Jerome Carron's Weblog

realDEVELOPMENT_06 just around the corner

2006-05-24T12:53:00Z

The response to the realDEVELOPMENT_06 tour has been incredible. All the venues are pretty much completely full and we are putting the finishing touches on our presentations and demos. I'm really looking forward to this tour because Web 2.0 is such an interesting and dynamic area.

If you haven't seen the agenda here's a recap. The first part of the day will focus on web development within the context of Web 2.0. Why you should care about Web 2.0 and how can Microsoft help you today. It's not all futures, there are specific things you can do today to enhance the interactivity and responsiveness of your Web applications.

The afternoon will focus on security. Security is part of everything we do and this is no different. Whether you plan to take advantage of the latest Web 2.0 technologies or whether you are building some new web applications, security should be at the core of everything you do.

Scott Howlett and I will be presenting the first part of the day in Ottawa and Toronto. Hope to see you there!

Developer Night in Canada

2006-05-02T07:00:00Z

I just finished recording my first Developer Night in Canada that John Bristowe has created. We did it over the phone as John is in Calgary with some very cool podcasting equipment he has setup and I'm hoping he's going post a blog entry detailing his setup. In any event if you haven't had a chance to listen to some of these, I encourage you to do so. You can find the links to the different episodes on John's blog or check out the Canadian Developer's blog.

DevTeach la semaine prochaine a Montréal!

2006-05-02T07:00:00Z

La semaine prochaine je vais faire un petit tour à Montréal pour participer à DevTeach. Et si vous allez a DevTeach, venez me dire bonjour avant, après ou même pour quoi pas pendant une de mes deux présentations. A cet instant même je prépare : « Création de gadgets pour Live.com et Vista » et « Création d’applications pour Windows Mobile 5.0 »

A la semaine prochaine!

realDEVELOPMENT_06 Tour - Exploring Web 2.0 technologies

2006-03-31T12:29:00Z

If you're wondering what all the buzz is around Web 2.0 technologies and these technologies can help you build better, more immersive browser based applications then make sure you sign up for the realDEVELOPMENT_06 tour.

John Bristowe, Dan Sellers, and I along with Regional Director Kate Gregory, and Regional Director Scott Howlett will be going across Canada on a 5 city tour showcasing these very technologies.

Hope to see you there.

VSLive registration discount code TJERO

2006-03-22T18:25:00Z

VSLive is just around the corner in Toronto on April 24^th and I’ll be presenting on Visual Studio 2005 specifically focusing on what’s new in VS 2005. To date I have not seen a lot of content or presentations on what’s new in VS2005 across SQL Development, Windows Development, Web Development, Web Service Development and Mobile Development . I’m planning to spend all my time inside VS2005 and check back on this post over the coming weeks as I post more info on the content.

And if you haven’t registered yet you can take advantage of the following registration code TJERO and get 10% off.

Hope to see you there!

Report from Mix 06 – Day 1

2006-03-21T20:40:00Z

Day 1 ended late but what a day it was. I’m down in Las Vegas at the first ever Mix conference. The conference is very much a conversation with business decision makers, developers and designers on building the next generation of web applications. What does that mean? build the next wave of rich, compelling and immersive applications composed of and using the Web as a core data provider.

One interesting fact I wanted to share with you. Canadian attendees make up the second largest group of attendees at Mix 06. This is both encouraging, and demonstrates that Canada and Canadian companies will play an important role in the development and adoption of Web 2.0 technologies.

The opening keynote was provided by Bill Gates and he didn’t use any slides. He highlighted the key themes for the conference and supported these with some fabulous demos. First the CTO from MySpace.Com highlighted that myspace.com is the second most visited site on the internet (I don’t think he mentioned who the first was) and it runs on Microsoft .Net and SQL Server 2005. They demonstrated some very cool capabilities that they are working on to provide their members with incredible flexibility in personalized profiles(ASP.Net 2.0/Atlas). He also showed a gadget they’ve built for Windows Vista that sits in the Windows Sidebar and is connected to a user’s personalized space – a user can see pictures, RSS feeds and all sorts of other information connected through a set of web services back to MySpace.com.

One of the key opportunities for Windows Vista is the ability for developers to build richer more immersive applications. The next demo was by BBC and it definitely delivers on this promise. Everyone I spoke to later on in the day was definitely wowed by the demo. Both demos highlighted two key things 1) Windows Vista and Gadgets are going to allow companies/web properties to extend the *stickiness* of their sites and 2) Windows Vista in the hands of people who make their living in the digital media space have a platform to build incredibly immersive applications.

I encourage you to take a look at the videos and podcasts from Mix 06.

Bill’s keynote closed out with a Q&A between he and Tim O’Reilly. Tim posted the questions he plan to asked Bill here and answers. Some interesting remarks:

- Microsoft is working harder than ever to be user centric

- What are we doing about releasing incremental versions of our products? You can shorter product release cycles for things like Live.com or Internet Explorer but products like SQL Server will still be on a 2 year update cycle because of the sheer size, complexity, testing and reliability a product like SQL server must have. Clearly one size does not fit all

- Is our business model dead? We’ve seen ad supported model come of age and what’s Microsoft’s response to this. Again one size does not fit all. You’ll see an evaluation to a more targeted advertising model/experience.

- Is physical media dead? Bill made a point that the current HD DVD format battle is the last one so enjoy it – the future is the bits will be delivered over the net.

- Web 2.0 is all about network applications being better the more people use them. It is the evolution of the internet as an application platform to which a person in the audience asked: Will internet applications open up such that developers can integrate something like MySpace with the “my space” capabilities demonstrated in the BBC demo. If the data is the “value proposition” then will companies make that data and provide the API’s to get to that data.

- Live clipboard – Bill spoke to the Ray Ozzie’s demo and the notion that sharing data between systems is well understood and the internet will take that paradigm to sharing data between users.

Some final thoughts from day 1.

- Get ready for IE7.

- Look at Atlas and how easy it is to integrate Atlas into existing applications and not just ASP.Net (demonstrated Atlas with PHP)

- Elevate the experience. The technology is there for the most creative to create compelling new applications.

- Great design skills and great development skills come together.

- Evolution of the internet as a platform

- Canadian companies doing great work in the Web 2.0 space:

o illumiCell built the demo that Ken Levy demonstrated on IM bots. I have the chance to speak with Karl Meema the President of illumiCell afterwards and the good folks at Navantis.

o Spent time with the Toronto.Com folks and all the great work they’ve done with .Net and Toronto.com with iMason. Look for more cool stuff from Toronto.com.

One final thought. During the BBC demo it was highlighted that it costs BBC 7 million pounds a year to broadcast a channel over terrestrial lines. It is a factor of 10 less expensive over satellite and another factor of 10 over the internet. Is broadcast TV dead? Can you imagine a world in which HBO sells a subscription over the internet to anyone in the world and watch programs on your PC or on your TV commercial free anytime on any device? Will this change the world of advertising? Already today I don’t watch broadcast TV and use my Windows Media Center to record the shows I like and watch them when I have time or when I’m on a plane. Is a day so far off where the content creator are one step closer to the people consuming the content.

I can’t wait for day 2 and Joe Belfiore’s keynote.

Windows Presentation Foundation ou Atlas?

2006-03-20T20:32:00Z

Qu’est-ce qui intéresse les développeurs canadiens? C’est la question que je me pose toujours. Je ne peux prétendre connaître la réponse, mais j’espère que par le biais de ces articles, nous pourrons entamer un dialogue et répondre à ces questions.

À cette fin, j’aimerais vous parler de quelques conversations que j’ai eues récemment. La semaine dernière, un collègue m’a transmis quelques questions et inquiétudes provenant d’un client, relativement à Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) et à AJAX/Atlas. Quels sont l’engagement et l’orientation de Microsoft quant à ces technologies? Comment faire pour privilégier une technologie plutôt qu’une autre? Et si la stratégie visée est que Windows Presentation Foundation offre une technologie plus étoffée et plus souple pour créer des applications Windows et des applications par navigateur, quelle est la stratégie de Microsoft relativement à la compatibilité multinavigateur?

Voilà assurément des questions intéressantes. Le courriel m’a été adressé et a été envoyé également à d’autres personnes à l’interne. J’ai été surpris du grand nombre de messages engendrés par ces questions. Ma réaction initiale a été d’affirmer que notre position à ce sujet était très claire. Si vous avez besoin de renseignements pour vous aider à différencier les différentes technologies de présentation et à faire un choix, je vous invite à jeter un coup d’œil au blogue de Tim Sneath. Il décrit bien les différentes technologies et vous explique pourquoi vous devriez en favoriser une plutôt que l’autre.

Au-delà du choix de la « bonne » technologie, il faut tenir compte de plusieurs autres aspects. Je ne prétends pas vouloir les couvrir tous, mais j’aimerais souligner quelques points qui semblent susciter beaucoup d’intérêt et de confusion.

Toute solution articulée sur Windows Presentation Foundation nécessite le composant d’exécution WinFX. Ce n’est pas un problème avec Windows Vista, mais cela nécessite une installation sur Windows XP SP2 et sur Windows 2003. S’il s’agit d’une solution sur intranet seulement, vous pourriez disposer d’un meilleur contrôle en déployant le composant d’exécution WinFX. Cela s’applique moins dans le cas d’une solution Internet s’adressant à la clientèle, pour laquelle votre client pourrait choisir ou non d’installer le composant d’exécution.

S’il s’agit effectivement d’une application Internet par navigateur qui s’adresse à la clientèle, vous devez tenir compte de votre public potentiel et songer au problème lié aux solutions multinavigateurs et aux systèmes d’exploitation multiples. Si votre public cible utilise principalement Internet Explorer, il n’y a peut-être pas de problème, mais vous devez quand même voir quelle version d’Internet Explorer et quelle version de Windows sont utilisées.

Une fois que vous avez considéré les aspects du déploiement, avez-vous pensé au développement et à la maintenabilité? Ce sont d’autres points importants, plus particulièrement en raison de l’évolution rapide des applications et des technologies Web.

Si vous avez lu cette chronique jusqu’ici, vous êtes probablement en train de vous dire que tout cela est assez évident, mais il manque quand même quelque chose. La stratégie de Microsoft consiste-t-elle à cibler les applications Web avec WPF pour Windows seulement et AJAX/Atlas pour tout ce qui n’est pas Windows ou Internet Explorer?

C’est ici que Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere entre en jeu. L’objectif de WPF/E est de fournir un sous-ensemble de WPF qui tourne sur des navigateurs et des plates-formes multiples. Nous avons annoncé ce fait l’an dernier lors du Congrès des développeurs professionnels de Microsoft et je m’attends à de nouvelles annonces et à d’autres renseignements sur ce sujet à l’occasion de l’événement Mix 2006. Je pense vraiment que les gens seront agréablement surpris par ce qui sera présenté à Mix 2006. Je suis très impatient d’y assister!

Si vous vous trouvez à Toronto la semaine prochaine, venez nous rencontrer lors de la réunion du groupe d’utilisateurs .NET de Toronto le 16 mars. Nous parlerons de WPF, nous présenterons une application que nous avons créée à partir de zéro et nous vous montrerons ce que nous avons appris pendant ce processus. Et puisque nous avons entendu dire qu’il n’est pas facile de se rendre au bureau de Microsoft à Mississauga, alors nous présenterons le même atelier au groupe d’utilisateurs VB.NET de Toronto et au groupe d’utilisateurs .NET du Toronto métropolitain le 12 avril prochain au centre-ville de Toronto, soit au 200 Bloor St. East (Financière Manuvie).

Si je ne vous vois pas la semaine prochaine, j’espère vous rencontrer à l’occasion de Mix 2006. Vous me trouverez en train de me détendre au bar-salon de Mix!

Atlas and Windows Presentation Foundation

2006-03-11T08:00:00Z

What’s of interest to Canadian Developers? That’s the question I’m always contemplating. I can’t say I know all the answers but I’m hopeful through these postings we can begin a dialog and answers some of those questions.

To that end I want to share some recent conversations. This past week a colleague passed on some questions/concerns from a customer with respect to Windows Presentation Foundation and AJAX/Atlas. What was Microsoft’s commitment and direction on these technologies? How do we go about choosing one technology over the other? And if the strategy is for WPF to provide a richer more versatile technology for building Windows and browser based applications, what’s Microsoft’s strategy with cross-browser support?

All good questions; the email was sent to me and copied one of our internal alias. I was amazed by the amount of traffic this generated. My initial reaction was that our position is quiet clear on this. If you need some insight in differentiating and choosing between the different presentation technologies I encourage you to have a look at Tim Sneath blog post. He does a great highlighting the different technologies and explains why you might choose one technology over the other.

Beyond choosing the *right* technology, there are some other business considerations. I’m certainly not trying to cover all these considerations but highlight some of the ones that seem to generate a lot interest/confusion.

Any solution built on Windows Presentation Foundation requires the WinFX Runtime. This is a non issue for Windows Vista but does require an install on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003. If this is going to be an intranet only solution, you may have more control in deploying the WinFX runtime. This is less the case in a consumer facing internet solution in which your customer may or may not wish to install the runtime.
If this is indeed a consumer facing Internet browser based application you need to consider your potential audience and consider the cross-browser/multiple OS problem. If you’re target audience is predominantly IE then this may not be an issue but you still need to consider what version of IE and what version of Windows.
If you’ve considered the deployment considerations, what about development and maintainability? These are other important considerations especially with the fast pace of change with web based applications and technologies.

If you’ve read to this point, you’re probably saying to yourself this is pretty obvious but still something’s amiss. Is Microsoft’s strategy to target web based application with WPF for Windows only and AJAX/Atlas for non-Windows/IE world?

That’s where Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere comes in. The goal of WPF/E is to provide a subset of WPF that runs cross browser and platform. We announced this at the PDC last year and I expect to see a lot of new information/announcements at Mix 06. I really think people will be pleasantly surprised with some of things that will be showcase at Mix 06. I can’t wait to go to Mix!

And if you’re in Toronto next week, come and see us at the Toronto .Net User Group on March 16^th where we will discuss WPF, showcase an application we wrote from scratch and demonstrate what we learned in doing so. And yes we’re heard the feedback that the Microsoft Office in Mississauga is not easy to get to so we will be doing the same session at the Toronto VB.Net User Group and the Metro Toronto .Net User Group on April 12^th in downtown Toronto at 200 Bloor St East (Manulife Financial).

If I don’t see you next week hope to see you at Mix where you’ll be able to find me lounging around in the Mix lounge!

Follow up from Toronto .Net User Group

2006-02-21T12:09:00Z

Some people have asked about the PowerPoint deck. Ed Musters sent out a note with details but just in case here is the link to the presentation by Ken Wong from Navantis.

See you on the 16th.

Toronto .Net User Group Meeting

2006-02-17T17:10:00Z

This past Wednesday I attended the Toronto .Net User Group and was very impressed not only by the size of the attendance but by the number of folks who regularly attend the events. I even joked with the audience that their meetings are better attended than our own company meetings.

Outstanding job by Ed Musters and all the board members at the Toronto .Net User Group for putting on such a well organized and interesting event. Ken Wong from Navantis did a fabulous presentation on Sharepoint, his experiences and notes from the field after so many Sharepoint implementations.

The next meeting is March 16th and I will be presenting along with Lucas Magder on the topic of Windows Presentation Foundation formerly code named "Avalon". It's going to be a great and interactive session and we'll showcase an application Lucas and I built, so we won't be recycling PDC material and this will be the first audience to see it - we think you'll like it and it's pretty cool. For a hint check out some of my previous blog posts.

Hope to see you there.

Architecture on the Edge

2006-02-15T13:12:00Z

John deVadoss is the director of Architecture Strategy at Microsoft and presented at VSLive San Francisco on Gen U, Web 2.0, SaaS, SOA and architecture which gives some architectural underpinning to our Windows Live! platform. Check out the video here for insight into Windows Live.

It seemed like a good idea…

2006-02-06T08:00:00Z

What a week! I had a lot of customer activities/engagements this past week. I had to travel out east and present on a series of topics (and carry my shuttle with me) the first part of the week. I had the financial services architect forum back in Toronto and then I had committed to the "cool demo" at the company meeting.

Every quarter we have a company meeting and as is often the case there is a demo on something new or fun. We wanted to do something a little different and Thursday afternoon we decided that we would show Vista - presented in a dueling banjo's format - where I (Dev Evangelist) duel with Bruce Cowper (IT Pro Evangelist).

The IT Pro demos were already set and so I had to figure out my demos. The first would be a cool WPF browser demo that goes against our AD/SAP environment and demonstrates a 3D like viewer of our AD hierarchy. The second we would go further and demonstrate a custom plug-in for Vista Media Center edition that would provide integration with a Digital Media Receiver (DMR) - specifically the Roku SoundBridge M1000.

I had already written a plug-in to do something similar for Windows Media Center 2005 so I figured it shouldn't be so hard to recompile for .Net 2.0 and register it in Vista Media Center. Indeed, this was the easy part, and while I experienced some problems it eventually all worked in the Dev Environment. I was set - so I thought!

The next day we're setting up the demo in our lab area before we set it up in the main presentation theatre and guess what - more problems! With the help of our University of Waterloo Co-op Lucas (who has the coolest side burns I've ever seen) we work on it and it turns out to be flaky. We make some code changes that appear to make the code more reliable. Time to move to the presentation theatre.

We setup out test network in the presentation theatre, connect everything and it doesn't work! We troubleshoot, make more code changes, recompile, re-register the plug-in - we do this a number of times and cannot get it to stabilize! The Roku hangs at times, at times it works and we just can't seem to make it predictable. By this time it's 2:15 and the company meeting is set to start in 15 minutes and I'm short one demo!

I hack the code furiously while Lucas moves the code over to another machine and turns it into a console app so that should anything (bad) happen we've got a backup. That's it, time to start! Bruce and I are both doing two demos with Bruce up first, then me, back to Bruce and then I close out with my Media Center demo.

Yikes, the backup laptop has gone to sleep and terminated our backup connection to the Roku device and (the Roku device is facing the audience) this has hung the device. The guys on the team see it, they have to reset the Roku device - I'm in trouble here - I'll let you guess how it ended! Good news is the audience didn't notice - what a ride!

The Ardent Dev Blog

2006-01-20T19:23:04Z

Derek Hatchard is the Microsoft Regional Director for Atlantic Canada works for a small software development company called Ardent Development. He's trying something new; Ask the Experts. So if you have some .Net Development questions you'd like answered why not post them on the Ardent Ask the Expert blog.

Atlas Samples from TechReady

2006-01-20T01:42:26Z

Last week I attended our TechReady in Seattle - a conference for technical field sales, consultants and other technically minded folks within Microsoft. One session by Nikhil Kothari on Atlas was very interesting. He's even posted the samples he used in that presentation.

Finally - my network favorites

2006-01-20T01:30:05Z

Ever wished you could have access to your favorites no matter where you are? At the office, at home or in that internet café in Cannes. Check out favorites on Windows Live. You can add favorites using the add button, dragging and dropping them or even using the add-in for the MSN Search toolbar.

Very very cool.