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Lord of the Rings Online, a MMORPG from Turbine apparently uses .NET. The system requirements explicitly say so. I am not sure what parts of the game are .NET and which are native code, but I assume that the launcher is written in .NET and I did spy some resource assemblies being downloaded in the update process. The version of .NET required is 1.1 with Service Pack 1. Which means on a Vista box framework 1.1 gets installed in the LOTRO setup.

Hmm need to explore more.

Anyway's here is 2 incriminating screens.

By the way, the public beta for the game is open.

Former GWBer and now MSFTy Brandon Paddock has released an app for Windows Vista that gives you the shortcut ability of Windows Desktop Search (formerly MSN Desktop Search) on the Vista Search box which is nested in the start menu.

Go check it out.

Brandon you are 'The Man'. First all those uber tips for WDS and now Start++. As a matter of fact, I find myself using WDS more for the shortcut ability rather than for the search functionality.

Link: http://brandonlive.com/category/startplusplus/

Where do you go to download VS2005 Extensions? Seriously where do you go? How do you know what the latest CTP is? of if an Extension is released or is in RC?

Its weird but www.visualstudio.com (aka http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default.aspx) doesn't list any, netfx3.com doesn't list any of the extensions or the CTPs. Googling for an Extension by name is of no luck, the result takes you to a download page for the most referenced CTP (which may not be the latest).

Speaking of CTPs how do you find out what is the latest one.

Trying to find an VS Extension is an exercise in Google search terms. It takes a whole bunch of tries before you find what you are looking for and a bit of patience. This scenario however can do with a good deal of improvement.

What Microsoft should do is put up a page listing out available VS Extensions (additionally with links to the archive for CTP builds) where users can browse/search and download the extension they require.

So why all this fuss from me? I was looking for the WinWF Extension for VS 2005 and it took a couple of hours to find it. Not very productive use of time.

If anyone else is looking, you can find it here.

Occasionally I haunt a few photography sites or other looking for images that catch my eye (giving a bit of critique based on what little I know).

The photograph I found most amazing this week is one by Atanas Atanasov uploaded to Photo.net. In fact it was Photo of the Week Ending February 5^th at Photo.net.

Its just one of those photos that make you say WOW! really is amazing, go see it for yourself.

Was bored today so wasted a few hours creating YEG.

It's a tool that generates the YouTube Embed Code from the url of the YouTube Page. Nothing fancy, just a nice UI over some string concatenation.

You can download it here

URL of the Project on Project Distributor is http://projectdistributor.net/Releases/Release.aspx?releaseId=411

Alternatively there is a web version here.

Tags: YEG, YouTube, Embed, Generator

A friend of mine sent me this link to the Design Pattern Dictionary. Its not an all comprehensive pattern reference, but it serves like a dictionary in contrast to encyclopedia.

Good for identifying patterns at a glance.

Link: http://www.skilldesign.com/pattern/1/2/0.html

Tags: Design-Patterns, Design, Programming, Coding, GOF

The link to this Video was on Digg today (I think I am fast becoming a Digg junky these days, curse you Kevin Rose!! - JK)

Anyways here is the video. Its Nvidias application to the Mobile phone industry. I foresee that this would be where GPU's would go in the future. However a given fact is that the number 1 power drain on PCs today is the Graphics card, and this wouldn't change on the mobile arena. In fact it does get more demanding, so having a fancy GPU on your mobile phone, would or may result in your battery being drained mighty quick unless some remarkable breakthroughs are made in the power industry. The phone might have some fancy graphics, but I wouldn't buy it if I have to charge it every 8 hours (Oh wait, I do that anyway)

Tags: NVidia, Mobile, GPU, Graphics, Interface