This article explains how to extend the standard .NET event and delegate mechanism with extra features

We just published some new whitepapers discussing high level concepts of .NET Framework 3.5 which I hope you will find useful. Introducing the .NET Framework 3.5 by David Chappell This paper drills into each of the new features added in the .NET Framework...(read more)

THE telco is eight weeks ahead of schedule with its information technology transformation known as TR1, with TR2 waiting in the wings.

We published another version of the .NET Framework common Namespaces and Types poster . It's an XPS format file which prints over 16 individual pages. This will allow you to put the poster on your wall, with the help of some tape and scissors....(read more)

I recently came across a new poster Microsoft released that provides a nice view of common types and namespaces in the .NET Framework 3.5.  You can download a PDF version of the poster here.

 

Over in the microsoft.public.win32.programmer.international newsgroup, JohnD asked:

Hello all,

I have an interest in calling KbdLayerDescriptor.

Michaels blog here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/michkap/archive/2004/12/22/329657.aspx

reports that the return of KbdLayerDescriptor is defined in "kdb.h".

I've downloaded the "Windows Driver Kit for Windows Vista", but I cannot find kbd.h or anything relevant in there.

Where can I get kbd.h? Is it part of one of the other Microsoft SDKs/DDKs?

Thanks in advance.

/john

If JohnD had asked in the blog's Suggestion Box or as a reply to that post (%WINDIR%\system32\kbd*.dll) I probably would have seen the question sooner!:-)

Anyway, I have had several of the various DDK/WDK packages installed plus being enlisted in various source code projects at Microsoft, so here are three reliable places to find the file:

• If you are internal to Microsoft and work in a source code project that picks up the NT Publics, it can be found at oak\inc\kbd.h.
• If you have MSKLC 1.3 or 1.4 installed, it can be found in the MSKLC installation directory, at inc\kbd.h.
• If you install the Windows Driver Kit, it can be found in the WDK install directory, under inc\api\kbd.h (sample projects using it can be found in the WDK install directory under src\input\layout).

There are other DDK/WDK type installations that also have it, so in all likelihood if you have one installed some casual spelunking through inc directories might be worth a look.

John had a follow-up question a few days later after he found the file (on his own, via the third bullet point above):

Am I correct in assuming that typedef KbdLayerDescriptor returns a struct tagKbdLayer?

This is a great time to look at those samples I mention above -- with the exception of conceptual topics, code is always the best documentation, dontcha think? :-)

I must admit that I am always curious about what people are trying to do when they want to call a keyboard layout DLL directly. It has come up probably about 15 times over the last five years, in all but one case it was not really what was needed....

 

This post brought to you by ᢤ (U+18a4, a.k.a. MONGOLIAN LETTER MANCHU ALI GALI ZHA - a letter that is not on the Vista keyboard for Mongolian, for hopefully obvious reasons?)

A fun Silverlight implementation of the game Sokoban. Contrasting Silverlight 1.1 and WPF, while showcasing some new features of C# 3.0, Expression Design, Expression Blend, and Visual Studio 2008.

This application will bind search results from the Windows Live Search Webservice to a GridView Control and make use of AJAX 1.0 for searching and paging.

Scott Guthrie, bless his heart, has posted one of the longest and most in-depth blog entry I've seen from him in a long time (and most of his tend to be long and full of great nuggets).

This is everything you need to know about the new MVC framework that is coming out from his group soon as an alternative to WebForms (not a replacement). It walks through a typical storefront example showcasing how the MVC does its thing. It's a nice piece of work although you might want to read his overview post which will get you familiar with MVC.

For the record, his post has 5,648 words; 34,768 characters; 146 paragraphs; has 177 comments (so far); and is about 32 pages long.

Now that's a blog post!

Over in the microsoft.public.win32.programmer.internatiomnal newsgroup, Norman Diamond mentioned:

Since Office XP is no longer supported, code pages 1.25012511252125E+26 and 2.50125112521253E+25 are obviously old ones not new ones. I wonder why I never heard of floating point code pages before.

Reference:
http://www.microsoft.com/japan/office/ork/three/inte03.mspx

Screenshot:
http://www.geocities.jp/hitotsubishi/ms_code_pages.png

Well, for the record, Office XP, while no longer in regular support, is in extended support until July 12, 2011. So support will in fact be supporting the product for a little whole yet, in terms of the full product lifecycle....

But that page Norman pointed to is rather amusing, all things considered, given the data in the table related to code page coverage within fonts....

When you consider entries like 932936950 for MingLiU, which are clearly meant to be 932, 936, 950, the exact number meant by 1.25012511252125E+26 vaguely suggests 1250, 1251, 1252, 125<cut off by the incorrect parsing as a number), which is lucky since none of the code page functions take anything other than integers....

Worthy of a chuckle, in any case, right? :-)

 

This post brought to you by リ (U+30ea, a.k.a. KATAKANA LETTER RI)

I'm always excited to publish new authors on SingingEels.com, especially with fun topics like Silverlight and ASP.NET AJAX. Michael O’Brien, who hails from Dublin, Ireland has contributed the following articles:

• Creating Your First ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 Application
• Getting Started With Silverlight

Great articles... check them out when you get some spare time.

With the release of ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008 just around the corner, now is the time to discover the new features that will empower your Web development and make building great Web sites easier than ever.

I recently discovered this very interesting article that covers the basics of configuring and using SSO with Microsoft SharePoint 2007, especially when creating views and forms on external SQL Server databases using Windows authentication.  This is a very worthwhile read for  SharePoint developers and integrators.

An Introduction to Single-Sign-On (SSO) with Data Views

Enjoy!

 

I'm in Barcelona this week for TechEd EMEA. The talk I gave today was about getting Windows Workflow Foundation hosted in ASP.NET. It was based on a quickstart sample that we built a couple of months ago and was recently updated to run on Visual Studio...(read more)

The Web Services Policy Working Group has published two Group Notes: Web Services Policy 1.5 - Primer and Web Services Policy 1.5 - Guidelines for Policy Assertion Authors . The former introduces the Web Services Policy language with examples. The latter explains how to use the relevant specifications to maximize interoperability....(read more)