Monday, April 19, 2010

Microsoft installations gone wild...

I just installed Windows 7 a couple of days ago, and was actually very surprised about how smooth it was. Installation was fast and hey, the operating system works great. But I didn't start writing this post to say how good Windows7 is since there are enough of those going around, but to say how stupid they've made all the other installations, at least when it comes to developer's ground like Visual Studio...

I installed Visual Studio 2008 yesterday, on my newly formatted computer, and i needed to get mvc in order to open some of my web apps i've been working on lately. I went to the mvc download page and clicked "Download" thinking i would get the mvc pack, but boy was i wrong. I ended up getting some "web platform installer". I looked for the mvc under tools, frameworks, and almost every other subject but it just wasn't there. I had to search the internet, till I finally realized that I need to download the 3.5SP1 in order for it to even show up.

Well, If you think that was stupid on my part, try downloading the SQL Server 2008 Management Studio. I already had an instance of SQL server 2008 running, and i just needed the management studio, so again, i went to the download page at microsoft, and downloaded the installer. But here again i couldn't find the option to just install the management studio.
And just to prove my innocence on this case, here's a link of a bunch of people complaining about how hard it is to find the installation to the management studio. It's actually worth looking at : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms365247.aspx

So, i hope someday they'll go back to the old fashion of work = Downloading the installer for the tool you need. After all, it sounds trivial, doesn't it ?

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

moving in...

...just moved into blogger!

Until a couple of months ago, i've been managing a blog on the israeli microsoft developers blog community.
I don't know if this sounds like a good enough reason to move my blog, but i just like google better, and every once in a while i felt like writing about a non-microsoft based technology and just felt like it wouldn't be fair, since microsoft have competition in almost any field you could think of.

Enough said about my blog, i'll just say some more words about me...
I read my first programming book when i was about 8 years old and i've been hooked ever since. In Jr + Sr high school i worked as a web developer, building mostly eCommerce sites in php. In the army i worked for 2 years as a .net developer, building intranet web applications and working with Sharepoint and MOSS.
And currently i'm working at ICC (Israel Credit Cards a.k.a. Visa CAL) as a .net developer.

I hope to be writing about the projects i have going on in my spare time, and the new things i discover that might be some help to others...

Have fun,
Gilly.