class Alon : public CPP, public Architecture

Don’t use TxF

Windows NT 6.x (Vista/Server 2008 and above) has many reliability mechanisms. Among them you can find the Windows Error Report , Application Restart & Recovery , The Restart Manager , and the Kernel Transaction Manager with Two resource managers, the Transactional Registry and Transactional NTFS , or in short TxF. However today I found out that it is no longer recommended to use TxF and that there are “better” alternatives, according to the MSDN documentation for CreateFileTransacted : [Microsoft...

Posted by Alon Fliess | with no comments

Message Only Window in for .NET Application

Overview .NET is great platform, it speeds up the development process, you deal with your application logic and in most cases you don't need to know that there is whole Windows operating system down there. However sometimes you do need to program against Windows without the .NET assistance. As a Windows developer, you need to keep all your weapons ready, be it .NET, COM or C++ with the native Win32 API. In this article I am going to show how to deal with Windows Message based communication protocol...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 2 comment(s)

Windows Platform User Group Next Meeting

I’ve had the chance to take part in the last BUILD conference. It is true that you don’t have to travel to the other side of the world to get the new knowledge. You can follow the tweets, read the blogs and watch the online videos. However being at the conference gives you the opportunity and time to be focused and the ability to meet people and build your perception about the future of the current and new technologies. And there is a lot to think about: The future of Windows, The future of .NET...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 1 comment(s)

My Dev Academy Lecture Recording

In the last Dev Academy I have given a lecture in the TDM (R&D Manager) track about Software Porting, The Why, When, and How.  During the lecture I have talked about many different migration scenarios: from VB 6.0 to C#/VB.NET. From VC++ 6.0 to VC 2008/2010, From Unix/Linux to Windows, From old .NET to new .NET etc. I have talked about the porting project, best practices and tools. This is the link to the lecture’s slides. There are many useful links inside it. This is the link to the lecture...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 2 comment(s)

Today! Gadi & Sahsa in the WPD User Group

Don’t forget to come today to the WPD user group to hear Sasha & Gadi .  Gadi is going to talk about parallel programming and Sasha is going to talk about developing native application with the next version of Visual Studio.  We are lucky to have two very talented lecturers in one evening.    This is the agenda for today: Agenda 17:00-17:30 Gathering 17:30-17:45 PDC Essentials – Alon Fliess 17:45-19:00 Introduction to the parallel world – Gad J. Meir 19:00-19:15 Break 19:15...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 5 comment(s)

IMDB, Weather, Hard Disks Failure – A Developer War Story

We are continuing to create contents that help to explain the new features of Windows 7 to the developers' community. This time we record set of short screen casts that include a presentation and one or two demos. To create those screen casts we have distributed the work between different people at Sela . Each person creates the presentation and the demos. This goes to Redmond for feedbacks. When they approve the content Sasha does the actual recording. So, last Wednesday I had to build the material...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 4 comment(s)

Touch me now – The smallest cheapest Windows 7 multi-touch machine

I think that I’m correct when I say that the Asus Eee PC T91MT is the smallest and cheapest multi-touch enabled computer. I haven’t got the chance to check it (Probably I will very soon) but to pay about $100-$200 more than equivalent netbook and be able to play with multi-touch and demonstrate the Windows 7 touch capabilities, this is a good deal. The drawbacks: it’s pity that the hard disk is small (32 GB) and also they could have better screen resolution (1024 X 600) and also a better CPU. In...

Posted by Alon Fliess | with no comments

Windows Server 2008 R2 & Windows 7 – Under the Hood

Anyone that missed the Windows Platform Developers user group meeting and the lecture about kernel changes in Windows NT 6.1 (I know at least about someone that asked me about a video recording of the event) don’t worry. In the coming SDP event, Dima and I will have a lecture about the internal of Windows 7 & Server 2008 R2 and about the new changes and enhancements of the system.  This is the agenda: 29/12/2009 (11:00-12:15) Server Side (SSD101) Come and explore the engine of Windows NT...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 2 comment(s)

Thanks to the people that came to the first meeting of the Windows Platform Developers User Group

Thanks for all of you that despite the traffic jams, made it and came to the first meeting. And thanks again for your feedbacks, all of them were excellent! Here are the links for the resources that we talked about: Windows 7 Training Kit Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit – The kit contains the MFC labs for the Windows 7 features XP2Win7 – stay tuned for a new release next week, or two. Removing the Kernel Dispatcher lock by Arun Kishan Mark Russinovich: Inside Windows 7 Mark Russinovich: Inside Windows...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 2 comment(s)

The first meeting of the Windows Platform Developers User Group

Come and join Pavel and me to the first meeting of the Windows Platform Developers user group . If the Windows platform is interesting you (and it probably does, otherwise you won’t be reading this post) you have to come. This is the chance to influence the spirit of the group. Pavel and I wanted to have a group for people like us. Those who develop for Windows with any needed tool, not just .NET or C++ but both and even more. The first meeting will be about Windows NT 6.1, this is the shortest way...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 3 comment(s)

Atom Based Computer with Windows 7 Runs My Home Automation Server

I own a Dual CPU Pentium III computer. This machine is 10 years old. I used to take it to companies back in the beginning of the millennium to teach about multi CPU programming. I have also developed and tested device drivers on it. around 2004 I began to use it as a gateway to my home automation system. It runs Windows XP with all my home automation related applications and code that I have developed. The machine became very noisy, I have replaced all the fans and put some oil but still the decibel...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 12 comment(s)

Sela Developer Practice

We are going to the PDC . And when I say we, I mean 17 experts and 3 managers from Sela . This year we are going to be in all sessions and meet many key professionals from Microsoft and other companies. We will also have a booth . Why do I tell you that? Not just to tell you that it is fun to work at Sela (It is, but it is also very demanding) and that we are investing in our people, but to announce that we are going to talk about all current and new technologies that will be revealed in the PDC...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 4 comment(s)

More Windows Ribbon Tools & Resources

As the co-author of the “ Introducing Windows® 7 for Developers ” book  I wrote the two chapters about the new Windows Ribbon Framework. The first Ribbon chapter deals with the Ribbon markup language and the second chapter deals with the code behind. To let the reader the ability to understand and play with the markup language before reading the code behind chapter, I have created an open source project named RibbonExpolorer . The Ribbon team from Microsoft has also created such a tool named...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 3 comment(s)

Ribbon Explorer 1.1 has just been released

Windows 7 introduces a new Windows Ribbon framework, a framework that enables creating of a modern rich user interface and user experience based on the Office 2007 fluent UI concepts. The Windows Ribbon framework adopted the Model-View-Controller pattern. The UI is written using XAML like language, the controller is a COM based code and the Model is your business logic.  To enable developing the Ribbon markup we have created the Ribbon Explorer program.  These are the feature of Ribbon...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 3 comment(s)

Make your application runs and shines on Windows 7

Moving applications to new platform is not an easy decision to make. Sometimes you have no choice, new desktops and laptops run the new operating system and you have to support your clients. Sometimes you do have a choice, you install your application with the system and you can choose the operating system that your code will run on. There are two factors in this dilemma: first is the investment effort on making the application compatible with the new O/S comparing to the benefit (ROI). Second is...

Posted by Alon Fliess | 2 comment(s)