This post was written by Tom Mertens of Microsoft Belgium & Luxembourg.
It's with deep sadness that we inform you that David Boschmans has unexpectedly passed away on 7 August at the age of 32. David was a fantastic colleague and friend, always prepared to help others, motivating everyone with his enthusiasm and energy. During his career at Microsoft, he received recognition and admiration from the developer community, customers and partners, from his local colleagues as well as colleagues at Microsoft EMEA and Corp.
Our hearts and thoughts go out to David's wife and daughter. You can leave a message to David's family at http://david.vsdotnet.be.
Thanks David, for everything! We will never forget you...
The employees of Microsoft Belgium & Luxembourg,
and especially his nearest colleagues of the Belux DPE team.
[
Via Michael]
Information Architects Japan Interface & Strategy has created a v2 of the web trend map. It shows the 200 most successful websites on the web, ordered by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective.
An & Lien, both members of the Partner Team in Microsoft Belux, intensively worked on re-vamping the partner portal.
A snapshot of the major changes:
- A clear structure which allows to find easily what you are looking for;
- More content available in Dutch & French, so reduced linking to the worldwide partner portal;
- One standard homepage, figuring as a newspaper, where partners can find the latest information;
- Clear, complete and new sections on Licensing & the Partner Program;
- A new event registration tool within the marketing factory;
- An overview of the trainings per competency, which allows partners to easily find the appropriate training;
You can go check it out at:
From Tuesday on the portal will be accessible through the following URL: www.microsoft.be/partner. Till then the exisiting portal remains on-line.
Here are some interesting links that I found while catching up on blogs:
User Experience:
Web Platform
Office System
Security
Windows Server
Sample App
Technorati tags:
User Experience,
Expression,
WPF,
Acropolis,
Silverlight,
ASP.NET,
ASP.NET AJAX,
Office,
Open XML,
Security,
Windows Server 2008
Serge Luca has created a walkthrough on "Exposing a Workflow as a WCF Service in Visual Studio 2008 beta 1". In this post he guides the reader step-by-step through the new Send and Receive activities in Visual Studio 2008 beta 1 (formerly "Orcas") and in the .Net Framework 3.5. From creating the service contract, adding a workflow component, hosting the service and finally consuming it from a client application; all steps are illustrated with screen shots.
This is basically a summary of a session Serge delivered for Microsoft Belux. The article can be considered as an update to this article.
A couple of weeks ago I reported that Patrick Tisseghem's book on SharePoint Server 2007 was available in bookstores. Well it looks he just couldn't stop writing! Now two new articles on "Development Tools and Techniques for Working with Code in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0" are available on MSDN.
Summary: Learn the skills you need to develop for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, about the differences from traditional ASP.NET development, about the required development environment, and the steps to build a Windows SharePoint Services solution with Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
Summary: Explore Windows SharePoint Services solutions, solution architecture, and techniques for creating, deploying, maintaining, and upgrading Windows SharePoint Services solutions.
This first article provides insight into the skills you need to develop for Windows SharePoint Services, the differences from traditional ASP.NET development, the development environment that is required, and the steps you must take to build a Windows SharePoint Services solution with Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The second part of the article explores the concept of Windows SharePoint Services solutions, addressing the architecture of a solution, and the techniques for creating, deploying, maintaining, and upgrading Windows SharePoint Services solutions. This article also includes walkthroughs that show the different approaches developers and administrators can take.
There's an updated version of the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats available. By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.
This update of the Office Compatibility Pack include the fixes that were provided in the file format updates for Word 2007 and the existing Office Compatibility Pack in May. This KB "Issues that are fixed in the update to the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats" lists the changes.
The link for the download on Microsoft Download Center has not changed: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en.
While still recovering at home after surgery I'm catching up on blogs and mail. I came accross a new connector to connect my Windows Live account with Outlook 2007 (my default email client). So far I've been using Windows Live Mail to read the email of my WIndows Live Hotmail account. Today I decided to install the Outlook Connector.
Microsoft Office Outlook Connector: With Microsoft Office Outlook Connector Beta, you can use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to access and manage your Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail or Microsoft Office Live Mail accounts, including e-mail messages and contacts for free! Calendar, tasks and notes can also be accessed and managed in Outlook for accounts with a paid subscription. And the Outlook Team is now blogging!
Here's a quick walkthrough on installing the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector on top of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. Run (as administrator) the OutlookConnector.exe that can be downloaded from here and follow the screen shots below.
Accept the License Terms:
Fill out your customer information and make sure Microsoft Outlook 2007 (in this case) is not running; the "outlook.exe" process should not appear in the processes list of the WIndows Task Manager.
Complete the installation wizard and your done!
The next time when starting up Microsoft Outlook 2007 a new "Microsoft Office Outlook Connector" screen (see below) will popup. Fill out your e-mail address & password and fill out the name you want to appear in the receiver's inbox.
Filling out the Name field like this results in this when sending a mail:
After hitting the "OK" button a new account was added to Microsoft Outlook 2007. Restart Outlook. (Note: Clicking OK on this dialog does NOT automatically closes Outlook).
After restarting Outlook 2007 the new created account is being synched into Outlook.
You can see the details of your Windows Live Hotmail account popping up in the status bar (you can move the toolbar around) of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007.
The mailbox shows up in the Mail Folders area through which you can access e-mail messages and contacts for free.
Access to your contacts:
"Calendar, tasks and notes can also be accessed and managed in Outlook for accounts with a paid subscription."
While the Outlook Connector is free, it only synchronizes Mail and Contacts at no charge. For Calendar synchronization, a premium subscription is required. You can still use the Outlook Connector calendar in Outlook, however appointments and meetings won't synchronize to the Hotmail calendar. You can upgrade your account to a Premium Subscription service via a) MSN Premium or b) Office Live Essentials/Premium.
In this case I already own a MSN Premium account (or a full version of Windows Live Hotmail) and can access synchronize my tasks and notes.
In can also access the calendar of my Windows Live Hotmail account in Outlook 2007 and book meetings. When sharing your calendar with someone else there's a full approval workflow triggered that lets you choose to "Show all of your appointment details" or "Only when you are free or busy".
I now have all my Windows Live Hotmail data stored in an .OST file. This file is by default located in "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook" when using Windows Vista. This offline folder keeps a local copy of my mailbox on my computer.
The big advantage is that I can use all my favorite Outlook 2007 features like search (you can include the .ost file in the index!), categories, category search folders, color coding, quick click flags and the to do bar, etc on my Hotmail mailbox items. I also have shared my agenda with my wife's Windows Live account agenda . No need anymore to have a weekly/daily sync meeting. I will keep it installed and assess how I'll be using this. I've been pretty happy so far with Windows Live Mail so it's still uncertain if I spend enough time in my Hotmail mailbox to use the Outlook 2007 features. Also, I already have quite overloaded e-mail box setup in Outlook 2007 as primary account. Additionally I do read all my RSS feeds (700+) from within Outlook. This works very good but I fear that the amounts of data to be loaded everytime I start Outlook will slow down my machine. In the end installing a productivity tool like the Outlook Connector shouldn't negatively impact my productivity ...
Despite it's still in beta it's worth giving a try. I installed the English version but it's also available in other languages. I also installed it on my wife's laptop. She's very happy with this as she was using Outlook for her "school" email (Exchange based) and the web client for her Hotmail account. Now she has access to all her data from one place: Outlook 2007.
On the download page is also a link to the "Microsoft Office Outlook Connector 12.0 Beta FAQ" which contains some more tips & tricks.
Later this week the Belgian Community organizes its first Belgian Community Day.
The Belgian community has a very strong reputation internationally with many individuals making their mark in their fields of expertise. Lots of individuals, like yourself, are hungry for more information about the many Microsoft products and technologies. In addition to the technical information, there is also very often the need to just socialize with other persons within the same domain of expertise.
Five belgian usergroups, BIWUG, VISUG, SQLUG, IT-Talks, and Pro-Exchange, have decided to combine their efforts to organize a joint-event just before summer starts. This event will be the biggest community event in Belgium! So if you are eager to learn, eager to get answers to your questions and eager to socialize, come and join us for our very first Belgian Community Day.
The event will take place at the premises of SemCom in Keerbergen on Thursday, the 28th of June 2007.
Want to attend? Register now!
Using the power of virtualization, you can now quickly evaluate Microsoft and partner solutions through a series of pre-configured Virtual Hard Disks (VHDs). You can download the VHDs and evaluate them for free in your own environment without the need for dedicated servers or complex installations. Check out the VHDs from "Run IT on a Virtual Hard Disk".
Since last week 2 new Microsoft Office VHDs are available for download. The details can be found below:
- Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 VHD
Brief Description
This download comes as a pre-configured VHD. This download enables you evaluate Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Overview
The Microsoft VHD Test Drive Program provides customers with an enhanced server-based software evaluation experience that’s faster, better supported and more flexible. You can now access the entire catalog of pre-configured Microsoft and partner products and solutions in the VHD format and start evaluating and testing today from www.microsoft.com/vhd.
This download enables you evaluate Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight. Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports all intranet, extranet, and Web applications across an enterprise within one integrated platform, instead of relying on separate fragmented systems. Additionally, this collaboration and content management server provides IT professionals and developers with the platform and tools they need for server administration, application extensibility, and interoperability.
This fully functional pre-configured VHD provides you a trial software will automatically expire after 30 days.
This is a preconfigured virtual machine contained within the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format. Virtual Server 2005 R2 is required to run this VHD. Please refer to the system requirements section for more details.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=67f93dcb-ada8-4db5-a47b-df17e14b2c74&DisplayLang=en
- Microsoft Office 2007 Professional VHD
Brief Description
Test Drive two new Microsoft platforms, Windows Vista Enterprise and Office 2007 Professional, and experience how they work better together.
Overview
This VHD contains both the 30 day edition of Windows Vista Enterprise Edition and an evaluation of Office 2007 Professional which includes Publisher, Excel, Outlook, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, and Word. See how with these new platforms can simplify how people work together, find information and improve business insight, help protect and manage content, and reduce IT costs and improve security. Test drive today to experience how Windows Vista and Office 2007 work better together!
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f9956176-cf66-478b-b20d-b9b92dd0dbfa&DisplayLang=en
Last Thursday designer Celso Gomes (Channel9 interview and interview) has launched a new web site with an excellent series of tutorials all of them built in using Expression Blend and Silverlight!
Check out http://www.nibblestutorials.net/ and the blog at http://blog.nibblestutorials.net/.
Nibbles are a series of "snack tutorials for hungry designers" that cover the use of Expression Blend to build WPF and Silverlight content.
Celso is an amazing interactive designer working at Microsoft who is responsible for the beautiful sample applications that ship with Expression Blend and did some of the earliest design explorations for Silverlight. He also delivered two designer sessions at Mix07. The first session "DES02 - Building Rich Web Experience with Silverlight and Microsoft Expression Studio for Designers" (Play (Silverlight) - Launch PPTX) and discusses the ins and outs of how to create stunning looking sites and Web experiences with Silverlight and Microsoft Expression Studio. The second session "DES07 - Design Rich Client Experiences with Expression Blend and WPF" (Play (Silverlight) - Launch PPTX) covers the use of Expression Blend to create interfaces using media, controls and rich layout.
For those of you who attended the Belux MSDN event last week on Expression Blend & Silverlight, the tutorials are an excellent starting point to familiarize with Silverlight and Expression Blend.
Subscribe to Celso's blog (RSS Feed) as he plans to add new nibbles weekly.
Next week June 12 MSDN Belux is organizing the "Enterprise & Development Summit 2007" in Luxembourg. On the web site you can find all event and session information in French. All sessions will be delivered in French.
Here's an overview of the agenda & speakers (in English):
| 08:00 ‑ 09:00 | Welcome |
| 09:00 ‑ 09:10 | Introduction - Thierry Fromes, Country Manager Microsoft Luxembourg |
| 09:10 ‑ 10:00 | Keynote - Luc Van de Velde, Director D&PE Microsoft Belux |
| 10:00 ‑ 10:45 | Windows Vista Overview for Developers
"Welcome to Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0, the new managed code programming model for Windows. If you want to create visually stunning user interfaces, build connected applications that interoperate across platforms, and model a range of business processes, and provide a better login and authentication experience for your customers, this is the session for you. In this session, you’ll learn how Microsoft’s next generation developer platform, .NET Framework 3.0, enables you to address all of these scenarios and more. You’ll get the big picture on .NET Framework 3.0, including an overview of its new technologies (Windows CardSpace, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)) and how it relates to .NET Framework 2.0. You’ll walk away understanding how .NET Framework 3.0 simplifies software development and enables you to build new types of applications." Level 200 Serge Luca (u2u) & David Boschmans (Microsoft) |
| 10:45 ‑ 11:15 | Coffee break |
| 11:15 ‑ 12:00 | Web Content Management Features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 This session provides an overview of the new Web Content Management features in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Understand the Web page model and how it takes advantage of common SharePoint features to deliver rich Web pages. Learn how authors can create Web pages in-context and using applications such as Microsoft Office Word that stay in synch with your Web site’s look and feel. Also, see how site managers can control what content gets published, using features like workflow and scheduling. Level 200 Renaud Compte (Wygwam) |
| 12:00 ‑ 12:45 | A first look at Visual Studio “Orcas” and .NET Framework 3.5 Visual Studio, codenamed “Orcas” will provide capabilities for building compelling applications that target Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System, and for creating the next generation of Web applications. In this session we’ll take a look at the improved support in Visual Studio “Orcas” for multi-framework development, the new set of visual designers, building and consuming WCF services, several innovative new technologies around data access (LINQ) and many smaller improvements as well. Finally we highlight how Visual Studio codenamed "Orcas" enhances the end-to-end value of Visual Studio 2005 Team System by increasing its role-based coverage and delivering enhanced traceability throughout the software development lifecycle. Level 200 Aurélien Verla (Wygwam) |
| 12:45 ‑ 13:45 | Lunch |
| 13:45 ‑ 14:30 | Building WCF-based Services with WF-enabled Business Logic The .NET Framework 3.0 has great technologies for building service-oriented communication software and great assets for building workflow-based business logic. But how do you use them together? Services and workflow look like twins separated at birth. This session demonstrates approaches to build communication aspects with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and business logic with Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) into your applications.
Level 300 Serge Luca (u2u) |
| 14:30 ‑ 15:15 | End-to-End Overview of Visual Studio Team System Visual Studio Team System addresses the challenges facing enterprise-level teams, increasing the predictability of success. Team System extends Visual Studio from a tool for writing and debugging code into a set of deeply integrated tools that support the complete software development lifecycle across the team member roles of manager, architect, developer, tester and database administrator. This session will detail a sample end-to-end software development lifecycle scenario, which will demonstrate major components of Team System, while illustrating the value of having a customizable integrated process in breaking down silos of information and providing friction-free flow of data between team roles. Level 200 Clara Bouzas Mante (Getronics) |
| 15:15 ‑ 15:45 | Coffee break |
| 15:45 ‑ 16:30 | Workflow in Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies 2007: Out-of-the-Box and Creating Custom Workflows This session discusses the integration of Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation into Windows SharePoint Services version 3; how workflows are designed, stored, and used; and which capabilities are enhanced by taking advantage of client and server technology. Different authoring tools and techniques are explained, including how to create no-code workflows using Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 along with guidance on deployment and management in an Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment. Level 300 Renaud Compte (Wygwam) |
| 16:30 ‑ 17:15 | Creating Rich Internet Applications with ASP.NET AJAX, Silverlight and Expression Studio Silverlight is Microsoft’s solution for delivering rich, cross-platform interactive experiences for the Web and beyond. Silverlight enables the creation of rich, visually stunning and interactive content and applications that run on multiple browsers and operating systems. In this session, learn more about the benefits of Silverlight from a developer perspective and get an introduction to building Silverlight applications using JavaScript and Microsoft developer and designer tools. Level 200 Aurélien Verla (Wygwam) |
More practical details:
12 Juin 2007
Registration of participants starts from 8:00 AM on. The seminar starts at 9:00 AM and ends towards 5:15 pm.
Technoport Schlassgoart
66, rue de Luxembourg
B.P. 144
L-4002 Esch-sur-Alzette
Luxembourg
Tél.: +352 42 59 91 - 1
Fax: +352 42 59 91 – 555
• Attending?
This is a free event but registration is necessary.
• Audience?
Developers
Register now to attend this free mini re-delivery of our Dev Days in Belgium.
Karine, CAML girl & consultant at u2u, and famous for the development of the U2U CAML Query Builder recently found some more time to start blogging.
Today she introduced on her blog a new version of her CAML Query Builder which is now a SharePoint 2007 Feature instead of a Windows application. In her post "U2U CAML Query Builder revisited" she guides us through the installation and use of the feature that let you build CAML Queries without the need to know the internals of the Collaborative Application Markup Language.
Welcome to the blogosphere Karine and keep the posts coming. And oh, Karine is blogging on the u2u blog center which is set up using SharePoint (of course!). The RSS feed to subscribe to is here!
One of the new Windows Vista security features that might confuse developers is Windows User Account Control (UAC). In order to help developers develop UAC enabled applications Microsoft has released "Windows Vista UAC Demo Sample Code"
This demo sample code shows how to develop using least privilege leveraging User Account Control.
It contains 3 projects, all developed in C#:
- GetLocalTime
- SetLocalClock
- RunElevatedCommand
In order to set the local clock you will need to enable UAC. This the different steps to achieve this are well explained in the solution.
Download the sample from the Microsoft Download Center and install using the .msi. By default it will install into
"C:\Users\<alias>\Documents\Microsoft Corporation\User Account Control Demo\"
Last Friday the Connected Systems Evangelism team released an update to the DinnerNow.net application.
DinnerNow is a fictitious marketplace where customers can order food from local restaurants for delivery to their home or office. This sample application is designed to demonstrate how you can develop a connected application using several new Microsoft technologies, including: IIS7, ASP.NET Ajax Extensions, Linq, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Powershell, and the .NET Compact Framework.
The DinnerNow.net 1.3 release contains some significant enhancements and several bug fixes. Version 1.3 utilizes the .NET Framework 3.0 and it has been tested on both Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn) Beta 3.
Some of the new features in version 1.3 include:
- New Service Portfolio. The "Service Portfolio" is the code that consists of the services, data access, workflow, and business logic for the scenario. It has been completely rewritten.
- Unit tests for the entire service portfolio
- Documentation for the service portfolio that was generated from the C# source code using SandCastle
- New mobile device application that can connect to the host services and update orders
- Support for the Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional SDK
- Updated walkthrough document that includes information about the Windows Mobile components
- Extended Verification (EV) cert for the DinnerNow.net site
- Support for user specified installation paths. We have removed the requirement to install the sample at c:\DinnerNow
In addition to version 1.3, we are also releasing a version of DinnerNow.net that has been developed againist Visual Studio "Orcas" and the .NET Framework 3.5 beta 1.
This version takes advantage of new Orcas features including:
- Language Integrated Query for .NET (LINQ) and LINQ-to-SQL
- Workflow Services (codenamed "Silver")
- WCF RSS services
There are a few known issues with the 1.0 Orcas version. Please review the DinnerNow.net Orcas v1.0 (for Orcas beta 1) – Known Issues document.
Finally, we have also released five new hands-on labs for Orcas beta 1. These labs are based on the DinnerNow.net scenario, however, you do *NOT* need to have the DinnerNow.net sample application installed in order to use them.
Get all of the above from here on the CodePlex DinnerNow.net site!
