For those playing with the newly released Avalon CTP and Chris Anderson's XamlPad application, and are using other Visual Styles than Windows XP (TGTSoft's StyleXP or patched UXTheme.dll), you can follow these instructions:

• Go in folder "C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes\Luna"
• Copy file "PresentationFramework.Luna.NormalColor.FxStyles"
• Go back one folder, then into your current theme's folder
• Paste the copied file
• Rename the file as follows:
• Replace "Luna" with the name of the "msstyles" file
• Replace "NormalColor" with the name of the folder under "Shell" which matches the active color scheme.

For example, I'm running with the CodeOpus theme with the Dusk color scheme:

Within "C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes", I copied "Luna\PresentationFramework.Luna.NormalColor.FxStyles" to "CodeOpus\PresentationFramework.CodeOpus.Dusk22.FxStyles". Notice that the color scheme part matches the subfolder name, not the color scheme name ("CodeOpus\Shell\Dusk22" in my case).

BTW, XamlPad's ClickOnce does not work within FireFox. Simply launch it from IE.

So the WinAmp adventure is over? Pfffe! That won't stop me from using WinAmp for listening to di.fm while working! Though I feel WMP10 and the WMA format does a better job at ripping my CDs (quality/size ratio), I've always had a better experience with WinAmp for listening to streamed audio.

Lluis Sanchez Gual, of the Mono project, created a class library for generating IL in a higher level form than System.Reflexion.Emit. It's kinda CodeDom for IL!

As you may expect it, I installed Konfabulator today. Though the installation process it smooth, the look is great, and the working experience is very interesting, I must admit seeing this in my Task Manager is somewhat of a turn down:

One process per widget, and an extra one for the tray icon and menu... is it worst it? Though CPU usage seems reasonable (compared with Desktop Sidebar for example), and the sum of memory usage averages what Outlook is using by itself, I'm left with the impression that this Windows version was made out of a hack, and no real "Windows integration" effort was made. On a developer's machine, I'm doomed to miss that memory one day.

Seeing that UnixUtils folder under Konfabulator also gives me similar impressions:

Oh well, I'll give it a real try... but I'm afraid it will end up just like Desktop Sidebar... uninstalled!

Pixoria is about to launch a Windows version of Konfabulator (desktop customization app). Their web site displays notes from a Paleontologist observing two species (Apple vs Windows computers) for ten days (today is day 7), with a probable outcome of seeing both species running Konfabulator.

I've always been very geek on desktop customization... Can't wait to see this Windows version!