The Microsoft MVP Award Program Blog

Nestor Portillo on the 2010 Summit: The importance of this event cannot be understated

All of us here in Redmond are eagerly anticipating the 2010 MVP Global Summit. As the biggest event Microsoft holds on campus each year, the Summit is a fantastic way to catch up with old friends and meet new friends who make a tremendous impact on the global technical community.

The importance of this event cannot be understated, and I deeply value the opportunity to have face-to-face interactions with our global MVPs. Through these in-person discussions, and all the dynamic interactions we have throughout the year, MVPs truly help shape the customer experience. We appreciate the time MVPs take out of their busy lives to be with us for these four action-packed days. From personal experience, I can say that Summit always leaves me feeling inspired and excited about how the technical community is growing and changing, and how exceptional leaders like our MVPs are helping customers realize the full potential of technology. 

February 16^th cannot come soon enough! Last year’s Summit was a great success, and we look forward to another tremendous event.

Nestor Portillo is the Director of Community and Online Support at Microsoft.

French Silverlight MVP Eric Ambrosi releases "Pratique de Silverlight"

Silverlight MVP, Eric Ambrosi has written a book called “Pratique de Silverlight” about design elements of Silverlight applications, starting from the display list, to loading external data in the design model MVVM through prototyping or organizational workflow.

The “Pratique de Silverlight” is written in French and is available for download in PDF format from Pearson France. The book is rich with downloadable examples for both designer and for developers.

Ambrosi has been a multimedia graphic designer since 1998. He co-founded the European School of Animation.

With a background in education, his book will certainly be a great lesson for those interested in Silverlight design.

At 500 pages, “Pratique de Silverlight” is quite the accomplishment, and we are proud to recognize Ambrosi’s contribution to the Silverlight community.

French Translation:

Eric Ambrosi, MVP Silverlight, vient de publier un livre intitulé  “Pratique de Silverlight” relatif aux éléments de conception des applications, en partant de la liste d'affichage jusqu'au chargement de données externes au sein du modèle de conception MVVM en passant par le prototypage ou l'organisation des flux de production.

L’ouvrage “Pratique de Silverlight” est écrit en français  et est disponible en téléchargement au format PDF. Ce livre est enrichi d’exemples téléchargeables à la fois pour le designer et pour le développeur.

Eric Ambrosi est Concepteur multimedia depuis 1998. Il est le co-fondateur de l’Ecole Européenne Supérieure d'Animation.

Tenant compte de l’expérience de l’auteur dans le monde de l’éducation, ce livre est assurément un moyen d’apprentissage approprié en matière de design Silverlight

Avec ses 500 pages, “Pratique de Silverlight” est un accomplissement, et nous sommes fiers de reconnaitre cette contribution importante d’Eric Ambrosi à la communauté Silverlight.

Online SharePoint Saturday EMEA !

On January 23rd, it will be held the first online EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) Sharepoint Conference, covering all the different timezones, called “SharePoint Saturday EMEA”

Featuring MVPs Ágnes Molnár (Hungary), Claudio Brotto (Italy), Jan Tielens (Belgium), Marwan Tarek (Egypt), Mostafa Elzoghbi (USA), Muhanad Omar (Jordan), Nicolas Georgeault (France), Steve Smith (United Kingdom), Zlatan Dzinic (South Africa) and other important IT Professionals and Developers from all around the Globe,“the SharePoint Saturday EMEA is a global event, with participating speakers calling in from various locations around the world. We have confirmed the following speakers and will be posting their abstracts of the sessions as soon as they are available”

The agenda is pretty intense, covering all the aspects of SharePoint 2010, so be sure to be on spot using #SPSEMEA with your tweets and register here !!

Link to: Home - Live Online SharePoint Saturday EMEA

Content provided by Alessandro Teglia

Mac MVP Contributes to Apple Script Book

MVP Barry Wainwright recently contributed to a chapter for the book ‘Learn AppleScript: The Comprehensive Guide to Scripting and Automation on Mac OS X’. The title offers a 50 page section on scripting Office for Mac applications (Entourage, Word, Excel and PowerPoint).

The book has an emphasis on practical information that will help users to solve any automation problem from the most mundane repetitive tasks, to highly integrated workflows of complex systems. Friendly enough for beginners, and detailed enough for advanced Apple Scripters. Barry’s contribution helps Office Mac users to make the most out of scripting.

The book is available to purchase here

Japanese MVP Releases Windows Azure Book!

Solutions Architect MVP Tatsuaki Sakai recently contributed to a new book entitled, “Introduction to Windows Azure” with Microsoft Architect Evangelist Shinichiro Isago and two other authors. This is the first technical book designed for .NET and non .NET developers, and covers Windows Azure in the Japanese language.

Tatsuaki began using Windows Azure during the technical preview, and is now one of the Azure community leaders in Japan. In his new book, he looks at the challenges that Cloud Computing brings to the Enterprise. The book also examines Microsoft’s Cloud Computing strategy and provides practical examples for building cloud based applications for Windows Azure.

The book is available to purchase here.

A Japanese translation of this post is available here. (日本語訳はこちら)

MVP Releases Programming Course on Writing Computer Games

MVP Rob Miles has produced a programming course, for students who have no prior experience in writing games in C# and the XNA Game Studio. The course is designed to engage students with the craft of programming, by the creation of gameplay using the XNA game framework.

Overview of the course

"Getting Started Making Games with C# and XNA Game Studio" is a programming course for senior high school or undergraduate students with no prior programming experience. It is intended to engage students with the craft of programming by the creation of gameplay using the XNA game framework.

Whilst the students will learn how to create games, the course should really be regarded as one which teaches programming. All of the issues that are explored are also applicable in the wider scheme of software development.

Presentations are provided as part of the learning materials. The presentations are grouped into a number of topic based parts with a practical session to underpin the taught content. Each presentation is interspersed with demonstrations and annotated with speaker notes, as we ll as content review sessions.

The material is intended to foster a dialogue between the presenter and the audience; in some places the presenter is given some discussion points to further this. There are also some "interactive development" sections where presenter and audience use what they have been taught so far to solve a particular problem. These attempts (and their occasional failure) lead to more detailed exposition of the material and hopefully remind those present that having things not work is actually part of the software development experience.

Learn more about the course and download it here.

Share this post :

MVP Releases "Windows 7 for Dummies"

MVP Andy Rathbone has just released his new book entitled, Windows 7 for Dummies!

Whether you are new to computers or just eager to start using the latest version of Windows, Andy will walk you through the most common Windows 7 tasks, including managing files, applications, media, and Internet access. If you've never used Windows before, the book will show you how to navigate the Windows interface, customize the desktop, and work with the file system. Then it helps you get comfortable using all aspects of Windows 7.

The book also covers:

· Covers basic management of applications, files, and data; creating and printing documents; setting up an Internet connection and e-mail account; and online security

• Explores using Windows to edit and manage audio, video, and photo files, and how to create CDs, DVDs, and playlists with Media Center
• Helps you tweak and customize Windows 7 to operate your way and set up user accounts, build a home network, and maintain your PC
• Provides troubleshooting advice, helps you find missing files and use the Help system, and explains common error messages

Watch Andy talking about his new book, by clicking on the picture above.

Windows 7 for Dummies can be purchased here.

Share this post :

French MVP Launches Windows 7 Tutorials Site!

French MVP Michel Martin has launched MediaForma, a site designed to showcase videos tutorials for Windows Seven!  Designed predominately for the consumer audience, Michels’s site helps to guide the viewer through Microsoft’s latest operating systems. Click on the links below to watch each of the videos.

• Using MetaData to find your files easily
• Installing / Uninstalling a program
• Ease of access accessories
• Fonts
• Windows help and support
• Copying music from CDs
• Copying files quickly
• Setting up access to your message account
• The Recycle Bin
• Play a media in another computer
• The Phishing filter
• Quick Searches
• The Character map
• Multiple toolbars
• Detecting disk errors
• Switching between users
• System Restore
• Sound settings
• Switching between applications
• Changing the refresh frequency

An English version of the site is available here: http://www.mediaforma.com/en
The French version of the site is available here: http://www.mediaforma.com

Share this post :

MVPs Talk Visual Studio 2010 at Dev Connections 2009

Hi,

My name is PJ Forgione, and I am a US-based Developer MVP Lead working primarily with the Visual Studio Language MVPs.  During the recent DevConnections conference, I caught up with many developer MVPs, to talk about Visual Studio 2010.  I wanted to hear all about their excitement for launch in March, the best new features with Visual Studio 2010, potential challenges and solutions to full scale adoption when Visual Studio 2010 is released, and most importantly any feedback that they may have submitted into the product. 

These videos, are “quick conversations” and will be feature here on the MVP Award Program blog each Friday, during the run up to the release of Visual Studio 2010.  To paint a bigger picture I made a point of talking to MVPs from a variety of perspectives – from SharePoint and Office developers to those focused more on Entity Framework or web development and even some international MVPs.  The first MVP to be featured is Team System MVP Kevin Israel.  Be sure to tune in each Friday to see which MVP will be featured and feel free to share these videos with anyone interested in learning about all of the cool things coming up in Visual Studio 2010!

PJ

Share this post :

MVP Delivers Talk on SharePoint 2010 Features

MVP Marwan Tarek recently delivered a talk on the new features of SharePoint 2010 at two User Group events.

During his talk, he covered new features in SharePoint 2010 for IT Pros and Developers. He also introduced SharePoint workloads, SharePoint evolution, PowerShell, Content management, workflows, BCS and the new UI features to his IT audience. You can view Marwan’s talk below.

Learn more about his community contributions, by visiting his blog.

Share this post :

MVP Releases Windows 7 “App Compat” Articles

Indian MVP Vijay Raj has written a 5-part series on Windows 7 Application Compatibility. “App Compat” is an important consideration for anyone who is looking to upgrade to a new operating system. Vijay’s articles can help decision makers to prepare, as he covers important information on how Windows 7 interacts with everyday applications.

Learn more by reading his articles below.

• Part 1: How do you fix the OS Version Number Issues?
• Part 2: How do you Fix Browser Compatibility Issues?
• Part 3: Demystifying the Windows 7 Virtual XP Mode
• Part 4: Session 0 Isolation and Secure Desktop
• Part 5: Libraries, UAC, WRP and other Core Changes

Vijay’s blog can also be found here

Share this post :

MVP Talks Community on Tech Talk Radio

MVP Michael Cocanower was interviewed earlier this year, by US radio show, KFNX-AM’s IMI Tech Talk!

Michael does a terrific job at describing the MVP Award Program, and the value it brings to the technical community. He demonstrates the commitment MVPs have to help individuals maximize their technology investments.

The 25-minute interview can be heard here. 

Share this post :

Israeli MVP Shares Source Code to Code Blog Tool

MVP Asaf Shelly suffered a problem which is common to many developers. How do you display you own code on the web? Code tends to look bad as a plain text file, and colouring becomes a problem whenever updates are made to the code and republished to blogs. Therefore, he decided to solve this problem by authoring a handy tool and is making the source code open to the community! 

In Asif’s own words:

 
“Bottom line is that I decided to finally do it. It took me less than 12 hours of work to produce a text parser that produces HTML files for C/++/# files. It is only appropriate (and simple :) to share the source code of this generator as the first project that I share”.

The project publisher tool has three basic elements:

A C# library with ProjectPublisher.cs which is the engine, a C# WebService that uses the library with the source file ProjectPublisherWSvc.asmx.cs, and a simple web page demonstrating the use of the WebService called Default use of ProjectPublisherWS.aspx.cs”.

 
He has also made available a web service where you can post snipped code and get well formed HTML back for you web page.

Click here to learn more about the Web Service.  Download the code here, and read Asif’s community contributions by reading his blog.

Share this post :

German MVP Releases Visual Basic 2008 Book

Programming with Visual Basic 2008 is a new book by MVP Klaus Löffelmann, and it provides insights into Visual Basic 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5.
The book is published by Microsoft Press, and explains the basics of object-oriented development, programming databases with LINQ and the creation of User Interfaces.

Klaus shares code samples from the book on his community website, http://www.activedevelop.de

Please note the book is published in the German language and is available to purchase here.  Alternatively, you can download a free PDF version of the book here.

Share this post :

MVP Interviews at TechEd Europe 2009 – Video Wrapup #1

Watch the Microsoft MVP Program’s Karen Young interview a number of MVPs at the recent TechEd Europe in Berlin! Learn all about how our MVPs, discover how they become involved in I.T and what they love most about it!

Thanks to all interviewees for taking the time to visit us!

Share this post :