A code monkey in Research
One developer's view of (a little bit of) Microsoft Research, Cambridge
More easy IPC
Last time I talked about .NET Remoting and concluded that it was very nice for .NET to .NET...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 04/07/2014
Easy peasy IPC-sy
Windows provides a wide range of inter process communication mechanisms, from very low level sockets...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 02/22/2014
Phone magic
If you've never come across Scam School before, do take a look at it - it normally offers a bit of...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 01/19/2014
I've only ever written one application
Actually, I mean, I've only ever written one application startup - in the same way I've only ever...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 11/17/2013
NoReplyAll Lite
So far, all of the Office add-in work I've been talking about here has been based on VSTO, but some...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 10/13/2013
Collecting URLs part 2
Using Ctrl-Shift-C is quick and convenient, but only if you remember it; and moving the mouse...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 09/14/2013
Collecting URLs
Another one of those itches that need to be scratched: someone posted a query internally asking for...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 08/17/2013
NoReplyAll Add-In 3.1
A new release is available today: fixed some resource locking problems, added support for 64 bit...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 08/02/2013
Add-in for 64 and 32 bit Office
My NoReplyAll add-in, which I've talked about before, uses absolutely nothing that ties it to 32 or...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 07/12/2013
Talking to myself
Someone at work here presented me with a poser: make Outlook include one's own email address as a...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 06/09/2013
Doppler Four
Last time I had the basic Windows Store DirectX Doppler app working, and now it's time to add the...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 05/08/2013
Doppler Three
The Doppler waves program has two bits of UI really: the "dynamic" wave drawing part, and the user...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 04/06/2013
Windows Phone lockscreen
Windows Phone 8 brings with it the ability for a program to set the lockscreen picture; there are...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 03/09/2013
NoReplyAll Add-In 3.0
A new version of the add-in is now available. The significant change is in the installation process,...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 02/14/2013
WiX installer for VSTO projects
A few people have been asking me for something akin to an MSI-based installer for my NoReplyAll tool...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 01/27/2013
Doppler Two
Last time, I talked about a WPF application to demonstrate the Doppler effect; this time I'm going...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 12/30/2012
Research Next
Research Next is a chance for us at Microsoft Research Cambridge to show off some of the work we do...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 11/29/2012
Doppler One
Professor Chris Bishop is well known round here for giving entertaining science talks aimed at young...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 11/10/2012
Is your "new" menu too long?
Something that I find annoying is how many programs add items to the Windows Explorer "New" submenu...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 10/06/2012
Updating NoReplyAll for Outlook 2013
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Outlook 2013 brings a few new features which I need to integrate...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 09/08/2012
NoReplyAll Add-In 2.6.1
A new version is now available for download: this one supports the Outlook 2013 preview, and...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 08/20/2012
Version number update tool for Visual Studio 2012
Quite a while ago I presented a scrappy little macro I created to update version numbers in multiple...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 08/04/2012
Outlook 2013 and NoReplyAll
As I'm sure you've noticed by now, the Office 2013 Preview is now available. I've given my...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 07/18/2012
There's more to Outlook than MailItems
I've published a new version of the NoReplyAll Outlook add-in with pretty much the only change being...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 07/01/2012
AppNap settings page
The setting page for AppNap is a rather modified version of button list the main page: instead of...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 06/17/2012
AppNap user interface
The AppNap main page content is pretty much a grid with three elements - the search box, the list of...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 05/27/2012
AppNap data
Following on from last time, I thought I'd start by describing the persisted data for AppNap, which...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 05/12/2012
NoReplyAll Add-In 2.4.2
A new version of the add-in is now available - head to...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 05/03/2012
How many search apps do you need on your phone?
When I go searching the web from a desktop browser, I'm lazy. I head straight to a search engine and...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 03/17/2012
NoReplyAll Add-In 2.4.1
A new version of the add-in is now available - head to...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 01/17/2012
When is an Explorer not an Explorer?
RJGray found another error in the NoReplyAll add-in: basically, visiting the Today Page causes the...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 01/17/2012
Project Waterloo wrap-up
The last few blog posts have been a rapid walkthrough of our Facebook game. To wrap up, here's the...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 01/15/2012
The client side of the game
I'm not really going to go into much detail about the client - it's fairly standard "modern" HTML...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 01/08/2012
Connecting with Facebook
There are several ways to integrate your application with Facebook: you can have a standalone...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 11/26/2011
NoReplyAll Add-In 2.4.0
A new version of the add-in is now available - head to...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 11/15/2011
The core of the game service
Last time, I gave an outline of our Facebook game: now I'm going to take a look at the "game...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 11/13/2011
Introduction to Project Waterloo
As I hinted earlier, I'm finally getting round to describing how we implemented our first Facebook...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 11/06/2011
Careful with that Outbox, Eugene
Someone called Chris_is_tired alerted me to a problem with my NoReplyAll Outlook add-in recently: if...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 10/30/2011
Hidden vs Minimized
Writing that post about pausing audio playback reminded me of a little utility I wrote, uh, over a...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 10/16/2011
Visual Studio macro to update version numbers
My first few blog posts were essentially about taking a macro (almost) solution and reimplementing...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 10/09/2011
Shaddapayaface!
If you've got music playing on your PC and then you lock the desktop, the music keeps playing....
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 10/02/2011
Microsoft Research Project Waterloo
The Research Games team in Microsoft Research, of which I'm a member, has just published its first...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 09/25/2011
NoReply VSTO add-in wrap-up
Over the past few weeks, I've described the steps involved in creating an Outlook add-in, including...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 09/18/2011
Installation
As you'll have no doubt noticed, when you build and run within Visual Studio, Outlook loads the...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 09/10/2011
Backstage and property pages
In the discussion so far the add-in requires the sender to remember to click the no-reply-all button...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 09/02/2011
Other ribbons
Thus far we've ended up with a nicely populated mail composition window. It would be nice to offer...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 08/27/2011
More about buttons
Last time we ended up with a single button on the email composition window. It ought to be fairly...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 08/20/2011
Out of Bounds
Several years ago, I stumbled across the concept of Out of Bounds Photography (OoB - that's with a...
Author: Gavin Smyth Date: 08/13/2011