Public Sector Developer Weblog

Simple Prototyping: PowerPoint and SketchFlow

2009-12-08T15:22:54Z

NOTE: This was cross posted from here

In chatting with customers, often times I see all types of quick ways to prototype application UIs – everything from white boarding, napkin sketches and the most favorite I’ve seen to date…PowerPoint.

Well one of the lesser known features that’s included in Blend 3’s SketchFlow, is basic PowerPoint import.

Let me show you how easy it is.

Take your PowerPoint mockup.

Open Blend, Create a new SketchFlow App.

File > Import Microsoft PowerPoint File…

Select your PowerPoint, and SketchFlow will start importing your presentation.

An voila! You now have the start of your SketchFlow app with a screen per PowerPoint slide in your presentation. Hit F5 and you’ll see the start of your quick prototype you can now publish to a web server and let your users start seeing your concept and give you direct feedback.

Hey, it’s the simple things that make it easier to get that quick user feedback on your new app your building. Way better than waiting until you’ve piped so much code into your UI that it’s too late to make huge changes.

Here’s the official documentation on importing PowerPoint in SketchFlow:

James

WEBCAST: Visual Source Safe to TFS 2010: Strategies for Adoption

2009-12-07T13:38:00Z

During this event, we will discuss:

• Strategies for TFS 2010 Adoption
• Implementing TFS 2010 in a defined order of priority
• Key features of TFS 2010 that contribute to a successful implementation
• Converting from VSS to TFS (including TFS Basic which can be installed on the desktop)

Recommended Audiences: Technology Executives, IT Managers, IT Professionals, Business Executives, Vice Presidents, CEO, CIO, COO, CTO, CFO, IT Directors, Business Managers, Solution Architects, Business Owner, Software Developers, Business Decision Maker, Technical Decision Makers, Developers, Architects

Bing Maps roadshow in Reston

2009-11-30T15:27:13Z

NOTE: This was cross posted from here.

Want to get up to speed on the latest release of Bing Maps including both the Ajax and Silverlight controls as well as the SOAP web services? Don’t miss the upcoming roadshow in Reston, Va. Details:

http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/govmaps/archive/2009/11/24/bing-maps-roadshow-coming-to-reston-virgina.aspx

“At this event, experts will provide an overview of Bing Maps as a powerful visualization tool for geographic and location-based information. With highlights of scenarios such as locators, fleet/asset tracking, data visualization portals, and location intelligence, we’ll present a deep dive into the Bing Maps Platform, including details on specific features, AJAX, Web Services, and new Silverlight APIs.

We’ll also review exciting recent enhancements, exploring ways to integrate with GIS systems and leverage SQL 2008 spatial features, as well as other related tools and technologies. When you meet the experts, you’ll learn solution implementation and best practices―and you’ll leave with the tools and resources to tap the power of location using Bing Maps.

Event Summary:
1:00 - 2:15 Introduction to Bing Maps, Solution Overview, and Demos
2:30 - 3:30 Deep Dive on Architecture and APIs
3:45 - 5:00 Best Practices, Data Integration, and Future of Bing Maps”

Microsoft Public Sector Technology Conference - Sacramento, CA

2009-11-25T16:38:00Z

Microsoft Public Sector Technology Conference - Sacramento, CA

REGISTER TODAY!

Click the link above OR call 1-877-673-8368 and reference Event ID: 1032431198

Event Date: December 10, 2009

Registration: 08:30

Event Time: 09:00 – 16:00

Event Location:
California Secretary of State Auditorium
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 653-6814

About the Conference

We invite you to join us for a day of developer-oriented technical sessions, featuring the Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Azure and SQL Azure, .NET and Internet Explorer 8. These exciting technologies enable entirely new types of applications to be built in record time. Windows 7 enables developers to create distinctive and intuitive applications that significantly enhance discoverability, usability, and sheer enjoyment. New methods of desktop integration put application functionality right at the user's fingertips, and Windows Explorer and Libraries provide easy access to high-value information. The session on Windows 7 will provide a high level overview of how .NET developers can take advantage of new features in Windows 7 using the Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework. The next presentation will focus on understanding the importance of the “parallel computing shift” and also the technologies introduced in .NET 4 that are easing this transition.

The afternoon session begins with a presentation on Microsoft Windows Azure and SQL Azure. Windows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centers. Microsoft® SQL Azure Database is a cloud-based relational database platform built on SQL Server® technologies. With SQL Azure Database, you can easily provision and deploy relational database solutions to the cloud, and take advantage of a globally distributed data center that provides enterprise-class availability, scalability, and security with the benefits of built-in data protection, self-healing and disaster recovery.

The final session of the day features Windows Internet Explorer 8 - ushering in a new wave of browser innovation from Microsoft, including Web Slices and Accelerators, while maintaining compatibility with today's Web standards. This presentation will cover several new aspects of Internet Explorer 8 from a developer's perspective. The session will provide an overview of Internet Explorer 8 application compatibility features, and will include practical examples of using Web Slices and Accelerators to increase the stickiness and usefulness of an existing site.

The day’s sessions will target Developers, Architects and Web designers, be very much demonstration oriented, and will be delivered by seasoned developers with experience in Government and Public Sector. Seize this opportunity to immerse yourself amidst these exciting new technologies!

Who Should Attend

Developers, Architects, Web Designers and technical managers who wish to get an early look at the next advancement in Software Development.

The Agenda

Time	Session	Duration	Presenter
8:30 – 9:00	Registration
9:00 – 10:30	Developing for Windows 7 using the .NET Framework	90 minutes	Marc Schweigert
10:30 – 10:45	Break	15 minutes
10:45 – 12:00	Parallel Computing for Managed Developers	75 minutes	Joel Reyes
12:00 – 1:00	Lunch	60 minutes
1:00 – 2:30	Overview of Windows Azure and SQL Azure	90 minutes	Marc Schweigert
2:30 – 2:45	Break	15 minutes
2:45 – 4:00	Enhancing User Experience with Internet Explorer 8	75 minutes	Joel Reyes

EventToCommand + DataStateBehavior eases MVVM pain

2009-11-25T15:58:32Z

NOTE: This was cross posted from here.

MVVM is a pattern. There are all sorts of MVVM frameworks popping up that help make implementing the pattern easier. If you select the MVVM tag off of www.codeplex.com, you will find a number of them:

http://www.codeplex.com/site/search?TagName=MVVM&ProjectSearchText=%22MVVM%22

One I have recently grown fond of is http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com/. The reason I like this one is because they have built an Expression Blend Behavior called EventToCommand. Details for the behavior:

http://blog.galasoft.ch/archive/2009/11/05/mvvm-light-toolkit-v3-alpha-2-eventtocommand-behavior.aspx

As the post says, ‘EventToCommand is used to bind an event to an ICommand directly in XAML.”

This is WAY COOL!!! EventToCommand helps overcome commanding challenges in Silverlight.

I love Blend Behaviors. If you haven’t looked into them, YOU MUST! Every WPF and Silverlight developer should be using them (where applicable). “A Behavior is in essence a reusable piece of interactivity that can be applied directly to user interface elements...”

Here are some resources:

Good Overview - http://tinyurl.com/BehaviorsOverview

More reading - http://tinyurl.com/BehaviorsTriggersActions

Expression Blend 3 SDK - http://tinyurl.com/blend3sdk

Lots of folks creating and uploading them to Expression Gallery - http://tinyurl.com/BehaviorsGallery

Behaviors from the Blend Team - http://expressionblend.codeplex.com/

Behaviors are part of the Blend SDK. There is a lot of confusion about the Blend SDK because people think you have to buy Blend to use it. You don’t! You can download it from http://tinyurl.com/blend3sdk and use it straight from Visual Studio. Blend definitely makes wiring up Behaviors easier so you should it for that if you are already using Blend!

The samples you can download from http://expressionblend.codeplex.com/ include DataStateBehavior and DataStateSwitchBehavior. Peter Blois has a good post on these behaviors:

http://blois.us/blog/2009/04/datatrigger-bindings-on-non.html

DataStateBehavior/DataStateSwitchBehavior provide a nice clean way to change values in your ViewModel that result in initiating animations in your View.

I’ve been wanting to whip up a simple sample that shows both EventToCommand and DataStateBehavior/DataStateSwitchBehavior. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time right now to do so. Instead of sitting on this, I decided to blog about it first, then share a sample/video when I get around to it.

-Marc

Interview with David Chappell from the 2009 Microsoft Windows Azure Tour in Reston, VA on 9/23/2009

2009-11-25T15:21:00Z

Thank you for attending the 2009 Microsoft Windows Azure Tour in Reston, VA on 9/23/2009. To view an interview with David Chappell, please click on the link below:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=2a9ae93f4d0e8e5bbda4076e811714c8cf65b316e4d3c8b561390143435ec59c

PDC 09 content & learning resources

2009-11-24T02:19:00Z

PDC 09 (premier Professional Developers Conference) was held in Los Angeles, CA from Nov. 15^th-19^th2009. We covered some exciting technologies (Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010, Windows Azure, Silverlight 4, Office 2010 and Sharepoint Server 2010, etc), so we have listed some resources to make it easier for you to get familiar with them. Folks that weren’t available to travel can watch most/all of the sessions (available online), check out the decks and other resources (training materials). Feel free to share this blogpost with your colleagues and development staff.

PDC 09 Online Sessions: http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions

1. Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4: (Beta2 is available and includes Go-Live license)

· Training on Channel9 http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/VS2010/

· 10-4 Shows on Channel9: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/10-4/

· Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit - October Preview

2. Windows Server 2008 AppFabric Beta 1 (includes Project Dublin and Velocity Distributed In-Memory Caching): http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/app-main.aspx (AppFabric will also be available for Windows Azure next year)

3. Windows Azure

· Learning on Channel9

· Training - Windows Azure Platform Training Kit – November Update

· Short Training Videos on Windows Azure

· Webcasts on Windows Azure

· Windows Azure SDK

· Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio (November 2009)

· Microsoft .NET Services SDK (Nov 2009 CTP)

4. Identity Developer (Windows Identity Foundation has gone RTW)

· Identity Management homepage (has links to the bits, documentation, webcasts, kit, etc) http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/aa570351.aspx

· Identity Developer Training Kit

· Training on Channel9

5. Sharepoint Server 2010

· PDC Session: http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/P09-18

· Sharepoint Live (Virtual Conference) sessions

· Channel 9 Sessions on developing with Sharepoint Server 2010

6. Silverlight 4 beta announced

· Information on Silverlight 4 at Silverlight community site: http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/

· PDC Session: http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/KEY02

· Channel 9 sessions on Silverlight 4: http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/

7. Windows 7

· Training Kit for Developers:

· Training on Channel9: http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Windows7

Enjoy.

Microsoft PDC 2009 – The Videos

2009-11-23T15:33:24Z

I know it isn't the norm for Public Sector developers to travel to conferences and such, so let the conference comes to YOU!

Here is a link to all the PDC09 Videos

http://microsoftpdc.com/Videos

Surface Toolkit for Windows Touch

2009-11-21T16:30:24Z

NOTE: This was cross posted from here.

Robert Levy from the Surface team and Anson Tsao from the WPF team gave a great session on:

Multi-Touch on Microsoft Surface and Windows 7 for .NET Developers

The session is definitely worth watching if you are interested in building multi-touch apps on Windows 7. In the session, they announced the Surface Toolkit for Windows Touch which is a set of “Controls, samples, templates, and docs Coming shortly after the WPF4 launch.” Don’t let the Surface name fool you, the toolkit will work on any Windows 7 touch PC with the .NET Framework 4.0 installed.

This is exciting news that I have been keeping under wraps for quite some time. The toolkit will take Windows 7 multi-touch developer productivity for WPF4 developers to the next level. During the session, they shared that the toolkit will include:

Common controls optimized for Multi-Touch

Controls design primarily for Multi-Touch

Essential Multi-Touch UX Functionality

Hearing all of this is, of course, a bit of a tease since the controls won’t be available for a while, but exciting news nonetheless. The good news is that the Surface team also announced that the Surface SDK is no longer “by invitation only.” You can download it from http://surface.com/developer. Since the toolkit is a subset of existing Surface 1.0 SDK assets ported to WPF4, you can get a head start by evaluating the Surface 1.0 SDK. If your development cycle is far enough out, you might even want to consider building your app on the Surface 1.0 SDK and porting it to WPF4 / Windows 7 when the toolkit is available. Of course, you will have to stick to the subset that is being ported to WPF4, but your code will only need minimal changes (if any) to run on a Windows 7 PC once the toolkit is released.

Great PDC session on SharePoint 2010 sandbox solutions

2009-11-21T00:03:34Z

NOTE: This was cross posted from here.

http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/PR10

I missed this session at PDC. There were so many good sessions, it was hard to choose. The good news is that the sessions are now showing up at http://microsoftpdc.com/Videos.

I didn’t get to elaborate on sandbox solutions in any great detail during my recent developer dinner presentation on SharePoint 2010 due to time constraints. However, this is a very important feature of SharePoint that you will want to dig into as you go explore SharePoint 2010. Chances are the environment you will be deploying solutions to will only allow sandboxed solutions.

-Marc

Silverlight touch just got easier

2009-11-20T16:06:05Z

NOTE: This was cross posted from here.

I’ve been waiting for this to happen! The Surface team ported their Manipulation and Inertia APIs to Silverlight 3+. They’ve made them available for download at:

http://tinyurl.com/SurfaceManipSilverlight

This is a must have set of APIs if you are interested in building multi-touch solutions on Windows 7 with Silverlight 3+.

-Marc

SharePoint as-a Platform Event : Content

2009-11-13T21:30:00Z

Thanks to everyone who attended the SharePoint as-a Platform events in DC/Reston and Online. Below are links to the recordings and decks from the Event. Enjoy!

MSDN Video: SharePoint as a Development Platform (Part 1 of 4): Keynote & Visual Studio 2010

MSDN Video: SharePoint as a Development Platform (Part 2 of 4): Realizing SharePoint as a Development Platform

MSDN Video: SharePoint as a Development Platform (Part 3 of 4): SharePoint Application Development with Visual Studio

MSDN Video: SharePoint as a Development Platform (Part 4 of 4): Building a Successful SharePoint Development Team

SharePoint as a Platform : The Power Point Decks

ADO.NET Data Services for Java and PHP developers

2009-11-12T22:20:02Z

NOTE: This was cross posted from here.

Every time I talk about ADO.NET Data Services, I mention that they can be consumed by any API that allows you to make http requests. I usually show how you can use the Add Service Reference feature of Visual Studio to generate proxy classes to make it simple to interact with the data service. Finally, I mention that Java and PHP toolkits exist to accomplish similar levels of developer productivity. However, I don’t think I have ever put links to those toolkits in any of my presentations. Here they are:

http://tinyurl.com/DataServicesJava

http://tinyurl.com/DataServicesPHP

SharePoint 2010 exposes lists as an ADO.NET Data Service. Therefore, you can use these toolkits to interact with SharePoint!

-Marc

FOLLOW UP: Developer Dinner on SharePoint 2010

2009-11-11T22:51:49Z

NOTE: This was cross posted from here.

Thanks to everyone for coming out. As I mentioned at the dinner, we will skip December due to the holidays. We will start up in January again. Topic and date TBD. Here’s the deck I used today:

Keep an eye out for the hidden slides. There are quite a few more slides than I actually went through.

-Marc

SQL Azure and SSMS: happy together

2009-11-11T19:57:31Z

NOTE: This was cross posted from here.

SQL Server Management Studio Support for SQL Azure

http://blogs.msdn.com/ssds/archive/2009/11/10/9920168.aspx

More details:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee621784.aspx

One of the things they don’t mention in the post is that all this works in SQL Server Management Studio Express! Go get it:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c772467d-e45b-43e1-9208-2c7b663d7ad1

Happy SSMSing with SQL Azure!!!

-Marc