Microsoft Ireland Blog

We now offer a BizSpark logo program for Network Partners and Startups (see NP home page screenshot below). You simply need to log in to your home page, accept the logo agreement and you can use the BizSpark logo in your Marketing Materials.

Here are the examples of the Startup and Network Partner Logos

SQL Academy is returning this week, bringing you a SQL Server Analysis Services session by Bob Duffy on June 26th. 

SSAS 101 – Training Overview

This Session in an Introduction to Data Modelling and Analysis Services 2008 with a focus on people who are experienced with the SLQ Server database engine but may be newer to Analysis Services. We will be running through the basics of modern dimensional modally theory as applicable to SQL 2008 and then an end to end demonstration of building Analysis Services Cubes using Visual Studio 2008.

In addition we will be announcing some of the exciting BI enhancements being released shortly such as Project Gemini and other enhancements in SQL 2008R2.

Agenda
o Dimensional Modelling 101
o SSAS Cube Building 101
o SQL 2008 R2 roadmap – Awareness

See the full agenda here.

When: Friday 26^th June, 10.30pm – 14.30pm
Where: European Development Centre, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18. See http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/contact/ for a map.

Click here to register now for this event.

Applications are now being accepted for the very successful Dublin Institute of Technology Hothouse Venture Program.  Hothouse is an annual incubation programme for 16 graduate entrepreneurs to provide them with support, training, workspace, networking, business counselling and more. 

The deadline for this year’s applications is July 31st, and the programme begins in September. 

For more information, visit http://www.dit.ie/hothouse. 

There is an 'Intelligent Outsourcing' seminar and networking lunch on the 2nd July at the Digital Exchange in Dublin. This is a forum bringing together a number of Irish software companies with six of of the leading Microsoft Gold Certified Partners from Sri Lanka.

The forum will explore areas of common interest between the Irish and Sri Lankan companies - looking at opportunities to partner for the Irish/European markets (from a blended costings/ extended capabilities perspective etc) but equally to look to partnering for growth opportunities for Irish companies in the dynamic and growth-oriented South Asian markets. The event is supported by Chambers Ireland.

The attached brochure contains full details.

You can register online at http://tinyurl.com/nq8kun

Details of the event can also be seen at www.BusinessSriLanka.com and the profiles of the Sri Lankan companies can be seen at:

www.tinyurl.com/m93s2z

I am thrilled to confirm a couple of additional talks for MIX Essentials next week on June 24th in the Dublin Hilton Hotel.  If you haven’t yet registered for MIX Essentials, you can do so here: http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/mix09.

Daniel Mellgaard Frost is joining us from Denmark and share his expertise in ASP.NET, MVC, Azure development and even more.  The additional talks are as follows:

ASP.NET and MVC

ASP.NET MVC is a fairly new web application framework that allows the developer to very close to what the web can offer you.  Daniel is going to take you back in time to see what the differences are, from the good old ASP classic days, to ASP.NET webforms, to Microsoft’s latest ASP.NET framework.  You will get a feeling of how MVC works, and why you should use it. There will be some code for you to take home and work on.

Where Next with Windows Azure: Storage and even PHP with Azure!

Windows Azure is Microsoft’s cloud based operating system. With Azure you can host different types of web applications, plug into a broad suite of services, save data and a lot more.  Daniel has build a small solution that shows how the storage model in Windows Azure works and at the same time how you can use the Microsoft technology stack to interact with this model.

We have had a lot of requests for MVC talks as well as interop talks for web development with Azure Services, so I know I’m not the only one thrilled about these additions.

You can find a full agenda on the MIX Essentials site as well as more details and registration information: http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/mix09.  See you at MIX!

The very famous Kathleen Dollard is visiting Ireland!  Kathleen, who is well known for her book Code Generation in .NET, her “Ask Kathleen” column in Visual Studio Magazine, and much more, is doing a tour of Ireland and the UK.

She will be speaking at user group events in both Dublin and Cork as well as at the MIX Essentials event next week, and while she’s here she’ll be covering a variety of topics.  Kathleen is a fabulous speaker and you definitely need to make sure you attend one of her sessions.

Dublin MTUG: Windows Presentation Foundation: Beyond the Bling (200 level)
Wednesday, June 24th at 7:30pm
Dublin Hilton Hotel, Charlemont Place, D2 (right next to the Green Luas Charlemont stop)
Register: http://www.damtug.mtug.ie/Events/EventInfo.aspx?ID=524bded0-b3e7-42de-965f-793a1fbf7dfe

Abstract:
Have you seen Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) portrayed as a way to spin photos on cubes and wondered what this had to do with you? Windows Presentation Foundation does take us into a new realm of graphics, but it also offers a radical new UI model that's well worth exploring. This session focuses on how you can use WPF to make business user interfaces. We'll focus on the underlying model and separation of UI into discrete pieces that can be expressed in different ways. We'll build UI's with grids and stack panels for layout and explore databinding, templates and triggers. You'll see how to create an application that's logically organized and you can customize both in look and feel on a global basis -either to customize for individual clients or to keep your application looking fresh through future UI fashion changes.

Cork MTUG:  .NET 4.0 Language and IDE Features (200 level) 
Thursday, June 25th at 7:00pm
Imperial Hotel, Cork
Register: http://cork.mtug.ie/Events/EventInfo.aspx?ID=335a3f52-30ef-4b2b-a3fa-2ff405a98df5

Abstract:
Unveiling the next version of .NET lays out new language features building on the trend increasing the dynamic characteristics of C# and VB.NET. New language features will fall into categories of new features to support the current drivers, cross-over of features between the languages, and IDE improvements to ease your programming experiences. The current drivers for the languages are declarative coding, dynamic programming and concurrency. You'll see how a vision of the languages is evolving from these driving forces - building on the dynamic features separately developed for LINQ and in the DLR. You'll also see how the combined language team is balancing distinction and parity in areas such as late binding, XML and lambda expressions. The next release will present a major overhaul of Visual Studio itself. This offers exciting possibilities for improving your coding and debugging experience, including changes to document mapping and visualizing the structure of your object models and code dependencies. You'll leave knowing what you can look forward to in the next version, as well as a better feel for the overall direction of the languages.

MIX Essentials: The Challenge of Silverlight Architectures (300 level)
Wednesday, June 24th at 2:30pm (Conference runs from 9:30am-5:00pm)
Dublin Hilton Hotel, Charlemont Place, D2 (right next to the Green Luas Charlemont stop)
Register: http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/mix09

Abstract:  
Silverlight represents a sweet spot between rich client WPF and WinForms applications and the ease of web deployment. Now that .NET code runs on the browser client, we’re confronted with the many differences between the two versions of the CLR. A valid question arises about what code should run on the client. This talk looks at the mechanics of the problem – how to reuse code across the two platforms, how to pass data between the platforms, and how to support databinding. Then it launches into issues of validation, authorization and calculations. You’ll see a DTO (Data Transfer Object) approach and understand the alternative mobile object solution and touch on some of the great support for visualizing data using the Visual State Manager. This talk presents Silverlight from the perspective of a rich client programmer demanding all the functionality and ease of coding inherent in the stateful, intelligent Silverlight model.

The .NET Coffee Break series from Developers.ie is back.  Next up is Dino Esposito doing a talk on what’s new in ASP.NET 4.0.

Dino is the author of Programming ASP.NET 3.5 Core Reference (Microsoft Press, 2008) and other best-selling books such as Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise (Microsoft Press, 2008) and ASP.NET AJAX: Architecting Web Applications (Microsoft Press, 2009). He's also the author of the "Cutting Edge" column on MSDN Magazine and a frequent speaker at industry events worldwide, including Microsoft TechEd, DevConnections and in Europe, DevWeek and Basta.

What's New in ASP.NET 4.0

The key words to understand what's new in the overall ASP.NET 4.0 platform are "more control."  ASP.NET 4.0 is neither revolution nor refactoring of the architecture. It consists, instead, of a good number of small-scale changes that all go in the direction of providing developers with much more control of certain frequently used features of the existing framework. For example, ASP.NET 4.0 Web Forms will give you more control over the viewstate management, the generation of ID in the context of data-bound controls, the HTML generated by some template-based controls. In addition, you find new families of pluggable components for features that weren't supporting the provider model in earlier versions of ASP.NET and a finer control over the linking of external script files through the ScriptManager control. And this is just for Web Forms. In addition, there's a bunch of new extensions for client-side rendering of AJAX pages. Not a revolution, but enough to write better applications more comfortably.

Where: At your own desk!
When: This will be broadcast live on Thursday 18th of June at 11:00am (Irish time!)
How: All the connection details to the show will be sent to you a few days prior to the start of the webcast.
Cost: This event is free but you need to register by following this link http://www.developers.ie/Webcasts.aspx

As designers and developers know, it’s so critical to stay up to date on the latest technology, newest tools and ideas to keep yourself, your ideas and your applications fresh.

MIX Essentials, happening in Dublin on Wednesday June 24th is all about that.

We’ve got a two-track day, full of amazing and highly respected speakers from all over Europe to update you on new tools and techniques.

Hear from local design stars like Sabrina Dent on the Stalinist Web Design Model and Leeanne Lowe on Guerilla Web Strategy.  Learn about Silverlight 3 from the UK’s Mike Taulty.  See Expression Blend 3 & the new SketchFlow tool with User Experience expert Martin Tirion from the Netherlands.  Check out SuperPreview and the developer tools in Internet Explorer 8 with architect advisor Cormac Keogh.  Head of Microsoft Ireland’s BizSpark program, Ronan Geraghty, will be talking about the Azure Services platform and how to take advantage of it.  And WPF experts Kathleen Dollard and Ian Griffiths show us how to take advantage of the power of WPF for desktop applications.

You can register now for this FREE event at http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/mix09.

WHO: Developers, Designers, Business Decision Makers and anyone who is building or wants to build exciting & interactive web and desktop applications. 
WHERE: Hilton Dublin Hotel, Charlemont Place, Dublin 2
WHEN: Wednesday June 24th, 9:30am – 5:00pm
WHAT: See more on the agenda at http://www.microsoft.com/ireland/mix09/register.html 

See you at MIX Essentials!

I noticed this event coming to Limerick in June and wanted to give it a mention as I think a lot of people would benefit from this schedule of Ireland’s top experts in social media & online networking.

According to the overview, topics included are as follows:

* Bernard Goldbach: Using Twitter effectively
* Fred Caballero: Video-blogging on the go: A face says more than a thousand words.
* Krishna De: Linkedin: How to build a good Linkedin profile and how to get the most benefit from it.
* Peter Donegan: How I and my business have benefited from blogging.
* Campbell Scott: IGOpeople, Irelands premier online network.

The day’s format is talks in the morning, lunch at the Absolute Hotels restaurant, and then an afternoon hands-on workshop for attendees.

There are only 40 places available for this event, so if you’re interested, click here to register today.

I’m late on this one but figured it was worth posting as it’s today and tomorrow.  If I hadn’t been in the US for the last week, I would definitely be up at the University of Ulster right now with some serious XNA experts.

The Microsoft XNA Academic Summit (XNAFEST 2009) will be held at the University of Ulster, Magee Campus on the 28th-29^th May 2009. The summit is for academics currently using or considering using XNA as part of a video games course and the event will provide practical advice, tutorials and demonstrations from educators and industrial experts in this area.

We have an international line up of speakers from United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and Ireland speaking at the event. The speakers have a wealth of industry and educational experience using XNA which they will share over the 2 days.

To see the detailed schedule for the 2 day XNAFEST please visit http://www.xnafest.

If interested in attending please register at http://www.xnafest.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17&Itemid=11.

April 30th was a very competitive day in Dublin.  Students from around Ireland competed in Microsoft’s annual Imagine Cup competition at the Science Gallery in Trinity College.

The Imagine Cup is a contest open to students all around the world.  Winners from each country go on to the finals which in 2009 are in Cairo, Egypt.  There are several different competitions such as software design, embedded development, game development, robotics, and a lot more.  The theme for this year is "Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems facing us today"  focusing on the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

The entries for Ireland’s software design final included a wide variety of solutions such as nutrition guides, surgery practice tools, tools to assist learning, and a lot more.  The competition was quite steep. 

The third prize went to IT Sligo team MediKnight.  MediKnight’s solution was for connecting doctors and those working in health care in developing countries to those with more experience to share solutions and knowledge.

Second prize also went to an IT Sligo team – AmazEd built a really interesting solution to allow kids to learn math using a Lego NXT robot with an Xbox 360 controller.

Finally, the first prize was awarded to Trinity College’s team Trinity Sight.  Trinity Sight developed a training tool for surgeons to practice removing cataracts.  As they explained in their presentation, various countries in Africa needlessly suffer from increased blindness due to the prevalence of cataracts.  Their solution can help train more surgeons to remove them safely.  Trinity Sight will head to Cairo in July to compete with students from all over the world.

I had a great time at the Imagine Cup finals, and the Science Gallery was a great venue for this as they currently have their excellent “Infectious” exhibition on.  The students were incredibly inspiring, and their enthusiasm is highly contagious.  I am looking forward to cheering on team Trinity Sight in Cairo along with other Irish students in the additional Imagine Cup competition categories.

Irish Imagine Cup teams have done quite well in the finals for the past few years, with teams like Team signal, Team parkIT and Team Acid Rain who have gone on to compete internationally.  We have high hopes for Trinity Sight this summer!

My pictures of the event are posted here: Irish Imagine Cup Finals 2009 (Set)

For those of you who haven’t heard yet, the Windows 7 Release Candidate went public today.  This download will be made available at least until June 2009.  The 32 and 64 bit versions are available in five languages: English, German, Japanese, French and Spanish.

You can pick the version you’d like & download it from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-ie/evalcenter/dd353271(en-us).aspx.

Developers, the Windows 7 RC SDK is also available, and you can get that here: Windows 7 RC SDK.

I have been running Windows 7 since January on my machines at home and at work, and I’ve been really pleased with the operating system overall.  I especially love that it works so great on my 1GB Samsung NC-10 Netbook.

There is a lot of excellent information out there right now on Windows 7.  Here are some that I recommend:

Engineering 7 blog – Engineering 7 talks about the ins and outs of Windows 7, how it was designed & built, and useful features and information.  For example, today’s post was on Support and Q&A for Solid State Drives.

Windows 7 for Developers blog -  For developers wanting to build applications for Windows 7, ensure compatibility, or understand the APIs and capabilities of the platform, this is your home.

Talking about Windows – Talking about Windows is new and has videos and conversations for IT Pros with the Windows 7 engineering team.  It provides a platform for people to ask questions and get answers regarding Win7.

The Windows Team Blog – This is an aggregation of a variety of blogs around Windows, some of which I mentioned above.  It also includes information for businesses, information on Windows Live, and more.

I spent this past weekend in Donegal, where my friends and I came across a really neat stone circle outside of Raphoe.  It was crying out to be Photosynthed.  I stood in the centre of the circle, taking a lot of photos. 

After uploading them to Photosynth, I noticed a few great new features that I wanted to share. 

Make Unlisted

A feature people ask me about all the time is privacy: “How can I keep my Photosynth content private?”  There hasn’t been a way to do this – all synths are public.  However, a feature was added to get your synth unlisted.  You now have the option when you create a synth to make it public, searchable and visible to everyone or to make it unlisted, where only people to whom you give the link can see the synth.

Change Orientation

After uploading this synth, I noticed many of the photos were slightly tilted.  This had never happened to me before, and I really wanted the opening photograph to be straight.  By clicking “Edit Synth and Highlights” you can edit settings on your synth like orientation, starting image, and the order of the slideshow (whether you want the slideshow to go by filename or by proximity).

Highlights

After fixing the orientation, I took a look at the tab called Highlights.  This is a new, cool idea to give photographers the chance to point out some highlights of the synth, and show off the really good and special photos.  Then you can order the highlights however you like and let people browse them.  You can also add titles and captions to the photos.

Silverlight Cross-Platform Viewer

People on Macs can get excited because there is now a cross-platform viewer so that people from a variety of platforms can enjoy Photosynths.  Previously, the Direct 3D viewer did not allow for cross-platform viewing, but I’m thrilled that now more people can participate in the Photosynth community.  The controls were also updated in the Silverlight version of the viewer, so they’re a bit more useful now as well.

For more neat features and updates, keep an eye on the Photosynth blog.

Oh, and if you want to check out the Beltany Stone Circle, be my guest (don’t worry, I changed it back to public for you).

June 15^th-19^th 2009

New Horizons, Strand House 22-24 Strand Street Great Dublin

This is a set of half day and full day workshops where participants will have the opportunity to test their application for compatibility with the most recent publicly available version of Windows 7. You will also receive valuable guidance on how to address compatibility issues discovered during testing. This is a great opportunity to test your applications on Windows 7, but there is limited availability so be sure to get on board early to get your preferred time slot.

Who should participate in a Windows 7 Remediation Workshop?

Software vendors may send 1-2 individuals to participate in the half day workshop (for Vista compatible apps) or full day workshop (for XP compatible apps). These individuals should be intimately familiar with the design of the application being tested and should be prepared to work with the workshop staff to execute the technical aspects of the testing process.

Software developers, database administrators and testers are all good candidates to represent your company at the workshop.

Please note:

· You will need to bring your application(s) to be loaded on our secure Windows test platform in a private developer lab environment for testing and debugging application issues.

· Prior to participating in the workshop, it would be advisable to go through the Windows 7 Application Compatibility Cookbook

A dedicated consultant will be on hand to support participants in investigating application compatibility, and give architectural guidance.

Please contact me directly for more details and to reserve a slot.