Continuing the trend of making it easy to get your hands on a pre-configured environment to help evaluate and learn the new stuff, there are a number of great (and I mean this in several senses of the word) downloads available for you to grab and fire straight up.
This is a VPC image that has been pre-configured with Windows Vista, Visual Studio 2008 (trial), and the .NET Framework 3.5. The VPC also contained the hands-on labs, demo scripts, and presentations from the Visual Studio 2008 Rhythm Training Kit (just the thing to use to show off some new stuff at your next User Group meeting)
The Visual Studio 2008 Rhythm Training VPC (Vista) is now available for download on the Microsoft.com Download center. You can find links to download the self-extracting files for the VPC here.
Please Note: This VPC expired on 16 December 2007. You should be able to use your Vista key from MSDN or TechNet if you're a subscriber. Alternatively, you can extend the grace period by 30 days by using the slmgr -rearm command (see, for example, Jeff Atwood's post).
slmgr -rearm
And via Keith Combs:
Exchange Server 2007 SP1 VHD - 1.8GB download
SQL Server 2008 November CTP VHD - 2.2GB download (yes, it's got the Spatial Bits!)
ForeFront and System Center Demo Toolkit - 1.8GB download
System Center Essentials 2007 - 2.6GB download
Back in June and July, I did a series of posts about the great Virtual Labs that are available for you to jump right into with no download and no configuration requirements. I posted about labs for:
Two more of the hands-on labs from the Visual Studio 2008 Training Kit have been published as MSDN virtual labs. As MSDN virtual labs, developers can get started with VS 2008 in a minute and start exploring the new features. The two new labs focus on the language enhancements with C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9. Here is a summary of the VS2008 MSDN virtual labs that are now available:
We had the pleasure last week of hosting Doug Turnure, the Developer Evangelist from Atlanta, Georgia. Doug and I started at Microsoft around the same time (I think he pre-dates me by about 6 months) and we've corresponded a few times but this was the first time I'd met him in person. We had a great time and learnt a lot from each other, especially around interacting with the community and getting our efforts to scale.
Doug's a master at the scale thing. A case in point is his .NET University, an online resource for anyone wanting to take some great training in a variety of Microsoft developer-related topics. The twist is that not only is the training available online as a video, but all of the materials for each course are freely available for you to download, rebrand and redeliver.
There are currently courses in
with more on the way.
What's more, if you do redeliver the material, send Doug a list of the people in the class and he'll send you certificate and a T-shirt for each of the "Alumni". Currently, I think this offer only stands for residents of the US (to save on Doug's shipping costs), but he brought a small supply of the shirts with him to Australia so I'll match the offer for Aussie classes while stocks last.
Of course, we couldn't let Doug go home without an Australian Icon.
While I love talking about the great developer experience in Office 2007 and VSTO v3, I acknowledge that there are plenty of developers who are constrained by their corporate SOE to targeting Office 2003. Even though we've been concentrating on the new stuff, we haven't forgotten you.
Erika Ehrli has a great map of Office 2003 Developer Resources. Check it out.
In September, we recorded the sessions from a full 5-day Visual Studio 2008 Training Workshop. These sessions were delivered by several of the Technical Evangelists on the Visual Studio Rhythm team and Program Managers from the product group. Last week we released the recordings from Day 3. The theme for Day 3 is Connected Applications. The sessions include:
There are now 17 Visual Studio 2008 Training Workshop recordings available on Channel9. You can find all of the recordings under the Channel9 tag VS2008+Training+Kit.
I've been meaning to blog about this for ages. Darko Jovisic, a Developer Evangelist from Croatia, did a couple of great demos during a presentation in September and he's released them on CodePlex for you to download and explore.
First demo: Simple application that plays video and displays random commercials. List of products is extracted from a Excel spreadsheet. Second demo (more complex than the first one): I modified the Silverlight PageTurn Demo (where you have a book with pictures and you can turn page) so it takes Word document (instead of pictures) and prints it in the book. Both applications are quite rudimentary and their aim was to show proof-of-concept and the platform independence of OpenXML. I'm releasing source code to the public and you can add features if you wish (just send me the updated version) or do with it whatever you want. I tried to comment the code so you can understand what is going on. CodePlex links First demo: http://www.codeplex.com/openxmlvideo Second demo: http://www.codeplex.com/openxmlpageturn Both applications need to run in IIS and they don't work in FireFox (because of different XML DOM parsers, support can be added). I repeat that apps are rudimentary and there are bugs for sure. I hope you can use these demos.
First demo:
Simple application that plays video and displays random commercials. List of products is extracted from a Excel spreadsheet.
Second demo (more complex than the first one):
I modified the Silverlight PageTurn Demo (where you have a book with pictures and you can turn page) so it takes Word document (instead of pictures) and prints it in the book.
Both applications are quite rudimentary and their aim was to show proof-of-concept and the platform independence of OpenXML. I'm releasing source code to the public and you can add features if you wish (just send me the updated version) or do with it whatever you want. I tried to comment the code so you can understand what is going on.
CodePlex links
First demo: http://www.codeplex.com/openxmlvideo
Second demo: http://www.codeplex.com/openxmlpageturn
Both applications need to run in IIS and they don't work in FireFox (because of different XML DOM parsers, support can be added).
I repeat that apps are rudimentary and there are bugs for sure.
I hope you can use these demos.
I'm on the way to Redmond (about an hour out from San Francisco) and clearing my backlog of "Blog This" from my email. This is a beaut!
There are some great eLearning courses available for you to do free of charge including:
plus lots more.
Via the irrepressible Trika:
Microsoft Certification for Developers Join the Microsoft Certification team to find out what is new, and what you need to know, for your next step in developer certification. In this meeting, we will introduce our plans for Visual Studio 2008 training and certification, review the Visual Studio 2005 certifications, and have plenty of time to answer questions about your individual path or scenario. Click to register for: January 23, 2008, at 7:30 A.M. Pacific Time - January 24 at 2:30 A.M Australian Eastern Daylight Time (What time is this in my region?) January 23, 2008, at 5:00 P.M. Pacific Time - January 24 at 12:00 P.M Australian Eastern Daylight Time (What time is this in my region?).
Microsoft Certification for Developers
Join the Microsoft Certification team to find out what is new, and what you need to know, for your next step in developer certification. In this meeting, we will introduce our plans for Visual Studio 2008 training and certification, review the Visual Studio 2005 certifications, and have plenty of time to answer questions about your individual path or scenario. Click to register for:
As one of the pillars of Visual Studio Team System, I always talk about the guidance, both built into the system as process guidance and available as best practice from the patterns & practices team. There are two new guides available for download (or to purchase in hard copy).
patterns & practices Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server This guide shows you how to make the most of Team Foundation Server. It starts with the end in mind, but shows you how to incrementally adopt TFS for your organization. It's a collaborative effort between patterns & practices, Team System team members, and industry experts.
(also available in printed version - ISBN 9780735625716)
patterns & practices Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications This guide shows you an end-to-end approach for implementing performance testing. Whether you are new to performance testing, or looking for ways to improve your current performance testing approach, you will find insights that you can tailor for your specific scenarios.
(also available in printed version - ISBN 9780735625709)
From Khawar Ahmed on the OBA Blog:
One of the OBA related news at TechEd Developer Barcelona was about the availability of S+S BluePrints. These are open source frameworks designed to make it easier to build S+S applications. These frameworks include source code, guidance, structured step-by-step workflow and tools delivered within Visual Studio and can serve as a starting point for building real products. The first of these BluePrints, Outlook S+S is now available. You can check it out at: http://www.codeplex.com/ssblueprints/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=8173
One of the OBA related news at TechEd Developer Barcelona was about the availability of S+S BluePrints. These are open source frameworks designed to make it easier to build S+S applications. These frameworks include source code, guidance, structured step-by-step workflow and tools delivered within Visual Studio and can serve as a starting point for building real products.
The first of these BluePrints, Outlook S+S is now available. You can check it out at: http://www.codeplex.com/ssblueprints/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=8173