wraiths.den

New Blog Site

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 17:29:48 GMT

Hi to all readers of this blog!

Wondering what I've been doing this past few days? Wondering why I suddenly seem stopped blogging?

Well, I've been busy on upgrading my blog. I've decided last month that its time to host my own blog. After sleepless nights of trying to make this work, its done! So I suggest you to update your URL's in your favorites (assuming that my blog is in your favorites list) or updating your RSS readers and point to the new location. Here it is!

http://webmag.mvps.org

I'll not be updating this (live spaces) blog site so please go to my new site. Don't worry, all of my past blog entries has already been ported in the new site. And also, I'll be needing your comments on this one to make my new site be one of your favorites! Remember that this is just my first release, I will be updating the site as time permits me. I've already poured much of my time for making this to work so I guess its time to release it.

New Email Address

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 06:24:08 GMT

To anyone who reads this, if you know me personally, a friend that keeps e-mailing me, someone who wants to know me better, someone who wants to ask some programming question, or simply a fool who collects email addresses then continue reading.

This entry is not intended for SPAMMERS. So if your one, which I doubt the refrain yourself from reading this (as if you really would).

My very first email account was in yahoo , it was named paul_freak17@yahoo.com and I've only used it for a couple of days (password forgetting person I am) and since then I've kept on changing my emails. But my longest used email address must be the last hotmail acount that I've created. And actually I'm still using it as a .Net Passport and Windows Live ID on some parts of teh Microsoft Site (specially on MSDN Forums).

Another thing to point out is that even though I have different email addresses I tend to use one as my primary address. Some of the mails that I've created on different providers were simply just to try and see what features these email providers has. I've made one in eudoramail, 3gig and some unknown email providers. I've even used my hotmail as my primary email add once but suddenly hated it for its lack of space. So that's when I shifted to GMail, google's email provider. Gmail offers a lot of features for a free email, I mean you can access it through POP3 and could do some mail forwarding. I've been using GMail for almost 2 years now and I'm quite satisfied with its performance.

But not until I've discovered mvps.org.

As you might have now known I was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award last January 2006. And as a recipient of this award gained me some good-stuffs from Microsoft. My new email is also one of the benefits that I have enjoyed, though this is not for microsoft. This mail server is being managed by some people who greatly values MVPs for their Technical contribution on the community. And with that, they dedicated some of their resources to provide a free email for the MVPs.

That's how I got my new email. I just informed the admin that I'm a current MVP and provide him my Microsoft Profile and MVP Lead. With that I'm now enjoying a full-featured email. Imagine 100mb storage (though you can have more), POP and IMAP access, mail forwarding, and other features that you would find in a paid email. Am I just lucky? Well, before I forgot here's my new email address:

pauldomag(DO NOT SPAM)@mvps.org [without the (DO NOT SPAM)]

Hey guys, don't forget to update your mailing/contact list. Although I'm currently forwarding all incoming emails from my gmail account to my new one. But I will be totally dropping my gmail account in the near furture, so I guess its best if you would use my new email add rather that the old gmail accoutn.. Thanks...

Vista, 10 cool new features

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 20:40:22 GMT

Being a Beta Tester of Vista could earn you benefits. Just like being able to be the first ones to have a copy of the new Vista RC1 (Release Candidate 1). Since Microsoft's release of the memory Hog Vista Beta 2 (the worst release to date), the software giant has been keen enough on hearing the community feedbacks. I myself had been able to use Vista Beta 2 and oh man it sucked! Being a little bit disgruntled on the upcomming OS, I haven't installed the later builds, but that was before the release of RC1. I am an avid fan of Paul Thurrot's winsupersite, and on one of his comments on the pre-RC1 release was very promissing. So I told myself to try RC1. And thats when I was shocked on the improvements that they had made.

One of the most complained about thing in Vista is being a Memory Hog. I mean you must virtually have a minimum of 1gb worth of RAM. But upon installing RC1 on my friend's (Vernon) laptop we were shocked to see the performance improve. We estimated it to be somewhat of a 40%-50% improvement. It's just like using Windows XP. And with that, my expectations on Windows Vista has just gotten much higher.

Upon using Vista, I have noticed major changes on the OS compared to XP (aside from the fact that it looks quite much cooler now). And I have made a simple list of what you may call "Cool Things" on the upcomming OS. Here it is (from 10-1):

Save As Remember the old SaveAs dialog box? It has just been upgraded. It looks to be much more simplier. I really love the fact that they hide the Explorer part of the SaveAs dialog.

Snipping Tool Have you ever wanted to capture a certain part of your screen? To do that, we must capture the whole screen (press printscreen) then paste it on MSPaint and cut-off the part that you want to capture. That's the old way. Now there's a tool to automate all of that. You could virtually select the area that you want to capture (by using your mouse) and it automatically generates the image.

Windows Mail Its an upgrade to Outlook Express.

Ink Ball An addition to the new games available in Vista.

Chess The game that I have been waiting for. And its in 3d!

Meeting Space Now this is an applicaiton that's gonna be useful in offices. This is an applicaiton that gives you the tools of having a virtual meeting. Its seems that this is the upgrade to NetMeeting.

Network Projector Vista now enables you to connect to a nProjector attached to your network and project whatever you want to. So there's no unplugging for the Projector. Just attach it to a computer in your network then voila!

Side Bar This is the most famous new feature here in my list. I was having second thoughts on placing it in here since many people already knew about this. But the hell, I really love this!

Media Center This is the application that would definitely WOW you. It manages all of your multimedia files. You can then view you multimedia here. The UI is just superb. Although its quite slow on this release, I really must say that Microsoft has gotta fix this.

Minesweeper it tops my list of favs since I am an addict when it comes to sweeping those mines. My best time in WinXP for this is (Expert Level) 73 sec. Now in Vista it has its needed facelift. But the game essence is still the same.

With this release from Microsoft comes hope that this OS would indeed make its time to be released this upcomming January. It holds our dreams of a very good Operating System. And now I'm a believer.

Microsoft Live Writer

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 18:54:18 GMT

Blogging is now a huge trend among personal usage. It serves as our own domain to express our own views or just make it our own digital diary.

Microsoft is quite aware of this, thus the creation of, for me the ultimate blog editor, Microsoft Live Writer. I know blog editting has been a pain in the ass for some of us bloggers. This is because of the poor word-editting that these blog sites has been offering us. But now, this problem is history.

Microsoft Live Writer is a one of the many upcomming products from Windows Live. It's main purpose is to provide bloggers of an excellent blogging tool. Here's screen shot:

As you can see the environment is just like Microsoft Word. You have the basic tools, you can insert pictures, tables and links. But the best part of this is that the environment that you are typing into is being mimicked by Live Writer. So that it looks like a preview of your blog before you publish it. And speaking of publishing, this tool automatically publishes your document to your blog! I know that some of you might think that this product only supports Live Spaces coz its a Microsoft product, hell no! It supports a wide range of blog providers. Here's a complete list (the list might grow since this is still in its beta stage):

Live Spaces (Obviously)
Wordpress
Wordpress (Custom Installation)
Type Pad
Blogger
Live Journal
Movable Type
Radio Userland
Community Server
dasBlog
Metaweblog API
Movable Type API

So, if your blog's on the list, grab Live Writer now! Its Free! Just a note, its still on its Beta Stage. But if you can't wait for the release you can download it here.

By the way, I'm writting this entry using Live Writer.

Kevin Mitnick Hacked!

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 19:15:46 GMT

Kevin Mitnick, for those who doesn't know this legendary person, he's the world's renounced greatest hacker. He's life has already been featured on a film "Takedown".

He's the most wanted cyber criminal in the FBI history. And yes, he has already been arrested several times. But the last time was the longest time he spent in the cell. He has just been released on January 21, 2000. He served nearly 5 years in prison (1,792 days to be exact!).

Upon his release, he founded a computer-security based company.

And on this day, he just got served! Well, no offense to Kevin, I know he is the greatest and all, but sometimes you'll just have to accept that someon outsmarted you. Hehehe. But in Mitnick's defense, it wasn't he who got hacked but the Hosting company in which he hosted his site. His webpage has been greatly demoralized. His frontpage has been replaced with his modified picture.

The hackers was traced into Pakistan. Although the entire server of his hosting server was hacked, only the web page of Mitnick was modified which means that its a personal attack to Kevin Mitnick himself (A challenge maybe?). Kevin Mitnick has been one of my inspirations on why I took up Computer Science in my college days. And I really hope that he could have his revenge on those guys! But that means another years in prison eh?!

So what was Mitnick's response to the attacks?

"When I was a hacker, I never stooped to defacing sites because that was more like vandalism; that wasn't any fun. It is more about getting in and being stealth and looking around and exploring."

Straight from the true hacker!

un-Planetizing Pluto

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 06:01:12 GMT

As of today, there are only 8 official planets in our solar system. Pluto has been demoted to a dwarf planet which in context is not considered as a planet. This was done by a vote among 424 astronomers in the IAU (International Astronomical Union) in Prague.

Astronomers have argued since the late 1990’s, whether to demote Pluto of its planetary status. But sentiments on the issue greatly favored Pluto. But in the end Pluto was indeed kicked out of the planetary status.

“The word "planet" originally described wanderers of the sky that moved against the relatively fixed background of star. Pluto, discovered in 1930, was at first thought to be larger than it is. It has an eccentric orbit that crosses the path of Neptune and also takes it well above and below the main plane of the solar system.

Recent discoveries of other round, icy object in Pluto's realm have led most astronomers to agree that the diminutive world should never have been termed a planet. “

So what’s going to happen now? I guess textbooks would have to be rewritten, and history books should be changed. So long Pluto, I’m surely going to miss you!

A must-have MICE

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 05:32:02 GMT

The newly released MICES of Logitech.
Can't wait to get my hands on one of them!

*drooling insanely*

UPDATE (Prices):

$ 99.99 $ 79.99

SGOOPE-D

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:32:14 GMT

At long last! A free PC-Phone software!

Yep, SGOOPE is a software that enables you to make international calls or simply call a cellphone for free! So, what's the catch? Your airtime is limited. But the limitation varies on the location you are calling.

Darn! But I can't consider this as a setback. SGOOPE offers you two choices to extend your airtime. It's either you purchase it or simply earn it. Hmm... So how can you earn it? Well, you can earn it by collecting points, CIM points to be exact. CIM points could be gathered by using skype to call other skype clients. Every minute you consume upon calling a skype client has a corresponding CIM point.

By this methodology, a loop hole is clearly present. Why not just fake a skype call? I mean you can always 2 instances of skype in your machine by using runas. Run the second instance of skype with a different account. And then, you can call your other skype account and earn points!

Here's a screenshot of SGOOPE

You may have noticed the number encoded below. It's in international format. 00(Area Code)(Cell No.)
I've tried calling a friends cellphone to test the audio quality. Sad to say but its delayed. Your voice estimatedly arrives on the reciever 1 second late. But I think this is negligible. So Happy Tele-babads!

SGOOPE official Site

Who's the copycat now?

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:13:45 GMT

Paul Thurrott's view on Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote speech.

Here are some of my favorite quotes (Judge for your self)

"What have we been doing for the last five years?" he asked. "We've been putting out releases of OS X." He claimed that Apple shipped five "major" updates to OS X...

"What has our competitor been doing for the past five years?" Jobs quipped to the loving laughter of the WWDC crowd. "They've been trying to ship a single release that's had many names...

(My comment)

It seems that Steve Jobs' keynote speech was aimed directly on Windows Vista. By the record, OS X is the only operating system in the market that's by far competing with Microsoft Windows. Although they only share 2% of the market (could that even be called competition?). It's quite clear on how childish Apple has been toward Microsoft.

By that measure, Microsoft has improved Windows by a far greater degree. In the same time frame, it has shipped Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (and 2005 UR2), Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, Windows XP Home and Professional N Editions, Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2, absolutely a big Windows upgrade), Windows XP Embedded, Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, and Windows XP Starter Edition in various languages. Heck, I might be missing some versions.

Apple is claiming to have done major releases on their OS X for the past 5 years. When all they've done was provide small features per release. It looks like an installment. They're charging users with their every release when the changes in their OS X couldn't be called a major release but just an update. Now whose taking advantage of its own customers?

Vista's IE 7 stole the friendly RSS view from Safari, Apple's Web browser...

Microsoft separated out its email application from Outlook and created Windows Mail, which in Apple's mind is very similar to Apple's Mail.app...

True true. Microsoft indeed has learned some of its Vista's feature on OS X.

Curiously, Serlet did not bring up Dashboard, Apple's environment for widgets, and Sidebar, Microsoft's environment for gadgets. That's good, because Apple stole Sidebar idea wholeheartedly from Konfabulator and other widget environments that predated Dashboard.

Why is it that Apple always rant about Microsoft copying their technologies when they themselves do the same thing?

Apple shipped 1.33 million Macs in the quarter ending June 30, 2006. It was their best Mac quarter ever. Jobs noted that the Mac's growth rate was "dramatically faster" than the rest of the PC industry, about 16.5 percent for the Mac, compared to just 6 percent for the PC. "We're gaining market share," Jobs declared triumphantly, to cheers.

Is Apple really gaining market share against PC's with Microsoft OS?

In the previous quarter, the Mac's growth rate was significantly lower than that of the PC (13.1 percent for the PC vs. 4 percent for the Mac). More to the point, Apple's explosion growth in 2005 did nothing to help the Mac's market share, which is still mired at 2 percent worldwide.

I guess not. Now who's the copycat?

Being an MVP (part 1)

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 17:19:49 GMT

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You might think that I'm bragging AGAIN on my MVP Award! Well better read the whole entry and decide.

For the sake of all readers of my blog, MVP (Most Valuable Professional) is an award given by Microsoft to outstanding professionals (I'm suppose to be one of that!). It's definitely not an award given to a basketball player upon winning a championship! (As some of my friends humor me about).

A little bit of history then. (You may skip this if your already bored)

It was February of 2005 when I started to use Visual C++.Net (2003). The IDE of Visual Studio 2003 really bugged me, coz I can't seem to rename my files on my solution explorer (as it turns out, this lack of feature would be a very good thing!). Imagine this, whenever I create a new C++ .Net form, I have to go out of the IDE and manually rename the .h and .cpp files. I know that you must assign a name before you create a form, but heck I can't blame myself if I change minds too often. This prompted me to seek for a service pack or an upgrade to Visual Studio 2003.

Thats when it all began. After obtaining a copy of Visual Studio Express Beta 1 I was suddenly hooked into it! As of that time, my needed IDE features was available. As it turns out, the new IDE features was just a bonus compared to what I've discovered. (are you now thinking that this might just be a Visual Studio 2005 blog? Hell No!) The new release did an overhaul on C++.Net (the current language that I was using at that time) the new C++/CLI now looks very savy and its code much understandable that the previous version. Well, to cut the story short (is that even possible with me blogging here?) I really enjoyed using Visual Studio Express 2005. And from there, there's was no turning back. It's like, "A new future MVP was born!".

To be Continued... (drowsy eyes! Can't see a thing!)

MSN Spaces Makeover

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 01:17:31 GMT

MSN Spaces no more! Live Spaces is In!

Yep, as you are reading this blog, you might notice some improvements on the interface. I was amazed as I first checked my blog this time in the moring. I was having second thoughts if I was really viewing my blog. The UI is much simplier and much faster to load that the previous MSN Spaces. I never knew that Live Spaces was also part of the Live Ideas.

I was thinking that the changes was just on the GUI. That was until I tried to customized my space. Here's the new interface of the spaces live:

Aside from its new cool interface it was also developed using AJAX technology. So you cannot see refreshing pages and its pretty darn fast! Also, all parts of your blog could be repositioned by dragging and dropping it to your desired area. And also, my new blog address has also been changed to http://wraithcrib.spaces.live.com but you can still access my old url, you will just be automatically redirected.

I really like it when microsoft introduces new products to the community. Kudos Spaces!

MSDN Forums, I'm Back!

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 20:01:20 GMT

After a few months of being silent on the forums, I have just posted my first 30 posts! Hmmm...

Well, after being held as an MVP in that forum, I lost my time on updating on my most beloved community. I have just opened my account and surfed the forums a little bit just to find out that there are many new posters in the forum.

Many MVP legends have come to join in to improve the forum, the likes of Nishant and other super-mvps are in the line up of its top posters!

And also, I have noticed major forum fixes since its first release way back last year.

I was a part of this forum since its birth, when VS2005 was at its beta 2 stage. I still remember Josh Ledgard handling the forums. I was a novice back then, all I did there was ask questions. It was in my second month in the forums that I answered my first question. And man it feels great! I mean it really feels great when you are able to help someone. Well that triggered me to answer many more questions. I kinda got addicted to it, until to such a time when I was toping the forums with my answering capabilities. These actions brought me to a stage where I was awarded as an MVP by Microsoft for my contributions on the forum. And the rest is now history!

I know that I'm a little bit of a nostalgic here. But hell, all of the memories just hit me when I first visited the forums for almost 4 months! I still remember when Vikram and I were competing with the number 2 spot (the number 1 spot was held firmly by David Kean). But now, I see a lot of new names in the list, but I think its time for my silence to end.

Its back to my hometown again! And I wish that some people there still remembers me!

MSDN Forums

Microsoft's Surface Computer

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 20:29:41 GMT

Microsoft Researchers have done it this time. They have created a really neat stuff!

I've already seen this technology during a presentation of Bill Gates on a certain university (Kinda forgot the link).

But the technology was so amazing that I didn't believe it would be pursued! But voila! During a demo of microsoft employees on DemoFest they unveiled they're newest creation yet! Its called Surface Computing.

Well, what is it? Its basically a computer that is being projected on any flat surface. With this, you can transform tables, desks or virtually any flat surfaces into a computer. Ain't it neat?!

As I can see it uses a projector and a web-cam of some sort to observe on what your doing. This technology is highly interactive for you can interact with the computer by touching the projected images. It means that your table would also turn into a touchscreen monitor! Impressed?!

Here's a press release

Scobleizer out of channel 9

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 20:13:31 GMT

Yep niners. You heard me right. Robert Scoble is now leaving Microsoft to pursue another career.

For you guys out there who doesn't know who Scoble is, he's one of the brilliant guys in microsoft. He probably is the greatest blogger in MS. He's also been a part of the MSDN Channel 9 team, they interview MS employees on the new technologies.

During his last interview with channel9 he seems sad on leaving his job. He also reffered his job on microsoft as the greatest he'll ever have. Well I don't blame him, but I guess microsoft should've done everything to keep the man from not leaving.

He's been one of the people who inspired me to blog. He's been one of my greatest mentors.Its very sad to see him leave Microsoft. Kudos Robert! Good luck on your new career!

Scoobliezer Blog

Last interview on Channel 9

Persons of the Year

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 02:34:17 GMT

I know that this is an old news. But I have just stumbled on a coupke of pictures which deeply inspired me.

Cool! Bono, Melinda and Bill truly deserves this award!

Sql Server 2005 Everywhere Edition

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 02:08:47 GMT

Meet the newest member of the SqlServer family. Its a file-based database solution. Ideal for a single-user interface. For further Information:

Sql Server 2005 Everywhere Edition

Yahoo Messenger 8 vs Windows Live Messenger 8

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 00:32:57 GMT

Yahoo has just released its final version of its messenger. YM 8.0. And a few weeks earlier, Microsoft also released their own new version of their Live messenger. So whats the big deal about this? Well, this release is a momental release for both of the companies since they are now enabling a Yahoo-MSN communication!

Yes, you heard me right! Live messenger and Yahoo messenger could now talk with each other! I know this could be done by using other 3rd party tools such as trillian. But the problem with this software is that you need to have seperate accounts.

Now, Yahoo and Live messenger users could communicate with each other. Its a feature-rich move of Microsoft and Yahoo.

So what now? Well, I'll admit that I'm a YM user. But since this feature has been enabled, I've shifted to Windows Live Messenger. As my friend said, I'm a Microsoft Addict! Hahahaha.

Here are the links to download both messenger:

(remember that you need to have the latest versions of Yahoo and Windows Live in order to communicate with each other.)

Windows Live Messenger 8.0

Yahoo Messenger 8.0

I've been using this for a few weeks now. The only problem that I experienced is when adding a yahoo user from Windows Live Messenger. After adding the user, yahoo doesn't seem to prompt directly the user with an invitation. But instead it prompts it that it should register in its beta program to enable communication with Win Live Messenger. And sometimes, after adding a person, the person doesn't show up in the list of contacts. Pretty lame isn't it?! Well, aside from some difficulties experienced, I'm still rating this baby into an almost perfect 10! Imagine, just opening one messenger program when chatting with other friends! Sweet!

Blog Curse Over!

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 00:11:25 GMT

At long last! My Blog Curse is Over!

I know it has been over two very long months since I have my last blog. Well, I've been experiencing a sort of a blog curse. What is a blog curse? Well, its a time in your blog-life where you seem to lose interest in bloging. I have been blog-free these days, no blogs written, even in my tech blog.

The curse just started after I missed my first shoul-be posted blog and it was followed by a string of events where I got busy with this certain freelance project of mine. My blog-self was just kinda got lost in the woods. My blogging brain just came into a halt. I was a little paranoid back then, I mean, who doesn't get paranoid where writting a single blog entry could be as difficult as to finishing a programming task! You've probably heard these types of stories before, where a person lost himself, like a prodigal son type.

As all good things come to an end, so does bad things! And I'm really greatful with ending this one.

Updates! Updates! Updates!

So what happened to me in the last six months?!

Since last month, I've been now transformed into a freelance-dude with an attitude, to a decently looking geek-type teacher. Yeah you heard me right! I'm a teacher! I have just shifted to a teaching career in STI. I've been teaching for the last two months when I didn't blog. Come to think of it, maybe this was the main cause of my blog curse! I've just vacate my job as a teacher, for financial reasons, and here I am now blogging again!

I would just like to apologize to my readers if I haven't had an entry for almost a decade. I know some of you deleted my links from your list of favorites. And I can't blame you for that. I would just like to make a pact with you guys, I'll never get into such a mishap again! This experience taught me very well to enhance myself and adopt every changes on my life. What an eye openner this is. And just like every stories you have heard, I'm back, back with a vengance! So expect more blog entries! Huzzzah!

Upcomming Movies

Wed, 10 May 2006 18:14:18 GMT

Here's a list of my much awaited movies.

I guess the most awaited of them all is the Batman vs. Superman movie!
I just can't picture out what kind of movie it would be. Imagine Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent in a single movie? What a classic would that be!

My second much awaited film would be Indiana Jones 4. I'm a fan of the indiana jones series when I was a child. And I've been waiting for this sequel for a very long time! But sadly, I think this would not be done by harrison ford. You can't imagine an old man like harrison ford playing this one out. Or maybe the make-up department could transform him into his old self, say, 15 years ago! Now that would definitely be entertaining.

My third choice would be IronMan! This would be a superb film. It would be packed with more graphics as usual but I definitely expect this film to entertain me. =)

See you all in the Movies! As they used to say, Relax and Watch a Movie!

C# Operating System!

Sun, 07 May 2006 22:09:19 GMT

Many people are wondering on why Windows Vista wasn't created using C# as indicated in my friends' blog post (Windows Vista a .Net no no).

Well, an easier straight honest answer is that C# is a "pure-oop" language. And by that it consumes a lot of memory and too-slow to create an operating system. C++ has been successfully used by microsoft to create operating systems for a long time. So why change it to C# now? C++ has been proven to get the job done.

It was then embedded on my mind that C# cannot create an OS. It's a RAD language so its primary purpose is to rapidly create an application and OS developement is a big no-no.

Well, my beliefs was crushed into bits as I read my MSDN mag. An article there discusses an OS which is entirely written in C#!

It's called Singularity. This is a research based OS which is gaining some notice nowadays.

While reading the document, I was like, hell! C# is slow to be able to create a dependable OS. Ok, I guess I was entirely wrong on downsizing C#. Here's an excerpt on the article that explains their approach more clearly:

"When the C and C++ programming languages were invented, computers were slow, memory was limited, and compilers were simple and memory challenged, so a practical language could be little more than a veneer for assembly language. Times change, though, and so do the limits on software development. Today, program performance is seldom limited by raw processor speed. Instead, latency—memory, disk, network, database—often determines performance."

That's the line that got me thinking that its entirely possible! Oh, how great does these people from microsoft are turning into?!

The singularity uses the Bartok kernel. It is entirely a new OS, its not windows! Although some parts of the code were written in C++ (including the kernel) most of the code is in managed and unsafe C# code.

I guess this OS would be a possible hit in mobile devices. There was also a video presentation of the singularity team on chanel9. They have already benchmarked the OS versus Windows. The results is quite promising. Its indeed 10% more faster than windows! Hmmm... Cool! And to top that, since C# is a safe-type language, then the resulting OS is more stable than the current windows system.

Wondering how they did that? Well, according to the team, they have developed a managed-native compiler! (What should I do to get my hands on that!) The native code produced by their compiler is very similar to C++. In fact you can debug it using a C++ debugger.

Since this OS is still in its research state, you could be expecting it in the next 3-5 years. But some of the C# advancements that they are using could be available a little much earlier such as "sing#", its a C# extension that they have developed to create the OS.

Can't wait to get my hands on this! (*drooling*)

For more resources:

Singularity homepage

Singularity revisited

Singularity on chanel9

Blog list: Infested Minds

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:56:47 GMT

Infested Minds

.Net Developement TechBlog
.Net related blogs. Mainly focuses on C#
Maks World
Pixel.Catalyst
Areman's blog
MSDN Blogs
Leigh's Paradise
Denz Ramblings
Thoughts of a Technical Student
Jasper Jugan's Techblog
Mark Punzalan
The RubeTube