MSDN Community Distribution is an emerging markets program by Microsoft to produce focused MSDN content for FREE. The program is on pilot in Kenya since December 2006 and was started to get content to developers in bandwidth challenged areas (basically most emerging markets of the world). 700MB of ramp up content together with Visual Studio and SQL Server Express editions are delivered with this program. The content on the community distribution CD is listed below. Any feedback on this content will be appreciated and could lead to improvements in the contents of the next release.
General
MSDN Forums Archive Snapshot
Visual Express Service Pack 1
Visual Basic
C++
C#
J#
Web Developer
ASP.NET AJAX V 1.0
AJAX Control Toolkit
AJAX Samples
My Web Pages Starter Kit (Version 1.1.1)
Beginners Video: Working with XML (VB)
Beginners Video: Working with XML (C#)
MSDN Webcast: Debugging with John Robbins
MSDN Webcast: .NET Garbage Collection with Jeffrey Richter
SQL
SQL Server Express Service Pack 1
SQL Server Management Studio Express
SQL Server Express for Beginners - 01 What is a database?
SQL Server Express for Beginners - 02 Understanding Database Tables and Records
SQL Server Express for Beginners - 03 More about Column Data Types and other Properties
SQL Server Express for Beginners - 04 Designing Relational Database Tables
SQL Server Express for Beginners - 05 Manipulating Database Data
SQL Server Express for Beginners - 05 Manipulating Database Data (Source)
SQL Server Express for Beginners - 06 More Structured Query Language
Vista
MSDN Webcast: Designing Software Installations for Windows Vista
MSDN Webcast: Building Modern Software: Services, Workflow and Identity
MSDN Webcast: Best Practices for User Account Control in Windows Vista
MSDN Architecture Webcast: Using and Creating Gadgets for Windows Vista
MSDN Architecture Webcast: Modifying Applications to Run on Windows Vista
Expression
Microsoft Webcast: An Introduction to Microsoft Expression
MSDN Webcast: Exploring Basic Features of the New Microsoft Expression Web
MSDN Webcast: Using Cascading Style Sheets, Identifiers, and Classes in Expression Web
Microsoft Webcast: Creating Cutting-Edge Web Designs with Microsoft Expression Web
MSDN Webcast: Developing and Designing Standards-Based Web Applications
Microsoft Webcast: Using Dynamic Web Templates and Master Pages with Expression Web
Architects
MSDN Webcast: Test-Driven Development with Troy Gould
MSDN Webcast: Design Patterns in .NET
patters & practices: Enterprise Solution Patterns Using Microsoft .Net
The Architecture Journal # 9: Software Factories
ARCast: Software as a Service (SaaS) [mp3]
ARCast: SOA and Workflow [mp3]
ARCast: Requirements and Enterprise Architecture
Academic
Microsoft Robotics Studio 1.0
Microsoft Robotics Studio 1.0 Tooltips
Technical Presentation: Microsoft Robotics Studio
Accelerator: Programming GPUs
License
TR-2005-184: Using Data Parallelism to Program GPUs for General-Purpose Uses
TR-2005-135: An Overview of the Singularity Project
TR-2004-105: Singularity Design Motivation
TR-2006-43: Deconstructing Process Isolation
TR-2006-51: Sealing OS Processes to Improve Dependability and Security
Broad New OS Research: Challenges and Opportunities
EuroSys 2006: Language Support for Fast and Reliable Message-based Communication in Singularity OS
The first distribution point for this CD is http://www.AfricaDotNet.net community. If you want a copy of the CD kindly register and you can collect these from one of the monthly user group meetings. More distribution agents are being signed up. There are no restrictions on this content and one can duplicate as many times as they wish, provided the content remains free.
The website will be available in weeks and I will publish the URL on this blog.