Help the work flow

If, like me, you have been finding it difficult to get the snappily titled Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation to install, then I suggest you read this.  In my case, renaming Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation (EN).exe to Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows Workflow Foundation (EN).zip, extracting the contents and running Setup.exe did the trick.

ScribeFire

I’ve used Peformancing for Firefox for most of the posts to his blog. I’ve done a few straight from the dashboard and a couple using Windows Live Writer. An updated version of Performancing for Firefox is available – and it’s got a new name.



It’s called ScribeFire now. If you haven’t already had a look at this extension, now might be a good time.

Certified

You checked it out.  You made some changes.  It ran.  Sort of.  Here’s the logo and the program that’s designed for you:

It Works on My Machine Certification

In Command

Here is a thought provoking essay by Don Norman that I found via the All About Users blog.  It’s about the future of UIs – the nub of it being that the future is a sort of command line because GUIs are not up to the sophistication of modern systems.  It’s a very interesting point of view and one that reminds me that I should really get around to installing Quicksilver.  I took a look at the Enso products that are linked from the essay.  The spellchecker and dictionary is standard fare for Mac OS X users.  But it’s still worth watching the demo to see what it can do while admiring the arty black and white shots.

nspectre 1.0.0 released

nspectre 1.0.0 has been released.  This version has a new type of simple specification which allows you to call functions.  Being able to call existing functions means not having to dabble in template language and being able to unit test the existing functions.  If you want to create a function for use as a specification it needs to be declared public and must return IFunctionResult (there’s an implementation of IFunctionResult in nspectre if you want to use it – just remember that passing an error to the constructor will automatically set the outcome to false, otherwise the outcome will be true.)  Bindings are used to pass arguments to the function – and if you declare Context or ILogger as arguments, they will be automatically wired up without you having to lift a finger.
In addition to this new feature, there’s also an enhancement to the way assemblies are referenced.  Some users were having an issue with web applications at runtime getting references to assemblies.  So the new version not only adds references to assemblies containing candidate types or existing functions, it also adds references to any assemblies these containing assemblies reference.
Go and try it out.  The example project that comes with the source project is a great place to start.  Download it here.