Hopefully by now you’ve heard Visual Studio 2010 and Fx 4 Beta have shipped, if you live in Oz and not an MSDN subscriber then the best place to download it from is http://www.microsoft.com/australia/visualstudio/default.mspx. 

If you are feeling a bit nervous about installing on your base machine then install it in a Virtual Machine, it works just fine!! 

There is a great set of training resources for Visual Studio 2010 & Fx 4 Beta 2 in the form of the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit. 

You’ll find material covering

1. What’s new for Common Language Runtime
2. ASP.NET 4
3. Windows
4. Windows Workflow
5. Windows Communication Foundation
6. Silverlight
7. Data Access
8. Parallel Computing
9. Extensibility Framework
10. Application Lifecycle Management

so check it out and get up to speed fast with the Visual Studio 2010 and Fx 4 Beta 2!!

Ohhh, lol, I have installed VS2010 Beta 2 on my ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-H with 2 gigs of RAM, running Windows 7, that plus TFS 2010 B2 Basic – ok, it’s not going to set any speed records but useable and fun for trying stuff out esp when you are on the move…

Cheers Dave

Wow, just spotted this amazing solution utilising Windows 7 Touch and Silverlight 3 with Deepzoom.

Check out http://rubrik.ch.msn.com/reportagen/zermatt.aspx and click on the Info button and read how it was created, stunning!!

Yes, it works with a mouse too if you don't have Windows 7 with a Touch display (or for that matter Windows 7), but yeah, the experience is not as immersive!!

Check out the Windows 7 Training kit if you want to build amazing stuff too!!

Cheers Dave

original posting at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/bb821275.aspx

On 16 May, Western Australians rejected by referendum a proposal to extend their trial of daylight savings. As a result there will be no daylight savings in WA this year or for the foreseeable future.

This change will affect Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office Outlook and other Microsoft, third party and custom applications, which are currently programmed to adjust their clocks on 25 October 2009. However, we have taken important steps to help you proactively address the issue.

The Australia 2009 Daylight Saving Planning Guide provides detailed guidance on preparing Microsoft solutions in complex environments for changes in daylight saving. Click on the links below to download the document in your preferred format:

• Australia Daylight Saving Planning Guide (Word, 1.5mb)
• Australia Daylight Saving Planning Guide (XPS, 1.4mb)
• Australia Daylight Saving Planning Guide (PDF, 2.7mb)

What is the impact of Daylight Savings changes?
Effects can range from the incorrect time display on the clock, to calendaring problems, to changes in business critical services that are time dependent.

What is affected?

• All Microsoft Windows PC, server and mobile devices in the affected time zones must be updated to ensure accuracy of internal time zone tables and correct operation of the system clock.
• Microsoft Office Outlook calendars may need to be adjusted. Client and Server-based tools are available to automate this service.
• Microsoft, third party and custom applications which schedule events at future dates should be reviewed to ensure they will operate correctly from 25 October onwards. Previously scheduled events may also need to be adjusted.

What do I need to do?
Thorough planning and testing for these changes is critical to ensure the change results in minimal user impact, so to help customers prepare Microsoft has developed the Australia 2009 Daylight Saving Planning document which details the nature and impact of the DST changes, along with planning guidance to avoid user impact.

What if the systems have been previously patched?
Where servers, workstations and mobile devices have been added to the infrastructure, organisations will need to audit their environment to ensure all systems are updated according to the organisation's Daylight Savings Plan.

Where the environment does not have a consistent Daylight Savings Time (DST) update level, appointments may have been created with a mix of correct and incorrect DST transition dates.

You can find more information at www.pdcbof.com and follow them on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/pdcbof

See ya there!!

Cheers Dave

In case you missed this on other channels, WebsiteSpark Program has arrived and you can find more details at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/09/24/announcing-the-websitespark-program.aspx and http://blogs.technet.com/jorke/archive/2009/09/24/announcing-websitespark-in-australia.aspx

Also, Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2 has shipped and there is a great selection of applications from the Web App Gallery

Cheers Dave

Nigel was after a few pointers for Widget development for Windows Mobile 6.5, so thought useful to blog as well!!

The model for widget development is similar to that of Apple, Nokia, Opera etc – HTML, JavaScript, CSS – the platform APIs differ for example persisting setting, creating enus etc, but same concepts.

1. Developing Widgets for Windows Mobile 6.5
2. Getting started with widgets on Windows Mobile 6.5
3. Useful info on setting up dev environment – important thing is that the 6.5 is a developers toolkit and must be installed after the 6.0 refresh SDKs – see blog item...  SDK, DTK, DRK: WTF?!
4. Nick Randolph’s blog at Nick's .NET Travels - lots of great stuff on Widget Development...
5. And get yourself signed up on Codemasons site – The Codemasons' Guild
6. The W3C spec for widgets is at Widgets 1.0: Requirements

Cheers Dave

This is time well spent, check out the Windows 7 Compatibility training session.

Some of the resources referenced are

1. Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5
2. Microsoft Application Verifier
3. Chris Jackson’s “The App Compat Guy”
4. More Windows 7 Sessions

and finally head to over to “Give your application the green light”, get yourself registered, it’s free, stacks of resources and support, get ready and get your application in to the online catalogue in time for the Windows 7 Launch on October 22nd.

Cheers Dave

I’ve been running the released version of Windows 7 64 bit on my Lenovo T61p for over a week now, it’s rock solid and fast!!  Setup was very straight forward but alas for now Windows Update did not install the nVidia Quadro 570M Graphics Driver for me automatically, a bit annoying!! Anyways, simple enough to fix – see below…

1. Standard Windows 7 Install
   
2. Apply Windows Update updates
   
3. If Windows Update doesn't detect the nVidia Quadro 570M Graphics Card then go to http://catalog.update.microsoft.com, install the ActiveX control and then search for the “nvidia quadro 570m windows 7“ driver - make sure you get the driver that matches your CPU Architecture – x86 or AMD64 for 64bit.
   
   Download the appropriate CAB, create a folder somewhere, double click on the CAB to open, copy all the files from the CAB to the folder you just created and the run setup from the newly created folder...
   
4. If Aero is not enabled (which it almost certainly wont be after the graphics driver update) then from the control panel search box type "fix" without quotes and select "Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects" and run the wizard.
   
   
5. Optimise Disk Access - from device manager, select hard disk, properties and check the "Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device" option as below.  This is just a me thing, always do it, read the warning etc…
   
   
6. Install Windows Virtual PC Release Candidate
   
   http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
   
   Install Windows Virtual PC RC (Release candidate is the best current version for Windows 7 RTM). Install Windows XP Mode RC if you want to support Windows XP and integrate application in to the Windows 7 Shell - see http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/1/B/51BF59CD-8C09-4153-8C60-F801F6FF59EA/Windows%20Virtual%20PC%20and%20Windows%20XP%20Mode%20RC%20Installation%20Guide.mht
   
   See http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/08/04/windows-virtual-pc-and-win-xp-mode-rc-now-available.aspx for more info on Windows Virtual PC
   
   Virtual Disk Boot is well worth investigating - see http://blogs.technet.com/keithcombs/archive/2009/08/01/virtual-hard-disk-getting-started-guide-download-now-available.aspx
   
7. Download the Lenovo Function Button Utility for Bluetooth and Wifi from http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-68000 . Run the download file to unpack the driver then navigate to the setup directory and run setup to install the driver. I didn't install the Display Magnifier - there is one built in to Windows 7. This is the only other Lenovo driver I manually installed, I follow the less is more principle when setting up my system...
   
8. Loaded up my favourite Windows 7 Desktop Theme Pack - http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/archive/2009/01/25/my-windows-7-theme-pack.aspx, but yeah the themes in the box rock too!!
   
9. Added in my preferred Windows 7 Federated Search Connectors - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/742-windows-7-search-federation-providers.html
   
10. Add the Outlook Federated Search Connector (you need Office SP2 Installed) – from “Search Programs and Files” search off the start menu type “Searches” (no speech marks), select the “Searched” folder and drag and drop the Microsoft Outlook Connector to your Windows Explorer favourites.  I renamed to Outlook…
    
11. I’ve come to prefer the Taskbar pinned to the left side of the screen – habit carried over from my ASUS Eee PC 1000H netbook.  To do this right mouse click on the Taskbar, select properties and the set the Taskbar location on screen option.
    
12. Installed Office 2007, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Express and Developer Editions, Office Communicator, blah blah blah and fully service packed.
    
13. Create a Windows 7 Windows Virtual PC Image and installed Office 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 betas and pinned them to my Windows 7 host Taskbar – love it, seamless and all beta stuff running in separate environment

Cheers Dave

Follow these links to download the Expression 3 Starter Kits:-

• Prototyping with SketchFlow Starter Kit [link...]
• Venture Into Gaming Expression Blend 3 Starter Kit [link...]
• Silverlight Support Web 3 Starter Kit [link...]
• Expression Web 3 Super Preview Starter Kit [link...]

And for more info on Expression then check out http://www.microsoft.com/expression/

I often hear from folk in smaller cities in Oz that there is limited access to solid training!!  So great news from the guys from Readify in conjunction with Crimson!!

If you live in or near Darwin or know someone who does then be sure to let them know about these training opportunities!!

Cheers Dave

If you are a designer or a developer then make sure you make this SDDN event, tonight, Tuesday the 30th of June in Melbourne. 

Blend 3 and SketchFlow absolutely rocks and it’ll be time well spent!!

What's on?

Sketch Flow: Don't know what SketchFlow is? Then read this!. Okay, now tell me you dont want Shane Morris, Microsoft UX Evangelist, to run through it live!

Expression Blend 3 - What's new? Expression Blend 3 improves upon the goodness of Blend 2 SP 1 by providing a whole heap of new features and more importantly, the ability to create applications for Silverlight 3. The list of new enhancements is long – Lots of improvements to the way you use the tool, Improvements to how XAML, C# and VB.NET files are edited, Support for importing Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator files, Skinning enhancements, Enhancements for animation, Sample data generation, etc, etc.

Mahesh Krishnan will run through these changes in a fast demo based session (without using Powerpoint!) The session is targeted at both Designers and Developers, so don’t miss out

When and Where?

The date and time: Tuesday June 30 at 5:30 PM for a 6:00 PM start.
The venue is Microsoft Theatre, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank.

Attendance is FREE, but please RSVP by entering your details in the registration tool on the site (http://www.sddn.org.au) or send an email to info@sddn.org.au.
Pizza will be provided to keep those tummies from rumbling.

Who will this group interest?

The focus of the group is not just on developers. Traditionally developers have had great community support, whereas designers not so much… now that Silverlight 2 is out we plan to change this.

Silverlight is as interesting for developers as it is for designers. Due in part to Silverlight’s excellent separation of design and development concerns we have new problems to solve around finding the best ways to work together.

To this end the SDDN will facilitate an ongoing discussion and promote the development of ideas and best practices for anyone who works with Silverlight.

To register interest head over to http://www.sddn.org.au. Use the registration tool in the header of the site. Registering your interest helps us organise the meetings (and order the right amount of pizza)!

lol, completely inappropriate, but funny and doing the rounds at the moment:)

The 1st kind of sex is called ... Smurf Sex.
This kind of sex happens when you first meet someone and you both have sex until you are blue in the face.

The 2nd kind of sex is called ... Kitchen Sex.
This is when you have been with your partner for a short time and you are so needy you will have sex anywhere, even in the kitchen.

The 3rd kind of sex is called ... Bedroom Sex.
This is when you have been with your partner for a long time. Your sex has gotten routine and you usually have sex only in your bedroom.

The 4th kind of sex is called ... Hallway Sex.
This is when you have been with your partner for too long. When you pass each other in the hallway you both say ... 'F... You.'

The 5th kind of sex is called ... Religious Sex.
Which means you get Nun in the morning, Nun in the afternoon and Nun at night. (Very Popular)

The 6th kind is called ... Courtroom Sex.
This is when you cannot stand your wife any more. She takes you to court and screws you in front of everyone.

The 7th kind of sex is called ... Social Security Sex.
You get a little each month. But not enough to enjoy yourself.

Yeeh hah, the guys in Adelaide are pulling CodeCampSA together, it should be a great few days, so make sure you mark out the days in your diary and get along, meet new people, catch up with mates and learn a new trick or two!!  The event is free of charge and is being held at UniSA's City West campus (Between North Tce and Hindley St, Adelaide, South Australia).

For more information keep an eye on http://www.codecampsa.com/

Cheers Dave

Hmmm, now a mate’s mother got one of these calls from this organisation, so be sure to let friends and family know this is a scam, guessing it’s mostly about identity theft!! 

A company called ‘SupportonClick’ is randomly calling Australians claiming to know that the person’s computer has a ‘problem’ that they can fix for at a fee. These callers also claim to be calling from Microsoft Support which is not the case. Please inform your family and friends of this scam and direct them to follow Microsoft's Protect Your Computer guidance so they can be confident that their computer is running smoothly. Protect Your Computer.

Ta da, finally the Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit has shipped, well cool!!

Check out http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=20686a1d-97a8-4f80-bc6a-ae010e085a6e

The tool kit adds documentation, sample code, header and library files emulator images and tools to Visual Studio, so you can start building applications for Windows Mobile 6.5 and the new UI. You’ll need the Windows Mobile 6 SDK to leverage the Gestures API & samples.

Interested in Windows Mobile Development then check out Windows Mobile for Australia and http://developer.windowsmobile.com/

Cheers Dave

Check out Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework (v0.85)!!

Cope and pasted summary:-

The Windows® API Code Pack for Microsoft® .NET Framework provides a source code library that can be used to access new Windows 7 features (and some related Windows Vista features) from managed code. These features are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework.
The features included in this version (v0.85) of the library are:

• Support for Windows Shell namespace objects, including the new Windows 7 libraries, Known Folders and non file system containers.
• Windows Vista and Windows 7 Task Dialogs.
• Windows 7 Explorer Browser Control supporting both WPF and Windows Forms.
• Support for Shell property system.
• Helpers for Windows 7 Taskbar Jumplists, Icon Overlay and Progress bar.
• Support for Windows Vista and Windows 7 common file dialogs, including custom file dialog controls.
• Support for Direct3D 11.0 and DXGI 1.0/1.1 APIs.
• Sensor Platform APIs
• Extended Linguistic Services APIs

Hey if you have been considering going to ReMIX 09 in Sydney then register quick as the “Early Bird” offer runs till May 21st and look forward to a day that covers a range of relevant and exciting technologies and tools to give you the edge!!

You can register at https://www.microsoft.com.au/events/register/home.aspx?levent=725411&linvitation

Oh and be sure to check out the Shane and Fin ReMIX Pillow Talk at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=99751155545# – nice concept Mr Kordsey!!

The agenda is as follows:-

• Keynote
  Kick off REMIX09 with a bang. Be inspired by our Keynote presenter, a visionary thought leader who’ll discuss the latest trends on the Web, and the experiences technology will deliver in the future. Following the Keynote, a number of household-name Australian companies will showcase recent examples of Web innovation.
  
• Session 1 - Creative Track: Create the User Experience you want in SharePoint
  Bruce Furlong, Unique World
  
• Session 1 - Technical Track: Silverlight 3 Super Session
  Jordan Knight, Readify
  
• Session 2 - Creative Track: What's new Expression 3 - Sketchflow
  Matt Morphett, Amberdew Interaction Design
  
• Session 2 - Technical Track: Azure
  David Burela, Readify
  
• Session 3 - Creative Track: The Next Level of Creativity with Expression Blend 3
  Jose Fajardo, Cynergy Systems and Dave Glover, Microsoft Australia
  
• Session 3 - Technical Track: IE8 for Developers, Developers, Developers
  Michael Kordahi, Microsoft Australia
  
• Session 4 - Creative Track: Introducing the Microsoft Virtual Earth Silverlight Map Control CTP
  Chris Pendleton, Microsoft Corporation
  
• Session 4 - Technical Track: Building great standards based websites for the big wide world with ASP.NET 4.0
  Damian Edwards, Readify / Microsoft MVP in ASP.NET and Tatham Oddie, Readify / Microsoft MVP in ASP.NET
  
• Session 5 - Creative Track: The New Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit for Social Websites
  John O'Brien, Soul Solutions and Bronwen Zande, Soul Solutions
  
• Session 5 - Technical Track: Real World S+S Architecture
  Michael Baker, Incite
  
• Session 6 - Creative Track: Design in the Round. Creating Compelling User Experiences for Surface
  Shane Morris, Microsoft Australia, Brady O'Halloran, Amnesia Razorfish and Iain McDonald, Amnesia Razorfish
  
• Session 6 - Technical Track: Sibling Rivalry or Love: Microsoft and Open source
  Nick Hodge, Microsoft Australia
  
• Locknote
  
• Networking Event - REMIX09 Networking Event will be held "at the pub" : Oscars in Pyrmont

See ya there, Dave

Hey see there is an update to the Facebook application for Windows Mobile, check out http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2009/05/12/windows-mobile-facebook-application-update.aspx

It’s actually a pretty cool wee app!!

Cheers Dave

Hey if you went to the Victoria.NET User group on Tuesday then you would have caught my Windows 7 session, you can find resources I mentioned at here, hope those that installed Win 7 on the night are enjoying and those that grabbed the DVDs have had a chance to fire it up!!

You can find resources from Tarn Barford’s awesome session on Iron Python at http://blog.sharpthinking.com.au/post/2009/05/11/IronPython-Presentation.aspx – funny we both did our sessions on Netbooks!!

And Mahesh’s session covering the Application Architecture Guide 2.0, tbh, I had lost track that version 2 was over on codeplex!!  If you’ve not see this guide then I highly recommend you download it from http://www.codeplex.com/AppArchGuide/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=20586

There is great coverage of where technologies fit, from web, to services, data access, security, desktop and mobile along with recommended best practices and patterns, honestly take a break from your busy day to day busy existence and check it out, it’ll be time well spent!!

Cheers Dave

Then check out the PowerPoint presso at http://cid-d03fa499b14904f9.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Presentations/numbers.pps!!

Assume it’s true…!!

Nice bit of trivia for the day:)

Cheers Dave