Some time ago I was quite interested in programming languages but that interest wore off because I found a bit hard to get a job on that area. Of course, things have changed and now it’s quite easy to get a job on that specific area. You can even choose what language you want to use. But now, and because I’m part of a Development team, although I’m not developing anything, the “bug” has returned and I feel like experimenting with new technologies out there.

I’ve been reading a bit about WPF and XAML. It seems like this is the future, or at least that’s what most people are saying. The first time I heard someone talking about that my question was “what the hell is that?”. Simply put XAML is very similar to XML and it stands for eXtensible Application Markup Language. WPF stands for Windows Presentation Foundation (complicated name). I am not going to explain what those things are and what you can do about it. The purpose of this article is to share, with someone also interested in learning a bit more about it (like me), a website that contains a nice bunch of tutorials that I found very interesting.

If someone knows about any interesting reading about these subjects drop me a line. Don’t forget I’m learning. Also need to spend some time looking at C# or VB. It’s been a long time without look at it.

You can check these in here: http://joshsmithonwpf.wordpress.com/a-guided-tour-of-wpf/

The long awaited Service Pack 1 for the new Microsoft Operating System is now available as a final release.

I haven’t installed it yet, but I am planning to do so. It will, hopefully, fix some issues performance wise and some bugs as well. If someone has any comments about it please post them here. Maybe there is someone out there with lots to tell about it

Check the original article.

It is now available the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC Refresh. It doesn’t have any major differences from the original SP1 RC, although it fixes some issues with SP1 RC itself. Microsoft will probably release some more fixes/updates in the near future, so if you already have SP1 RC installed don’t bother installing this one. You also need to uninstall Service Pack 1 RC in order to install the Refresh update.

You can check all the Hotfixes and Security Updates included in the Service Pack 1 here.

Click here to go to the Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 RC Refresh website.

I don’t know about you but I uninstalled Windows Vista (Home Premium) a week ago. I think it’s quite a nice Operating System but not for gaming. I usually play World of Warcraft and I can say that Vista steals around 10 frames per second from me. With Windows XP Media Center Edition I get those back. It’s not a big difference when the game is steady at 50-60fps but once I get to Shattrath (the main city in the expansion pack) it usually comes down to 17fps. With Windows XP I get 28-30fps.

You must be thinking, what a crap computer he’s got. Well, I have the DELL XPS M1710 which has a 512MB GeForce 7950GTX. I don’t call that crap. It’s quite a nice graphics card although the new DirectX10 ones are much better of course. And yes, I play it with the native resolution for my screen (1920×1200) with everything at maximum resolution. I am not complaining, I am just saying that with Windows XP I can have better performance.

All this boring introduction :p is just to say that finally we have Service Pack 1 available. Hopefully will fix some performance issues. Check out Tech ARP’s article about “What’s New In Windows Vista Service Pack 1?“.

Interested in installing Windows Vista SP1? Click here to go to the SP1 page in the Microsoft site.

It looks like there weren’t big news for gamers, at least not for Xbox 360 owners. We were expecting to hear some exciting news on some nice hardware to be released later this year or even an entire new Xbox but it seems that he had another plans

Bill talked about the future, TVs, the Zune music player and some more Microsoft related products and technology. I personally enjoyed the “Bill Gates last full day at Microsoft” video. It was quite funny to watch, specially the gym bit Skip to the 10 minutes if you’re interested in checking that out

Watch the video:

http://wm.istreamplanet.com/customers/ms/01062008_300.asx

(you need Windows Media codec to play this video)

Want other resolutions? Watch the live webcast of 2008 Microsoft CES keynote in the Microsoft website.

It looks like our friend Billy Gates is going to make an important announcement regarding the Xbox 360 at next week’s CES show in Las Vegas. What is it? I don’t know yet but it could be something exciting to pump up the already great Xbox 360 specifications. Maybe we will get an embedded HD DVD drive on the console instead of the old dying DVD drive or even an HD DVD recorder and the hard disk boosted to 320GB. Perhaps some new motion sensors for the controllers? Oh well, only Microsoft knows. It’s all secret until next week.

I sense that this year’s CES will unveil great things for all the geeks and technology lovers out there.

Lost Odyssey is a new RPG to be released by Microsoft for the Xbox 360. So, with lots of new releases why making a post for this one in particular? Well, I guess I enjoyed the trailer and, just by curiosity, do you know how many discs is this game? Four discs. Yep, 4 Dual Layer DVDs. This means that Sony PS3 fans will soon be posting in their blogs something like “See!? If you had a Blu-ray player you would be playing this game in only one disc. No changing discs on the PS3″.

I’m not a PS3 fan. I actually have an Xbox 360 and think that the 360 is a better buy right now, but I have to agree that four discs can be annoying. Although it seems to be a long game which means that the player doesn’t need to be changing the discs all the time. And, to minimise the inconvenience Microsoft included 125 achievement points to be earned each time you finish a disc.

Lost Odyssey™ is the story of Kaim, an immortal character who has lived more than 1,000 years. He doesn’t remember his past, and he doesn’t know where his future lies. Throughout Kaim’s journey, a handful of characters will join him on an odyssey to discover their intricate past and destiny, leading players through a dramatic story of massive scale. Lost Odyssey features breathtaking visuals and an epic adventure made possible only by the power of Xbox 360™.

Check the trailer:

Low Quality and High Quality

Netscape, which is owned by AOL since 1998, is about to die. AOL is ending the development and support for this browser after the 1st of February. The reason is that Netscape Navigator is being used by a tiny population. Currently, Netscape has around 0.6% of the web population using it, which compared to the 90% they had 15 years ago … is shocking. Microsoft contributed to this with the not-really-fair inclusion of their web browser, Internet Explorer, on their operating system, Microsoft Windows.

AOL will now encourage Netscape users to start using Firefox. Which is good news and makes sense, since Firefox was created by Netscape developers. As a note, please don’t go for Internet Explorer. Although version 7 is a much better version compared to version 6 (you’re not using IE6, are you?), it is still one of the worst browsers out there, which is used by 80% of people.

If you still want it for remembering the good old times (er…) you can still download a copy, but with no kind of support whatsoever after the 1st of February.

Read the full article on the BBC website.