October, 2011

Greetings. Just a quick note to share that Karl Wiegers, author of Software Requirements, Second Edition (Microsoft Press, 2003), Practical Project Initiation: A Handbook with Tools (Microsoft Press, 2007), and More About Software Requirements: Thorny Issues and Practical Advice (Microsoft Press, 2009), has launched a blog called, simply, Consulting Tips and Tricks from Karl Wiegers . Karl says, “Here is an assortment of tips, tricks, and traps I've accumulated from 14 years spent as a software consultant, trainer, and author. Please share your own consulting insights with comments. Drop me an email if you'd like to submit a guest post.”

Check out 15 free videos based on the Excel 2010 Step by Step book. The Microsoft Press Step by Step video series teaches Microsoft software and technologies visually, in an easy-to-follow visual format. Each video in the series is based on a specific book in the highly successful Step by Step print book series, and adds best practices, tips, tricks, and enhanced explanations and commentary. You'll learn just what you need, just when you need it. Click here to start learning

We’re excited to announce that Darvish Shadravan and Laura Rogers’ Using Microsoft InfoPath 2010 with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Step by Step (ISBN 9780735662063; 512 pages) is now available for purchase!   You can find the book’s introduction in this previous post . In today’s post, please enjoy reading excerpts from Chapter 5, “Adding Logic and Rules to Forms,” and Chapter 8, “Using the InfoPath Form Web Part.” In Chapter 5, you’ll learn that the ability to adapt and respond in real time to user input is a major part of the InfoPath logic engine. The most common method you will use to add this type of logic to your forms is by using rules in InfoPath, of which there are three types: validation, actions, and formatting. In Chapter 8, you’ll learn how the InfoPath Form Web Part, which...

The 4th edition of The Microsoft Manual of Style is coming in December. Here’s a sneak peek at chapters 2 & 5 – Content for the Web and The User Interface . Pre-order your copy: At O’Reilly (the official distributor of Microsoft Press books) At Amazon At Barnes & Noble

Ken Jones here. Last week we announced the first book in a new certification series from Microsoft Press – the MCPD 70-519 Exam Ref: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4 . Today, we’d like to talk more about the new series – what it is and why it was developed. If you’ve ever taken a Microsoft Certification exam, you most likely know about Microsoft Press Training Kits . The Training Kits provide a self-paced and comprehensive way to develop skills and study for an exam. These products are called “kits” because they include an exam-prep guide plus practice tests that help prepare you for the exam. Each kit also includes a valuable exam discount voucher and a fully searchable copy of the entire book in digital format...

We’re happy to announce that MCPD 70-519 Exam Ref: Designing and Developing Web Applications Using Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (ISBN 9780735657267; 304 pages) shipped to the printer this week! This book is the first entry in the brand new Microsoft Press Exam Ref certification series. Designed for experienced, MCTS-certified professionals ready to advance their status—this Exam Ref focuses on the critical-thinking and decision-making acumen needed for success at the MCPD level. The book provides a comprehensive and concise way of preparing for the MCPD 70-519 exam. Each Exam Ref is organized by exam objectives for fast, efficient study, and includes the new Thought Experiment element. Thought Experiments help reinforce the design-level thinking required to master the exam and...

MCITP Windows Server® 2008 Enterprise Administrator: Training Kit 4-Pack: Exams 70-640, 70-642, 70-643, 70-647, Second Edition Available from: Amazon.com , Barnes & Noble , O’Reilly or your favorite online reseller. Dan Holme, Nelson Ruest, Danielle Ruest, Tony Northrup, J.C. Mackin, Anil Desai, Orin Thomas, John Policelli, Ian L. McLean, Paul Mancuso, David R. Miller, Jason Kellington Get in-depth preparation for MCITP: Enterprise Administrator Exams 70-640, 70-642, 70-643, and 70-647—as you build real-world job skills. Get study guides, 1200+ practice questions, reviews, labs, and an exam discount. Your all-in-one kit includes: Official self-paced study guides for four required exams 1,045+ practice and review questions Practice...

Here’s an easy way to keep up with releases from Microsoft Press. Visit our resource center at www.amazon.com/mspress .

Greetings. We’re happy to share that we’ve completed our work on Dino Esposito’s second edition of Programming Microsoft ASP.MVC (ISBN: 9780735662841; 464 pages), which fully updates Dino’s first edition for ASP.NET MVC 3. The book is currently available for pre-order, and it will be fully available later this month. When the book is available, we’ll post a chapter excerpt on this blog. In this post we share the book’s chapter-level outline and an excerpt from the book’s Introduction so that you can get a sense of the book’s coverage. (You can get the book’s complete outline here .) Contents at a Glance Introduction   xiii PART I   ASP.NET MVC FUNDAMENTALS CHAPTER 1   ASP.NET MVC Controllers   3 CHAPTER 2   ASP.NET MVC Views   41 CHAPTER...

We’re pleased to announce the availability of Coding Faster: Getting More Productive with Microsoft Visual Studio by Zain Naboulsi and Sara Ford. Expert advice to help you work smarter and increase your productivity with Visual Studio. Take a detailed look into Visual Studio—and learn practical techniques to help you work more efficiently. This fully revised and expanded version of Visual Studio Tips: 251 Ways to Improve Your Productivity includes a comprehensive collection of tips and shortcuts for working with the code editor, visual designers, searches, debugger, and other features in Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and 2010. You'll gain valuable insights for using this IDE—no matter what your experience level. Discover how to: Change development settings and keyboard...

We’re pleased to announce the availability of Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Developer’s Handbook by Sarika Calla Purohit and Klaus Loffelmann. About the Authors Klaus Löffelmann is a Microsoft MVP for Visual Basic .NET, and has been a professional software developer for over 20 years. He has written several books about Visual Basic, and is the owner and founder of ActiveDevelop in Lippstadt, Germany, a company specializing in software development, localization, technical literature and training/coaching with Microsoft technologies. Sarika Calla Purohit is a Software Design Engineer Test Lead on the Visual Studio Languages team at Microsoft. She has been a member of the Visual Studio team for over eight years and has contributed to Visual Basic .Net since version 1.1...

We’re very pleased to announce that Darvish Shadravan and Laura Rogers’ book, Using Microsoft InfoPath 2010 with Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Step by Step has shipped to the printer! With InfoPath 2010, experience learning made easy—and quickly teach yourself how to create electronic business forms in SharePoint 2010. You set the pace with Step by Step—building and practicing the skills you need, just when you need them! Learn how to build business forms for SharePoint 2010 without writing code; get up to speed on using the new features of InfoPath 2010; easily customize SharePoint list forms with InfoPath; design form solutions for usability and performance; create mashups in SharePoint quickly, using the InfoPath Form Web Part; use forms with Microsoft SharePoint Designer and Microsoft Business...

UPDATE: The final version of this ebook is available here . The version linked to below is out of date. Greetings! We’re happy to announce that we’re in the process of creating a free ebook similar to Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (which we released in 2010). Its title is currently Introducing Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali,” and it will describe many of the new features and capabilities of the next version of SQL Server. This ebook, like that earlier one, is being authored by the fantastic team of Ross Mistry and Stacia Misner . And today, to help celebrate PASS Summit 2011 , please enjoy a DRAFT Preview excerpt containing two chapters: Chapter 2, “High Availability and Disaster Recovery Enhancements,” written by Ross, and Chapter...

Presented by Jaime Velez Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 1 PT, San Francisco In this webcast we will explore how Office Web Apps integrates with Office 365 and we will also demonstrate some co-authoring scenarios where multiple remote users can work real-time on the same document online.

We’re excited to announce that Errin O’Connor, Penelope Coventry, Troy Lanphier, Johnathan Lightfoot, Thomas Resing, and Michael Doyle’s Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 Inside Out (ISBN 9780735627246; 752 pages) is now available for purchase! You can find the book’s introduction in this previous post . In today’s post, please enjoy reading an excerpt from Chapter 9, “Working with External Content.” Chapter 9 - Working with External Content Using SharePoint Designer with External Content Using the BCS Presenting External Content Using Visual Studio 2010 with the BCS Traditionally with Microsoft SharePoint, data is stored in lists and libraries; however, most organizations do not want to move all their data into SharePoint—nor...

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 10 PT, San Francisco 6pm - London | 1pm - New York | Wed, Oct 12th at 3am - Sydney | Wed, Oct 12th at 2am - Tokyo | Wed, Oct 12th at 1am - Beijing | 10:30pm - Mumbai Presented by: Zain Naboulsi Duration: Approximately 60 minutes. Cost: Free Thousands of people have attended the many productivity sessions from Zain Naboulsi. This session highlights some of the "greatest hits" from his book. Tips for this session include the great new features from Visual Studio 2010 as well as tried and true tips for previous versions of Visual Studio. Come with us as we explore the new IntelliSense features, learn how to make templates, and delve into the new features for breakpoints among other things. Don't miss this look at the tips that can absolutely save you a great...

We’re excited to announce that Michael Doyle’s Customizing My Site in Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (ISBN 9780735662087; 112 pages) is now available for purchase! You can find the book’s chapter-level table of contents and Introduction to customizing Microsoft SharePoint My Site in this previous post . In today’s post, please enjoy reading Chapter 3, “Setting Up My Sites.” Chapter 3 Setting Up My Sites Setting up a My Site Host is an important step that commands a certain amount of thinking before you start. The first thing you want to consider is whether it will be in its own web application or part of another one. Proper consideration will save you a lot of trouble down the road. Since the My Site Host is going to be a separate site collection...