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July 2007 - Posts

Thursday, July 26, 2007 11:22 PM

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 is complete and available for download

You can find the details at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/vstudio/default.aspx . It is feature complete (yey!) and we have even created a go-live license to go along with it. Also well worth heading over to Channel 9 to hear Somasegar and Scott Guthrie
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Thursday, July 26, 2007 11:05 PM

I am part of the problem - I turned off UAC. I feel bad...

I have been using Windows Vista for ....hmmm, a very long time. During that period I have demonstrated User Account Control many times - to mixed reception. Some folks very much welcoming it, others were astonished that we "could inflict such a terrible
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Thursday, July 26, 2007 5:06 PM

TechReady 5 - over half way through- and I think I get LINQ...

Wed evening and we are now over half way through our Technical Readiness training in Seattle. Overall it has been useful, good fun, invigorating (I don't often use that word in a blog post) and has demonstrated to me just how many smart, enthusiastic
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Thursday, July 26, 2007 3:06 AM

Which version of .NET Framework will you get with Windows Server 2008?

In chatting with colleagues today I realised a) we were confused and b) I appeared to be least confused - but not 100% certain. Given I know someone reading this will definitely know for sure - how about I just throw out my 90% certain answer and see
Posted by Eric Nelson | 3 Comments
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:12 AM

How Microsoft Surface Works...

I have mentioned Microsoft Surface to anyone willing to listen - and lots of folks have wanted to know more. Well there is a lot more to be found at www.popularmechanics.com - including a great video and a great diagram showing the 5 cameras! Check out
Posted by Eric Nelson | 1 Comments
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:00 AM

Happy Birthday Microsoft Research Cambridge

I'm a little late - but it reached 10 years old last week. The folks in MRC have produced some amazing stuff - and to mark their 10 years they have produced a short video about some of their work which is also showing on British Airways on demand video
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007 12:48 AM

Windows Server 2008 Developer Training Kit released

Last week my colleagues in the server evangelism team published the Windows Server 2008 Developer Kit for beta 3 to the Microsoft.com download center. This kit contains the 15 presentations and 7 hands-on labs that we originally developed for the Longhorn
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 12:42 AM

Want to understand if your company is Vista or 2007 Office System capable?

I was reminded this week that a lot of folks are still struggling to understand if their hardware is capable of running our latest product releases - which must only mean they have not heard of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool. WVHA is an agent-less
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 12:35 AM

300 or should I say 500

I am in Seattle in the USA attending our twice yearly Technical Readiness conference - TechReady 5. That would be me and several thousand other folks from Singapore, Poland, China, Germany, USA, Peru etc. On the flight out I had my first taste of BAs
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007 12:01 AM

When to use LINQ, when not to use LINQ?

One of my goals this week while I am in the US is to get closer to the answer to the above - by attending LINQ sessions, talking to product folks, talking to my colleagues and.... having a good old browse around the internet. The following post from Adam
Posted by Eric Nelson | 2 Comments
Monday, July 23, 2007 12:12 AM

UK ISV delivers MDX Query Builder control

A month or so back I was lucky enough to find myself in a SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence lab with Andrew Wiles of IT Workplace ( http://www.it-workplace.com ). Andrew was working on their new MDX control which they have now released as a product
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Saturday, July 21, 2007 11:29 PM

Ever fancied a job in marketing.... ISV Super Gal

I suspect a small number of you came across our Developer Action Figures . I suspect most of you do not :-) But.... what was missing was a character for our many ISVs out there. Announcing ISV Super Gal (I kid you not!).
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Saturday, July 21, 2007 11:04 PM

Visual Studio Team System and Windows Live Hotmail

Ever wonder what it’s like to build and test a Web site which has to scale to over 260 million customers? This technical case study details how the Windows Live Hotmail team used the testing capabilities of Visual Studio Team System to ensure that the
Posted by Eric Nelson | 4 Comments
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Saturday, July 21, 2007 10:49 PM

SaaS and Workflow for real

Two areas I have spent a fair bit of time on in the last 6 months are SaaS and Workflow Foundation . Workflow Foundation is a great technology that seems to fit well into the SaaS world of "configuring business processes" - which is one reason why Workflow
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Saturday, July 21, 2007 7:21 PM

As an aside: Strings are often not strings

In my travels with ISVs I get to see a lot of code. A lot of code solving similar issues in similar ways. One such challenge is the dynamic construction of SQL. In all these examples the same approach was taken - build a string by appending many other
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Saturday, July 21, 2007 6:15 PM

Heathrow - wish I had brought my brolly (and a small boat)

On Friday I headed out to the USA for our internal technical readiness conference - TechReady. Which leads me to my trip to Heathrow. This became a 2 hour drive at 50mph in heavy rain throughout the journey, followed by a 20 minute float around Heathrow
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Tuesday, July 17, 2007 7:47 AM

Microsoft Software + Services Partner Opportunity Paper

I spotted an interesting paper on opportunities for partners on our partner site. It gives a decent summary of our S+S strategy (which combines the best of on-demand with the best of on-premise) before then talking about the impact and opportunity for
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Thursday, July 12, 2007 11:58 AM

Does Microsoft create amazing technology - you bet it does!

I often get hit with "Microsoft only copies the stuff that other people have already invented". Well - I think there are clear examples of our being second (or third or fourth or...) to market - but I also think we do some great original stuff out of
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Thursday, July 12, 2007 11:48 AM

ISVs moving off VB6 - I see a trend forming

The majority of the ISVs I meet are doing .NET managed code development...... and VB6 unmanaged code development. The reasons are pretty obvious - many of the applications sold today by ISVs in the UK were initially architected 7, 8, 9 or 10 years back
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007 9:34 AM

Launch dates for Windows Server, Visual Studio and SQL

At last we have dates! At the Worldwide Partner Conference we announced the date for the joint launch of SQL Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 - February 27th. The main event will be held in Los Angeles but there will be hundred
Posted by Eric Nelson | 0 Comments
Wednesday, July 11, 2007 9:27 AM

I'm back after a very pleasant holiday

In the words of The Dr, "Did you miss me?" . (Ok ... no need to answer - I suspect I know the answer already) Now ... straight back into a spot of blogging. Watch this space...
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