For those that have been looking forward to seeing the final result of Microsoft’s attempt at AJAX, your wait is over. ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 has been released.

I’ve not had time to test this yet, but it sure looks like it has promise. I’ll be playing with this one soon, I’ve got a couple new projects this might be perfect for.

Xceed has released version 1.0 of their new WPF based DataGrid, and best of all, made it free! If you’ve missed the news, you might want to check this out.

For those that may be running Windows 2000, there’s some things you need to know.

With the change in DST taking effect March 2nd, your Windows 2000 boxes may see some odd behavior. There won’t be Windows Update patch or hot-fix released for this (unless you have an extended support agreement); so there’s some work ahead to keep things running smoothly.

Microsoft has released (read more) a fair bit of information (complete with sample scripts) that can be used to update any 2000 boxes you may have lying around. Those of us that keep 2000 boxes around for testing or even production use will need to make sure they are updated. I can only imagine the odd errors this will cause if these changes aren’t put in place.

This is a bit of an annoyance, I really wish Microsoft would have released this in the form of a Windows Update, though I guess this will probably help drive home the reality that it’s time to upgrade for many users.

After being reminded of Alex King’s excellent Tasks task management system by a Download Squad article, I decided it was high time to give it a try. I had seen the software before, but never really evaluated it to see if it would be of any real use to me. This time, I gave it a more thorough look.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading in recent weeks about time and task management; and thus I’m trying to build a better process than what I use now. Seeing as my current method revolves around hoping to remember things, it doesn’t work so well.

After playing with the demo for a few minutes, I was quite impressed. I’ve used (or tested) many task management and related systems; Tasks seems to have gotten the model right. It’s easy to use, well designed, and uses a model that is flexible enough that you can apply just about any style you like.

One of the things I find so interesting is that this is web-based software, though is intended only for a single user. While this is certainly not the only application marketed this way, it still intrigues me. Traditionally, one would think that there would be little or no market for single user web-based applications that users install on their own servers. In reality though, this makes a lot of sense.

There are so many people who now have their own web site(s), running on real hosting accounts, that there would be a sizable market for personal software, made accessible anywhere thanks to being web-based. This is a great idea, and one of the factors that really made me like this software.

Once I was done with the demo, I started going over the requirements (basically PHP/MySQL), looking at the pricing and all the other details. With a price of US$29.95, it didn’t take long for me to decide. I was sold.

Installation was quick and painless (though not as quick as the famous WordPress install), within a few minutes I had Tasks up and running. Give or take a minor bug on preferences*, it all works very well. It works quite well out of the box, once the install process in completed, you don’t need to change anything else to be up and running.

The UI is responsive and well laid out; thanks to AJAX and plenty of tool-tips it’s a breeze to use. If you are looking for a better way to keep track of things, or working towards a better way to manage your time, it’s worth giving this a look. I think you might like it.

Update: After speaking with Alex about that ‘bug’ – it turned out to be Firefox being overly helpful with its Auto-Fill feature. There are a couple ideas floating around to work-around this, so even though it’s not a bug in Tasks, Alex is working towards eliminating the problem.

I’ve always been a big fan of the Microsoft Mouse line, and now with Vista, a new reason: Instant View. This is a great new feature in the next version on the IntelliPoint software. I’ve been using a bit of a hack since I installed Vista back in November. So it’s nice to be using a copy of IntelliPoint that is actually supposed to work with Vista.

I’ve got to say, the new Instant View feature is a very nice touch, and one that I really prefer to Aero’s Flip 3D (Windows+Tab) feature (Instant View has a fair bit less lag). This is really an impressive feature, though not perfect. While it does work on multi-monitor setups, Flip 3D is far more graceful about it.

Try it, I’m quite certain you’ll like it.

An update to the Visual Studio PowerToy Pack Installer has just been announced. This handy application wraps up many of the PowerToys so that they can be installed from one easy to use UI. With so many of these Power Toys available, this installer is great to have; otherwise finding and installing them can be a slow and painful experience.

If you’re a power user, or fancy yourself a power tweaker, this one might just be for you.