Suresh's Weblog

Windows Vista Beta 2 Public Release

sureshs — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 01:00:00 GMT

Windows Vista Beta 2 Public Release

Today Microsoft Windows formally announced public availability of Windows Vista Beta 2.

The beta is build 5384 for those of you keeping track. On the GetReady site you can use the Upgrade Advisor to see if your current Windows XP machine can run Windows Vista. Secondly, system requirements and a product guide are also available. And, Windows Vista Beta 2 may be either downloaded or ordered on DVD for a small fee in 32 bit or 64 bit.

click here to get the beta

-Suresh

Cypress- Addon for Visual Studio 2005

sureshs — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 01:12:00 GMT

The trinity team(VSTO/VSTA team in MS) announced "Cypress", a fully-supported add-on to Visual Studio 2005 which will give developers the ability to build applications targeting the 2007 version of Office.

Specific Cypress functionality includes:

Number #1 customer requested feature: application-level add-ins for the most popular Office applications including Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, InfoPath and Visio

Office key feature support: programming model and runtime support for Ribbon, Custom Task Panes, and Outlook forms regions. Design-time support will follow in Visual Studio "Orcas"

Cypress will also ensure that applications built on Office 2003 with VSTO 2005 continue to run with 2007 version of Office, facilitating enterprise deployments. Cypress is a date-driven release and will ship concurrent with the 2007 version of Office later this year.

This will provide customers with the first class developer tools in Visual Studio and provides the update of tools needed to target the Office release. This replaces the existing plan to have a beta version of VSTO "Orcas" with a "go-live" license available at the October launch. Cypress will be a fully supported Visual Studio product.

-Suresh

Visual Studio Team Edition for Database professionals

sureshs — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 03:08:00 GMT

Microsoft is announcing a new product, Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals. This new offering expands Visual Studio 2005 Team System to include the Database Professional role and enables software teams to collaborate more effectively in creating reliable, data-driven applications. A CTP of this product will be made available on June 11^th and the final release is targeted for later this calendar year.

Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals

With Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Pros, Microsoft is introducing the first in a series of expansions to the Visual Studio Team System family

Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals provides a foundation for change management, testing, offline database projects and deployment of databases through integrated functionality that enables database developers and administrators to be more productive, increase security, and drive quality
Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals adds the following new capabilities to the Visual Studio Team System:
- Integrated change management enables database professionals to exert greater control over their databases, streamline changes to their databases, and reduce the risk involved with altering database schemas
- Database testing helps create full unit tests for database schemas, author complex tests, and create meaningful test data based on a production environment
- Lifecycle integration for the database enables database professionals to participate in the software development lifecycle using Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

You can find more information about Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/teamsystem/products/dbpro

For more information about today’s announcements, you can read the press release here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/default.mspx

-Suresh

Windows Vista live meeting links

sureshs — Tue, 30 May 2006 21:54:00 GMT

We have been running Vista live meeting sessions which covers various topics around Vista.

Here is the link to recorded Vista live meeting sessions.

Vista Overview for Developers

A Lap Around Windows Presentation Foundation

Advances in Document Workflow

Animation, 3D and Media: Unlocking the Power of WPF

Windows Applications in a Mobile World

Windows Vista – Application Compatibility Issues and Resolutions

Developing Power-Aware Applications

Behind the Scenes: Recent Changes in the User Experience

Search & Organize in Windows Vista - An Architectural Overview

-Suresh

Office 2007 Webcast

sureshs — Fri, 19 May 2006 02:12:00 GMT

Next week I am delivering a Office 2007 webcast. Office 2007 provides a tremendous opportunity for developers to provide rich client solutions to solve business problems.

You can register for the webcast and attend it from the link below:

http://www.msreadiness.com/WS_abstract.asp?eid=15004045

-Suresh

Go Live program for WCF /WF

sureshs — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 21:06:00 GMT

The WCF (Windows Communication Foundation / “Indigo”) and WF (Windows Workflow Foundation) have announced Go Live licenses yesterday morning, which allow customers to use the January Go Live releases of WCF and WF in your deployment environments. (Note that these are unsupported Go Lives.)

More information about the Go Live program is at http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/getthebeta/golive/default.aspx.

There are two WCF and WF community sites, at:

http://windowscommunication.net

http://windowsworkflow.net

The community sites will give users everything you need to start using WCF and WF today. Each site includes a gallery of community-submitted sample code or activities (WCF and WF), which is a great place to post any samples you’ve been working on as well.

-Suresh

MEDC 2006

sureshs — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 21:13:00 GMT

Happy New Year 2006.

I wanted to let you know about an exciting opportunity for exposure at the MEDC 2006. If you are an ISV working on the mobile and embedded space, this may be a great opportunity for you to get very good exposure.

Microsoft MEDC 2006 (Mobile and Embedded DevCon 2006) organizers invite you to submit proposals to speak at MEDC in our conference breakout sessions. MEDC is one of Microsoft’s most important annual technical training events, and our speaker selection process is extremely rigorous to ensure that attendees experience outstanding quality technical training. Successful proposals will be technical presentations that target best practices and tips & tricks, delivered by experts with significant and highly-rated speaking experience.

MEDC is the premier event for developers, device makers and IT Professionals to get a firsthand look at the future of mobile and embedded platforms. Attendees learn how to build devices and bring to market applications, content and services for Windows Mobile, Windows Embedded and Tablet PC platforms. This year we will also include a new track focused on helping our ISVs and Partners be successful in their business.

Session Proposals: Sessions are divided into 7 tracks of breakouts and hands on labs. Please submit session ideas for 75 minute sessions in the following topic areas:

Developing Client Applications
Developing Server Applications
Building Windows Embedded Devices
Mobile Devices In The Enterprise
Hands On Labs
Business of Mobile and Embedded

Next Steps

Visit the MEDC Call For Papers Site for details (http://content.medc2006.com/cfp/callforpapers.aspx)
Review the terms and conditions (http://content.medc2006.com/cfp/cfprules.aspx)
Submit your proposal (you will be assigned a unique ID)
Return for more submissions

All submissions will receive a response by January 30^th, 2006 indicating whether their topic has been selected or not.

Thanks,

Suresh

WinFX Runtime Components - Dec CTP

sureshs — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 23:39:00 GMT

For those of who playing around with WinFX, the WinFX Runtime components December CTP is now live and available online.

WinFX Runtime Components:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BD3BA2D5-6ADB-4FB2-A3AA-E16A9EA5603F&displaylang=en

Windows SDK:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2297BDC9-B5AE-4B8A-B601-EEF54A52867A&displaylang=en

VS Extensions w/Cider for WinFX RC:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D1336F3E-E677-426B-925C-C84A54654414&displaylang=en

WinFX RC Dec CTP “Readme”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/support/relnotes/winfxdecctp/default.aspx

Enjoy the holidays.

-Suresh

VS 2005 team edition & Team foundation Server

sureshs — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 22:26:00 GMT

I wanted to provide an update on the availability of VS 2005 team edition for Software developers and Team foundation Server workgroup edition.

The MSDN subscriber download has been updated with these product updates.This means that Gold Partners and partners in the ISV Competency now have download access to Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers and the Workgroup Edition of Team Foundation Server. New partners (since 11/14) should all now have download access as well.

-Suresh

Composite User Interface Block released

sureshs — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 02:49:00 GMT

The patterns and practices group has released the Composite UI application block. Click here to access this application block.

This application block helps to build smart client application based on composite pattern, which is based on creating complex solutions based on combining simple user interface parts.

Cheers

-Suresh

Architecture Journal

sureshs — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 02:27:00 GMT

I am an ISV Developer evangelist with Microsoft and I spend lot of my time talking to ISVs about architecture and how Microsoft solutions can fit their product architecture.

In case you don't know Microsoft publishes a quarterly architecture publication. you can register to receive a few copy here. In depth subject coverage is provided for SOA, interoperability, Smart client and many other architecture related topics.

Click here to take a look as some recent articles.

I don't want to say these journals will be a good holiday read. But you certianly want to keep this in your architecture bag of tricks.

-Suresh