What is the deal with people like Iristyle, josefiend, Mongo, Moribund the Burgermeister and the cheers component? These are the IM names of my “friends” that are currently online in IM. I mean, come on! How the hell am I supposed to find Ethan, Joesephine, Scott, Shawn and Betsy if they hide behind these names?!?

At least Iristyle and josefiend stay the same so that I can learn them, but Mongo, Moribund and cheers are merely temporary based on the quickly changing whims of the people on the other end of the line. I mean, I’m as much in favor of personal expression as the next guy, but not if it stops me from the chief component of the app they’re using, e.g. finding them and actually talking to them!

And what’s with the guy that has nothing but characters that don’t even show up but render as the dreaded square! Can everyone please at least start their cleverness with their first names so that I can find you on the list? That’s what Brian Randell [Working at home], Carl Frankline [.NET Rocks!], Fritz [easp.net@torrance], Jeff - [Redmond] and even, LJ, just ducky, thanks, do and they seem like happy, fulfilled people. Thank you!

Plus, while we’re on the subject, what is it with MSN Messenger’s invitation dialog? How the hell do I know who keith at pluralsight.com is? I know tons of Keiths and I’ve never heard of www.PluralSight.com (and even now that I know what it is, I haven’t a clue what www.PluralSite.com *means*). Can’t MSN Messenger give me a name along with the email? I get lots of request to be added to folks IM friend list and I’d like to be able to figure out who I’d like tracking my online life and who I’d prefer to hear from only via email.

Thus endith today’s rant. : )

Here. At least, if this isn't Rory, it sure reads like Rory... : )

It's interesting to hear what the Mozilla and Gnome guys are thinking about to rally their forces to combat Longhorn. The interesting thing about it for me, a developer and user of software, is that when MS products improve, competitors feel the need to keep up and vice versa. In other words, I think competition is a big win for everyone and I, for one, am glad we have it.

If you don’t know him, Miguel is the architect of the Mono open source project whose aim is to implement the .NET CLR and the Framework Class Libraries on Linux (and other places) so that .NET apps can run on OSes other than Windows.

In this essay, Miguel comments on the importance of Longhorn:

″…the combination of Microsoft deployment power, XAML, Avalon and .NET is killer. …

“The combination means that Longhorn apps get the web-like deployment benefits: develop centrally, deploy centrally, and safely access any content with your browser.

“The sandboxed execution in .NET means that you can visit any web site and run local rich applications as oppposed to web applications without fearing about your data security: spyware, trojans and what have you.

“Avalon means also that these new ‘Web’ applications can visually integrate with your OS, that can use native dialogs can use the functionality in the OS (like the local contact picker).

“And building fat-clients is arguably easier than building good looking, integrated, secure web applications (notice: applications, not static web pages).”

What I find most interesting is that while Miguel doesn’t cover the entire Longhorn story, e.g. he doesn’t mention WinFS at all, what he does mention, he summaries well. I’m glad to see the message of what’s going to make Longhorn cool is getting out. : )

If you can't wait for Solitaire, he's a game you can play on Longhorn today, Deepak’s sample implementation of tic-tac-toe in C# and XAML. It also comes with a nice little write-up for your development edification and the source. Enjoy.

It's my belief that the big deal with Avalon is that it gives us much more powerful tools to deal with data visualization and manipulation. Towards that end, Ward turned me onto Edward Tufte at lunch today and I've got “Envisioning Information” on it's way to my house as we speak.

Here. A great number of my google searches end up on www.dotnet247.com, which is a web site that gathers discussions for .NET developers. Matt Reynolds, the proprietor of dotnet247.com has also brought us www.winfx247.com (which I'm sure will be very useful to lots of folks in the not too distant future) and, just recently, www.adminlife.com, which is the dotnet247.com for IT pros/administrators. Myself, I'm looking forward to the day when my 9-year old can administer my network, but for him, I'm sure www.adminlife.com will be a great site. : )

I first heard about Marc Clifton on his work with MyXaml, a declarative UI language that shares a name and some principles with the XAML declarative language in Longhorn, but that works on .NET now. Until today, I had missed his earlier work on this subject: The Application Automation Layer: Introduction And Design, along with the rest of his 51 articles on CodeProject.com (wow).

I’ve never met Marc, but I’d sure like to. He seems like an interesting guy, both because of his work and because of this statement in his CodeProject bio: “Having no formal education in software development, he feels exceptionally qualified to inflict his opinions on the community at large regarding how programming should be done.” Now that’s the kind of attitude I like!

Marc, if you’re going to be in the Pacific Northwest anytime soon, look me up!