When I work from home I miss having a second display alongside my work laptop. I could very well go get the monitor off the desktop, but it’s a right footer. Instead I wondered about whether it would be possible to use the screen on my home laptop as an extended display. I was doubtful, but I goggled/bonged on the subject and found a few interesting options. The one that really jumped out was MaxiVista.

Obviously I pulled down the demo version. This download is a Zip file containing two install files – there is a primary install to go on your main machine, and a secondary install to go onto any other machines you want to act as the extended displays. Again I was doubtful this was going to work and if it did I really didn’t think it would work all that well – especially over a wireless network. I was wrong and I was stunned by just how cool this was.

I’ve since found a few posts on the subject from the likes of Hanselman and SunPig. I’m wondering how I managed to get by without knowing about this for this long. Makes we wonder what else I’m missing out on?

I had just started compiling my list of Munros to climb this coming year and it looks like there will be one less following today’s announcement by the Munro Society 
Still, there are plenty to choose from.

Cameron McNeish gives a nice summary of the announcement on his blog.

Got the nod from IT support to install Windows 7 on my work machine last week. When I got some time at the weekend, I did the upgrade from Vista. It did say that it could take several hours and it really wasn't kidding. Anyway, I've been using Windows 7 for about a week now and so far I feel my laptop is running for longer between charges and the hard drive isn't getting constantly hammered as it did under Vista. Another thing I'm pleased with is the time it takes to become usable after a cold start. Restoring from Sleep and Hibernate also seem quicker as does the shutdown. There really isn't anything more annoying or distracting than having to wait for your computer to do things - well there is, but I'm just talking about computers here.

So far, I'm liking Windows 7, but wait, this task bar is a bit different - is that good?

Looks like some good weather in store for this weekend. The garden is a bit of a mess so it should be possible to get the grass cut at least and make sure that no Tigers are hiding in there. They can be a bit of a nuisance.

On my 64bit Vista machine, I'm trying to build a little application which makes use of a set of DLLs from the Team Foundation Server Client. The application builds fine. However, when I attempt to run the application in debug, I get the following error:

=== Pre-bind state information ===
LOG: User =
LOG: DisplayName = Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a
 (Fully-specified)
LOG: Appbase = file:///C:/Development/TFSImport/bin/Debug/
LOG: Initial PrivatePath = NULL
Calling assembly : TFSImport, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null.
===
LOG: This bind starts in default load context.
LOG: No application configuration file found.
LOG: Using machine configuration file from C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\config\machine.config.
LOG: Post-policy reference: Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client, Version=9.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a
LOG: Attempting download of new URL file:///C:/Development/TFSImport/bin/Debug/Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.DLL.
ERR: Failed to complete setup of assembly (hr = 0x8007000b). Probing terminated.
 

After a bit of head scratching I realised that the TFS Client DLLs are 32-Bit and the application was being built for a 64-Bit platform. To fix this problem I had to get the build targeting a 32bit platform. To do this, I opened up the Configuration Manager in Visual Studio:

From the Active Solution Platform, I chose the drop down menu item "<New...>".

A dialog appeared called "New Solution Platform".

In this dialog, I selected the item "x86" from the drop down list "Type or select the new platform:", then clicked OK.

You'll notice that the Configuration Manager has been updated with the new Platform details for the project.

I now click the "Close" button.

Now I'm able to build and run my application in debug.