Contagious Curiosity

Last night over 250 developers got a FREE full copy of Visual Studio 2008 at SoCal's 'InstallFest' held at the Microsoft MTC in Irvine, CA. Much fun was had by all. First we had to get everyone in the door, and then get our thirsty and hungry developers...

It's a good thing that I like email, 'cause I get an incredible amount now. So much of it is really just junk, but customer email always takes priority -- and, customers who make me smile are at the top of the list. Thanks to Fred for today's smile. ...

Grab this one! AJAX Control Toolkit - View Release

Ah but this isn’t a simple consideration.  As I’ve been digging in, getting ready to build my first Windows 7 multi touch application, I’ve found out just how much I have to learn!  For starters I am by no means an expert in WPF (Windows Presentation...

Isn't the cover pretty?  I have no idea what the tool that was selected to be featured on the cover actually is - do any of you?  Anyway the important thing is that you CAN pre-order the book already from Amazon.  Yes, the co-authors are...

33 parts - 5 to 15 minutes - every feature of SQL Server Analysis Services - enjoy!   'How Do I...BI?' screencast series

This will be last blog post to this blog, as I am leaving Microsoft effective Monday, October 17.  Post-Microsoft I’ll be contracting (data projects, both production and education) and spending more time growing ‘Teaching Kids Programming’ around...

Yes, you read that right.  Here’s what we use (and it works!) – “Query to find ‘hot’ boys”.  We created and ran this class last year (at DigiGirlz) and we wanted to share it with you.  Teach a teen-aged girl to code! All the setup instructions...

  Tonight I visited the San Diego Java User Group and took part in a coding dojo (more about that later).  While there, I mentioned to the attendees that we do have some resources for Java developers to use if they want to try out using Windows...

Here are the slides and the webcast (broken into 15 minute chunks) – enjoy! This presentation includes demos using the following tools: 1) SQL Azure Migration Wizard 2) Access to SQL Azure Migration Wizard 3) SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 – scripting...

Working with the beta? and Silverlight? You'll want this then! This video provides step-by-step instructions for adding Silverlight 1.0 JavaScript Intellisense to Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 with Microsoft Silverlight Tools Alpha . Presented by Justin-Josef...

This quarter I will be presenting MSDN events on CardSpace and AJAX. If you haven't already - sign up now! Also, Michele Leroux Bustamante will be presenting the CardSpace portion of the event on 5-15 in LaJolla and on 6-14 in LA . Michèle Leroux...

Back from 10 great days in Tokyo (based in Shinjuku ), even though the clock says 'sleep now', my body just isn't agreeing with that. Being a MS employee, I've of course got 100s of emails to go through for "entertainment". In Tokyo I took lots and...

Do you code from written security requirements? Do you write Secure Code ? Does your test phase include security testing? How tempting is your application for hackers? Hackers are a different breed in many ways, not the least of which is determination...

**updated to include links to other presentations at end of this post** Great MSDN article by Michele on the appropriate uses of WCF (focusing on the new features available in .NET 3.5). I just happen to be talking about that same topic today at...

The first-ever LEGO Serious Play event at the WiT Mix11 luncheon hosted around 100 attendees, both women and men.  I co-led the event with LEGO superstar, Thomas Mueller (shown below leading a LEGO Mindstorms event at the Microsoft Store in Mission...

SharePoint Developer? Check this out! SharePoint 2007 Weblog » Blog Archive » SharePoint 2007: Team Tools Feature Explorer v1.0

I put the recordings for these shows up on Ch9 geekSpeak today: 1) XNA game programming w/Nick Landry 2) Workflow policies w/Mark Dunn Also, join us live tomorrow (Wednesday) at 12 noon PST for this show: MSDN geekSpeak: Using SharePoint Server as a Development...

Thanks to Sara Ford and Zain Naboulsi for the source for my talk at the MSDN launch events this month – first one is next Monday in San Diego.  If you grab my deck, be sure to read the notes, I put all of the keyboard shortcuts from the demos in...

  Llewellyn and I have just completed our first after-school program introducing kids to programming (using the Intentional Method of teaching and SmallBasic) and I wanted to share the lessons we learned here. First, a description of what we did...

This morning I was part of a group of volunteers from Microsoft who participated in the "Miracle on 1st Street" Toy Giveaway at the Hollenbeck Youth Center. Our group met up and helped prepare some of the toys that had been donated. We opened boxes, unpacked...

I simply can NOT keep up with all the social networking 'stuff' out there. Now, there's this 'friendfeed' thingee. What do you think - should I do it? Now really, do you actually know what all of those little icons that you can 'hook together' really...

Did you attend one my events in August to September 2007 and want more information about the topics covered? Here you go. I'll be updating this entry as I get questions from developers who attend my fall events. Happy studying and productive coding! LINQ...

I’ve been working with Windows Azure (post PDC09 build) to take a look at the basic mechanics of coding and deploying applications.  To that end, I wanted to share what I’ve learned so far in this post. First, I’ll talk about what you need to download...

   AND This weekend we took 8 Local Developer volunteers (most pictured below) from So Cal to Desert Code Camp in Phoenix, Az. We taught 7 hours of hands–on content designed to introduce children (ages 5-17) to programming. This is the TKP’s...