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, its developer Matthew Sawyer, owner of Dojo North Software, LLC, decided to turn WindowSMART and Home Server SMART over to the open source community. I work full-time for HP as a Microsoft SharePoint consultant, and the demands of running a side business conflicted with my family. With two young children, I want to be a better dad and thus decided I shouldn't be consuming all my free time working on a side business when I could be spending it with my family.

WindowSMART 2013 - Supported Platforms

• Windows XP SP-3 and later
• Windows XP 64-bit edition SP-2 and later
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7
• Windows 8
• Windows 8.1
• Windows Server 2003 SP-2 and later
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2012 R2

Home Server SMART 2013 - Supported Systems

• Windows Home Server 2011
• Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials
• Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials
• Windows Server 2012 Essentials
• Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials

...

From Shareware to Open Source
In January 2010 I created Home Server SMART as an add-in for Windows Home Server ("v1"), which later became known as Home Server SMART Classic. In June 2012 I released WindowSMART as a Shareware application to help supplement my family's income.

To make a very long story short, WindowSMART has grown to a point where it's a full-time job. I already have a full-time job with HP, a family and in early 2013 I started exercising again to combat obesity. I'm not Superman; there are only 24 hours in a day but I needed about 30 hours a day to take all of this on.

And so I decided the best future for WindowSMART 2013, Home Server SMART 2013 and Home Server SMART Classic lies with the open source community. I think I made a very good product--I'd love to see the open source community make it a great product.

Product Key
Because WindowSMART 2013 was initially released as a Shareware product, it still requires a product key even though it is now open source. I've generated a product key and attached it here. I will soon make a license key generator available on my website which you can use if you'd like a personalized key. There is no charge for the key. Donations, of course, are always welcome. :)

Brave step Matthew! Thanks for taking the time to OSS this and not let it just fade away into the dark...

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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 courses cover content for both IT Professionals and for Developers that will show you how to implement and manage your database solutions including how to migrate to the cloud with the ability to scale on demand, how to implement the powerful reporting features in SQL server, as well as covering the capabilities of SQL Server that pertain to creating reliable, secure, and robust mission critical applications. We also cover how SQL Server integrates with SharePoint.

The 11 courses are:

• Database Fundamentals
• Licensing SQL Server 2012
• Big Data Analytics
• Breakthrough Insights using Microsoft SQL Server 2012 - Scalable data warehouse
• Getting Started with Microsoft Big Data
• Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases Jump Start
• SQL Server Essentials for Oracle DBAs Jump Start
• Breakthrough Insights using Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Training- Analysis Service
• Microsoft SQL Server 2012 training: Reporting Services
• Mission Critical Confidence using Microsoft SQL Server 2012
• Private Cloud on your terms with Microsoft SQL Server 2012: Scale on demand

..."

You guys know I'm a pretty big fan of the MVA and of course SQL Server (not sure why "of course"... maybe because I've used it forever? In every professional position I've been in? Because it's grown with me from departmental to enterprise? Because I mostly grok it? Whatever, you get the idea...) and we're hopefully moving toward SQL Server 2012 in my day job, so I wanted to capture this for future sharing with the team (and some personal professional development too)

 

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WAMVA - Windows Azure Microsoft Virtual Academy courses... (which are free of course)

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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 Windows 8.1’s new HubControl and template.
• Uses new Windows 8.1 PDF related API’s.
• Includes standard stuff – appbar, semantic zoom, pin-to-start, fly outs, caching books for offline use, and basic bookmarking capability.
• Includes privacy policy, about, support using new Windows 8.1 settings related FlyOut controls. - required for all apps.
• FilePicker functionality to save the book wherever the user desires.

...

TechBooks

Description

TechBooks app is for those planning a software career or wish to enhance their technical skillsets and improve career opportunities.

App provides the following capabilities.

• Easily discover, download and read freely available technical MSDN & Patterns and Practices e-books while online or offline.
• No ads whatsoever in the application & completely free app to view/read/download the freely available technical e-books listed in the catalog only.

Highlighting text, annotation and printing books is not the scope of the app, but the publisher allows you to download the book and use any other advanced reader you prefer.

Hope you can provide good rating+feedback based on the scope of the app, and share with your friends pursuing software careers.

Features

• Supports portrait, landscape and min. width of 500 px - Allow you to view/us multiple applications side-by-side
• Follows general Windows 8 guidelines, focuses on delivering content with contextual buttons in lower appbar & leverages semantic-zoom feature (zoom-up) to display the list of subjects.

Kind of interesting and cool way to get the MSDN and P&P stuff. One thing to note is that it seems the app is optimized for touch, for example mouse scrolling doesn't seem to work. Unfortunately, this seems kind of common (where either touch is tested or mouse, but not always both)

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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 years just flew by... Today is my Ninth Blog-aversary!
Seventh Blog-aversary!
Six years just seemed to fly by… It’s my Sixth Year Blog-aversary!
Five Year Blog-aversary, and 500K+ Visit Milestone
Four Year Blog-aversary
Three Year Blog-aversary...
Two Years and Counting...

Three million thank you's!
A million [visits] in review...
Two million... visits... Thank you!
My own countdown (well count-up) to watch... Hitting two "million..." visits this week
“One Million…” visits… Thanks!

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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 API. I can’t wait to see what you build with it.

The Project

Octokit.net is an open source project on GitHub so feel free to contribute with pull requests, issues, etc. You’ll notice that we call it a 0.1.0 release. As of today, it doesn’t implement every API endpoint that GitHub.com supports.

We wanted to make sure that it was in use by a real application so we focused on the endpoints that GitHub for Windows needs. If there’s an endpoint that is not implemented, please do log an issue. Or even better, send a pull request! ...

When I saw this, my first thought was, "Oh, CodePlex needs something like this..."  My second was, "You Go GitHub!"

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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 applications. With MDS, you can implement a master data management (MDM) hub to manage the master data that is stored in an enterprise database.

This article provides guidance about how to install, configure and manage SQL Server 2012 Master Data Services. You also learn how to deploy a Master Data Services model and create a SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) solution to monitor MDS.

...

Published: October 2013

Applies to: SQL Server Master Data Services (MDS), SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)

To review the document, please download the Master Data Services (MDS) Operations Guide Word document and the associated MDS Operations GuideSample.zip file.

Some snaps and snips from the DocX

SQL Server 2012 Master Data Services (MDS)

SQL Server Master Data Services provides a central data hub that ensures the integrity of information and consistency of data is constant across different applications. With MDS, you can implement a master data management (MDM) hub to manage the master data that is stored in an enterprise database.

Master data management (MDM) describes the efforts made by an organization to discover and define non-transactional lists of data, with the goal of compiling maintainable master lists. An MDM project generally includes an evaluation and restructuring of internal business processes along with the implementation of MDM technology. The result of a successful MDM solution is reliable, centralized data that can be analyzed to uncover insights for better business decisions.

With the right training, most business-domain experts can implement an MDS solution. In addition, you can use MDS to manage any domain; it is not specific to managing lists of customers, products, or accounts. When MDS is first installed, it does not include the structure for any domains—you define the domains you need by creating domain specific models.

Other MDS features include hierarchies, granular security, transactions, data versioning, and business rules.

Master Data Services includes the following components and tools:

• Master Data Services Configuration Manager, a tool you use to create and configure Master Data Services databases and web applications.
• Master Data Manager, a web application you use to perform administrative tasks, such as creating a domain model or business rules, and that user’s access to update data.
• MDSModelDeploy.exe, a tool to create packages containing your model objects and data to deploy to other environments.
• Master Data Services web service, which developers can use to extend or develop custom solutions for Master Data Services.
• Master Data Services Add-in for Excel, which you use to manage data and create new entities and attributes.

I've not yet seen a shop implement MDS, though I'd love to as I sounds like it would solve a number of real world problems... Must remember to point some people I know at this to see if there's any interest.

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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 project. It contains 14 patterns with 7 related guidance.

...

patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance

Welcome to patterns & practices Windows Azure Guidance site

Many customers are looking for guidance on how to make the move to Windows Azure, and how to make the most of it. patterns & practices has a series of projects that target application design and development on Windows Azure.

The key themes for these projects are:
1. Moving to the Cloud
2. Developing for the Cloud
3. Building Hybrid Apps in the Cloud
4. Developing Big Data Solutions in the Cloud 
5. Cloud Design Patterns

These themes will allow us to categorize the scenarios that we will be delivering. Most of the scenarios are challenges that customers face today. And as we progress the program forward we will have more scenarios.

#1 is about migration and re-purposing existing applications and skills. #2 is about taking advantages of intrinsic properties from the cloud, such as elastic demand, etc., #3 is about connecting cloud applications with on-premises systems. #4 is the ongoing project about developing big data solutions using Windows Azure HDInsight and related technologies.

...

Don't reinvent the cloud wheel, instead learn from wheel builders (or whatever, you get the idea). In short, don't invent what you don't need to invent. Invest your time into what makes your product and service unique...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
"Building Hybrid Applications in the Cloud on Windows Azure" free ebook and code (RC)
Moving Applications to the Cloud 2nd Edition guide (and Hands on Labs)
“Windows Azure Architecture Guide, Part 1 – Moving Applications to the Cloud” now available as an interactive guide.

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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 generation, transportation and telecommunications. NIST will open a 45-day public comment period on the Preliminary Framework and plans to release the official framework in February 2014.

...

NIST Releases Preliminary Cybersecurity Framework, Will Seek Comments

The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today released its Preliminary Cybersecurity Framework (PDF) to help critical infrastructure owners and operators reduce cybersecurity risks in industries such as power generation, transportation and telecommunications. In the coming days, NIST will open a 45-day public comment period on the Preliminary Framework and plans to release the official framework in February 2014, as called for in Executive Order 13636—Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.

In February 2013, President Obama directed NIST to work with stakeholders to develop a voluntary framework for reducing cyber risks, recognizing that U.S. national and economic security depends on the reliable functioning of critical infrastructure. Through a request for information and a series of workshops held throughout 2013, NIST engaged with more than 3,000 individuals and organizations on standards, best practices and guidelines that can provide businesses, their suppliers, their customers and government agencies with a shared set of expected protections for critical information and IT infrastructure.

"Thanks to a tremendous amount of industry input, the voluntary framework provides a flexible, dynamic approach to matching business needs with improving cybersecurity," said Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Patrick Gallagher. "We encourage organizations to begin reviewing and testing the Preliminary Framework to better inform the version we plan to release in February."

The Preliminary Framework outlines a set of steps that can be customized to various sectors and adapted by both large and small organizations while providing a consistent approach to cybersecurity. It offers a common language and mechanism for organizations to determine and describe their current cybersecurity posture, as well as their target state for cybersecurity. The framework will help them to identify and prioritize opportunities for improvement within the context of risk management and to assess progress toward their goals.

The framework will foster communications among internal and external stakeholders and help organizations hold each other accountable for strong cyber protections while allowing flexibility for specific approaches tailored to each business' market and regulatory environment. Its integrated approach focuses on outcomes, rather than any particular technology, to encourage innovation.

...

It's just too easy to take pot shots, so I won't. I'll applaud our Government in at least trying to do this. IMHO, this is a good kind of role for government...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
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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 Battalions are actively recruiting soldiers to fill their ranks.

For more information, please visit our website:

http://zombiecombatcommand.com/26th-zombie-combat-regiment/

PERKS:

Here are some reasons why you should be a member of the 26th Zombie Combat Regiment.
1) Show that you are second to none when it comes to killing Zombies.
2) Get featured in the Zombie Combat Command comic!
3) If you get the fireteam or fireteam leader backings, you can feature yourself and three others in the comic.
4) If you get the squad or squad leader backings, you can feature yourself and nine others in the comic!
5) You can order Zombie tabs (issued ONLY by ZOCOM) at any time. No need to wait for recruitment or drives.

Come on you know you want to pony up some funds to get you and your team part of one of the Zombie Combat Battalions (1st is my choice, but 2nd works too, having spent some time in the 2D... ;) With 14 days to go, of the total 15, they've already hit their funding too.

I've had to keep myself uber-busy today to avoid my wife's wrath (i.e. I SO want the big package for my team and son, but... but... um... maybe if I loot the change bottle... um... ;)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
[Zombie, Humor] - US Army Zombie Combat Command & FM 999-3 (Counter-Zombie Operations at the Fireteam Level)

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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 via http://www.eightforums.com/attachments/tutorials/29596d1382150447-secure-boot-enable-disable-uefi-secureboot_isn-t_configured_correctly_watermark.jpg]

Update removes the "Windows 8.1 SecureBoot isn't configured correctly" watermark in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 (KB2902864)

This article describes an update that removes the following watermark from the desktop wallpaper in Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2:

Windows 8.1 SecureBoot isn't configured correctly. Build 9600

Microsoft Download Center

The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center.

All supported x86-based versions of Windows 8.1, Download the package now.

All supported x64-based versions of Windows 8.1, Download the package now.

All supported x64-based versions of Windows Server 2012 R2, Download the package now.

This isn't that big of a deal for me, but it sill bugged me. Good to see there's an official hotfix for this so quickly...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
You can only turn "SecureBoot isn't configured correctly" off if you turn SecureBoot on...

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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 is capable of doing. It’s also kind of the “rookie” way of doing VS extensibility (VSX for short), since most hardcore VSX devs sooner or later realize that they need to make the leap to the “serious” APIs.

The “real” VSX APIs virtually always start with IVs, make heavy use of uint, ref/out parameters and HResults. These are the APIs that have been evolving for years and years, and there is a lot of COM baggage. IVsHierarchy is a pretty representative example. But there’s hope, since most of the newer capabilities of the IDE are exposed with much more modern and .NET-friendly APIs, such as IVsExtensionManager.

Solution Traversal

Solution traversal is such a core activity for any VS extension that you almost always need to do it sooner or later. As you probably guessed, there are two main ways: DTE/Automation way, and the IVs* way.

One key thing to understand is that the automation API is an *optional* API that project types can decide to support. There’s no guarantee that any part of the automation APIs will work for a particular project. This is what may cause an extension to fail for example in a solution with a VC++ project and not with “regular” C#/VB projects.

I’d always go for the IVs* way always, since it’s more reliable, and works with projects that may not expose automation API for their custom project types. You can always get at the information the DTE API exposes by using the IVs* APIs, but it’s generally quite a bit more work.

Too Painful?

Alternatively, you can take advantage of Clide, a more intuitive and .NET friendly API, which leverages Linq, extension methods, dependency injection for testability, etc.

...

clariuslabs / clide

What is Clide?

Provides a managed, intuitive, modern and composable API for Visual Studio extensibility and automation. It leverages dependency injection in Visual Studio, supports unit testing of automation and extensibility code, and provides useful primitives for both consuming VS services and tools as well as providing your own.

How do I get it?

Install from https://nuget.org/packages/Clide

How can Clide help me?

If you are authoring any kind of Visual Studio tooling or automation (either from a VSIX or from a NuGet PowerShell script), Clide can make things easier, by providing an intuitive API for the solution, tool windows, option pages, etc.

...

Clide: An Enjoyable Visual Studio Automation API

High-level, composable and testable APIs for working with Visual Studio.

Release Notes

v2.1
* Added FindProjects extension method for ISolutionNode, which is more efficient than traversing the entire solution.
* Improved support for side-by-side versioning of Clide assemblies deployed by multiple extensions

v2.0
* Reworked internals to avoid depending on VS-MEF extensibility, which is problematic and may cause interference with VS composition.
* Core DI now provided by Autofac, which gives us a performance boost in addition.
* Components now don't need any [Import] or [ImportingConstructor] in order for constructor dependencies to work, even for core VS services like IServiceProvider or IVsShell, DTE, etc.
* Types that have the ComponentAttribute applied are automatically registered.
* Supports registering with a certain type (like [Export(typeof(IMyService))]): [Component(typeof(IMyService))]
* Added support for registering components as single instance (singletons) using [Component(IsSingleton = true)]

...

I've seen VS extensibility and automation in a number of projects I've highlighted over the years and it always kinds of makes my brain hurt. Now seeing this, I wonder if this is the VS Extensibility aspirin I've long been looking for?

Oh yeah and I love that this open source. :)

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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 has somewhat limited support for this type of extraction?  Read on to find out how.

...

Therefore you can obtain more information like this by using Win32 interop and invoking shell calls directly from C#/.NET, but this can be time consuming, not to mention laborious as you have to track down the correct Win32 API interfaces and property item IDs to use.  Surely there’s an easier way?

Introducing the Windows API Code Pack

Thankfully, someone has already done the leg work for us, and it has culminated in the extremely useful Windows API Code Pack, the latest release being available via this link.

The Pack itself contains documentation, samples, pre-compiled binaries and the source code for the binaries.

Honestly, I found the documentation and samples to be a bit underwhelming, but the core assemblies are absolutely gold – once you figure out how to use them properly.  The following is a screenshot of the Explorer Browser which ships as a sample with the Pack:

...

Retrieving Extended Property Data

One of the best features of the Pack must be the fact that someone has gone and mapped all the extended property values to strongly typed definitions, which saves us a lot of time and effort.

...

The SystemProperties class defines an incredibly useful hierarchy of extended property identifiers which can be used in conjunction with shell objects, as demonstrated above

What is this Windows API Code Pack thing?

Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework

Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework provides a source code library that can be used to access some features of Windows 7 and Windows Vista from managed code. These Windows features are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework.
The individual features supported in this version (v1.1) of the library are:

• Windows 7 Taskbar
  • Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails, and Thumbnail Toolbars
• Windows Shell
  • Windows 7 Libraries
  • Windows Shell Search API support
  • Explorer Browser Control
  • A hierarchy of Shell Namespace entities
  • Windows Shell property system
  • Drag and Drop for Shell Objects
  • Windows Vista and Windows 7 Common File Dialogs, including custom controls
  • Known Folders and non-file system containers
  • Shell Object Watcher
  • Shell Extensions API support
• DirectX
  • Direct3D 11.0, Direct3D 10.1/10.0, DXGI 1.0/1.1, Direct2D 1.0, DirectWrite, Windows Imaging Component (WIC) APIs
• Windows Vista and Windows 7 Task Dialogs
• Sensor Platform APIs
• Extended Linguistic Services APIs
• Power Management APIs
• Application Restart and Recovery APIs
• Network List Manager APIs
• Command Link control and System defined Shell icons

What’s New in this update (v1.1):
The enhancements in this update of Code Pack are:

• Many FxCop violations and PREfast warnings have been addressed
• Bug fixes across various features and samples
  • Includes many API improvements
• New features
  • Shell Object Watcher
  • Preview Handler APIs
  • Thumbnail Handler APIs
• New samples for the new features
• Visual Studio 2010 compliance
• Initial xUnit test coverage
• String localization
• Signed assemblies

Sure I've know about the Windows API Code Pack for years, but it never clicked that I could use it to get this kind of file metadata... sigh... so much to learn, so few brain cells (left). Yes, it's dated, but the source is available...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
How many ways are there to create a File Watcher? Well, here's three at least...
Windows API Code Pack v1.1 Released (Think “Bug fix, new Shell/Thumbnail/Preview features, VS2010, xUnit, string localization, signed assemblies and more” release)
More Windows Code Pack and Windows 7 developing delightfulness
Windows 7 Code Pack v1.0 Released – Managed code to help get at the yummy Windows 7 filling…
Bridging to Managed Windows 7 Development – Vista Bridge to Windows Code Pack
Vista Bridge v1.4 Released – Now with custom controls for Common File Dialogs, BreadCrumb control and Aero Glass
Vista Bridge (v1.3) available on MSDN Code Gallery
It’s the Bridge to… Vista – Getting and installing Vista Bridge Sample Library

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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 data include useful knowledge. Text mining techniques have been studied aggressively in order to extract the knowledge from the data since late 1990s. Even if many important techniques have been developed, the text mining research field continues to expand for the needs arising from various application fields. This book is composed of 9 chapters introducing advanced text mining techniques. They are various techniques from relation extraction to under or less resourced language. I believe that this book will give new knowledge in the text mining field and help many readers open their new research fields.

Just published last year, this free eBook looks interesting (well to me anyway). Most of it is way over my head, but there's enough here that it looks like a good set of reads... Also the WordNet chapter, Ontology Learning Using Word Net Lexical Expansion and Text Mining, caught my eye.

(via KDNuggets - Free Book: Theory and Applications for Advanced Text Mining)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
WordNet
"Statistical parsing of English sentences"
Feed Stream Analysis - Web Feed/Post Analysis to Group Like/Related Posts
SharpEntropy - Maximum Entropy Modeling

Mix OpenNLP, IKVM.Net and C# and you get some noun phrase and contextual relevance goodness

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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 Shorts Download
• SQL Server 2008 Certification Path Complete Download
• SQL Server Cheat Sheet Download
• SQL Server Database Coding Standards and Guidelines Complete List Download
• SQL Server Indexing Checklist

Download Now

A couple eBooks for you to share with your DBA friends...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Pinal Dave updates his SQL Server Cheatsheet for SQL Server 2012

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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 adapter power policy isn't migrated for some reason. The company explains that the power policy is set to a default value that eats up your battery.

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Surface RT and Surface 2 battery and power

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Surface RT only: Battery issue when updating from Windows RT 8.1 Preview

If you updated Surface RT from Windows RT 8.1 Preview to Windows RT 8.1, you may notice a decrease in battery life. During the update, the wireless adapter power policy isn’t migrated. Instead, the power policy is set to a default value that consumes more power both during use and in the connected standby state.

To restore the wireless adapter power policy to the correct settings, open an administrator command prompt:

Step 1:
Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Search.
(If you're using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and then click Search.)

Step 2:
In the search box, enter command prompt.

Step 3:
Touch and hold (or right-click) Command Prompt to bring up the context menu. Tap or click Run as administrator.

Step 4:
On the User Account Control dialog box, tap or click Yes.

Step 5:
At the Administrator: Command Prompt, enter the following:
powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT 19cbb8fa-5279-450e-9fac-8a3d5fedd0c1 12bbebe6-58d6-4636-95bb-3217ef867c1a 3

Step 6:
Then enter
powercfg -setactive scheme_current

I've heard a couple reports of friend's Surface RT batt's draining faster than they were used to with Windows 8.0. Hopefully this will fix it for them...

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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 so transient, though. It’s sometimes hard to get a program from 2003 to run on a modern machine, let alone a program from 1983. For most people it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to, as the Internet Archive puts it, “track down the hardware and media to run [old software], or download and install emulators and acquire/install cartridge or floppy images as you boot up the separate emulator program, outside of the browser.”

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Internet Archive Blogs - Microcomputer Software Lives Again, This Time in Your Browser

The miracle is now so commonplace that it’s invisible: we have the ability to watch video, listen to music, and read documents right in our browsers. You might get a hankering to hear some old time radio, or classic television programs, or maybe read up some classic children’s books, you’re just a couple clicks away from having them right there, in front of you. Not so with classic software. To learn and experience older programs, you have to track down the hardware and media to run it, or download and install emulators and acquire/install cartridge or floppy images as you boot up the separate emulator program, outside of the browser. Unlike films or video or audio, it was a slower, more involved process to experience software.

Until now.

JSMESS is a Javascript port of the MESS emulator, a mature and breathtakingly flexible computer and console emulator that has been in development for over a decade and a half by hundreds of volunteers. The MESS emulator runs in a large variety of platforms, but is now able to run embedded in most modern browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer.

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Today, the Internet Archive announces the Historical Software Archive, a collection of prominent and historically notable pieces of software, able to be run immediately in your browser.  They range from pioneering applications to obscure forgotten utilities, and from peak-of-perfection designs to industry-crashing classics.

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Historical Software Archive

Welcome to Historical Software Collection

This collection contains selected historically important software packages from the Internet Archive's software archives. Through the use of in-browser emulators, it is possible to try out these items and experiment with using them, without the additional burdens of installing emulator software or tracking down the programs. Many of these software products were the first of their kind, or utilized features and approaches that have been copied or recreated on many programs since. (historic software, vintage software, antique software)

A Guided Tour Through the Collection

For this initial collection, we've hand-selected a few dozen ground-breaking and historically important software products, many of whom started entire industries or pioneered new genres of programs. While they lack the later features and graphics of modern counterparts, these programs were either big sellers at the time or recognized as first of a kind. They are now a single click away in a browser.

Getting to Work

Productivity software has been around a long time, and two of the most prominent examples are Visicalc and Wordstar. Visicalc brought the wonder of the electronic spreadsheet to the world, changing the business world forever. WordStar was one of the leading Word Processing software programs before fading away in the late 1980s. As a bonus WordStar is presented on the now-long-gone Osborne-1, one of the first "Luggable" computers to come out (it promised to fit under an airplane seat!). Check them out in monochrome glory (but don't put any major work in it).

The Road to Adventure

Adventure games are a staple of early home computer software and these examples let you play some of the most famous of these virtual worlds. Akalabeth was the first major computer game by a young Richard Garriott, alias Lord British. Created when he was a teenager and inspired by many games of D&D, it was his first work in a lifetime of RPG gamemaking, including the Ultima series. The Hobbit, a legendary adventure game for the ZX Spectrum, had a level of complication and subtlety beneath the surface that was years ahead of its time - characters lived their own lives, with you sometimes stumbling on the results of their battles or suffering the consequences of their meddling. Mystery House by Sierra On-line was the first graphical adventure for the Apple II, and this version is the public domain anniversary re-issue by the company to celebrate their anniversary.

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OMG, this is officially THE Cool Thing of the Day! (And it's kiss my weekend goodbye! ;)

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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 to Scott's Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List (Wow, it's been two years?) I guess we'll just have to get a stand-in, like Jesse's shorter, but still cool, list of utilities.

 

Related Past Post XRef:
It's tool time baby! As in Scott Hanselman's 2011 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List!
Scott Hanselman has updated his monster (and must read) “Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows”!
It's that time... Scott's Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for 2007
Scott Hanselman's 2006 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows is Out
Scott Hanselman's 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List
Scott Hanselman's [2003] Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tools List

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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 version of Windows Management Framework 4.0 includes even more improvements than our Preview release. Be certain to read this blog post fully before installing, especially because WMF 4.0 is not compatible with certain versions of server products.

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IMPORTANT: Not all Microsoft server applications are currently compatible with WMF 4.0. Before installing WMF 4.0, be sure to read the WMF 4.0 Release Notes. Specifically, systems that are running the following server applications should not run WMF 4.0 at this time:

• System Center 2012 Configuration Manager (not including SP1)
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 (including SP1)
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
• Microsoft SharePoint 2013 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010
• Windows Small Business Server 2011Standard

We acknowledge that there is still a need for management of Windows Server 2008, and Windows Management Framework 3.0 remains the answer for Windows Server 2008.

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Microsoft Downloads - Windows Management Framework 4.0

Windows Management Framework 4.0 includes updates to Windows PowerShell, Windows PowerShell ISE, Windows PowerShell Web Services (Management OData IIS Extension), Windows Remote Management (WinRM), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Server Manager WMI provider, and a new feature for 4.0, Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC).

Version: 1.0

Date Published: 10/24/2013

• Windows Management Framework 4.0 Release Notes.docx, 89 KB
• Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Quick Reference for Windows Management Framework 4.0.pdf, 244 KB
• Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Quick Reference for Windows Management Framework 4.0.pptx, 73 KB
• Windows6.1-KB2819745-x64-MultiPkg.msu, 18.4 MB
• Windows6.1-KB2819745-x86-MultiPkg.msu, 14.1 MB
• Windows8-RT-KB2799888-x64.msu, 17.5 MB

This release includes new features and functionality in Windows Management Framework 4.0, including the following:

• Windows PowerShell 4.0
• Windows PowerShell ISE
• Windows PowerShell Web Services (Management OData IIS Extension)
• Windows Remote Management (WinRM)
• Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
• The Server Manager WMI provider
• A new feature for 4.0, Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC)

Windows Management Framework 4.0 makes updated management functionality available for installation on Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and Windows Server 2012.

Windows PowerShell 4.0
Some of the new features in Windows PowerShell 4.0 include:

• Support for workflow and remote script debugging
• Improved workflow authoring experience to make it more consistent with script authoring
• Added PipelineVariable as a common parameter
• Better support for downloading updatable help by using Save-Help and Update-Help in offline scenarios
• Updated version from 3.0 to 4.0
• Several bug fixes and performance improvements

Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment
Windows PowerShell ISE in Windows Management Framework 4.0 introduces:

• Support for Windows PowerShell Workflow debugging
• Support for remote script debugging
• IntelliSense support for Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration resources and configurations

Windows PowerShell Web Services
Windows PowerShell Web Services (Management OData IIS Extension) enables an administrator to expose a set of Windows PowerShell cmdlets as a RESTful web endpoint accessible by using OData (Open Data Protocol). This provides remote access to run cmdlets from both Windows-based and non-Windows-based client computers or devices.

• Improved error messages in event logs
• Endpoint versioning support
• Autopopulation of OData dispatch schema fields
• Support for complex types
• Multilevel association support
• Ability to perform large binary stream transfers
• Support for non-Create/Read/Update/Delete (CRUD) actions
• Key-As-Segment URL syntax support
• Constrained resource operations

WMI, WinRM, and Server Manager CIM Provider
These features were included with WMF 3.0, and continue to be included in WMF 4.0. There are no significant changes to these features.

Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration
Windows Management Framework 4.0 introduces Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC), with the following highlights:

• Local configuration manager for applying configurations on the local computer
• Windows PowerShell language extensions for authoring DSC documents
• PSDesiredStateConfiguration module and DSC-related cmdlets
• A set of built-in DSC configuration resources
• DSC service for distributed access to DSC resources

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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, Subtitle, Description, Image, and Group to produce a Windows Phone, Windows 8, and Android application by means of Portable Class Libraries, Xamarin Studio, and MVVMCross.
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Video Tutorials

• Part 1 - Installing Prereqs from Dreamspark and Building for the First Time
• Part 2 - Use Youtube Playlists to create a Video App (Legend of Zelda - Video Strategy Guide)

Getting Started

After obtaining and installing the prerequisites, download the .zip of this project (link on the bottom right of The XPlatformCloudKit Project Home) Save the .zip, then right-click=>Properties=>Unblock=>Apply then extract the contents of the .zip file

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Prerequisites for all projects

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Notes on getting Windows Phone 8 project to run:

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Notes on getting Android Project to run

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I've got a strong feeling your going see this mentioned again on the Coding4Fun Blog in the near future. :)

(via Geek Camp - XPlatformCloudKit: Using Youtube Playlist RSS Feed in Windows Phone)

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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/

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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 future...

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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 to your application and how to create a custom hierarchical chart by using multiple rings.

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This is an Infragistics graph type that I've been wanting to use for a while... I just dig how compact the information density can be, without being overwhelming or ugly. That, and I just like doughnuts. :P

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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 to your application and how to create a custom hierarchical chart by using multiple rings.

...

..."

This is an Infragistics graph type that I've been wanting to use for a while... I just dig how compact the information density can be, without being overwhelming or ugly. That, and I just like doughnuts. :P

Read More