I just came across another fantastic plug-in for jQuery, my favorite javascript framework. It is the Ribbon plug-in and it looks amazing. It almost exactly like the ribbon in Office 2010.It supports access keys, themes, lists, groups, forms, and dropdown menus. The demo page can be found at http://vinkr.net/ribbon. The code can be found on CodePlex.  Many thanks to Mikael Söderström for creating an awesome jQuery plug-in.

Ribbon with Access keys:

Menu:

I have attended two session where the same repeated problem kept happening to the presenters.

The first SOA201 A First Look at WCF and WF in the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 with Aaron Skonnard. For some unknown reason, the slides where advancing without Aaron actually moving them forward. It could have been an evil trick being played on him or just a hardware glitch, but it was truly annoying for everyone. I have seen him in other talks over the years and he usually does not stay still. I think Aaron figured out that if he would go back to the slide he wanted and hold the key it would move forward. Once he figured this out he was just standing behind his computer holding the back key. At least that is what I think he was doing.

In the second DTL314 Understanding Code Extensibility with Jason Olson. Jason got to deal with two problems. Windows 7 was having a problem with his video drivers and windows would restart the video drivers. Also Visual Studio 2010 would crash out on him and he would have restart the web server or in some instances he would have to restart VS itself.

Both of these guys kept their cool and didn’t freak out. They didn't let these issues effect their entire presentations. They made jokes, talk to audience, and just kept going. Even though they had these problems their presentations were still top notch. Hats off to both of you.

I realized, while I was here at TechEd 2009, that email wasn't working for this blog. I use for my blogging software and my hosting provider is . In order to get it to work just go into your setting in blogengine.net and just type mail.webhost4life.com  in the SMTP field and turn off SSL. After that you can test it out and it should work

After the expo last night, I took photos of all the t-shirts I collected. I have both the fronts and the backs pictured. If there is a shirt that I am missing and want it displayed here, make a comment and I will stop by and pick one up and add it to the photos below.

Last year at TechEd I attempted to run around the partner expo and get every t-shirt possible. The fruits of my labor was the post The T-Shirts of TechEd 2008 Developers. I will attempt to recreate the greatness of last years post.

If any of the partners would like to help me out, please comment on this post and let me know that you have a t-shirt. Please leave your company name and booth number. I will make sure that I come by and get one. This way I hopefully wont miss one.

At the keynote this morning it was mentioned that there where only seven thousand attendees. I guess with current state of the worldwide economy some of the first things to go is training/conferences, in my opinion it is a mistake. By sending someone to a great confernce, you can learn to better use the tools that you already have at your disposal. Becoming more agile in this economy is key to staying ahead.

So I have made it to TechEd in LA. I am staying at the Omni and it is pretty fantastic. I will post some photos up later. My flight over was good and there were no delays. Sitting behind me was Andrew Duthie. He and few others wrote a Silverlight application that will run on the Comnet to be able to find local user groups. About to go check out the keynote and then figure out what sessions I want to attend for the rest of the day. If you  are here and want to meet up or hang out just post a comment.

If you get the following warning

Error updating JScript IntelliSense: 

Object doesn't support this property or method @2139:1

You need to download and install the following hotfix:

KB958502-JScript Editor support for “-vsdoc.js” IntelliSense documentation files

You can force Visual Studio to update JavaScript IntelliSense by pressing Ctrl + Shift + J.

The funny thing is that JavaScript IntelliSense worked with jquery 1.2.6 without installation of the hotfix.

If you would like to export SmartObjects from blackpearl, there are two ways.

K2 Object Browser in Visual Studio

The trick here is that you have to have a k2 project open. Once you have the k2 project open, browse to your SmartObject and right click. You will see a menu appear with 'Save to Local'. The only problem is that it will add it directly to the project you currently have open in Visual Studio.

Amazing K2 SmartObject Tool

This is a great tool that is available from the k2underground (Available here). In the 807 build it will be located in the bin directory (Thanks Anthony). It was apparently developed by Janus (one of the brains behind SmartObjects in the k2 product team)

Just open the tool, browse to your SmartObject, right click on the SmartObject and you will get a menu to get to sodx file. The nice thing about this tool is you can also get the xml, execute the SmartObject, and delete the SmartObject.