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TechEd 2008 Developers: An introduction
This week is Microsoft's TechEd 2008 Developers in Barcelona and gladly my employer gave me a change to go visit it. My goal was to write a blog post about it every day, but frankly the schedule is tight and Barcelona beautiful. That means that afterwards I don't go looking for an internet cafe to do my blogging. Instead, me and some of my colleagues go looking for a nice restaurant and go to bed early, because the sessions begin early in the morning again.
Like I did with the DevDays, I will be addressing some of the sessions I attended, but since my time is limited, I won't be able to do that this week. Instead, some visual impressions of the past days:
Waiting for the Keynote speech to start
Jason Zander (General Manager Visual Studio) talks about Visual Studio 2010 and what developing for Windows 7 means.
Waiting outside before the sessions begin. In the afternoon It is about 20 degrees celcius in Barcelona.
Barcelona Bonus Photo
The columbus statue near the busy street La Rambla. One of the many beautiful things in Barcelona.
Like I did with the DevDays, I will be addressing some of the sessions I attended, but since my time is limited, I won't be able to do that this week. Instead, some visual impressions of the past days:
Waiting for the Keynote speech to start
Jason Zander (General Manager Visual Studio) talks about Visual Studio 2010 and what developing for Windows 7 means.
Waiting outside before the sessions begin. In the afternoon It is about 20 degrees celcius in Barcelona.
Barcelona Bonus Photo
The columbus statue near the busy street La Rambla. One of the many beautiful things in Barcelona.Windows 7 - Facts and rumor
The next version of Windows is dubbed "Windows 7". These are some facts and rumors I came across. Please feel free to add or correct. I'm only human.
What is MinWin?
Windows 7 will include a new kernel, but MinWin is not that kernel. MinWin is a strip down of Windows to a complete minimum to create a "clear architectural layer". It is 25megs big and runs on 40megs of memory. It actually is the core of Windows 7. The MinWin layer is part of the Windows 7 code base. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNsS_0wSfoU. Currently MinWin is referred to as "Windows 7 Core". The result. No more useless HD-activity. No more strange slowdowns in copying data. Etc...
So what is the kernel?
Well, that remains uncertain. Vista's version is "Version 6.0". The screenshots of Windows 7 builds show "Version 6.1" as the version. Not much of a 7 there. According to Eric Traut it should be Version 7.0. But maybe the early versions didn't include the new kernel, or maybe even the new core yet. We'll find out soon.
Is it Vista?
Yes it is. Windows blackcomb/longhorn (for those who still remember) was supposed to be a complete new Windows. The .NET runtime would be the core of a lot of applications. Avalon, Indigo. It al became part of the .NET Framework and was purged from the Windows project. Windows 7 is no different. Steve Ballmer said: "It's Vista, but a whole lot better".
Major differences with vista?
• No legacy User Interfaces anymore. Wordpad, Notepad and Paint get the ribbon interface instead of the file-edit-view bar. Even the UI of calculator is rewritten.
• The UAC interface will be optimized.
• Windows 7 will include multitouch. Asus is even going to release a multitouch EeePC by the end of 2009. (Woohoo!)
• Speed ups. A major feature (go figure) of Windows 7 will be that it will offer just as much (and more) as Vista, but with betters speeds and less clutter. This is still a bit "rumory", but the use of a new kernel, a Windows 7 Core and the Vista fail, we can safely say Microsoft wants to clean up a mess.
When?
Next week at the PDC, previews of Windows 7 will be released. According to softpedia, the release will be at July 2009. Sound pretty darn fast to me, but then again: maybe it's good to forget about vista and start incrementally update a system that is build with a vision and build to last. Who knows?
Final words
Be cautious with optimism. We must learn from the past. Microsoft did promise us a new world of personal computing before and Vista was the result. Gladly, Microsoft is being far more realistic about the future nowadays. http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/ is a nice blog by the Windows 7 team to keep up with their plans.
What is MinWin?
Windows 7 will include a new kernel, but MinWin is not that kernel. MinWin is a strip down of Windows to a complete minimum to create a "clear architectural layer". It is 25megs big and runs on 40megs of memory. It actually is the core of Windows 7. The MinWin layer is part of the Windows 7 code base. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNsS_0wSfoU. Currently MinWin is referred to as "Windows 7 Core". The result. No more useless HD-activity. No more strange slowdowns in copying data. Etc...
So what is the kernel?
Well, that remains uncertain. Vista's version is "Version 6.0". The screenshots of Windows 7 builds show "Version 6.1" as the version. Not much of a 7 there. According to Eric Traut it should be Version 7.0. But maybe the early versions didn't include the new kernel, or maybe even the new core yet. We'll find out soon.
Is it Vista?
Yes it is. Windows blackcomb/longhorn (for those who still remember) was supposed to be a complete new Windows. The .NET runtime would be the core of a lot of applications. Avalon, Indigo. It al became part of the .NET Framework and was purged from the Windows project. Windows 7 is no different. Steve Ballmer said: "It's Vista, but a whole lot better".
Major differences with vista?
• No legacy User Interfaces anymore. Wordpad, Notepad and Paint get the ribbon interface instead of the file-edit-view bar. Even the UI of calculator is rewritten.
• The UAC interface will be optimized.
• Windows 7 will include multitouch. Asus is even going to release a multitouch EeePC by the end of 2009. (Woohoo!)
• Speed ups. A major feature (go figure) of Windows 7 will be that it will offer just as much (and more) as Vista, but with betters speeds and less clutter. This is still a bit "rumory", but the use of a new kernel, a Windows 7 Core and the Vista fail, we can safely say Microsoft wants to clean up a mess.
When?
Next week at the PDC, previews of Windows 7 will be released. According to softpedia, the release will be at July 2009. Sound pretty darn fast to me, but then again: maybe it's good to forget about vista and start incrementally update a system that is build with a vision and build to last. Who knows?
Final words
Be cautious with optimism. We must learn from the past. Microsoft did promise us a new world of personal computing before and Vista was the result. Gladly, Microsoft is being far more realistic about the future nowadays. http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/ is a nice blog by the Windows 7 team to keep up with their plans.
Apple to Developers: We love you, we listen
Just a quick note: In a previous blog post I mentioned that Apple iPhone developers cannot talk about their work, because of an NDA. Well, the great news is: Apple listened to the complaining (well, at least after the top iPhone developers were threatening with leaving to Android 
) and drops the NDA. The announcement is done on their iPhone developers program website:
) and drops the NDA. The announcement is done on their iPhone developers program website:We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.
We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.
However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.
Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.
Google Chrome: A web browser by Google
Whether Google is "the chosen company" to bring happiness in software land or is Big Brother itself, we can discuss. But we can all agree on one thing: Google's business is in the web browser. Nearly all advertisements and other Google activities are build in web technology such as HTML. While they were supporting Firefox as an alternative to Internet Explorer, Google had a little secret, which came out just yesterday: Google Chrome. A web browser by Google. Read all about in their announcement: http://googleblog.blogspo...resh-take-on-browser.html.
A few highlights:
A few highlights:
- WebKit rendering engine. Used in different products such as Apples' Safari. Originally part of the KDE project. Becoming increasingly popular.
- Tab-sandbox. Each tab runs in a sandbox, which means that if one tab crashes, the others remain operational. Also, if you log in on one tab, you're not logged in on other tabs. Sessions are tab-scoped.
- Tabs are more than just a web site instance. They're a browser instance. Each tab has its own forward & back buttons, its own addressbar and so forth. We saw this design in early beta's of Internet Explorer 7.
- V8 JavaScript virtual machine. A JavaScript engine built from scratch. Supposedly to "power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers". Sounds promising.
The reason why Linux's desktop market-share is 1%
Typical conversations with a relative about his or her computer which, because of you, runs Ubuntu:
"Can I have MSN on my Laptop?"
"You have"
"No, this is not MSN. On Kates' laptop it looks different."
"I can't get The Sims to install"
"That's because it won't run on Ubuntu."
"Here. Try TuxRacer"
"I want to view this DVD, but the player says it cannot open the disk"
"You have to install the xine_d4d_plugin."
"How? I can't find it in the software database"
"Just dowload the source, then ./configure, make and make install"
"......"
"I bought a webcam, to work with skype, but I cannot get the sound to work during a session"
"That's because the sound device is in use by gstreamer. You have to disable gstreamer and turn on OSS emulation for Alsa by installing snd-pcm-oss to get it to work."
"Wait.... what?"
Here you go. The reason why Linux's desktop market-share is 1%.
"Can I have MSN on my Laptop?" "You have" "No, this is not MSN. On Kates' laptop it looks different." "I can't get The Sims to install""That's because it won't run on Ubuntu." "Here. Try TuxRacer" "I want to view this DVD, but the player says it cannot open the disk" "You have to install the xine_d4d_plugin." "How? I can't find it in the software database" "Just dowload the source, then ./configure, make and make install" "......" "I bought a webcam, to work with skype, but I cannot get the sound to work during a session" "That's because the sound device is in use by gstreamer. You have to disable gstreamer and turn on OSS emulation for Alsa by installing snd-pcm-oss to get it to work." "Wait.... what?"Here you go. The reason why Linux's desktop market-share is 1%.