April, 2007

You know, of all the online "Live" services that Microsoft has, I think the mapping service has been one of best. However, hardly no one knows about it! On Thursday last week, Google added their new myMaps feature to Google Maps. Wow! The tech community...

The .NET Valley user group is hosting TechBash 2007 in Nanticoke, Pa on May 19th. TechBash promises to be similar to a code camp. If you live in northeast Pennsylvania and aren't able to drive to one of the bigger cities for a code camp, TechBash is for...

Last week, I lamented the fact that Virtual Earth has been virtually ignored and provided some thoughts as to why I thought that was so: Poor marketing. I still think that's a major issue, and have been sharing my thoughts on that with the product team...

Well, the cat is out of the bag ! "WPF/E" now has a real name: Microsoft Silverlight . There's a lot of news on this announcement around the web right now. Check out Tim Sneath's summary . This is going to be a really exciting technology for web developers...

After the NYC Code Camp last month, a bunch of the speakers went out for a couple of drinks and appetizers. We got on the topic of writing books and articles. There were folks like Don Demsak promoting the notion of independent self publishing vs. folks...

Now in its fourth year, the Unwrapped for Financial Services Webcast Series is back for a week starting today! Sessions will be both technical and strategic in nature, covering the newest Microsoft solutions for Capital Markets, Retail Banking and Insurance...

The 5th annual FinServ Dev Con is coming up in NYC later this month. It will be at the Grand Hyatt hotel on Park Avenue at Grand Central Station April 25th and 26th. Register now while seats are still available! Now in its 5th year, the Financial Services...

Last year, Microsoft announced their new Expression suite of designer tools. Included in the suite are three tools for designers to build graphics, web sites, and rich XAML-based WPF user experiences as well as a library tool for storing these works of...

April must be code camp month in the Mid-Atlantic states! If anyone from the NY/NJ/Eastern PA areas is interested in traveling a bit to the south & west for a code camp, there are four of them coming up: Saturday, April 14th - Pittsburgh, PA : Website...

EntLib 3.0 just dropped . Go get the bits here . For more details, see Tom Hollander's most excellent blog . Via Tom , here is a quick summary of the most significant changes: Validation Application Block . Allows you to centrally define validation rules...

Saturday, May 19th is the first of three code camps planned for the Philadelphia area. Since there will be three code camps this year, this one will be called Code Camp "2007.1". Registration has just been opened up on the Philly.NET web site . REGISTER...

That's right, if you live on the Delmarva peninsula , there's a new .NET user group forming where you can go to learn more about the Microsoft developer platform, as well as mix and mingle with your peers in the area. The new group will be meeting in...

9:25am Pacific - I'm sitting in the keynote room at Mix this morning. This is definitely a different type of conference for a Microsoft event. They have a most interesting band playing on stage with an accordion and bass. We're waiting for the keynote...

Scott Guthrie is up on stage giving the details of Silverlight. I'm not going to type this stuff up now so that I can listen. All of these details will be available online. You can still watch & listen to Scott live at http://visitmix.com I think...

Via Andy ... If you thought it was hard to get nicely formatted code from your favorite IDE into your blog, you'll be pleased to check out the "Paste from Visual Studio" plug-in for Windows Live Writer . Live Writer is a great tool for posting to your...

Mix '07 starts next week on Monday out in Las Vegas, NV. Last week we learned that Silverlight is the official name of what was known as codename "WPF/E". There's sure to be more news coming on Silverlight, and I expect lots of cool new WPF demos too...

As a developer, you likely spend a lot of time in the IDE of your choice. For Microsoft developers, this is usually Visual Studio. While Studio is jammed packed with tools that make developers' lives easier, there is always room for more tools. If Studio...

Via Dave Bost , via J.D. Meier ... It's been about a year and a half now since Microsoft released Visual Studio Team System (Nov 2005) and then later, Team Foundation Server (March 2006). These tools really make developer's lives easier, especially when...

How can something sell out if it's free?! According to Andy Schwam , registration for the upcoming Philly.NET Code Camp in Malvern, Pa has been all filled up. That's a lot of excitement, and it doesn't surprise me considering the great line up of sessions...

I must have missed the final announcement on this one last month? If you're running Visual Studio 2005 SP1, the additional update needed to resolve some of the Vista compatibility issues is now available (it was in beta previously). This is a separate...

What is AOL doing?! I've long enjoyed listening to AOL's streaming radio service . Their Shuffle and Shuffle Hits channels are great for variety. One minute Frank Sinatra, the next Snoop Dogg. At home, I usually listen to this on my secondary machine...

Now I can finally stop buying CDs! Enough said . [Update 04-03-2007:] Okay... the Steve Jobs reality distortion field may be wearing off. As the folks at Engadget note, the devil here may be in the details .

Via Scoble ... Check out these cool mashup applications from Thirteen23 that take advantage of the Windows Presentation Foundation on Windows Vista. These applications also work on Windows XP, but you'll need to install the .NET 3.0 Framework first. The...

The next Philly.NET Code Camp is soon approaching. Code Camp will be on Saturday, May 19th at the Microsoft office in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Bill Wolff and the Philly.NET community leaders are now in the planning stages and accepting session proposals...

Well, we took the month of March off, but tomorrow morning is the April arcDevBrainPick . arcDevBrainPick is your chance to pick the brain of your local Microsoft staff. It's an open-forum talk radio like format where you can chat in your questions and...