Metablogging via SeattlePI: HP is shipping a little app with their Windows XP Media Center 2005 PCs: HP Tunes that lets users listen to their iTunes songs (AAC format) within the Media Center application, which is a lot more comfortable than having to switch to the tiny-fonted iTunes app. Some downsides are that neiter purchasing of music nor...

Developer.com is writing a series on SOA and just published Part 1: The Case for Developing a Service-Oriented Architecture - a good read.

Martin recently found out that the original Tablet PC Recognizer Pack cannot be installed over an update Window XP Tablet PC 2005 (=Windows XP Service Pack 2 applied to a Tablet PC). Bummer. Now, an updated version of the Reco Pack called "Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 Recognizer Pack" has been made available, which supports...

I didn't know that the Social Computing Group at Microsoft Research has a blog. They do. It's called Raindrop.

I have been waiting for months to finally being able to buy music online. I am sick and tired of buying CDs and DVDs, watch them once or copy them to my music library and then put them in the basement - forever. I never got an account at iTunes, because I live in Switzerland - but I finally managed to get a MSN Music account and have been...

The Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions - October 2004 community technical preview releases have just been made available up on msdn @ http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/downloads/default.aspx. Finally, new bits! Beware, these bits are of more "experimental" nature than the official beta bits, yet they are more recent. Here are the important...

Just had a chat with an Orange representative who gave me three interesting pieces of information: 1) Orange is launching (this week) a campaign, sending out vouchers to SPV Classic, E100 and E200 owners, allowing them to trade in their phones for a c500 for 49 or 99 Swiss Francs (depending if you are willing to leave your old phone there or...

Metablogging on a blog (nearly recursive)! I just saw at Ben's that Aurel has started a blog himself! Another smart guy starts blogging, that's good news!

Yeah! I am spending the night installing the just released bits of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 on my system tonight. The product will be launched in Switzerland tomorrow (finally). I am so looking forward to being able to surf the upcoming TV program on my PC and have the system record my favorite shows to hard disk! I have - among...

Metablogging via MSNBC: Clicking "Un-Subscribe" in Spam seems to just have gotten a little more dangerous: <quote>"By using an unsubscribe link in an e-mail, not only are you saying this is a live e-mail address, you are also have the risk of downloading a Trojan that turns your computer into an open proxy for sending spam,"</quote>

Metablogging via Luke: Whow, whow, whow! In case you haven't seen already: The bloggers guide to BizTalk is a .CHM file containing an awesome amount of information on the BizTalk technology. Let's hope it gets updated frequently and that many more technologies get covered like this!

If you develop ASP.NET applications, you should have a look at the following two resources and harden your apps accordingly. What You Should Know About a Reported Vulnerability in Microsoft ASP.NET: http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/aspnet.mspxProgrammatically check for canonicalization issues with ASP.NET:...

I recently felt that I don't have too much relevant stuff to tell the world - left alone to blog about. My last posts were mostly a list of upcoming events or just-released articles here at Microsoft. http://msdn.microsoft.com does a better job at aggregating this than I do - including RSS. Hence, blogging has been down and naturally my...

Metablogging: Simon Guest writes about Top Ten Tips for Web Services Interoperability and also gets some interesting comments  on his readers' experiences with the topic.

The ASP.NET team has published a list of changes that ASP.NET 2.0 will undergo from beta1 to beta2 in their forums.