If you missed Wednesday’s "Deploying Internationalized Applications Using ClickOnce" MSDN Webcast you can now download it here. This was my first webcast and I think it shows but the good news is that there is stacks of information in this webcast that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you’re looking for more information on this subject I cover this comprehensively in Chapter 4, Windows Forms Specifics of .NET Internationalization.

Enjoy.

Here’s your final reminder for Wednesday’s MSDN webcast entitled "Deploying Internationalized Applications Using ClickOnce" at 6:00pm BST (10:00am Pacific Time). Full details are available here.

Shop windows have been unboarded, the bunting has been put away and cats, dogs and small children can be let out to play: The Chaps have returned home from their tri-annual 4 Chaps event. Speaking to a representative of The Swindon Mayhem Containment Society (SMaCS), Mike Bawden (the Mayor of Swindon) was heard to say "Thank God that’s over for another 3 years". As Tudor, Scott, Long and Smith-Ferrier, aka 4 Chaps From Blighty, left Swindon under police escort, the military begun the process of stepping down. A local Swindon man (who for obvious reasons did not want to be named) had this to say: "Forget 120 arrests in Stuttgart. We survived a visit by The 4 Chaps. And most of my family are still alive". He went on to say that a lovely semi-detatched with resplendent rose bushes and floral arrangements is expected to be for sale in another 2 years and 363 days.

From left to right: Brian Long, Steve Tudor, Steve Scott, Guy Smith-Ferrier.

When criticized that putting the Royal Navy on full alert and cancelling all leave was over-reacting the Home Secretary had this to say "Everyone thought all of the preparation for the Y2K bug was overkill after the event. But what would have happened if we hadn’t done all that preparation ?".

4 Chaps spokesperson, Steve Tudor, left with these final words: "Honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. We just came to have some beer and a chat. I really think you’re over-reacting".

I am delighted to announce that I will be presenting a second webcast for MSDN on the subject of Creating Custom Cultures in the .NET Framework 2.0. Custom Cultures are a great addition to the .NET Framework and this session explains how to create them and, more importantly, how useful they can be.

Date: Tuesday 11th July 2006
(The World Cup ends on 9th July.)

Time: 5:00pm GMT (9:00am Pacific Time)

Duration: 1 hour

Description: In the Microsoft .NET Framework, the CultureInfo class (a "culture") identifies globalization information such as language, time of day, numerical formats, and calendars. The .NET Framework includes a library of cultures, but you may need a custom culture. This webcast describes how to create custom cultures and use them in .NET Framework 2.0 applications. We demonstrate the essential steps of using the CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder class including a look at its properties and methods, and follow with an example of using CultureTypes.UserCustomCultures. See how to modify existing cultural information or to create completely new cultures, and how to export cultures for one version of Windows to another.

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of the .NET Framework 1.1 or 2.0.

To attend you need to register by going here and clicking on the "Register for This Live Webcast" button.

TechEd US is over for another year. This entry is just a collection of bits from the last week that you might find interesting:-

WinFX has been renamed "The .NET Framework 3.0" and will ship sometime between November 2006 and January 2007. You can find out all about the .NET Framework 3.0 at http://www.netfx3.com where you can also find a link to download it.

The June CTP of the .NET Framework 3.0 will be released week commencing 19th June 2006.

Office 2007 will ship in October 2006.

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) Release Candidate 1 will be included in the .NET Framework 3.0 June CTP. Windows Workflow Foundation is included in Office 2007 which ships in October (i.e. before the release of the .NET Framework 3.0) so I’m uncertain as to how it will be packaged.

Internet Explorer 7 will ship in Q2 2006. Beta 3 will be released this Summer.

If you have a need to Blue Screen Of Death your computer for any particular reason you can do so with Sysinternals’ NotMyFault.

If you need yet more geek T-shirts you could try http://www.errorwear.com which has a collection of T-Shirts showing famous errors.

Robert Ingebretsen (a WPF Program Manager at Microsoft) is the current holder of my new award for The Saddest Person Ever. He wins hands down with this fantastic entry: Robert once spent 45 minutes looking at and playing with the mouse pointer in Windows 2000 when he first saw Windows 2000 because he thought the drop down shadow on the mouse pointer was so interesting. If you know of other examples of individuals who are spectacularly tragic please let me know and I will enter them into my competition.

The TechEd 2006 Event Night was a trip to Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Fenway Park is an old (in baseball terms) baseball stadium (circa 1912) and the Red Sox are feeling fairly chuffed with having won the World Series in 2004 for the first time in 58 years. In UK terms this is equivalent to a trip to Highbury (Arsenal’s Football Ground) assuming that Arsenal hadn’t won the Premiership since Arthur sat at a circular table.

Two bands played. The first was fairly ordinary so based on a description of the second band, Train, being a bit like a soft rock band I bailed. This morning I discover that they are a Led Zep cover band so I am gutted.

Tuesday: I was delighted to have witnessed two superb presentations today.

You may have seen presentations on PowerShell (the application formerly known as Monad) at various events. Today I saw "Windows PowerShell: Next Generation Command Line Scripting" presented by Jeffrey Snover. Jeffrey is the PowerShell Architect and consequently he should know what he is talking about and he clearly does. However, he can also explain what he knows and, as we all know, the two skills do not always go together. Jeffrey’s presentation was highly focused and very well presented. This was one of the best sessions I have seen so far. If you missed this presentation you can see him on Channel 9 at http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=25506. Well worth your time. And, by the way, PowerShell, in case you haven’t already heard, is phenominal and you should spend time looking at this.

The other presentation of the day for me was "Advanced Windows Troubleshooting with Sysinternals Filemon and Regmon" by Mark Russinovich (of Sysinternals fame) and David Solomon. Of course, any chance you get to hear Mark Russinovich talking about any Sysinternals tools should be snapped up but this was a treat even going into it with such high expectations. I must admit that I am a bit dubious about duet presentations but the combination of Mark and David was as good as any I have seen. They really do work well together as a presentation team. On the technical side I was also pleased that despite having used FileMon and Regmon for some time I also learned new strategies for their use. You can download a sample of their co-presentation skills at The Sysinternals Video Library.

Wednesday: Today’s star presentation was Chris Han on "Windows Presentation Foundation: Building Rich Content Experiences with Windows Presentation Foundation". This is one of the best presentations I have seen. Chris’s delivery was excellent but the outstanding part of this presentation was the considerable preparation that had gone into Chris’s slides. Virtually every point that he made was illustrated visually (which is essential in a subject which is all about visuals) but each visual was only necessary for long enough to cover the explanation before moving swiftly on to the next. The pacing was spot on and he managed to explain subjects which most Windows developers without a typography background have probably never considered. Chris blogged about this presentation here providing links to some of the demos that he used. If you want to see why WPF is such a leap forward take a look at the New York Times’ Times Reader in this link and also the WPF Dashboard. This is what all Windows apps should look like in the future.

TechEd is a long conference. I’m not sure how much everyone appreciates the long hours and gruelling pace attendees put in just to keep up. For example, take a look at these attendees putting in hour after hour of dedication at a popular deep dive session (some of them even had to stand up for the whole session):-
Note to Microsoft TechEd Organizers for TechEd 2010:- The World Cup is on again every! four years (no, it’s true).

If you give presentations then you might be interested in a new free tool from Sysinternals called Zoomit.

Zoomit allows you to zoom an area of the screen and to draw on it. The zooming facility is similar to the Windows magnify utility and the same effect you can get from the Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000. The drawing facility is similar to the effect that you can get in the PowerPoint viewer with the rather important difference that you can draw on anything and not just PowerPoint slides. Overuse of the zooming facility can be a bit irritating for the audience but this still looks like an excellent tool.