Rob Relyea: Blog

Starting another blog - WindowsClient.net

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:18:32 GMT

I'm not positive what I'm going to do with this blog, but I'm heavily considering moving most of my blogging over to WindowsClient.net. Just did my first post: Rob start his WindowsClient.net Era - 3rd blogs a charm (http://blogs.windowsclient.net/rob_relyea/archive/2008/02/10/3rd-time-is-a-charm.aspx)

Josh Twist: Xaml Editing with Intellisense with no VS Designer

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:42:43 GMT

I knew you could change the default from WPF Designer to XML Editor (and lose all the intellisense), but I didn't know this tip that Josh shows about Xaml editing in VS...

Visualization of progress for self measurement and public pressure/support

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:03:59 GMT

The other day I blogged in "My car runs on oil from a baby seal" that people would be able to conserve gasoline, reduce driving, etc.. better if they could visualize the amount of gallons they used per day (GPD).

Now I tripped over this site that talks about a similar measurement, visualization and motivation technique that Jerry Seinfeld used (and maybe still does).

Me as a Simpsons character & SkyDrive

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:54:04 GMT

Just clicked on the SkyDrive tab on the top of my blog...I decided to test this file sharing service by posting a picture that Kevin Moore made a few months ago of me with an online tool to draw somebody as a Simpsons character:

Skydrive is likely easier for me to share files that others can find than having to mess with RobRelyea.com...

Have your own blog on blogs.windowsclient.net

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:42:27 GMT

WindowsClient.net, is of course, the Windows client technology community website...like asp.net is for ASP.Net developers. Now you can have your own blog there:

Interested in blogging with the WindowsClient.NET community? Well now you can, with your own blog on the site. Read the terms of use and if you agree, click here to sign-up.

Brian Noyes - Databinding in WPF on .Net Rocks TV

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:09:07 GMT

First Adam Nathan on Silverlight, WPF, Popfly...now Brian Noyes digging into Databinding...love it.

Rob Burke - with Objectsharp now

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:20:12 GMT

Glad to see Rob Burke blogging a bit about WPF again! Looks like he has landed in Toronto. Look forward to seeing you @ Mix?

Adam Nathan on .Net Rocks - Popfly, Silverlight, WPF

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:12:17 GMT

Listening to Adam on .Net Rocks now...on Popfly and Silverlight (and a bit of WPF)

In the intro, they mention type converters from System.Windows.Converters...yes, type converters are key to Xaml's ability to convert "strings to things".
Wow, he has learned to love Javascript...
21:20 - discusses using designers for development...

Is Xaml human readable...

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:02:05 GMT

Scott Koon thinks not: http://scottkoon.org/2008/02/08/i-still-hate-xaml-though-quo/

Remember, my November 2004 blog post "Our 7 Goals for Xaml" - human readability was one of the goals...not the only goal.

Concise FlowDocument representation in Xml (with converter)

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:59:06 GMT

Interesting seeing an xml format with property elements like "<body.head>" and "<body.content>"...

Here is an example of the xml format that looks like it tries to be an html like representation of a document that is convertable to a flowdocument (from XML to FlowDocument Converter)

The decision – which also applies to cargo services – is significant, said industry watchers yesterday.Although the December 2008 date had been set four years ago, there was no certainty that all members of the 10-nation grouping would agree to free up air travel by then, they said.
Mr Anthony Concil, a spokes man for the International Air Transport Association, a 240-member airline grouping told The Straits Times last night “Clearly, this is a big and con crete step in the right direc tion...What we are seeing is tha Asean has picked up the bal and is moving forward.”

[update: turns out that format is NITF, which I've never looked at, I believe...which the Syndicated Client Experiences Starter Kit uses...funny that they seems to have used a Period in a tagname before Xaml did. Back in 2004 I listed some options we were considering for the syntax of Property Elements]

TechReady, ski holiday, Mix

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:51:23 GMT

Just saw that Laurent Bugnion is about to go on ski holiday...me too. Love the picture! TechReady (internal MS conference), ski @ whistler, Mix with lots of coding/work in between. Should be a fun/crazy next 30 days! Looking forward to sharing some of the things we're doing on the WPF team @ Mix...

My weekly skiing at the local mountain (Snoqualmie pass) has been interrupted the last few weekends due to heavy snow, closed highways (I-90) through the mountain passes, etc... Hope I can ski this Saturday.

WPF, Xaml, Silverlight - mentions in blog posts growing

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:38:48 GMT

Love to see the progress on all fronts: http://robrelyea.com/wpf/mentions

WPF likely picked up since more people are seeing VS2008 and trying File/New Project...hey a WPF application! Mix will likely help again...I'm giving a talk or two there...hope to see many of you there...

Dax Pandhi: Realistic UX goals to aim for

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:09:25 GMT

Seems like a good start for a developer: Realistic UX goals to aim for

Nukeation Studios reuxables - themes for WPF

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:49:36 GMT

Dax sent me a pointer to Nukeation's first release of Theme Collections for WPF. Check them out...

Saveen Reddy: Visio exporter to Xaml Vectors

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:03:37 GMT

I was excited to see VisioExportToXaml on Codeplex from Saveen Reddy (with credits to Thierry Bouquain and SharpVectors).

Saveen blogs about it in "Updated Add-In for Visio 2007 to Export to Xaml"

Original Visio

XAML rendered in in Expression Blend

"My car runs on oil from a baby seal"

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:17:31 GMT

Had a work lunch with a teammate and a few folks from another Microsoft group the other day. I drove the 4 of us to lunch (in my wife's new hybrid). My teammate, contrasting it with my hybrid, said his Porsche "runs on oil from a baby seal." :-)

Gallons per Day (GPD)

My gallons per day interest continues, but Ski season (a 90 mile roundtrip once per week in my SUV to the mountains) has hurt my numbers...I also haven't taken the bus for several weeks... :-( Since October I'm averaging 1.53 gallons per day. My wife is a similar 1.57 gallons per day.

Good idea of the Day - cars which help drivers understand their GPD

Would be great if my car could automatically report to me my gallons per day...the last few days, average performance for the year, etc... In fact, everybody's car should do this - getting the right data in front of people in a grokable fashion is the key to awareness and change.

New Category of Posts - GreenRob

This post and a few of my previous posts are now marked with the "GreenRob" category.

Karl Shifflett - WPF: Expander whose content overlays the page

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:51:36 GMT

Karl explains how to create an "Expander Control With Popup Content" to enable this:

[via Christopheer Steen's Link Listing]

Matthias Shapiro - WPF: Wrapping Text in a ComboBox

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:47:15 GMT

Matthias wrestled with ComboBox in "How Do I Wrap Text In The ComboBox?" to get this scenario to work and shares his solution, which enables:

[via Christopheer Steen's Link Listing] -- (I created a new "WPF - Scenarios with Controls" category to point out things like this...)

Kent Boogaart: Functional and Aesthetic Xaml

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:37:04 GMT

Ran into a comment by Kent on Kevin's post about WCF serialization with Xaml where he pointed toward this "Xaml" post where he discusses Xaml verbosity and separation of concerns into Functional and Aesthetic Xaml.

Kevin Moore: Update to Bag-o-Tricks, WPF Set, and Xaml with WCF

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:49:11 GMT

Kevin, o, Kevin. I miss you in these halls of building 10...

But I'm very happy to see you continue your WPF blogging.

Notable posts of late:

Url progress with ASP.NET

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:41:19 GMT

I'm much too busy to be blog reading...but here I am anyway, catching up on a few of Jon Udell's latest posts. I was happy to see ".aspx considered harmful", which discusses why Urls should be minimal in order to be future proofed and to have the appropriate style/brand. He links to Scott Guthrie's October post about ASP.NET MVC Framework which "includes a very powerful URL mapping component that enables you to build applications with clean URLs".

Hardware experts: laptop to multimonitor adaptors?

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:14:23 GMT

A friend just asked me if I knew how well something like the Matrox DualHead2Go works? Any users out there that could comment on taking a laptop and helping it scale to 2 or more external monitors?

Philipp Sumi: Flexible TreeView

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:58:45 GMT

Haven't dug deep, but Philipp sounds like he has done some good work here for people who need their treeviews to do more things: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/versatile_treeview.aspx

Matthias Shapiro - Wii Remote and WPF databinding

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:42:55 GMT

Interesting observations by Matthias: http://www.designerwpf.com/2008/02/01/using-wpf-binding-for-a-huge-performance-boost/

Scott Hanselman - building an XBAP

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 00:06:43 GMT

Scott builds a simple XBAP...some commenters are questioning why XBAP vs standalone apps, etc...anybody with opinions care to comment one way or another?

WPF Bloggers from VS team

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:24:54 GMT

Noah Coad and Paul Harrington from the VS platform team have recently been blogging a bit about WPF. Paul has been working on a maze generator with WPF and databinding...

Super Tuesday

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:17:00 GMT

Just made my first direct donation to a presidential candidate during primary season with a credit card donation on their site...should be an interesting day on Tuesday. We don't vote in Washington yet, but with my donation hopefully I'll help pull things to the candidate I favor.

WPF Application Quality Guide v0.1 - whitepaper now available

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:02:41 GMT

The “WPF Application Quality Guide v 0.1” white paper is live online at the WindowsClient.NET site today! It’s a guide that we hope upon completion can be a one-stop shop for guidance and best practices to improve product quality and testability for WPF applications and controls teams and vendors.

This first CTP has the proposed TOC and some select content, based on the feedback we hear we will add and release more targeted content in future CTPs.

Here are a few pointers to the Guide v 0.1:

From the “Featured News” section at the default page: http://windowsclient.net/ (temporary)
Content in HTML format (permanent)
Content in word doc for download (permanent)
From “Learn” tab / Latest Content (temporary): WPF Application Quality Guide
From “Learn” tab / Windows Client Technical Articles: http://windowsclient.net/learn/techarticles.aspx (permanent)

Please check it out, let others know this guide, blog about it and link to it! Help us making this guide better - We are looking forward to hearing your feedback via email or online comment at the bottom of the html page.

The New Iteration...xaml whitepaper

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 03:47:30 GMT

Karsten and Jaime have published a great whitepaper that looks at how Xaml transforms the collaboration between designers and developers in WPF: The New Iteration

Syndicated Client Experience Starter Kit - for building a great reading experience and more...

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:49:07 GMT

WindowsClient.Net just announced the newly available Syndicated Client Experiences Starter Kit.

Introducing the new Syndicated Client Experiences (SCE) Starter Kit! Realize the power of Windows Presentation Foundation to create immersive, engaging multimedia content experiences with rich syndicated content, from documents and photos to videos and podcasts. You may have seen such experiences from New York Times, Seattle PI, and others - now you can easily create such experiences yourself with the SCE Starter Kit!

The SCE Starter Kit page includes pointers to the familiar New York Times Reader and a new MSDN Reader (for you developers out there...)

Times Reader by The New York Times
One of the top 25 products in PC World’s list of 100 Best Products of 2007, the Times Reader is a unique reading experience that combines the easy-to-read format of print with the utility of digital.
MSDN Reader
The MSDN Reader allows you to browse through MSDN Magazine articles like never before. Read through articles, view figures and code snippets in an intuitive and easy-to-use experience. The complete source code for the reader is also provided for you here (coming soon).

2007 brought great work in WPF/Xaml Tools & WPF

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 11:13:48 GMT

Lots of progress in 2007 from Microsoft and the community in the tooling front

VS 2008 shipped with a Wpf Designer & a Xaml textual editor.
The Expression team shipped their first version in May and continues to improve Blend with previews of Blend 2 December Preview and Blend v1 SP1
Zam 3D is now shipping v1.
Mobiform shipped Aurora XAML Designer v1.
Robby Ingebretsen shipped a completed KaXaml 1.0 (that at least one dev is raving about: Kaxaml: The XAML editor for me).
Lester Lobo updated XamlPadX (first one to get to v3!)
Charles Petzold has XamlCruncher v2 shipping.

Debugger Visualizers

Mole for Visual Studio is a WPF runtime inspection tool in the same ballpark as Snoop, but integrated into VS as a Debugger Visualizer.

I need to go update my list @ http://robrelyea.com/xaml/editors

while (!perfect)
{
    UseThem();
    GiveFeedBack();
    GetImprovedVersions();
}

Use your favorites. Give feedback to their creators. Iterate. :-)

[please let me know if I completely forgot any tools...and sorry in advance]

The Platform?

Meanwhile, the WPF team shipped our first version in November 2006 (.Net 3.0), our first update in November 2007 (.Net 3.5) and we're all busy working on our next release wave...more public news @ Mix.

2008

I'm looking forward to the improvements that 2008 will bring to WPF developers!

[Updated the list:

upgraded the Blend link to their December Preview.
added Aurora

]

The Blomsma Code - question on Xaml Validation @ compile time

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:45:30 GMT

Good question from The Blomsma Code, with an answer from WPF Designer PM Mark Wilson-Thomas. I chime in with a comment as well..

XAML validation - design vs. runtime error

WPF/Xaml Web News - 2008/01/08

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:50:00 GMT

As my compiler hums, I did a bit of blog reading...

Kevin Moore - Building "Set" in WPF.
IStartedSomething.Com - Frog Design brings WPF sexy to the enterprise masses
Dav Crevier - is interested in Rob Eisenberg's new framework...

Update: [Updated title to have correct year :-)]

Happy Holidays!

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:59:05 GMT

Work has been very quiet this week...most Microsoft employees are in danger of losing their vacation time if they don't take it before the end of the year, since they may not have taken enough during the year...so they are taking the time now. I have plenty of vacation, but too much work to do to take many days off right now.

I'm about to leave work early today (Friday afternoon) - going to go have fun in downtown Seatlle. I'll likely work only a tiny bit next week, but I'll be back after New Years working very hard.

Hope to resume more active blogging in a 2-3 months...

Hope you all have great holidays and a happy new year!

Carving time out for Rob - 12 days a year.

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:01:47 GMT

I'm taking tomorrow off. I plan to take a day a month off regularly...2nd Friday of each month...12 days a year for me. I need the time to focus on me, since I work too much, and have many family obligations in the evenings and weekends.

I'm looking forward to it.

ZAM 3D 1.0 Now Available

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:44:07 GMT

I was happy to hear that ZAM3D 1.0 is now available for purchase...looks like you may be able to save 25% if you buy before the new year.

An email that I received says:

ZAM 3D Key Benefits:

Provides an easy to use 3D authoring environment for designers and developers
Offers both basic and advanced 3D modeling and animation capabilities
Converts existing 2D artwork in the AI and EPS formats into 3D models
Imports pre-built 3DS and DXF models for quick conversion to XAML
Outputs 3D XAML markup that integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Expression Blend and Visual Studio 2005 and 2008
Leverages WPF, the presentation subsystem for Windows Vista (also available on XP), to enhance application interface design

“Electric Rain’s product brings powerful 3D modeling and animation capabilities to both the creative designer and application developer, and will offer exciting opportunities for creating superior content and rich user experiences for Windows Vista.”
Forest Key, group product manager of the .NET Developer Product Marketing Group at Microsoft Corp.

Those of you doing 3d work in WPF may find it useful in your work. Congrats to the Electric Rain guys!

Xaml doesn't have to be XML

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:37:42 GMT

Check out Handy Xaml's intro. One thing you'll see is an alternative Xaml textual format (no brackets, no quotes...). Cool! Lots of possibilities here...

Fundamentally, Xaml doesn't need to be tied to XML...XML is just one possible representation of the Xaml data model.

Zune: speaker docks, etc...

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 12:55:37 GMT

My brother just sent me a woot deal on the altec lansing Zune Speakers/Dock. He meant well...but he just wasted 30 minutes of my morning! Ok, maybe it was me...I wasted 30 minutes trying to decide if I should buy it again, before I realized that it wasn't even worth it at $40...

I bought one @ $200 or so last year when I first got my Zune. The disappointing thing about it is that the remote control is so inferior when compared with the zune remote. You really couldn't navigate the zune menu system with the remote. I returned it.

What may be even more disappointing, is that the newer model from Altec Lansing may not have fixed that...given that the writeup says 'select zune functions'. Should have told them last year!

"Full-function remote. Speaker, FM radio, and select Zune functions are at your fingertips."

What I do for Zune listening now

Home Office: usually broadcast it out my TV...see the menus on the screen...very nice (but see comment below in What I want). Sometimes run Zune client, but then only get to listen out my laptop speakers. I really need to get the wireless sync happy with my work laptop, so I don't need to move my Zune doc back and forth from being attached to my laptop and my MediaCenterPC/TV.

Rest of House: have a 1st edition Zune dock plugged into my old Sony Stereo. I can drive speakers in my home office, kitchen, master bedroom and master bath...but the Zune is in the kitchen which makes remote control very inconvenient.

Car: do without right now...have had radio transmitter with some success...looking for audio system that does Zune control in car like the Ford Sync system.

Work Office: have the first edition of the Zune dock hooked up to relatively cheap powered speakers.

Bus: use headphones (nothing fancy yet)

...2nd generation Zune Dock looks nice...

What I want

I want good audio/video throughout my house, in my car, and at work. I want to be able to drive in my car, hop on the bus, get to work, and listen to the same thing at all 3 places. I'm really happy with my Zune 30G from a year ago, especially now that the new firmware and software for my PC is making things better...love the podcast support!

However, there are a bunch of issues that I'd love to see fixed.

So although I'm loving most Zuney things, several things can be improved:

1) Zune player + Zune device don't understand my progress in a podcast. I start on my PC, get 20 minutes in. Decide to undock and go, go to the same piece and expect to pick up at the same place. Is it me, it might be?

2) When you dock and are syncing, you can't play from the Zune device...I don't like having to switch back to my PC...I like my Zune remote. Perhaps wireless sync will make this better, but I haven't gotten my Zune to be able to talk with my work laptop yet...firewall issues???

2) I love driving the menu of the zune on my TV, however, I shouldn't have to choose between seeing my Media Center UI (input 1) and my Zune UI (input 2). Somebody from the Zune team wanna see my home office/etc...?

Related Info that May be Interesting for later

Zune AV Cable Pinouts

commonality: on Visual DSLs

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:01:46 GMT

Interesting post covering DSLs and some thoughts on Microsoft's direction here, with discussion of Xaml.

commality: What Irks Me About Visual DSLs

Adding Keyboard Shortcut to Controls in WPF: "_" instead of "&"

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:30:53 GMT

This is one of the things that is different in WPF due to Xaml/XML considerations...perhaps VS2008 & Expression Blend could ease the transition by detecting the entry of "&" into the Content property?

Internal email...please read from bottom.

---

From: MS Employee #2
Using '&' in XAML would require typing & due to XML syntax.

From: MS Employee #1
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 1:52 AM
Subject: _ vs. &

I spent about a day figuring out a way to add keyboard shortcut to my WPF button – in winforms/vb for all these years it was a simple & before the char u want to use as a shortcut key – wonder why was the & changed to a _ in wpf???

WPF, DataViz, Hedge Funds

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:55:15 GMT

One of the key themes I see in many applications that are using WPF is that they find value in good data visualization (see SVC).

Just saw this article from WIndows in Financial Services (which I hadn't seen before) about: For Hedge Funds, WPF Delivers Agility
Just talked with a friend from outside of work...he's been playing with Blend, his company is excited about DataViz, building a practice around it...considering how to work with designers.

Bluetooth Phone & MP3 (Zune/IPod) in a car - best way for existing cars

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:03:46 GMT

I've mentioned recently that I'm jealous of my wife's new car electronics - bluetooth phone, mp3 input, and Nav are the big 3. So I'm thinking of buying something for my car that I plan on keeping for a while.

Somebody recommended I should check out a few Pioneer models. (haven't done that yet)

This morning, I found a writeup on zune-online.com about Ford Sync & a few videos about Ford Sync (which Ford and Microsoft partnered with.)

Looks very cool. So now I need to ask Ford if I can upgrade my 2002 Ford Explorer's radio to this new thing. My guess is that the answer is no. I hope they'll see value in providing value to their existing customers as well...

sobees.com - video of upcoming app, accepting beta requests

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:28:28 GMT

I was happy to hear from Vince that they have posted a video (only in French today, but English coming soon) of the .Net/WPF app they've been working on and are accepting beta requests. http://sobees.com

Pierre Chappaz blogs about sobees
What is sobees?

Global Impact: GPD: Gallons per Day

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:41:45 GMT

I'm interested in lessening my impact on the health of the planet. One of the ways I'm doing that is I'm tracking how many gallons of gas my wife and I use each day.

The major variables are how much we drive, how we drive, and what we drive.

How much we drive
I'm being pretty good about taking a bus to work 3-5 days a week. When the bus isn't late (15 minutes late yesterday during the heavy downpour in the afternoon), I find it is a good use of time as well, as I'm usually working on my tablet.
How we drive
My wife's new hybrid has indicators to show what the current gas mileage you are getting is and also a historical view over time (per minute) as well as an average mileage. With the right information, I can balance how fast I need to accelerate with how it is affecting my mileage.
What we drive
1 Hybrid, 1 SUV

Gallons/Day

Last tank, my car did:

219.4 Miles
15.908 Gallons
13.8 MPG
13 Days
1.22 Gallons/Day
16.87 Miles/Day
$3.94/Day

Last tank, my wife's hybrid did:

389.2 Miles
13.625 Gallons
28.6 MPG
9 Days
1.51 Gallons/Day
43.24 Miles/Day
$4.92/Day

I'll keep track and hope to keep GPD low and get lower...

Tracking Gallons per Day

Write down Total Mileage and Trip Mileage on your gas receipt.

Enter it into this GPD-GallonsPerDay spreadsheet.

Link to zip file containing .xlsx
Link to .xlsx (gotta work with my ISP to upgrade servers to understand new Office mime types)

(Excel 2007 (.xlsx) format. Download and install the Office Compatibility Pack to enable opening these new file types in previous Office versions.)

I'm jealous...

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:51:35 GMT

of my wife's new car. She got a hybrid - it gets twice the mileage of her old car.

My favorite thing about it is the electronics that her car now has (and my car lacks): Bluetooth connection to cellphone, Navigation system, and Zune input (no control though).

I'm not planning on replacing my Ford Explorer until several years from now. We like having a car that can carry a bunch of people (it carries up to 7) or things when needed...and I avoid driving it much by taking the bus. Until then, I'm thinking of upgrading the radio in the car to give me some of the modern touches...

Xaml Editor in VS2008

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:52:39 GMT

As a guy who spends a lot of time thinking of Xaml, I'm absolutely thrilled that we've shipped VS with a "Xaml Language" aware text editor. You'll remember that since PDC 2003, we've been providing an XSD and having users use the Xml editor in VS. The major downside there was that with new Types (custom controls and 3rd party controls) didn't work with intellisense, and actually broke intellisense inside their content as well.

Now, the Xaml Editor can deal with new Types - I believe it can even deal with types that are described in the same project that you are using them!

Walt writes 2 posts that are a must read if you ever edit Xaml in VS:

Great stuff!

Try it out, and please give feedback on the Xaml Editor at the WPF Designer ("Cider") forum.

WPF 3.0sp1/3.5 & VS2008: what is it, where to get it, how to give feedback

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:22:38 GMT

What it is?/Where to get it?

When you think November, does your mouth water for Turkey. Microsoft is plotting to make you think of great software, not Turkey, when you think of November - .Net/VS - a great platform and great tools to help you build great software:

.Net 3.0/VS2005 Extensions for .Net 3.0 in November 2006.
.Net 3.5/VS2008 in November 2007.

After spending 6 years on WPF's first release, it was great to be able to change pace and ship a release in 1 year! WindowsClient.Net has an updated list of the essential downloads for WPF development (.Net3.5, VS Express Editions, Expression Blend) and has a list of WPF/VS/.Net improvements in the 3.5/2008 wave. I'd also recommend you look at MSDN's list of things to install (includes links to 90 day trial versions of VS2008) and What's New in Windows Presentation Foundation Version 3.5. This release has lots of great things for WPF developers (and future WPF developers)! Check out some of the new 3.5 focused videos @ http://windowsclient.net/learn/videos_orcas.aspx.

Build great apps! Give feedback.

We hope you are happy with this wave! We look forward to seeing more of your great work on top of WPF and hearing your feedback...see you on the forums!

Feedback on WPF features in .Net 3.5 should go on the WPF forum.
Feedback on WPF features in VS should go on the WPF Designer ("Cider") forum.

Remember - Much of the work we did for 3.5, will also ship in .Net 3.0sp1 (which will ship in Windows Vista SP1).

More Info

A few other interesting info snippets from some Developer Division announcement posts:

From Scott Guthrie's announcement: Note that VS 2008 runs side-by-side with VS 2005 - so it is totally fine to have both on the same machine (you will not have any problems with them on the same box).
From S. ("Soma") Somasegar's announcement: The entire family of Visual Studio products (from the Express Editions to the Professional version to Visual Studio Team Suite) and .NET Framework 3.5 are available for immediate download here.

VS Debugger Visualizer for WPF: Woodstock

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:31:41 GMT

If you've liked Pete Blois' Snoop to help debug/understand what is happening in a WPF application, Josh Smith has recreated a subset of its functionality and integrated it into VS as a Debugger Visualizer. Read all the details on his codeproject posting for "Woodstock for WPF" and Josh's Woodstock announcement to the WPF Forum. Great to see!

Laurent Bugnion in Redmond

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:24:43 GMT

Laurent Bugnion was in town a few weeks ago, I was happy to meet him; see what he is up to and listen to a bunch of great feedback - a goldmine of feedback.

Silverlight/WPF difference
Since then, he has found a rendering difference for RadialGradientBrush OpacityMask between Silverlight 1.0 and WPF.

A previous post from me on a similar issue:

Xaml rendering differences in Silverlight 1.0 and WPF - not a good thing - tell us about it...
I discovered a blog post earlier this week from mark-dot-net that talked about rendering differences between Silverlight and WPF with the same markup. I was very glad to find this. If anybody knows of any similar issues, please show us the Xaml!

VS 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 available this month

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:19:32 GMT

Nice bit of news that Guy Smith-Ferrier got from Soma's keynote in Barcelona for TechEd Europe 2007:

Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 will be available for download by MSDN subscribers before the end of November 2007

To clarify, .Net framework 3.0sp1/3.5 will be downloadable by anybody...