I found out about a great piece of Mockup software to quickly generate a mockup screen for your applications called Balsamiq Mockups. The software is distributed as an Adobe Air application that you can install locally to your PC.

Mockups For Desktop allows you to work on your UI wherever you are, regardless of your Internet connection. It works on planes, at coffee shops, and wherever you like to do uninterrupted work. Import and Export features ensure seamless integration with all the other versions of Mockups, for when you get back online. Plus you can load and save multiple mockups files, use all keyboard shortcuts and lots more.

Here is an example screen mockup that you can create in the software:

I was able to quickly create a web page template as a demo for a project that I am working on in only a few minutes of work. The Balsamiq Mockup software has many templates to use to create mockups. You can even create your own templates or download more at http://www.mockupstogo.net/.

I have not had any problems with the application so far and would recommend you trying it out on your next project as a quick way to mockup a screen for a presentation to your customers or to be used by your developers to create the real screen.

John Resig announced that jQuery 1.3 has been released. jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. The big features of this release are:

• Sizzle - A sizzlin’ hot CSS selector engine.
• Live Events - Event delegation with a jQuery twist.
• jQuery Event Overhaul - Completely rewired to simplify event handling.
• HTML Injection Rewrite - Lightning-fast HTML appending.
• Offset Rewrite - Super-quick position calculation.
• No More Browser Sniffing - Using feature detection to help jQuery last for many more years to come.
• New API Browser - a new API browser developed by Remy Sharp.
  

The full details of the release can be found in the release notes: http://docs.jquery.com/Release:jQuery_1.3.

Microsoft released SP1 for the Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Office for Visual Studio 2008. The Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system (version 3.0) can help you extend applications in Microsoft Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system by using Visual Basic and Visual C#. The tools include Visual Studio projects to help you start to create an Office Business Application (OBA).

For the latest information about Visual Studio Tools for Office and Office development, see the following development centers on MSDN:

• The Visual Studio Tools for Office Developer Portal contains links to product information, code samples, videos, and community resources about using Visual Studio to customize Office applications as part of your solutions.
   
• The Microsoft Office Developer Center contains links to technical articles, code samples, downloads, community information, support, and other documentation about Office customizations and OBAs.

SP1 Overview:
You must install this update on your development computer, and also on client computers, if you use Visual Studio 2008 SP1 to develop Microsoft Office solutions.

This update provides bug fixes and new features, including .NET Framework Client Profile compatibility and the ability to add host controls and smart tags to documents from application-level add-ins.

When you install the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime on a non-English version of the operating system, you should also install the appropriate language pack service pack to see the text of the messages from the runtime in that language, rather than English.

Download SP1 by clicking here.
 

DevExpress has decided to release over 60 controls for downloading that are free of charge – without royalties or distribution costs. Here is a listing of the controls that are available:

WinForms Controls (the XtraEditors Library)

Embeddable Editors

	TextEdit		ButtonEdit		CheckEdit
	CalcEdit		ColorEdit		ComboBoxEdit
	ImageComboBoxEdit		FontEdit		DateEdit
	ImageEdit		PictureEdit		MemoEdit
	RichTextEdit		MemoExEdit		SpinEdit
	LookUpEdit		PopupContainerEdit		TimeEdit
	RadioGroup		MRUEdit		HyperLinkEdit
	ProgressBarControl		TrackBarControl		RangeTrackBarControl
	ZoomTrackBarControl

Controls

	XtraTabControl		FilterControl		ListBoxControl
	CheckedListBoxControl		ImageListBoxControl		DataNavigator
	ControlNavigator		LabelControl		SimpleButton
	CheckButton		DropDownButton		MarqueeProgressBar
	PanelControl		GroupControl		SplitterControl
	SplitContainerControl		XtraScrollableControl		VScrollBar
	HScrollBar

Framework Controls

XtraForm

XtraUserControl

XtraMessageBox

Controllers and Repositories

	StyleController		ToolTipController		DefaultLookAndFeel
	PersistentRepository		DXErrorProvider		DXValidationProvider

ASP.NET Controls (the ASPxperience Suite)

Components

	ASPxCallback		ASPxCallbackPanel		ASPxCloudControl
	ASPxDataView		ASPxHeadline		ASPxMenu
	ASPxNavBar		ASPxNewsControl		ASPxObjectContainer
	ASPxPageControl		ASPxPager		ASPxPanel
	ASPxPopupControl		ASPxPopupMenu		ASPxRoundPanel
	ASPxSiteMapControl		ASPxSiteMapDataSource		ASPxTabControl
	ASPxTimer		ASPxTitleIndex		ASPxUploadControl

I ran across a cool idea from Microsoft where they have released a Power Toy for middle school aged kids. The tool is called Microsoft Visual Studio Middle School Power Toy 1.0 and is a software package particularly designed by Microsoft to help middle school students learn computer programming.

Microsoft Visual Studio Middle School Power Toy 1.0 is a software package particularly designed by Microsoft to help middle school students learn computer programming. It consists of the following five components:

• Visual Sort Designer Control - is a supplementary teaching tool developed to help middle school students learn the basic concepts, algorithms, and implementations of popular computer sorting algorithms. It supports bubble and insertion sorting. The control generates initial values automatically and demonstrates intermediate states in the sorting process. It also generates sorting source code for both Visual Basic and C#.
• Visual Search Designer Control - is a teaching tool developed to help middle school students learn the basic concepts, algorithms, and implementations of popular data search algorithms. It supports binary and sequential searches. The control generates initial values automatically and demonstrates intermediate states in the searching process. It also generates source code for both Visual Basic and C#.
• Visual Declarative Designer - is an intuitive variable declaration tool designed for novice programmers. During the coding process the student can declare variables of various types and generate the corresponding source code. Visual Variable Declarative Designer provides a visual approach to variable declaration. Teachers in the Information Technology (IT) field can use this designer to teach students the basic concepts of variable declaration and naming, variable types, access modifiers, and initial values.
• Assistant Class Designer - is a visual class designer intended for novice programmers such as middle school students. During the design process, students can easily add classes, properties, methods and events. The designer also generates source code that can be inserted into a project and modified as needed. By using this class designer and code generator, complicated classes can be easily created and configured. The Assistant Class Designer provides an intuitive approach to designing classes and helps students to understand key object-oriented programming concepts such as classes, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism.
• Visual Programming Flow Chart - is a supplementary teaching tool designed to help students understand program control flow. It generates flow charts for functions and saves them in the JPG picture format. This tool is easily activated from the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment (IDE) by simply right-clicking on a function name and choosing “Generate flow chart…” from the context menu. The resulting flowchart can be customized by changing its colors and other effects. This visual tool provides an intuitive way to explore source code, to examine its control flow, and to identify logic errors.
   

You can download the tool from the Microsoft Download site by clicking here.

The User Account Control of Windows Vista has been the source of frustration and problems for many users that are trying to make the switch over to Windows Vista. I have always been the administrator on my Windows XP PCs and never had any of the problems of installing or running programs. The continuous prompts to run or install programs even when the user is an administrator can take quite a lot of getting used to. I can see what Microsoft was trying to do with the feature, but it still doesn't deliver a good user experience in my opinion.

Luckily, I ran across a tool that will help relieve some these frustations. The tool is called TweakUAC. TweakUAC™ is a free software tool that you can use to quickly turn UAC (User Account Control of Windows Vista) on or off, or to make UAC operate in the quiet mode. This software does not require installation, it is ready for use as it is! Just download the file and save it to your computer's hard drive.