Tim Murphy's .NET Software Architecture Blog - Organizing Your Work With OneNote Page Templates

"If you have seen the Windows Phone commercial where the father is in the grocery store with the shopping list in OneNote you have gotten you first taste of the flexibility that can be had with OneNote. I like most consultants have a lot of fires going and once and I am finding that the templates in OneNote are helping me to get a handle on the different projects and tasks I need to track.

I started using OneNote to do simply what its name suggests: take and organize notes. Lately though I am finding ways that it can help to centralize things that I had been using multiple applications to accomplish. Having them all in one place, as with most things makes it easier to not miss something.

You may find using the tasks feature of Outlook works well for you, but I found that I was in and out of my email so fast that I ignored the tasks. As simple To Do List template in OneNote seems to be the solution for me since I spend so much time documenting projects. As an alternative you can use the Prioritized To Do List shown below or the Project To Do List which gives you a list per project.

...

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I've become a pretty heavy OneNote user in the last year, but being a dev dude, I just started using it, figuring it out as I went along. And while this journey of discovery can be fun, it does lead to some holes, to missing some important features.

For example, Page Templates.

Until reading this post, OneNote Page Templates isn't something I thought about at all. Sure I use templates all the time in Word, PowerPoint, etc, but I always considered template to be a document level thing. So I knew there were OneNote Notebook templates (which you'd use once), but didn't even think there might be Page templates (which you can use over and over)... sigh

Using Page Templates isn't hard once you know the trick (which took me a little bit to find).

Funny enough, creating a new page based on a template or saving the current page as a template is done via New Page.

Select a template and pow, done.

To save the current page as a template, it's just as easy. Have the page open that you want to save and then;

You'll name the template and again, pow, you're done. Your new template will now be available in your "My Templates"

Are there more OneNote Page templates available online? You, bet.

OneNote 2010 Page Templates

Yes, these are all OneNote Page templates (I know, I thought, "Charts? Letters? Invites?" But, yep, these are all OneNote Page Templates...)

Let's look at one, the Home Lists;

In short, if you're a OneNoter and you're not using Page Templates, you're missing out...

Bob Taco Industries - C# to C++ – A Somewhat Short Guide

"This is a big post – over 12200 words – and so I’ve decided to make it available as a PDF download, which you can get here:

http://www.bobtacoindustries.com/Content/Devs/CsToCpp-ASomewhatShortGuide.pdf

It has bookmarks for easier navigation along with a Table of Contents and page numbers.

I expect that I will revise this from time to time and welcome any suggestions, feedback, and (especially) corrections. If so I will update the Last updated field at the top and will create a revised PDF as well. I hope this proves useful.

For those interested, the sessions from the GoingNative 2012 conference will be streaming live today (Feb 2) and tomorrow on Channel 9: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Announcing-the-GoingNative-2012-Full-Schedule . Sessions will also be available for download shortly after the show ends (I’d guess within 24-48 hours, but that’s just a guess). It looks fascinating so definitely check it out! (I know I will be watching it.)

Introduction

This is a somewhat short guide to the important things to know if you are a C# programmer and find yourself needing or wanting to work in C++, for example to create Metro style games for Windows 8 using C++ and DirectX. In fact, this guide is written with that goal in mind so it's not necessarily a universal guide for all platforms and purposes.

This guide is also going to be fairly utilitarian and pithy, with code standing in place of elaborate commentary. I'm expecting that you know how to program already and have a good understanding of C# (or of some sort of imperative, object-oriented language at any rate).

I'm also assuming you are fairly handy with navigating the MSDN library. Its Bing search box is really awesome; if you haven't used it before, do give it a try. I like how the search is tailored to not just MSDN but also other great programmer sites like the Stack Exchange sites, CodeProject, CodePlex, etc.

I'm sprinkling a fair bit of code throughout as I said above. This is both to show you a (pseudo) real example of something and also to help illustrate words with code so that each will hopefully help to clarify the other.

..."

When he said "Somewhat short" he wasn't kidding. The PDF is 38 pages.

SecurityXploded Blog - Assembly Programming Basics Presentation & Updates

"Here comes the update from our last local security meet (sx/null/g4h/owasp) where Amit Malik & Swapnil delivered spectacular session on ‘Assembly Programming Basics’. This is part of our ongoing FREE ‘Reversing & Malware Analysis Training’ which has been started since our last meet.

Duo delivered superb one hour session to jam packed 40+ folks who listened keenly even though it was mid lunch hour. This Session started with talking about assembly basics, registers, flags, instructions, calling conventions, stack basics, MASM programming etc along with live demonstration.

Presentation of the session is already online on our Security Presentations page. For those who could not attend this offline session, it also includes demonstration video (http://vimeo.com/36198403). Video is not visible on live presentation (issues with slideshare). So you need to download it offline to view the embedded video in presentation.

In addition to this, we also recommend reading our ‘Assembly Programming: A Beginners Guide’ which will help you to quickly started with ASM Programming.

..."

I don't see many Assembly Language posts/guides/presentations anymore these days...

Getting Started with IndexedDB Article

I’ve started to write a Blog post about IndexedDB and it was too long so I decided to post it as article in The CodeProject web site. The article name is “Getting Started with IndexedDB”.

If you want to start using the IndexedDB JavaScript API, to store data on the client-side and to save round-trips to the database on the server-side the article is for you.
You can read the article here.

Enjoy!

CodeProject

The RavenDB workshop is coming to Oslo, Norway in June!

Join us to an intensive RavenDB hands-on workshop just before the great NDC conference starts.

During the first day of this workshop we will get to know RavenDB and its core concepts, get comfortable with its API, learn how to build and customize indexes, and how to correctly model data for use in a document database.

After getting familiar with all the basics in the first day, during the second day we will build on that knowledge to properly grok Map⁄Reduce, Multi–maps and other advanced usages of indexes, learn how to extend RavenDB and the various options of scaling out.

More details on the workshop and the conference can be found here.

Project 31-A - Updating My Resume

"The new preamble to my resume:

I piss excellence. Bill Gates retired from Microsoft only when I promised to work there. I don’t version my code because it only needs a single iteration. Intel optimizes their hardware to match my compiler – not the other way around. My code comments have won a Pulitzer Prize. My current code style will be consider a best practice in two years—at that time I will think it is obsolete. The programing languages that I don’t know I haven’t invented yet. I don’t submit to source control – it submits to me. Since I have never introduced a bug to the code base, my hiring can put the testing department out of work. I don’t require an office chair -- I levitate in front of my desk. ...

..."

This made me laugh... As a hiring manager, this might get a resume a second look and the person in for a visit (as long as it WASN'T copy and pasted from the above post... only if their content was original. :)

In this article you will see how to get all the permission levels for a site in SharePoint 2010 using ECMAScript.

In this article we will build a RSS Reader using Xml Data Service in Flash Builder for an iPhone 4 Application (you can change which mobile OS is to be used from the project's properties).

In this article you will see how to get the specific permission level from the site in SharePoint 2010 using ECMAScript.

This is a simple application for beginners that shows how to create Text shadows in a canvas using HTML 5 and CSS tools.

In this article we are going to explore how to define layouts inside a Metro Style Application and the concept of binding as well.

In this article you will see how to delete the specific permission level from the site in SharePoint 2010 using ECMAScript.

In this article we will learn how to create the SSL certificates for our web site which we are hosting on our IIS server.

In this article you will see how to update the specific permission level in SharePoint 2010 using ECMAScript.

In this article you will see how to use a Modal Window Picker in a Visual Studio LightSwitch application.

In this article let see one of the good and interesting concept in windows phone whereby communicating with WCF Service to perform some expected operation. This concept made the phone user to handle the task easily in light weighted mode.

In this article let’s learn one better concept in windows phone which communicates with WCF Service to retrieve some friendly message to user. Once this application is fully developed and deployed it enables to take photo using application with inbuilt camera. Later, can able to view the taken photo images.

Robert Lucero's Testing Blog - Speech Recognition - Using Multiple Grammars to Improve Recognition

"A difficult problem both users and developers face is recognizing words that are similar sounding, but wrong for the current context. An example of this would be the words “yellow” and “hello”.

Using the simple WPF app from the previous Exploring Grammar Based Recognition post, I will show an example of this confusion and a simple way to improve recognition based on a defined context. Specifically, a button to enable and disable grammars will be added to simulate context switching.

Check 2, 3… Check…

This is a continuation of the previous Exploring Grammar Based Recognition post. Please make sure that you’ve installed the Windows SDK as a prerequisite to both of these tutorials.

Step 1: Identifying Recognition Confusion

Using the Simple Speech Recognizer, add the word “hello” to the list of words to be recognized. Then repeat saying “hello” and “yellow” with various inflections. Depending on how I said it, I was able to get the wrong word recognized.

...

What Was Improved?

In this case, pressing the button changes the words that the Speech Recognition engine is listening for. If the grouping inside of grammar rules or grammars are clever, developers can enable and disable scenarios when the system moves into a specific state. It can give context and, in some cases, better accuracy for the words the system is listening for.

However, it doesn’t improve the more basic problem of confusion if someone says a word that sounds very similar to a word the engine is listening for. This process primarily helps by focusing or broadening the words available for recognition.

Summary

By dynamically enabling and disabling grammars, apps have another tool to help improve the recognition scenarios. Contexts that are provided and acted upon can make for a better recognition experience.

Here are some posts I found useful:

• MSDN Definition for Grammar.Enabled
• MSDN Grammar Loading Example

For more ideas or for more background on this post check out my previous post: Exploring Grammar Based Recognition. As always, if you have feedback or questions feel free to leave a comment or contact me through the MSDN blog dashboard tools!

This simple example shows how you can tweak speech recognition by the state of the app, to easily control what your app is listening for... Now if only I could turn off my internal Wife Grammar list (oh... did I really say that!? I mean turn it on! err... um... I mean... um... damn) :P

ArtLung [Joe Crawford] - Firefox Tilt

"This is a screenshot of a somewhat useful, great looking web development tool. It’s called Tilt and it’s an add-on for Firefox. What it does is visualize the various elements, or tags on an HTML page in a 3-D space. You can interact with it and click to see what HTML and CSS makes each component. I find it useful sometimes to help me understand what’s why on the page.

..."

Like Joe says, this is pretty much overkill, but cool as heck....

CodeProject - How the Visual Studio ALM Rangers use Team Foundation Service to Get Ready for Visual Studio 11

"This article is part of a series in which the Visual Studio ALM Rangers present guidance to assist you in solving complex, real-world environments. Our goal is to help you improve the consistency and quality of your solutions and your overall Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) process.

To recap, the Rangers are a group of experts who promote collaboration among the Visual Studio product group, Microsoft Services and the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) community by addressing missing functionality (feature gaps and whitespace), removing adoption blockers and publishing best practices and guidance based on real-world experience.

Since the start of the Rangers program in 2006, we have delivered a mix of enhanced features and best practice guidance. Rangers and those who are familiar with our business know that we always select our projects by community vote. In other words, Rangers decide what is needed out there in the real world so you can do a better job. This has one side effect though. If you look at a set of such projects—like the Visual Studio 2010 wave—it looks like a random collection of content with lots of gaps. That brings us back to the future and our biggest Ranger “gig” ever, Understanding our Visual Studio 11 Readiness conspiracy. For the first time, we decided to go for full coverage, by design, which led to 20 new Ranger projects! With so many concurrent projects, we are breaking every record, but we know that it is worth the extra effort. What else has a higher priority for a Ranger than being technically ready for Visual Studio 11?

Teams that build software solutions have always had an expectation of an out-of-the-box, high-quality, and predictable application lifecycle management process and tooling. The biggest challenge in the history of Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server has been that technology usually precedes the practical guidance from the MVPs and Microsoft Services in the field. All products experience this dilemma and it often results in uncertainty of implementation, frustration, and blocking of product adoption.

The Rangers work hard to address this challenge; with Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 2010, the ALM Ranger guidance was released shortly after the products were released. With the latest wave of Rangers Readiness, we are SIMultanously shipping the out-of-band tooling and guidance with Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server 11. Product teams call this SIM shipping or simultaneous shipping.

As shown in Figure 1, we deliver guidance on process and methodologies, Team Foundation Server planning and management, Visual Studio Test and Architecture tooling, Team Foundation Build and Windows Azure solutions, while working in close collaboration with Developer Product Evangelism (DPE), MSDN, and Patterns & Practices. Our goal is to eliminate overlapping guidance, duplication of deliverables and confusing messaging.

What makes the Rangers solutions different is that we are not focused on what the product features are, but how to best use those features, based on experience by those in the field such as Rangers in Microsoft Services, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and the ALM community.

...

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I dig these kinds of articles, where we hear about real-world problems and solutions, learning the lessons from others so we can hopefully make different mistakes (and not the same ones they did). Plus it's cool seeing how these guys are using the TFS Preview... :P