By now you may have spotted you can create your own Search Connector Descriptions in XML and install them in to the Federated Search support in Windows 7, see here for some examples, I’m particularly fond of the Twitter search extender, but there are connectors for Flickr, eBay, Amazon, SharePoint, Live Search etc… 

They are drop dead easy to create and you can effectively point at any service that accepts a search query on a URL and return data in RSS or ATOM format, for example SharePoint.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"
                       xmlns:ms-ose="http://schemas.microsoft.com/opensearchext/2009/">
   <ShortName>Search all Tweets</ShortName>  
   <Description>OpenSearch for Twitter</Description>   
   <Url type="application/rss+xml"
        template="http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q={searchTerms}&amp;rpp=50#"/>   
</OpenSearchDescription>

Found a few resources for creating Search Connectors - see

• http://blogs.msdn.com/davidmcg/archive/2009/02/04/federated-search-in-win7-adding-news-to-your-search.aspx
• http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/742-windows-7-search-federation-providers.html

Of course nothing to stop you creating your own own search feeds from your line of business applications with the support in WCF for ATOM and RSS, search around, there are plenty of samples on the net, but here are a couple of links to get ya started!!

• http://nayyeri.net/blog/create-rss-and-atom-feeds-with-linq-and-wcf-syndication-in-net-3-5/
• http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/screencasts/screencast/269/Offering-Syndicated-RSSATOM-Data-from-WCF-V35-Services.aspx

Cheers Dave

A year or so back I posted a link to a Powershell Office Open XML Document Generator I wrote, see http://blogs.msdn.com/dglover/archive/2007/06/28/powershell-and-office-open-xml-format-document-generation.aspx.

Alas now the download link is busted so I have reposted the sample to http://cid-d03fa499b14904f9.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/PowerShell%20Office%20Open%20XML%20Format%20Document%20Generation.zip

Interestingly enough on the same hardware config (Lenovo T61p with 4 gig Ram) running Windows 7 x64 (Beta 1) and Powershell 2 the sample generates around 120 documents per second, cool…

Cheers and enjoy, Dave

IMHO, one the of the coolest technologies to be released last year was Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the virtualisation just rocks, it’s fast, solid and reliable.  I run Windows Server Core 2008 (ie no GUI) so I manage the Hyper-V Role from Windows Vista Sp1 with Hyper-V Manager, so was a tad disappointed to find the Hyper-V management wouldn’t install on Windows 7.

Anyways, fear no more, you can download the updated tools from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82516c35-c7dc-4652-b2ea-2df99ea83dbb&displaylang=en, once installed:-

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. In the Programs and Features area, click Turn Windows features on or off.
3. If you are prompted by User Account Control to enable the Windows Features dialog box to open, click Continue.
4. In the Windows Features dialog box, expand Remote Server Administration Tools.

The download link contains more information on setup…

Yes, you still need to enable the firewall and allow anonymous DCOM call backs if you manage a Hyper-V Server that is in it’s own workgroup or domain.  For more info on this then check out http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/11/14/configure-hyper-v-remote-management-in-seconds.aspx

Cheers Dave

In case you missed Peter’s announcement, I’m doing a session on Wed Feb 11th at the ADNUG meeting on the Alexandria Framework, it’s well cool, so hopefully we’ll see you there!!

Session Description

Silverlight introduced a great media experience; Silverlight 2 added a control model making it easier to build applications, and now Alexandria takes this to the next stage and introduces a powerful and productive framework to build real business applications for RIA (Rich Internet Applications).   This session covers n-tier development; data sorting, filtering and paging; validation; and authentication and roles services provided by the Alexandria Framework, this is what you have been waiting for!!

Where: SA Innovation Centre ,  Level 2, Westpac House, 91 King William Street, Adelaide .

Visitors welcome. See below for Programme.

PROGRAMME

• 5.45 pm Finger food and Drinks.
• 6.15 pm Questions and answers. Bring along your .Net problems for discussion from members.
• 6.25 pm Dave Glover DPE  – Microsoft  –  Building cross platform “Line of Business” Applications with Silverlight and the Alexandria Framework
• 7.30 pm Peter Griffith  – GUI-Visuals  –  An Intro to Green ICT

When: Saturday 21st February 2009 - 9:00am to 4:30pm.

• Cost: Absolutely Nothing. Zip. Nada... $0.00
• Where: Cliftons, Level 2 - 440 Collins St, Melbourne
• Contact: info@sddn.org.au

The Silverlight Designer and Designer Network has been a little quiet since its first meeting in December - but there is a great reason! We've been busy organising this fantastic event.

The day will be instructor lead - with the trainees following along each and every step. Yep that's right - no boring reading and doing labs... everything is run through by the instructor. In our experience this method simply rocks. Also, we hate PowerPoint slides - so we've kept them to an absolute minimum. Be ready to jump straight in to the goods.

We'll cover:

• Introduction to Silverlight and XAML
• Expression Blend
• Control Templates
• Networking
• Media
• Plus more... (like animation etc)

If that sounds like a lot to cover in one day, then you'd be right... we'll be setting a cracking pace. Each lab will be made available as a handout which you can go over later.

The day is aimed at those who have never used Silverlight before but have some familiarity with web technologies. This includes both designers and developers.

During the session there will always be two specialists available to help you out if you get stuck (the third will be up the front directing the class).

What do you have to bring?

It's really quite easy... NOTHING. You will be provided with a machine with all the required software and course material.

This day is simply not to be missed -> next time you can almost guarantee we won't be able to do it for free. So get in fast to secure your spot!

Just spotted that Andrew posted about CodeCampOz – cool!!

Summary is…

Mitch Denny has just announced that registration is now open for this year’s CodeCampOz. April 4-5 at Charles Sturt University in scenic Wagga Wagga, this not-to-be-missed event is now in its 5th year. Sign up on the Event Brite site.

It’s a free of charge event, a great way to learn and a most excellent opportunity to network!! 

Cheers Dave

Caught Damian’s most excellent JQuery session at VictoriaDotNet last week and was reminded just how poor my understanding of JavaScript is.  JQuery will be part of the ASP.NET platform and will ship as part of MVC Framework, check out Scott’s MVC Category on his blog – Also see this ASP.NET and JQuery PDC session.

Damian referenced an excellent set of training resources at http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/, the ones to catch are by Douglas Crockford’s starting with the “The JavaScript Programming Language” series, followed by “Advanced JavaScript”, and finally “An Inconvenient API: The Theory of the DOM”.  Best bet is to download the video files from the site, you can stream but quality not as good!!

The sessions are chunked up in to 30 minute segments, the first has a good historical overview the rest covers off how the language works with plenty of surprises!! 

Enjoy, cheers Dave…