We had a nice little earthquake this evening which will led to a long night of after shocks.  5.6 centered about Aum Rock. not so far from home.

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc40204628.html

Brad Abrams is taking a poll, Allowing .NET EXEs to run off a network share.  There are a lot of useful solutions that are blocked by the current .NET policy.  I would like to see it go the way of the dodo.  It doesn't really offer protection since unmanaged code will execute from a network share.  Removing this default limitation would allow for true xcopy deployment.

Please vote early and often!

Things I learned today.

• Google wrote Google maps with asp.net and SQL.
• adding AJAX roll over data to a web client helps to increase scalability.
• Although you don't need any software to run a web client some how you still need a SQL server on the client.
• websites can be ergonomically designed!

Pinnacle Web does not require any software installation, local client, special downloads, or plug-ins, saving districts time and money in initial purchase costs and maintenance. Built using the same AJAX technologies employed by Google Maps, the gradebook provides users smooth scrolling, instant response rollover information, smart menus with drop-down options, and immediate, real-time information.
 
+ A new ergonomically designed interface, which reduces training requirements

+ Expanded mobility for educators, requiring access to only the Web and a SQL server

If your running Visual studio 2005 under Terminal services or Remote desktop and you find the editor constantly refreshing ( repainting, flickering ) Disable font smoothing on your remote desk top connection.  If you have your heart set on using font smoothing try courier as your editors font.

If you have not seen it yet Patrick Smacchia is showing off his free library to handle common and complex file path operations.  Its on CodePlex NDepend.Helpers.FilePathDirectory

Here is Patrick's class diagram

It nicely done some thing that MS should have offered in the DotNet Base Class Library.

Over on Carlo's blog(Gacutil not supported in production?) there is a small discussion about how to register an assembly into the GAC.  Microsoft Recomends using Windows Installer 2.  Gacutil is not really supported on production ( explains why its part of the sdk) but with the proper command line args /i and /r it can be used to register an assembly in to the GAC, however the license for Gacutil, only allows internal redeployment.  So an ISV would need a windows installer.  In the past I have seen System.EnterpriseServices.Internal.Publish.GacInstall used to foster GAC registration in an install shield ( install script). Not sure if it works the same as windows installer but it get the job done. Also of intrest System.EnterpriseServices.Internal.Publish.GacRemove

If your a lender and you tell the Press/Public that Foreclosures are bad and that your doing every thing you can not to foreclose, follow through.  The Truth about Mortgage reports a survey by California Reinvestment Collation "survey says few lenders making loan modifications".  The survey finds that while lenders have the intent to avoid foreclosure they are none the less avoiding loan modifications and foreclosing.  

Since I deal with a large VC++ of native-managed code I am glad to see Somasegar's list of VC++ performance enhancements in Visual studio 2008

· Editor responsiveness – Updating IntelliSense, displaying the QuickInfo tooltip and processing AutoComplete requests won’t degrade editor experience.

· Goto Definition improvements – Significant reduction in the time required to “Goto Definition”.  One customer reported that a 2 minute delay dropped to 10-20 seconds.

· Load solution performance – Load time of large Visual C++ solutions is much better.  Some customers are reporting speed ups of 25%-70%.

· File lookup in projects – Provides improvements to several scenarios such as adding files to projects, changing configurations, etc.

· Changing configuration options – Modifying options, such as adding an include directory or changing the active configuration, are much faster for large solutions.

· Reduced CPU consumption – We now process low-priority background items (such as IntelliSense population) using 20% less CPU time.

I have had to deal with slow IntelliSense and solution load times. All of these issues affect my daily use of VS.  Its great that the VC++ is finally able to address them.  Its even better to hear there will be a patch for VS 2005.

Scott Gu announced the releasing of .Net framework libraries (Microsoft Reference License).  This is good news its some thing that i miss very much when not working with the MFC libraries.  Truth be told you could already view and to some extent debug the .NET Framework with reflector but first class support in VS 2008 is defiantly great news.  Scott Hanselman appears to already have a Hansel Minutes relating to this announcement.