Dave Glover "Down Under (Oz)"

Free eBook on Deploying Windows 7

2009-10-26T04:18:56Z

There's a new eBook from Microsoft Press, Deploying Windows 7, offering essential guidance from the Windows 7 Resource Kit and TechNet Magazine. You'll find selected chapters from the Windows 7 Resource Kit on deployment platforms, planning, and testing application compatibility, to name a few.

Snippet taken from this months Technet newsletter.

Cheers Dave

Visual Studio 2010, Fx 4 Beta 2 Training Kit

2009-10-26T01:09:00Z

Hopefully by now you've heard Visual Studio 2010 and Fx 4 Beta have shipped, if you live in Oz and not an MSDN subscriber then the best place to download it from is http://www.microsoft.com/australia/visualstudio/default.mspx.

If you are feeling a bit nervous about installing on your base machine then install it in a Virtual Machine, it works just fine!!

There is a great set of training resources for Visual Studio 2010 & Fx 4 Beta 2 in the form of the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit and check out http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/ for more great learning materials.

You'll find material covering

What's new for Common Language Runtime
ASP.NET 4
Windows
Windows Workflow
Windows Communication Foundation
Silverlight
Data Access
Parallel Computing
Extensibility Framework
Application Lifecycle Management

so check it out and get up to speed fast with the Visual Studio 2010 and Fx 4 Beta 2!!

Ohhh, lol, I have installed VS2010 Beta 2 on my ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-H with 2 gigs of RAM, running Windows 7, that plus TFS 2010 B2 Basic - ok, it's not going to set any speed records but useable and fun for trying stuff out esp when you are on the move.

Cheers Dave

Experience the Zermatt region, Switzerland, with this Windows 7 Touch Solution, inc the help of Silverlight and Deepzoom

2009-10-16T04:20:07Z

Wow, just spotted this amazing solution utilising Windows 7 Touch and Silverlight 3 with Deepzoom.

Check out http://rubrik.ch.msn.com/reportagen/zermatt.aspx and click on the Info button and read how it was created, stunning!!

Yes, it works with a mouse too if you don't have Windows 7 with a Touch display (or for that matter Windows 7), but yeah, the experience is not as immersive!!

Check out the Windows 7 Training kit if you want to build amazing stuff too!!

Cheers Dave

Western Australian 2009 Daylight Saving Changes Updated 28 September 2009

2009-10-01T02:19:32Z

original posting at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/bb821275.aspx

On 16 May, Western Australians rejected by referendum a proposal to extend their trial of daylight savings. As a result there will be no daylight savings in WA this year or for the foreseeable future.

This change will affect Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office Outlook and other Microsoft, third party and custom applications, which are currently programmed to adjust their clocks on 25 October 2009. However, we have taken important steps to help you proactively address the issue.

The Australia 2009 Daylight Saving Planning Guide provides detailed guidance on preparing Microsoft solutions in complex environments for changes in daylight saving. Click on the links below to download the document in your preferred format:

What is the impact of Daylight Savings changes?
Effects can range from the incorrect time display on the clock, to calendaring problems, to changes in business critical services that are time dependent.

What is affected?

All Microsoft Windows PC, server and mobile devices in the affected time zones must be updated to ensure accuracy of internal time zone tables and correct operation of the system clock.
Microsoft Office Outlook calendars may need to be adjusted. Client and Server-based tools are available to automate this service.
Microsoft, third party and custom applications which schedule events at future dates should be reviewed to ensure they will operate correctly from 25 October onwards. Previously scheduled events may also need to be adjusted.

What do I need to do?
Thorough planning and testing for these changes is critical to ensure the change results in minimal user impact, so to help customers prepare Microsoft has developed the Australia 2009 Daylight Saving Planning document which details the nature and impact of the DST changes, along with planning guidance to avoid user impact.

What if the systems have been previously patched?
Where servers, workstations and mobile devices have been added to the infrastructure, organisations will need to audit their environment to ensure all systems are updated according to the organisation's Daylight Savings Plan.

Where the environment does not have a consistent Daylight Savings Time (DST) update level, appointments may have been created with a mix of correct and incorrect DST transition dates.

Going to PDC09 then keep an eye out for Birds-of-a-Feather

2009-09-30T07:00:17Z

You can find more information at www.pdcbof.com and follow them on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pdcbof

See ya there!!

Cheers Dave

WebsiteSpark Program has launched

2009-09-25T10:24:07Z

In case you missed this on other channels, WebsiteSpark Program has arrived and you can find more details at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/09/24/announcing-the-websitespark-program.aspx and http://blogs.technet.com/jorke/archive/2009/09/24/announcing-websitespark-in-australia.aspx

Also, Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2 has shipped and there is a great selection of applications from the Web App Gallery

Cheers Dave

WARDY IT Solutions win Microsoft Data Management Partner of the Year

2009-09-06T05:32:25Z

At the Australian Partner Conference gala awards dinner last Thursday (Sept 3rd, 09), WARDY IT Solutions was announced as the winner of the Data Management Solutions Partner of the Year. This award was in recognition of their high level of performance in the design and delivery of Microsoft SQL Server solutions supporting customer's mission-critical applications.

The Awards were presented in 30 categories and WARDY IT Solutions was recognised for superior technology and innovation in Data Management Solutions. The Data Management Solutions Partner of the Year award recognises partners who delivered exemplary solutions using Microsoft technologies to address customer business needs and challenges.

Congratulations to Peter and the crew!!

Cheers Dave

Getting started with Windows Mobile 6.5 Widget Development

2009-08-25T12:13:38Z

Nigel was after a few pointers for Widget development for Windows Mobile 6.5, so thought useful to blog as well!!

The model for widget development is similar to that of Apple, Nokia, Opera etc - HTML, JavaScript, CSS - the platform APIs differ for example persisting setting, creating enus etc, but same concepts.

Developing Widgets for Windows Mobile 6.5
Getting started with widgets on Windows Mobile 6.5
Useful info on setting up dev environment - important thing is that the 6.5 is a developers toolkit and must be installed after the 6.0 refresh SDKs - see blog item... SDK, DTK, DRK: WTF?!
Nick Randolph's blog at Nick's .NET Travels - lots of great stuff on Widget Development...
And get yourself signed up on Codemasons site - The Codemasons' Guild
The W3C spec for widgets is at Widgets 1.0: Requirements

Cheers Dave

Excellent Windows 7 Compatibility Video and get the Green Light

2009-08-14T08:57:21Z

This is time well spent, check out the Windows 7 Compatibility training session.

Some of the resources referenced are

and finally head to over to "Give your application the green light", get yourself registered, it's free, stacks of resources and support, get ready and get your application in to the online catalogue in time for the Windows 7 Launch on October 22nd.

Cheers Dave

My Lenovo T61p Setup Experience plus info on installing the nVidia Quadro 570M Graphics Driver

2009-08-13T08:14:04Z

I've been running the released version of Windows 7 64 bit on my Lenovo T61p for over a week now, it's rock solid and fast!! Setup was very straight forward but alas for now Windows Update did not install the nVidia Quadro 570M Graphics Driver for me automatically, a bit annoying!! Anyways, simple enough to fix - see below.

Standard Windows 7 Install
Apply Windows Update updates
If Windows Update doesn't detect the nVidia Quadro 570M Graphics Card then go to http://catalog.update.microsoft.com, install the ActiveX control and then search for the "nvidia quadro 570m windows 7" driver - make sure you get the driver that matches your CPU Architecture - x86 or AMD64 for 64bit.

Download the appropriate CAB, create a folder somewhere, double click on the CAB to open, copy all the files from the CAB to the folder you just created and the run setup from the newly created folder...
If Aero is not enabled (which it almost certainly wont be after the graphics driver update) then from the control panel search box type "fix" without quotes and select "Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects" and run the wizard.
Optimise Disk Access - from device manager, select hard disk, properties and check the "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device" option as below. This is just a me thing, always do it, read the warning etc.
Install Windows Virtual PC Release Candidate

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Install Windows Virtual PC RC (Release candidate is the best current version for Windows 7 RTM). Install Windows XP Mode RC if you want to support Windows XP and integrate application in to the Windows 7 Shell - see http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/1/B/51BF59CD-8C09-4153-8C60-F801F6FF59EA/Windows%20Virtual%20PC%20and%20Windows%20XP%20Mode%20RC%20Installation%20Guide.mht

See http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/08/04/windows-virtual-pc-and-win-xp-mode-rc-now-available.aspx for more info on Windows Virtual PC

Virtual Disk Boot is well worth investigating - see http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/08/01/virtual-hard-disk-getting-started-guide-download-now-available.aspx
Download the Lenovo Function Button Utility for Bluetooth and Wifi from http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-68000 . Run the download file to unpack the driver then navigate to the setup directory and run setup to install the driver. I didn't install the Display Magnifier - there is one built in to Windows 7. This is the only other Lenovo driver I manually installed, I follow the less is more principle when setting up my system...
Loaded up my favourite Windows 7 Desktop Theme Pack - http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/archive/2009/01/25/my-windows-7-theme-pack.aspx, but yeah the themes in the box rock too!!
Added in my preferred Windows 7 Federated Search Connectors - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/742-windows-7-search-federation-providers.html
Add the Outlook Federated Search Connector (you need Office SP2 Installed) - from "Search Programs and Files" search off the start menu type "Searches" (no speech marks), select the "Searched" folder and drag and drop the Microsoft Outlook Connector to your Windows Explorer favourites. I renamed to Outlook.
I've come to prefer the Taskbar pinned to the left side of the screen - habit carried over from my ASUS Eee PC 1000H netbook. To do this right mouse click on the Taskbar, select properties and the set the Taskbar location on screen option.
Installed Office 2007, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Express and Developer Editions, Office Communicator, blah blah blah and fully service packed.
Create a Windows 7 Windows Virtual PC Image and installed Office 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 betas and pinned them to my Windows 7 host Taskbar - love it, seamless and all beta stuff running in separate environment

Cheers Dave

Expression 3 Starter Kits

2009-08-13T06:18:42Z

Follow these links to download the Expression 3 Starter Kits:-

Prototyping with SketchFlow Starter Kit [link...]
Venture Into Gaming Expression Blend 3 Starter Kit [link...]
Silverlight Support Web 3 Starter Kit [link...]
Expression Web 3 Super Preview Starter Kit [link...]

And for more info on Expression then check out http://www.microsoft.com/expression/

Developing for Windows Mobile Webcast and Useful Links

2009-07-17T06:51:12Z

Useful links from today’s www.codemasons.com.au Windows Mobile Developer Session

Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit has SHIPPED
Note, you must first install the Windows Mobile SDK 6.x pro/Std from here.

Application Architecture Guide 2.0

patterns & practices: Mobile Client

SMS Voter 3.0 Meets Software plus Services

MemMaker for the .NET Compact Framework

SharpZipLib

Idempotence

Readify to run .NET Developer Training in Darwin!!

2009-07-13T03:21:13Z

I often hear from folk in smaller cities in Oz that there is limited access to solid training!! So great news from the guys from Readify in conjunction with Crimson!!

If you live in or near Darwin or know someone who does then be sure to let them know about these training opportunities!!

Crimson Courses	Dates
5 day professional .NET 3.5	August 10-14
Visual Studio ® 2008 ASP.NET3.5 (6463A)	August 18-19
Visual Studio ® 2008 ADO.NET 3.5 (6464A)	August 20-21
Implementing a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (5061A)	August 31-September 2

Cheers Dave

Silverlight Designer and Developer Network, Melb, June 30th, @shanemo and SketchFlow, not to be missed!!

2009-06-30T04:16:50Z

If you are a designer or a developer then make sure you make this SDDN event, tonight, Tuesday the 30th of June in Melbourne.

Blend 3 and SketchFlow absolutely rocks and it'll be time well spent!!

What's on?

Sketch Flow: Don't know what SketchFlow is? Then read this!. Okay, now tell me you dont want Shane Morris, Microsoft UX Evangelist, to run through it live!

Expression Blend 3 - What's new? Expression Blend 3 improves upon the goodness of Blend 2 SP 1 by providing a whole heap of new features and more importantly, the ability to create applications for Silverlight 3. The list of new enhancements is long - Lots of improvements to the way you use the tool, Improvements to how XAML, C# and VB.NET files are edited, Support for importing Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files, Skinning enhancements, Enhancements for animation, Sample data generation, etc, etc.

Mahesh Krishnan will run through these changes in a fast demo based session (without using Powerpoint!) The session is targeted at both Designers and Developers, so don't miss out

When and Where?

The date and time: Tuesday June 30 at 5:30 PM for a 6:00 PM start.
The venue is Microsoft Theatre, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank.

Attendance is FREE, but please RSVP by entering your details in the registration tool on the site (http://www.sddn.org.au) or send an email to info@sddn.org.au.
Pizza will be provided to keep those tummies from rumbling.

Who will this group interest?

The focus of the group is not just on developers. Traditionally developers have had great community support, whereas designers not so much. now that Silverlight 2 is out we plan to change this.

Silverlight is as interesting for developers as it is for designers. Due in part to Silverlight's excellent separation of design and development concerns we have new problems to solve around finding the best ways to work together.

To this end the SDDN will facilitate an ongoing discussion and promote the development of ideas and best practices for anyone who works with Silverlight.

To register interest head over to http://www.sddn.org.au. Use the registration tool in the header of the site. Registering your interest helps us organise the meetings (and order the right amount of pizza)!

CodeCampSA is happening the weekend of July 18-19th 2009

2009-06-22T14:59:15Z

Yeeh hah, the guys in Adelaide are pulling CodeCampSA together, it should be a great few days, so make sure you mark out the days in your diary and get along, meet new people, catch up with mates and learn a new trick or two!! The event is free of charge and is being held at UniSA's City West campus (Between North Tce and Hindley St, Adelaide, South Australia).

For more information keep an eye on http://www.codecampsa.com/

Cheers Dave