I am currently looking at automation of acceptance testing for workflows and a common task is to make sure an email has been sent. To do this in a TDD style I have been using the mock SMTP server nDumbster. Now this was a port from Java in the the days of .NET 1.1 and does not seem to have had any development since. …

After Alt.net I had thought getting an ultra light notebook was a good idea. At most conference I need to browser, blog and read email; I don’t need to carry around a full development desktop replacement laptop. Whilst at ReMix I had enough of the old battery in my Acer laptop, so just before it ran out of juice again …

Brian Harry has published an interesting post on the platform decisions for 'Rosario'. The most interesting item is it will only support SQL 2008; so get planning a migration for that central enterprise SQL server!

So how was ReMix? well a bit like last year not earth shattering, but what can you expect. We have PDC in a month so there is going to be no major announcements, also this is a rerun event from the US MIX conference, again reducing the chances of anything new. So if you are a developer and been to TechEd or just to …

I have eventually got round to rebuilding my GUITester on Codeplex for VS2008. I must get round to looking to see if a similar declarative test markup system has any mileage for XAML. Something was talking about at Alt.net in the spring - how time flies.

I have been asked a couple of times whist at the Alt.net and ReMix conferences about the local user groups around Leeds. Well these are the regular free community events I know about: Black Marble community events - my company runs free community events at a hotel between Leeds and Bradford roughly monthly from autumn …

I have just found out that the session I was doing at Vbug in Coventry next week has been cancelled due to low numbers. Sorry if you were planning to come, but don't worry I will be doing a similar sessions (the the bonus of post PDC Rosario updates) at the VBug conference in November.

It is all well and good Microsoft saying that a developers and designer can share the same project WPF/Silverlight files in Visual Studio and Expression Blend, but whilst Blend does not have the ability to use a source control repository (TFS, SVN or anything else for that matter) and actually strips out any source …

Just seen the keynote for Remix in Brighton, I must say that Bill Buxton's part was one of the best keynotes I have seen (watch out for the streamed webcast). For me the most important thing for a keynote is to set the tone, the meme, for the conference and his session certainly did. OK it is good to see the demos of …

I am with a contingent from Black Marble at REMIX UK in Brighton, if you are here say hello. Bill Buxtons keynote is both engaging and inspirational, if you are in the land of design I suggest trying to watch it. b.