Jim O'Neil's Blog : New Hampshire

Nashua Gets Agile

joneil — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:55:46 GMT

All you New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts agilophiles take note! The inaugural meeting of the Nashua Scrum Club will be held at Harbor Homes, 45 High Street in Nashua on Thursday, September 24th from 6 – 8:30 p.m.

The Nashua group, under the leadership of Bob Fischer and Mary St. Germain, is the very first Scrum Club chapter on the East Coast; here’s their mission statement:

Scrum Club is a professional organization where people can learn and apply Agile project management and advanced technical practices while giving back to the community.

I had the pleasure of meeting with Bob and Mary to discuss their plans for the group, and am particularly excited by the ‘giving back to the community’ aspect. In addition to learning about agile development practices from top-notch industry speakers (which is valuable in itself), the plan is for the group to actively apply what they are learning to actual projects benefitting non-profit organizations in the area.

For those of you looking for a job where agile practices are used, or even for those wanting to bring agile development into their own organizations, this is a fantastic opportunity to not only ‘talk-the-talk’ but ‘walk-the-walk’ and get some hands-on experience under your belt and on your resume. By the way, agile isn’t just for development geeks; project managers, quality assurance engineers, and anyone else involved in the product lifecycle are encouraged to join the group.

Microsoft is a sponsor of the Nashua Scrum Club’s inaugural meeting, and I’m looking forward to watching the group grow and evolve. Unfortunately, I’ll be enroute back from our Augusta stop on the Northeast Roadshow for the kickoff, but am already looking forward to the October meeting.

Northeast Roadshow and More!

joneil — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:05:00 GMT

Get those calendars out! Chris and I will be hitting the road again this September bringing you the latest and greatest developer topics from Microsoft. It’s the Northeast Roadshow: Food for Thoughts Tour, the same brand you know and love with a few twists…

We’re visiting more venues (seven in all), including a return to Albany/Troy, NY and new stops in Manchester, NH and Warwick, RI.
For four stops we’re piggybacking off of the TechNet Unleashed: Game On Tour, meaning great IT Pro content in the morning (courtesy of your IT Professional Evangelist, Dan Stolts) , followed by the developer content that is the Northeast Roadshow!

Note, TechNet Unleashed and the Northeast Roadshow are two distinct events, so if you want to attend both, be sure to sign up for each event separately. The dates, venues, and registration links are right below, followed by the Northeast Roadshow agenda and then the TechNet Unleashed agenda.

City	Date	Event	Registration Link
Manchester NH	Sep. 10	1 – 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Rochester NY	Sep. 18	10 a.m – 3:30 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Troy NY	Sep. 22	8:30 a.m. – noon	TechNet Unleashed
Troy NY	Sep. 22	1 – 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Waltham MA	Sep. 23	1 – 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Augusta ME	Sep. 24	8:30 a.m. – noon	TechNet Unleashed
Augusta ME	Sep. 24	1 - 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
Farmington CT	Sep. 29	8:30 a.m. – noon	TechNet Unleashed
Farmington CT	Sep. 29	1 – 6 p.m.	Northeast Roadshow
~~Warwick RI~~	~~Oct. 6~~	~~8:30 a.m. - noon~~	~~TechNet Unleashed~~
~~Warwick RI~~	~~Oct. 6~~	~~1 – 6 p.m.~~	~~Northeast Roadshow~~

[Updated 8/1: Due to venue logistics, we’re unable to visit Warwick on this edition of the Roadshow, but we’re hoping to add it to next quarter’s series.]

Northeast Roadshow: Food for Thoughts Tour

After a long summer, you’re probably hungry for more tools and techniques to feed your development efforts. Touring the northeast this fall for the tenth Roadshow, road and code warriors Jim O’Neil and Chris Bowen have cooked up a select menu of sessions that are sure to please the heartiest of appetites. From current tools and technologies to practical insights, there is plenty to digest!

Reservations are required, so register today for a seating at these free and relaxed technology events.

You’ll see how Chris and Jim handle the heat of the demo kitchen, dish out knowledge, and pepper guests with half-baked humor, all the while being grilled by audience questions.

The Agenda – A Four Course Meal for the Mind

(Rochester attendees, note that program starts at 10 a.m.)

1:00 PM – Essential Patterns, Practically Served

Design patterns, they’re important but often presented with unappetizing formality, like getting only the oat bits from a box of marshmallow cereal. We’ll sample a small set of key patterns, but also show you how free frameworks and tools (such as Enterprise Library, Prism, Unity, Velocity, and others) put each of those patterns directly into practice – so you can too. You’ll leave with a mind full of practical technology and a healthy understanding of how to turn underlying patterns into recipes for success.

2:15 PM – 7-Up(grade) Your Applications

Refresh your existing applications by pouring in some the new features of Windows 7 via the managed-code Windows API Code Pack. We’ll quench your thirst for how to incorporate the Taskbar, jumplists, and Libraries by taking the cap off an existing Windows Forms application and adding new capabilities, all the while retaining compatibility for your XP and Vista users. We’ll have you bubbling with excitement, able to give your applications that extra pop.

3:30 PM – Silverlight Snacks that Satisfy

There’s a generous amount of delicious ingredients in Silverlight 3 and we’re going to focus deeply on some of the most enriching. We’re going beyond the standard fare in this code-heavy session to create an application that leverages the new out-of-browser and offline execution features, local and remote connections, local data storage, and more. You’ll see that Silverlight 3 applications can be fortified with features so they can go well beyond being eye candy.

4:45 PM – Chips off the .NET Block

As seasoned developers, we know there’s a mix of options on the trail to implementing requirements. From staples like value types vs. reference types, interfaces vs. classes, Strings vs. StringBuilder, to other more exotic ingredients you may have yet tried, this session will dip into ways to leverage .NET, offering a taste of the impact they have on code execution, performance, and extensibility.

5:50 PM – “Check Please!” – We’ll box any leftovers, collect your comment cards, and distribute an array of giveaways.

TechNet Unleashed: Game On Tour!

After a long summer, you’re probably ready to get your game on with some tools and techniques to speed up your IT strategy. Touring this fall, the East Region TechNet team of John Baker, Dan Stolts, Blain Barton and Yung Chou are bringing you a game plan of sessions that are sure to spike your productivity. From current tools and technologies to practical insights, there will be plenty of action for everyone!

Reservations are required, so register today for a seat at this free and fun technology event.

1st Down: Migrating Windows XP to Windows 7: Get it Done with the Microsoft Deployment Tools
You've gotten the handoff on upgrading your desktops from Windows XP™ to Windows 7™ and you know there isn't a direct upgrade path, so what’s the best strategy? This session will give you the answers and tools that will make your migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 an easy touchdown. First we’ll discuss standalone migrations using standard methodologies. Then we’ll explore large scale migrations with the Microsoft Deployment Tool Kit 2010 technologies, covering the "Lite-Touch” Installation (LTI) method leveraging User State Hard-Link Migration which will minimize network traffic and get the migration done in a timelier manner. What tools will we use? The User State Migration Tool (USMT) in the Automated Installation Toolkit (AIK) has everything you need to kick off the migration and deploy Windows 7 without a single fumble.

2nd Down: DirectAccess™ With Windows 7: No More VPN!!
Looking for ways to save some money and enable better employee productivity on the road? Tired of being unable to VPN from certain remote locations? Then DirectAccess is the solution you’re looking for! What is DirectAccess? DirectAccess provides secure, seamless, always-on networking and represents a fundamental shift in the way network boundaries are defined and how access is managed. It provides a consistent experience regardless of location, device, or network topology. It “just works” and accommodates today’s flexible “offices” and requirements for remote connectivity. Not only does it give an “always on the corporate network” experience for end users, but it also provides administrators the ability to manage remote machines through the DirectAccess connection. That's right, if it’s connected to the Internet, it’s connected to the corporate network… SECURELY, and therefore the manageability of remote resources is greatly improved. This session will explain in detail what DirectAccess is and will demonstrate how to configure both the client and server components of DirectAccess.

3rd Down: Optimizing Your Environment with Remote Desktop Services™ and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
You’ve been successfully using Terminal Services for some time now and have enjoyed the ability to centrally manage your remote desktop environment. But there have been challenges in Terminal Services. Interference issues such as printer drivers, applications that take resources away from other users, and users wanting to remote to a desktop instead of the server. Windows Server 2008 R2 represents a paradigm shift in remote connectivity. Come and see how the next generation of terminal services, now called Remote Desktop Services (RDS), can take you to the next level. RDS has been expanded to include Hyper-V integration for deploying virtual machine-based desktops in addition to the standard session-based remote connectivity. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is an emerging desktop optimization vehicle and delivery architecture to centralize the storage, execution, and management of desktops in a data center. In this session we will examine the architecture, essential services, and user experience of RDS and VDI while walking through deployment scenarios based on business requirements.

4th Down: Score!
We’ll call it a day, collect your surveys, and you just might score one of the day’s giveaways.

Happy New Year!

joneil — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:36:00 GMT

Yes, you’re still recovering from Fourth of July festivities, and, no, I didn’t get too much sun over the long weekend. July 1st indeed starts a new year, a new fiscal year, at Microsoft, and with that comes some intense planning for the coming 12 months – budgets, sales quotas, annual reviews, etc. For us, the Developer Platform and Evangelism team (DPE), specifically it’s a time for planning out our various events and road shows as well as fostering community activities like code camps and ‘firestarters.’

So what’s the best way to keep on top of all these happenings during the upcoming year?

MSDN Flash – subscribe here and enter your ZIP code to get localized content from Chris Bowen and myself in the Northeast. Our colleagues in other regions likewise add their own local flair to the bi-weekly newsletter.
Community Megaphone – on my blog’s sidebar is a feed showing the events in the Northeast district, but you can visit the main site and see what’s going on around the country.
Follow your evangelists’ blogs. Well, you found mine and the rest of the members of the East region developer evangelist family are listed in my blog’s sidebar.
Get involved in a User Group. In the Northeast, we have nearly three-dozen active groups focused on various aspects of Microsoft technologies, and there’s many more independent groups focused on complementary topics like JavaScript, Web technologies, and user experience as well. There’s no better way to hear about activities than being part of those activities yourself. It’s a double-win: you stay abreast of technology, and you meet some great people in the process.

Architect, Your Career?

joneil — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:02:41 GMT

The Microsoft New England Research and Development Center (NERD) will play host to a unique event, The Architect Factory, on June 2nd. Co-sponsored by IASA New England, {Code Right}, O’Reilly, and Microsoft, this 1/2 day event will provide insight and guidance for senior developers who aspire to take their technical careers to the next logical step, that of an architect.

When	June 2, 2009 1 p.m. – 7:15 p.m. (followed by dinner)
Where	NERD 1 Memorial Drive Cambridge, MA
Register	arcfactory.eventbrite.com

Notable area architects will cover three sessions in each of three tracks: Architecture in Action, Leadership, and Head in the Clouds.

The complete agenda is as follows:

1:00	Meet and Greet
1:30	Keynote: Becoming an Architect, Rob Daigneau
2:45	Break
3:30	The Dangers of Over-architecting Solutions, Bryan Tuttle	The IT Architect and Technology Leadership - where are we and what next?, David Leonard	How the Cloud Pattern is Changing Enterprise Architecture, Todd Bremner
4:15	Break
4:30	Establishing Developer Practices, Dennis Perlot	Working with Business Stakeholders, Ian Dicker	The Architect and the New Identity Paradigm, Curt Devlin
5:45	Break
6:00	Architecture of Collaboration Systems, SB Chatterjee	Using LAAAM to Make Good Architectural Decisions, Fast!, Jeromy Carriere	Application Patterns for the Cloud, Igor Moochnick
7:15	Evening Dinner Event

Hat’s Off to Pat

joneil — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:37:42 GMT

Thanks to Pat Tormey, leader of the New Hampshire .NET User Group, for organizing and hosting the first (of many, we hope) New Hampshire Code Camps at Daniel Webster College in Nashua.

We had a crowd of about 110 developers, IT professionals, and all-round technology enthusiasts turn out for a full day of technical sessions and networking. Rumors are the post-camp ‘networking’ at Shorty’s may still be in progress!

The agenda featured a wide array of topics on SQL Server, Agile practices, ASP.NET, BI, Team Foundation Server and more. As “Code Camps” are run by the community, for the community, the speakers and organizers were all volunteers, and while many of the presenters were familiar faces in the .NET community, a few first-timers stepped up as well (kudos to them!). Thanks to all the presenters, several of whom presented two and even three sessions:

Patrick Hynds
Chris Bowen
John Watson
Andrew Novick
Richard Lasker
Sunil Kadimdiwan
Tony Sukiennik
Slava Kokaev
Michael de la Maza
Daniel Brackett
Stuart Jones
Steven St. Jean
Phil Denoncourt
John Garland
Charles Beauvais
Pat Tormey
Bill Wilder
Michael Ruminer

If you didn’t get enough of the “Code Camp” mojo today, or you’re slapping yourself because you missed out, fear not. The mother of all camps, New England Code Camp 11, is just around the corner on March 28th in Waltham. I spoke to a number of presenters today, and they’re planning to be there… I hope you’ll join us. Visit thedevcommunity.org to secure your spot now!

New Hampshire Code Camp Wants You

joneil — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:03:25 GMT

I was poking around and happened upon the list of sessions for the upcoming (and inaugural) New Hampshire Code Camp next Saturday, February 28, on the campus of Daniel Webster College in Nashua.

Top Chef Pat Tormey has cooked up some great speakers and topics. Here’s just a sampling from the smörgåsbord that he’s put together so far:

Accessing SQL Server 2008 New Features from .NET
ALT.NET and application frameworks
Basics of SharePoint Development
Writing Line of Business Applications With Silverlight 2
Developing Smarter and more Useful Cubes: Analysis Services 2008

Now that I’ve whetted your appetite, make your reservation to attend, and I’ll see you there! Where else will you be able to consume great content on a wide variety of developer, database, and IT technologies under one roof, in one day?? all FREE!

'tis the Season...

joneil — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:57:25 GMT

... for Code Camps and other events that is. Over the next three months there are several community-run events in Massachusetts and New Hampshire spanning developers and IT professionals. Registration is open for all of these now; check out the specifics below and follow the links to sign up.

Data Camp v1.0 - Waltham, MA, Saturday January 24

It's all about the data! Today's applications are increasingly data-dependent, and whether you're a developer, DBA, or BI professional, you need to know how to work with a variety of data across a range of products. This free, full-day Code Camp-style event will feature three concurrent tracks to satisfy any tech professional who is interested in the latest and greatest tips and techniques for working with SQL Server 2005 and 2008, the Microsoft BI toolset, and all of the new .NET data access technologies--including LINQ and the Entity Framework.

Code Camp New Hampshire - Nashua, NH, Saturday, February 28

The New Hampshire event, held at Daniel Webster College, will feature a wide range of speakers on an even wider range of subjects.

With all of the material being delivered - Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2008, and new flavors of Windows - this will be your chance to get a look at some of the new technologies, to see what other local developers are doing these days, and to even present what you have learned to our local community.
Potential speakers, note: we are open to a wide range of subjects, and since it is developer-to-developer forum, it will be a relaxed environment for any first-time speakers among you.

SQL Server 2008 Loadfest - Waltham, MA, Friday, March 27

Join us for this event and perform a hands-on installation of SQL Server 2008.
The session starts with a discussion of the different editions of SQL Server and where each might be appropriate. Before the installations there will be a discussion on preparation steps:

Server sizing
Preparing disks for SQL Server
Security preparation

During the install process you’ll receive step-by-step instruction and view live demonstrations. Several SQL Server experts will be on-hand to help with any issues that might arise.

The session will continue with post-installation steps to ready your SQL Server for production use, such as

Creating a backup strategy

Database maintenance, such as index-reorganization and DBCC
Managing database growth

Following the installation tasks, the day will continue with breakout sessions.

N.B. There are a limited number of tables for bringing in servers, so be sure to read the entire note on the registration site regarding reserving space.

Another Roadshow Gone By

joneil — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:55:54 GMT

As I write this post, I'm looking out the window at the first ~~two~~ four inches of what promises to be a bona-fide Winter storm - a fitting end to the 2008 Winter Northeast Roadshow series. As always, it was great to see familiar faces, as well as a number of new ones. We experienced a significant up tick in attendance in Albany and Augusta, as well as a great showing at our last (and new) location in Nashua, New Hampshire. We're already planning our content for the next series - after all, what else do Chris and I have to talk about during all those hours on the road together!

We'd really like to thank those of you who attended for taking an entire day out of your busy schedule to join us. And we especially want to thank our hosts at the various venues who make the Roadshow possible:

Cheryl McLean at the Golisano Auditorium, RIT, in Rochester, New York.
Vermont Technical College in Williston, Vermont.
Donna Bonacquisti at Autotask in East Greenbush, New York.
John Gagnon for going above and beyond the call in filling the Florian Auditorium in Augusta, Maine!
Gen Baudin at Daniel Webster College for both providing the venue and running point on site for us.

So lastly, before I put on my kerchief and settle in for my long winter's nap, I wanted to provide links to the materials that I presented (or co-presented), namely

Using Services in Windows Workflow (SkyDrive link)

http://msdn.com/wf
http://msdn.com/wf/future
http://endpoint.tv

Adventures in Silverlight Data Access (SkyDrive link)

http://silverlight.net
http://msdn.com/silverlight
http://msdn.com/wcf
http://msdn.com/wcf/rest
http://msdn.com/data

Lunch in the Labs: A Look at Tools & Tech from Microsoft Research (SkyDrive link)

http://research.microsoft.com
http://research.microsoft.com/techfest

Both the slides and the completed demos are available on my SkyDrive via the links above. And I've included some other relevant links as well; most of these were included on our newsletter handout at the various events.

Look for information on Chris' presentations on his blog post, and he's kindly provided individual links for each of the Microsoft Research presentations as well... (yeah, I'm a slacker!)

On the Road With Chris and Jim

joneil — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:05:47 GMT

Chris and I in Williston, Vermont, on the first leg of our Winter Roadshow.... emphasis on Winter as you can see from the photo taken as we headed out from our hotel to the first venue in Rochester.

We've got four more shows coming up over the next two weeks (including our new venue in Nashua), so if you haven't signed up yet, there's still space at all of them. You'll get some great information on the trinity of WPF, WCF, and WF, as well as some ASP.NET AJAX, jQuery, and Silverlight thrown in for good measure. Hope to see you there!

Farmington, CT	Tuesday, December 9th
Waltham, MA	Monday, December 15th
Augusta, ME	Tuesday, December 16th
Nashua, NH	Thursday, December 18th

New Hampshire Stop Added to the Northeast Roadshow

joneil — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:38:33 GMT

Great news for those of you in the Granite State! We just added a seventh stop onto our winter Northeast Roadshow. Chris and I will be in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Dec. 18th with the same slate of content as on the other stops:

Using jQuery and ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX
Workflow Foundation
A Look at Tools & Tech from Microsoft Research
Deeper into Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
Adventures in Data with Silverlight, WCF REST, and ADO.NET Data Services

Here are all the particulars, hope to see you there!

	Date:	Thursday, December 18th
	Time:	9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
	Venue:	Collings Auditorium Daniel Webster College 20 University Place Nashua, NH 03063
	Registration:	click here

The Return of Russ - Appearing One Night Only!

joneil — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:32:49 GMT

Russ "The Tool Shed" Fustino is making a trip up from sunny Florida to visit his old haunts in New England. If you didn't get a chance to catch his presentations while he covered the Northeast District, you won't want to miss the opportunity this coming Thursday.

Russ will be presenting on Building Applications with Silverlight 2 - amazing timing given the availability of the RTW just today - as well as on using Visual Studio Tools for Office to extend the functionality of the Microsoft Office suite in ways you probably never imagined.

What: Russ Fustino presenting on Silverlight and VSTO

When: Thursday, Oct. 16th, 6 - 8:30

Where: New Hampshire .NET User Group Meeting
Daniel Webster College
Eaton Richmond Center, Room 100
20 University Drive
Nashua NH

How: one-click directions

See you there!

MSDN Follow-up: Silverlight 2

joneil — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:28:28 GMT

Click the image to the right to get my Silverlight 2 presentation slides.

This wraps up my set of three posts to follow up on questions asked during the MSDN events in Nashua and Stamford. Let me again invite you to send me an e-mail if there's something that came up during the sessions that I haven't addressed in my posts.

Is there an "express" version of Expression Blend?
Does Silverlight have a 'native' TreeView control?
Is there a framework for building Silverlight applications?
What media-encoding formats does Silverlight support?
How can I upload files through Silverlight?
How are those revolving picture displays (carousels) in WPF and Silverlight implemented?
Is there a Deep Zoom API?

Is there an "express" version of Expression Blend?

There isn't; however, there is a free 30-day trial available. Note too that Expression Blend (and Expression Web) are available with an MSDN Premium subscription. Programs such as Microsoft Empower for ISVs and DreamSpark are other avenues that you may be able to use toward procuring Microsoft design and development tools for reduced costs.

Does Silverlight have a 'native' TreeView control?

Not at this time; however, there is a CodePlex project that provides one. I also found implementations by VectorLight.Net, Telerik, and ComponentOne, and I suspect there will be others as well.

Is there a framework for building Silverlight applications?

The patterns and practices team at Microsoft recently released the Composite Application Guidance for WPF (formerly code-named Prism) that provides guidance on building scalable and testable applications with WPF. That body of work is being extended to support Silverlight as well, and an initial drop of "Prism 2.0" is available. The contrib project on CodePlex for Composite WPF guidance also includes a "Prism to Silverlight" offering. You might also want to check into Ninject, which provides dependency injection support for Silverlight.

What media-encoding formats does Silverlight support?

One of the 'eye-chart' slides in the presentation lists the following: VC-1, WMA, and MP3. In September, Microsoft announced we would also be supporting MPEG-4 (namely, H.264 for video and AAC for audio) in a forthcoming release of Silverlight. As I mentioned in the talk, Microsoft Expression Encoder is also available and can re-encode over two dozen audio, video, and image formats.

How can I upload files through Silverlight?

The Silverlight site has a great video by Tim Heuer on just this topic. There's also a sample project on the Microsoft Silverlight Gallery that provides for multi-file uploads.

How are those revolving picture displays (carousels) in WPF and Silverlight implemented?

There's a video (with code) on the Silverlight site you may want to review. I also found a couple of references to implementations from others that you may be able to leverage in part or in whole:

ElementFlow is a part of a CodePlex project called FluidKit. This is the work of Pavan Podila; you can read his blog entry on ElementFlow.
Microsoft's North Face In-Store Explorer Proof-of-Concept includes some details on the carousel implementation done there.

Infragistics, Telerik, and ComponentOne (to name a few) also have a carousel control you can purchase if you don't want to roll your own.

Is there a Deep Zoom API?

Deep Zoom is the technology I demonstrated that provides for the great user experience in the Hard Rock Cafe memorabilia site. Deep Zoom Composer provides an interface into building the MultiScaleImage that provides the experience, but the question refers to whether there is an API that would allow programmatically constructing the image from a series of other images. Here is a Silverlight forum post that provides an option - by wrapping a command line utility called SparseImageTool.exe that ships with Deep Zoom; PhotoZoom is apparently built with this technique.

MSDN Follow-up: Visual Studio Tools for Office

joneil — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:39:29 GMT

First things first.... you can download the content from my SkyDrive below.

Next, let's address the unanswered questions I recall from the sessions. Again, if I missed your question, just shoot me a quick e-mail.

Where can I download the prerequisites for VSTO applications?
How can I interface Excel with an cube from SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)?

Where can I download the prerequisites for VSTO applications?

As we discussed, there are three prerequisites for running VSTO applications on the client machine. If you are using Visual Studio 2008 SP1, all three are bootstrapped automatically when you deploy via the Publish (Click-Once) option. Prior to SP1, you had to get the Primary Interop Assemblies (PIAs) for the appropriate version of Office as an extra step. See Mary Lee's blog post if you want to add this as a prerequisite, and you haven't yet installed SP1.

Here are links to the individual downloads. Note, there are service packs to .NET 3.5 and VSTO 3.0 that must be in concert:

.NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 OR
.NET Framework Client Profile Offline Installer

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office system (version 3.0 Runtime) Service Pack 1

2007 Microsoft Office System Update: Redistributable Primary Interop Assemblies AND/OR
Office 2003 Update: Redistributable Primary Interop Assemblies

How can I use VSTO to interface Excel with an cube from SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)?

First, a disclaimer! SSAS is not an area with which I have much familiarity; however, I did find a few resources that seem to be relevant. If you know of others, or find the following links are way out in left field, please let me know.

OLAP Pivot Table Extensions for Excel (on CodePlex) - an Excel add-in built with VSTO 2005. Since CodePlex is an open-source site, you'd be able to adapt what is here to your needs.

ADOMD.NET - this seems like a good lead, providing a data provider for SSAS that you could, of course, leverage with VSTO.

Article on accessing data from an OLAP server with Excel - this article is pretty dated (it used SQL Analysis Server 2000), but the content may remain relevant.

OBA Composition Reference Toolkit - this appears to be a resource for anyone contemplating a large-scale OBAs. There's a ton of sample code, and requirements and interfaces to SSAS are listed in the prerequisites, but I'm not certain there's anything specific to cubes.

MSDN Events Coming to a City Near You!

joneil — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:44:32 GMT

First of all, thanks to the folks in Nashua, NH, and Stamford, CT, who attended the first sessions of this quarter's content:

What's New in SQL Server 2008 for Developers
Power Up Your Office Applications with VSTO
Build Next Generation Applications with Silverlight 2.0

It was a hectic week of travel last week, so I'm a bit behind in getting answers to some of the great questions that came up during the sessions. Look for individual blog posts over the next few days covering each of the sessions, and if I don't cover one of the topics or questions you had, please just send me a quick e-mail.

For the rest of you in the Northeast District (and those in DC), I'll be presenting the same content in the upcoming weeks. You can see the full agenda and register at the MSDN Events site or via the links below. Note that the DC area event is part of a larger Tech Days '08 program, and you need to register for each track individually.

Oct. 29	Tech Days '08	Sheraton National Hotel 900 South Orme Street Arlington VA	register
Nov. 5	MSDN Event	Courtyard by Marriott 63 Grand Street Waterbury, CT	register
Nov. 13	MSDN Event	Sheraton Boston 39 Dalton Street Boston, MA	register

MSDN Events in Nashua and Stamford

joneil — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:09:21 GMT

While the Fall edition of Northeast Roadshow is in a brief (four-day) hiatus, I'll be hitting the road solo for a set of half-day presentations in Nashua, New Hampshire, and Stamford, Connecticut, on Oct. 1st and 2nd respectively. These events are sponsored and coordinated at the national level, so you'll be getting the same great content that folks across the nation are seeing each quarter. This go-around, there's three topics on the docket:

Session #1: What’s New in SQL Server 2008 for Developers
SQL Server 2008 adds numerous new capabilities for developers – from support for Spatial Data types to a storage mechanism for SQL BLOB data using the NTFS file system, and much more. The new release also delivers several improvements to development-related areas, from T-SQL to SQLCLR to XML. This session will provide a technical dive into the latest and greatest features you’ll find in SQL Server 2008, while offering insight into how to effectively apply them to your upcoming development projects.
Session #2: Power up your Office applications with VSTO
In this session, we’ll focus on the power and productivity of Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System (VSTO) – a .NET Smart Client technology. We’ll give you tips and tricks for designing and building smart client applications with VSTO, which allows you to create managed code applications with .NET languages including Microsoft Visual Basic .NET and Visual C#. VSTO also makes it simple to manifest the functionality of those applications in the rich user interfaces of Microsoft Office Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio, Outlook and others from the Office stack. VSTO addresses some of the biggest challenges that Office solution developers are facing today, including separation of data and view elements, server-side and offline scenarios, seamless integration with the Visual Studio tools, deployment and updating. Join us for this eye-opening session and learn just how easy it is to build and deploy powerful applications with VSTO.
Session #3: Build next generation applications with Silverlight 2.0
Silverlight provides a powerful platform for building the next generation of rich interactive applications on the Internet. In this session, we’ll take a look at the programming model and tools that developers and designers can leverage to build these true next generation experiences for consumers and business, and demonstrate how to build a rich interactive application (RIA) using Silverlight and Microsoft .NET. We’ll explore how to use Microsoft Visual Studio to create applications, and how to create UI using XAML markup and code, controls, and File I/O. We’ll also discuss networking, how to retrieve data from a Web service, and various other aspects of building Silverlight applications.

Registration for both venues is still open, and you can sign up via the links below:

Wed. Oct. 1st
1 - 5 p.m. Nashua NH Radisson Hotel
11 Tara Boulevard register

Thur. Oct 2nd
1 - 5 p.m. Stamford CT Sheraton Stamford
2701 Summer Street register

What:	Russ Fustino presenting on Silverlight and VSTO
When:	Thursday, Oct. 16th, 6 - 8:30
Where:	New Hampshire .NET User Group Meeting Daniel Webster College Eaton Richmond Center, Room 100 20 University Drive Nashua NH
How:	one-click directions

Wed. Oct. 1st 1 - 5 p.m.	Nashua NH	Radisson Hotel 11 Tara Boulevard	register
Thur. Oct 2nd 1 - 5 p.m.	Stamford CT	Sheraton Stamford 2701 Summer Street	register