Silverlight 2 Developer Poster

Need something else geeky to stick on the wall next to your desk, then I have the answer.  Microsoft have created a poster which details some of the key new features in Silverlight 2.

To get your copy go to Brad Abrams blog.

Windows Live Writer

Up until recently my blogging experience has been, come up with an idea, write up the blog entry in an Outlook email (so I can spell check), copy-and-paste to Blogspot and format the text and insert links using HTML mark up.  This process has worked very well except I have to hand craft my links and double check that they are all working before I post.

I have seen Windows Live Writer around for a while and had the usual thought 'I should look at that', well finally I did and WOW!

I installed Live Writer, pointed it at my Blogspot account (a google site) and it signed-in checked the account took some settings from the site to configure my experience and here I am writing this blog from inside Live Writer.

The experience is everything I could hope for its a complete Word-like experience with the usual spell checking, something I greatly need, font formatting, tables, bullet points etc, insertion of links and also difference media (pictures, videos etc). Once I have finished formatting my blog entry I click 'publish' and it appears in my blog, the experience of the interface means that I could stop physically logging into my Blogspot account from now on, if I so wished.

If you write a blog or are thinking of writing one but are held back by the process of having to use another web interface then give Windows Live Writer a go I am sure that once you start using it you will suddenly realise that the only thing stopping you from blogging now is time and ideas.

To download Windows Live writer go here

Microsoft Marketing - Win A Dream Office

We all know that the Microsoft marketing machine is big and strong, they have come up with some interesting ways to promote their products.  For example to promote the use of Visual Studio the Defy All Challenges web site was created which seemed to serve no other purpose than to tell you something we all know, Visual Studio is great!

Along the same line of slightly pointless marketing web sites Microsoft are running a new competition to win £500 worth of office equipment.  To gain your entry to this competition you first have to navigate around a virtual office  and click you way through a number of clues to find the keys, all while being told how great the Microsoft suite of office products are.

If you have the spare time you can find the web site here

Team Foundation Server – Power Tools (September 2007)

Team System is something I use almost every day and it is a great product, however like most software there are a number of features that never made it into the final product which I actually need. Microsoft understands this which is why almost all developer software produced is accompanied by some Power Tools, and Team Foundation Server is no different.

The Power Tools, which have been updated and released this month, offer a number of invaluable features to anyone involved with TFS these include;

‘Best Practices Analyser’ for checking your server is set up correctly
Check-In Policy pack for new ways of stopping bad code making it to the final product
A Process Template Editor to make those company specific tweaks
Number of command line tools for managing your projects

You can find the full information and detail on how to download the tools here http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem

Debugging ASP.NET Server Requests and Response

How often have you gone to a client site or worked with your production server and wondered what is IIS receiving? This sort of information, like all information needed, is in the memory of the server but you cannot see it as you would need to interrogate the servers memory using something like WinDbg and workout at what position (memory address) the request and response are and work back to re-piece the information into a form you can read.

Now do not get me wrong this would be great thing to do and I would learn so much but like you, I have a heap more things to do with my day like actually creating that new web widget.

However do not fear as someone has already done the hard work for you, Tess Ferrandez, who works for Microsoft in Sweden is the person you want on your side as she spends her free time working out how to debug code. If you want to read how to get the request and response data from IIS or just copy the scripts, read her blog article here http://blogs.msdn.com/tess

Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications

When developing all applications you came to that point in the project, usually near to shipping, when you think about looking at the performance of the app. Hopefully you have read the books and persuaded your stakeholder to give you some metrics to work by or you just want the app to run on the smallest amount of hardware possible allowing your customers to have little reason to not use your new widget.

The guys over at the patterns and practices team have a lot of information to help developers like us with information on how we can tune our apps and they have just released a new document on how to tune your web applications using performance testing. I have not read the whole document but from I have seen it is to the usual high standard and contains a wealth of information on the subject of performance for web applications, for those of you who also do Windows apps I am sure that you will be able to use some of the same methodologies in this area as well as the document gives you a strong grounding in the methodologies (I expect nothing less from these guys).

To read the document on line or download the PDF go here http://www.codeplex.com/PerfTestingGuide

skydrive.live.com

Microsoft have just released a new service called ‘SkyDrive’. This new service provides storage for any data up to 500mb. It secured to your passport account and but you can also share your storage area with selected people.

The web pages only allow you to upload 5 files at a time but you can download a tool which allows you to upload more than five at a time making far more usable.

You can find more information here skydrive.live.com

Team System Web Access Power Tool

Yesterday Microsoft released the updated version of their Team System Web Access Power Tool, this free tool allows you to control your Team System projects entirely through a web interface. This tool is the updated version of the DevBiz tool which Microsoft bought earlier this year.

The development team at Microsoft has put some time into improving the tool over the original, which was already quite feature rich, by putting it through their own release cycle which includes many rigorous checks. They have also spent some time putting increased support for AJAX to make the interface more response and have removed the need for keys to activate the product, it is now accessed using Windows Authentication.

This tool is available to download from here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/.
Remember you need to have Team System already installed for this to work.

To see a full list of changes read this blog http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/

SilverLight 1.0

On 27th July version 1.0 of Silverlight was released, this came as small surprise to me as after all the hype and the ‘download now to look’ that it was not already a released product. The 1.0 release includes around 2000 bug fixes and work items, they have also put this release through rigorous stress testing making the product more robust than the beta version released at MIX 07 and faster in the magnitude of two to three.

Along with version 1.0 being release the Microsoft team have also made some improvements to the 1.1 version, the one with the .NET framework, these are mainly to the core runtime in reflection of the 1.0 development changes.

You can download the runtime from the following locations

Silverlight 1.0 RC1 / Windows
Silverlight 1.0 RC1 / Mac

Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/

Community Events

At the last '.NET Developer Network' meeting I heard some more news about the UK version of MIX 07 but like all pre-release information nothing is yet confirmed. However the guys from the NxtGenUG are planning to attend and hold their own game show in family fortunes style event. The rest of the line up is subject to change so I will not discuss it any more.

There is currently an estimated cost for the two day event which currently sits at £150 to £200, so get saving those pennies.

To register your interest in the event go here http://www.microsoft.com/uk/mix07/

Also at the last .NET Developer Network meeting, Guy Smith-Ferrier (organiser of the group), mentioned that there will be another DeveloperDay event in November. It is so good to hear that we have another great community day not to far in the future.

I cannot help thinking that the committee which organises these events is relentless in offering us great community events, something which I am very grateful to them for.

Add the feed from this site onto your RSS aggregator to hear the latest news : http://www.developerday.co.uk/ddd/default.asp

To find out about the .NET Developer Network events in Bristol (UK) go here http://www.dotnetdevnet.com/

SQL Server Best Practices Analyser

Microsoft have just released the next version of their Best Practices tool for SQL Server 2005. This tool is a great help to anyone who has to administer a SQL Server as it will scan your SQL instances and any selected databases against a list of best practices settings.

Once the scan has completed you will be presented with a report, ranked by severity, detailing recommended changes and detailed information on where to get more information on the recommendation.

To download the tool go here : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=da0531e4-e94c-4991-82fa-f0e3fbd05e63&displaylang=en&tm