Announcing PHP SDK for Windows Azure!

mjbrown — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:35:52 GMT

Hey busy day blogging today about the Microsoft Web Platform today!!!

Check this out, a new SDK for PHP developers to build applications using PHP on Azure. They have 4 sample projects that you can download from CodePlex for you to peruse.

Of course I’m a bit partial to the Virtual Earth PHP Kit but these others with Silverlight and SQL Server are great as well.

Interoperability @ Microsoft : Announcing PHP SDK for Windows Azure… and much more!

And don’t forget, the easiest way to get set up doing PHP on Windows and IIS is to use our Web Platform Installer :)

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Web PI,Azure,PHP,Virtual Earth,SQL Server,SilverLight

Tons of new PHP stuff from Microsoft

mjbrown — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:12:43 GMT

Hey everybody. Apologies for not blogging lately. With the arrival of our baby I took a month off from work to spend time with the new baby (here’s a picture of him doing his Derek Zoolander look) and to give my wife a much needed break (well I tried to give her a break anyway). It’s been a great month and the weather has been really nice here in Seattle which allowed me to go take a long weekend on an Olympic Peninsula Golf Junket (more about that in a later post). It also allowed me to get outside and get the property and gardens cleaned up after a really harsh winter here. I lost a ton of plants, including my much beloved Yuccas. I had some that were up to 20 feet tall. I like them because they remind me of Arizona where I grew up. Well now my month of leave is almost up I wanted to share some of the recent announcements that may be of interest to web developers, especially those who are using PHP in some of their applications.

4 New PHP on Windows Virtual Labs

A collection of 4 Virtual Labs are now up on the TechNet site and will allow end users to fire up a lab and get a deep dive into PHP on Windows. Virtual Labs are great because you can go test drive without any heavy lifting at all.

Title	URL
IIS 7.0 Access Control Features for PHP Applications	http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9661016
Migrating PHP Applications	http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9661017
Troubleshooting PHP	http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9661018
Using IIS 7.0 Media Features in a PHP Application	http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9661019

Cumulative Update of the SQL Server Driver for PHP, version 1.0 is live!

The second cumulative update to version 1.0 of the SQL Server Driver for PHP is now available for download on the MSDN download site. We have also published the updates to the source on the CodePlex site. We've modified the source code specifically so that the extension can be compiled and used with the current builds of PHP 5.3.

Announcing the PHP on Windows Training Kit

This thing is really cool. I tested early versions of this thing and there is a TON of killer content in here to check out. I especially loved the SQL Spatial with PHP content but I’m partial because I was on the Virtual Earth team for a while. It also includes the Virtual Labs I mentioned above. This 40MB download is available on the Download Center and includes the following content. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9656081

PHP & SQL Server Demos

· Integrating SQL Server Geo-Spatial with PHP

· SQL Server Reporting Services and PHP

PHP & SQL Server Hands On Labs

· Introduction to Using SQL Server with PHP

· Using Full Text Search over Office Documents in PHP

PHP on Windows Hands On Labs

· IIS Access Control Features for PHP

· Using IIS 7.0 Media Features in a PHP Application

· Troubleshooting PHP

· Migrating PHP Applications to IIS 7.0

How Do I Video: Accessing Windows Live Contacts & Profiles from PHP

The guys on the Azure Services Platform Team have created another in a series of videos for the Azure Services Platform. The Azure Services Platform is continuously expanding its interoperability in a standards based approach. Here’s another great example: Live framework is the uniform way of programming Live Services from any platform, programming language, application or device. As a concrete example, check out a very useful “how do I” screencast - - Access Windows Live Profiles and Contacts from PHP apps - - by Program Manager Nishant Gupta. He also provides a code snippet you can use to step along with the video. You can check out the video here, Access Windows Live Profiles and Contacts from PHP Apps. And if you’re interested you can check out this and some of the other How Do I videos they’ve created here below.

EDIT: Added the other Azure videos I mention above…

Extend the Live Framework Resource Model	In this screencast, find out how you can store and automatically sync many kinds of data in the Live Framework to all your devices in the mesh
Using Logging in a Windows Azure Application	Windows Azure provides a built-in framework for writing log messages from your applications. In this screencast, you’ll learn how to use the Windows Azure logging API and how to read log messages whether your application is running in the development fabric or in the cloud.
Use the .NET Workflow Service	Windows Workflow Foundation provides a platform for using managed code to defined work as composable, reusable parts. With .NET Services, you can host your workflow in the cloud and access it from anywhere. In this screencast, you’ll see the basics of taking a simple workflow and deploying it to the cloud.
Multicast with the .NET Service Bus	The Microsoft .NET Service Bus supports a range of connectivity options. In this screencast, see how multicast is supported through via code examples and sample applications.

So that’s it. People around here have been pretty busy creating some great content while I’ve been living a life of leisure. Take some time to check it out and ENJOY!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,MS Web Platform,PHP,Azure,Windows Live,SQL Server

Virtual Earth 6.2 Technical Webcast On Demand

mjbrown — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:37:42 GMT

I uploaded my webcast into our SkyDrive service and have posted it here for your viewing pleasure. Check out my blog post from last week for the download details for the samples from this webcast.

Also I should point out that we have updated the WCF contracts for our staging service so if you are using the samples you should delete and recreate the service references for all of the services in these samples so that they won't throw exceptions.

Enjoy.

Samples from VE 6.2 Technical Webcast

mjbrown — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:19:06 GMT

Hey everybody, Mark Brown here. I hope you enjoyed our technical webcast today. I wanted to provide you with the demos I showed during our presentation. These should give you a leg up in exploring the features from both the Virtual Earth 6.2 Map Control and our Virtual Earth Web Services 1.0.

Download from SkyDrive

I would also encourage you all to stay tuned to http://dev.live.com/virtualearth for all new goodies that come from me or the Virtual Earth community as well.

Enjoy.

Videos and Samples for Virtual Earth ASP.NET Control (CTP)

mjbrown — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:47:10 GMT

John O’Brien from Soul Solutions in Australia has posted a whole slew of video tutorials and samples for the recently released Virtual Earth ASP.NET Control. These are pretty comprehensive and a must see for anyone who wants to get their hands dirty building mapping applications quickly in ASP.NET. Check them out.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Virtual Earth,ASP.NET

Mark Brown's Web Platform Blog : Code Samples