The Athens PC demo from WinHEC: I want one. [activewin.com]

"Security and privacy are two of the most important -- and difficult -- issues facing the computer industry. Improving the ability of software and hardware to protect the integrity of digital information and the privacy of computer users has become a critical focus for both software developers and hardware manufacturers. Last June, Microsoft introduced a new security technology, code-named "Palladium" at the time, that is designed to provide the foundation for a new approach to security and privacy in Windows. Now known as the Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) for Windows, this technology utilizes an innovative hardware and software design to protect against malicious software in order to enhance privacy, security, and system integrity and help insure that software acts in a way that customers can rely on."

“The weight of the company is behind Longhorn,” Poole said. "This is a huge bet for the company. It will really change the landscape of what people see."

"During his keynote address on day two of the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), Microsoft Senior Vice President of the Windows Client Division, detailed his company's roadmap for delivering Longhorn, the next major Windows version."

Sorry for the long wait. There’s been two whole books written between the last release of Genghis and this one. Here’s the list of new features:

• Everything works under .NET 1.0 and 1.1 (except HandleCollector)
• MSN Messanger-style popup window
• UI Type Editor for use with ImageList index selection
• AppBar implementation
• Text file search
• Themed controls
• Single instance application support, including passing command line args from other instances
• Multiple top-level window support
• Many enhancements and fixes to the command line parser
• Splash screen class
• Improved WebCommandLineHelper class which now works with .NET 1.0 and 1.1, includes URL decoding and requires no additional permissions (although it does require a server-side HTTP handler, included as the ConfigFileHandler class that maps requests for foo.exe?bar=quux.config to the foo.exe.config file)
• WizardSheet updates
• Status Bar Extender for mapping status messages to Windows Forms controls

Thanks to my new build master, Mike Marshal, who got all of this together. He’s the greatest!

Wiley acquires Wrox. 'nuf said.

The one where Windows Server 2003 kicks Linux’s butt on serving files.

From Keith Wedinger: Java development has a number of advantages over traditional environments which output machine language. .Net has the advantage of hindsight, however, and has improved on Java in a number of areas.