Reading Pete's blog I found out about the new version of Windows Live Writer.  It is still in Beta, but now even better with Beta 2.  I'm curious as to why they don't just release this and take away the Beta already.  Anyway...

Right away I noticed some differences (I am posting this with the new version, of course).  The UI is a little slicker.  One of the coolest new features is that you can easily insert and modify tables in a post.  Previously, I had to switch over to html view and put my own tables in.  It was a nuisance.  I also like the way they display the categories now.  Also I just noticed while I am typing this that the spell checking is enhanced.  Check out this list of new features.

One feature that I think needs to be added is support for post descriptions.  My blog runs on dasBlog.  With dasBlog I can put in a description of my post and then only the description shows on the main page with a link to the body of the post.  I'd love to be able to insert the description via Live Writer.  I'll submit my feature request to the team.

Quite a while back (maybe a year) I saw a great video on YouTube that demonstrated a new user interface that used a touch screen like never before.  They likened it to the awesome UI from the movie The Minority Report where guys drag "objects" around computer screen by hand.  Sure, the one in the movie was MUCH cooler then this, but this was a step in the right direction.

Today I worked from home which meant that I got to watch a bit of the Today Show before starting work.  Much to my surprise, they did a segment with Bill Gates where he introduced Microsoft Surface.  This is a pretty similar concept to the original product I saw a year ago.  Of course, I have no idea if they are similar beneath the hood. 

This is definitely worth checking out.  They said it would be available in retail uses this soon but not for home users to play with for 2 more years.

Lastly, I thought I would have a scoop on this since I doubt many other people who work watch the Today Show.  But I was scooped by Scott Cate.  He also mentions seeing this at the Microsoft Museum (I've never been there) and he also notes that it uses Flash, not Silverlight!  Now that is interesting.

The reviews are in… Philly.Net Code Camp 2007.1 was a huge success!

Thanks to the hard work of an excellent group of presenters, Philly.Net hosted a great Code Camp on Saturday, May 19th.  Did you attend a session and want more information?  Did you miss Code Camp and want to find out more about it?  Included here is a bunch of information to help you out.  Read on to see Philly.Net Code Camp feedback, presenter info (blog, web and email addresses) and prize contributor information.

Thanks to Bill Wolff for organizing the event and running Philly.Net all year round, and everyone else who worked hard to make the day great.

-Andy "The Swagman" Schwam

Your Feedback:

Here are some of the general comments from Saturday.  I know that many of the presenters look forward to seeing what you write.  They love the compliments and use your suggestions to enhance their future presentations.  Remember that the presenters don’t get paid and put a lot of time into getting ready for these sessions.  As one of the organizers, I like to see the comments so we know if we are on the right track.  We also get tips for improvement.  Here are some of the general comments about Code Camp. 

“Lots of good info in a short time. Helps me flatten out the learning curve.”

“I really appreciate you conducting this camp with no cost to attendees”

“No Coffee”

“Please have more code camps. It’s excellent and only way to keep up with technology for me”

“Very well organized session…thanks for everything…Appreciate much for all the organizers, sponsors and speakers”

“Have evaluations forms ready before fist session”

“ It is very beneficial to the group + it would be difficult to complain about a no-cost event”

“ I really feel more motivated to go deeper into Microsoft technologies. See you in the next code camp”

“I found all session extremely valuable”

“First time in code camp and like the way it’s conducted. Liked the flexible way of attending various session as I like. Thanks for material and food”

“The material was very informative and the speakers were entertaining. You could really tell that they have used these technologies in the real world”

“Learned a lot of new stuff…will apply to the work I do”

“This event was everything that I had hoped for. A good introduction to .Net 3.0”

Links for presenters, etc:

If you need some more information about one of the sessions you attended, hopefully one of the links or email addresses below will help.  By the way, to prevent spam, I modified the email addresses.  I'm sure you can figure out the translation!

Jean Barmash:
Here is the address for my blog – I already posted the slides for my talks there - http://home.infusionblogs.com/jbarmash/default.aspx
My company’s website is www.infusion.com.

Russ Basiura:
Russ Basiura  is the president of the Philadelphia Area SharePoint User Group (http://www.PhillySharePoint.org).  He specializes in helping companies in the Philadelphia area deploy SharePoint.  If you have questions about SharePoint or would like to discuss a specific project, he can be reached at russ AT rjbtech DOT com or call 215-699-2780 x101.  His website is http://www.SharePointSpecialists.com.

Sam Batterman:
email:  samb AT microsoft DOT com
blog: http://sambbiblog.spaces.live.com

Sharon Dooley:
For more information, contact Sharon at:  sharond AT voicenet DOT com.

Sam Gentile:
http://codebetter.com/blogs/sam.gentile (blog)
http://samgentile.com (home)
managedcode44 AT hotmail DOT com (email)

Kevin Goff:
www.commongroundsolutions.net   (main site)
www.TheBakersDozen.net   (blog)
kgoff AT commongroundsolutions DOT net  (email)

Travis Laborde:
http://www.datadeluxe.com/ - Under "News" you can see links to the talks I've done along with links to every item covered in the talks.
http://clipmarks.com/clipper/travislaborde/ - My Clipmarks blog.  To see new stuff as I post it of course.  Some items came up in class that I said I'd blog about, and this is where they'd see it.

David Laribee:
http://laribee.com/blog/ (Blog)
laribee AT gmail DOT com (Email)

Mark Magliocco:
http://www.markm.com/markm/code_camp_2007_0519/Mark_magliocco_2007_code_camp_presentation.htm
http://www.markm.com/markm/code_camp_2007_0519/RSS_BASICS.pdf

Blog: www.markm.com

RSS ( Really Simple Syndication ) is on of the hottest areas of web 2.0.  When the Blogosphere emerged, RSS feeds really took off.  It is a must know technology, and an essential element of your web applications as well as search engine marketing. We will review the basics, what are the elements and tags.

If your name/information isn't listed here, please send it to me, I'll be sure to update the copy of this information on my blog.

Code Camp Contributors:

I’d like to thank all of the companies that contributed prizes.  Yes, Code Camp is completely free.  So you may be wondering, who paid for breakfast, lunch, and all of the prizes?  Many companies stepped up and supported this event.  I hope you will check out their websites and give their products a try! Thanks to the generosity of these companies, we had enough "swag" to have give-aways during every session!

At Code Camp it was announced that Dani Diaz accepted the role of Microsoft Developer Evangelist for the Philadelphia region.  Since Dani and I have both been actively involved in Philly.Net, I have gotten to know him pretty well.  He's a great guy and I am sure he will do a fantastic job.  From speaking with many people in our local community, I know that many people are excited about Dani getting this job and I know they join me in wishing him good luck.

Now that he has the job I should make it official and ask my standard question:  "Dani, can we have some Microsoft swag?"

There sure are a lot of blogs out there!  Obviously, reading technical blogs is a great way to stay current and learn new things.  The problem is, which blogs to read with limited time.  If you are reading this, you can see some of the blogs I read in my blogroll.  Some of these blogs are from leaders in the industry.  Some of them are local developers that I know and respect.  If you are like me, I try to start the day off scanning through posts (I use RSS Bandit to aggregate for me). If I take a break from coding during the day I may try to read some more.  For some blogs I read only posts that stand out.  For others I read almost everything they post.  Of course it also depends of course on the type of day I am having.

I am happy to say the my blog has been getting a lot of hits lately.  Hopefully that means I have something to offer.  It is pretty cool to look at my statistics and see how people found my blog.  When someone comes to Schwammy Says via Google or Search.Live.com the search engine sends along search criteria that was used.  I love to read through it.  I often think that based on what that person was looking for, I may have helped them.  Sometimes I look and think, oh well, that person probably didn't find what they wanted in this blog.

Anyway, what I'd really like to know is...what blogs do you read?  Please share your ideas.  Marc Ziss turned me on to Sam Gentile's blog.  I started reading it this week and I like his information.  It was a great tip.

If you are registered for Philly.Net Code Camp 2007.1 for this Saturday you should have received an email from Bill Wolff.  In that email is a link to a session survey.  Please make sure you complete the survey.  The purpose is so Bill can assign rooms to the presenters.  Since some rooms are smaller than others, this survey will help us get an idea of which will be the most crowded.  Don't worry, if you change your mind you can still attend any session.  This is just to get an idea of session attendance.

Tech-Ed is coming up quickly.  I've been looking at the session catalog on line.  There is going to be a lot of great content and I am already trying to figure out how my time will be best spent.  Jeff just got back from Mix07 and he is really excited about the demo's/presentations that he saw.  I asked him about his favorites figuring they might do some repeats at Tech Ed.  Check out his thoughts.  The cool thing is that we don't need to wait until Tech-Ed to hear the presentations.  Just go to the sessions page on the Mix07 site and listen to the presentations over the web!  It even uses Silverlight to stream the media!

Updating this post: Scott Guthrie has a great post today where he explains some of the technology discussed at MIX07.  He also recommends several sessions for us to watch over the web.

Code Camp is almost here...May 19th and I am getting pretty excited.  Those of you who were lucky enough to register before we filled up have a great day ahead.  Here is an updated list of the swag we've got to give away.  There will be something for every attendee!  As you can expect, we'll have a raffle at the end of the day with some great "big ticket" items.  But wait, there's more!  We've got so much stuff we will have prizes given out during every session!  So in addition to the great presentations, there will be many chances for you to win something very cool.  Of course, check out the Philly.Net site for the full days schedule.

We'll be giving away 13 software licenses, A Zune, books, T-shirts and lots of other cool stuff!  You'll have lots of chances to win.  Of course, with great topics and content all day for free, everyone is a winner!

Here is the latest list of stuff:  (I hope I didn't miss anything)

I'm still in the process of getting my computer all set up since the move to Vista.  Like most developers, I have a lot of software and tools to install.

The other day I installed SQL Server but I had a little trouble getting Reporting Services installed because I didn't meet the requirements. 

I've installed Reporting Services a few times in the past on XP.  So before I even started I installed IIS.  To do so, go to Control Panel > Programs.  From there you can click "Turn Windows features on or off".  You'll get a little pop-up with a list of features.  I later learned that just choosing Internet Information Services (and the sub topic World Wide Web Services) is not enough.  I know this because that is all I did and Reporting Services would not install!  Luckily I found this article at support.microsoft.com.  I had to go back and choose some extra features of IIS that did not get installed by default.  The article explains the whole thing, but this picture should make it easy to see which features need to be enabled. 

Yes, it is a small picture but click it so see it full size!

 After making these changes, Reporting Services installed in a snap.  Good luck.