Thom Robbins .NET Weblog

Changing times and changing companies

trobbins — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:08:00 GMT

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost nine years ago that I started at Microsoft. It seems such a long time ago. During that time I have had the opportunity to be part of some amazing things. But like all things people change - me included! I have made the tough decision to leave Microsoft. It was hard to make the decision given the amount of respect that I have for the company, the people and the belief that they are doing some incredible work.

A couple of month’s back I started talking with a company called Kentico. They build a .NET based CMS system that immediately impressed me. The more I started talking to them the more impressed I became. They currently have 1600+ clients in over 80 countries. Pretty amazing! They are growing quickly in the US. They contribute a lot to the developer community. I have seen many companies that talk about it – but they actively do. Their site contains areas for user groups and they even offer free templates to support user groups.

I couldn’t be more excited to start officially after some vacation time with Kentico on October 19. It’s the right place for the next stage of my career. The company has a belief and passion in delivering a great product and this show clearly in the opportunities they are providing for .NET developers and their customers.

I will even have the opportunity to blog and speak again! My new blog will officially be located here. I hope that the followers of this blog will continue to read my posts, connect with me and provide feedback on the things that we can do better. Also, connect with me on Linked In, Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks
Thom

SharePoint for Developers Part 2

trobbins — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:59:00 GMT

Ramp Up (www.MyRampUp.com) is a free online learning program for developers. We’ve just launched a new track: SharePoint for Developers, Part 2. This track, along with the other currently offered ones (eg, Visual Studio 2008), teaches the important skills in a guided path, making the learning process easier and more efficient. The easy-to-access content (provided by subject-matter gurus) is specifically tailored for the Ramp Up program, and offered in a variety of forms (article, v-lab, codecast and slidecast). Check it out now at www.MyRampUp.com, and see how Ramp Up can help you become more employable by learning important and marketable skills.

TechDays Virtual – Defy all Challenges

trobbins — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 06:41:00 GMT

Helps spread the word and make sure to register!

Event Date: April 1
Event Cost: Free
Event Location: Your PC (worldwide access)

With speakers starting to confirm we have published twenty session and will be adding more on a daily basis for the Tech·Days Developer 2009 – Defy All Challenges 24-Hour virtual event!

Check out the sessions - here

Announcing TechDays Defy All Challenges

trobbins — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:24:00 GMT

One of the things that I always love about the technical world is our love of learning. Personally, I find it incredible to hear the different ways that people solve day to problems and their personal best practices. In thinking about this a great group of people (from all over the world) started thinking about how we could take this idea global.

I am extremely proud that we are starting the ball rolling! TechDays Defy All Challenges is alive and accepting content submissions here. It’s up to you to make this successful – will you help?

Free Virtualization e-book offer

trobbins — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:23:00 GMT

Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions will teach you about the benefits of the latest virtualization technologies and how to plan, implement, and manage virtual infrastructure solutions. The technologies covered include: Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2009, Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization, and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. Register to download the e-book, and sign up for the Microsoft Press Book Connection newsletter which provides news about upcoming releases and other special offers.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/books/virtualization.mspx

Announcing the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 1.0

trobbins — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:19:00 GMT

This is always something that I hear people ask for –

The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple tool that installs Microsoft's entire Web Platform, including IIS, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s user interface, you can choose to install either specific products or the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. The Web PI also helps keep your products up to date by always offering the latest additions to the Web Platform.

Available here

Windows Live Messenger translation bot now available

trobbins — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:41:00 GMT

Pretty cool idea for a messenger translation bot

Introducing the Syndicated Client Experiences Starter Kit Beta & Reader Beta SDK!

trobbins — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 03:34:00 GMT

This looks pretty cool –

We are very excited to take the wraps off of our newest addition to .Net client development – a Starter Kit designed to make it easy to create rich, syndicated multimedia and content experiences which engage the user, from documents and photos to videos and podcasts.

These Syndicated Client Experiences (SCE) applications exploit the push capabilities of RSS in a model where content is synced down to the local computer and each application retains full control over the presentation of the content. Microsoft’s Sync Framework-based Subscription Center takes care of syncing, local storage, subscription management and the safe caching of authentication credentials. These building blocks and services are designed to help application developers focus on what matters to them most: providing an optimal, highly-differentiated content experience on the desktop with very rich content, branding, skinning and custom user interface elements.

Available here

A Quick Look at XML Literals

trobbins — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:54:00 GMT

XML literals are new to Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Basic. Simply put they enable the incorporation of XML directly into application code. Essentially this allows a quick way to create XML objects. At their core XML literals represent a LINQ to XML object and follow syntax similar to XML 1.0. At run time XML literals are turned into their equivalent calls to the LINQ to XML object. This makes it easier to create XML elements and documents programmatically because you code has the same structure as the final XML. One of the clear advantages of using XML literals is that they can span multiple lines without need a line continuation. This makes code look similar to an XML file. At run time the compiler treats the line continuation characters as part of the XML literal. For example, using the XElement, which represents the fundamental XML construct we can create the following code.

Dim CProduct As XElement = _

<name>Stereo</name>

<deptname>Engineering</deptname>

</department>

</Product>

TextBox1.Text = CProduct.ToString

At runtime this produces the following

You can also embed a Visual Basic expression in an XML literal. At run time your application creates a LINQ to XML object for each literal, incorporate the values of the embedded expressions. This lets you specify dynamic content inside an XML literal. For example, the following code takes an XML document literal and builds an XML document.

Dim CProduct As XElement = _

<ProductName>Stereo</ProductName>

</Product>

Dim doc As XDocument = _

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<%= From i In Enumerable.Range(1, 5) _

Select New XElement(CProduct) %>

</Products>

TextBox1.Text = doc.ToString

At run time this produces the following

Tabbing within Visual Studio

trobbins — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:04:00 GMT

Tabs are everywhere within Visual Studio. By default each time a new window is opened a new tab is creates. Many times a lot of tabs can make moving around quickly seem a bit difficult. Within Visual Studio the <CTRL> + <TAB> key open a dialog similar to the Windows Alt-Tab dialog that shows all the open documents.

Using this dialog you can choose files to open by pressing the <CTRL> + <TAB> again. Also, the arrow keys allow the selection of the Active Tool Window.

Selecting a Block of text

trobbins — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:18:00 GMT

Regardless of the new framework features – copy and paste is still one of my favorites. One of my favorite tricks is selecting a block of text. By default normal text selection is line by line. For example it’s not possible to select just the items to the right of the equals sign.

However, Visual Studio does offer this ability using block selection. Block selection is sued to select text in a block as opposed to line by line. Essentially allowing you to select text regardless of what line you are on. For example, select the <ALT> key while selecting text to do the following.

Block selection can be used with both the keyboard and mouse. When using the keyboard hold down the <ALT> + <SHIFT> and use the arrow keys to perform the block selection.

Have you checked out Ramp Up?

trobbins — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:54:00 GMT

Ramp Up has just launched a brand-new learning track today: SharePoint for Developers, Part I. This track, along with the other currently offered tracks (eg, Visual Studio 2008), teaches the important skills in a guided path, making the learning process easier and more efficient. Currently, there are no assessments in the program, so it's quicker than ever to graduate and receive the reward (25% off on certification and 50% off on e-Learning - only for graduates of Ramp Up).

Setting the startup form for a Windows Application

trobbins — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 09:07:00 GMT

Question: I am new to building Windows forms’ applications and am writing my first application. It’s a basic application that has three different forms. As you can imagine I am building, deigning and architecting the project as I go along. One of these changes is that I want to make a different form than I have currently the form that is shown when the application starts. I know that I can do it via code but it seems there has to be an easier way. Any ideas?

Answer: Well welcome to the world of Windows Forms! One of the things that you will want to get to know is the “My Project” Window in the Solution Explorer window.

Within the My project Application tab you can select the Startup form and change it to the name of your form.

Give us feedback on Silverlight 2

trobbins — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:16:00 GMT

Via Brian

Give us feedback on Silverlight 2

We’ve put together a short survey to help us improve our Silverlight features and API. Spend 15 minutes and tell us what is good and bad about Silverlight so far.

A quick look at the lambda expression

trobbins — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:47:00 GMT

The lambda expression is new to Visual Basic and Visual Studio 2008 and part of the new Linq support. A lambda expression is an anonymous function that can contain expressions and statements. Basically it’s a function without a name that calculates and returns a single value. It is combined with the new Func type that is essentially a delegate that has the return type specified and allows arguments to be supplied. The Func delegate type is part of the system namespace and defined in the assembly System.Core.dll. By default all new projects created with Visual Basic automatically reference this dll. The underlying type of a lambda expression is one of the generic Func delegates. This makes it possible to pass a lambda expression as a parameter without explicitly assigning it to a delegate.

We can write a simple TimesTwo lambda expression that takes an integer and returns an integer. This expression effectively takes the input number and multiplies by 2, and then returns the result.

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

Dim TimesTwo As Func(Of Integer, Integer) = Function(Numberin As Integer) Numberin * 2

Dim ReturnNumber As Integer

ReturnNumber = TimesTwo(50)

MsgBox(ReturnNumber)

End Sub

Got a few minutes for feedback?

trobbins — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:03:00 GMT

Application installation and patching: http://survey.confirmit.com/wix/p761108781.aspx?htype=1

The Windows engineering teams are putting together plans for how application installation and patching will work in future versions of the operating system. This is an opportunity for you to tell Microsoft what you feel the needs and priorities for improving how application patching and installation function.

improving web apps: http://survey.confirmit.com/wix/p761113603.aspx?htype=1

The Windows engineering teams are putting together plans for how web-based and stand-alone client applications will work in future versions of the operating system. This is an opportunity for you to tell Microsoft what you feel the needs and priorities for improving how web-based and standalone client applications should function.

64-bit developer: http://survey.confirmit.com/wix/p760989518.aspx?htype=1

The Windows engineering teams are putting together plans for how 64-bit and 32-bit applications will work in future versions of the operating system, as 64-bit PCs become increasingly prevalent. This is an opportunity for you to tell Microsoft what you feel the needs and priorities for improving how 64-bit and 32-bit applications should function.

Create COOL implementations of Search API 2.0 Beta + Ads

trobbins — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:13:00 GMT

In case you haven't seen this -

During the keynote at PubCon in Las Vegas we announced “Project Silk Road” which is a collection of services, including a new version of the Live Search APIs for developer community – basically Search API 2.0 Beta + Search Ads pilot.

We are looking for some really cool implementations from the developer community which will be displayed on our website at: http://search.live.com/developers We’re looking for as many implementations as possible! Come on team, put your developer skills to use and share your passion about Microsoft technology!

Win a Prize:

All submissions entered by (12am) midnight PST US on Dec 5^th 2008 will be eligible for our prize drawing of a $120 gift certificate to the Microsoft Company store.

Please note: All submissions must be on live websites (so we have to be able to navigate to the website or be able to download the application to see it) and must follow our Terms of Use – present on Search API and Ads web sites respectively. Drawing will take place on Dec 8^th 2008 and the winner will be notified via email by Dec 9^th 2008.

Send all links/information about implementations to: AniB@Microsoft.com.

GeekswithBlogs.net

Check out one of the first implementations of the Search API 2.0 Beta at http://geekswithblogs.net

Learn more about: Search API 2.0 (Beta) + Ads pilot

The Live Search API 2.0 Beta enables you to embed as a custom component a flexible and powerful search engine on your sites and applications. With the addition of XML (POX) and JSON formats, as well as the previously supported SOAP API, the Live Search API 2.0 Beta allows you to integrate the power of search using the code and formatting you choose. In addition, some source formats types are also accessible through an OpenSearch-compliant RSS interface.

Step 1: Get an App ID

Go to http://search.live.com/developers to create your AppID which you will use to gain access to all the great search results from Search API 2.0.

Step 2: Select your URI type

When you want to query the HTTP endpoint you first start with an HTTP GET request to the appropriate URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). There are two URIs, one for XML results and one for JSON results: http://api.search.live.net/xml.aspx and http://api.search.live.net/json.aspx respectively.

Both URIs expect at least three required query string parameters: AppID, query, and sources. The AppID query string parameter is a value you get when you sign up as a developer with the Developer Center program (http://search.live.com/developers). The query value will be the query you want the API to execute for you, and the sources value indicates which Live Search Engine indexes you want the query to be run against.

Step 3: Select your source type

The following are the source types supported by the current release of the Search API 2.0 Beta.

Source	Description
web	Searches for web content
image	Searches for images on the web
news	Searches news stories
instantanswer	Searches Encarta online
spell	Searches Encarta dictionary for spelling suggestions
phonebook	Searches phonebook entries
relatedsearch	Returns the query strings most similar to yours

Step 4: Select your front end

RIA - Silverlight

Silverlight is a framework from Microsoft that enables developers to build Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), using the same .NET framework and programming languages they are familiar with using in their typical .NET applications. Because of its strong integration with browsers, as well as with images and other media, it is a robust and very interesting client for building applications using the Live Search API 2.0 Beta.

Like JSON applications that live in the browser, Silverlight applications can’t normally invoke services (raw HTTP or SOAP) on domains other than the domain where the Silverlight application is downloaded from. But because Live Search API 2.0 beta publishes a crossdomain.xml policy file at the root of its domain, http://api.search.live.net/crossdomain.xml, it allows RIAs to access its endpoints, making it possible to use the Live Search API 2.0 Beta from Silverlight.

Interoperable – PHP

Another reason to maintain a more open API using HTTP (and raw XML and JSON) is to enable interoperable scenarios with Live Search API 2.0 Beta. It isn’t just for .NET programmers. For example, PHP has a powerful JSON parsing mechanism, which, given PHP is a dynamic language, enables PHP developers to program against a JSON object graph in a very straightforward way.

RSS

In additional to the XML/JSON APIs which allow a user to make explicit search requests of the different Live Search sources, these sources are also exposed via a web feed mechanism formatted using Really Simple Syndication (RSS). In addition, the RSS endpoint is open and doesn’t require an App ID. Any user can make a feed request of the API and subscribe to that feed using his favorite feed reader. The feed reader can then take care of maintaining state, and the user will be notified whenever there is new data.

This is the only part of the new Live Search API 2.0 beta that can be used by end users, since it is the only URI that doesn’t require an App ID as part of the query string.

Step 5: If you want to Monetize

Another feature of Live Search 2.0 is ad-serving capability. If you sign up for a Live Search API 2.0 Beta App ID and opt into the adCenter terms of use, and apply for an Ads unit ID thru adCenter as listed on our Developer Center (http://search.live.com/developers) once approved, you can integrate ads into your web pages using simple XML or JSON APIs. Ads are just another content source, so all the information about the other search sources applies to the ad source, although there are a few additional required query string parameters and an additional adCenter Unit ID.

Query String	Description
Ad.AdUnitId	Your adCenter Unit ID
Ad.PropertyId	Your adCenter Property ID
Ad.Pagenumber	The page number requested
Ad.SBadCount	Number of sidebar ads requested
Ad.MLadCount	Number of mainline ads requested

SDK can be found here

Windows Forms – Creating an access key

trobbins — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:52:00 GMT

Question: I am new to Visual Basic and wanted to create an access key for my Windows Form application. How can I do that?

Answer: By definition an access key is an underlined character in the text of a menu or the label of a control. The idea of an access key is that the user can activate the control or menu item by pressing a combination of the ALT key and pre-defined access key.

For a simple example if we created a simple Windows form application that contains a single button. Then enter the following code.

Public Class Form1

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

Button1.Text = "&Click"

End Sub

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

MsgBox("You clicked me!")

End Sub

End Class

Run the application

Using ALT-C activate the access key

Taking on SQL 2008

trobbins — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:22:00 GMT

Whether you are learning new features, increasing job performance and productivity or deepening your expertise, Microsoft Learning can help get you prepared and make you an expert. Microsoft Learning Materials are the most reliable and up-to-date source of learning about Microsoft Products. With a robust set of offerings that can suit any learning style, from electronic books, e-learning, books, instructor-lead-training, and certification exams, MSL has the right training solution to suit your needs.

Come to the Learning Portal to see the latest training resources available for SQL 2008.

FREE E-Learning and Ebook now available!

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/sql2008

Cool Site of the Day

trobbins — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:54:00 GMT

Very cool site I just checked out at www.dotnetvideos.net. They have over 100+ videos under 10 minutes duration dedicated to .net developers around the world. All of the training videos are visualized version of data tutorials by Scott Mitchell on asp.net web site. From what I understand all registered user of the website receive a free 6 month subscription to asp.netPRO magazine.

Definitely worth checking out!

TechEd US Registration Opens

trobbins — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:03:00 GMT

Today, registration opens for Tech·Ed U.S 2008 at www.microsoft.com/teched. Tech·Ed is Microsoft’s premier technical gathering for IT Professionals and Developers worldwide. Tech·Ed provides both audiences with top-notch technical education, connection to the community and in-depth product evaluation. As Microsoft’s largest event, Tech·Ed provides Developers with the resources to build state-of-the-art software solutions and IT Professionals the resources to plan, architect, deploy, manage and secure a connected IT infrastructure. The focus of TechEd is on today’s technologies however this year we will push the envelope more than ever before in showcasing an increased number of unreleased technologies available in beta.

Ready for Visual Studio 2008?

trobbins — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 03:59:00 GMT

Some great stuff to check out -

Whether you are learning new features, improving expertise, increasing your productivity or just staying ahead of the curve, Microsoft Learning can help you get up to speed quickly. Microsoft Learning materials are the most reliable and up-to-date source of learning about Microsoft Products. With a robust set of offerings that can suit any leaning style, from free electronic books/references, to e-Learning, books, instructor-lead-training, and certification exams, MSL has the right training solution to suit your need.

Come to the Learning Portal to see the latest training resources available for Visual Studio 2008.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/vstudio/2008/default.mspx

Additional things to check out

Download a Free Visual Studio 2008 e-book

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/vstudio/2008/default.mspx

Get a free e-book and find other special training offers to help you get up to speed quickly on Visual Studio 2008.

Find Classroom Training on Visual Studio 2008

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/syllabi/en-us/6459afinal.mspx

This one-day clinic will introduce you to the new development features available in Visual Studio 2008. Find training in a city near you.

Get Ready for Visual Studio 2008 with Free E-Learning

Learn how to incorporate ASP.NET AJAX with this free online course, "Developing Enhanced Web Experiences with Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Extensions."

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/vstudio/2008/default.mspx

Don’t forget about the Office Developer’s Conference

trobbins — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 03:46:00 GMT

LIVE DEMOS. REAL CODE. HOT NEW INFO.

The 2008 Microsoft Office System Developer Conference

February 10-13, San Jose California

ODC 2008 is the premier event for Microsoft Office and SharePoint developers, bringing together architects, developers, industry technical experts, Microsoft insiders, and key partners to redefine what it means to build on the Office system.

Check it out and register here

Virtual Labs

trobbins — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:19:00 GMT

Try Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 in a virtual lab and learn more about accessing relational data using Language Integrated Query (LINQ) to SQL or how Visual Studio 2008 integrates with .NET Framework 3.5. Virtual labs are simple, with no complex setup or installation required.

MSDN Virtual Lab: Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008

MSDN Virtual Lab: Mapping Your Objects to Database Tables with LINQ to SQL

MSDN Virtual Lab: What's new in C# 3.0?

MSDN Virtual Lab: What's new in Visual Basic 9?

MSDN Virtual Lab: Workflow Enabled Services and Other New Features in the .NET Framework 3.5

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

trobbins — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:40:00 GMT

Very cool –

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is an open-source development tool aimed to bring the Visual Studio experience to building World of Warcraft addons. This is the first release of the project and there are lots more ideas around how it can improved.

Get it here