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  • GrapeCity &amp; ComponentOne Merger

    - by Jim Duffy
    Big news in the software component industry today… my good friends over at GrapeCity have unofficially announced (official announcement is tomorrow June 11, 2012) that they have acquired ComponentOne and will be merging the two companies. Yes, the people who bring you Spread.Net and ActiveReports have merged with one of the market’s leading developer component vendors and will continue to do business under the ComponentOne brand. I think this move will propel the company to new heights in the component market and I look forward to working with them as they continue being an industry leader. Congratulations guys! UPDATE: Additional information available here: http://our.componentone.com/2012/06/06/thenewcomponentone/. The new company will be called ComponentOne, a Division of GrapeCity.

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  • Visual Studio LightSwitch: Yes, these are the droids you&rsquo;re looking for

    - by Jim Duffy
    With all the news and focus on the new features coming in Silverlight 5 I thought I’d take a few minutes to remind folks about the work that Microsoft has done on LightSwitch since the applications created by LightSwitch are Silverlight applications. LightSwitch makes it easier for non-coders to build business applications and easier for coders to maintain them. For those not familiar with LightSwitch, it is a new tool that provides a easier and quicker way for coder and non-coder types alike to create line-of-business applications for the desktop, the web, and the cloud. The target audience for this tool are those power-user types who create Access applications for their organization. While those Access applications fill an immediate need, they typically aren’t very scalable, extendable and/or maintainable by the development staff of the organization. LightSwitch creates applications based on technologies built into Visual Studio thus making it easier for corporate developers to extend and maintain them. LightSwitch is currently in beta but it will ultimately become a new addition to the Visual Studio line of products. Go ahead and download the beta to get a better idea of what the product can do for your organization. The LightSwitch Developer Center contains links to download the beta links to instructional videos links to tutorials links to the LightSwitch Training Kit Another quality resource for LightSwitch information is the Visual Studio LightSwitch Team Blog. My good friend Beth Massi is on the LightSwitch team and has additional valuable content on her blog. Have a day.

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  • .Net Rocks Visual Studio 2010 Road Trip coming to Raleigh, NC May 6th

    - by Jim Duffy
    Listen up .NET developers within 50 miles of Research Triangle Park, NC!  Take out that red, blue, green, black or any other color Sharpie marker you fancy and circle May 6th! Fellow Microsoft Regional Directors Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell are going to be bringing the .Net Rocks Visual Studio 2010 Road Trip to town. What’s that you say, you’ve never been to a .Net Rocks Road Trip event and don’t know what to expect? Let me help with that. I stol… uhhh… I mean I was “inspired” by some content I found on the event information page. “Carl and Richard are loading up the DotNetMobile (a 30 foot RV) and driving to your town again to show off their favorite bits of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0! Richard talks about Web load testing and Carl talks about Silverlight 4.0 and multimedia. And to make the night even more fun, we’re going to bring a mystery rock star from the Visual Studio world to the event and interview them for a special .NET Rocks Road Trip show series. Along the way we’ll be giving away some great prizes, showing off some awesome technology and having a ton of laughs. So come out to the most fun you can have in a geeky evening – and learn a few things along the way about web load testing and Silverlight 4!“   I know I’ll be there so what are you waiting for? Head over to the event registration page and sign up today! Have a day. :-|

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  • Silverlight Firestarter 2010 Keynote with Scott Guthrie: Silverlight has a bright future!

    - by Jim Duffy
    If you didn’t get chance to watch the Silverlight Firestart event live during the webcast it is available online to view now. If you’re a Silverlight developer or perhaps a shop actively planning on developing a Silverlight application then you’re going to want to watch this video. The Silverlight 5 feature set unveiled during the keynote is fantastic! I particularly like Scott’s approach and comments on the future of Silverlight. I appreciated his open and direct acknowledgment that there has “been a lot of angst on this topic in the last few weeks” and he took the bull by the horns and stated “Let me say up front that there is a Silverlight future, and we think it’s going to be a very bright one.” That comment drew applause from the local audience and in our local viewing event held in Raleigh, NC. Of course my first question was when can we get our grubby little hands on Silverlight 5 and start working with it. The answer unfortunately wasn’t “right now” but they did announce the Silverlight 5 beta will be available in the first half of 2011. Of course the following is pure speculation on my part but I wouldn’t be surprised if they made it available at a certain event in April 2011. Additional information about the Silverlight 5 announcement is available on Scott’s blog. Have a day.

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  • Unexpected SQL Server 2008 Performance Tip: Avoid local variables in WHERE clause

    - by Jim Duffy
    Sometimes an application needs to have every last drop of performance it can get, others not so much. We’re in the process of converting some legacy Visual FoxPro data into SQL Server 2008 for an application and ran into a situation that required some performance tweaking. I figured the Making Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Fly session that Yavor Angelov (SQL Server Program Manager – Query Processing) presented at PDC 2009 last November would be a good place to start. I was right. One tip among the list of incredibly useful tips Yavor presented was “local variables are bad news for the Query Optimizer and they cause the Query Optimizer to guess”. What that means is you should be avoiding code like this in your stored procs even though it seems such an intuitively good idea. DECLARE @StartDate datetime SET @StartDate = '20091125' SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE OrderDate = @StartDate Instead you should be referencing the value directly in the WHERE clause so the Query Optimizer can create a better execution plan. SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE OrderDate = '20091125' My first thought about this one was we reference variables in the form of passed in parameters in WHERE clauses in many of our stored procs. Not to worry though because parameters ARE available to the Query Optimizer as it compiles the execution plan. I highly recommend checking out Yavor’s session for additional tips to help you squeeze every last drop of performance out of your queries. Have a day. :-|

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  • Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit

    - by Jim Duffy
    Now that you’ve had time to download and install Visual Studio 2010 its time to start learning about all the new features and capabilities. That’s where this post comes in. Microsoft released the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit on the same day Visual Studio 2010 became available to download. It contains presentations, hands-on labs, and demos on a variety of features and framework technologies including: C# 4 Visual Basic 10 F# Parallel Extensions Windows Communication Foundation Windows Workflow Windows Presentation Foundation ASP.NET 4 Windows 7 Entity Framework ADO.NET Data Services Managed Extensibility Framework Visual Studio Team System As you can see the Developer & Platform Evangelism group has gone the extra mile to make sure you have the resources you need to fully leverage the power of Microsoft’s latest version of Visual Studio. Have a day. :-|

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  • Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.2 (June 2010)

    - by Jim Duffy
    I have good news! Microsoft has released the June 2010 Windows Azure Tools + SDK. These new tools extend Visual Studio (both VS 2010 & VS 2008) for Windows Azure development. With these tools you can create, configure, debug, build, run, and deploy scalable web apps on Windows Azure. At first glance what I see as some of the most interesting points of interest are the fact that Visual Studio 2010 RTM is fully supported as well as .NET 4 support. You can choose to build your apps with the .NET 3.5 or .NET 4 frameworks. Another area of interest that I’ll be digging into is the cloud storage explorer. It provides a read-only view of your Windows Azure tables and blob containers from within Visual Studio via the Server Explorer. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the Windows Azure Tools as I dig deeper… Have a day. :-|

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  • Free eBooks from Microsoft&ndash;We like free!

    - by Jim Duffy
    In a recent blog post I mentioned the availability of the Programming Windows Phone 7 ebook by Charles Petzold. Well I have good news, there are a number of additional FREE ebooks available from Microsoft to help you continue honing your tech skills. Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions (Second Edition) First Look Microsoft Office 2010 Windows 7 troubleshooting tips Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 Deploying Windows 7, Essential Guidance I, for one, appreciate Microsoft making these resources available for free. I think it demonstrates their interest making sure we as developers and I.T. professionals have the resources we need to effectively solve the business problems we encounter. Have a day.

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  • FREE Windows Azure Boot camp &ndash; Raleigh Wednesday June 23, 2010

    - by Jim Duffy
    Just want to be sure you don’t miss out on an opportunity to take advantage of some free Windows Azure training. Microsoft Developer Evangelist Brian Hitney and I will be presenting a one-day Windows Azure boot camp on June 23rd in Raleigh, NC at the Microsoft RTP offices. For more information on content, what to bring, directions, etc. just click here to go to the information and registration page for the Raleigh event. To find other dates and locations for the Windows Azure boot camps  head over to the Windows Azure Boot Camp page. Brian and I hope to see you there! Have a day. :-|

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  • Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta Released!

    - by Jim Duffy
    Just thought I’d pass on the word that the Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta is now available to download. VS2010 SP1 Beta ships with a go live license which means you can start using it for production work though I’m not sure I’m going to be that brave until I check it out a bit first. Jason Zanders has a blog post outlining the new features/fixes included in the beta. Here are a couple BREAKING news items you’ll want to TakeNote of… VS2010 SP1 Beta BREAKS ASP.NET MVC 3 RC Razor IntelliSense. A new ASP.NET MVC 3 RC2 installer will be released very soon that will allow you to upgrade in-place. VS2010 SP1 Beta BREAKS the Visual Studio Async CTP. A work around is being worked on but for now if you’re working with the Async CTP then stick with VS2010 RTM. Have a day.

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  • Gems In The Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit - Introduction to ASP.NET MVC: Learning Labs

    - by Jim Duffy
    Following up on my prior “gems post” is another nugget I found in the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit. ASP.NET MVC has established quite a bit of momentum in the ASP.NET development community since it was introduced in early-ish 2009 though I’m sure there are many developers who haven’t had the time or opportunity to find out what it is, not to mention learn how to use it. If you’re one of those “I’ve heard of it but I’m not sure what it really is” developers then I suggest you start your research here. Ok, back to the gem. There are a number of fantastic MVC learning resources out there including the video tutorials on the ASP.NET MVC website. Another learning resource for your journey along the yellow brick road into ASP.NET MVC land are the hands-on learning labs contained in the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit. These hands-on exercises walk you through the process of creating the “M”, the “V”s, and the “C”s of ASP.NET MVC and help you gain a solid foothold into the details of creating and understanding ASP.NET MVC applications. Have a day. :-|

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  • The Silverlight 4 Training Kit and Green Eggs &amp; Ham

    - by Jim Duffy
    Microsoft has released the Silverlight 4 Training Kit that steps you through the process of constructing Silverlight 4 business applications. “The Silverlight 4 Training Course includes a whitepaper explaining all of the new Silverlight 4 features, several hands-on-labs that explain the features, and a 8 unit course for building business applications with Silverlight 4. The business applications course includes 8 modules with extensive hands on labs as well as 25 accompanying videos that walk you through key aspects of building a business application with Silverlight. Key aspects in this course are working with numerous sandboxed and elevated out of browser features, the new RichTextBox control, implicit styling, webcam, drag and drop, multi touch, validation, authentication, MEF, WCF RIA Services, right mouse click, and much more!” What I think is pretty cool is that there are two ways to access this content, online and offline. Obviously the online version is great when you’re sitting at your desk and you’re connected to the web. What about when you don’t have a connection like when you’re located where you won’t eat green eggs & ham, like on a train or on plane perhaps? :-) You can download the offline version and hope that Sam I Am won’t be to distracting while you try to watch the videos or work your way through the labs. :-) Have a day. :-|

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  • Visual Studio 2010 Keyboard Shortcut Posters Available

    - by Jim Duffy
    I’m a firm believer in the productivity gains you experience when using keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio. If you’re not using keyboard shortcuts while coding then your productivity is suffering. Some of my favorites (omitting the obvious ones like F5 to start debugging) as are: Ctrl+K, C – Comment section of code Ctrl+K, U – Uncomment section of code Ctrl+K, D – Format the current document (indentation, etc.) Shift+Alt+C – Add new class to a project Shift+Alt+A – Add existing item to a project Ctrl+Shift+A – Add new item to a project The good news is all of these and a TON of others are all documented in the Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcut Posters (available as PDFs). The only problem is there are so many you need a printer capable of printing on larger paper because while you can read them all on 8 1/2 x 11 paper in landscape mode, for them to be a valuable quick reference on your cubicle wall you’re going to need to print them on large paper. If you don’t have a printer capable of producing large sized printouts head down to Office Depot, Staples, FedEx Office, or your favorite print shop and have them print one for you. Oh and one last thing, I’d really like Microsoft to take those people’s picture off them. Really? Do we need to look at these people when trying to improve our productivity? Have a day. :-|

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  • Windows Azure Boot camp &ndash; Raleigh Wednesday June 23, 2010 * FREE*

    - by Jim Duffy
    Yes I know this is my second blog post about the free one-day Windows Azure boot camp on June 23rd in Raleigh, NC. What can I say I don’t want anyone to miss out on an opportunity to take advantage of some free Windows Azure training. Microsoft Developer Evangelist Brian Hitney and I will be presenting a one-day Windows Azure boot camp on June 23rd in Raleigh, NC at the Microsoft RTP offices. For more information on content, what to bring, directions, etc. just click here to go to the information and registration page for the Raleigh event. To find other dates and locations for the Windows Azure boot camps  head over to the Windows Azure Boot Camp page. Brian and I hope to see you there! Have a day. :-|

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  • Windows Azure Training Kit (November 2010 Release Update)&ndash;Fantastic Azure training resource

    - by Jim Duffy
    At PDC 2010 in October Microsoft announced a number of new enhancements/features for Windows Azure. In case you missed it, these new enhancements/features have been released in the new Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio November release (v1.3). The Windows Azure team blog is an excellent resource for information about the new release. Along with the new release the Azure team has also updated the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit. What is the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit you ask? It is a comprehensive set of hands-on training labs and videos designed to help you quickly get up to speed with Windows Azure, SQL Azure, and the Windows Azure AppFabric. The training kit contains updated labs including a couple I would suggest you hit first. Introduction to Windows Azure - updated to use the new Windows Azure platform Portal Introduction to SQL Azure - updated to use the new Windows Azure platform Portal The training kit contains a number of new labs as well including: Advanced Web and Worker Role – shows how to use admin mode and startup tasks Connecting Apps With Windows Azure Connect – shows how to use Project Sydney Virtual Machine Role – shows how to get started with VM Role by creating and deploying a VHD Windows Azure CDN – simple introduction to the CDN Introduction to the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus Futures – shows how to use the new Service Bus features in the AppFabric labs environment Building Windows Azure Apps with Caching Service – shows how to use the new Windows Azure AppFabric Caching service Introduction to the AppFabric Access Control Service V2 – shows how to build a simple web application that supports multiple identity providers Ok, that’s enough reading, go start learning! Have a day.

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  • Very Cool &ndash; Miami 311 System for tracking citizen service requests (Windows Azure, Silverlight

    - by Jim Duffy
    Having grown up in South Florida this short, but very enlightening, video explaining how the City of Miami has implemented a 311 citizen service request system using Windows Azure, Silverlight and Bing Maps definitely caught my attention. Miami311 The Miami311 System is a Windows Azure/Silverlight-based solution which enables City of Miami citizens report and track issues reported to city management. The system uses Bing Maps to plot the location and relevant information about each issue reported. Citizens now have the ability to easily see the status of the issue without having to call the city office. What I found interesting were a couple of benefits that a metropolitan area such as Miami can take advantage of in Windows Azure cloud-based solution. For the city of Miami, both benefits center around the weather. Of course the threat of a hurricane is a real issue in South Florida and what better way to make sure your site stays up during a hurricane then to have the site hosted far away from the eye of the storm. Using a Windows Azure cloud-based architecture the City of Miami is able to host the application within the Microsoft data centers safely away from any hurricane passing through South Florida. The second benefit is the inherent scalability of a Windows Azure based solution. During a severe weather event like thunderstorms or even worse, a hurricane, downed trees and power lines are a commonly reported problem. Being able to quickly scale up the computing resources required to handle the spike in citizens reporting these types of problems on the site is a huge benefit. Once the weather event has passed and downed tree reports begin to subside they can quickly reverse the process and scale the system back down to pre-storm levels. It’s kind of day-to-day kind of stuff but very cool stuff nonetheless. Have a day. :-|

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  • Introduction to Microsoft SQL Azure: Free self-paced Microsoft class

    - by Jim Duffy
    Here is a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of some FREE Microsoft Learning content on SQL Azure. This self-paced 2 hour class is broken down into 4 segments each with a self test at the end. Class Segments 1) Understanding the SQL Azure Platform 2) Designing Applications for SQL Azure 3) Migrating Applications to SQL Azure 4) Achieving Scale with SQL Azure If you’re getting started with Windows Azure or have been working with it for a while and need to take advantage of the storage capabilities offered by SQL Azure this is going to be a great place for you to start learning. Have a day. :-|

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  • Visual Studio 2010 Launch Events

    - by Jim Duffy
    Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn about the new features in Visual Studio 2010. Check out the MSDN Events page and find out when the talented folks of the Developer & Evangelism group will be visiting your city to prove to you that /*Life Runs On Code*/. I’ll be attending the Raleigh event June 2, 2010 from 1:00 - 5:00 PM. North Carolina State University, Jane S. McKimmon Conference Center 1101 Gorman St Raleigh North Carolina 27606 United States From the Raleigh Event page: Event Overview Learn about the rich application platforms that Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010 supports, including Windows® 7, the Web, SharePoint®, Windows Azure™, SQL®, and Windows® Phone 7 Series. From tighter tester and dev collaboration to new ALM tools, there’s a lot that’s new. Here’s what you can expect: Windows Development with Visual Studio 2010 Visual Studio has always been the best way to build compelling visual solutions for Windows. Visual Studio 2010 continues this trend with great new tooling support for Silverlight 4, WPF, and native development. In this demo heavy session, you’ll see how you can build rich Windows applications with Silverlight 4 using new trusted application features including out-of-browser execution, saving to the file system, and even COM Automation. You’ll also see how you can use the new Task Parallel Library from within a WPF application to take advantage of all those cores in today’s modern computers. Web and Cloud Development with Visual Studio 2010 If you build solutions for the web, then this session is for you. Come see how your existing skills move forward with Visual Studio 2010 both for in-house ASP.NET development and the new frontier of the Cloud. In this session, you’ll see improved designers, new HTML and JavaScript snippets, Web Forms enhancements, and how you can quickly build great web sites using Dynamic Data. You’ll see the changes made to testable web sites with MVC 2.0 and how we’ve integrated JQuery support into the platform. You’ll then see how easy it is to leverage your existing code and move to the cloud with Windows Azure. Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools and Platform Overview This session provides an overview of Visual Studio® 2010 for Windows Phone. Learn about the powerful capabilities of this new application platform and the developer tools experience including basic IDE usage, debugging, packaging, and deployment. This session also shows how you can use Microsoft Expression® Blend™ for Windows Phone to build great Silverlight applications. Have a day. :-|

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  • Beginners Guide to Visual Studio LightSwitch makes it easy to take a closer look

    - by Jim Duffy
    Following up on my most recent post about LightSwitch I thought I’d keep you in the loop on a valuable LightSwitch resource. The Beginners Guide to Visual Studio LightSwitch provides a jump start to get you and the department-level-typical-Access-application-developing-power-user rolling with LightSwitch in no time. The guide is broken down into 4 easy to follow parts. Beginners Guide to Visual Studio LightSwitch (Part – 1) – Working with New Data Entry Screen Beginners Guide to Visual Studio LightSwitch (Part – 2) – Working with Search Screen Beginners Guide to Visual Studio LightSwitch (Part – 3) – Working with Editable DataGrid Screen Beginners Guide to Visual Studio LightSwitch (Part – 4) – Working with List and Details Screen I mentioned it in my prior post but don’t forget to check out Beth Massi’s blog for additional information on Visual Studio LightSwitch. Have a day.

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  • Gems In The Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit &ndash; Introduction to MEF: Learning Labs

    - by Jim Duffy
    No, this post doesn’t have anything to do with cooking up illegal drugs in some rundown shack outside of town. That, my friends, would be a meth lab and fortunately that is waaaaay outside my area of expertise. Now I can talk Kentucky bourbon, or as Homer Simpson would say “mmmmmmmmmmm bourbon”, with you but please refrain from asking me meth questions. :-) Anyway, what I’m talking about are the MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) Learning Labs contained in the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit. Not sure what MEF is and need an overview? Then start here or here. Ok, so you’ve read a bit about MEF or heard about MEF and you’re thinking it might be something you and your development team might want to take a hands-on look at. I have good news then because contained in the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit is a series of hands-on learning labs for MEF. I’ve added working my way through them to my “things I want to take a closer look at” list. Have a day. :-|

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  • Windows 8 Developer Camp - Raleigh September 25th

    - by Jim Duffy
    Time is ticking away and the time to act is now! How's that for some motivation? :-)  Microsoft Developer Evangelist Brian Hitney and I want to help you get your app in the store in time for the October 26 Windows 8 launch. Come join us on Tuesday, September 25, at 9:00 AM in the Microsoft RTP offices to learn how simple it can be to construct a world class Windows 8 application. Don't think you can be ready to join the Windows 8 launch? Come anyway. You might be surprised. Don't have any idea what kind of app to build? Come anyway. They're are plenty of places to look for inspiration. Either way you can learn what it takes to create or tune an app for Windows 8 and publish it in the Windows App Store. Learn more about this free event on the registration page. Registration is now open and space is limited. Have a day.

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  • ASP.NET MVC for the Rest of Us Videos now available

    - by Jim Duffy
    Microsoft Senior Program Manager, Joe Stagner, has released his first 3 ASP.NET MVC for the Rest of Us Videos. I like the way he helps you learn ASP.NET MVC by building bridges between ASP.NET MVC concepts & ideas and ASP.NET WebForms concepts & ideas which you may already be comfortable working with. Good job Joe. Have a day. :-|

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  • You wouldn&rsquo;t drink 9 year old milk would you?

    - by Jim Duffy
    This is an absolutely brilliant campaign to urge users that its time to move on from IE 6. I like how it puts it terms that everyone can understand and has probably experienced at one time or another. How many times have you opened the milk, took a sniff, and experienced that visceral reaction that accompanies catching a whiff of milk that has turned to the dark side of the force? I call it Darth Vader milk. :-) Of course I’m assuming that you haven’t used IE 6 for a long time now. It is our responsibility as information technology workers to communicate to our friends and family how lame using IE 6 is. Shame them into upgrading if necessary. I don’t care how you get through to them but get through. Tell them that only losers use IE 6. Tell them you’ll cut them out of the your will. Tell them they’re banned from your annual BBQ blowout. Tell them that [insert their favorite celebrity’s name here] thinks people using IE6 are losers.  :-) Seriously, IE6 sucks and blows at the same time and has got to go for a number of reasons including the security leaks that come with using it. Confidentially, I urge them to upgrade for purely selfish reasons. Because I am the first level of computer support for waaaaaay to many of my family members I always advocate they use a current browser (IE 8 or Firefox) and anti-virus software (AVG). Call me selfish but I’d rather not waste my time dealing with a virus or malware that could potentially slip through with IE6. Yes, I’m selfish with my time that way. :-) Have a day. :-|

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