The cool thing on this one is they don't have alot of text choices you select from an array of images for each question.  Aside from the 'gross' questions which I don't think were sufficiently gross... it was a cool diversion...

This is just cool on soooo many fronts from cancer to scifi technology that it deserves a link...  I guess it falls under the category of where your breast cancer research dollars go - cause lets face it this kind of cutting edge stuff ain't cheap.

http://health.msn.com/centers/breastcancer/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100157845&GT1=9192

What seems like a really long time ago (~18 months) I made a post regarding the introduction in .NET 2.0 of Partial Classes.  It's available here: http://blogs.interknowlogy.com/billsheldon/archive/2005/10/25/546.aspx. As part of this post I assert that in my opinion Partial classes are a feature and given the specific question I was addressing at the time that they are better in certain scenarios then abstract classes for managing complexity within a single class.  (Note that abstract classes solve a different issue and have an appropriate place in OO engineering.)

So why revisit this issue, well in part because someone posted a comment to that post earlier today which brought it to mind, along with the additional thoughts which I'm bringing up. You see the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) uses the eXtensible Application Markup Language (XAML) and extensions to this language to *declare* a user interface.  This user interface is then combined with traditional development languages to add custom behavior to the UI.  To get a real in-depth on WPF I recommend the soon to be released book by Chris Anderson: http://www.aw-bc.com/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0321503570,00.html The book will be getting released in early April and having seen some of the early materials I can say I definitely recommend it to people looking to really understand WPF's model.

However, part of what you quickly realize with WPF is that the XAML which declares (describes) a user interface element, (a window, a page or a control) is then associated with a traditional OO class.  This class in .NET is implemented as a partial class.  This isn't done for any of the reasons that people discussed as advantages of partial classes in the past or by anyone at the time of the release of .NET 2.0.  .NET 3.0 introduces a new concept to .NET languages in that you now have a model where a class can be defined across two different language implementations.  Not just syntactically different language implementation, but litterally process oriented vs declarative language implementations.

Think about it, with WPF part of your class is defined in a declarative programming style which essentially names the library classes to leverage.  This includes non logic driven portions of your class implementation, for example applying style attribues, defining the display color and positioning and even limited behavior.  At the same time your UI class also consists of traditional language elements to handle custom event behavior and implement application logic.  These two unrelated syntax elements combine to create your user interface and with partial classes you gain a way to leverage these two disparate languages within a single class.

It's not limited to WPF, Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) does the same thing.  In both cases the implementation of partial classes allows a developer to describe/implement a portion of the class in the language which is most appropriate for that implementation. Anyway it's just one of those things.

BTW - I don't know if I've mentioned in this arena but is everyone aware of why the abbreviation for Windows Workflow Foundation is only two characters? Think about it WPF, WCF all have 3 characters until WF which would logically be WWF.  Most Americans immediately respond - wrestling since one of our sports-entertainment industries went by the name Worldwide Wrestling Federation.  However, what most people don't immediately realize is that WWF is no longer around, there is now a WWE, but the Wrestlers gave up the WWF moniker - not by choice but because since 1961 the World Wildlife Fund which started in relation to Panda conservation holds a copyright on those initials.  Microsoft needless to say wanted no potential conflict with this same organization and as a result Windows Workflow Foundation is abreviated WF... for backing information I reference this link: http://www.sportslawnews.com/archive/Articles%  202000/wwftrademark.htm  Think about it, WPF is the Wells Fargo's stock ticker and there are several organizations using WCF none of which scared Microsoft.  At least not nearly so much so as those who represent the Panda Bear - http://wwf.org or for a better feel of just how much money is involved: http://www.justgive.org/worldwildlifefund/weddings/index.jsp

I guess it's just too bad that MS didn't think to use "Library" instead of "Foundation" in the names for these new class libraries: WWL, WPL, WCL... but even I think those look weird now.

For those of you like me who have made the leap to Vista... well to quote Bugs Bunny "Watch out for that first step Doc, it's a doozy!"

There have been a few developer and even a consumer related compatibility issue which have at various points caught me offguard.  There is of course the fact that Visual Studio 2005 isn't quite fully compatible - to the extent that the release version of SP1 for Visual Studio 2005 on Vista was delayed.  Other issues of course related to things like SQL Express and drivers.

However there were two that really concerned me.  The first was MSN, when I upgraded from Vista MSN was basically dead. (Yes I actually have an MSN dial-up account - and get this I actually use the dial-up account when I'm up in the mountains without cable and with little to no cell phone coverage and spotty satelite coverage...)  Fortunately, by the time I next needed my dial-up account Microsoft had released a fix (MSN 9.5) which is Vista compatible - which is good since this is a consumer product and kinda sad that the OS folks cut the entire MSN product line off at the knees...  At any rate if you have an MSN account it's a 45MB download so I suggest getting the updated install before you actually are limited to just a phone line (Not to mention that if your MSN is down you can't access it via phone...)

The other big concern for me was Virtual PC.  I use VPC alot, no I mean like constantly - I'm currently working with a client who has a VB6 application and I use VPC to host the Visual Studio 6.0 development environment and the application.  Unfortunately VPC 2004 was another application which isn't compatible with Vista, fortunately Microsoft had a Beta of VPC 2007 available and it has worked reasonably well.  However, in catching up with Tim Sneath's blog this morning he had a link to Mike Swanson's blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/archive/2007/02/19/virtual-pc-2007-released.aspx) who on Monday posted about the release of VPC 2007.

Mike does an excellent job of explaining VPC 2007 and has a link to the official homepage for VPC 2007.  If like me you are a bit impatient, well the link to the actual download is here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en.   By the way did I mention it's FREE - yep anyone and everyone can get VPC 2007...

If you are running a previous version (or at least the Beta version) of VPC you'll have to uninstall it prior to the installation (so I reccomend downloading the setup file vs. running via your browser.)  Once installed remember to upgrade the environment tools in each environment.  I know with the Beta one of our engineers found that trying to run a VPC built with the 2004 extensions made 'bad' things happen.  And with that my installation is about complete and I'm back to working in my VPC...

Tim Sneath recently added a post regarding the InterKnowlogy WPF application C-ME.  This application was originally developed for The Scripps Research Instititute and provides a Collaborative Modeling Environment.  What we mean by that this that you can model an image and as Tim's blog states, this might be a molecular structure or an engineering structure.  Of course model viewers exist everywhere and while it's a great graphical tool the goal of C-ME was to allow you to place annotations (from Notes and Word Documents through HTML links) directly into the context of the 3-D image.  Thus if you want to comment on some aspect of the image your comment stays in context.  This means instead of trying to describe the element associated with your comment you can literally attach the comment in 3-D space and the next person to review it can literally see what the comment is related to within the image.

Tim Sneath has more information, some comments from other people involved in the project, and links to exclusive downloads related to the application at his blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2007/02/14/great-wpf-applications-9-scripps-institute-cancer-research.aspx 

So earlier this week I finally completed my final chapter for the next Visual Basic book from Wiley/Wrox, "Professional VB 2005 with .NET 3.0" book.  The book is due to be released right around Tech Ed and you can view more information on it here:

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470124709.html.  For those of you familiar with the "Star Trek" movies - lets just say this is an even numbered release, but more on that at another time.... which since it's now complete should give me a little more time for blogging.

However as the title of this post notes it's about upcoming webcasts.  In my case I have a webcast this Friday February 23rd, the title is: "Introduction to the Authentication and Membership Controls of ASP.NET 2.0" .  This is one of two webcasts I'm doing on the topic of ASP.NET 2.0 membership.    This session is part of a special series being promoted by Microsoft and Dr. Dobbs focusing on introducing developers who are more familiar with tools like PHP and Cold Fusion to the power of ASP.NET.  In particular you'll find that I do all of my demonstrations using either Firefox or Opera as the browser to help illustrate how ASP.NET's built in membership controls are browser agnostic.  To register for this session or another session in the series click on the banner just below.  The scehduled time for my first membership session is Friday at 1:00PM Pacific Standard Time (4PM Eastern Standard Time) and you can find it under the category "Adv. ASP.NET 2.0".

The second session is titled "Customizing ASP.NET 2.0 Authentication and Membership" is available from the same location.  It's scheduled 1 week later (March 2nd) with the expectation that if you can attend the first session then you'll be able to attend the second session as well.

Also let me point out I'm not the only InterKnowlogy presenter.  Joel Rummerman, one of our up and coming engineers, will be presenting "ASP.NET AJAX Client Component Development".  Joel's session is rated as Level 400 because he goes in-depth in working with the AJAX component model, not just how to use AJAX but how to actually develop custom controls.  Joels session is available under the 'Web Designer' track and is scheduled for Thursday, March 1st at 9:00AM PST.

Another InterKnowlogy presenter is Tim McCarthy.  Tim is an experienced presenter who will be discussing "Taking Advantage of the Enterprise Library in Your Site".  Tim's presentation is also Friday March 2nd, however his presentation starts at 10:00 AM PST.  You can find a link to Tim's presentation on the ASP.NET 2.0 Track.

We look forward to seeing you in our sessions - and heck you can peruse some of the other valuable sessions, there are alot of great presenters participating in this program.

BTW, as noted in the graphic you get a 'web development kit' if you register for two or more sessions as part of this event. 

So with the arrival of Billy, my operation and work related activities to close out the second half of last year my biking has been almost non-existant.  While I normally like to get around 2000 miles a year in, last year I got in ~700 - which is sad and not healthy.  So it's time to start getting serious for this year, got my bike tuned up and a new chain and brake pads. I'm finishing up my work for Professional VB.NET 3.0 any day now and am starting to ride to and from work (a mere 8 miles each way).  Of course as part of getting serious again there is that little concept of goals and I have mine.  For starters although I took off last year for the birth of my son, I'll be back at the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure ride. 

Consider this an open invite to join me on either this ride or the Encinitas ride I describe below it.

The San Diego Tour de Cure is May 12th this year, leaving from Cuyamaca College in East San Diego County.  This ride is 10, 20, 30, 42 or 64 miles depending on the route you select.  The longer 42 and 64 mile, routes involves some significant climbing up into the hills of East San Diego County.  I'll be doing the metric century (64 miles ~100Kilometers) version of the ride again.  It is a fund raising ride for the American Diabetes Association and my fund raising site is here: Click here to visit my Tour de Cure page. 

for more information about the San Diego event you can go here: http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=entry&fr_id=4403

Back when I was first diagnosed with diabetes this ride was the both the reason I bought a road bike (in addition to my mountain bike) and the reason I upgraded that bike to have a triple front chain ring.  As described on their site the ride is challenging.  Given that I've regressed almost to the point where I was when I bought my bike I have my work cut out for me getting ready for this years ride.

In addition to that ride, this will be the inagural year for another ride here in San Diego County.  The Encinitas Sports and Fitness Festival is launching a San Diego Century ride.  The even has three ride lengths: 35, 72 and 105 miles that go through a portion of North San Diego County.  This ride is scheduled for May 19th of this year and is a fund raiser for the Challenged Athletes Association.

More information on the event is here:  http://www.encinitasrace.com/sdc/ 

The cost for the century ride is $50 on Active.com but  I haven't decided if I want to take on the century ride for this event.  I've done century rides in the past, and even difficult rides as this one looks to be.  However the route that has been posted concerns me.   Specifically it looks like you put in about 60 miles on a hilly course and then need to climb up into Ramona from just south of Poway.  Thus the major climb occurs three/fifths of the way into the ride which is a challenge.  Worse however is that this will probably hit between 11AM and 1PM for me (depending on start time and speed) and that means at the height of the day climbing during the heat of the day.  I have to see if I am really willing to take this on so I'm going to hold off registering for this ride.

Bill finishing the Tour de Poway century ride....

As for Fall - well I'll be looking for another century ride - Poway at a minimum hopefully, but more importantly I'll be looking to climb Palomar Mountain again.  I want to once again make it up without needing to stop during the 12 mile climb.

Feel free to join me for a ride.

Wanted to make the slides from my two presentations at this weekend's code camp available.  The first session was an introduction to ASP.NET 2.0 Membership, the second Session was going a bit more in-depth into customizing the Membership controls and setting up your authentication environment.

Session 1: Intro to Authentication ASP_NET 20.pps (1.44 MB)

Session 2: InDepth Authentication ASP_NET 20.pps (1.22 MB)

Feel free to ping me if you have any question.  Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Eventually this has the potential to be great news for literally hundreds of milliions of people.  It's still a long way out but seems to be on the right track.  It could bring about an end to two major and several minor charitable organizations and cure one of the most damaging diseases in terms of blindness and loss of limb that is out there.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=a042812e-492c-4f07-8245-8a598ab5d1bf&k=63970

Of course doctors/scientists and others have known for a while that inflamation in the pancreas and the destruction of the islets was the  source of diabetes and we've seen several initially promissing studies which then failed to pan out.  But as I've noted in the past, when researchers address the issue at it's source (the pancreas) they are in my opinion on the right track for a cure (as opposed to a treatment).  By the way this study would in my opinion fit with an earlier summary that said extremely high doses of aspirin which adressed inflamation in the kidney/pancreas by blocking certain enzymes:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2001-08-30-aspirin.htm

and it fits with another old study which I unfortunately don't have a link to which talked about a similar path to a cure for diabetes.

Unfortunately just like the past stories there are still alot of questions and it's way too early in the process to really think this WILL end diabetes, but at least its another step in the process of finding a cure.

One of the early hits on .NET development was that you needed to download the framework because it wasn't on the underlying operating system.  Thus if you wrote a .NET application for the general public, for it to work you would have to have them install the full framework.  The consensus amoung many was you wouldn't want to create a desktop application that relied on .NET.  Of course that was several years ago and while it still seems to be held by a few short sighted writers, the reality is that .NET applications are appearing in the public arena.  In the past 2 months of the 3 applications I've installed two of them were .NET applications.  The first was for Sirius satellite radio and streaming audio.  The benefit of being able to crank out an application in a fraction of the time required to write all that streaming logic using something like C++ undoubtedly played a major role.  The second application is called SplashStream - it's focus, you guessed it streaming video, in this case video associated with the TSTN training that I talked about.  The application streams the course content and provides a basic schedule UI.  As PCs focus less and less on supporting a browser and running Office and more on video, audio and photo content I expect this trend to continue.   Just for disclosure - the other application I installed Microsoft Active Sync (which reminds me every morning of the fact that I haven't associated with a device...) 

(By the way I'm also on a project with a .NET 2.0 Smart Client application which is sent out into the world at large...)