I just attended a Microsoft partner course “Whats New in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 for Existing Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Developers”, mucking about for three days with the new VS.

Here are my first impressions, which might have to be taken in with a pinch of salt, as I haven’t used the full product in a project yet (the one I am currently involved in uses Java Spring) and I haven’t played around with all the options it has. Furthermore, I am a purist and keyboard shortcut junkie when it comes to IDEs (chant ‘Weirdo’ now).

First of all: Microsoft kept their promise – ASP.NET 2.0 and VS 2005 does not muck around with our code as much. Sadly enough it offers the developer many options to do so instead. (more…)

If you like puzzle games and want to see really cool rust/dirt/moss inspired designs with off-beat humour and a dash of drug induced ambient music check out Samorost and Samorost2. I spent the money on the full version and must say it really was worth it. I want more of their stuff!

Tips & Tricks

It seems that a lot of people end up here looking for tips on solving Samorost2. Well, I don’t want to spoil your fun, but here are some (I solved the whole game):

• It seems that boiled poppy in water makes you sleep immediately and give up what you are holding. However, you cannot boil water someone else is drinking. You need to put a cork into it.
• Lizards like eating bugs, although they might not agree with them. Flies, however, are happy to deal with the remains.
• If there are colours on wheels, lining all of them up vertically (and really straight) gets you further
• You cannot go through dark tunnels without a torch, although you might need to enter one to find one.
• Flowers react with insects
• There is nothing better to wake up a cabbie than a strong boiled coffee. Light bulbs get very hot.
• Your dog is an odd creature, flowers don’t wilt when it pees on them, they grow.

Installing the .NET 2 framework to run CSS Vista corrupted my registry and the laptop went straight into BSOD when booting. Therefore I had to parallel install Windows (as the repair explanations on MSDN didn’t work) and got the chance to clean up the mess that accumulated over the last 3 years. It was a great feeling simply deleting folders to get rid of Software, much like a Mac…

Anyways, here is the Software I consider really necessary for me to work efficiently, maybe you can find some things you hadn’t used or known yet, and I am happy to get more tips in the comments. (more…)

Just got an URL from a friend that is too good to be kept just in my private stash: Sim Daltonism is a real-time colourblindness simulation app for Mac OsX. You can select what type of colourblindness you’ll like to simulate and a small window shows the area around the mousepointer with this filter enabled.

This little gem might save Vischeck.com some traffic and us less time spent copying+pasting into Photoshop (and checking with the Vischeck plugin).

I’ve been too busy this week to actually read the new webdesign magazine released by the folks at particletree. The first issue of Treehouse can be downloaded for free and you have a special offer of the next few issues for 15 dollars.

From a first glance I like what I see, although I am not too good with reading PDFs on this work machine (Thinkpad T40). For some reason I’d prefer a one column version, which could also be great for handhelds.

The content is a good mix of coding tips, best of the web links and interviews with some faces of web design / development. I am not too much of a fan of interviews that are not related to a product release or change, but focused on the person itself. We are web developers, not pop stars or big brother participants. Bad enough that every news agent is stacked with celebrity magazines.

I will buy the issues and see how it goes. A general “thumbs up” to particletree for taking the leap into developing this – it is a lot more work than it looks.