later tonight, daylight savings time in north america will end, one week later than usual. you can see some more details on the new DST start/end times on http://www.microsoft.com/time (this is a new URL reference for future references to DST/time zone changes/issues beyond 2007).
for a list of microsoft products that might be impacted, see the Product Impact Support page as well as the DST/TZ hot topics page. make sure your windows mobile devices have the correct information as well or if older, have had the windows mobile patch applied.
for developers, visual studio specific information can be found here:
as always, if you have questions, please let me know in the comments below or view my contact information for various ways to get in touch with me.
well, kinda. i just found out that if you live anywhere near memphis, tn that you might want to head over to the memphis day of .net. charles petzold, the master, will be delivering the keynote. he aims to "explore the continuing love/hate relationship that both users and programmers have with graphics, and how WPF and Silverlight may change that relationship..."
aside from the keynote, petzold has indicated that he'll be hanging out for the rest of the day to chat about WPF 3D, animation, or whatever. if you are in the area, this sounds like a must-be-at event. it is free, so you have no excuse not to be there on 10 NOV!
36 teams. 1 winner. join the phizzpop design challenge. from the site:
"The PhizzPop Design Challenge pits top interactive, Web, and design agencies against one another to push the limits of technology and creativity in a battle royale."
if you want to join in the festivities, go register for a location at the phizzpop design challenge site. the first of these challenges happened earlier this year in san francisco and looked like a great time. the teams were presented with a challenge use case and given time to come up with a solution. various implementations in various technologies emerged (ajax, windows presentation foundation, silverlight, etc.) and a winner was chosen by the design community judges.
design smackdown baby.
use expression encoder for creating silverlight media applications? want to put them on silveright streaming? frustrated perhaps that you have to create a zip file with manifests and such? look no further!
james clarke writes about a feature just added to expression encoder (via a download) where you can now add 'publish to silverlight streaming' after your encoding job is completed. w00t!
you'll need to get the encoder plugin (assuming you have encoder first) and just install that. the post on james' site walks you through the steps, but it is a no brainer. i'd previously written about customizing your own encoder templates as well and making them a part of the encoder selection options for output. good thing is that those custom templates are just like any other and they are supported for this plugin as well. in fact, one of my last posts that used silverlight streaming was uploaded by this tool, using a custom template as well. very cool, very fast to get up and running using someone else's bandwidth (and for free) :-).
in a world of changing technology, when we look for places to put our apps, we're probably looking for people who are on the cutting edge of the frameworks as well. i want to draw your attention to discountasp.net. why? well, for one their feature set rocks.
- free iis7/.net 3.5 hosting during the beta (one of the early adopter hosters)
- real-time data backup tools
- great sql support with tooling as well
- silverlight support (meaning they support the default mime types)
- your own apppool
- asp.net ajax and ajax control toolkit support
- etc., etc.
if you are a microsoft web developer and need a place to host, you should give them a try, and the price is great as well. when you sign up as well they will give you 3 MONTHS FREE HOSTING!
but there is another reason why i like discountasp.net. they support our communities well. through my involvement with user groups over the past 12 or so years, there are many vendors that really support communities well, and these guys are one of them. in the past they've provided community organizations a free hosting account to get going and build their communities. i think this level of commitment to building and supporting a broad developer ecosystem is great.
so if you need a host, check them out and take advantage of their 3 months free for their plans!