Murray Gordon

Just found out about the new PowerThreading Library for Silverlight, by Jeffrey Richter of Wintellect.

This is definitely worth checking out.

Now Available:  PowerThreading Library for Silverlight, by Jeffrey Richter of Wintellect

Available now for immediate download from http://Wintellect.com/PowerThreading is the latest version of Wintellect’s free Power Threading Library by Jeffrey Richter.  This new version includes a DLL for use by Silverlight applications and components.  In particular, the Silverlight version includes Jeffrey’s popular AsyncEnumerator class that allows developers to use a synchronous programming model while performing asynchronous operations. This allows developers to create very fast and responsive applications while using very few threads. The class also offers various coordination activities such as cancelation, timeout, discarding, and so on. Limited free support for the library is available via http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PowerThreading/, while full-featured support is available via contract with Wintellect.

“With Silverlight, developers have the best of both worlds: the ability to create rich client-side applications deployed via the web. In order to keep the web browser responsive, Silverlight allows only asynchronous operations; synchronous operations are not allowed. My Power Threading library allows developers to easily perform asynchronous operations while using a synchronous programming model. This is useful for any application performing I/O operations with file streams, web site requests, web service requests, and more.” -Jeffrey Richter

Very cool.

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation       http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG US ISV Team Blog  GeeksWithBlogs

We have an upcoming Architect/Developer event called MDC or "Microsoft Developer Conference" that will have an entire day dedicated to Cloud Computing.  It will be a great destination for the real juicy details on how to do Cloud Computing using Microsoft Technologies.

Here's the link to the site: http://www.msdndevcon.com/Pages/Atlanta.aspx

I'm looking forward to it.

Date: December 16, 2008

Location:

The Westin Peachtree Plaza
210 Peachtree Street
Atlanta, GA 30303-1745
(404) 659-1400

There will be some great speakers and awesome content.

This is a great opportunity to get caught up on how to develop/architect for the cloud.

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG US ISV Team Blog  GeeksWithBlogs

Looks like the adoption of Google's Chrome is dropping...

Google Chrome usage share has been dropping since its launch.

Check it out on Marketshare (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?sample=24&qprid=34&qpcustom=Chrome+0.2&qpsp=3531&qpnp=52&qptimeframe=D)

Can't help but be a little psyched about this.

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation       http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG US ISV Team Blog  GeeksWithBlogs

Here's some great webcasts to check out, just around the corner on WPF, ASP.NET and writing secure applications.

If you're reading this an the webcast has already happened, you can check out the recording at the same link.

• MSDN Webcast: BenkoTIPS Live and On-Demand: 10 Ways Your Applications Can Be More Secure on Windows Vista
  10/22/08 11:00 AM (PST); http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032390933&Culture=en-US. In this webcast, you learn 10 reasons why your application can be more secure when it is deployed on Windows Vista. We also cover the new capabilities designed to protect memory, minimize privilege, and provide resource-oriented access control, plus a plethora of additional security enhancements.

• MSDN Webcast: BenkoTIPS Live and On-Demand: ASP.NET Overview for Non-ASP.NET Developers
  10/29/08 9:00 AM (PST) http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032390937&Culture=en-US. In this webcast, we explore many of the core elements of ASP.NET development and share practical examples to help you get started building solutions with the ASP.NET framework.

• MSDN Webcast: BenkoTIPS Live and On-Demand: Windows Presentation Foundation Demystified 11/5/2008, 9:00 AM (PST)
  http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032391135&Culture=en-US. In this webcast, we examine the core concepts of WPF, such as layout panels, data binding, styles, and control templates. We then use these to develop an application UI from the ground up.

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation       http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG US ISV Team Blog  GeeksWithBlogs

If you are reading this on an RSS aggregator or RSS reader you might want to check out the new look of the US ISV Team Blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/usisvde

Thanks to everyone involved for helping out on the new look.

Special thanks to Susan Friesen and Kevin Kennedy from BBDO Atlanta. I really appreciate the help and I definitely owe you one.

Here's a screenshot of what it looks like:

Check it out!

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation      http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG US ISV Team Blog  GeeksWithBlogs

Congrats to guys at Microsoft's Enterprise Search Group.

According to Gartner, Microsoft is now the leader in Enterprise Search. You can check out the report at http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol6/article4/article4.html.

Kudos for all the hard work across Enterprise Search Group spanning Search Server Express, SharePoint and FAST ESP.

Here's a screenshot of the Magic Quadrant. Not Microsoft is in the top right quandrant, commonly referred to as the magic quadrant. Microsoft combines the lead with both the ability to execute and the completeness of vision.

Very exciting!

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Great post on custom SharePoint caching with SharePoint file dependencies by Vincent Rothwell.

» SharePoint caching and CacheDependency

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

There's a great article that Andrew Connell recently published that's worth a read, if you touching SharePoint currently or will be in the near future. The article, Prescriptive Guidance for SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Sites, addresses some common things you should keep in mind in planning, architecting, designing and implementing your Publishing sites.

Here's a summary on what the article is all about:

In Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft has taken the best concepts and capabilities from an earlier product, Microsoft Content Management Server 2002, and added them to the SharePoint platform. These new capabilities, known as Web content management (WCM), facilitate the creation of content-centric sites on the SharePoint platform. Although they are SharePoint sites at their core, these sites have additional functionality that is facilitated by publishing features. These SharePoint features add special libraries and lists to SharePoint sites. Sites on which the publishing features are activated are known as publishing sites.

Publishing sites adhere to most, if not all, of the prescriptive guidance and generally accepted best practices for SharePoint sites. However, because of the non-collaborative nature of publishing sites and their generally larger audience, they require additional considerations and planning to be implemented successfully. This article addresses many areas that are specific to deploying successful and scalable publishing sites in the enterprise.

MSDN: Prescriptive Guidance for SharePoint Server 2007 Web Content Management Sites

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

I read a great article on SharePoint at the Software Development Times on the Web (SDTimes) website.

There were some great quotes. I thought Paul Andrew from the SharePoint Product Team gave a great perspective on SharePoint, where's it's been and where it's going. It's worth a read. Here's a couple quotes I really liked:

Microsoft's Paul Andrew said the company had not anticipated SharePoint’s popularity in the development community. “When [SharePoint] first came out, things were not scaled for its growth,” he admitted. “If Microsoft is good at anything, [however,] it is coming back to try again, work harder and harder.”

The company will continue to add support and development resources to SharePoint to handle the increased growth, he said.

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Great new downloads for SharePoint developers at the MSSharePointDeveloper site.

MSSharePointDeveloper site or "introduction to SharePoint Development site" has been around for a few months now. It's a great resources for developers that are looking to get into SharePoint development.

Here's the new stuff you can find there. The VM's have been updated to Visual Studio 2008, which is awesome!

• Downloadable WSS Dev VPC Image
• Updated to Visual Studio 2008 (previously Visual Studio 2005).
• Smaller download at about 1.8Gb to download in 4 files now.
• The Virtual PC image includes:
• Windows Server 2003 (expires on 29th September 2009)
• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP1
• Visual Studio 2008
• Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services
• 10 Hands on Labs for learning SharePoint in C# and VB.NET
• SharePoint Developer Introductory Hands on Labs
• All updated to Visual Studio 2008.
• They are included on the VM image.
• They are also available for separate individual downloads from the site.
• SharePoint Developer Introductory Web Cast PPTs and Demos
• 10 webcast PPTs with transcripts.
• Previously 2 of the webcasts were missing transcripts.

All three of these downloads and online MSDN Virtual Labs are available at http://MSSHarePointDeveloper.com

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

PDC 2008 is right around the corner.

If you've taken a look at the session list, you will be psyched to see that there are some great SharePoint sessions. Here's the list of sessions that Paul Andrew, Technical Product Manager for the SharePoint Developer Platform, posted.

There are four awesome SharePoint sessions that will be key to hit when you are there:

• SharePoint Online: Extending your Service by Troy Hopwood
• SharePoint 2007: Advanced Async Workflow Messaging
• FAST: Building Search-Driven Portals with MOSS & Silverlight (I'm very excited to check this one out)
• SharePoint 2007: Creating SharePoint Applications with VS 2008 by Chris Johnson (see his post about this session)

If you are a SharePoint guy and at PDC, then don't worry... you won't be alone! There will be a lot of SharePoint MVP's and product team members cruising around. Also, If you've ever been to a Party with Palermo you'll want to add the one at PDC to list of godo's at the conference (PDC 2008 Party with Parlermo).

Only 14 days left!

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Saw an article today at silicon.com that announced "the long-awaited software developer kit for the Surface tabletop computer will be made available to those attending Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference (PDC) at the end of the month."

Here's the link to the article: http://software.silicon.com/os/0,39024651,39299687,00.htm

Background is that Microsoft recently made the pledge on the PDC website, as part of a listing for a session focused on writing Surface applications.

Here's what was said of the session: "Hear about the unique attributes of Microsoft Surface computing, dive into vision-based object recognition and core controls like ScatterView, and learn how the Surface SDK aligns with the multi-touch developer roadmap for Windows 7. Attendees will receive access to the Microsoft Surface SDK."

For those of you interested in developing multi-touch applications for Surface devices, get registered for PDC. You don't want to miss this.

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Yeah Baby! I've been waiting for this announcement.

Visual Studio Team System Development/Database Edition Merge

As part of the VSTS 2010 announce on Sept 29, Visual Studio Team System Development Edition and Visual Studio Team Database Edition will be merging into a single product. On October 1st, customers who purchase VSTS Developer Edition or VSTS Database Edition will get the features available in both products.

Here's the official messaging:

In the next release of Visual Studio Team System we will be merging the feature sets of the Development Edition and the Database Edition into a single product. The new product – part of Visual Studio Team System codename “Rosario” – will include all of the features in both the Development Edition and the Database Edition as well as new capabilities delivering even more value in a single product. This will provide a more complete set of capabilities for building software in today’s data-driven environments. Bringing these two feature sets together enables you to take advantage of the core tools for application development as well as the necessary tools for database development, including performance profiling, code analysis, code metrics, code coverage, database refactoring, Schema Compare, Data Compare, and more. As an MSDN subscriber we want you to realize the benefit of this merged feature set now, which is why we are extending this exclusive offer. If you have either the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Development Edition with MSDN Premium subscription or the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition with MSDN Premium subscription, on October 1, 2008 you will have access to both the Development Edition and Database Edition through MSDN Subscriber Downloads. This change also applies to customers who purchased Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers  with MSDN Premium Subscription and Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals with MSDN Premium Subscription.

For more information on this change, the VSTS 2008 Site  (http://www.microsoft.com/defyallchallenges/teamsystem/).

ISV's and Enterprises alike are going to be super pumped about this one.

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Just read about a great new library from Glenn Block. The new library is on Codeplex and it provides a shared interface for IoC (Inversion of Control) containers. The library allows developers to build applications and frameworks which leverage IoC / Service location without being tied to a particular implementation.

It was a collaborative effort between P&P (Patterns and Practices), MEF (Managed Extensibility Framework) and several IoC authors including Chris Tavares (Unity), Jeremy Miller (Structure Map), Nate Kohari (Ninject), Mark Pollack(Spring) and Hamilton Verssimo (Windsor) who now carries a blue badge at Microsoft.

Read more about it at the links below.

• http://www.tavaresstudios.com/Blog/post/Announcing-The-IServiceLocator-interface.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/gblock/archive/2008/10/02/iservicelocator-a-step-toward-ioc-container-service-locator-detente.aspx

You can get it at www.codeplex.com/commonservicelocator

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG

Very exciting things happening for ISV's at PDC this year.

I pulled this little nugget from a recent post by Tim Sneath:

“Among other things, we’ll be running compatibility labs at the PDC so you can bring your application and test it on Windows 7 builds. Don’t you want to make sure you’re ahead of the curve and, indeed, take advantage of some major new innovations?”

Original post: What You’ll Hear at PDC2008

Thought I would let you know about this opportunity. 

I think this would be a very easy way for ISV's to ensure that your application will install and run on Win7 (obvious problems like need for a server to hit aside) and be ready to announce support early!!!

Thanks for checking out this post!

Cheers,

Murray Gordon ISV Architect Evangelist Microsoft Corporation   http://blogs.msdn.com/MurrayG