Mark Brown's Web Platform Blog : Web PI

New Windows Web App Gallery Release - AmpliFeeder

mjbrown — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:52:53 GMT

It’s a busy day at the office as we have another new application up in the Windows Web Application Gallery today, AmpliFeeder. AmpliFeeder is a distributed social activity aggregator. In their own words…

You are no longer defined by your activity on just one website, message board or social network. Every photograph you upload, every page you bookmark or share, every tweet you twitter helps to define you just a little bit more. AmpliFeeder pulls all of your online activity into one place to display a new aggregated you, redefining ideas of what a blog or personal page should be.

Simple. Powerful. Flexible

Combine and archive your activity from lots of different services. Adding new services is a complete breeze. It's easy.

Easy to style and personalize

AmpliFeeder is built to make theming and personalisation as simple as possible with standard XHTML & CSS. Be unique

Pull yourself together

Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google Shared Items, Tumblr, Digg, Reddit, LastFM, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Upcoming, Mixx & more

Open Source and AGPL Licensed

Runs on industry standard ASP.NET 3.5, SQL Server Express and IIS: A rock solid foundation for exceptional web applications

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Web PI,AmpliFeeder

New Windows Web App Gallery Release - nopCommerce

mjbrown — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:34:20 GMT

The good times just keep on rolling over here on the Web Platform team here at Microsoft. We have just released a new application out onto the Windows Web Application Gallery, nopCommerce.

nopCommerce is the leading ASP.NET online shop e-commerce solution. nopCommerce can be installed and set-up by anyone with the most basic web site building and computer skills. nopCommerce is a secure, scalable and extendable e-commerce platform. It has user friendly administration tool to manage your storefront and customers, wish lists, discounts, coupons, flexible tax support, multi-lingual support, and hundreds of other features. Support for most popular gateways: Authorize.net, PayPal, Google Checkout, 2Checkout, and more. nopCommerce also runs in Medium Trust.

Check it out.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,Web PI

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

PHP Driver for SQL Server Now in Web PI

mjbrown — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:02:24 GMT

Great news for web developers who are building PHP applications that integrate with SQL Server. We have just released an update to the Web Platform Installer that now includes the Microsoft SQL Server Driver for PHP 1.0.

Go check it out. www.microsoft.com/web

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Web PI,SQL Server,PHP

Microsoft Web PI Delivers 1.5M Product Downloads

mjbrown — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:03:48 GMT

On May 12, 2009 we announced that the Microsoft Web Platform Installer has downloaded over 1.5 million products since January 2009.

The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 1.0 and 2.0, and the Windows Web Application Gallery, which has received more than 100,000 application downloads, are all part of our broader Microsoft Web Platform, which includes core free Web products that help developers, designers, and end-users achieve success in developing for the Web. The Web Platform Installer is a download manager offering packaged Open Source applications to maximize productivity, making it easier for Web developers to install, and offers essential Web products and tools for building next-generation Web applications.

The Windows Web Application Gallery enables you to install the most popular community Web applications with just a few clicks,such as: WordPress, Drupal, DotNetNuke, Gallery and SilverStripe, which integrate with the Microsoft Web Platform. The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta and Windows Web Application Gallery were all recently released in Las Vegas during the MIX ’09 event and explained in Scott Guthrie’s keynote.

If you haven’t yet checked out the Web PI and the Application Gallery you can check them out here, www.microsoft.com/web

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Web PI,PHP,MIX09,ASP.NET

Cannon P.I. - Episode #1 is Now Available

mjbrown — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:12:27 GMT

There comes a time only maybe once in our lives where a true hero for the web developer emerges. They are caring problem solvers but are rough around the edges, they drive fast cars from the 80’s, they drink a bit too much and sometimes get into a little bit of trouble themselves.

But they are there, ready and willing to help when we need them.

Well the time has come and a new hero joins us and brings new life to Web Developers everywhere. I’d like to introduce you to the, fast driving, hard drinking, moustache wearing, Hawaiian shirt loving, and problem solving, Cannon P.I.

Here is the title sequence for the show. Enjoy :)

In our first episode, “To Catch and Eagle – The Secret Platform” Cannon goes to incredible lengths to help a couple of developers get the latest web platform tools, frameworks and applications using the Web Platform Installer.

Technorati Tags: microsoft,ms Web Platform,webPI,IIS,PHP

Update to Application Packaging Guide for Windows Web Application Gallery

mjbrown — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:05:36 GMT

The IIS Team has just released an updated guidance on how to package web applications when building them into our Windows Web Application Gallery. If you are actively working on creating a web application to submit to the Application Gallery you should definitely check out this update to our guidance. Check it out here, http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/578/application-packaging-guide-for-the-windows-web-application-gallery/

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,WebPI

Feeling the love from our Web Application Gallery Launch Partners

mjbrown — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:05:11 GMT

It’s Barry White time around here baby. Ah Yeah!

We’ve just announced our new Windows Web Application Gallery and the love is just flowing from our partners that helped us launch this great new experience. Check out the screen shots from a few of our partners with their Web Platform Installer buttons on their home pages.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,MIX09,WebPI

Announcing: Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta and Windows Web Application Gallery!

mjbrown — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:28:37 GMT

Today at MIX09 Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Developer Division provided more details about our strategy for the Microsoft Web Platform and as part of that announced the release of the Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta and the Windows Web Application Gallery. So exactly what did we announce?

The Microsoft Web Platform is our vision to deliver the best platform to developers for building their Web applications. Microsoft is committed to delivering the platform, tools, and applications that development organizations, communities, and developers need and value; with the long-term idea of supporting a lucrative market to benefit developers and end-users. The Microsoft Platform is designed to interoperate with both ASP.NET and PHP, and integrate easily with community applications and products in the market today.
The release of the Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta . The WebPI provides a simplified download/install experience for Microsoft’s free web products. It includes everything that you need to get up and running to build your web solutions – from servers, tools, and technologies, including the most recently updated products. This means you don’t have to go to a different website and download to set up your dev machines or servers! With the WebPI, you can install the entire stack all from one website – www.microsoft.com/web and one installer. Additionally, the WebPI installs the community version of PHP 5.2.9-1 so you have easy integration with popular web applications. All you need is a Windows machine or hosted version of Windows.
The release of the Windows Web Application Gallery. The Windows Web Application Gallery is a community hub of free and popular .NET and PHP applications for you to use for creating dynamic web solutions. Additionally, if you have a free web application you’d like to add to the Windows Web App Gallery – you can do so – and we’ll put into the Windows Web Application Gallery and get your application exposure to millions of developers worldwide.

Details on the Windows Web Application Gallery:

The application developer owns the distribution point.
The Windows Web Application Gallery provides links to your application ZIP packages with Web Development Tool integration on the application developer’s web site. We are not storing it on Microsoft servers.
We point to community servers for the packages with Web Deployment integration, which is maintained and supported as part of the community app package by the community or maintainers of your web application.
Integration with the Web Deployment Tool is designed to work with existing application packages. You need to add a couple of manifest files to the root of your existing ZIP package using the Application Packaging Guide, test to make sure that you work on the platforms supported by Web Platform Installer, and follow the other Web Application Gallery Principles.
The Web App Gallery is open to ASP.NET and PHP applications that follow our Web Application Gallery Principles and best practices for hosting ASP.NET and PHP applications on IIS.
All applications in the Web Application Gallery live in an XML feed that is consumed by Web Platform Installer, participating control panel vendors, and any site that also wants to integrate with the feed.
To get started begin with the application submission process here, http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/submit.aspx

Details on the Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta:

What’s in the Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta?
- IIS 5.1, 6.0 or 7.0 depending on your version of Windows
- SQL Server 2008 Express
- .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
- Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition
- IIS Extensions including: Media Services 3.0, Admin Pack, DB Manager, WebDav 7.5, FTP 7.5, FastCGI for PHP support, URL Rewriter, Application Routing, Web Deployment Tool
- ASP.NET and features such as ASP.NET MVC
- Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio
- The Community Version of PHP v5.2.9-1
Supported on Windows Vista RTM, Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008.
V2 beta is integrated with the Web Application Gallery and discovers and installs applications you select from the Web Application Gallery
Installation of applications pulls through the required dependencies from the Web stack, including community PHP 5.2.9-1
MySQL is not installed by WebPI but can be installed manually through guidance offered on www.microsoft.com/web

So check it out and explore. Also be sure to keep tabs on what the Microsoft Web Platform Team are up to over on Twitter, @mswebplatform and to see Scott Guthrie’s announcement about the Microsoft Web Platform go to www.visitmix.com and watch his announcement.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,WebPI,MS Web Platform,PHP,MIX09