Archive for March, 2010

Why would you want the “Bing insanity” to stop?

Microsoft’s Bing gets frequently bashed for being a hopeless project. But should Microsoft kill it off and focus on other things? Business Insider’s Henry Blodget pushed out a blog post calling Bing “still toast”. I recommend reading the article as it provides an interesting insight into what feeds the search giants. The article also makes […]

March 30, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · 4 Comments
Posted in: Web

So what’s this OfficeTalk?

At a meeting today it was revealed that not all my colleagues had yet heard of OfficeTalk. Since they’re probably not the only ones, here’s a short summary. OfficeTalk is a research project by Microsoft’s Office Labs, a group that researches things in the information worker domain. Very, very little has been said about OfficeTalk, […]

March 24, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · 3 Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Information Worker

How slow is database access, really?

Many modern applications use relational databases. Performance optimization discussions often end with the statement “If you’re hitting a database, nothing else really matters”. Is that really so? Note: This post is written to provide a rough idea of the performance impact magnitudes involved in database access. There is no substitute for local measurements. To test […]

March 23, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · 3 Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: .NET, Misc. programming

My “PowerShell for Developers” presentation video is now available (in Finnish)

As much as I dislike seeing myself on video, my “PowerShell kehittäjille” (“PowerShell for Developers”) video from TechDays Finland 2010 (held on 9th-10th March 2010) is now available for viewing. Click here to check out the 56 minutes of pure PowerShell glory! In case you’re missing the presentation material, it was posted earlier.

March 23, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · No Comments
Posted in: .NET

Internet Explorer 9, web standards and Acid3

Since the MIX10 IE9 announcement last week, discussion around IE9’s standards support has been raging. For years, Internet Explorer has been ridiculed for lousy scores on tests such as Acid3, which delivers a percentage score of standards compliance. Chrome and Opera score a 100, Firefox rolls up to 94 and IE8… Well, IE8 cranks out […]

March 22, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · One Comment
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Web

MIX10 Day 2 Keynote highlights

Day 1 was focused on Silverlight and Windows Phone 7, and it wasn’t a bad day at all. Can Day 2 top that? Judge yourself, here’s my summary for the keynote. Internet Explorer 9 Platform preview version announced, now ready for download. Updates coming approximately every 8 weeks IE 9 planned from the ground to […]

March 16, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · One Comment
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: .NET, Web

MIX10 Day 1 Keynote highlights

Allright! MIX10 has been kicked off with day one. Here’s my list of highlights of the keynote announcements. You can also check out the keynote video. The following notes also contain some references to various offsets in the video. The Keynote started with a Bing Maps video (21:50 – 24:20) featuring Blaise Aguera y Arcas. […]

March 16, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · 2 Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: .NET, Web

PowerShell for Developers: Slides for my TechDays 2010 Finland presentation

If you’re after my slides for my TechDays 2010 presentation earlier today (“PowerShell kehittäjille”, a.k.a. PowerShell for Developers), look no further. Unfortunately, the material is in Finnish only. You can find the slides and one of the demo scripts in a single zip package. Also, if you want the WebNote demo, the solution is available […]

March 9, 2010 · Jouni Heikniemi · One Comment
Tags:  Â· Posted in: .NET