I was chatting with Darren the other day and he said that he's been feeling increasingly disconnected from the DPE team here in Australia since Frank left, and also now that Chuck's gone. Putting aside the fact that they're impossible shoes to fill, I thought it was probably time to call out the other DPE team members who are still here and are still blogging.
In addition there's the AusDev blog with thoughts from Jenny Savann and Finula Crowe. Please, don't forget to keep in touch.
I was in a meeting today with Tania Netterfield and she shared some certification plans with me that I'm itching to announce ... but I have to wait. In the mean time, Trika's announced that they've rescheduled the SQL Server 2008 Certification live meeting. The second meeting listed below is at Midday on February 7 Sydney time.
SQL Server 2008 and Your Microsoft Certifications: Join the Microsoft Certification team for guidance on your certification path for SQL Server. In this meeting, we will introduce our plans for SQL Server 2008 training and certification, review the SQL Server 2005 certifications, and answer your individual questions about the path that is right for you, in Business Intelligence, Database Development, or Database Administration. Meeting offered twice to accomodate worldwide calendars: Session 1 at 7:30 am PST, February 6, 2008 (What time is this in my region?) Session 2 at 5:00 pm PST, February 6, 2008 (What time is this in my region?).
SQL Server 2008 and Your Microsoft Certifications: Join the Microsoft Certification team for guidance on your certification path for SQL Server. In this meeting, we will introduce our plans for SQL Server 2008 training and certification, review the SQL Server 2005 certifications, and answer your individual questions about the path that is right for you, in Business Intelligence, Database Development, or Database Administration. Meeting offered twice to accomodate worldwide calendars:
Especially now that Ken's on the team, I have a real interest in the cool stuff people do by extending the Visual Studio shell. I got this note just before the holidays and have had it tagged "Blog This" for the last few weeks. Check it!
Today there are hundreds 3rd party development tools that integrate with Visual Studio. With the launch of Visual Studio 2008 and the Visual Studio 2008 SDK, you’ll find a number of new ways to customize and extend Visual Studio. For example, you can use the Visual Studio 2008 Shell to create custom tools for almost any platform. To give you something to play with over the holidays, we’ve recently posted a number of applications on CodePlex to showcase the types of tools you can build with the Visual Studio Shell. Visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/vsx to learn more about Visual Studio Extensibility Check out the benefits available through the Visual Studio Industry Partner program AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft To get the upper hand playing WoW with your teenage cousins, build an add-on using the new AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft, an open-source development tool that brings the Visual Studio experience to building World of Warcraft add-ons. This WoW development environment is built on the Visual Studio 2008 Shell (isolated mode). Key features include a visual design surface, Lua code editor, FrameXML IntelliSense, and auto-generation of Lua events. Storyboard Designer If you’re making a holiday movie of the family and need to draft out the sequence of events, check out the Storyboard Designer, a simple tool for anyone who wants to diagram (model) and generate documentation for a storyboard scenario. The Storyboard Designer provides an example of what can be accomplished by hosting DSL tools in the Visual Studio 2008 Shell (isolated mode). Watch the screencast: StoryboardDesignerDemo. IronPython Studio You can also find on CodePlex a version of IronPython hosted in the Visual Studio Shell: IronPython Studio. If you’re looking for version of IronPython that merges with your installation of Visual Studio (standard or above) complete with IntelliSense, compiler, debugging, etc., download the free Visual Studio SDK. The IronPython Studio is a free, standalone language tool; for more details watch the IronPython Studio screencast video demo. We hope these sample applications stimulate your thinking about how Visual Studio Extensibility can help you close deals, win service engagements, or at least improve your score in World of Warcraft. We’ll look forward to hearing from you in the new year.
Today there are hundreds 3rd party development tools that integrate with Visual Studio. With the launch of Visual Studio 2008 and the Visual Studio 2008 SDK, you’ll find a number of new ways to customize and extend Visual Studio. For example, you can use the Visual Studio 2008 Shell to create custom tools for almost any platform.
To give you something to play with over the holidays, we’ve recently posted a number of applications on CodePlex to showcase the types of tools you can build with the Visual Studio Shell.
To get the upper hand playing WoW with your teenage cousins, build an add-on using the new AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft, an open-source development tool that brings the Visual Studio experience to building World of Warcraft add-ons. This WoW development environment is built on the Visual Studio 2008 Shell (isolated mode). Key features include a visual design surface, Lua code editor, FrameXML IntelliSense, and auto-generation of Lua events.
If you’re making a holiday movie of the family and need to draft out the sequence of events, check out the Storyboard Designer, a simple tool for anyone who wants to diagram (model) and generate documentation for a storyboard scenario. The Storyboard Designer provides an example of what can be accomplished by hosting DSL tools in the Visual Studio 2008 Shell (isolated mode). Watch the screencast: StoryboardDesignerDemo.
You can also find on CodePlex a version of IronPython hosted in the Visual Studio Shell: IronPython Studio. If you’re looking for version of IronPython that merges with your installation of Visual Studio (standard or above) complete with IntelliSense, compiler, debugging, etc., download the free Visual Studio SDK. The IronPython Studio is a free, standalone language tool; for more details watch the IronPython Studio screencast video demo.
We hope these sample applications stimulate your thinking about how Visual Studio Extensibility can help you close deals, win service engagements, or at least improve your score in World of Warcraft. We’ll look forward to hearing from you in the new year.
Update - fixed some formatting.
Matt Nunn sent this round recently - a couple of additions to the many Virtual Images you can download and just start using.
I would like to announce that just prior to the holiday season we posted new public VSTS 2008 VPC Images. There are 2 versions of the VPC available: · The first VPC is what we call the “all-up” image: Team Foundation Server 2008, Team Explorer 2008, Team Suite 2008, Team Build 2008, and bits of Office 2007 in a single workgroup security mode server image running on Windows Server 2003. Over 11 GB uncompressed. · The second VPC is a TFS only image with only Team Foundation Server and Team Explorer. It's just under 7 GB uncompressed. We built this image so that you'd run it under Virtual Server with a private network and do all your dev work and builds from your host computer. We are working on a document that gives you all the details and will post it soon. Both images expire on April 1, 2008. Updated images will be posted before then (in fact the updated images will have sample data, hands-on labs, and updates like Office 2007 SP1 and the TFS Power Tools that were announced over the holiday period). For more information and to find links to the images go to http://www.pluralsight.com/blogs/brian/archive/2007/12/21/49504.aspx
I would like to announce that just prior to the holiday season we posted new public VSTS 2008 VPC Images.
There are 2 versions of the VPC available:
· The first VPC is what we call the “all-up” image: Team Foundation Server 2008, Team Explorer 2008, Team Suite 2008, Team Build 2008, and bits of Office 2007 in a single workgroup security mode server image running on Windows Server 2003. Over 11 GB uncompressed.
· The second VPC is a TFS only image with only Team Foundation Server and Team Explorer. It's just under 7 GB uncompressed. We built this image so that you'd run it under Virtual Server with a private network and do all your dev work and builds from your host computer. We are working on a document that gives you all the details and will post it soon.
Both images expire on April 1, 2008. Updated images will be posted before then (in fact the updated images will have sample data, hands-on labs, and updates like Office 2007 SP1 and the TFS Power Tools that were announced over the holiday period).
For more information and to find links to the images go to http://www.pluralsight.com/blogs/brian/archive/2007/12/21/49504.aspx
And it's where the VSTO2003 blog used to be :).
Christin Boyd has posted a welcome message and that's all that's there so far, but with the likes of Misha Shneerson, John R. Durant, Eric Carter and Thomas Quinn contributing as well, there are sure to be some gems.
Subscribe here.
Another place heroes happen ...
Craig's finally announced the results of his labour over the past little while. Elcom, one of Australia's leading Content Management providers, have switched entirely across to the new wave of products
Très cool.
Greg beat me to it.
The Australian Partner Readiness site has three great SQL2008 sessions listed
But that's just the start of it.
Check these out:
There are sessions in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide (not all events are in all cities)
February 14, 2008, 3:00am Sydney Time
Join us for an exciting webcast specific for the Oil and Gas Industry! Predicting the performance of an oil reservoir requires a large amount of computing muscle. This is now available at a reasonable cost using cluster computers with typically 8 - 16 processors. Roxar's Tempest simulator can take full advantage of these clusters using Windows HPC Server 2008 to simplify job submission and administration. This webcast will show you how.
Presented by Robert Frost, Tempest Development Manager and Martin Parker Systems Integration Manager, Roxar Corporation
Register today
January 16, 2008, 12 Noon Sydney Time
Look -no slides - just kick the tires! Want to find out what's new in Windows HPC Server 2008 and what exactly is "High Productivity Computing"? Join us for an exciting look into Windows HPC Server 2008. We’ll take you on a tour of this new version of Windows Compute Cluster Server, highlighting the major advancements in deployment, management, interoperability and scheduling. We promise no slides and tons of live demonstrations plus a lively discussion on how Windows HPC Server 20008 will increase your cluster administrators’ productivity. Register Today