Like a lot of us, I’m constantly looking for ways to be better organized so I can spend more time getting things done (rather than just doing things). Fences is a cool little utility that allows you to organize the stuff on your desktop into neat little...

Gurdeep Singh Pall (Corporate Vice President, Unified Communications Group) provided details on Microsoft Communications Server “14” and Microsoft Communicator “14” in his VoiceCon 2010 keynote yesterday. Watch the keynote below to get details on this...

At this point, you have a native boot VHD created from Part 1 and the OS image applied from Part 2 . Next, you need to add the VHD to the boot menu so you can boot to it. Add the VHD to the Boot Menu 1. Click Start >> All Programs >> Microsoft...

After creating the native boot VHD in Part 1 , the next step is to apply a OS image to the VHD. Installing the OS For this next step, you’ll need setup media for the OS you’d like to install. I keep a few bootable USB sticks with the latest OSs in my...

I’ve been using the native boot VHD feature of Windows 7 quite a lot lately and I’m really happy with results. Being able to natively boot to a VHD allows you to have different OS images set up for different scenarios. For me this includes: 1. Easily...

I rebuild my machines often, so I really like having bootable USB sticks around with the latest OS’s on them to make rebuilding machines quick and painless. Maximum PC has an easy step-by-step process for making a USB key a bootable install for Windows...

Steven Holcomb not only piloted his bobsled “Night Train” to a gold medal, but he’s also a MCP . Make’s me think about time management…  A lot. Thanks, Chris

I’ve built a couple of developer focused FAQ’s to make it easier for developers to get started writing applications that leverage OCS and OC. You’ll find the one focused on OCS 2007 R2/OC 2007 R2 here . I’ve put together another one for Microsoft Communications...

In my last post on UCMA 2.0 application provisioning , I provided some resources to help you provision a trusted application with Office Communications Server 2007 R2.  Once you have that trusted application contact, you use the values in AppProvisioner...

Scott remotely works @ Microsoft. To give himself a physical presence on campus, he’s used some off-the-shelf hardware nad the UC platform SDKs to build himself a physical proxy with integrated calendar via Exchange Web Services and presence/click-to...

When doing SharePoint 2010 Beta development, you have a few options for setting up your development environment, including running a virtualized development environment on Windows Server 2008 R2 in Hyper-V, configuring a Windows 7 developer environment...

You need to run VS 2008 as administrator in order to debug UCMA 2.0 applications.  If you don’t, you’ll get a fairly misleading TlsFailureException with he message “The operation failed due to issues with Tls. See the exception for more information...

If you’ve been to the Ch. 9 Learning Centers for SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 development, you know that there are a lot cool new features for developers coming in the 2010 releases. Steve Fox just posted on his blog about a new SharePoint 2010 and...

When developing with UCMA 2.0, there are a few steps you need to complete on your computer before you can develop and debug your code, including: Preparing your computer for trusted connections with OCS. Provisioning your application to be trusted by...

There are some really cool language advances coming with VS 2010.  In this video from the Ch. 9 Learning Center for Visual Studio 2010, Jason Olson walks you through some of what’s new. You can find more VS 2010 videos like this one on the Ch. 9...

Jeremy Miller asks the question: What is the most important advance in the .NET ecosystem over the past three or four years? His answer?  Functional programming. Jeremy's article on the subject sparked more gear turning in my head that anything else...

I’m learning a lot about Visual Studio 2010, SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 while building some proof of concept applications using those technologies and OCS “14”, OC “14” and Exchange 2010. To get up to speed on Visual Studio 2010, SharePoint 2010...

From a platform perspective, Office Communications Server 2007 R2 allows you to build call control and call management services. OCS 2007 R2 also provides a federation feature to allow you to securely deploy your UC solutions in a Software + Services...

"Metro" is the Microsoft Early Adopter Program for partners and customers that want to invest in our future platform technologies to get competitive advantage. After our PDC09 sessions on Office Communications Server “14”, Office Communicator...

My PDC09 session Microsoft Unified Communications: Developer Platform Futures is now available as an on demand video. Thanks, Chris

I’ve had some really great discussions around UC Wave 14 and UC development while here at the PDC09.  If we haven’t managed to sit down and talk, meet me tonight in hall G from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm. I’ll see you there. Thanks, Chris.

Come see us at the booth and we’ll give you a copy of the UC development book.  We have a limited supply, so come by soon. I’ll see you there. Thanks, Chris.

Just waiting for the Day 2 Keynote to start. Remember to head over to David’s session on integrating OC 14 features into your WPF and Silverlight apps right after the keynote. Integrating and Extending the Microsoft Office Communicator Experience with...

Thanks to everyone that attended my PDC09 session today.  I’ll link to the session recording when it’s posted on Ch. 9, but here’s a quick recap of what was covered: The UC “14” Wave will consist of Exchange 2010 (released last week at TechEd Europe...

Everything is ready to go for my Microsoft Unified Communications: Developer Platform Futures (PRO5) session @ 11 AM tomorrow in 515B.  I hope to see you there. We always appreciate your feedback on sessions at PDC, so please fill out your evals...