December, 2010

After the release of Charles Petzold’s Programming Windows Phone 7 in October, here’s an updated list of some of our free ebooks: Free ebook: Programming Windows Phone 7, by Charles Petzold (a 24-chapter gift from the Windows Phone 7 team and Microsoft Press) Free ebook: Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 (10 chapters by by Patrice Pelland, Pascal Paré, and Ken Haines) Free ebook: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (10 chapters by Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner) Free ebook: Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft (8 chapters by Katherine Murray) Free ebook: Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions (Second Edition) (6 chapters by Mitch Tulloch) Free ebook: First Look Microsoft Office 2010 (14 chapters by Katherine Murray) Free ebook...

We’re excited to announce that John Sharp’s Windows Communication Foundation 4 Step by Step is available! Please enjoy this sample section from Chapter 1. Building a WCF Service Visual Studio 2010 provides the ideal environment for building WCF services and applications. Visual Studio includes several project templates that you can use to build WCF services. You will use the WCF Service template to create a simple WCF service that exposes methods for querying and maintaining information stored in a database. The database used by the exercises in this book is the sample AdventureWorks OLTP database. Note The script for creating the AdventureWorks OLTP database is provided with the downloadable samples for this book. The Introduction contains instructions on how to install...

We’re excited to announce that Penelope Coventry’s Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 Step by Step (ISBN 9780735627338; 592 pages) is now available for purchase!   You can find the book’s introduction in this previous post . In today’s post, please enjoy an excerpt from Chapter 7, “Using Business Connectivity Services,” which describes what BCS is. We also include an exercise that shows you how to create an Office application external content type (ECT). Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 introduced functionality that allows companies to present data from backend applications on Web pages and as column values in lists and libraries. The Microsoft Business Connectivity Services (BCS), originally called the Business Data Catalog, was one component of this functionality and is now...

We’re very pleased to announce that Penelope Coventry’s book, Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 Step by Step has shipped to the printer! This book teaches you how to build custom sites and solutions with SharePoint Designer 2010. With STEP BY STEP, you set the pace-building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Topics include mastering the tools for building and editing pages visually without code; using master pages and CSS to control how sites look and work; connecting to lists, libraries, XML data, and RSS feeds; adding interactive and collaborative features with Web Parts and controls; creating workflows and other business-process applications; and managing user settings, accessibility, and site maintenance. Penny’s book will be available...

We’re pleased to announce a new book on Expression Web -- Microsoft Expression Web 4 Step by Step by Chris Leeds (978-0-7356-3902-7, 554 pages). Build your site with customizable templates -- or create your own Adjust settings in Expression Web 4 to create different sites Add Photoshop files, Microsoft Silverlight® video, and .wmv files Use CSS, HTML, and XHTML to manage site style and accessibility Connect to servers using Microsoft ASP.NET and PHP Choose the right publishing method for your scenario Your Step by Step digital content includes: All the books practice files -- ready to download and put to work. Fully searchable online edition of this book -- with unlimited access on the Web. Video tutorials illustrating important procedures and...

We’re happy to announce that Microsoft Excel 2010: Data Analysis and Business Modeling , by Wayne L. Winston, shipped to the printer. Award-winning MBA professor, statistician, and business consultant Wayne Winston shows you how to master the data analysis and modeling techniques used at leading companies to sharpen their competitive edge. This book will be available soon, but in the meantime here are the Table of Contents and an excerpt from the Introduction. Table of Contents 1 What’s New in Excel 2010 2 Range Names 3 Lookup Functions 4 The INDEX Function 5 The MATCH Function 6 Text Functions 7 Dates and Date Functions 8 Evaluating Investments by Using Net Present Value Criteria 9 Internal Rate of Return 10 More Excel Financial Functions ...

We’re happy to announce new apps for the Windows Phone 7 for exam preparation. We’ve launched five apps in the marketplace and are planning more. We took a subset of questions from our Self-Paced Training Kits and created mobile apps with Silverlight. Here’s what’s available with links to each app. Exam Drill Corresponding Self-Paced Training Kit MCITP DRILL 70-685 MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-685): Windows® 7 Enterprise Desktop Support Technician MCITP DRILL 70-686 MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-686): Windows® 7 Enterprise Desktop Administrator MCTS DRILL 70-640 MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-640): Configuring Windows Server® 2008 Active Directory MCTS DRILL 70-662 MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-662): Configuring Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 MCTS DRILL 70...

In celebration of the one-year anniversary of the Microsoft Press/O'Reilly Media alliance, we've extended our Deal of the Day to the entire catalog of Microsoft Press ebooks. Lifetime access. Free updates. Download in multiple DRM-free formats : PDF, .epub, Kindle-compatible .mobi, and Android .apk. Learn more. Save 60% on all ebooks from our list of hundreds of titles. Enter code DDMSP in the O'Reilly cart. One Day Only! 12/15/2010   Prog. Microsoft LINQ in Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Was: $39.99 Now: $16.00 (Save 60%) MCTS Kit: Configuring Windows 7 Was: $55.99 Now: $22.40 (Save 60%) Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out Was: $31.99 Now: $12.80 (Save 60%) Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out Was: $47.99 Now: $19.20 (Save 60%) Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel 2010 Was: $27.99 Now: $11...

We’re very pleased to announce that Steve Suehring’s second edition of JavaScript Step by Step will be available soon! This book teaches you the basics you need to know to build interactive web sites using JavaScript, discussing the basic syntax and commands you need to use JavaScript, a thorough discussion of how JavaScript can interact with objects in a browser page, and then goes on to discuss more advanced topics such as cookies, CSS, and libraries that you can use to simplify or extend your JavaScript programming toolkit, such as jQuery. With STEP BY STEP, you set the pace-building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Steve’s book will be available through retailers later this month. In the meantime, here’s a sample from Chapter 10...

What is a Jump Start? Jump Start training classes are specifically designed for developers and product leaders who need to know how to best leverage a new Microsoft technology. Typically, they assume a certain level of development expertise and domain knowledge, so they move quickly and cover topics in a fashion that enables teams to recognize progress quickly. Not sure you’re ready? Prerequisite skills include experience with the .NET Framework and Visual Studio. Windows Azure Platform Jump Start Whether you’re in the midst of moving applications to the cloud or just wondering how and why to leverage the Windows Azure Platform, Microsoft Learning is excited to enable you and your team. The Windows Azure Platform Jump Start provides live access to world-class instructors...

Join Wintellect co-founders Jeffrey Richter, Jeff Prosise, and John Robbins & T.EN. with Wintellect (Tenth Anniversary Educational .NET Event). Agenda for Thursday, December 16th Please Note -This course will be presented via Microsoft Live Meeting over an internet audio broadcast. All attendees will receive login details a week prior to the event.* Advanced Breakpoints 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. ET with John Robbins How much better of a debugger can you become in 1.5 hours? A ton better than you ever expected! In this fast paced and mercifully PowerPoint free presentation, John Robbins will show you how to program the debugger to stop exactly when your hypothesis says you want to stop. When debugging .NET applications, there’s a huge amount of very interesting functionality hidden behind a...

Greetings. You’ve probably seen our recent free ebook by Charles Petzold called Programming Windows Phone 7, which is available here . That ebook contains three parts: Part I, “The Basics” (Chapters 1-6), Part II, “Silverlight” (Chapters 7-18), and Part III, “XNA” (Chapters 19-24). In case you would like a fully indexed print version of the content in Charles’s ebook, we’ve created two books (for sale) from the one ebook. Microsoft XNA Framework Edition: Programming Windows Phone 7 contains Part I, “The Basics,” and Part III, “XNA” (renumbered) from the ebook. The resulting book is 430 pages, and its ISBN is 9780735656697. Please note that this book contains no new content but for the Index and the book’s screenshots are in black and white unlike the ebook’s screenshots, which are in color...

Hello. You’ve probably seen our recent free ebook by Charles Petzold called Programming Windows Phone 7, which is available here . That ebook contains three parts: Part I, “The Basics” (Chapters 1-6), Part II, “Silverlight” (Chapters 7-18), and Part III, “XNA” (Chapters 19-24). In case you’d appreciate a fully indexed print version of the content in Charles’s ebook, we’ve created two books (for sale) from the one ebook. Microsoft Silverlight Edition: Programming Windows Phone 7 contains Part I, “The Basics,” and Part II, “Silverlight” from the ebook. The resulting book is 792 pages, and its ISBN is 9780735656673. Please note that this book contains no new content but for the Index and the book’s screenshots appear in black and white unlike the ebook’s screenshots, which appear in color. The...

We’re very pleased to announce that Ciprian Rusen’s book, Network Your Computer & Devices Step by Step , [ISBN 9780735652163] has shipped to the printer! This book teaches you how to use the built-in networking features of Windows to connect all of the computers in your home, even if they use different operating systems. With this practical, learn-by-doing tutorial, you'll get exactly what you need from your networked home -- from configuring your network hardware to file sharing and media streaming. You’ll discover how to configure your network adapters -- wired and wireless; connect computers running Windows, Mac OS, and Ubuntu Linux; tweak network settings to get all of your machines to talk to each other; make it easy for everyone in your home to share content and...

We’re excited to announce that Ciprian Adrian Rusen’s Network Your Computers & Devices Step by Step (ISBN 9780735652163; 562 pages) is now available for purchase!   You can find the book’s introduction in this previous post . In today’s post, please enjoy an excerpt from Chapter 10, “Sharing Between Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 Computers,” which shows you how to set the workgroup on your Windows XP computer.        

A message from Steve Weiss December 1, 2010 marked the one-year anniversary of the Microsoft Press-O’Reilly Media alliance. It’s been a good year, and to mark the anniversary we’ve decided to bring back the Cyber Monday eBook offer originally held November 29th. In case you missed it, you can order * any * Microsoft Press eBook title for 60% off. It’s one day only, Wednesday December 15, so mark your calendars if you’re into getting your tech-book cravings satisfied through ebooks, as more and more of our customers are telling us they do. You can see more details at http://microsoftpress.oreilly.com , but it’s all pretty simple: over 400 Microsoft Press titles, available in PDF, ePub and Mobi (Kindle), and DAISY (talking book format for the visually impaired and the print disabled) formats...

MIX11 registration opens in late January with a special offer for early birds – register by February 11 and save $500 on your conference pass, and receive one free night hotel when you book two or more nights at the Mandalay Bay.  Join the MIX email newsletter and be among the first to learn about open registration, special offers, speakers and technical content for this year’s event.  MIX11 event details When:              April 12-14, 2011; MIX Boot Camps on April 11 Where:             Mandalay Bay , Las Vegas Cost:                Full Price Conference Pass - $1395 MIX Boot Camps - $295 More...