“The Adobe® Illustrator® SVG Edition of XAMLConverter is now available for free evaluation. The process is as simple is running XAMLConverter, dragging an SVG exported from Adobe® Illustrator® onto the application and the file is automatically converted to XAML. In addition, XAMLConverter runs the XAML file so you may view the results.

“This edition can convert SVG created by tools other than Adobe® Illustrator®. But SVG exported from Adobe® Illustrator® is the only fully supported subset of SVG.”

Sometimes I miss some made-for-TV movie or series that I’d really like to see and that I didn’t know about before hand so that I could point my ReplayTV or MCE at it. The world needs NetFlix for TV.

In honor of Rory Blyth’s birthday, Jim Blizzard has posted a Haiku. I’m not so cultured as Jim, as I could only manage a limerick:

There once was a lad named Rory,
who told many a bawdy story.
He came right out,
like an orgasmic shout,
spreading mirth in drum-beating glory.

Happy birthday, pal. : )

Am I the only one actually looking forward to this movie?

I said that animation in Avalon is simple. Ian said that it’s hard. We’re both right (I was talking about the programming model and Ian is talking about the nuts and bolts of the implementation), but Ian seems more right because of those fabulous example pictures that explain why wagon wheels look like they’re going backward. Now if he could only explain why computer screens in movies always look like they’ve been engineered to invoke seizures, we’d have something!

When I noticed the behavior that Ian describes in VS05b1 (that Ctrl+F5 no longer works to launch a console app with “Press any key to continue…” at the end), I assumed it was a temporary bug. To learn that this feature was removed “by design” is devastating. As a presenter and technology experimenter, I’ve probably used this as much as any single feature in Visual Studio with the possible exception of the text editor.

Don’t just site there! Vote to Save Ctrl+F5 in VS05! (I love MSDN Product Feedback : )

John Montgomery wants to know:

“[W]hen it comes to Avalon and Windows Forms interop, I’m curious: how many people will use it and what will they use it for? What are the scenarios that we’ll see? I have my own opinions, of course, but I’m curious about what you think. I’d like to be able to have a conversation with both teams about what scenarios we should optimize for.”

Don’t be shy! Let him know what it is you’re looking for from Avalon and Windows Form integration!

Kevin Schuler and Drew Robbins have compiled a list of dozens of the best VSTO blog entries in 2003 across seven categories ranging from architecture to troubleshooting. If you're into VSTO, this should provide some pleasant holiday reading for you. Enjoy!