Where is mainline Microsoft development today? Where tomorrow?

Once, mainline Microsoft development was: MFC C++ apps and VB 5 applications. For the windows platform.

Then, for a short while it was Windows Forms applications, in .net, mostly C#, partly VB.net.

For the last several years, ASP.net has had the lion's share of attention from microsoft.

(Compare the data providers in Windows forms versus Web forms... linq support is complete on the web, but patchy on windows)

Where's it headed now? Will it return to the windows platform, with WPF? Or stay web-based with silverlight?

Is WPF "too much too late" for development on the windows platform?

Is asp.net for html now doomed, like MFC or VB 6? Will ajax for asp.net move ahead, or be dropped for silverlight?

Why do we always quit at 90%?

Are microsoft afraid that if they do anything well, it will give them nowhere to go?

Or is the last 10% harder than the first 90% put together?

Did Robert Scoble Die For Nothing?

No, hang on, honestly. Let's try that again. I say: 'Did Robert Scoble Die For Nothing?' and you say, 'But wait. Robert Scoble's still alive,' got it? Okay.

me: Did Robert Scoble Die For Nothing?

you: But wait. Robert Scoble's still alive.

(very good, now i say...)

me: Oh, I hadn't noticed.

It's now been two years since we made the first version of TimeSnapper available. In celebration of getting so far (from 1.0 to 2.5) we're offering TimeSnapper at a special price:

TimeSnapper is now on sale, from $39.95 down to just $24.95

Or, to express it in a more gratuitous web 1.0 way:

Was $39.95 Now an
INSANE
$24.95!!

More gratuitous again:

Or go with the modern classic:

Thanks again to everyone who's helped us with suggestions and feedback. More improvements are on the way soon, as always!

(animated led sign generated at wigflip, mirror image generated at h-master.)

When using a regular expression for validation.... don't forget the caret^ and the $tick

Let's say, you want to make sure the user types in a 3 digit number.

Simple! Can't be simpler:

\d\d\d

Let's test if this suits the following:

"500" -- Yep!
"999" -- Yep!
"123" -- Yep!

All good so far. Let's check that it fails on the following:

"5" -- Yep!
"99" -- Yep!
"ABC" -- Yep!
"" -- Yep!

That's good too. I guess we're done, right?

Uh-oh! It looks like we forget the caret^ and the $tick!

Therefore the following would return a match!

"HEY I like the film 2001 a space odyssey!" -- Oops! matches our expression!

as would

"But 2010 was just junk right?" -- Oops! another match!

What if we use a caret "^" and a dollar sign "$" to anchor the expression to the start and end...

^\d\d\d$

Now we'll get the result we want!

So when using a regular expression for validation, don't forget to anchor them to the front and the back, by using... you guessed it...

the caret^ and the $tick.

(donkey image lifted from an article about Team Building)

A: No code at all!

I was looking for this quote:

...and I found it on Chris Sell's blog.

But in the comments I found this even more profound point...

And that's truer than anything. Code is always noxious to human senses. It's not built for human consumption. You get used to your own. But even still -- it's noxious stuff. The less of it the better.

No, not like that, like this:

Sheesh.

First up, facebook facebook facebook me me me, facebook facebook facebook, and also facebook facebook friends facebook no friends facebook facebook me me me me facebook.

Mostly, facebook crackbook facebook stalkbook facebook magic eight ball says facebook applications everyone facebook facebook can't shut up about it facebook facebook, productivity, facebook costing business millions, facebook facebook until all he could do was sit in a corner muttering facebook facebook facebook facebook.

Children as young as three years of age, meanwhile facebook facebook i'm starting a facebook group 'overcoming facebook addiction' and burma facebook facebook , facebook, because a facebook group is really gonna make that regime sit up and take notice, poke poke facebook facebook poke them poke them wake up crazy burma bad guys, cop this facebook facebook facebook facebook poke.

The story for developers is perhaps the most compelling of all, as facebook apps can facebook other facebook apps with a massive user base of facebook users and facebook apps and facebook facebook facebook facebook.

If john lennon was alive today facebook jesus facebook gandhi facebook einstein facebook darwin facebook hitler facebook elvis facebook marilyn facebook mother theresa facebook shakespeare facebook facebook i don't even know this person facebook facebook.

so, ah, get a life, yeh? then twitter it.

Full respect to Raj Chaudhuri for implementing the World's Simplest Code Generator as a Batch file (this was in response to it being reimplemented in javascript).

Matt Casto tells me he is currently working on a Silverlight implementation of the WSCG. Hurry up and share it with us Matt!

In other news...

The cartoon generator tool at stripgenerator.com is pretty fun.

Here's a dodgy example I put together.

And finally...

Paris Hilton has now been seen nak3d by so many men that chicken is officially known as 'the other white meat.'

Eric Sink, in another of his inspired, yet somehow dorky, marketing ploys, wants us to make fools of ourselves by posing as idiots in exchange for free t-shirts.

For example -- poor Craig Andera was tricked into posting this rather sad display:

(available from here in a larger, and therefore dorkier, image.)

The smart people don't lower themselves to this kind of behaviour. Instead, we get our kids to do it ;-)

Here's Lily before she became an evil mastermind:

Notice the vacant stare and the inability to concentrate on her keyboard.

Here she is after donning a sourceGear shirt and being instantly transformed into a megalomaniacal computer genius/evil mastermind.

(You may recognise her Commodore 64 from earlier adventures, and you may recall sourceGear vault from earlier dragon-dodging escapades).

(um... no offence meant Craig... I know you're not a dork, but rather an "Über Cool Nerd King" [pronounced: 'dörk'])

We snuck out a new version of TimeSnapper last week. The release notes are online.

You may be interested in the main new feature: allowing the cautious user to safeguard their images from prying eyes, through password protection.

When turned on (via the options form) this will cause your snapshots to be encrypted using a bit of algorithmic goodness from the System.Security.Cryptography namespace.

There's also a raft of little tweaks to improve usability, mostly based on feedback received at the forums, or through support emails.

(image at right is from an early work on cryptography, Polygraphique et Vniverselle Escriture Cabalistique.here by Johannes Trithemius)

This is a little overdue now. I promised over a month ago to hand out prizes for whichever linkblog looks set to take over the role that Mike Gunderloy's Daily Grind has long fulfilled.

Note that such a person won't actually replace Mike himself. Now let's see...

The Runners Up

There are a number of useful link blogs out there.

First runner up is learning .net (Christopher Steen). Chris has been doing this a long time, so he's a good bet for outlasting the others. No real structure given to the links, so it's not as quick to scan as the others.

Matt Hinze re-publishes his del.icio.us links as a blog. I consider this more of a backup in case the other linkers are on holidays or something:

• n links today (matt hinze)

A separate category... these are irregular, more personality-rich blogs with less links. Worth visiting weekly, rather than daily:

• new and notable (Sam Gentile)
• morning coffee (Harry Pierson)

And if you're checking for a weekly round up of information -- Rhonda Tipton's new weekly link post is excellent:

• Weekly Link Post (rhonda tipton)

Finally also an honourable mention goes to 'Things that Caught my Attention' series at K, Now! Blog by David Green (no relation).

But The Winner Is...

But the winner of 'The Inaugural TimeSnapper Professional 'MikeG.Next' Honorary Award Of Linkblogging Excellence' is....

Three People! I'm a coward I guess, and could't see a reason to put any one of these above the other two:

• A continuous learner's weblog (Steve Pietrek)

Steve has an absolutely flawless link blog. He's regular, informative, uses headings to speed up the scanning, and uses asterisks and bold to make some links stand out further.

• Arjan's world (Arjan Zuidhof)

A relative newcomer, I might be jumping the gun here -- does he have the stamina to keep doing this year in, year out? -- Arjan's listings are excellent and reliable.

• interesting finds (Jason Haley)

Jason's use of grouping and headings makes for a list that can be scanned very quickly. He's tried to back out of writing this linkblog in the past -- but he's kept at it. Thanks again Jason!

I strongly recommend the use of these human-aggregated link blogs for keeping up to date with the programming (and .net) world. If and when they link to your site, or when they send you to a particularly useful article or piece of software, why not thank them, in a comment or an email.

I'll give each of them a TimeSnapper Professional license for themselves and a few to hand out as well. They'll also earn the right to paste the 'Next Mike Gunderloy' badge on their site.

Side Story

While looking for an image of Mike Gunderloy to use for this award -- I happened across this story:

Before Blogs, There were Zines

In 1992, Mike Gunderloy, the former editor of Factsheet Five, issued a press release announcing his intention of donating his huge collection of zines to a library...

...The Factsheet Five collection at the New York State Library occupies 300 cubic feet of shelf space, includes between 10,000 and 20,000 titles, and is the biggest and most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world. "Mike got copies of zine that were being published by all kinds of obscure groups in the 1980s," Aul explained. "It's a phenomenal collection."

As a devout mike-fan, I've heard of his zine days before, but never heard about this admirable way in which he gave closure to the zine portion of his life.

I've always tried to stop myself from becomming a 'collector' of anything. I fear that I'll turn into one of those crazy old ladies with all the plastic bags and the newspapers and the cats. Except a man, not a lady. I also fear ending up as one of those guys with a big jar full of belly-button lint or toenail clippings. You get the idea. But by ending his zine harvesting days in such a neat way, I think Mike's given a fine example of how to be a collector, but not end up drowning in old junk.