of information and consistency of data is constant across different...

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Windows Azure Guidance - Cloud Design Patterns Alpha drop...

Alejandro Jezierski - Cloud Design Patterns, new drop on Codeplex We made a new drop of the Cloud Design Patterns book on codeplex. The drop includes the following patterns and related guidance: ... patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance - Cloud Design Patterns Recommended Download Cloud Design Patterns document documentation, 2682K, uploaded Mon - 507 downloads Release Notes 2nd drop of Cloud Design Patterns...

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"We're from the Government and we're to help with Cybersecurity..." - NIST Preliminary Cybersecurity Framework Released

ride the lightning - NIST Releases Preliminary Cybersecurity Framework How in the world are entities supposed to deal with cybersecurity in a world without standards, even voluntary ones? The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) is looking to remedy that. On October 22nd, NIST released a Preliminary Cybersecurity Framework to help critical infrastructure owners and operators reduce cybersecurity risks in industries such as power...

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Zombie Post of the Day #2: Zombie Combat Battalion Scrolls (ZOCOM) - Get your Zombie Tab here...

Zombie Combat Battalion Scrolls (ZOCOM) Soldiers qualified for Zombie combat wear the Zombie tab. Those serving in one of four Zombie combat BNs wear the scroll. The Zombie Combat Command has seen much success in the past three years. Containing all major Zombie incidents within the United States, the creation of the 26th Zombie Combat Regiment, with four Zombie Combat Battalions has been approved. The first, second and third Zombie Combat...

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Zombie Post of the Day #1: "Cloudy with a chance of ZOMBIES!!!"

Channel 9 - Cloudy with a chance of ZOMBIES!!! Bizarre things happen around All Hallows Eve...and Microsoft is no exception. This year we tell you the tale of an over-worked Cloud employee...and his terrifying solution. Sit back, relax and enjoy our comical tale of data gone wrong. The Channel 9 team does it again......

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Hotfix released to remove 'SecureBoot isn't configured correctly' watermark

WinBeta - Windows 8.1 'SecureBoot isn't configured correctly' watermark finally removed via hotfix When Microsoft rolled out Windows 8.1 on October 17th, there was one annoyance that has popped up regarding Secure Boot, leaving an annoying watermark on the desktop. Many Windows 8.1 users were reporting that they have a watermark stating "SecureBoot isn't configured correctly." Today, Microsoft has rolled out a fix (KB2902864). ... [Image...

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Clide, your guide to Visual Studio Extensibility sanity...

Daniel Cazzulino's Blog - High level overview of Visual Studio Extensibility APIs If your head is dizzy with the myriad VS services and APIs, from EnvDTE to Shell.Interop, this should clarify a couple things. First a bit of background: APIs on EnvDTE (DTE for short, since that’s the entry point service you request from the environment) was originally an API intended to be used by macros. It’s also called the automation API. Most of the time, this is a simplified API that is easier to work with, but which doesn’t expose 100% of what VS...

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Toward Metadata Mastery with the Windows API Code Pack

DZone - Rob Sanders - Extracting File Metadata with C# and the .NET Framework Introduction Over the weekend, I decided to try and import image metadata using C# and the .NET Framework.  Aside from “normal” file attributes such as date modified and size, the Windows Explorer (shell) provides extended file property information which can be quite valuable. The challenge was how to extract this information, given that the .NET Framework...

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"Theory and Applications for Advanced Text Mining" Open eBook...

Intech - Computer and Information Science - Information and Knowledge Engineering - Theory and Applications for Advanced Text Mining Edited by Shigeaki Sakurai, ISBN 978-953-51-0852-8, 218 pages, Publisher: InTech, Chapters published November 21, 2012 under CC BY 3.0 license DOI: 10.5772/3115 Due to the growth of computer technologies and web technologies, we can easily collect and store large amounts of text data. We can believe that the...

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Seven for SQL... Seven Free eBooks from Pinal Dave and SQLAuthority.com

Journey to SQL Authority with Pinal Dave - SQL SERVER – Download FREE PDFs from SQLAuthority.com Throughout the last seven years, we have created many PDF downloads from SQLAuthority.com and many are very much appreciated by users. I just wanted to list all the downloads which we have created so far in a single place, hence here is the blog post which contains all the PDF downloads which we have created so far. SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers Download Beginning Big Data with NuoDB SQL Server Management Studio Keyboard...

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Surface RT Battery draining faster than you're used to after upgrading to Windows 8.1? Here's a possible fix...

WinBeta - Updating Surface RT to Windows RT 8.1 results in decreased battery life, Microsoft offers fix For those of you who own a Surface RT device and have updated to the latest Windows RT 8.1 update, you may have noticed a decrease in battery life. Microsoft is aware of this issue and has quietly issued a workaround that will fix the problem and allow you to have the full battery life potential of your Surface RT device. According to Microsoft, the decrease in battery life when updating your Surface RT to the latest 8.1 update, the wireless...

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Internet Archive's Historical Software Archive = Retro to the Max Software in your Browser Collection (Adventure, WordStar, Visicalc, The Hobbit and more)

PC World - Historical Software Archive lets you use vintage software in your browser The Internet Archive’s new Historical Software Archive brings old software to your browser through the magic of JSMESS emulation. The Internet Archive has protected and preserved old software for a while now; archivist Jason Scott claimed back in April that the organization possessed the largest historical software collection in the world. Software is...

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Jesse's got your number (of Insanely Essential Programmer Utilities)...

Jesse Liberty - Two Dozen Insanely Essential Programmer Utilities* Lately I’ve been focused much more on Web development.  Along the way, I’ve discovered a number of utilities that are simply essential to successful coding, depending of course on which frameworks and libraries you are using.  Here’s a sampling, intended only to piqué your interest, not to explore any of these in depth… Since we've not gotten an a recent update...

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Windows Management Framework 4.0 (PowerShell 4, PowerShell ISE, Management OData, WMI, etc.) now available

Keith Hill's Blog - PowerShell 4.0 Now Available You can get PowerShell 4.0 for down level operating systems now via the WMF 4.0 download.  NOTE: Be sure you have .NET 4.5 installed *before* you install WMF 4.0.... Windows PowerShell Blog - Windows Management Framework 4.0 is now available Windows Management Framework 4.0, our package that lets you use management technologies from Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on some of Microsoft’s older operating systems, is now available for you to download and install. This full-release...

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Wriju's TFS 2013 Book and Video Link Round-up

Wriju's BLOG - Team Foundation Server 2013 : Books Free and Paid Wriju's BLOG - Team Foundation Server 2013 : Learning Videos This is something I'd usually keep for RadioTFS, but given we've got nearly two weeks until the next show, I think I can slip this in here AND there.  Plus we've got some new TFS users in my shop, so thought it would be nice to highlight these, so they can have some great weekend reading materials... :)...

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XPlatformCloudKit - Your Cross Windows Phone, Windows 8, and Android, powered by Azure Mobile Services, Cloud Kit

winappkits / XPlatformCloudKit A Hands-on lab for creating your very own multi-platform app with Azure Mobile Services as a backend. Simply follow along with the included Powerpoint file located in the root of the project. The XPlatformCloudKit supports displaying grouped items retrieved from an Azure Mobile Service, Rss Data Services, and/or Local file. It can aesthetically organize grouped objects of Type Item with property of Title,...

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Jason's Spa (err... I mean, Jason Haley's new SPA, Single Page Application, Resource page)

Jason Haley - New SPA Resource Center on JasonHaley.com I’m working on building up a Single Page Application (SPA) section on my site (sort of like the Reversing, Obfuscation, etc. sections). The url is: http://jasonhaley.com/spa/ ... JasonHaley.com - Single Page Application (SPA) Resources Friend of the Blog, Jason Haley's got a new resource page for SPA's and if they are like his others, I'm sure this will come in handy in the...

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Doughnuts! (Well, Infragistics XAML Doughnut Charts anyway)

Marina Stoyanova's Blog - How to build XAML Doughnut Chart The Infragistics packages for WPF and Silverlight contain a lot of diverse charts for data visualization. The control that we are going to look at is The Doughnut Chart. This chart supports one or more rings surrounding a blank center. It can be customized by controlling the slices labels and colors or by configuring the inner radius. In this blog you can learn how to add this control...

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Doughnuts! (Well, Infragistics XAML Doughnut Charts anyway)

Marina Stoyanova's Blog - How to build XAML Doughnut Chart The Infragistics packages for WPF and Silverlight contain a lot of diverse charts for data visualization. The control that we are going to look at is The Doughnut Chart. This chart supports one or more rings surrounding a blank center. It can be customized by controlling the slices labels and colors or by configuring the inner radius. In this blog you can learn how to add this control...

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