JasonMcC's WebLog

Developing Applications for Small Business

JasonMcC — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:07:53 GMT

My job has changed recently to focus on the needs of developers who service small businesses. I can now talk about some of the work I've been doing with the launch the Small Business Developer Center.

I've been looking at this space for about a year now with a view to better understanding their needs and requirements. I've found that often our MSDN content and the scenarios we target for Visual Studio are a little too complex for the needs of this market. I've developed this new MSDN property initially to provide a clear and general overview of the Microsoft tools and products that can be used to build cost effective solutions for cash constrained small businesses.

If you are new to the Microsoft platform having come from a PHP or even VB6 development environment, then this site is for you. We built the content (articles, videos and hands-on-labs) around the needs of a fictitious small business called WingTip Toys. A fully working sample is built from what I've heard are common needs for these small businesses, build reports, integrate data between different systems, build a web presence and manipulate data using Windows applications.

I'd love your feedback! Remember that this site isn't intended for the Microsoft developer that is already very familiar with our technology platform, rather for developers new to Microsoft's platform stack looking for an on-ramp. I'll collect feedback here on my blog for now and will have a forum created within the next few weeks.

If you are a consultant and provider of development services for small businesses and have any suggestions for what you'd like to see, please let me know!

Jason

Technorati Tags: small business, application development, microsoft platform, wingtip toys

Dynamic Languages on the .NET Framework in Silverlight

JasonMcC — Wed, 02 May 2007 01:16:00 GMT

I’m sure you’ve all been drinking the MIX from the conference that’s going on in Vegas at the moment, but in case you haven’t I wanted to call this out. Dynamic Languages are becoming an important new RAD tool to be familiar with, especially when consuming and aggregating web services.

We announced at MIX a Dynamic Language Runtime that will be shipped as part of the .NET Framework inside Silverlight. That means multiple dynamic languages supported by the .NET Framework in multiple-browsers – really amazing.

The mechanics and design goals for the DLR are discussed by one of the lead architects, Jim Hugunin over on his blog. You should check it out. He’ll be updating the series over the coming weeks, now that the wraps are off.

Well done Jim and the whole DLR team.

Visual Studio 2005 Keyboard Shortcut Posters

JasonMcC — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:20:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2005 keybaord shortcuts help make you more productive by giving quick access to common and not-so-common functions within the IDE. I've had wall posters designed for each of the popular langauges in Visual Studio 2005 for you to print out locally. Best when printed on paper sized A3 or larger.

Print ready poster PDFs are now available at the Microsoft download center. Happy coding.

Visual Basic 2005, Visual C# 2005 and Visual C++ 2005

Use Visual Studio to host your development language

JasonMcC — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:22:00 GMT

The 3rd Visual Studio SDK release is cool for many reasons, but mostly because it's the first release of the SDK that allows developers to use Visual Studio to host any language targeting any runtime. Now you can take advantage of intellisense, syntax checking and the project system to host any type of programming system you chose to build support for.

Check it out at the VSIP Members site.

This will be made available on the MS Downloads site shortly which will avoid the registration process needed at the VSIP site. Oh, and we've posted the VS SDK docs into MSDN online. Very cool to see the team opening this up to a wider audience.

Functional programming for the .NET Framework

JasonMcC — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 03:00:00 GMT

Our Microsoft Research team in Cambridge, UK have recently spoken with the kids over at Channel 9 about their functional language, F#.

If you're interested in programming in a functional way rather than imperative (looking a the world through function-coloured glasses!) then you should check out part 1 of this 2 part look at F#. It's given by Don Syme, the guy who put generics in the CLR. Part 2 should post within a day.

Generate MSDN style documentation from your code

JasonMcC — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:30:00 GMT

This looks very interesting and still has a cool name!

Sandcastle

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E82EA71D-DA89-42EE-A715-696E3A4873B2&displaylang=en

Documentation Compilers For Managed Class Libraries
Enabling managed class library developers to easily create accurate, informative documentation with a common look and feel.

Language-Integrated Query and ADO.NET Futures discussion on Channel 9

JasonMcC — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:26:00 GMT

Anders Hejlsberg (.NET Language innvoation) and Sam Drucker (Data access programmability layer) got together to discuss the new Language-intergrated query (LINQ) as it relates to ADO.NET on channel 9 this week. A theoretical overview of LINQ and how LINQ applies to ADO.NET (Datasets, SQL/relational and Entities) is covered.

Manage many Windows XP machines with new tool

JasonMcC — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 23:09:00 GMT

If you are involved with setting up or administering computers in a shared network - like an internet cafe or a community computer centre - then you'll be familiar with the difficulty in trying to maintain a consistent look and feel to each of the PCs. To help do just this, Microsoft downoad centre notified me of a new utility for y'all - the Microsoft Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP

New mice and keyboards announced

JasonMcC — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 23:34:00 GMT

I particularly like the raised front of the new ergo-keyboard. Check out some photos here and the info here.

Juicy XBOX 360 details

JasonMcC — Sat, 03 Sep 2005 02:13:00 GMT

Give me one - now! http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=60737

Performance Advisor for Windows Server 2003

JasonMcC — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 07:21:00 GMT

I'm sure most of you would've seen this before but I thought it was useful. Download this free tool to capture detailed performance counter information and produce reports to help do root-cause analysis on your Windows Server 2003 machines. It's the Microsoft ® Windows Server ™ 2003 Performance Advisor

MSNs Virtual Earth video

JasonMcC — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 23:21:00 GMT

I found this quite amusing take on how information is collected for MSN's Virtual Earth service and thought it blog worthy.

Next generation windowing system demo

JasonMcC — Thu, 05 May 2005 01:17:00 GMT

The guys at Channel 9 have come up with another brilliant video interview - this time one of the developers on the Avalon team (Daniel Lehenbauer) walks us through what Avalon is and how you would assemble and render a 3D enabled windows application. Avalon will ship as part of WinFX and will be available on Longhorn, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. If you've got 25 mins and wanted a primer on 3D modelling and our support for it I'd highly recommend this video.

NT Kernel design whiteboard sessions on Channel 9

JasonMcC — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 02:28:00 GMT

I had to post about this. I'm sure it's been seen on blogs.msdn but I just finished watching the Channel 9 four part stream with NT Kernel Architect - Dave Probert. Check out the parts here. He gets deep into the guts of the kernel including the object manager, scheduler, registry NT APIs vs Win32 APIs and the history behind the kernel's design. Great stuff.

Funny Geek-Shirts

JasonMcC — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:52:00 GMT

I was in a meeting with our VS Team System devloper group and had to quickly post about a "geek-shirt" I saw there. I'm sure you've all heard of the famous manly S.S.S. morning ritual of "Shi*, shower and shave".

Here's the product developer equivalent I spotted on the back of a t-shirt today:

"Ship, shower and shave - the second two will have to wait" - I laughed out loud.

There was the famous "Drag me, drop me, treat me like an object" shirt about ten years back and more recently "My compiler compiled your compiler - Visual C++"

Who says geeks aren't cool?!? ThinkGeek has a tonne of this stuff but I thought I share the particularly funny ones to brighten your day.

MSDN Targeted download newsletter

JasonMcC — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:05:00 GMT

I went to an interesting talk on eMarketing here last week and was stunned to here of the growth rate of our MSDN targeted download notfifcation service. I must confess to have seeing it on the web site but ignoring it. Basically, rahter than checking yourself for new or relevant downloads (one of the most popular spots on MSDN), you profile your needs and we'll send you a weekly mail with any relevant downloads. It's membership is growing at an astounding rate because it's such a good idea.

A bit more about my new role

JasonMcC — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 01:26:00 GMT

Well, I’m into my third week here at Redmond. It’s been quite a buzz to date I can tell you. I’ve had two pretty urgent projects fall on my desk from day 1 and I’m grateful for being an international transfer rather than a new starter to Microsoft because I would’ve sunk for sure. As it was, the innate swimming reflex (well more of a dog paddle really) took hold and I’ve managed to hold my head above water. I’m working on organizing a developer lab for our Visual Studio Industry Partners in April and a poster. All the while, I’ve got to go deep on the Visual Studio SDK and the extensibility points of Visual Studio as a whole.

The people have been very bright, fun and supportive. Everybody’s getting excited about Beta 2 of Visual Studio and counting down to when the release team gives the final blessing on the bits. The weather’s been quite nice – I’m told we’re in a drought. The commute into town can be very busy but generally flows well. There’s a bridge over Lake Washington that most city dwellers from MS travel over. It’s part of a highway called “the 520” and closes down to just two lanes east and west bound at the bridge. There’s not emergency lane so the slightest altercation (which happens often as everybody gazes at the beautiful view across the lake) can have traffic banked up for over an hour as emergency vehicles and tow trucks descend.

I’m currently installing the SDK and will be going through some samples the team develop to get up to speed with the different ways it can be extended. Then I’ve Tech-Ed materials to get ready and the dev lab in April to focus on. Busy, busy.

Redmond calling

JasonMcC — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 03:22:00 GMT

The sunny shores of Lake Washington have welcomed me with open arms - no really - it's been quite good weather here and the sun has been out more often than not. The locals think they're in a drought as they only had 4 days of rainf or all of February! I arrived safely last week after what can only be described as a 20 hour transit in economy. ‘Nuff said about that.

I took last week off as leave from MS Australia as the leave I had accrued wouldn’t transfer over in it’s entirety and I wanted to take some time off before starting here to get my bearings and scope out the area. Seattle has some very nice areas, especially Pioneer Square, Captiol Hill and the Public Market at Pike St. I had fun walking all over town. I think I’ll be settling in the downtown area if I can find something affordable though. It seems the closest to shops, bars and restaurants. The commute to campus is notoriously bad but I must say the drive in this morning in the Toyota Camry rental was no slower than the runs I had done on the weekend (about 25-30mins).

I haven’t sunk my teeth into work too much today as I had NEO – New Employee Orientation. Even though I’d been 5.5 years with MS Australia, the process here dictates you need to attend the corp. based orientation. So me and 40 or so others listened to all presentations on the resources available and other HR related details.

I had a lunch one on one meeting with Prashant my new boss. He’s a smart, fast paced guy and I think we’ll work well together. There are some immediate action items for me so tomorrow will be boots and all work.

Hope you are all well. Oh here’s some work related stuff for the gaming fans (like me) out there. We announced that XNA Studio and our upcoming Visual Studio Team System would be made available together for game developer houses. Exciting stuff.

Move to Redmond and Ent. Library released

JasonMcC — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 00:24:00 GMT

It’s with a great deal of excitement I blog today about my new job within Microsoft. I’ve applied for and subsequently accepted an offer for a role with Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Washington. I’ll be a Product Manager looking after customer and partner needs for Visual Studio 2005’s SDK! I’ll be starting in early March. That means, we’ll be hiring… Look for a post from Frank about that soon.

This is a marketing role which is exciting for me as I’ve been more on the technical side of the business for most of my career, starting with ANZ Bank here in Melbourne as a programmer/support engineer, then moving on to consulting with Software Spectrum (mainly Windows DNA stuff) and finally as an evangelist here with MS Australia.

The relocation is for an indefinite amount of time so this is really a big move for me. I’m looking forward to the new start, meeting new people, learning new skills and joining a new team. But I will miss Frank, Andrew, Dave, Michael and the incomparable Chuck. We’ve had some great times together. I’ll also really miss my home town Melbourne. The bars, the restaurants, the weather, the Black Rock beach walks, the Yarra Valley afternoons, the football silliness, the trams, coffee at Kanteen by the Yarra, St. Kilda, Flinders Lane, Richmond… well I could go on. If you attending the Adelaide or Melbourne Security Summits then I'll be around. Look out for me at the MSDN Connection lounge.

For those that have read this far, there is some work related content for you today. We released to web (RTW) Enterprise Library this week – on time! These libraries are provided at no charge and address cross-cutting concerns like logging, security and authentication, management etc. You can read all about it here.

Beta of MS AntiSpyware released to web

JasonMcC — Fri, 07 Jan 2005 21:16:00 GMT

I've just finished downloading and running the beta of our new AntiSpyware software. The software scans your machine, installls agents to monitor your machine and removes any discovered threats. I must say I was pretty impressed with the interface and functionality but dismayed to discover 5 spyware threats on my main work machine. I thought I was such a good internet citizen too. Read all about it and download from here.

An interesting feature is the option to participate in active monitoring/alerting of new SpyWare threats between a distributed peer-based network called SpyNet. It sends secure messages to clients about new SpyWare threats that are detected. Very interesting.

And if you're interested, the detected SpyWare threats on my machine were :

Aureate - Spyware (was known as Radicate)
Aureate Group Mail - Adware
Claria - Adware
GAIN - Adware
WinPCap - Potential enabler for other spyware apps

Of these, I'd only ever heard of GAIN.

Happy New Year 2005! Security Summit reminder

JasonMcC — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 23:49:00 GMT

2005 already.... I feel there's been quite a shadow cast over the festive season thanks to the mother of all Tsunami's hitting the shores of countless countries whose coast line touch the Indian ocean. It's really difficult to imagine the impact on the lives of those affected. It does, however, bring into focus the good qualities of the human spirit that we often forget about when life's trundling along quite nicely. Those big hearted volunteers, the villages rebuilding already and the donations of people all over the world are something to take pride in.

Well, on a less somber (and more business related) note, I wanted to remind those of you in Australia that we have the February Security Roadshow coming up in most of the capital cities. Developer content is featured very highly. Check out the details and register for this free event before the seats are full here

I wish you all the best for the New Year.

Web Services Enhancements 2.0 gets an update

JasonMcC — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 23:34:00 GMT

Web Services Enhancements (WSE) is a vehicle for Microsoft to get the most recent implementation of the WS-* specifications out to our developers. Eventually, all of the WS specs will be supported inside of Indigo, until then, we bring out these API’s to keep up with the standards process. A good overview on the vision for secure, reliable and transacted web services is available here. The latest release is WSE 2.0 SP2. This release includes a new security token and numerous fixes. The new token supports impersonation, constrained delegation and Kerberos authentication in web farm scenarios.

We have a download available here and updated training on the WSE page at MSDN.

Windows Server Feedback.com and an overdue update

JasonMcC — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 20:47:00 GMT

Well I was shocked to find I hadn’t posted to my blog for aaaages – bad me. The Australian DPE team in conjunction with some of our MVP’s, RD’s and partners delivered the Whidbey (VS 2005) Ascend (early adopter stage 2) training (I think you know what that is!) this month. The feedback was very positive and those on the Ascend program walked away with a good deal of content to ready themselves for developing their application on V2.0 of the .NET Framework.

My boss Frank Arrigo is back at work and from all reports in very good health which is excellent news. The Melbourne Cup’s been run and won and the spring carnival silly season has pretty much come to an end. I love this time of year in Melbourne.

To continue the rather random tit-bit discovery I've provided you with in the past, today I came across a very interesting site. Our Windows Server product team has created a feedback mechanism (read web site) so that your valuable ideas and feedback about Windows Server can be incorporated into future releases of the product. If you’ve got a suggestion or irritation then check out this site. It’s secure and confidential. I’ve heard you’ll get a personal response from the team and it helps us make a better product. Hopefully the success of this site will encourgae a similar trend amongst the other product groups.

Using digital ink signatures in an app?

JasonMcC — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 01:48:00 GMT

MSDN has recently published an interesting article on the use of Digital Ink Signatures. It covers how to capture a signature and the implications of storing same. Useful for human workflow applications with a Tablet PC endpoint.

By the way, you can get the most recently posted MSDN tech articles as an RSS feed here.

Also, my boss Frank Arrigo is recovering in hospital from an illness - you can send him best wishes to the Hospital's email system here. He'd like to hear from you. He's recovering well and should be out next week. I hear he's already blown away the record for number of electronic "get well" cards to the hospital! Way to go Frank. Miss you mate.

Do use a laptop/LCD screen and Windows XP? Heard of ClearType?

JasonMcC — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 04:15:00 GMT

I know this is an old feature but I can't tell you the number of times I've been looking at the screen of a colleague, customer or friends' LCD/laptop screen and they aren't using font smoothing technology built into Windows XP - ClearType. It happened to me again today. This feature sharpens and enhances your on-screen fonts.

To enable it and see pretty, smooth fonts that really do improve readability, do this:

Right click on the desktop and go to Properties
Click the Appearance tab
Click the Effects button
Select ClearType in the drop down list associated with "Use the following method to smooth ..."
Click Apply or OK and be amazed - well impressed, a bit.

I don't know why it's not on by default or hidden so deep inside the UI. A simple, effective and seemingly overlooked feature of XP. Tell all your friends.

You can send them this link for instructions on how to enable it.

You can tune the rendering using this web based tuner (must have >= Windows XP SP1)