October, 2008

Have you ever wondered how the Windows Logo is "stamped" on shipping software from ISVs? As it turns out, there's a program for the Windows Logo. Jamie Wakeam asked a couple of the folks behind the Windows Logo Program a few questions that pertain to ISVs and the upcoming efforts towards making the experience for Windows 7 even better: Download(s): WMV Oh, and in case you were wondering...

Windows Home Server has quickly become one of my favourite operating systems. Why? Because it makes me feel safe with its automated back-ups (attributing to a very high WAF). Additionally, it serves as my back-end data storage and will stream my music library to anywhere within the range of my home's wireless network. At Microsoft PDC , I took a moment to ask the folks on the Windows Home Server...

Hi Everyone, I can’t express how excited and how tired I am.  It has been a wonderful journey to bring this type of conference to Canada.  I received some great feedback on how we are going to adjust the experience for the next cities and I'm floored about all the positive feedback that  shows we are on the right track. Here’s a summary from the context of a TechDays guest.  I’ve...

Not only is Phil Haack a bright guy, he also has the coolest name of a developer we know. He's also the giant brain behind the ASP.NET MVC project. Joey deVilla spent a few minutes to chat with Phil about this cool technology for ASP.NET developers: Download(s): WMV Make sure to check out the ASP.NET MVC session at Microsoft Tech•Days Canada 2008 to learn more!

Miguel de Icaza talks with Joey deVilla about Mono . No, not the kissing disease; rather, the "open development initiative sponsored by Novell to develop an open source, UNIX version of the Microsoft .NET development platform" (from the Mono FAQ ). Check it out: Download(s): WMV Recently, Mono 2.0 was released. To grab the latest bits (get them while they're still hot!), navigate to...

IronRuby is one of the coolest projects at Microsoft . Ruby wonk, Canadian , and all-around-nice-guy, John Lam and Joey deVilla sat down at Microsoft PDC to discuss the latest developments surrounding it: Download(s): WMV If you'd like to learn more about IronRuby, make sure to check out www.IronRuby.net .

Our newest Developer Advisor, Joey deVilla got a chance to chat with the one & only Don Box : Download(s): WMV Joey is new to the .NET world. What better person to speak to than Don? For more information about "Oslo", make sure to check out the Oslo Developer Center on MSDN .

On day 2 of Microsoft PDC , my brain blue-screened. There was way simply way too much "stuff" to absorb. Shortly after the keynote, I grabbed Mark Relph and asked him to share his opinions on the keynote we had just witnessed: Download(s): WMV You can also follow Mark's tweets at www.twitter.com/mrelph . High recommended.

I'm convinced; developers are going to love all the new features we've put into Internet Explorer 8 . Earlier, I spoke to Pete LePage at Microsoft PDC and asked him a number of questions about the new capabilities of Internet Explorer 8 : Download(s): WMV Are you running Internet Explorer 8 today? If not, go grab the Beta today!

Welcome to day TWO of the Toronto edition of TechDays 2008 in Canada . As our first two day event, it was a little strange going to the hotel last night, remembering that we had to be back bright and early at the Toronto Convention Centre. I wanted to introduce you to our Learning Kit - A.K.A. Techie Crunch. Instead of a giveaway bag full of marketing material, this box is packed full of learning goodness...

I am taking a couple of minutes of rest to have an diet coke in-between sessions here in Toronto. Man - if I had a pedometer, I'd swear that I had walked a couple of kilometres so far today. I acted as host for our lunch time session and reinforced the opportunity people had to make connections with other TechDays guests who had self identified themselves with the track colours. It's something new...

[Cross Posted From blogs.msdn.com/mark_relph ]   Techdays is here!  The team (as I type this post) is hard at work back in Toronto preparing the final details for the kickoff event.  We really are trying to raise the bar on the kinds of events and programs we bring to Canada’s Technical Professionals and we hope that the first ever Techdays will help make our vision come to life. For...

As you probably know by now, Windows Azure provides a foundation for services hosted "in the cloud". Building on top of this foundational layer are numerous services targeted towards a variety of audiences, including developers. As I've come to understand it, the developer-related "goop" (*) for things like workflow, access control, and service bus are collectively known as .NET Services . In fact...

(Photo by DBegley .) A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... I was a young man in Australia, learning how to code ASP and COM. At that time, my soon-to-be-my-lifelong-hero, Don Box had written an utterly fantastic book entitled, " Essential COM ". (As an aside: Chapter 1 of this book blue-screened my brain. It was *that* good. To date, I still consider chapter 1 of " Essential COM " to...

I <3 Channel 9 . It's a behind-the-scenes view of the people who are building the great technology and tools you see at Microsoft. Channel 9 and (fellow Canadian) Jeff Sandquist are trying to help the community, one developer at a time. Jeff was kind enough to give us a few minutes of his time to chat about Channel 9 and to share some thoughts about Microsoft PDC . Also, Jeff shares some exclusive...

CodePlex is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It's a repository where you can host your projects. They provide a whole slew of great features that enable distributed team software development. Sara Ford is well known to the developer community through her blog and book entitled, "Microsoft Visual Studio Tips" . I spent a few minutes with Sara to ask her a little about CodePlex : Download...

Ryan has done a good job summing up some of the coverage from the last 2 days. Wow. What a day! I’ve attempted to pull together a summary of materials and videos from Day 1. I’m now in the keynote for Day 2 so will have more later on that later.    Read More   Technorati Tags: PDC2008 , PDC08 , Microsoft , Azure , Canada , Developers

Ryan Storgaard, our Canadian Chief S+S Officer, outlines some of the news on Azure over on this blog.  Check it out here . Technorati Tags: PDC2008 , PDC08 , Azure , Canada , Microsoft

There's been a mountain of information here at Microsoft PDC . One of the more interesting tidbits of news has been around Windows Server "Dublin" . To find out more, I went to the source and spoke with the "Dublin" boys: Download(s): WMV

There's a lot of Canadian developers who love the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) . It's a great framework for building applications. At Microsoft PDC , I was fortunate enough to catch Matt Winkler , a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft who's working on the upcoming "goodness" surrounding the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) . He shares some of information about what folks can expect with the Windows...

At Microsoft PDC , there's no shortage of fun things to see, do, and chat about. For example, as we exited the keynote room for Microsoft PDC , we immediately saw the Surface and had to score a look: Download(s): WMV Very cool stuff, me thinks.

At 8:30 AM, things got kicked off with a bang! when Ray Ozzie took the stage to deliver the keynote address for day 1 of the Microsoft PDC . Immediately following the keynote, Joel Semeniuk shared his initial thoughts with me about Windows Azure and Microsoft's cloud computing strategy: Download(s): WMV

· The Azure™ Services Platform : A set of cloud-based technologies such as storage, identity, and multi-device sync that extend software development for both enterprise server and PC/browser/phone applications with services on the Web. · Windows Azure™ : A component of the Azure Services Platform that extends the Windows environment to the cloud for developers who want service hosting, scalable storage...

It's 5 AM (Pacific) and this showed up on my screen: (Of course, the "Pace Yourself" task is simply a reminder for yours truly.) It's here! After months of waiting, it's finally here! Microsoft PDC . The greatest conference in modern history. For many geeks like me, Microsoft PDC is like being Homer Simpson in the Land of Chocolate .