Daily Review #9: Is Windows 8 The Last Windows?

Photo © Shawn Hempel | Dreamstime.com

Is Windows 8 The Last Windows?

OK, so maybe that title is a little sensational. My excuse is that it's the title Simon Bisson used in today's 'Must Read' blog post The Last Windows?

I think he overstates the case, but there are signs that the 'death' of Windows - at least as we know it today - is not far off.

Of course pundits have been pointing out that Windows and Office and the whole desktop application concept is living on borrowed time, and that 'borrowed time' has been shortened by the predominance of Apple and Google over the last few years.

Now it seems Microsoft itself is doing the shortening!

The point Simon makes is that with its introduction of contracts in Metro the operating system is one based primarily on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and "inviolate APIs", presented as a subscription system that Microsoft have control over (where before developers wrote their own interfaces). In such a world, he argues, "the desktop is just another application".

After years of promise, the increasing dominance of mobile has forced Microsoft down the SOA route right at its very core. Windows 8 may not be the end of Windows, but it's certainly the beginning of the end of Windows as we've long known it.

Some think this whole move away from the legacy 'desktop application' world view is an over-simplification, but I think Simon makes a very strong case.

The reality is that mobile is now where it's at, and Microsoft have had decreasing market share and influence in this space. The rot set in when they took two to three years to recognise the impact of the iPhone. By the time the company got their act together it was too late, as the pitiful sales, despite strong critical reviews, of Windows Phone 7 have proved.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Microsoft didn't learn from that experience, pooh-poohing the iPad in the same way (Ballmer's infamous dismissal of it as an irrelevance, insisting that what people wanted was Windows and a stylus on their tablets, two months after it started shipping), so that it's more than a year after the iPad first shipped and completely changed the market that they've announced their plans for a competing product THAT'S AT LEAST A YEAR AWAY FROM SHIPPING.

Oh dear!

It's not as if the writing wasn't on the wall from the get-go. Back in 2009 it was estimated that 3.6 billion people, in a world population of just over 6 billion, had access to a mobile device, with 1.6 billion (25% of the world's population) having access to the web through a mobile device.

Those figures aren't that interesting, but what's more interesting is the figures for desktop internet access at the same time.

As Brian Fling pointed out in his 2009 book Mobile Design and Development (O'Reilly Press) "just 1.1 billion have access to internet-connected desktop computers". Even before the launch of the iPad, mobile was the bigger market.

A market Microsoft had, and still has, no real foothold in.

More than two years on, you can be sure the ratio of those desktop vs mobile figures have significantly changed - and NOT towards the desktop!

For those who've followed an SOA approach in their application design, the 'death' of Windows, or the 'desktop app' is good news. They are well positioned to take advantage of those 1.1 billion users AND the larger number of mobile users with internet access. Windows 8 is now (finally) going down the same route, and the real message in Simon's piece is not the death of Windows, but the 'coming of age' (finally!) of the SOA dream.

Today's "News" Links

	Signing in to Windows 8 with a Windows Live Id (Stephen Sinofsky, Microsoft) Stephen Sinofsky's blog details the Windows Live Id/Windows 8 integration, with a nice video demo too. Maintain your Windows and Metro settings across all your devices!
	Miguel de Icaza Talks About Windows 8 an the Failure of Linux on the Desktop (Tim Anderson) Interesting interview where Miguel says he thinks Linux has blown it on the desktop. 'Interested in porting Metro apps to iOS and Adroid?' He's not going to spend any time on WinRT for other systems apparently.
	UEFI Secure Boot Part 2 (Matthew Garrett) The source of the whole 'Linux won't run with Windows 8' spate of articles last week responds to Microsoft's blog post on the subject. "What's interesting is that at no point do they contradict anything I've said." is his unimpressed verdict.
	Introducing the Microsoft Build Conference Webinar Series (Chris Woodruff) Every Thursday for the next few weeks Chris is going to be running a series of webinars with the key take-aways from this year's Build conference.
	Windows 8 and the Client Hypervisor (Sean Donahue) Sean speculates on what client-based Hypervisor-V in Windows 8 might actually mean.
	How Microsoft Windows 8 Will Sync Users Settings and Apps (Mary Jo Foley, Ziff-Davies) Mary Jo looks at the latest Microsoft announcement (see News Links) and gives her opinions.

Today's "Opinion" Links

	The Last Windows? (Simon Bisson, Ziff-Davies) Metro changes things. It's all about the contracts and the SOA!
	Moving from Silverlight to MVC3 (Jonathan van de Veen, CodeProject) After two and a half years blogging about 'Enterprise Adventures in Silverlight', Jonthan's jumping ship and moving to ASP.NET MVC and HTML5. Here he explains why, but heh! it's OK Silverlight isn't dead ;-).
	Silverlight's Fate: Don't let Microsoft's Silence Fool You (InfoWorld) Nice source that quotes several of the high profile bloggers about why Silverlight will still be around for a year or two yet.
	A Brief History of Five TouchSmart Generations: Pioneering Ideas for Windows 8 (Geek Tie Guy) Live tiles, fixed layout sizes for apps, parallax scrolling with an expandable space and touch-first design - all pioneered by HP before Windows 8 arrived on the scene. Nice history of HP UX, but the link to Windows 8 seems a little tenuous.
	Microsoft Employees Allegedly Left in Droves during Ballmer's Company Meeting Speech (Tom Warren, WinRumours) I suspect the most import word here is 'allegedly'.
	Microsoft Windows 8: Already Misunderstood! (R. Chase Razabdouski, The Examiner) Short post saying the mainstream pundits have got it wrong. Apparently they are all just Apple fanboi's. Me, I think it's too early to call yet.
	Building on the Momentum of Build (Steve Clayton, MSFT) Steve Clayton was impressed by Sam Moreau's Build talk on 'Designing Metro Style: Principles and Personality'. So was I.

Today's "Technical" Links

	Problems Connecting to Windows 8 VMs Isn’t Related to Developer Previews; Windows 2008 R2 SP1 Is at Fault (Roger Jennings, OakLeaf Systems) Nice source that quotes several of the high profile bloggers about why Silverlight will still be around for a year or two yet.
	Running the Windows 8 Developer Preview on Microsoft Virtualization (Ben Armstrong, Microsoft) Ben has a fix for Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2. And Virtual PC/Virtual Server support? "There is nothing more to say there" apparently.
	Running the Windows 8 Developer Preview on Microsoft Virtualization (Timmy Kokke) Timmy continues his illustrated walkthrough of features in the new preview version of Exprssion Blend.
	Lighting Up Your C# Metro Apps By Enabling Search Part 1 (Derek Whittaker, Devlicio.us) First of a three part series that looks at the new Search 'Contract' features available in Metro.

Today's "Fun Stuff" Links

Google Gravity An interesting variation on the Google home page.

Daily Review #8: What's the future for WinRT?

Photo © Yukchong Kwan | Dreamstime.com

What's the Future for Windows RunTime?

Most Build Conference attendees have now had their first weekend at home post-conference. They are diving into the bits they were given in the Windows 8 Developer Preview, and the first rumblings of discontent have started to appear, with 'I can't believe they left this out' being a common refrain that's starting to pollute the Twitterstream and blogosphere.

Most of what developers are struggling with - the APIs removed or changed to create a more performant Windows RunTime environment - had in fact already been covered in Krzysztof Cwalina's excellent 80 minute Build session A .NET Developer's View of Windows 8 Application Development.

This session really should have been one of the 'Big Overview' sessions given on the first day of the conference, rather than the final day 'Chalk and Talk' session (changed at the last minute) it was set up to be. Despite its low visibility, the video of this talk really should be mandatory viewing for every developer before they're allowed to even open up the Developer Preview of Visual Studio 11!

One amusing side-note to the 'small room/last day' circumstances around the delivery of this session, is that almost every single sentence Cwalina utters has been blown out into a full-blown blog entry by one MVP or another. Which, to my mind, says more about the state of the Microsoft Echo Chamber than any real value that such blog posts provide. I mean come on you MVPs (and wannabe MVPS) who are guilty of plagiarism: you brown-nose each other like crazy, but now you're not even acknowledging the original source of your information?!. Shame on you!

If you can't wait for the transcript of that talk (which I am aiming to make available for download early next week) go check the video now!

Those who've had a good 12 or 24 hours play with the new bits are already homing in on the huge gulf between the 'sexy' Metro apps and the 'old-school' Windows 7 apps that run in the so-called desktop environment. It seems most want Metro for the desktop, despite clear early announcements from Microsoft that for Windows 8 at least Metro is not intended for Line of Business apps.

As has been pointed out in previous Daily Reports, several folk don't buy into this story (see previous 'Must Read' link from Ward Bell as one of the better argued examples).

I'm one of them!

The lack of Office in the preview (and indeed any kind of mention of it at Build) seems to be the justification for taking the 'Metro is just a new toy OS for tablets, disguised as part of a supposed upgrade OS' approach for many commentators.

But it seems Office on Metro IS being considered. The day before Build Steve Ballmer gave a press briefing where he indicated that Microsoft were 'still thinking' about how Office would fit in with Metro. Given they've had a year to play iPad catch-up it doesn't sound like Office is going to remain a non-Metro app for long to me if they're STILL thinking about it.

Especially when you're trying to convince the Enterprise market that is your bread and butter that what you've got is way better than the iPad, and far more suited to business. Businesses want Office!

The big Metro push at Build has lead to a lot of speculation about the future of Windows RunTime (aka WinRT) - the core of Metro and the new development environment that Metro developers have to get to grips with, but which currently can't be used to develop apps for the desktop environment.

Clearly in its preview form WinRT is an early release of something that's quite some way from being ready for prime time (although in much better shape than many, including me, had anticipated).

But with most likely a year to go before it needs to be ready to ship, is it possible Microsoft are planning to actually have WinRT available for desktop apps too? Available even before RTM?

Some folks (including me) are hoping so!

Jeremiah Morrill sums up the whole situation perfectly in an excellent blog post Windows 8 "Don't worry. Nothing has changed for traditional desktop development." And that's the problem.

In that post Jeremiah points out that the developer seems to have two options for WIndows 8: a 'fast and fluid' experience with Windows RT, or a 'slow and clunky' experience with a UX framework like Silverlight or WPF. Not surprisingly he wants a 'fast and fluid' XAML framework on the desktop, and that means WinRT.

Jeremiah thinks that Microsoft might be holding back the news on WinRT on the desktop, for fear of creating even more of a backlash than has already been received from the huge swathe of Silverlight and WPF developers (or at least those who aren't MVPs happy to 'spin' the message). He points out that the backlash is there regardless, and Microsoft should just come clean on what the future holds so that developers can make the right decisions about which platform/technology to develop in.

I'm not sure I share his opinion that WinRT will be ready for the desktop in time for the ship date. But if Jeremiah is right then NOW would be the time for Microsoft to deliver a clear statement - the one that they promised in fact for Build, but then spectacularly failed to deliver on - about the future of Silverlight and WPF, instead of the smoke and mirrors around this nonsense about a .NET 4.5 point release and Silverlight 5.

Unfortunately, given the company's past record, that promised statement is not going to happen and no doubt the first news we'll get about the 'new world' of desktop development will be the day the beta or a release candidate ships.

In the meantime, companies will have to speculate, gamble and risk failure on the decisions they take with regard to the platforms they choose for development of the applications they are planning today, but intend to ship in the future.

Silverlight and WPF are clearly a "safe" choice for today, especially when Windows 8 won't even be available for another year (at least!). But, as is becoming clearer by the day, porting these apps to the new WinRT environment that Windows 8 users are likely to want, is nothing like the trivial exercise shown in that nasty 'take an old Silverlight 2 tutorial and port it to the new world of WinRT' demo given in the Build keynote.

Developers are advised to get fully up-to-speed on the ins and outs of the new WinRT world as quickly as possible, because the 'old world' is clearly living on borrowed time.

Build Session Transcripts

Yesterday, I said I'd be launching the first of a set of reviews and video transcripts from the Build Conference today.

Unfortunately events overtook me over the weekend and the first of these reviews and video transcripts will not now be appearing until Wednesday evening (UK time, Wednesday morning USA time).

Apologies for the delay. I won't bore you with the reasons as to why the date has slipped, suffice to say real work that pays the bills takes priority over the blog, which is a hobby!

I am still on schedule to produce the first Product Review ('Fundamentals of MEF' Video training course) that was also mentioned, which should hit the blog on Friday.

Today's "Opinion" Links

	Windows 8: "Don't worry, nothing has changed for traditional desktop development." And that's the problem. (Jeremiah Morrill) Don't be fooled by the 'me too' title. This is actually a detailed and insightful analysis of WinRT and where it sits in relation to the Windows frameworks that we have today.
	So what the heck is WinRT? (Marcel) Don't be fooled by the 'me too' title. This is actually a detailed and insightful analysis of WinRT and where it sits in relation to the Windows frameworks that we have today.

Today's "Technical" Links

	Debug Your Metro Apps Remotely (Corrado) The trick to getting this stuff working is to disable your local firewall apparently.
	How to Uninstall Windows 8 Developer Preview Completely (The Windows Club) Step-by-step instructions on how to completely remove the Developer Preview if you've decided it's not for you.
	Breaking Change: Raising PropertyChanged with String.Empty in WinRT Windows 8 (Laurent Bugnion) If you use an empty string for your PropertyChanged event notifications you're going to find your code is broken in WinRT.
	Google Image Search Client in WPF and C# 5 (Krishnachytanya Ayyagari, The Code Project) Source code that shows how few lines of code are needed when you have the power of async await and lambda expressions.
	ReadOnlyDictionary in .NET 4.5 (IBloggable) Mr Muran (I'd give you his full name but the About page for his blog post gives a 'server 500' error - that'll be an 'official' Microsoft-hosted ASP.NET blog then!) is excited about the new ReadOnlyDictionary in .NET 4.5 and shares his findings.
	Setting the Initial Rotation in a C# Metro Application (Derek Whittaker, Delicio.us) The empty 'Application template' sets your Metro app to run in Portrait mode when the chances are that 99% of the time you want to run Landscape. Derek explains how to change this setting.
	Dealing with Types in WinRT (Laurent Bugnion) If you haven't bothered to watch any of the Build videos, here's the first tip that came out of the main WinRT session: using the GetTypeInfo() extension method.
	Detecting Design Mode in Windows 8 (Laurent Bugnion) Laurent's second tip from the Build session on Windows RT: how to test if you're running in design mode (it's changed!) so your designers can have some sample data to work with.
	Quick Tip: Select the Correct INotifyPropertyChanged in Windows 8 (Laurent Bugnion) Laurent's third tip from the Build session on Windows RT: working out which Intellisense library to use for INotifyPropertyChanged. As I've pointed out in the comments I think Laurent's got it wrong with his 'Use the Windows namespace version' edict which is intended for Metro/RT apps only.
	Quick Tip: Killing a Metro Style App in Windows 8 (Laurent Bugnion) Laurent's fourth tip of the day is all about the difficulty of killing Metro applications. He has a shortcut key combination, assuming you have a real keyboard.

Fast and fluid News

Don't forget that all the latest Windows 8 Metro links are posted in 'real time' on the Fast and fluid Twitter account.
The Fast and Fluid Podcast, covering all things Windows 8 related, will be launched in early October.

Daily Review #7: HTML5 Security Holes

Photo from ENISA | European Network and Information Security Agency

HTML5 Security Vulnerabilities

Back in July, the European Network and Information Security Agency produced a 62 page report, documenting 51 separate security threats and issues in the HTML5 Specifications.

It has been mostly ignored, although word of its existence is starting to trickle out via various blogs and Twitter feeds now. It makes for fascinating reading.

The organisation argues that "The web browser is arguably the most security-critical component in our information infrastructure. It has become the channel through which most of our information passes. The standards which govern the browser are currently undergoing a major upgrade. This includes HTML5, cross-origin communication standards such as CORS and standards for access to local data such as geo-location.".

The report points out that "the volume of web-based attacks per day increased by 93% in 2010 compared to 2009, with 40 million attacks a day recorded for September 2010 (Symantec Threat Report, 2010)", going to state that in publishing its report ENISA is "seizing a unique chance to make detailed recommendations for improvements to browser security before they become non-negotiable for years to come."

But is anyone listening?

The Week Ahead

It's just two weeks since I kicked off this fast and fluid blog, and a week since I started the Daily Review blog posts. Feedback via email, from the few who've discovered the blog, has been unequivocally enthusiastic. From the Echo Chamber 'personalities' (I refuse to use the self-aggrandising phrase 'rock star') who continually retweet the same few, tired 'circle jerk' blog post links, less so!

No matter, I think the blog will find its audience over the next few weeks as I ramp up the output and the weekly podcast comes onstream in October. There's lots planned!

Next week, I'll be kicking off the Reviews section of the blog site.

With the tagline "Wading through hours of Build videos so you don't have to" the new Build Video Review series will start tomorrow (Monday) with the first of the three Big Overview talks presented at Microsoft's Build conference just over a week ago.

Each review will indicate whether the video is worth spending your time on (or not), but perhaps most importantly of all, will include a complete transcript download that includes the slides as a pdf file download.

Many of the speakers at Build talked about their slide decks being available for download, but at the time of writing that still hasn't happened, so this seemed a good approach to take to help the over-worked folks at Channel 9 out, especially given the paucity of good technical information on Windows 8 and particularly Window RunTime at the moment.

It may seem odd that someone with the reputation as 'the video guy' should be posting transcripts rather than promoting the original videos, but the reality is that video isn't always the most efficient way to learn something - even when played at 1.5 or two times normal speed!

It's also frustrating to see the number of Microsoft MVPs simply taking small parts of different presentations, and blowing them out into whole 'original' blog posts. Isn't it better to just go to the original source and get ALL the information?

The fast and fluid transcripts help promote the whole 'fast and fluid' way of learning, by giving you an alternative way of learning from the Build conference session videos - a way that can be easily carried around on your Kindle or iPad device, without eating up Gigabytes of broadband download width or scarce solid state storage on your portable device. I find them useful (which is why I've produced them) and hopefully you will too.

Personally I've never understood why online training companies don't provide the same course notes that their offline competitors do. Video on its own is too time-consuming to sit through for most people, especially in a world where we're all being bombarded with information overload. And if you want to recall something from an online course, what are you supposed to do? Go back and rewatch the entire video again?

If the online training industry won't change, then I'll have to change things for them! Watch out for an exciting announcement about a new form of online training for Windows 8 coming before the year end!

Next week also sees the first product review. Unlike other 'review' web sites these product reviews will be based on PURCHASED products, not freebies or 'favours to friends'. I think this will make the reviews here more honest and impartial than most of those that appear on the web, where the reviewer has not had to pay for the product out of his or her own pocket.

Things kick off on Friday with a full review of the Fundamantals of the Managed Extensibility Framework video course, on sale from the folks at InformIT, as written and delivered by Jeremy Likness.

Is the course worth USD 70 of your hard-earned money? I'll be delivering my verdict on Friday! If you can't wait until then and want to review the course for yourself, it's currently available for a limited time for half price. Sod's Law says the dramatic 'Limited time offer' price drop happened the day after I purchased the course! I'll try not to let that prejudice my review, although it's annoying that it was 3 days AFTER the price drop offer that the download links I'd been sent for my purchase actually started to work!

Today's "News" Links

	Another Day Another Departure from Microsoft's Cloud Management Team (Mary Jo Foley, Ziff-Davies) There have been so many departures from Microsoft's upper management these last few months that Mary Jo Foley can't keep count. Just-appointed Commerce Corporate Vice President Rajat Taneja is the latest to leave.
	European Group Finds HTML5 Security Gaps (Jeremy Kirk, ComputerWorld) OK, so this is hardly 'news' given that the report was published in July, ComputerWorld reported on it in August, and now in September people like me are just discovering it. The original report should be required reading for all those writing HTML5 web apps.

Today's "Opinion" Links

	Day 1 at the Office with my Windows 8 Tablet (Stephen Forte) Stephen got his favourite Apps (Evernote, Dropbox, LiveWriter, Skype) up and running and is a happy man. Despite having to run most of these in Desktop mode, his main realisation was that 'the new Metro UI is the main experience'.
	Windows 8 Design Flaws Microsoft MUST Address (Adrian Kingsley-Huges, Ziff-Davies) Not sure I agree with Adrian's assessment that Microsoft 'must' kill Metro on the desktop and allow multi-tasking to mean more than 'just two Metro apps side by side'!
	Windows 8 Faces Several Challenges to Success (Brian Jackson, ITBusiness.ca) In summary, Brian thinks it's too early to call one way or the other.
	Top Five Things We Dislike About Windows 8 (GeekITDown) Lack of Window Start menu, over-reliance on Windows shortcut keys, Too many clicks to Restart/Shudown... I'm sending some pretty common themes here!
	Windows Phone Proven to Record Location Data Without Authorisation (Tom Warren, WinRumours) Apple got into a lot of trouble when it was discovered they were tracking location data without user permission and had to issue a patch fairly quickly. Is anybody surprised that Microsoft have been found to be doing the same thing?
	Internet Explorer 10 Preview: HTML5 First Look (Michael Mullany, Sencha) A quick look at the new HTML5 features that have been added to the latest version of Microsoft's IE 10 browser
	Re-focusing for the Future (Ryan Posener, DenverDev) Like many Silverlight developers, Ryan is struggling to work out what do do next given Silverlight's diminished role following the Build Conference announcements. He shares his thoughts here.
	Killer Build Interviews and XAML Sessions (Michael Crump, Telerik) I'm not sure I'd call such meandering, DotNet Rocks-like video 'killer', but then I don't work for Telerik who put the interviews together. Worth a watch if you're bored and follow the whole 'rock star opinions are valuable' world view of things. I'm also not a fan of all these 'best videos' blog posts that are appearing. NOBODY has had the time to sit through WEEKS worth of video from parallel sessions at the Build conference, so how can people KNOW which ones were the best?!?!
	Financial Times Proves HTML5 Can Beat Native Mobile Apps (John Paul Titlow, ReadWriteWeb) It's the information not the technology that's important. But not buying this whole 'better sales by going HTML5' argument. It's a worse user experience, as the article acknowledges.
	Windows 8 Features and Release Dates (Joel Fernandes, The Tech Labs) An extremely thin overview of Windows 8 features, with the 'and Release Dates' title added as link-bait.

Today's "Technical" Links

	How to Avoid the 'Please Install .NET 3.5' dialog when running older .NET applications on the Windows 8 Developer Preview (David Anson, Delay's Blog) Can someone tell the folks who make Sony Vegas Pro software to go read this article and ship a new version? Kthxbai.
	HTML5 Canvas Cheat Sheet (Jacob Seidelin, Nihilogic) Handy cheat sheet for the HTML5 Canvas feature, although I prefer Jacob's png and pdf download versions that this HTML version was plagiarised/copied from. They can be found on Jacob's blog.
	Physics Helper XAML for Metro WinRT (Andy Beaulieu) Andy's ported his Physics Helper Library across to WinRT. Blimey! That was fast! :-)
	SharpDX - The Power of DirectX for C#/.NET (Code.Google.com) SharpDX is a full DirectX framework for the .NET Platform, including the newest DirectX technology and support for Windows 8. Nice!
	Core .NET Types Usable from a Metro Style App (Jeffrey Richter) A. Very. Long. List.
	A Simple Example of 'async' and 'await' in C#5 (Tim Anderson) Nice code example comparing the old way of handling long-running async tasks vs the new way.
	Using the Windows Run Time from a Non Metro Application (Jeffrey Richter) If you thought it couldn't be done Jeffrey proves you wrong, with some code snippets to help you along.
	How to Install Windows 8 Preview As Virtual OS in Windows 7: The Complete Guide (TechDug) If you thought it couldn't be done Jeffrey proves you wrong, with some code snippets to help you along.
	What is the WinRT Windows Run Time, and What Does it Have to do with .NET? (Seth Juarez, DevExpress) Three of the slides from the Build Conference and a few explanatory words give a quick, snappy introduction to WinRT for those that haven't watched the '930' session video from Build.
	Running Unit Tests in Visual Studio 2011 and Windows 8 (Laurent Bugnion, GalaSoft) A quick, snappy set of instructions for those that haven't watched the '529' session video from Build.

Fast and fluid News

Don't forget that all the latest Windows 8 Metro links are posted in 'real time' on the Fast and fluid Twitter account.
The Fast and Fluid Podcast, covering all things Windows 8 related, will be launched in early October.