Today I ran out of disk space on my drive C: which caused Vista to constantly swap memory and turn veeeeeery slowly. I brought up the Disk Cleanup wizard and found out that the System queued Windows Error Reporting occupied more than 2.5+ GB:

So it seems fair to say that the built-in error reporting feature caused an "error". Check your Disk Cleanup wizard regularly to avoid unnecessary usage of valued HDD space by queued error messages sitting there and waiting to be sent to Redmond.

This year's fourth quarter will mostly be a "research quarter" as I am preparing a couple of speeches dealing with Microsoft technologies which I'm due to hold during the first weeks of 2008. Therefore the majority of books I've read in October where technical ones - thanks god covering fascinating topics so I'm not missing fiction too much, yet. :-)

Here's my (somewhat regular) list:

Richard Dawkins - God Delusion (currently reading)

This has been a page turner to me ever since I read the first page. The book has some 570 pages and I read through the first 450 in three successive nights planning to finish the rest today. Whether you're religious or not, Dawkins deserves attention from anyone claiming to be open minded and capable of taking criticism. (For November I'm planning to read The Selfish Gene written by the same author and already sitting on my nightstand.)

Krzysztof Cwalina, Brad Abrams - Framework Design Guidelines (read for the 2nd time)

I actually read this book about Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries from the Microsoft .NET Development Series quite some time ago. While prototyping some Silverlight application I decided to read it again to update some of the stuff I forgot. Worth reading for anybody working for a professional software development shop and planning to build extendable .NET solutions.

Chris Sells and Ian Griffiths - Programming WPF (currently reading)

Having finished Adam Nathan's WPF book this is the second book about WPF which I actually plan to read from first page to last page instead of using it purely as a reference guide. Windows Presentation Foundation is one of my favorite topics as it clearly will become the number one choice for building user interfaces for Microsoft platforms in the future.

Go2Web20 has a beautiful collection of Web 2.0 companies' logos. Check it out!

The folks at Telerik have just announced the availability of their O'Reilly Short Cut dealing with Silverlight 1.1 (at a price point of 9.99 US$). The content gets distributed as an immediate PDF download via the O'Reilly site.

The 76 pages start by introducing Silverlight and the Silverlight framework model followed by a more generic introduction to Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) including a brief comparison of various RIA technologies (Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Flex, AJAX Frameworks, Adobe AIR, JavaFX and Google Gears).

The next chapter is a rundown on Silverlight tools mainly focusing on Microsoft Expression Blend and Visual Studio 2008 (which currently is available for free in Beta 2).

The chapter about the Silverlight Design Model briefly introduces Shapes, Brushes, Transformations, Text, Image, Media and Animations.

I found the most valuable part of this Short Cut the next section about the Silverlight 1.1 Development Model which starts by explaining the basics of a Silverlight 1.1 project, covers its object model, touches the event model and also includes a bit about Silverlight and LINQ.

Finally the Short Cut very briefly explains basics about building a Silverlight application with an example for a custom Silverlight Button control.

While we very likely can expect the release of Silverlight 1.1 somewhere in mid 2008 - and thus still a bit to go with Alphas and Betas - we currently see lots of new preliminary content coming up almost daily. Telerik's O'Reilly Short Cut offers nothing which is not already available for free on the Web. In fact Microsoft's community sites currently offer the most valuable learning material and some commercial offerings are catching up.

I'd recommend this Short Cut for offline reading on a flight or journey by train and if you're fully new to Silverlight 1.1 and want to get a comprehensive introduction - but do not expect the Short Cut to really teach you how to build great apps!

Microsoft has released service pack 1 for Expression Design. Full details of this service release can be found in the Knowledge Base.

Highlights of XAML Export improvements and fixes

• The XAML Export UI has been updated to make it easier and more intuitive to select the desired export settings.
• Text can now be exported as TextBlocks for Silverlight applications.
• In the release version of Expression Design, all objects were given default names. Naming objects is now optional. When the "Always name objects on export" option is not selected, only objects you have explicitly named in Expression Design are given a name on export.
• Gradient midpoints are now exported.
• Since the release of Expression Design, the direction of the slashes in filenames for Silverlight applications has changed. Expression Design now writes out forward slashes in filenames and paths for Silverlight and WPF XAML. 

Highlights of other issues fixed

• Anti-aliasing can now be applied on export to large images.
• The quality of image export has been improved

Expression Design is Microsoft's vector graphics tool targeted at designers who create rich graphic assets. Expression Design features XAML export allowing to use art crafted with Design in Expression Blend and other XAML environments.

Don't worry. This will not be my formal CV. Instead I'll provide you with an overview of who I am, what I've done so far and what I'm interested in.

Before I start to speak, here is what others are saying about me. (All recommendations are publicly available through my LinkedIn profile.)

Brian Galvin, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Nuance Communications, Inc.
"Ralf is an extremely gifted and visionary developer. He was essential to the success of his last two companies, and we considered him personally to be a strategic partner of Genesys. Ralf is also a well-read, enthusiastic explorer of ideas and experiences, and he easily builds rapport with all whom he meets. He is very strong in customer-facing situations, and he is equally adept at 'delivering the goods' - a great engineering leader!"

Elliot Danziger, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Genesys Telecommunications, Inc.
“I have known and worked with Ralf for many years and have found him to be exceptional in many areas. He has a unique blend of detailed technical knowledge combined with a strong business intuition. His drive and enthusiasm are infectious and he adds a degree of excitement to those around him. He is also a strong team leader and business manager that can drive toward achieving the goals of even aggressive business plans. I would strongly recommend Ralf as a key executive for companies that want to drive leading edge technology forward.”

Dr. Helmut Reisinger, Senior Vice President (SVP) at Orange Business Services
“Excellent professional with hi-level seniority in all domains of call/contact center and voice application matters. Trustworthy.”

Monique Bozeman, Senior Manager Product Marketing at Genesys Telecommunications, Inc.
“Ralf has worked with Genesys both as a customer and partner, not that those two are ever mutually exclusive. His technical and market knowledge, expertise and ability to use, improve upon and create and effectively demonstrate market leading, user friendly products is impressive.”

James Stuart, UK General Manager at twenty4help Knowledge Service AG
“[...] I remember Ralf very well indeed from when we were both in twenty4help. Our working relationship was relatively brief... but it had a significant impact on me. I found Ralf to be knowledgeable, helpful and with a high level of integrity - and if I recall correctly, he ate all the biscuits from my office. I am so pleased Ralf is being recognized for his obvious talents and skills. This just shows there is justice in the world. Well done Ralf. One day we will meet up again. I look forward to it. My very best regards. James Stuart.”

Next, this is what the "about us" page at my current company used to say about me (unfortunately during a recent redesign, the management team got cut out entirely...):

After university Rottmann started his professional career at Warner Brothers Recreation Enterprises for 18 months as the Head of the Animatronics Engineering Group (AEG) in Los Angeles. He came back to join RTL Television as a Production Lead. Prior to joining VoicInt Telecommunications GmbH, Rottmann was Head of IT Strategy with twenty4help Knowledge Service AG, a leading provider of technical outsourcing services in EMEA, overseeing a multi-national, multi-vendor complex voice infrastructure. He ran twenty4help's IT department comprising 40 staff members spread across eleven countries.

Rottmann is a well known speaker at major voice events, has had several keynotes at G-Force, and moderates the German Voice Community’s Strategy Forum.

Now you know the condensed version! ;-)

Let my try to put the things with my own words without the usual marketing ingredients:

Friends, partners and fellows who know me consider myself as being very much entrepreneurial. I do love to create and grow stuff. I'm not good at routine tasks. In fact I set up my first own business while I was still in university. This was in the late 80's and it's been a small company which was offering computer aided light design for musicals, shows and larger events. We managed to grew our small shop to eight staff members when I happened to get in touch with somebody working for Warner Brothers in the United States.

One thing lead to the other and I got a job offer to help extending the Animatronics Engineering Group for WB. The AEG guys used to do the computer stuff behind the robots used in such movies as Jurassic Park, Gremlins and many many others. Today most of this is achieved by computer generated images (CGI) but back at that time many effects were actually built using a combination of micro mechanics and computer programs written in languages you've rarely ever heard before. The WB engagement not only offered me my first leading role while I was in fact still pretty young, it also made me live in the US for almost 18 months. When Warner Brothers decided to open a Warner Brothers MovieWorld - this is their theme park brand - in Germany they were seeking for engineers which were willing to speak German and to live in Germany for a while. Well, as a native German this was my ticket back to Germany while remaining employed by WB. So finally I helped building Warner Brothers MovieWorld and stayed with the company until shortly after its Grand Opening.

My next step was to join RTL Television as a Production Lead which somehow made me stay in the world of media but on the other hand introduced a full new world to me, again. RTL Television is Germany's first private broadcasting station and back in the 90's was considered very innovative. Many of the concepts and broadcasting formats we are now used to were introduced in Germany by RTL. The downside of working in the Television production space is that you have almost no private life. As an example we were producing popular daily talk shows. This meant to start at 8.00 in the morning and produce until 23.00 in the nights - and this was the regular schedule. At the point where this had ruined my private relationship and I no longer got any birthday party events from any friends, I decided to look for another job - one which would not necessarily mean less work but better working times.

At that time 1&1 - a large Web hosting company - had started its outsourcing business. They were planning to expand the operation of their daughter company - twenty4help - from a purely German operation to EMEA wide coverage. When I joined twenty4help they had 113 employees. When I left twenty4help seven years later, we were counting 2.500+. I've been in charge for the entire IT infrastructure from deciding on architecture up to purchasing hardware, software and services. At the time of me leaving the company in 2004 I had a team of 40+ great talents in infrastructure, technical support, systems, architecture end engineering.

In 2004 I've co-founded VoicInt Telecommunications GmbH, a software technology vendor start-up which drives managed services based communications solutions. As with many start-ups most management team members do have titles primarily to fill in the white space of their business cards. My current official title is Vice President Strategy & Business Development. This means I'm defining VoicInt's technology and product strategy and make sure it gets executed appropriately. On top of this I'm running Sales. VoicInt is doing fine and we managed to win a couple of Fortune 500 companies as our customers. We have some great ideas in mind and I'm looking forward to further expand VoicInt's operation.

I recently acquired the majority of shares of Talentgroup, another German start-up which focuses on building visually astonishing user interface for enterprise software applications and Rich Internet Applications. While I'm not involved into Talentgroup's day-to-day business I leverage my business network to help them to grow. I also consult the great team at Talentgroup whenever they ask for my advice. Talentgroup helps me staying at the edge of application architecture and technologies and from time to time forces me to open up Visual Studio or Eclipse to experiment with code. (Which after all I still love to do.)

Based on this busy career I always managed to improve how to lead great teams to produce great results while at the same time I never stopped learning. I've always followed the paradigm that even when you're required to macro-manage, you should own the skills and competence to understand exactly what you're talking about. That said, I've got a solid understanding of the following technologies:

- J2EE and JEE
- .NET, Silverlight and - specifically - Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
- iPhone Development and the iPhone SDK
- Enterprise Architecture
- Enterprise Contact Center and Communications Systems

As you might imagine I've given technology related speeches on various panels, events and trade fairs in either German or English. The largest international audience I've ever spoken in front of has been a group of 10.000 people (for Bertelsmann during Expo 2000).

You can also find me at XING, LinkedIn, Facebook and at ASMALLWORLD.

While I'm pretty busy with VoicInt, Talentgroup, my blog and my friends & family I'm always open for creative ideas, concepts or a challenge where you believe I could add value. Feel free to contact me at any time. You can find my PGP Public Keys here.

This is a quick one: 24100.net has now been proudly listed as official TechEd and PDC blog. Microsoft's ongoing community efforts really are awesome.

Those of you who follow my blog regularly know that I'm currently engaged in some of the Silverlight boot camps by giving speeches and keynotes. The really cool aspect about it is not so much that giving speeches can be motivating if your audience is very responsive and enthusiastic (as the majority of the Silverlight community is), but more over the community and networking effects which accompany these activities. From time to time I happen to meet long-time .NET developers who ask why Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) should matter to them and why not just stick with Windows Forms.

As I'm for once engaged in my own company which more or less builds and sells traditional enterprise applications (most of them implemented as Windows Forms solutions) and in addition own a majority of another company which does the opposite - focusing on the latest visual technologies to create cutting-edge user interfaces - I regularly deal with discussions grouped around "the user interface" in my professional life, too.

As it turns out, there is no simple, single or best answer to the question. However, there are numerous compelling reasons why every serious .NET developer and every company creating software for Windows operating systems should look into WPF.

Clearly: Windows Forms is not dead. Microsoft continues to invest into Windows Forms, but there will be no major enhancements to it after version 2.0 was released in 2005. Microsoft is clearly investing in WPF - not Windows Forms - as the future presentation platform. Obviously, if you’re targeting only Windows XP and Windows Vista, WPF is the way to go. But Windows Forms is still the only way to write managed user interfaces that will run on Win 2K and below.

The most common and frustrating misperception about WPF which I’ve encountered is, that it is just for applications which simply require “eye candy”.  Sure, WPF has a lot of support for flashy visuals and animations.  But that’s not all it’s good for.

Whenever the discussion touches upon the rich media and composite controls aspects of WPF, I do hear product managers and engineering leads yell: "Well, this is not what we need in the enterprise space. There are so many basic problems still to be addressed in enterprise software, that a compelling presentation of the user interface can merely be neglected". I also often hear that "Users don't want this. They are not there, yet."

I sincerely disagree with this traditional opinion and consider it primarily a myopic excuse for these people's inability to persuasively argue the investments required to addressing a move towards WPF for the teams they lead.

Besides enterprise software (and the accompanying legacy systems) we can see a massive and obvious move to more cinematographic richer user experiences nearly everywhere else. Whether one takes the latest operating systems (Mac OS or Windows Vista) or software that runs on devices such as TiVo, Xbox and on the Web thanks to Adobe Flash. The next generation of interactive IP television sets will add significantly to this movement.

It's a simple fact: Today's TV sets, cell phones and other devices increase the users' expectations for the experience of using software and companies better spend a great deal of time and money on user interfaces that differentiate themselves from their competition.

And while you and me might still be used to use a black and white console from time to time - and might argue that that has in fact been the best user interface ever - there's a whole generation of teenagers who will be the enterprise users of tomorrow and will be used to way more appealing user interfaces than most companies offer to them today. And while this still might be a reason to argue "well, that'll be customers tomorrow, so it's still early enough to look into this sometime in the future", successful companies leave competition behind because they lead and do not just follow.

There are a couple of facts about WPF when compared to Windows Forms:

• Data / Control templates provide a much cleaner way to declare how content gets rendered than anything available in Windows Forms.
• Data Binding in WPF is superior to what Windows Forms offers.
• C# and UI business logic and code can be cleanly separated in WPF.
• Styles provide a cool and simple why to easily style all buttons in an application to have the same look and feel.
• UI Virtualization comes for free and significantly enhances performance (dealing e.g. with tables with 100k+ rows).
• 3D support.
• UI development feels quicker in WPF (maybe its just because a WPF application looks way more appealing at the end of an iteration, or maybe its because development really is quicker).
• Adding a User Experience engineer to a development team, with no C# knowledge is easy. That way somebody with a strong designer background can work magic in Expression Blend and give the enterprise application a makeover that is guaranteed to win over the business users.

Besides these facts - and the list could be continued - the primary argument for starting to invest into WPF is understanding the importance and central role of the user interface for the process of user acceptance. There is a steep learning curve involved and some of WPF's concepts are so superior to what Windows Forms offers, that traditional developers might want to resist starting "from scratch".

However, on the long run companies who are not willing to innovate on the presentation layer will lose their market share to competition that does.

Jeff Sandquist is seeking technical evangelists who'd like to work for Microsoft.

Come join the team that has changed the way Microsoft communicates with Developers.  The Developer and Platform Evangelism Team is hiring a technical Evangelist to join the Channel 9 team. Channel 9 was created three years ago as an experimental way to build a two way interaction between developers and Microsoft using video as its primary communication tool. Since then Channel 9 has grown in both traffic and content, it is viewed by millions of visitors per month and is one of the top video blogs on the planet. As a result of this growth we are looking for another unique individual who has the passion, the knowledge, and the skills to help us tell the Microsoft story online.

If you always wanted to deal with the latest Microsoft technologies, check out his post with the official recruiting link coming by the end of this week.

And no, you're not going to compete against me... I've been asked but am currently involved into lots of stuff here in Germany. If you're going for the job, please leave a comment!

Tim Sneath posted a great PowerPoint slide deck on Windows Presentation Foundation. WPF is the state-of-the-art presentation technology for Windows XP, Windows 2003 and Windows Vista applications and the successor of WinForms (which will be maintained but not longer enhanced by Microsoft). Grab the presentation here!

Während anderenorts selbst eingefleischte Fans durch die gnadenlose Ausnutzung einer Monopolstellung zunehmend verärgert werden, setzt ein Unternehmen welches zu Unrecht häufig für die Legacy schützendes Verhalten in der Kritik steht, jetzt immer deutlichere Zeichen:

Microsoft gab heute völlig unerwartet die Freigabe des Source Codes der .NET Base Class Libraries unter der Microsoft Reference License bekannt!

In einem ersten Schritt wird der Source Code inklusive vollständiger Kommentierung der .NET Base Class Libraries (System, System.IO, System.Collections, System.Configuration, System.Threading, System.Net, System.Security, System.Runtime, System.Text, etc.), ASP.NET (System.Web), Windows Forms (System.Windows.Forms), ADO.NET (System.Data), XML (System.Xml) und WPF (System.Windows) zum Download zur Verfügung gestellt. Es folgen weitere Biliotheken unter anderem Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Workflow und LINQ.

Der Source Code wird als Standalone Installation verfügbar sein, der mit jedem beliebigen Editor einsehbar ist. Darüber hinaus wird Visual Studio 2008 (zurzeit in Beta 2) eine tiefe Integration inklusive vollständigem Debugging beinhalten.

Im finalen Release von VS 2008 kann der Debugger so konfiguriert werden, dass die .NET Framework Debugger Symbols (und der vollständige, zugehörige Source Code) dynamisch bei Bedarf geladen werden. Wahlweise kann der gesamte Quellcode auch in einem Vorgang für die lokale Nutzung bezogen werden:

Während der Debugging Session einer .NET Anwendung kann dann beim Erreichen einer Unterbrechung der Call Stack inklusive detaillierter Dateiinformationen (und sogar Zeilennummern) auch für die .NET Framework Klassen und Methoden eingesehen werden:

Der Screenshot zeigt einen Breakpoint auf der GridView1.DataBind() Methode. Bislang gab es keine Möglichkeit, die Implementierung dieser Methode zu verfolgen. Mit VS 2008 kann man (wie gewohnt) über F11 ("Step Into") in den Quellcode der Framework Methode springen:

Darüber hinaus ist es auch möglich, sich im Call Stack rückwärts zu bewegen. Im obigen Beispiel könnte so die private ProcessRequest Methode von System.Web.UI.Page nachverfolgt werden:

Sogar die Implementierung von System.Threading.ThreadPool weiter oben im Call Stack, die in mscorlib umgesetzt ist, kann ohne Probleme verfolgt werden:

Übrigens: Die "Locals" und "Watch" Panels des Visual Studio Debuggers werden auch für den .NET Framework Quellcode vollständig unterstützt!

Microsoft mag sich den ein oder anderen Vorwurf auch in Zukunft gefallen lassen müssen. Mit der konsequenten Verfolgung einer Strategie für "mehr offene Quellen" verhalten sich die Redmonder jedoch wieder einmal wegweisend, wenn es darum geht, eine weltweite Entwicklerbasis durch First Class Treatment zu beeindrucken. Hut ab!

The folks at InfoQ not only have a comprehensive review of Adam Nathan's outstanding WPF Unleashed book (which I recommend for a full end-to-end read for anybody seriously interested in creating solutions for the current and future generation of Microsoft platforms). They also provide a full printable PDF download of Chapter 3.

The chapter starts by explaining visual and logical trees and then deep-dives into fundamental concepts of Windows Presentation Foundation which, once understood, dramatically flatten the learning curve. It covers Dependency Properties, Attached Properties and moves forward to Routed Events.

If you have not already purchased the book you might want to download the sample chapter and get an idea of Nathan's great writing style and teaching approach.