Microsoft Office 2007 applications (at least Outlook and OneNote in particular) require Windows Desktop Search 3.0 to be installed for their built-in search capabilities to work fully. Since out of the box this version of WDS doesn’t support the indexing of files on network shares you also have to install the WDS Add-in for Files on Microsoft Networks. You still have to map the network drives to be indexed but at least you can select them in the WDS options window afterwards.

In Windows Vista WDS 3.0 is already built-in but you still have to install the add-in for the indexing of files on network shares to work.

I’ve recently passed the MCP exam 70-536: TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Application Development Foundation. My overall experience has been very positive. Although there are a few not so relevant topics I think that most of them are a must-know if you’re a .NET developer. I found the exam quite easy with only a few really nitpicking questions. Maybe I was just lucky but it was a pleasant surprise for me.

I used the Microsoft Self-Paced Training Kit as the study guide. In spite of the mistakes it contains (see errata) I still find it a useful overview of the topics covered by the exam. I even think of it as a great overview of .NET framework for every developer even if he’s not considering taking the exam. On the other hand it really shouldn’t be your only resource, more of a starting point to direct you to the topics you realize you don’t know enough about. MSDN or a more specialized book can help you from there on.

If you’re interested, I’m selling my own copy of the book at a reduced price. It is in mint condition, I’ve even left the 15% off voucher unused. On a side note: here you can always see the list of items I am selling. The link is listed among my other sites in the left column of this page.

I you haven't checked out our Vista site recently, now is the right time to do it. Since my last posting two new gadgets have been released:

• Slovenian Portfolio provides information from Ljubljana Stock Exchange and gives you the ability to track your personal portfolio.
• Slovenian Rates provides information on exchange rates from 4 Slovenian banks: Bank of Slovenia, NLB, SKB and NKBM.

We have just released our first Sidebar Gadget – Slovenian Radio.

The gadget features a centralized list of radio stations (retrieved from our server) and basic controls for selecting the station and adjusting the volume. Everything is packaged in a nice and simple GUI.

Try it out. It really is the most convenient way of listening to Slovenian radio stations online. You can download it for free here. Spread the word if you like it.

Since gadgets are HTML applications and the Windows Sidebar uses Internet Explorer 7 to render them, I prefer running their code directly in IE7 during development. It makes debugging easier and allows me to develop them in Windows XP on my primary development machine with all the tools properly setup.

While this works great in early development stages, it becomes a problem later on when you start using the Windows Sidebar object model (to implement settings, visibility changes handlers etc.). This specific code understandably can only be debugged while running in Windows Sidebar but the unfortunate side effect is that the calls to objects which don’t exist in IE7 break the scripts and effectively prevent running the would-be gadget in IE7 even without this functionality.

The following function can help you keep the gadget running directly in IE7 even after the gadget specific functionalities are already implemented:

function isGadget()
{
    try
    {
        var dummy = System;
        return true;
    }
    catch (err)
    {
        return false;
    }
}

Just check if the application is running in Windows Sidebar at gadget startup and make sure to use the object model only when this is true. You can also add alternative initialization for running directly in IE7 to provide default values for settings and any other gadget specific variables. By doing this you can still test new features directly in IE7 if they are not gadget specific.