Steve Lasker's Web Log - www.SteveLasker.com/Blog

This morning we published a walkthrough for building Dashboard reports using Visual Studio LightSwitch and the recently released HTML Client. For me, it's a great to get back to DevDiv building features in our Visual Studio tools. http://blogs.msdn...

If you’ve upgraded to Outlook 2013 and are struggling with the new softer look, and missing the older higher contrast look in the reading view, you may be wondering about changing the themes. Outlook does have a few themes that can be changed ,...

At Tech Ed US in Atlanta this week I presented a session for building Offline Silvelright Applications. The session covered an end to end solution for developing applications, building on the work we’ve done with relative Sync technologies, local...

Looking forward to a week with business like geeks, grounded in business, but finding a way to make technology meet their business needs. I'll be around at the Silverlight booth (not quite booth babe, but I'll try), and have a talk on Wednesday. ...

Here's my deck from one of our Silverlight 5 sessions @ Mix 11. We'll be creating a Forum for Silverlight 5 discussions, but please use Connect for any bugs. Thanks and hope you enjoy the productivity of Silverlight 5 Steve

Last week, John Papa posted this interview we did, discussing in part our Silverlight 5 LOB focus. http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/SilverlightTV/Silverlight-TV-63-Exploring-National-Instruments-App-Using-Data-and-Business-Features It's always fun working...

Completely acknowledging the lack of an integrated local database story with Silverlight, there are many solutions out there. Curious what you use, what you like, and what’s missing from your favorite solution. Since various solutions cover various...

As was announced at the Firestarter, Silverlight 5 will continue its focus on data and line of business (LOB) scenarios. As the team continues to expand its breadth of features we’re looking for just the right person that has what it takes to...

Well, after 2 years away from DevDiv, I just couldn't stay away. While I had a great time working on the billing system for Microsoft Online Services, such as Office 365 and Azure, met some great people across various divisions and did some innovative...

I've moved... Here's the new blog with details on why and what...

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Another great year in Barcelona. In addition to the sessions below, we had several nights out on the town. As usual, we had the Microsoft Regional Director get togethers. It's always interesting when you have social geeks out on the town. Chris Menegay...

I always love going to Barcelona. Sure, it's a great city, and loved riding motorcycles into the mountains last year with my wife; but it's just a great event to attend and present. It sort of like PDC and Tech Ed US wrapped into one event. Anyway...

This Wednesday, November 5th 2008, I'll be giving doing a local users group presentation that will cover some of the perf tips from PDC and some client database deployment tips for deploying and versioning local databases. I'll be giving a talk on script...

This week I presented a session on SQL Server Compact. Video Recording of the session is here . The session focused on 3 main topics: Why SQL Server Compact "changes the game" for how you might think about leveraging a database in your app Performance...

When privately deploying SQL Server Compact you will need to take a few extra steps if you wish to use the ADO.NET Entity Model. Here's some info on how to do it. Why the extra steps? The ADO.NET Entity model was designed as a mid-tier solution. In...

There's been a lot of talk, momentum and questioning for where and how occasionally connected designs fit into the application landscape. There have been a lot of questions for "if and how" developers can take their existing apps "offline". There have...

After much demand, the latest Platform Builder updates have been released, and they include SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1. Windows CE 5.0 Platform Builder Update Windows CE 6.0 Platform Builder Update Steve

In addition to the 64bit support being a web-only download, I should have also noted that for similar reasons, the Devices version of SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 is also only available as a web download. Why: Because of the multiple platforms, the download...

So you want 64bit support so you can set Target = Any. You just installed VS 2008 SP1, but when you run your app you still get an error... Why? Because VS 2008 SP1 doesn't actually include the 64bit version of SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1. To remedy...

I'm happy to announce the release of SQL Server Compact - SP1 This release includes several key features and bug fixes following up on the asks of our customers. The new features in SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 are: ADO.NET Entity Framework...

For our Spanish customers, Jose M. Torres just published a book covering SQL Server Compact for our Spanish customers . Been a while since my Spanish was up to par, but Jose is one of our MVPs for device apps, so just gives him instant credibility in...

It's that time of year again. A quick note on some of the sessions/panel discussions I'll be presenting at, and some others that relate to SQL Server Compact. Code Session DAT325 Wednesday 8:30AM-9:45AM Unlocking...

August 6th 2008 UPDATE : SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 has shipped: SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Released Developers looking to get the beta of SP1 for SQL Server Compact can download it from here : If you install Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta , you'll...

The nice thing about SQL Server Compact is the database can be treated as a document. It's a single file, it's only "open" when being used and can use the standard set of security mechanisms that any other document can. You can set ACLs on the files,...