December, 2010

Listen or watch the latest series of Bytes by MSDN as 17 influential community members and Microsoft developers,  interviewed at DevConnections 2010, talk about user-experience, the cloud, mobile, and a variety of additional topics that they are passionate about.  Check back weekly for the next installment in the series or subscribe and take it on the go!

One of the most talked about features in Visual Studio 2010 is IntelliTrace. Dave Mendlen, Senior Director at Microsoft, and Tim Huckaby, founder of InterKnowlogy, cover the latest and greatest with Visual Studio 2010, including LightSwitch, Intellitrace and the most recent Feature Pack. Tune in to find out why Dave refers to IntelliTrace as a “time machine” @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/gg512834.aspx

According to Achim Berg, Corp. Vice President of Business and Marketing, Windows Phones, Windows Phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks. It shows the customer momentum and retail presence. The Sales figures shows that sales are ramping well as our reputation is growing for offering users a unique experience and are in line with our expectations – especially when compared to other new platform introductions. Also we have 18,000 developers who are developing for our marketplace. It’s just getting better and better,  as we launched with many of the top mobile operators in the world, and even more in the coming year in 2011.

Way to go!!

We are pleased to declare that Visual Studio (VS) 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta and the .NET Framework 4 KB2162169 Beta will be supported as a “go live” release. This means that this software has met high standards of quality for a pre-release, and we are licensing it for developing and deploying production applications.

VS2010 SP1 Beta and the .NET Framework 4 KB2162169 Beta are licensed for use through June 30, 2011 at which point you’ll need to upgrade to the final release to continue using the product.

You can download VS 2010 SP1 Beta from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=11ea69cb-cf12-4842-a3d7-b32a1e5642e2&displaylang=en. Also you can download .Net Framework 4 update from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=6e3b7759-3df2-4755-8208-44955eee4d4c&displaylang=en.

We hope that you will consider using this beta for “go live” production purposes. As you do, we want to hear from you at our Connect Site if you find any bugs. In order to decide whether or not using this release in a “go live” scenario is right for you, you should carefully understand the terms and limitations of the “go live” license. Start by reading the license terms (during install or on disk afterward), which include the official “go live” licensing terms.

You can refer the blog post states the guidelines which may also help you understand the ways in which we are committed to helping you have a great experience with this release, including the following option: Our Support team is staffed to help you if you encounter problems with this release. If you plan to use it for “go live” please send email to vsgolive@microsoft.com so that we can register you for beta level support.

Hope this helps.

Are you the Windows Phone 7 developer or want to know how to create WP7 apps? Then this book is meant for you. To give you a sense of this offering, here is Charles’s Introduction—beneath that you’ll find the ebook’s full Table of Contents:

Introduction

This book is a gift from the Windows Phone 7 team at Microsoft to the programming community, and I am proud to have been a part of it. Within the pages that follow, I show you the basics of writing applications for Windows Phone 7 using the C# programming language with the Silverlight and XNA 2D frameworks.

Yes, Programming Windows Phone 7 is truly a free download, but for those readers who still love paper—as I certainly do—this book will also be available (for sale) divided into two fully-indexed print editions: Microsoft Silverlight Programming for Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft XNA Framework Programming for Windows Phone 7. ]

The best thing would be, with the money you’ve saved downloading this book, please buy other books. Despite the plethora of information available online, books are still the best way to learn about programming within a coherent and cohesive tutorial narrative. Every book sale brings a tear of joy to an author’s eye, so please help make them weep overflowing rivers.

In particular, you might want to buy other books to supplement the material in this book. For example, I barely mention Web services in this book, and that’s a serious deficiency because Web services are likely to become increasingly important in Windows Phone 7 applications. My coverage of XNA is limited to 2D graphics and while I hope to add several 3D chapters in the next edition of this book, I don’t really get into the whole Xbox LIVE community aspect of game development. Nor do I discuss any programming tools beyond Visual Studio—not even Expression Blend.

Sections:

This book is divided into three parts. The first part discusses basic concepts of Windows Phone 7 programming using example programs that target both Silverlight and the XNA framework. It is likely that many Windows Phone 7 developers will choose either one platform or the other, but I think it’s important for all developers who have at least a little knowledge of the alternative to their chosen path.

The second part of this book focuses entirely on Silverlight, and the third part on XNA 2D. For your convenience, the chapters in each part build upon previous knowledge in a progressive tutorial narrative, and hence are intended to be read sequentially.

To use this book properly you’ll need to download and install the Windows Phone Developer Tools, which includes Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, XNA Game Studio 4.0, and an on-screen Windows Phone Emulator to test your programs in the absence of an actual device. Get the latest information and downloads at http://developer.windowsphone.com.

PDF Download:BTW, you can download a PDF here (38.6 MB).

Code samples (C#): You can download the ebook’s C# sample code here (5.03 MB).

Code samples (VB.Net): And you can download the sample code in Visual Basic for Chapters 1-18 here (5.21 MB).

Nice way to start with! Wonderful book for the Windows Phone 7 programming!

Do you know the new feature “Tracking Protection” of Internet Explorer? It is the new privacy feature in Internet Explorer 9 designed to help keep third-party websites from tracking your Web behavior. With Tracking Protection, consumers can filter content in a page that may have an impact on privacy. Here you see a stock ticker, links for social sharing, videos, advertisements and single pixel images used for tracking page usage by third parties.

Why you need Tracking Protection in IE9? It puts people in control of what data is being shared as they move around the Web. It does this by enabling consumers to indicate what websites they’d prefer to not exchange information with. Consumers do this by adding Tracking Protection Lists to Internet Explorer. Anyone, and any organization, on the Web can author and publish Tracking Protection Lists. Consumers can install more than one. By default, there are no lists included in IE9, which is consistent with our previous IE releases with respect to privacy.

These lists include Web addresses for IE to treat as “Do Not Call” unless the consumer visits the address directly. The lists also include “OK to Call” addresses to make sure that the user can get to these addresses even if one of their lists has it as “Do Not Call.” Once the consumer has turned on Tracking Protection, it remains on until the person turns it off.

Again, it’s worth noting that consumers have to turn on Tracking Protection and that by default IE9’s privacy protections are similar to IE8’s.

In Outlook, custom Outlook forms are not supported for use with HTTP-based mail services (such as Microsoft Hotmail). Outlook does not prevent you from using custom form features if you are using an HTTP-based mail service. However, some features do not work correctly. The features do not work correctly because HTTP-based mail messages are stored in a read-only state on the server. Therefore, we recommend that you do not use custom Outlook forms if you are using an HTTP-based mail service.

If you had followed my previous blog post, downloaded and installed Outlook Social Connector (OSC) for Facebook, you can have a look at this video:

If you want to configure just follow the steps to configure it:

• Once you install the download, restart Outlook, and you will be prompted by the Outlook Social Connector configuration wizard to connect to Facebook.
  1. Under Social Network Accounts, select Facebook.
  2. For User Name: enter your Facebook email account.
  3. For Password: enter your Facebook password.
  4. Click Connect
  5. Once the connection is successfully completed, click Finish
     
• If you were not prompted by the Outlook Social Connector configuration wizard, you can still connect to Facebook.
  
  For Outlook 2010:
  1. On the View tab, in the People Pane group, click People Pane, and then click Account Settings.
  2. Under Social Network Accounts, select Facebook.
  3. For User Name: enter your Facebook email account.
  4. For Password: enter your Facebook password.
  5. Click Connect.
  6. Once the connection is successfully completed, click Finish.
  
  For Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003:
  1. Click Tools, and then click Social Network Account Settings.
  2. Under Social Network Accounts, select Facebook.
  3. For User Name: enter your Facebook email account.
  4. For Password: enter your Facebook password.
  5. Click Connect.
  6. Once the connection is successfully completed, click Finish.

Hope this helps.

Do you use Facebook, look forward to integrate with Outlook and change your existing world? Yes, you can can connect your Facebook account to the Outlook Social Connector and stay up to the minute with the people in your network by accessing everything from e-mail threads to status updates in one single, centralized view. Nice isn’t it.

The Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook allows you to connect your Facebook account to the Outlook Social Connector and obtain information about your friends and colleagues. You can see status updates and recently posted items from your Facebook contacts.

You can also use Outlook Social Connector to display a quick view of related Outlook content when you click on an email from a contact, such as recent e-mail conversations, meetings, and shared attachments to help you easily track your communications.

We built the Outlook Social Connector with privacy and security in mind. The information people share is a personal choice, so it's up to you to determine what you share, and with whom. To give more Outlook users the ability to connect their Inbox with their social networks, we have also updated Outlook Social Connector to work with Outlook 2003 and 2007.

Where to download and steps to install?

For Outlook 2010 32-bit, Outlook 2007, and Outlook 2003:

1. Download the setup file by clicking the Download button next to OSCFB-x86-en-us.exe (below), and save the file to your hard disk.
2. Double-click the OSCFB-x86-en-us.exe program file on your hard disk to start the Setup program.
3. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation.

1. Download the setup file by clicking the Download button next to OSCFB-x64-en-us.exe (below), and save the file to your hard disk.
2. Double-click the OSCFB-x64-en-us.exe program file on your hard disk to start the Setup program.
3. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete the installation

NOTE: The Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider requires Microsoft Outlook Social Connector and the related update (KB983403) to be installed. If these components are not already installed on your machine, the Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook will download and install the necessary updates from the Microsoft Download Center before completing the provider installation.

For more help, ask questions at Microsoft Answers.

This is one of our frequent question: How to determine which version(s) and service pack level(s) of the Microsoft .NET Framework are installed? You can use the registry information below to determine which version(s) and service pack level(s) of the Microsoft .NET Framework are installed.