Weekly digest of interesting stuff

I read quite a few blogs and web sites over the course of each week, and thought it might be useful to do a weekly blog on the things that I've found interesting.  If nothing else, it gives me a way of keeping track of things - but hopefully some of you will find it useful as well...

 

• The Austrian's now have the first computer network protected by quantum encryption. This stuff has been in the labs for a while, but this is the first (reported) implementation "in the wild".
  
• A largely speculative post, but it's one of the first to discuss the new name from Microsoft: Windows Strata.
  
• Eager loading in the Entity Framework, and how it differs from LINQ to SQL.
  
• New MSBuild extensions library released.
  
• "Library Oriented Programming" - is this what we're all doing now?
  
• A list of links that details the new stuff, and the broken stuff, in .Net 3.5 SP1. I know it's been out a while, but it's nice to have one place to refer to :)
  
• A list of the talks that Don Box wants to see at PDC.  And if Don's interested, then you probably should be too.
  
• Some VSTS 2010 features.  It's a while until we'll see this, so it's nice to see what's coming our way.
  
• For anyone into encryption,I think you'll find the Silverlight Enigma Machine kind of cute.
  
• I've not watched it myself yet, but any video of Anders talking about language design is likely to be worth watching.  If you're into that sort of thing, of course!
  
• A really good article on what makes a good software architect.  If you think you are, or think you'd like to be, or work in a team with one, or have the misfortune to be married to one (or, worse, to be married to someone who thinks they are!), then it's worth a read.