Brian Pepin, Development Lead on the Windows Forms team, has some interesting observations about Avalon and what it means to developers. I particularly like his take on Avalon vs. Windows Forms for control developers and users:

“[Avalon is] needed by control developers everywhere so they can create controls with great usability without hiring an army of Win32 experts. It’s needed by end users because they deserve to have great usability in all their applications, not just the ones that Microsoft threw a bazillion dollars at.”

I also like what he has to say about Avalon vs. Windows Forms for application developers:

“It’s also important to realize that from an application developer’s perspective, there is little difference between Avalon and Windows Forms. For years there will be interesting controls built from both technologies.”

In other words, Avalon is the necessary next step to build more powerful controls so that users get the most out of their applications without requiring a giant change in development methodology for application developers.

[via Chris Anderson]

I’m not going to move, but I couldn’t help printing out the test…

I have a BankOne Visa card that I use for Sells Brothers, Inc. as a charge card for expenses like computer equipment, technical book purchases and strip clubs (you know — business expenses : ). Apparently somebody got a hold of the number and started making charges with it today. A $19 charge was approved, but the $331 charge swung the BankOne AI software into action and the charge was declined. They called right away to confirm the activity and when I didn’t recognize it, they credited me the $19, canceled the card, put a new one in the mail, sent all three major credit card agencies a notice so that my credit rating wouldn’t be affected and put an affidavit in the mail so that I could swear that the $19 charge wasn’t mine. All of this defense against identity theft cost me 5 minutes on the phone, a few days wait while I receive my new card, a signature and $0. Amazing.

The kind of testimonial from real folks trying to build and maintain real systems that eWeek’s Peter Galli sites in his article is pretty compelling. I wonder if we’ve reached the saturation point of folks that have the know-how to maintain the OS as well as their apps?

Selling the books and comics you’ll never read again:	$1479
Conducting *2* garage sales and selling the play structure the boys don’t frequent anymore:	$2552
Finding your wife’s 6-month old pay check in a pile of papers:	$1640
Regaining the use of more than the front 2″ of every drawer and cabinet in the house:	priceless

Today at Casa de Sells we completed a 9-month long whole-house Clean Sweep, literally touching everything we own and deciding whether to keep it, sell it or trash it. We didn’t actually remodel anything while our stuff was on the lawn, but the whole place seems much bigger since emptying the things we no longer used out of the house and completely filling a 2-car garage before hauling the stuff off to Powell’s book store (they buy as well as sell) and conducting not one but two giant garage sales in two separate neighborhoods. The $5671 we earned along the way was just found money (especially Melissa’s paycheck… : ).

According to this survey, my personality type is The Black Knight: “Your distinct personality, The Black Knight, might be found in most of the thriving kingdoms of the time. Your overriding goal is to win. You approach each task or situation as a contest to be won strategically and efficiently. Because you can control your feelings, it is not unusual for you to charm, as well as successfully delegate tasks and responsibilities to the more emotional types. You are often concerned with what’s in it for you. You seldom involve yourself in activities where you can not foresee a reward for your investment or effort. On the positive side, you can be analytically empathic and logically persuasive. On the negative side, you may be unemotionally manipulative as well as impulsive. Interestingly, your preference is just as applicable in today’s corporate kingdoms.”

The title is certainly cooler than “Scullery Maid,” but the text makes me sound like kind of an asshole… (not that I’m arguing, mind you, I’m just surprised that a computer program can pick it up so readily : )

DNR goes up and down like every other media outlet (it’s not unlike this very web site in that way), but I’ve really been enjoying it muchly lately. Not only did I get to hear someone besides my normal brethren talk about CAS in a way that didn’t make my flinch (Don Kiely on developing with least privilege), but I also got to listen to Mark Miller talk (at break-neck speeds) about my Dad freaking out when the jelly got into the peanut butter at the same time he was enthusing about CodeRush and telling Rory that he didn’t need counseling to deal with his relationship problems, he needed penicillin. Fabulous.

Tim Ewald, the architect of the MSDN2 web site (still in alpha) talks about how and why it was built and points out some undocumented features, particularly in the new URL by alias scheme.

Plus, I don’t know if it’s not experiencing the load of the old site yet or that it’s not built from HxS files, but MSDN2 smokes perf-wise. Highly recommended.

Also, if you want to know Tim’s thoughts on building giant, scalable web sites based on XML and web services (both input internally and hopefully output externally someday), check out his keynote at the Applied XML Developer’s Conference, October 20-21. We’ve already sold out once and had to request more space, so register quickly.

BTW, since Tim no longer works at Microsoft (bad for us), you should get a lot more candid view on what he really thinks in his keynote (good for you). I, for one, can’t wait. : )