Entries for Christian Liensberger

Microsoft Interns Video 2008: The Spy

littleguru — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:19:00 GMT

Since it seems to be tradition for summer interns to make a video during their stay, a couple of us felt it wouldn't be right to leave without personally contributing to the cause.

So after an e-mail sent out at 4:50 pm, planning/filming from 5:30-7:30, and 2 days of editing, we present to you our video - "The SPY".

Someone tries to sneak in and steal top secret material from Microsoft.

Do they succeed? Do they fail?!
FIND OUT!

Created by and Starring:
   Brian Cho (spy)
   Bill Orr (full time employee and intern)
   Siddharth Natarajan (trash man)

Edited by:
Brian Cho

See more videos by Brian at http://www.youtube.com/brianmcho

IE8 Beta2

littleguru — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 05:34:40 GMT

They added tons of new features :) The download is available from here. The JavaScript performance rocks now!!

Free software for students: Plastic SCM a version control system built in C#

littleguru — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:26:00 GMT

I found this interesting product today. It's a version control system that is build in C#. The best part is that it is completely free for students!

To get the free license you only need to write them an email from your university account so that they understand that you are a student!

How do they describe their product?

Plastic is a distributed system that implements a number of branch and history visualizations (including 3D version trees) and makes extensive use of the mono project for multi-platform support. Plastic stores data and metadata in SQL Server, Firebird or MySql databases.

Codice Software, the start-up behind Plastic, offers free licenses for students, educational institutions and open source projects.

Download the installer from www.plasticscm.com and request a free unlimited license at

It's not that nice and Vienna can do way better:

At home (in Italy) most often it get the following when like outside of the window:

What do you see when you look outside of your window?

in reply to I'm looking outside of the window...

What are you doing over the summer? [What are you doing over the summer?]

littleguru — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:53:00 GMT

Summer time, yay, finally!!!

I know it's not the beginning of summer for all of us (thinking about all of you from the south hemisphere; Australia, Sout Africa and Sout America we all love you), but: what are you usually doing over the summer?

Let me start with what I'm doing. I'm usually working on projects (mostly freelancher) and doing internships (as some might know from other threads here; this year Microsoft - yay). From time to time I'm also studying for exams that I want to do in the early fall. Other than that I'm relaxing in the public pools in my home town and going out during the evenings (a lot).

And you?

in reply to What are you doing over the summer?

Do you want an MSDN Premium and Visual Studio Team Suite subscription for free? [Do you want an MSDN Premium and Visual Studio Team Suite subscription for free?]

littleguru — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:56:00 GMT

Microsoft has given me two licenses of the "MSDN Premium and Visual Studio Team Suite" subscription. They told me to give them away and I thought of creating a small (and easy to do) competition to select the people who get the two licenses (worth $ 11,000 each one).

More information on the competition and how to participate can be found on my blog at http://www.liensberger.it/web/blog/?p=324.

in reply to Do you want an MSDN Premium and Visual Studio Team Suite subscription for free?

Smilies [Smilies]

littleguru — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:18:35 GMT

Yay! We got them :D

in reply to Smilies

Starting with your own idea [Starting with your own idea]

littleguru — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:53:00 GMT

While being in Salzburg I had the chance to interview two interesting guys: Hans-Peter and Wolfgang from 2Top.

A few years back they had the idea of creating an Object Relational Mapper tool that completely abstracts the database away from you. They participated with that idea at a competition that was organized by Microsoft and won in the innovation category. After that they started an own company around that product.

We spoke about innovation, ideas and how to realize them; about how to start an own company and also what both guys studied at university.

Tune in if you are interested entrepreneurship and want tips on how to bring your own ideas alive.

in reply to Starting with your own idea

Starting with Silverlight (part 6) [Starting with Silverlight (part 6)]

littleguru — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:14:00 GMT

This is part 6 of Mario's Silverlight screencast series (part 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). In this part he is going to do the following:

In this Screencast I will focus on web services for Silverlight. Since there are a lot of possibilities to access web services with Silverlight, I decided to focus on WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) and REST.

I will also show you how to access zip files and explore the content of them.

Do you want more screencasts on Silverlight? Tell us what you would like to see! Please add a comment on what Mario should cover in the future screencasts. You are also welcome to add a comment on any other topic that you want us to cover with a screencast.

in reply to Starting with Silverlight (part 6)

Starting with Silverlight (part 5) [Starting with Silverlight (part 5)]

littleguru — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:59:00 GMT

This is part 5 of Mario's Silverlight screencast series (part 1, 2, 3, 4). In this part he is going to do the following:

In this Screencast I'm going to explain how Isolated Storage works. Isolated Storage gives us the possibility to write data to a folder on the end user's computer. These folders act as a storage that can hold information for more than one session; and goes way beyond the simple cookies.

Furthermore, I'm going to explain ApplicationSettings that can be compared to cookies. They store their data in key-value pairs, which allows the user to easily retrieve the data when needed.

in reply to Starting with Silverlight (part 5)

Starting with Silverlight (part 4) [Starting with Silverlight (part 4)]

littleguru — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:50:00 GMT

This is part 4 of Mario's Silverlight screencast series (part 1, 2, 3). In this part he is going to do the following:

In this Screencast I'm going to describe how data templates can be used within Silverlight. It will also introduce into the basics of data binding and how to add new templates to lists.

in reply to Starting with Silverlight (part 4)

Starting with Silverlight (part 3) [Starting with Silverlight (part 3)]

littleguru — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:15:00 GMT

This is part 3 of Mario's Silverlight screencast series. In this part he is going to do the following:

In this screencast I'm going to give you an overview of controls from the Silverlight SDK. These are all controls that I haven't mentioned in the previous two screencasts.

I will show some of the functionality offered by the controls plus give a general overview on event handling in XAML/C# and how that works for Silverlight.

in reply to Starting with Silverlight (part 3)

Windows 7: rumors, rumors [Windows 7: rumors, rumors]

littleguru — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:00:53 GMT

The first information about Windows 7 is coming available: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/05/27/communicating-windows-7.aspx.

Also an interview with Steven Sinofsky has aired: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9951638-56.html

It is not much that they are saying about Windows 7 but I'm getting excited already... how is it with you guys?

in reply to Windows 7: rumors, rumors

Your favorite tool [Your favorite tool]

littleguru — Mon, 26 May 2008 07:44:52 GMT

My favorite tool (as right now) is Dark Room. An awesome little editor that removes all the noise and makes me concentrate on only writing. Cool stuf...

What's your favorite tool?

in reply to Your favorite tool

BugAttack! Free WPF Online Multiplayer Game [BugAttack! Free WPF Online Multiplayer Game]

littleguru — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:45:00 GMT

Two Austrian students from the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg, Austria released the first version of their online multiplayer strategy game BugAttack! after only three weeks of development time. It is developed entirely in C# using WPF as its presentation layer. BugAttack! is very easy to learn and understand, since it is less complicated compared to other online strategy games. It can be played 1 on 1 or in teams. Aim of the game is to kill ants, bugs and finally the opponent’s queen ant. Ants are collecting resources, while flies and bugs fight against the enemies.

The developers do not have to care about the deployment, since the application makes use of the ClickOnce feature of Visual Studio. Every time a user starts the game, it automatically searches for a newer version and downloads it if necessary. Since the developers make heavy use of new .Net features, .Net Framework 3.5 is required to play BugAttack!

The developers wanted to develop a game in order to learn about new Microsoft technologies. The user interface has been developed using Microsoft Expression Blend, which allows strict separation between design and code. Therefore it is more comfortable to implement the business logic independently from its graphical representation.

DirectX, XNA and WPF were under discussion, until WPF was chosen for developing the user interface. WPF delivers a lot of out-of-box functionality for creating cool looking interfaces.

BugAttack! was already tested on the vertical gaming wall INTOI (http://www.intoi.net/), which enables pen-based user interaction. Check out BugAttack! on INTOI at http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=2100f714-807a-4dd3-aed1-325d368d6bcc (or by playing it in the player here on Channel 8)

If you want to play the game check it out at http://www.bugattack.net/ – it’s worth trying.

in reply to BugAttack! Free WPF Online Multiplayer Game

Starting with Silverlight (part 2) [Starting with Silverlight (part 2)]

littleguru — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:44:00 GMT

This is part 2 of Mario's Silverlight screncast series. In this part he discusses the following:

In this screencast I show you how the Brushes in Silverlight work. Brushes are a basic concept in Silverlight and I try to explain them in a very rich way to show you all the possibilities associated with them.

The screencast includes a demonstration of the following brushes: SolidColorBrush, LinearGradientBrush, GradialGradientBrush, ImageBrush and the VideoBrush.

The example builds upon the grid panel that has been introduced in part 1 of this series. If you are not familiar with it, you might consider watching part 1 before watching this episode.

The source code for the samples shown in the video is available from here.

in reply to Starting with Silverlight (part 2)

Starting with Silverlight (part 1) [Starting with Silverlight (part 1)]

littleguru — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:26:00 GMT

Mario Meir-Huber, a senior student partner from Austria, created a cool series of screencasts on Silverlight:

In this screencast I show the functionality of the Layout Managers in XAML. It is a very simple introduction and gives you an overview on layouting in Silverlight.

The Layout Managers shown in the video are: the Grid, the StackPanel and the Canvas.

Furthermore, I show you also how to interact with them in your source code.

For a brief introduction of the Silverlight concepts please watch also the video interview that we did with Jaime Rodriguez.

The source code for the samples shown in the video can be downloaded from here.

in reply to Starting with Silverlight (part 1)

LOLCode and the Dynamic Language Runtime [LOLCode and the Dynamic Language Runtime]

littleguru — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:58:00 GMT

Will and I spoke with Martin Maly about the DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) and how to write own language compilers in a few hours.

He showed us his LOLCode compiler that he has written in a few hours (a day in Redmond and a few hours while had was waiting for this flight in Heathrow).

It's awesome how easily you can write languages on base of the DLR and how expressive and fast they are!

in reply to LOLCode and the Dynamic Language Runtime

What happens in Vegas [What happens in Vegas]

littleguru — Sun, 18 May 2008 20:38:10 GMT

I watched this movie a few minutes ago and liked it. The jokes are funny although the story followed exactly the Hollywood schema X. What's your opinion on the movie?

in reply to What happens in Vegas

Internships during the summer break [Internships during the summer break]

littleguru — Mon, 12 May 2008 06:02:09 GMT

Who is going to do an internship during this summer break? I'm going to do one in an interesting company... and you guys? Anybody going to do internships or work for a company? Or are you going to bring your pet projects to the next level (I have also quite a few of them running)?

in reply to Internships during the summer break

New features again for the forums [New features again for the forums]

littleguru — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:27:58 GMT

What do you say about these new features, like the one showing the threads you haven't read yet... I find it awesome that we are at the front row to get all the new features that come to the platform :-) Channel 8 and the EvNet (the guys who build the thing) for the win!!

And it seems also that the problem with posts ending up in the wrong forum is solved! YAY!!!

Now if we get a feature to edit the forum title I would be sold!

in reply to New features again for the forums

What's the Micro Framework? [What's the Micro Framework?]

littleguru — Sat, 10 May 2008 11:22:00 GMT

Will and I had the chance to speak with Rob Miles and Dave Baker. They talked us into the .NET Micro Framework and showed us what you can do with C# on small devices (really really small devices) that could be embedded everywhere. Some of these devices are so small that their only reason to live is to work for us as a sensor somewhere.

It was really amazing to see how easy it is to use the Micro Framework and C# to create a solution that runs on a device that's just as big as my old Nintendo(r) GameBoy (and with a cover would also look exactly the same).

Tune in if you like to program for embedded devices and ever wanted to see your code running in a toaster!

in reply to What's the Micro Framework?

Getting started with Silverlight [Getting started with Silverlight]

littleguru — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:56:00 GMT

There are a lot of open questions around Silverlight: What's Silverlight? What's better in Silverlight than in its competitors? What's really making the difference to other technologies? What technology is running Silverlight? Why should a student even care about Silverlight?...

That's why I met with Jaime Rodriguez (after I have heard that he's going to come to Vienna) and asked him a huge load of questions on Silverlight. Jaime is a Technical Evangelist for Silverlight and does therefore a lot with Silverlight; and that's not only demo applications!

I tried to cover a lot of the open questions to give you a great overview on why to choose Silverlight. Since I'm a developer I went also a little bit deeper to understand what exactly is making the "Silverlight experience" run.

Tune in if you enjoy programming and/or designing for the web and you wondered if there is a way to create a richer experience than the one that is available through plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

in reply to Getting started with Silverlight

Academic Community Launch in Austria [Academic Community Launch in Austria]

littleguru — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:13:00 GMT

In the last 4 weeks we three Microsoft Student Partners (one even Senior Student Partner), Alex, Mario and me, did the Academic Community Launch in Austria.

The idea was to visit a lot of the universities in Austria and do the something similar as the launch events (Heroes happen here, anybody) that Microsoft held in the different countries around the world.

We also wanted to show them the new technologies (in talks and one workshop) in a from-students-for-students perspective.

This video is a summary of what we did, plus (after minute 9:30) an interview with Alex where he speaks about the organization of such an event and also about what we learned while doing it.

in reply to Academic Community Launch in Austria

GTA 4 [GTA 4]

littleguru — Thu, 01 May 2008 05:52:06 GMT

Any GTA 4 owners here? Are the graphics really as good as the reviews say? What's your feedback on GTA 4? I'm thinking of buying it but you know 50+ € for one game isn't nothing and therefore I wonder if it's really that great as all say it is...

in reply to GTA 4