Darryl Burling @ Work : Windows

Microsoft Launch Events in March

dburling — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:15:40 GMT

I got asked yesterday when we are having our launch events for Visual Studio 2008, SQL 2008 and Windows Server 2008, so I thought I should put the current dates out so you can pencil them in.

We are going to be visiting Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch as follows:

Christchurch - March 11
Wellington - (two identical events) - March 18 & 19
Auckland - March 26

We are running two events in Wellington - both the same - to cater for smaller venues and larger audiences - so if you are in Wellington, hopefully the event will be more comfortable for you :-)

More details to come in the future.

In the meantime, watch this blog for details of the 2008 Summer Road Trip that the community is bringing to 11 centres throughout the country in February - more on this later today...

MSDN Flash - Here comes the wave!

dburling — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:03:00 GMT

Last week Visual Studio 2008 was released to manufacturing. If you have a MSDN Subscription, you can download it now. Visual Studio 2008 will hit store shelves in late Jan/early Feb. In spite of the fact that Visual Studio has only just been released, a number of customers have already been using it.

Provoke, Datacom, Kiwibank and Intergen (among others) have been using it for a number of projects. Provoke used the Load test agents from Visual Studio 2008 Test Edition to load test the new Flybuys website (all built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server). Datacom have been using it on a project for Paymark along with .Net 3.5 and Intergen are moving all their developers on to Visual Studio 2008 as soon as possible, having been using it for a variety of projects for a little while.

New products mean that we’ve got events coming up! Firstly there is the usual Microsoft tour of the main centres through March – more on these at a later date.

The .Net User Groups will be sending a tour throughout the country presenting on Windows Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio 2008. This will be a very cool road trip starting on Feb 4 and going to Feb 22 throughout the country. Look for the website for this to be up in by the next MSDN Flash or stay tuned to my blog.

Speaking, albeit fleetingly, of Windows Server 2008 – Geekzone went live on Windows Server 2008 RC last week. After it was all over Maucirio from Geekzone said:

“My first impression is how responsive the UI is... The next thing I notice is that pages are actually faster now - to create and load.”

You can read more about the Geekzone story here.

Till next time – happy summer coding

Geekzone live on Windows Server 2008 RC

dburling — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:46:00 GMT

On Wednesday Mauricio from Geekzone was up in Auckland upgrading the Geekzone server to Windows Server 2008 RC. He posted a blog post saying he was live, and yesterday he did a report on the first few days.

After the install he said:

My first impression is how responsive the UI is. Also it looks like Windows Vista in many aspects and it's easy to use. There are some new features that I will be trying soon. The next thing I notice is that pages are actually faster now - to create and load.

Thats a good start :-) One of the parts of Windows Server that got a major overhaul was IIS, so Mauricio is seeing the benefits of these improvements on day one.

He also notes in his report yesterday that most of the applications he uses either just work or have been updated to work with Windows Server 2008.

As he noted in his posts, geekzone.co.nz is a large site by New Zealand standards - 15th largest in NZ in terms of traffic (largest in the IT sector) - according to AC Nielsen - and handles over half a million unique visitors each month and many millions of page impressions.

There are a couple of other large sites making the move to Windows Server 2008 - again because they see the performance improvements for websites or because they want to take advantage of some of the new features such as WAS or HyperV.

There is lots to like in Windows Server...

BootCamp 07 - November 3-4

dburling — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:00:50 GMT

You may have already noticed the murmurings of another code camp - just weeks after the last one.

This Code Camp is being organized by the Christchurch crowd (Peter is the front man for it) and will therefore be the first Code Camp ever in the South Island.

The other interesting thing about this code camp (apart from the cool theme) is that it will be focused on getting back to basics in the new wave of technology coming from Microsoft - namely Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008.

Pre-registration is now open, and if you are interested in presenting (and there are some who should put their names down) head over to the Boot Camp home page and register!

Whats with all those non-Wellingtonians not having blogs I can link to?

Speed up Vista - new patches out

dburling — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:11:28 GMT

Yesterday we released two patches for Vista that should be useful to you end users.

The first one fixes a bunch of issues in screen savers, hibernation, resume and the time it takes to estimate the time left to copy a file among others - details and download link here.

The second one has a bunch of compatibility and reliability fixes including HD DVD Video playback, gaming issues and display driver restarts - details and download link here.

MSDN Flash - What is in Windows Server for developers?

dburling — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 05:19:37 GMT

The last editorial I wrote about Visual Studio 2008's multi-targeting support, however as the Launch coming in February is about Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 I thought I might shed some light on what is coming in Windows Server for developers too. Specifically I want to focus on Web Developers and Internet Information Services 7.

One of the things you may already know about is that the configuration for IIS has been moved from the Metabase to a XML config file called ApplicationHost.config. This means that if you want to modify the config of a server, you just open the file in (say) notepad, edit it and close it again. You can also then copy this file across servers to ensure they all have the same configuration - which is great for web farms.

Given the file is in XML, you can easily write scripts and code to read or modify the server configuration based on some environmental dependencies your application or script may detect as it runs.

Of course, should you want to do this with the manager you can still do this, but having a file instead of the Metabase gives you much easier access to the config of the server(s) in your environment. For more details on this change and the implications, take a look at this overview of the ApplicationHost.config and these articles (1, 2) on compatibility with the metabase.

Another thing you can do is write your own extensions to IIS7. One example that you can take a look through online is replacing the Basic HTTP Authentication module with one that authenticates against an arbitrary authentication systems (such as ASP.Net Membership provider). Another scenario you could write a module to do things like remove hidden text or comments from an Open XML document being uploaded to a server. You'll have ideas for modules that might make sense to your solution, but the point is that this is a pretty cool feature that should allow you to make IIS7 do more than it does today - in fact I expect there will be a community around module development.

Modules can be written in either native code or in managed code by implementing the new System.Web.IHttpModule interface. You can get a walk through on how to build a module here. You can also build administration modules to manage your custom module, details here.

We've also done a lot of work on FastCGI to make PHP (and other languages) really fly under IIS7.

If you are interested in these features (and there are lots more), check out the IIS7 Developer Center or download beta 3 of Windows Server 2008. If you want to deploy IIS7 sooner rather than later, there is a go live license for IIS7 and we have customers in NZ already who are running IIS7 for production sites. In addition Microsoft.com is already running on Windows Server 2008. Let me know if you get into this stuff.

As previously reported, we are running a Women in Technology dinner at Tech Ed for the first time this year. I've had quite a bit of feedback to open this up to people not going to Tech Ed, and I'm pleased to be able to say that, we've responded to this feedback and opened it up.

So - if you are going to Tech Ed, simply put the Women in Technology session into your agenda. If you are not going to Tech Ed, but want to go along, you will need to register by either sending an email to teched@avenues.co.nz or by calling (09) 309 2440. Tickets cost $80, Tech Ed attendees are free. It should be a great event with representation from both technical and non technical women in technology. I'll blog more details in the next few days and more details will also go up on the Tech Ed website this week.

Finally, if you are looking at Silverlight (and it seems everyone is), we are close to RC and there are breaking changes from the Beta - check out the details and download a preview from Tim Sneath's blog.

Anyway, that is enough for one flash - have fun coding!

TechNet Gadget - with New Zealand (and Australian) content

dburling — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 02:36:39 GMT

In my email this morning I got a message that Jay "No Blog" Templeton and the team from Mabode have just launched the Microsoft Australia and New Zealand TechNet Gadget.

The gadget allows you to select a bunch of feeds to have rotated through the gadget at intervals. It also includes a ticker of alerts and a TechNet Search box to make it easy to search TechNet from the sidebar.

The New Zealand content looks cool - the link in the screen shot above linked off to Nathan Mercers (IT Pro Evangelist) blog.

You can get the gadget here. Great work Jay!

Wanted - a Video Player sidebar gadget

dburling — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 00:40:00 GMT

I was just considering watching a videocast that I'd downloaded but I've got other things to do and don't want to devote myself to just watching the video.

On my computer I've got the sidebar set to always on top (I've got a 20" wide screen monitor, so no great loss of space). What I'd love to be able to do is put the video into the sidebar where it can just play away and I can tune in and out of it as I work.

Ideally something where I can load a video from a location on my computer and then play/pause the video as required. When the video isn't playing it can show a logo or something. It would be great if you could set the logo yourself. Other nice to have's would be if you can queue up some videos (perhaps via a Windows Media play list).

Would anyone else use something like this? Has anyone got one? Has anyone got time to build one? :-)

Background Motion - now live!

dburling — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:35:00 GMT

Over the last few months the guys at Mindscape have been dotting i's and crossing t's in order to get BackgroundMotion up and running. This has meant getting a solid hosting solution up (thanks to ZeroOne for pitching in!) as well as ensuring things like the terms of use and such things are in place.

The great news is that this is all now done and http://BackgroundMotion.com is now up (Mauricio got the scoop on this yesterday).

What is it?

Backgroundmotion.com is two things.

Firstly it is a community website to allow you to share backgrounds and background video for the DreamScene features of Windows Vista Ultimate.

Secondly it is a great example of a modern web application built on .Net 2.0. When I say example, I also mean sample - the source code for the site is available on codeplex for you to download and pull it apart.

There is also a "Code" tab on the site to help you get up and running with the source code. The developer section of the site includes sample code, short introduction videos and resources to lower the bar to use these technologies.

Technologies used

One of the things that the guys did was to build in all the latest technologies and making the code available means that you can go and see how they did it. Specifically, the technologies and tools they used include:

.Net Framework 2.0
.Net Framework 3.0
ASP.Net 2.0
ASP.Net AJAX 1.0
Silverlight
NUnit
LINQ (May CTP)
Web Client Software Factory (Composite Web Block)
Lucene.Net
RSS Toolkit (which was extended for the solution)
Virtual Earth
Sidebar Gadgets

The guys also made sure that it is XHTML 1.0 compliant.

If you went along to the Technical Briefings we did back in March you'll remember that JB and JD presented at those sessions on BackgroundMotion. The code tab on BackgroundMotion also has links to the videos of their sessions from the events, all nicely polished with demos and decks integrated into the video (dont forget you can get the decks here).

Nigel tells me he's planning to do a screen cast on getting started with BackgroundMotion, so watch his blog for that too.

Go check out the site, click the code tab and take a hunt around. We are keen to know what you think - so click the feedback link on the site or post a comment on one of the blog posts that you'll see today.

IIS7 and Windows Server 2008 Core

dburling — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:43:10 GMT

Did you know that IIS7 will ship out of the box on Windows Server Core? That means you can run a stripped down server on Windows Server 2008 Server Core and have it running as part of a web farm or just as a web server on its own.

Server Core doesn't have a GUI, so you'll be managing via commandline or WMI/COM. Given the new distributed web.config, it should be pretty easy to manage sites.

More information is available in this video and here.

If you watch the video, Eric Woersching (the Microsoft IIS guy) is coming to Tech Ed Australia and New Zealand. He has a session titled "Whats new in IIS7 for developers".

Trade Me Launches Vista Gadget

dburling — Mon, 07 May 2007 05:31:46 GMT

Good news from Rowans Blog.

The TradeMe gadget is one of several New Zealand gadgets that have been incubated.

This gadget is for people selling stuff on TradeMe - if you sell stuff on TradeMe, this is a great way to keep up to date with what your goods are up to and what value has been placed on them.

I'm using it to track one of my auctions right now, and I've used it for previous auctions.

You'll see a few more gadgets come online this week, so stay tuned. In the meantime, go get the TradeMe Gadget :-)

Powershell gadget and using WCS in the sidebar

dburling — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 08:33:23 GMT

Last night the guys from Mindscape unleashed their powershell gadget onto the world. This very cool gadget allows you to enter powershell commands into a gadget rather than having a powershell window running full time in the background. The guys have actually hooked up their sound system to a system that plays MP3's and using powershell they "bump" and play tracks. So the gadget was inspired in many ways by this scenario. The gadget also has a nice flyout which serves as a powershell window that tucks away when not in use - very nice.

The other interesting thing about the powershell gadget is that it uses .Net but without requiring a UAC prompt or MSI installer to make it all work - thus, you get full .Net power in a sidebar gadget that any user can install and use - very cool.

You can download the gadget here, and read about how you can automatically register any objects you need here. If you get it - make sure you install powershell before you tell them it doesn't work... :-)

You've seen JB using .Net from inside a gadget and you've now seen the Powershell Gadget that uses .Net, Vitorrio has taken to the next level by using Windows Card Space in a sidebar gadget. He's also written a pretty comprehensive blog post that tells you how he did it and he's attached the source from his project to his blog post.

Very cool! Hopefully these help you expand the possibilities you can acheive with gadgets :-)

Technorati tags: WCS, Powershell, Sidebar, Gadgets, Windows, Vista

More NZ Sidebar Gadgets

dburling — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 02:41:43 GMT

There is lots of activity in the Windows Vista Sidebar gadget space here in New Zealand. There are a heap of significant organizations here that are working on gadgets right now that will be revealed in the next few weeks.

For the moment though I want to highlight the astonishing gadget development effort of Chris Crowe. Chris is an IIS MVP from Christchurch and he's been busy making gadgets for a while. I had no idea he was working on these until the Christchurch Technical Briefing when I caught up with him briefly.

He currently has six gadgets that he's built. Five of them are Radio gadgets (one for each of More FM, Radio Pacific, News Talk ZB, RDU Radio in Christchurch and ZM Online)- so you can put your radio station on your sidebar and listen while you work.

The other one is a very cool NZ Weather gadget. This gadget tells you the current wind speed and direction, rainfall, humidity, barometric pressure and temperature. In addition you can see graphs of the data over the last 24 hours or 7 days depending on the type of data.

This is a very cool gadget. He's only uploaded it a few days ago (last thursday IIRC) and its already had nearly 3500 downloads!

You can get any of Chris's gadgets from his live gallery profile page here.

There is lots of news around gadgets coming up - there are some cool gadgets and gadget usage starting to happen.

If you've got a gadget you'd like showcased, please let me know.

Technorati tags: Gadgets, Sidebar, Vista, New Zealand

Technical Briefings - over and out!

dburling — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 02:59:56 GMT

I've just finished the keynote presentation for the Christchurch Technical briefings. Phew! Great to have that out of the way. I can now go back to normality ;-)

The last few weeks have been great in many ways. I've now done my first ever keynote series, which itself has been a great experience.

We've also spoken to over 2000 technical people (maybe including you!) about the value that Windows Vista and .Net 3.0 are delivering to customers today.

For many people is was the first time they've ever been introduced to SoftGrid too - which is a fantastic product and its great to see the excitement this product is generating amonst IT administrators in New Zealand.

We've also shown you some of the future technologies that are coming up - just like this time last year, we have a huge pipeline of products. Hopefully you all got to see Nigel using Expression Web and Expression Blend to create interactive web sites, and maybe even got to see his session on building applications users love (he assures me he'll be posting a video of his session soon).

Lots of people have been interested in Windows Home Server too. If you want more information on this, check out the links in my previous blog post.

We are also going to be making videos of Jeremy and JD's talks, so keep your eye out for those too. Oh - and if you are interested in seeing the BackgroundMotion project, hang fire - its not live yet - the guys have got a little bit of polish to put on it before it is launched - not to mention that we want to document it so you can understand how it works...

Thanks to everyone who came along and for all the feedback. Its been great to be able to present to you all, and I look forward to seeing you at TechEd 2007 (by the way, registration is now open)!

Technorati tags: Event, Developer, IT, Administrator, .Net, Vista, Windows, Microsoft, Softgrid, Expression, Designer, TechEd

SQL Server 2005 Service pack 2 released - Vista devs rejoice!

dburling — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 03:12:56 GMT

If you've been waiting for SQL Server 2005 to be released, well it is out now :-)

When you install SQL Server 2005 on Vista, you'll be prompted to install Service pack 2 - only problem is that it hasn't been available - until today.

You can download it here.

I've taken to developing on Windows Server 2003 (via RDP) at home, but I'm using Vista at work, so I'll be putting this on pretty soon.

Technorati tags: Vista, SQL Server, SQL, Service Pack, Microsoft, Windows, SQL Server 2005, Developers