Best points to start understanding WPF data binding are the MSDN articles "Windows Presentation Foundation Data Binding" at [1] and [2]. More can be found in the MSDN magazine article "Customizing Controls For Windows Presentation Foundation" at [3]. To learn how to bind to element properties the forum entry at [4] may help. A somehwat twisted introduction to Styles and Templates can be found at [5].

[1] http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480224.aspx
[2] http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480226.aspx
[3] http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/07/05/WPF/default.aspx
[4] http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1496636&SiteID=1
[5] http://www.nickthuesen.com/?page_id=18

Beyond this truly epic acronym stands a video [1] done by the Microsoft UK DPE team about WPF and corporation between designers and developers in practice. Since I am dealing with WPF for a while I also looked at Microsoft Expression Blend which is coming soon [2].

"The UK MCS User Experience team and a number of UK partners have been working on WPF for over 12 months and this Real World WPF series is intended to show some of their work and capture/share some of their learnings. Nick Page talks to Martin Grayson and Paul Tallett from the UK MCS User Experience team about their experiences working on real world WPF applications and specifically how Designers and Developers have worked together on these projects."

[1] http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=299897
[2] http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/overview.aspx?key=blend

SearchIndexer.exe does all the indexing stuff on your Vista machine. Not bad at all it is not possible to schedule when the indexer is running as it was able using MSN Desktop Search. E.g., there you have been able to send the indexer to sleep for a 10, 20 or 60 minutes or to avoid running the indexer whilst working on the machine. it looks like the only way to calm the machine down is by switching of the service at all. Another work around I am trying right now is to got to Control Panel / Power Options and choosing the High Performance Change power plan settings. There chose Change advanced power settings Search and Indexing values to Power Saver or Balanced. This should lower the indexing effort of the Vista Search significantly.

Today we got another m400 in the team. The laptop came with the Toshiba Slice Expansion 6-Cell Li-Ion Battery Pack [1] which I immediately took borrowed. I am just charging the batteries and will then try the uptime using both batteries twice, with Toshiba's balanced and power saver settings. The Toshiba web page promises about 9 hours uptime using the extension, so we will see how my machine drains the batteries...

[1] http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?seg=HHO&poid=321977

Need a (almost) full list off ping servers to be used in Windows Live Writer? At [1] I found the following list...

http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping.php
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://pingqueue.com/rpc/
http://ping.blogg.de/
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.britblog.com/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.wpkeys.com/
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://www.imblogs.net/ping/
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

[1] http://okaq.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!6B4E54BBBC285F4E!2262.entry

During today's workshop at ICRA, the "actuator coffee machine" was the very only source of any kind of liquid. In addition to the coffee you got a show how to brew and serve coffee as no other coffee machine can do.

Video: Sophisticated actuator coffee machine

Jeremy Hermann's is my blogger of the day. During de-pressurization and emergency landing procedures [1] this guy kept calm and started making pictures for his blog...

[1] http://jeremyhermanns.org/me/alaska-flight-536-rapid-de-pressurization-and-panic-at-30k-feet/

My very first encounter with Second Life [2] was rather disillusioning.

IMHO not a Web 2.0 application... So I will stay with my first life.

[1] http://secondlife.com/whatis/

Since my supervisor was recently appointed to a professorship [1], I changed universities this month. Due to this change I updated my research page [2] now including my current research.

[1] http://www.fb9dv.uni-duisburg.de/vs/en/index.htm
[2] http://www.aheil.de/Research.aspx

Yesterday, I received the deeply sad message that Prof. Karen Spärck Jones [1] died in the age of 71. During last year's Microsoft Research Summer School she was one of the judges members evaluating the student's posters - such as mine [2]. The critics have been quite hard but effective, clearly telling what was missing and what has to be improved. One of the few valuable reviews.

Some of her  artwork can be seen in the public area at Microsoft Research in Cambridge in of the Roger Needham Building. Whenever you attend a talk or lecture there, you should have a look...

[1] http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~ksj21/
[2] http://www.aheil.de/Research.aspx