Andrew MacNeill - AKSEL Solutions

Every developer loves to test, right? Well, ok, maybe some more than others. But when you're introducing a new product or trying out a new user interface, it's always valuable to get user feedback and see how it all works out. Now, Microsoft and other larger companies have "usability labs", big rooms with two-way mirrors and video recorders, but this is usually out of the realm of possibility for most companies. TechSmith , makers of Camtasia, Snagit had introduced Morae a few years back which was a desktop-tool that made it easy. They now have introduced a new tool named UserVue , that offers remote user testing. I did up a quick screencast on how it works. It's very cool, intuitive and very non-intrusive. There's no question it's a valuable tool - but I do have some issues with it: 1. Markers are for Morae use only. I've told Techsmith about this and I will continue to harp on it. Without making markers available to the user directly from the web int...

Great idea, Kevin - Kevin Ragsdale : Get Certified... Today! And No - it's not a misleading headline (headlines should be provocative but shouldn't be misleading) Especially seeing as how Microsoft has stopped running certification exams for Visual FoxPro, the CVFPE is a great new program to run with. So that would make people a PHD,MVP,MCP,MCSD,CVFPE. Love the idea and as Kevin notes, the requirement is that you talk about FoxPro. "Recognize the fact that every development tool/language has it's pros and cons (including our beloved FoxPro)" Wallflower, indeed.

OK - it may be early in the morning and maybe I'm just peeved but I'm getting tired of poor headlines. Maybe it's because you see headlines more now than ever, thanks to RSS feeds - or maybe it's Gmail's use of putting "web clips" on the top of the Inbox but I think anyone who makes a post owes it to their readers to make the headline reflect the story. Take, for example, the latest Wired News story: Software Sinks Sansa Then read the review. "And while my initial impression of SanDisk's Sansa e280 was cheap and nasty, it's grown on me, " "SanDisk is the only company to present Apple with any real competition." "But Rhapsody's interface is clean and well laid out." "then it got ugly" - really? The complaint? The player wouldn't play Unbox videos or anything with DRM. Hello? Most people who have tried Amazon unBox have already said "Stay away". And DRM? Well, that's not Sansa's fault ...

Craig Bailey gives a great rundown of features to be found in the latest Office 2007 Technical Refresh . I'm glad he did this because while he identifies the good, he also identifies the bad (Project 2007 being hosed, among others), the ugly (Visio Startup) and the just plain "huh". I had the beta on my laptop and unfortunately, that box lives on gmail and the web mostly so I've only had to use it a few times. One thing I hope they have fixed is their backward compatibility with Word 2003. I'm still out as to whether I'll do a full upgrade or even recommend it. As Craig notes, when some features aren't "backwards compatible so you are limited in who you can send it to" - this will really limit to how much it gets used. Microsoft should spend the resources and put together a web-based or free download tool to allow viewing of these files as they used to do. (if one already exists, then I've missed it) Thanks Craig!

Ever had one of those days when you receive email from another programmer who didn't zip his files and as a result, you get left with Outlook saying: "Outlook blocked access following potentially unsafe attachments ..." There's a registry hack to get around this but why bother playing with the registry when someone or something else can do it for you? It's free and it works really well. Even shows you a list of what those extensions are listed as to make it easier. And it automatically restarts Outlook so your changes will take effect. (this was always a pain for me because even if you exit Outlook, if you use ActiveSync, it keeps running)

NewsGator Go goes live any day now thanks to all the great work by Kevin Cawley and the other NG team. I've been using the beta for the past few months and I love it. No - it doesn't do everything (auto sync and podcast support) but it is an awesome way to read my posts - so much easier than viewing it on the web. I now just sync and take my posts with me and then when I get back, re-sync on my Ipaq and all the posts I read are updated. The Clipping feature is also totally awesome. Newsgator has been doing a lot more "business" announcements recently (their link to NBC and Newsweek is is great news for RSS) so I am very happy to see new products coming from them as well. The downside? It's not being put into the regular Newsgator offerings. I wish it was like the NewsGator email and other items but the $30 is definitely money well spent if you have a PocketPC device and read feeds. Now I just want to see the podcasting support that Kevin had been working on earl...

Rick notes that Conference blogging catching on - which is good and then he raises good points - some of which I struggle with every time a conference comes up - mainly why not stream or record these sessions? Conferences want to be held and have attendees. Yet, as many developers note, getting to the conference isn't always possible. As Rick notes "But if the material is accessible about half the incentive to attend will be removed and conference will completely evaporate." This brings us to the economics of conferences. While we all like the idea of spectacles, the main reason for an attendee to be at a conference is to learn. Does a conference have to be at a resort? No - but without one, as John Koziol pointed out , "there's no natural watering hole to gather to at night;". Also, while there are a number of speakers who are true "road warriors" during conference season, not everyone , wants to travel and live in a hotel - thus a resort make...