Where Are The Developers In Singapore???

Live Streaming event now: Cloud Interop Streaming Event with Vijay Rajagopalan and Craig Kitterman

chism — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:51:00 GMT

Hi guys, we are streaming a Cloud Interop event in a few minutes. You can check out the details here - http://www.microsoft.com/singapore/friendlycloud/

Streaming here - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/microsoft-interop

Twitter hash tag - #sginterop

See you there!

Announcing the Winner of TechNet/MSDN Lenovo Ideapad S10-2 Winner

chism — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:35:00 GMT

There's nothing better than getting a great prize to start the new year. :-)

In Oct/Nov 2009, TechNet and MSDN in Singapore invited IT Pros and Pro Developers in Singapore to take a quiz. We are happy to announce that Mr. Andy Ong, from Testel Solutions was the lucky winner.

And here you are, happy winner of Lenovo Ideapad S10-2, Mr. Andy Ong, who collected the prize last 6th Jan 2010. What a way to start the new year!

From Left: Dennis Chung (IT Pro Evangelist | MS Singapore) & Mr. Andy Ong (SXXX7020J)

Congratulations Mr. Andy Ong! Enjoy the netbook, and thank you for supporting TechNet and MSDN Singapore.

Armor Valley in Xbox LIVE Marketplace Indie Games!

chism — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:24:00 GMT

I had the chance to talk to Janelle from Protege Productions sometime back before the release of their game Armor Valley which you can check out in Xbox 360 under Indie Games. Protege Productions is a Singapore-based games development company. We talked to Janelle about their game. You can also check it out in Xbox LIVE Marketplace here! (Rate it up!)

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Microsoft BizSpark - Business Enablement Program

chism — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:56:00 GMT

A year after we launched Microsoft BizSpark here in Singapore, we have grown close to 270 startups (starting with 12!) and 30+ Network Partners. This is a testament to the value of the program to entrepreneurship in general. More than just a program that provides access to Microsoft software and tools, BizSpark enables startups to leverage on these tools/software by running free hands on labs to speed up and up-level their technical skills.

Now we do realize that technical capability can only take a company so far. Coming from a company known for software, this might be a bit surprising to many people. But through BizSpark, we are invested to speed up a company's success, not just in their technological endeavors.

Let's say an average technical Joe wants to build his own company. He starts off with a small prototype, eventually building it up to technical masterpiece that looks to be a sure hit. No one's built that kind of sophisticated application before, so he must be on to something. He gets some sizeable amount of funding, surrounds himself with mentors, and eventually releases it into the wild. And for some unknown reason (even to his investors), that sophisticated piece of software just doesn't resonate with his target audience. In other words, it doesn't sell.

Now that's an oversimplification of a scenario which we unfortunately hear too often. There is no silver bullet to making a startup successful, but having a correct and systematical framework to get you started on the right track would certainly help. No I'm not referring to the technical aspects of your software, but rather having a business mindset to help you identify your market, obtain the proper resources, and sustain a growing business.

And this is how we came up with the Business Enablement Program. If I were to define it Twitter style, it's all about "teaching the geek to sell." We have partnered with well-connected VCs, consultants, and government agencies (Upstream Ventures, A2 Partners, SPRING, IDA) and rolled out a 2-day workshop that would address this. Pulling a description of the workshop:

For CEO's and founders starting a new business or, for seasoned entrepreneurs who have dealt with the high's and low's of building a company, these workshops will inspire you to relook at your core business model and arm you with tangible tools and methodologies to address the major challenges all CEO faces today - How to build your Team and Board, Creating your Brand and Offerings, Deciding on Technology, Developing your strategy, Obtaining the right funding at the right time, Finding strategic Partners, How to build your client base and How to ensure business growth and expansion even in tough times

The objective of the 2 day Workshop is to enable CEO's/Founders of Singaporean companies to:

Learn a structured and focused approach to evaluating, building, & adding value to any company;
Have business and people methodologies and tools to create a well balanced company ;
Lay the foundation for a solid business plan and successful growth to transition through the infamous "valley of death".

Now before you dismiss this as another "training" of sorts, do note that the BEP was designed to handhold these startups even after the workshop. That means through our partnerships with the investors, government agencies, and customers, we will handpick and guide these startups for another whole year, just to make sure they are on the right track and are getting the right funding, and mentors at the right time. The partnerships are very crucial because they themselves went through that same training. So if a startup going through the BEP pitches to say SPRING or IDA, they would be pressing the right buttons because they will be talking the same language, laid out by the BEP.

We ran a pilot of the BEP last December 5 and December 12 to 25 startups (out of the 270 from the BizSpark pool) and I would happily report that it is a resounding success. Quoting some of the participants -

"By partnering with the various industrial partners, Microsoft has taken a very positive step in the right direction. The amount of effort put in is tremendous and we greatly appreciate that!"

"This is definitely a 2 thumbs up program initiated by Microsoft. This has totally changed the Microsoft with a general image of money sucking company to a helpful and synergy building company."

"I signed up the workshop with an objective to improve my business plan. I did not realize that I am empowered with skills not only to run the company, but to also lead the people in the company!"

These are just some of many positive feedback from the participants. We will launch next year and hopefully give all our BizSpark startups the necessary tools and skills, not just technically, but also in running and leading a company as a complete business.

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy:

The Andrews in action!

They got a chance to role play in a company called MacroSoft!

Putting their heads together to build a Go-To-Market strategy

John Fernandes, DPE Director. And Andrew Carmody, A2

That's me

Patrick Lim (SPRING) busy with his cellphone

Andrew Shields (A2) testing one of the startups' pitching skills

Choon Siong Lim (Director of Entrepreneurship Development, SPRING)

Pierre Hennes (Upstream Ventures)

Touch Dimension guys explaining their game to Choon Siong

Mapping business components to identify where investments should go

Claudia Chan and Louis Lam from IDA's Industry Development Group

If you are interested with BizSpark and interested to participate for the next BEP, drop me a mail at chism [at] microsoft.com

Cheers!

Build a Windows Azure app, win cool stuff! Get a song too! (For Singapore only)

chism — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:59:00 GMT

Hi guys,

Check out email from Jonathan below (our Azure guy for Singapore). Good opportunity to get some cool freebies and be featured in our Windows Azure event. Jonathan’s got free Azure tokens so get cranking!

It would be interesting to see some cool applications out there. I’ll cut you guys a deal – if you guys win in top 3, I’ll create a song for your startup and your app and put it up on YouTube. No kidding.

If anyone’s laughing – http://youtube.com/ChrisIsmael . So yeah, I dare you guys to win, we’ll make you “famous” at my expense. Deal? J

Thanks,

Chris

From: Jonathan Wong
Sent: Wednesday, 16 December, 2009 5:53 PM
Subject: Come Participate in the Windows Azure Holiday Giveaway!
Importance: High

Hi Everyone!

The holiday season is finally upon us, and what better way to spend this holiday break than to learn a new IT skill? :)

You may know that Windows Azure (www.windowsazure.com) is Microsoft’s Cloud Computing platform, and it is scheduled to finally launch for production use in Singapore on January 1, 2010.

In the spirit of the holiday season though, we have a bunch of free Windows Azure trial tokens to give away. However, let’s make things a bit more interesting…

This is how it will work in five simple steps:

1. If you are interested in a free trial token for Windows Azure, email me at jonathan.wong@microsoft.com and I will send you a token which you can redeem from the Windows Azure website. This token will allow you to create and deploy an application on Windows Azure. You will also need to create a Windows Live ID if you don’t already have one.

2. Create a Windows Azure application and deploy it onto the Windows Azure cloud before the 30^th of December. You can deploy your application on the Windows Azure Developer Portal (http://windows.azure.com)

3. Not sure what application to create? Since it’s the holiday season, why not create an online greeting card? But hey, feel free to create any kind of application you want (even if it’s just a “Hello World” application). This is all in the spirit of learning, after all.

4. Finish and deploy your application before the 30^th of December (even if it’s just “Hello World”), and send me an email (jonathan.wong@microsoft.com) with the URL (something like http://xxxxx.cloudapp.net) and screenshot of your application running on the Windows Azure cloud. You will then receive a nice little gift bag from Microsoft with some Microsoft goodies inside!

5. On top of that, we will select three of the best applications (whether it’s a greeting card or not) and feature them during our upcoming Windows Azure event in the Spring. Oh, and if your application is selected as one of the best, you will get an extra special gift from Microsoft as well.

So what are you waiting for? Learn and deploy on Windows Azure today! J

If you need help to get started, here are a few good resources:

1. Windows Azure Getting Started: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/getstarted/#windows

2. Windows Azure Training Kit: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78

3. Introductory Windows Azure session at PDC: http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/SVC37

4. If you don’t want to develop an application but just want to experience the process of deploying the application onto the Windows Azure cloud, download a pre-built “Hello Cloud” application (http://cid-6cb04c4ad9363220.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/HelloCloud.zip) which you can deploy on the Windows Azure Developer Portal. Hint: The two files you will need are in the HelloCloud/bin/Debug/Publish folder.

Cheers, and Happy Azuring!

Jonathan

Jonathan Wong
Technology Evangelist
Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Singapore
mobile: +65 9757 9715 | web: armchairtheorist.com | twitter: @armchairdude

Visio - The ideal tool for front end solutions for developers

chism — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:26:00 GMT

In this video, James Price shows how Visio 2007 Pro can be used as the programmer’s friend in delivering a visually rich and interactive interface for their solutions. The first part of the video describes how external data can be displayed in almost real time. The second part shows an example of a simulation where Visio captures data and then publishes it automatically to IE or SharePoint. The result is to show why Visio is a great tool at providing interfaces, dashboards and POCs.

Silverlight 4 Beta and ASP.NET MVC Beta 2

chism — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:17:00 GMT

Silverlight 4 Beta was recently unveiled at the PDC in Los Angeles (http://microsoftpdc.com), continuing the rapid pace of innovation for the Silverlight platform. In addition, ASP.NET MVC Beta 2 was released, which introduces improved Visual Studio tooling support, extensible client validation and lots of other features that help developers build Web sites and applications faster.

Silverlight

Silverlight helps companies design, develop and deliver engaging, interactive user experiences for Web, desktop and mobile applications when online of offline. Silverlight is a free plug-in, powered by the .NET Framework compatible with multiple broswers, devices and platforms. With printing support, rich reporting and charting, and integration with back-end systems and server products including Microsoft Sharepoint Server 2010, Microsoft Office and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), the Silverlight 4 Beta delivers a full suite of powerful features to application developers, bringing innovative platform capabilities to browser-based experiences.

For more information, see http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/

ASP.NET MVC

ASP.NET MVC is a free, fully supported framework that enables developers to quickly build standards-based, SEO-riendly Web sites by offering complete control over the HTML and URLs.

For more information, see http://www.asp.net/mvc

Office and Sharepoint 2010 Developer content now live!

chism — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:47:00 GMT

Shortly after the Office and Sharepoint 2010 public beta were announced, the Office developer center in MSDN was updated and included new developer content on Office 2010 and Open XML.

Here are some links to get you started:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/default.aspx -- Office Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ee513173.aspx -- Office 2010 Beta Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ee722025.aspx -- Developing with Office 2010 how-to videos & conten

If you weren't able to get to the PDC, here's a recap of the IW keynote.

BizSpark One and free Windows Azure for Startups

chism — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:52:00 GMT

I'll just post here my email to BizSpark startups this morning

Dear BizSpark Startups and Network Partners,

We have kicked off PDC last night, in case you haven’t catched it, you can keep up by going to http://microsoftpdc.com/ . There were a bunch of exciting announcements. And one that I would like to share with you is this the announcement of our BizSpark One program and free Windows Azure for BizSpark start-ups. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/nov09/11-17PDCBizSpark.mspx

I’ll paste the relevant parts for you –

Casting a Finer Net: Introducing BizSpark One

Building on the momentum gained by BizSpark over the past year, Microsoft is now turning its focus to expanding the reach and fine-tuning the offerings of the program. At PDC 2009, Microsoft will announce multiple extensions to its existing lineup of startup-centric offerings.

The biggest announcement concerns BizSpark One, the newest extension to the BizSpark program. BizSpark One has been designed to catalyze the growth of selected high-potential startups through a one-on-one relationship with Microsoft and a global community of advisors, investors and peers. At the time of launch, BizSpark One will be available in 10 countries: Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.

“The idea behind BizSpark One is to cast a finer net using Silicon Valley best practices, and then lift the net up to find the startups that are most likely to succeed in the market and shape the industry’s future,” says Lewin. “Following the filtering process, our local subsidiaries in 10 countries will partner with the corporate team to help these startups to become the ‘ones to watch’ within the BizSpark program.”

Windows Azure, at No Cost

Another announcement at PDC 2009 is the offering of free Windows Azure platform cloud computing use. Today at PDC, a number of new features in Windows Azure will be made available for the first time. To kick-start development on this platform, BizSpark partners will receive 750 free compute hours per month for eight months.

Lewin anticipates this offer will serve as a powerful incentive for startups to innovate with the Windows Azure platform. “Windows Azure is a new architecture and we’re bound to see some visionary entrepreneurs building trailblazing solutions and illustrating new capabilities with that in mind.”

France-based Lokad, a software development company that delivers forecasting technologies, has enjoyed a fruitful association with BizSpark since the day the program was launched in Paris in November 2008. Joannes Vermorel, founder of Lokad, says that BizSpark helped the startup catch the attention of some large companies, and Lokad’s scalability-driven migration to Windows Azure this year has been instrumental in delivering a more compelling software-plus-services application to customers.

“While our highlight in 2009 was the successful porting of our technology to Windows Azure, next year we are poised to extend our solutions to a level that would not be conceivable without cloud computing,” says Vermorel. “No doubt, our ongoing relationship with BizSpark will propel us forward and guide us on how to better market our technology.”

And here are a bunch of other announcements which you’ll probably be seeing on the web – (you may also want to check my Twitter account and Jonathan’s for a blow by blow account of the announcements last night - @chrispogeek and @armchairdude)

- Microsoft setting up a data centre in Singapore (and Hongkong) to serve Asia

- Announcing Windows Azure Virtual Machine (finally!)

- There was a FOSS demo on Azure – Wordpress, MySQL, Apache

- Microsoft Pinpoint – directory of qualified IT companies/software solutions built on Microsoft technologies

- Code “Dallas” – Repository of datasets from businesses, easily accessible by applications (wow)

- Ah heck there’s lots of announcements - check the site or our tweets here - @armchairdude @chrispogeek (http://twitter.com)

By the way the streaming early this morning was flawless! Silverlight / IIS 7 smooth-streaming baby.

It’s not over yet! You can catch the 2^nd day keynotes tonight! More announcements – http://microsoftpdc.com

Catch you all again soon. I’ll be busy preparing for my presentation tomorrow at the New Efficiency Launch. I’ll update you guys once more info comes in.

P.S. One of our BizSpark start-ups is now in PDC, flown there by the Code7Contest team because they submitted an entry (remember that Windows 7 contest I was telling you about that would get you a chance to win $US 17,777 ?). We think they might be one of the finalists so keep your fingers crossed!

Thanks,

Chris

Watch the PDC09 Keynotes @ http://microsoftpdc.com

chism — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:40:00 GMT

There's gonna be a lot of good announcements there ;)

New CTP Releases and Training Kits

chism — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:36:00 GMT

November 5, 2009 - Microsoft.NET Services: November CTP SDK

The November CTP represents the complete feature set that will be available at the PDC conference from both the Service Bus and Access Control Service when the Windows Azure platform becomes commercially available.

The Service Bus and Access Control service make it easier to connect applications and services in the cloud and on-premises. The Service Bus helps applications and services communicate across network and organizational boundaries, and the Access Control Service helps create secure authorization for your apps, services and users.

Resources for learning more about .NET Services and the Windows Azure platform are available here:

· Microsoft .NET Services SDK: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/developers/dotnetservices/

· Microsoft .NET Services general information: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/dotnetservices/

· Microsoft .NET Services Developer Center: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/netservices.aspx

· Microsoft .NET Services on Twitter: @dotnetservices

· Windows Azure platform web site: http://www.windowsazure.com

November 11, 2009 - SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP

SQL Server 2008 R2 delivers several breakthrough capabilities that will enable your organization to scale database operations with confidence, improve IT and developer efficiency, and enable highly scalable and well managed Business Inteligence on a self-service basis for your users. Download the SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP here.

November 10, 2009 - Sharepoint 2010 Training Courses on Channel 9

Check out new SharePoint 2010 Developer Training Course on Channel 9. This training course contains 14 training units covering all aspects of developing solutions on the SharePoint 2010 platform using Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010. SharePoint 2010 provides the business collaboration platform for developers to rapidly build solutions using familiar tools while leveraging a rich set of out of the box features. Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 make developers more productive and Visual Studio Team Foundation Server delivers support for application lifecycle management. Developers can integrate Line of Business data in SharePoint 2010 with read/write capability delivered by Business Connectivity Services. Sandboxed Solutions can be deployed to a shared hosting environment to limit the impact of unpredictable code to the other applications in use.

November 11, 2009 - Windows Server 2008 R2 Trainings

New R2 Learning Center

Explore this significant Windows Server release via a self-paced training course of videos and hands-on-labs with a focus on performance, web, management, and other server solution scenarios. Learn about developing applications for “many-core” scale, enable efficient “trigger-started” services, explore new Windows PowerShell features, create integrated solutions with the File Classification Infrastructure, and build Web Platform extensions.

New R2 Developer Training Kit – Learning Center Edition

Download the Developer & Platform Evangelism (DPE) Developer Training Kit. The kit includes self-paced hands-on-lab exercises with corresponding video resources on the new Channel9 Learning Center. Topics include:

· “Many-Core” Application Scale

· VHD and Hyper-V API’s

· Designed for Efficiency

· Extreme Web Services

· The Extensible Web Platform

November 11, 2009 - Office 2010 Workshop on Channel 9

All New Office 2010 Developer Training Course

The Office 2010 Workshop is one of the new developer training courses to debut on Channel 9 today. The release of this course consists of 29 videos with presentations and demos on Office 2010 development. That’s around 4.5 hours of content! The training course includes these units:

· Office 2010 Developer Roadmap

· Office UI Customization

· Office Client Workflow

· Security and Deployment

· Business Connectivity Services

· Developing BI Applications

· Open XML

· Office 2010 Services

· InfoPath 2010 and Forms Services

PHP + Windows News

chism — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:48:00 GMT

Figured I'd post something on PHP (I used to be a PHP/Perl developer after all!)

Windows Cache Extension for PHP – Release Candidate

The Windows Cache Extension for PHP (WinCache extension) is a PHP accelerator built by IIS team. The release candidate was shipped on October 19^th and is available for download through Web PI. In addition, the extension is now offered when any PHP application from Windows Web Gallery is installed through Web PI.

SQL Driver for PHP 1.1

The SQL Driver for PHP 1.1 has been released. The release announcement is available here. The v1.1 has the following improvements and additions over v1.0:

· Support for SQL Azure

· Support for PHP version 5.3

· Support for UTF-8

· Support for Scrollable results, row countMigration to SQL Server 2008 Native Client framework that provides for performance enhancements.

PHP Documentation Updates

The first update patch for the Windows and IIS-specific documentation on php.net has been checked in. The new documentation is available at the following URLs:

· http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.manual.php

· http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.iis6.php

· http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.iis7.php

Enabling PHP Applications on Windows

SugarCRM in Windows Web Application Gallery

The community edition of the popular PHP application SugarCRM has been added to the Web Application Gallery and now can be installed via Web Platform Installer.

Oh and you should have heard of FastCGI by now. If not, you can find more about it on this site, along with other PHP goodies J

Your .NET Story can win you prizes worth over $16,000 US

chism — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:02:00 GMT

Well I'll be... A cool way to promote your .NET application, and a chance to win over $16,000. Nice. Check out the site. Here's the more important info :P

The New Efficiency Launch - November 19, 2009 @ Suntec (Singapore)

chism — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:29:00 GMT

Hi guys,

We have an upcoming event on November 19th showcasing Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. There's a Developer Track in the afternoon (see below). Register now!

Breakout Track 5: Developers
1330-1415	Designing For Cloud Computing There is a good chance that you as a customer are already asking questions about cloud computing. "How do you define cloud computing?" "Do I have to move everything to the cloud?" "Which of my applications will be able to take advantage of the cloud?" With so much going on in this space, especially with new announcements on an almost daily basis, it can be difficult to keep up. To help answer these questions and more, the objective of this session is threefold: 1. Help demystify the definition of cloud computing for your customers. 2. Explore applications that make sense in the cloud (and also those that do not). 3. Introduce a set of five design patterns, based on real customers, and show how these can be implemented using our Windows Azure platform. Speaker: Jonathan Wong, Technology Evangelist, Microsoft Singapore
1430-1515	Developing Windows 7 Applications With .NET Windows 7 brings a wealth of new developer technologies to the market that a native C/C++ application can easily leverage. Learn what Microsoft provides for .NET developers to create great applications for Windows 7. Speaker: Jocelyn Villaraza, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Singapore
1530-1615	Making Applications Compatible with Windows 7 for Developers Learn what makes an application Windows 7-compatible, what steps developers should follow to test and develop compatible applications, and the programs Microsoft has in place to help developers promote their compatible solutions to customers. Speaker: Chris Ismael, Developer Evangelist, Microsoft Singapore
1630-1715	Developing Location Aware Applications With Windows 7 Windows 7 introduces a platform for using sensor devices to create environmental or location awareness in programs. In this session, you will learn how to use sensors to make your programs more functional, easier to use and more aware of the surrounding environment. Speaker: Chun Siong Tan, MIC Intern, Microsoft Singapore

Bill Gates Pizza

chism — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:30:00 GMT

Check out what's cookin' here at Microsoft Singapore during our BizSpark Startup Night...

Check out the MSDN Singapore page for more pictures and to get updates on future events! (in the Latest Updates and News Section)

Singapore based startup Hibernater lets you resume your work from one desktop to another

chism — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:58:00 GMT

Here's a video interview with Hibernater who recently received an award from SiTF. Their app lets you save your Word, Excel, Internet Explorer sessions, etc and resume it at some other time, or on another PC or laptop. I find it particularly useful if I need to restart my laptop and would like to save my "work session" so that I can bring them up again after restart. You can also use it to save your work and continue with the same apps to be opened at your home machine (if you're a workaholic). What's interesting is that these guys managed to implement a Windows 7 Jump List in their app in a short time. You can check it out at http://hibernater.com and give it a spin.

VS 2010 and .NET Framework Training Kit - October Preview now available!

chism — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:18:00 GMT

Awesome!

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=752CB725-969B-4732-A383-ED5740F02E93&displaylang=en

And here it is after install, slick!

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 now available!

chism — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:01:00 GMT

Check out how you can download and install the beta!

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx

Update! Reading installation instructions are a bore. Watch it instead!

How to make sure your apps on XP will run on Windows 7

chism — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:57:00 GMT

My job here at Microsoft entails a lot of field work. It provides me with an opportunity to escape the four walls of the office, put my ear on the ground and hear what people really think about our technologies. Interestingly enough, the stuff I love to hear most about are sentiments that border between "doubtful" and "convinced". Given that Windows 7 has gotten a lot of positive buzz, it is still no exception. The most common question I get from developers is - "Are my apps in XP going to run on Windows 7?" Don't get me wrong, they have valid reasons to be on XP. Most of them have business justifications on staying with XP. But you have to admit, it's a better question to ask than "Why would I bother running my apps on Windows 7" ;)

With Windows 7, the buzz has caught on. And rethinking their platform investments seems a much more logical direction. Windows after all is run by more than 90 something percent of people in the planet :P It's a sound investment. So are your XP apps going to run?

I dug through my Inbox and found an excellent video tutorial on how you can make sure your apps will run on XP. It's not complicated as many would think. It's excellent for those who are troubleshooting their apps and find themselves greeted with a random Warning or Error pop up box. Most of us would probaby just throw our hands up in the air and give up in that situation. You can count me out, because watching this video gave me tons of simple tweaks, code changes, and options that I can recommend to people when they're stuck. Made me look like I actually know what I'm talking about. That's cool.

http://www.msdev.com/Directory/Description.aspx?eventId=1196

Something Random

chism — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:19:00 GMT

That's me (plus some MACH colleagues) posing with our energetic leader Steve Ballmer in TechReady 9 (Seattle).

Migrating from Silverlight 2 to Silverlight 3

chism — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:53:00 GMT

Kiki Sugiaman from startup Semides shares his experiences in migrating from Silverlight 2 to Silverlight 3.

What’s more interesting is that prior to designing Silverlight applications with Microsoft Expression Blend, he was a circuit board designer! Find out why he made the jump.

Edited (added Aug 19, 2009).

Here are some additional notes that Kiki sent me in an email sometime back before this video was shot.

There’s quite a bit of manual code adaptation needed to get the new SL3 code to work properly. Visual Studio left out some details after the “mandatory” project conversion from SL2 to SL3. But I think some highlights worth mentioning are:

TextBox

TextBox background in SL3 will automatically “grey out” when we set IsReadOnly property to true, which may leave the impression that the TextBox is disabled to some users. There is a simple workaround for this by deleting the ReadOnlyVisualElement inside the template.

Storyboard animations

Some Storyboard created for SL2 stopped working properly in SL3 because some “easings” were not explicitly specified (some default value assumed in SL2, no more the case in SL3). So the fix is to explicitly provide the easings value or recreate the animation using Blend 3.

ChildWindow

This is a new feature that solved our problem rather than a problem that resulted from SL2-SL3 conversion. We previously used Javascript to pop up some browser dialogs to take user inputs. The problem with this is inconsistency. Due to various browser settings, sometimes the dialog pops up, sometimes it does not. We tested several PC’s in our office and on some PC’s, the browser respond differently when the Javascript fires resulting in browser error.

Now with the ChildWindow control from SL3, the behavior is consistent because the dialog is launched from within the SL control as opposed to being a separate browser pops. So, problem solved. Plus, it’s prettier because it can be restyled.

How to Deploy an Existing ASP.NET app to Windows Azure

chism — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:05:00 GMT

There’s been a lot of buzz with Windows Azure recently now that the pricing details have been announced. One of the most common inquiries we get is how developers can deploy their existing ASP.NET app onto Azure. Fortunately we have Huang Sile, who is a developer intern at our Microsoft Innovation Centre (MIC) here in Singapore guided by Eugene (MIC Specialist) to show you how this is done. Hope you find this useful!

VB6 Migration to .NET Video

chism — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:28:00 GMT

I tried looking for a video on VB6 to .NET Migration but it was very difficult to find one. So I looked for some and asked Dennis to post it here in geeksengaged.com. You may be wondering, why post something so old? Believe it or not, a lot of people are still using VB6. Most of them aren't really sure how to migrate to .NET (or just wouldn't care because things are not "broken"). So why migrate? Check out the video.

Azaas demos their Silverlight 3 application

chism — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:22:00 GMT

I had a chance to meet up with Azaas, one of our Microsoft BizSpark startups, a few days ago to check out the Silverlight 3 application they built.

Here are some things that stood out for me when I talked to these guys:

They went ahead developing their app on Silverlight 3, even before it was officially launched
The demo they showed was built within three weeks, considering they haven't done any Silverlight development before. Nice!
We were pulling data from China, through a mobile broadband USB, in the demo. Silverlight data compression in action.

Check out the video interview here!

If you want to get in touch with Azaas, you can email Choon Ngee (choon [at] azaas.com) or Kai Boo (kaiboo [at] azaas.com). You can also get in touch with me (chism [at] microsoft.com) if you have some cool stuff to show like Azaas :)