October, 2012

Hello, Kraig Brockschmidt here. To help celebrate //build/ , I’m delighted to announce the completion of Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript! You can download the ebook in PDF format here: http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink/?Linkid=270056 (17.9 MB) EPUB format is here: http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink/?Linkid=272592 (37.3 MB) MOBI format is here: http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink/?Linkid=272591 (69.5 MB) The ebook’s companion content is here: http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink/?Linkid=270057 (59.9 MB) ( Note: An updated version of the companion content was made available on November 8, 2012, to fix a line of code.) This free ebook provides comprehensive coverage of the platform for Windows Store apps. Since its second preview in August, we’ve added...

Update: Nov 13, 2012 The final version is now available! See our announcement here : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/microsoft_press/archive/2012/11/13/free-ebook-introducing-windows-8-an-overview-for-it-professionals-final-edition.aspx The Windows 8 operating system is the newest member of the Microsoft Windows family. It differs from earlier Windows releases as much for what it does not change as for what it does change. That is, the features that IT pros loved about Windows 7 are still there in Windows 8—just better. The same keyboard shortcuts, management tools, security features, and deployment options are available in Windows 8. But in many cases, Windows 8 improves them in intuitive and significant ways. Some examples are the ribbon in File Explorer and faster disk encryption when...

To celebrate Windows Phone 8 and //build/ , Microsoft Press is making Windows Phone 8 Development Internals available in two preview digital editions—plus the final ebook, when ready—at special promotional pricing. Purchase between October 30 and November 5, 2012, and your cost is just $10 for the two preview editions and the final ebook! (This is similar to our approach with Charles Petzold’s Programming Windows, Sixth Edition .) You can make your purchase through our official distributor at http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145373342.do . See the “Pricing and Publication Schedule” table there (or below) for pricing and dates. About the Book Written by two members of the Windows Phone 8 team—Andrew Whitechapel and Sean McKenna— Windows Phone...

There’s been a lot of talk about the changes to the Microsoft certification tracks for Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 on the Born to Learn blog . There are changes afoot with the Microsoft Press portfolio of certification books as well. In order to get you more information earlier in the exam release cycle, we’re discontinuing Training Kits and transforming them into two distinct series: Exam Refs and Training Guides. We plan to produce Exam Refs for the majority of Microsoft certification exams. Training Guides focus on job-role-specific expertise—the skills that Microsoft certification helps to keep relevant, applicable, and competitive—and they are the perfect add-on resource for less experienced professionals. We plan to produce them for the more fundamental job...

Leveraging the popular “Jump Start” virtual classroom approach, Microsoft Senior Technical Evangelist Rick Claus and TrainSignal Microsoft Certified Trainer Ed Liberman will walk you through new features and functionality in Windows Server 2012. Topics and technologies covered will include Dynamic Access Control (DAC), Failover Clustering, Microsoft Online Backup and storage, Active Directory, Hyper-V and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), and high availability. This course is NOT a “product upgrade” course covering considerations for migrating and upgrading your specific environment; but, it is exam preparation material and maps directly to Exam 70-417: Upgrading Your Skills to MCSA Windows Server 2012 . Date/Time: October 23-24, 2012 (2 days)  • Day 1: 9:00am – 4:00pm PST ...

Beyond the new UI, are there any real improvements for IT? How will Windows 8 make IT and the rest of the organization better? Why is the industry reacting differently to this version of Windows? If these are the types of questions you’re asking, this Microsoft Jump Start is for you.   Date: October 18, 2012 Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm PST Where: Live virtual classroom What: Accelerated, engaging, demo-rich virtual learning experience – no hands-on labs. Cost: FREE! Target audience: IT professionals who want a fast-paced and real-world understanding of Windows 8 COURSE OUTLINE Module 1: Windows 8 Tips & Tricks for IT Pros What’s new in Windows 8, UI and keyboard shortcuts for IT pros, the Windows App Store, key features and IE 10 Module 2: Windows 8 Deployment Windows Assessment and Deployment...

We’re happy to announce the availability of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Integration Services , by Wee-Hyong Tok, Rakesh Parida, Matt Masson, Xiaoning Ding, and Kaarthik Sivashanmugam. This book provides ETL developers and database administrators (DBAs) with comprehensive information on SQL Server 2012 Integration Services, and deep dive discussions on core features. The book includes special coverage of new features introduced with SQL Server 2012. Readers will gain an understanding not only of SSIS fundamentals, but get introduced to more advanced SSIS usage patterns, best practices, and see how to perform them effectively and take advantage of the newest SSIS features. This is not a beginner book; readers should already have a basic knowledge of SSIS and be proficient with basic SSIS usage...

Here’s the 17th post in our series of guest posts by Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVPs). (Click the “MVPs” tag in the right column to see the rest.) Since the early 1990s, Microsoft has recognized technology champions around the world with the MVP Award . MVPs freely share their knowledge, real-world experience, and impartial and objective feedback to help people enhance the way they use technology. Of the millions of individuals who participate in technology communities, around 4,000 are recognized as Microsoft MVPs. You can read more original MVP-authored content on the Microsoft MVP Award Program Blog . This post is by Nathan Lasnoski , a Microsoft Virtualization MVP . Nathan here. A key aspect of Microsoft’s private cloud strategy is enabling standardization...

We’re pleased to announce the availability of the new book Start Here! Learn JavaScript , by Steve Suehring, the author of several other JavaScript-centric books for Microsoft Press. Learn the fundamentals of modern programming with JavaScript—and begin building your first apps for the web. This book introduces must-know concepts and techniques through easy-to-follow explanations, examples, and exercises. With the importance of web development skills growing every day, and the ever-increasing importance of JavaScript as a development language, for both the web and now for Windows Store app development as well, there’s a growing need for books that provide an entry-level path into JavaScript programming, and that beginner audience is the target for this book. Readers will acquire a fundamental...

  We are pleased to announce that Professional Scrum Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 (ISBN 9780735657984) has been sent to the printer! This book will be shipped to retailers in just a few weeks. In the meantime, preorder your copy here or here . Here is a quick look at the contents:   Contents at a Glance Foreword  Introduction PART I FUNDAMENTALS CHAPTER 1 Scrumdamentals CHAPTER 2 Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 ALM CHAPTER 3 Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 2.0 PART II USING SCRUM CHAPTER 4 The pre-game  CHAPTER 5 The Product Backlog   CHAPTER 6 The Sprint  CHAPTER 7 Acceptance test-driven development  CHAPTER 8 Effective collaboration PART III IMPROVING CHAPTER 9 Continuous improvement Appendix: The Scrum Guide  Index   Here is an...

Greetings. We have an update about the timing of the final release of Charles Petzold’s Programming Windows, Sixth Edition ebook. As Charles works to complete and refine his ebook, he has reconsidered the focus of the later chapters. As a result he and Microsoft Press have agreed to move the scheduled release from November to January. Here’s why: The ebook’s later chapters discuss optimizing for hardware. As you’re aware, Windows 8 is designed to run on the same types of computers as Windows 7 but has been totally reimagined for touch and other new devices. Commercial tablets will vary somewhat in their touch capabilities (for example, the support of pressure sensitivity and pens) and their ability to detect orientation, movement, and location. Microsoft has also announced its new Surface device...

    We are happy to announce the availability of Professional Scrum Development with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 (ISBN 9780735657984), by Richard Hundhausen. Discover how to turn requirements into working software increments—faster and more efficiently—using Visual Studio 2012 in combination with Scrum and Agile engineering practices. Designed for software development teams, this guide delivers pragmatic, role-based guidance for exploiting the capabilities of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools in Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server. Team members will learn proven practices and techniques for implementing Scrum to manage an application’s life cycle, as well as seamlessly plan, manage, and track their Scrum projects. Purchase your copy today here or here . To support...

Here’s the 18th post in our series of guest posts by Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVPs). (Click the “MVPs” tag in the right column to see the rest.) Since the early 1990s, Microsoft has recognized technology champions around the world with the MVP Award . MVPs freely share their knowledge, real-world experience, and impartial and objective feedback to help people enhance the way they use technology. Of the millions of individuals who participate in technology communities, around 4,000 are recognized as Microsoft MVPs. You can read more original MVP-authored content on the Microsoft MVP Award Program Blog . This post is by Paul Clement , a Microsoft Directory Services MVP . Paul here! For as long as there has been file servers running in our organizations, there...

Here’s the 19th post in our series of guest posts by Microsoft Most Valued Professionals (MVPs). (Click the “MVPs” tag in the right column to see the rest.) Since the early 1990s, Microsoft has recognized technology champions around the world with the MVP Award . MVPs freely share their knowledge, real-world experience, and impartial and objective feedback to help people enhance the way they use technology. Of the millions of individuals who participate in technology communities, around 4,000 are recognized as Microsoft MVPs. You can read more original MVP-authored content on the Microsoft MVP Award Program Blog . This post is by Michal Gajda , a Microsoft PowerShell MVP . Michal here! Windows Server 2012, especially in Server Core version, gives us much more powerful system management. Previous...

Wednesday, October 31, 2012 10AM PT, San Francisco 5pm - London | 1pm - New York | Thu, Nov 1st at 4am - Sydney | Thu, Nov 1st at 2am - Tokyo | Thu, Nov 1st at 1am - Beijing | 10:30pm – Mumbai Presented by: Ciprian Adrian Rusen Duration: Approximately 60 minutes. Cost: Free Windows 8 is an important and controversial operating system. It is both loved and hated by users and the tech press alike. A lot has been said about it, some features and changes have been analyzed in detail while others have been completely ignored or misunderstood. Even so, not many people seem to have a moderated opinion about it. In this webcast, Ciprian Rusen blogger @ 7 Tutorials and co-author of Windows 8 Step by Step , will present in more detail some of the best features in Windows 8...

We’ve been working hard, hard enough to ship 17 books in the last quarter . And we know you’ve been working hard too! So, take a break, read about the 13 Little-Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using , and tell us which ones you’d like to see in our books. “Because sometimes periods, commas, colons, semi-colons, dashes, hyphens, apostrophes, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipses won’t do.”

We’re very happy to announce that Inside Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 (ISBN: 9780735667105) has shipped to the printer. The book will be shipped to retailers in just a couple of weeks. In the meantime, preorder your copy here or here . This book is the result of a collaboration of 20+ authors and just as many reviewers from the Microsoft Dynamics AX Team. After many months of hard work and determined cooperation, Microsoft Press is glad to have a strong and in-depth offering from a group of writers and developers who are passionate about their product. After you review the Contents at a glance, be sure to read the informative excerpt from the book’s Introduction. Contents at a glance PART I A TOUR OF THE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT CHAPTER 1 Architectural overview CHAPTER...