The Microsoft Studio August 2006 CTP is available for download [1] now. The most important change is the renaming of the WSAP protocol to DSSP [2]. The specification of DSSP can be found at [3]. API changes are listed at [4].

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?fa...
[2] http://blogs.msdn.com/msroboticsstudio/archive/200...
[3] http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/8/2/...
[4] http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel...

Live Writer [1] seems to be a quite nifty tool for offline blogging. The installations process is quite easy.

Also the handling of the tool is quite intuitive. And the support for adding images is awesome. Since I use shoadows for all my images I am quite pleased that Live Writer does support this feature which saves me some time while blogging.

[1] http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

There is a new blogging tool for offline blogging. Actually something I was waiting for a long time. Most of the tools I have tried until now usually did not support some essential funcitons I required.

"Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service." [1]

So I will try soo its compatibility with dasBlog.

[1] http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

Back from the ICWE 2006 [1] conference, finally I found some minutes to re-think about all the talks seen there and papers read in the proceedings. Actually I found out that there are many approaches to model systems. Finally, there are a few questions I think about when I hear the term model:

1. How easy is it to create and change the model. Do I need tool support or can I do it using pen and paper? 
   
2. Is the model machine-readable? Can I process the model in any way? What is the benefit of the model?
   
3. Do I create the model and the the artefcats depicted in the model or do I create the model with respect to the artefacts i have found? What happens if these artefacts change?
   
4. In school I learned in chemistry about models. For this our teacher showed us a Matchbox car [2].

[1] http://www.icwe2006.org/
[2] http://www.matchbox.com/home.aspx

Windows Principles [1].

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/winxp/windowsprinciples.mspx

"What's wrong with you?"

Johannes Meinecke, San Francisco, 2006

"I know what to do, and how to solve the problem, but I do not know the bloody API." - I just met the guys implementing the Krugle [1] search engine over here at ICWE 2006. And it does work quite well.

[1] http://www.krugle.com

Microsoft's community development portal [1] and the Shared Source portal [2].

[1] http://www.codeplex.com/ 
[2] http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/default.mspx

I just received my ACM Professional Membership certificate these days with some links about ACM to remember.

Homepage: http://www.acm.org
Professional Development Centre: http://pd.acm.org
Caree Resource Centre: http://www.acm.org/crc
Digital Library: http://www.acm.org/dl
Online Guide: http://www.acm.org/guide

How to do can be found in [1].

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q102712/