And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

00:10 - Introduction - Nigel Parker
00:25 - Microsoft product releases (Office, VSTO SE, Vista, Media Player 11, IE7, ASP.NET Ajax Extensions Beta 2, VS2005 Extensions, .NET v3, VS2005 SP1 (beta))
02:55 - Web 2.0 Conference (Virtual Earth 3D, Photosynth)
05:45 - Windows Cardspace as part of the .Net Framework v3
06:30 - Current web security (password fatigue)
09:55 - What is Windows Cardspace?
12:05 - Managed v’s Self-issued cards
12:45 - Identity Blog
15:20 - Open standards
17:00 - Local storage of card information
22:10 - Working with existing sites
24:00 - Integrating Cardspace into your website/service
27:00 - Cardspace on other browsers and platforms
30:15 - Cardspace v’s Hailstorm v’s Passport
34:10 - Principles of Identity in the Windows SDK
38:10 - Portability of Cardspace information between machines

Listen to the show HERE

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

10:13 - Introduction - Darryl Burling
10:34 - Geekzone
11:13 - Silicon Welly
11:50 - 10 Usergroups in NZ
12:53 - ASP.NET v2
14:33 - Web 2.0 in Microsoft Land
15:53 - ASP.NET AJAX Extensions (formerly ATLAS)
20:18 - Windows Presentation Foundation
22:03 - WPF/e - its a web technology
25:03 - IE7 and Windows Update
25:58 - Orcas - Language changes, LINQ
27:08 - Plinq, Blinq, Dlinq, Xlinq
28:33 - Dynamic Languages in VB9 & C#
29:23 - Joel Pobar on Dynamic Languages
29:41 - More in Orcas - Intellisence  & Debugging support in Javascript
30:53 - Web in Vista Timeframe
31:13 - Live Services
33:57 - IE7 Phishing support
36:13 - Live Gadgets & Sidebar Gadgets
37:50 - Geekzone gadget

Listen to the show HERE

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

>> Show notes still to come

Listen to the show HERE

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

>> Show notes still to come

Listen to the show HERE

For the record the current versions of Skylook v2 and Skype v2.6.x[beta] don’t work together.  Skylook v2 and Skype 2.5 work well, even on Vista!

• Windows SDK

• Windows Presentation Foundation
• Windows Communication Foundation
• Windows Cardspace
• Windows Workflow Foundation

• Windows Presentation Foundation
• Windows Communication Foundation
• Windows Cardspace
• Windows Workflow Foundation

Extract: 

The Visual Studio section is also providing a series of free e-learning courses centred around .NET 3.0 (Collection 5134 : Developing Rich Experiences with Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.0 and Visual Studio® 2005). These courses introduce working with Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Windows Communication Foundation. They are aimed at experienced Developers and Software Architects who are looking to adopt Microsoft’s next generation technology:

• Clinic 5135 : Introduction to Developing with Windows® Presentation Foundation and Visual Studio® 2005
• Clinic 5136 : Introduction to Developing with Windows® Workflow Foundation and Visual Studio® 2005
• Clinic 5137 : Introduction to Developing with Windows® Communication Foundation and Visual Studio® 2005

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

00:10 - Introduction - Dave Lemphers
03:05 - L(ive) O(ffice) V(ista) E(xchange) tour
08:05 - .NET Framework v3
08:10 - Indigo (Windows Communication Foundation)
08:20 - Windows Workflow Foundation
08:55 - Avalon (Windows Presentation Foundation)
09:15 - Cardspace
09:35 - Visual Studio Tools for Office
11:40 - Developer roles are changing
13:10 - Getting started with new technolgoies
14:00 - MSDN Documentation / MSDN Wiki
15:40 - Live services
17:45 - User groups
18:35 - Guidance automation (Project Glidepath - not explicitly mentioned but worth looking at)
19:40 - Martin Granell at Code Camp OZ
20:50 - Linq
21:10 - XAML
22:50 - Keeping abreast of the current, old, new and bleeding edge technologies
27:40 - Daily Developers - what its like to be a daily developer (thanks to Mitch, Alastair, Rob, WDG - Karl and Tony, and of course ScrewTurn)
31:10 - Sharepoint and the issue of licensing
33:50 - Building multi-threaded applications to take advantage of dual/multi core processors (thanks to Intel)
36:05 - With assistance from Joe Duffy on the CLR team
41:40 - Mr Dot Boto - using Robotics to assist learning
43:50 - Lego Mindstorm
44:35 - The .NET Serializer board
45:45 - UWA, thanks to Sarah Hatton

Listen to the show HERE

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

00:13 - Introduction - Rob Farley
02:33 - Australian SQL Server user groups
03:29 - MVP Profile
04:01 - Dave L on the MVP Program
05:58 - Microsoft certification program
08:01 - Valuing certification
10:38 - How employers view certification
12:38 - The Australian Computer Society
13:53 - Building your resume - Community Involvement
15:33 - Staff professional development
16:54 - Readify
18:04 - Beta exam program
22:28 - Improving the exam program
23:32 - Sit first, study later
25:28 - Exam conditions
30:43 - Getting started - Microsoft Learning
31:10 - Pearson Vue
32:40 - Prometric

Listen to the show HERE

• Retargetable (=256)
• Share Code (#if FULL_FRAME)
• Deploy to My Computer
• Resx compatibility for Smart Device projects
• Another use of partial types
• Not a strict subset
• Sharing Cursor.WaitCursor and InputPanel in VS2005
• Dotnet changes
• Speaking at MEDC 2006

This seems a great idea in theory but the difficulty is trying to (a) get these projects setup and (b) maintaining them.  The hardest thing with Visual Studio is overriding its default behaviour.  For example when you create a new project, it will ALWAYS create a new directory to put it in.  Further, if you try and create a project in an existing directory Visual Studio will prevent you.  So, how do you setup two projects in the same directory? I will attempt to show you how you can get started.

Project Creation

1. Open VS2005 and create a new Class Library project - Visual Basic –> Windows –> Class Library (for this example I will use a VB.NET project but this method works just as well in C#).  Give the project the name “MobileLibrary”; create a directory for the solution; name the solution “Mobility”
2. Add a new device Class Library project to the existing solution - Visual Basic –> Smart Device –> Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC –> Class Library (again I have chosed WM5 PPC but this should work for any of the smart device project types).  Give the project the name “MobileLibrary_CF”
3. Exclude the device project from the solution
4. Using File Explorer move the device project files (in this case “MobileLibrary_CF.vbproj” and “MobileLibrary_CF.vbproj.user” into the same folder as the desktop class library (in this case in the “MobileLibrary” folder)
5. Add the device project into the existing solution (in this case from the “MobileLibrary” folder)
6. You will probaby have 2 build errors relating to incompatibilities between the desktop and the device (AssemblyFileVersion and CompilerGeneratedAttribute are not supported on the device).  You can safetly remove these lines of code and hey presto you’re done!

Now you will have to agree this is a bit of a PITA if you have to do this process every time you want to create a new class library in an existing solution.  One way to get around this would be to create a multi-project template.  However, again you run into the issue where Visual Studio will not allow 2 projects to be created in the same directory….

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

02:08 - Windows XP Embedded
02:36 - Windows CE & .NET Compact Framework
02:58 - Visual Studio at HP
04:38 - Windows Mobile v’s Windows CE
05:10 - Windows Mobile version release chart
06:02 - Platform Builder
06:59 - Embedded C++
08:22 - Visual Studio 2005 includes C++ development
10:35 - Deploy to My Computer
11:27 - Standalone Emulator
11:43 - AKU2 emulator images
13:09 - OpenNETCF
19:20 - Dual project structure at Intilecta
23:23 - Resource files and the DesignerGeneratedAttribute
24:01 - Patterns and Practices created the Mobile Client Software Factory
28:18 - .NET Framework v3
30:13 - Webservices from a mobile device
30:37 - Lack of server functionality in the .NET CF
32:13 - Windows Communication Foundation - Basic Profile
33:03 - Direct Push implementation
34:43 - Gaming platform
35:13 - What is the future of the .NET CF?
37:43 - OpenNETCF Smart Devices Framework
38:13 - Performance v’s footprint
40:13 - Networking stack
41:20 - Windows CE 6.0
42:13 - SQL Server Everywhere
42:30 - Windows Presentation Foundation
43:53 - WPF/e
45:18 - Daniel Moth, Chris Tacke and other Device Application Development MVPs
46:28 - Dual project wizard
47:06 - Portability analyser
53:50 - MSBuild hijacked for immediate feedback

Listen to the show HERE

Initially the whole concept of server mounted spreadsheets struck me as “why would anyone want to do that?” but the reality is that spreadsheet are incredibly powerful at what they do.  Well, at least the engine that powers the spreadsheet is powerful. Although modern, OO programming languages are great for building usable applications, they are not particularly good for writing applications that are data intensive or do sophisticated calculations.  On the flip side, Excel is not a great tool for building robust distributable applications (see my post on my honours project re spreadsheet testing).  It would be great if we could combine them, which is where the power of Excel Services comes in.  In the same way as we always try to decouple user interface design from business logic, now we can detach the calculation engine, using the webservices interface to initiate calculations on the server.

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

00:10 - Introduction with Paul Stubbs and Andrew Coates
00:33 - Intilecta
01:21 - VSTO v1,2, Cypress & 3
02:37 - Legacy technologies (VB6, VBA, COM)
04:16 - The benefits of managed code (Web services, CAS, Code Separation)
04:50 - Limitations of VSTO (eg calling Excel User Defined Functions)
07:00 - Document v’s Application projects
09:10 - Runtime requirements for VSTO (.NET Framework, Office PIAs & CAS setup)
10:10 - PSS Client Troubleshooter
12:58 - Current ISV activity with Office/VSTO
15:09 - TFS Office integration
18:45 - Outlook forms & custom task pane
19:32 - Information Bridge Framework
20:20 - Ribbon toolbar and VSTO version compatibility
23:10 - Visual Studio Tools for Applications
26:16 - Getting started with VSTO and Office development
27:50 - Community launch event for Vista/Office
28:31 - Blogs: Paul, Andrew, VSTO
28:44 - MSDN Magazine article, VSTO for Mere Mortals
29:25 - MAGE

Listen to the show HERE

Firstly in the show Athena mentions the Microsoft Australia site that lists the user groups. I hadn’t been to the site for a while so I was pleasantly surprised when I went there and saw that it has a Windows Live Local map indicating the location of the user groups - very cool!

I don’t know where this will go, but the APAC sub of INETA has had a revamp (see http://apac.ineta.org).  If you are running a user group make sure you are registered with INETA.  In particular they are looking to do a community launch (which will hopefully tie in with what Microsoft Australia are doing this time around) for Vista/Office2007/.NETv3/Exchange.

Some other comments about getting started with a user group.  One of the biggest difficulties we have experienced in Perth is the location of the events.  Before you start a group, make sure you have a venue that can accommodate your needs and book it well in advance!  Once sorted, the venue becomes one of the easiest things to deal with, but if not organised properly can be a continual headache.

As Athena mentions in her comments back to Dave it is vital to have a good working relationship with the local member of the DPE team at Microsoft.  If you need an introduction, please feel free to contact an existing user group leader.  In fact, I would highly recommend touching base with a couple of other group leaders as they are always more than happy to help out or even present if the opportunity arises.

This touches on an interesting discussion that really questions the traditional role of a DBA.  IMHO there are a number of roles that fit between a developer who is using data in their applications and a DBA who administers an operational database.  For example, who is responsible for designing the DB schema - given some of the DBAs I’ve met I doubt that this is a function that fits in this role.  What about writing queries to pull data from the database - is this a developer job.  Again it is questionable as developers typically don’t understand the issues with indexes and performance around the way their application interacts with the database.

Instead of this problem getting easier, it seems to be getting worse with the introducation of Linq over SQL/Entities and the Entity framework proposed for ADO.NET Next.  Hopefully the release of the “Data Dude” sku of Visual Studio Team System will aid organisations putting some sort of lifecycle around database development/maintenance.

For more information you can checkout the Australian SQL Server User Group website.

And the show goes a little bit like this….[Listen to the Podcast]

[Opening music - big thanks to the guys of Minder for the use of their track Chess which can be sampled at TripleJ]

00:27 - TechEd 2006 and the community driven Dev’Garten
00:42 - Canberra .Net User Group run by dotNET solutions
05:44 - Sydney .Net User Group run by SSW
08:14 - Sydney Deep .Net User Group run by Dan Green and Nick Wienholt
08:44 - Perth .Net Community of Practice
09:29 - Adelaide .Net User Group
09:44 - Victorian .Net Dev SIG
09:59 - Wellington .Net User Group run by Kirk Jackson
14:49 - Sponsorship by UnisysWest and Change Corporation
16:24 - Adam’s session on “10 best ways to ….”
17:54 - Charles “Chuck” Sterling
18:24 - Tatham Oddie or was it Ken Schaefer
20:44 - User group membership
23:14 - Victoria .NET, Canberra .NET
24:44 - .NET consulting companies - Readify and dotNET solutions
27:44 - NZ User Group consortium
28:00 - Australian .NET user groups
30:14 - Darryl Burling - DPE team here in Wellington
31:44 - Flash newsletter - a great source of Microsoft news
32:14 - MSDN Connection - the program that was never to be
34:14 - TechEd and the future of community activities
40:34 - Craig Bailey talks up the issues with paying money for developer events
42:34 - Adam suggests UNSW as a cheaper venue for TechEd

Listen to the show HERE

Firstly, it of courses tests that all the technology is working and that we can of couse see “Hello World!” when I hit submit on this post.

I of course need to pay homage to Dr Peter Stanski the previous host on this show.  Anyone who has met Dr Pete will know that he is a vast wealth of knowledge when it comes to .NET and he leaves rather large shoes at the door to The Podcast Network into which I’m supposed to fit!

Lastly I would like to thank Mike and Cameron at The Podcast Network for giving me the opportunity to hop on board and get The Microsoft Developer Show back on the road. 

Before I go I suppose that I should give a brief introduction about who I am.  Well firstly my name is Nick Randolph and I currently work for Intilecta based initially here in NZ, but returning to Perth at the end of the year.  Secondly, I’m a Microsoft MVP - Device Application Development (ie .NET Compact Framework) on which you can find more information here. My most recent achievment is that I am officially published with a book titled Professional Visual Studio 2005. Lastly, with whatever free time I have, I do some other activities through SoftTeq, such as helping run the Perth .NET Community of Practice.

Well, that’s enough about me. Join me over the coming weeks as we get down and dirty with all things Developer about Microsoft.

Stay tuned for some really exciting news next week as we kick this thing back into gear, and I know that all of our excellent hosts along with Cam and myself hope that you have enjoyed the great podcasts that we have been providing for your listening pleasure since February 2005…the ride has just started folks.

:)
Mick Stanic
Co-Founder, The Podcast Network

Between the 29th of September and the 3rd of October, The Podcast Network web site will be undergoing some major server work that will increase (fingers crossed) both the speed and the reliability of the service you have come to love and cherish ;)

Access to the web site and the functionality of the RSS feed will at best experience a small blip of down time… and at worst…well..it could vanish into the bermuda triangle that is tech land for upto four days. I have also had to switch of the ability to post comments on all the sites till we are fully operational as well.

Stick with us through this little hick-up and I promise we will return to normal transmission as quick as possible.

Thanks guys and gals…

Mick Stanic
Co-Founder of The Podcast Network

While Cam and I were up at Microsoft Australia Tech Ed 2005 a couple of weeks ago, Cam managed to squeeze in a quick interview with Dr Neil Roodyn about MSN Virtual Earth.

Dr Neil doesn’t actually work for Microsoft. He’s just what Tony Soprano would refer to as “a friend of ours”. He’s basically a wandering guru on all things .NET and he also runs a site called Via Virtual Earth which is a community site for people developing on top of MSN Virtual Earth.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

If you want to watch Dr Neil’s actual Tech Ed presentation, you can find it here.