Oryx Developers

Get PDC09 Content Today!

Ahmed — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:40:00 GMT

Here is a script for downloading/renaming PDC09 content (WMV-High/WMV/PPT) using cURL and a batch script get it from HERE

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is available to MSDN Subscribers

Ahmed — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:39:37 GMT

Lots of big stuff happening this week. Today Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 is available to MSDN Subscribers and it'll be available for everyone on Wednesday.

I'm running Beta 2 on all my machines now and really digging it. It's much faster than Beta 1 and I'm doing all my work in it now. It's come a long way and I'm really impressed at the polish.

.NET 4

This is a big deal. This isn't ".NET 3.6" - there are a lot of improvements of .NET 4, and it's not just "pile on a bunch of features so you get overwhelmed." I've been working with and talking to many of the teams involved and even though it's a cheesy thing to say, this is a really customer-focused release.

Shouldn't every release be that way? Sure, and in this case there's a really clear focus on, as I like to say, "making the Legos the right size." This is as much about tightening screws as it is about adding new features.

There's more goodness that I can put in one post, but some personal favorite highlights are:

Quicker to Install - A smaller Client Profile with a much smaller initial download (down to 0.8 megs from 2.8) for bootstrapping .NET client apps faster than ever)
Side by Side - .NET 4 is a side-by-side release that doesn't auto-promote, meaning you won't break existing apps and you can have .NET 2.0, 3.5 and 4 apps on the same machine, happily.
- Side-by-side CLR support for managed add-ins inside of apps like Explorer or Outlook. Again, new and existing apps in the same process, chillin'.
- For more details on Application Compatibilty, check out the AppCompat Walkthrough for .NET 4 on MSDN.
Dynamic Language Support - The DLR (Dynamic language runtime) ships built-in with .NET 4 so you can mix-and-match your solutions and pick the best language (or languages) amongst C# and VB.NET as well as F#, IronPython and IronRuby. This includes better support for COM (yes, COM! People do use COM and it's even easier with the new dynamic keyword in C# these days.)
More Web Standards Support - Better support for WS-* and REST making interop easier. (I love ADO.NET Data Services, but you know that already, Dear Reader. I'm a bit of a RESTafarian, these days.)
Plugins Galore - Visual Studio 2010 uses MEF and WPF to enable a whole new world of clean managed extensions as well as an Online Gallery (there's an extension for that!)
Multi-Framework Multi-targeting - You can't really overestimate how useful this is, but a picture is worth a thousand words. You can code all your apps in all your organization's frameworks with the same IDE:

Keep an eye on the blogs this week as the various teams talk about their favorite features.

On the ASP.NET 4 side:

I'll be posting video interviews with the actual ASP.NET 4 developers all week on Hanselminutes on 9 up on MSDN's Channel9 so watch for those.
Joe and I will also start populating the Learn section of ASP.NET with new ASP.NET 4 videos between now and Christmas as well.
And of course, @ScottGu is continuing his series of ASP.NET 4 Tutorials, so watch his constantly updated rollup post. He's currently on #8!

Oh, yes, one other thing…

Fresh Look

You may notice a few things in the new Splash Screen above. There's a new Visual Studio logo that goes nicely as well as a new logo for MSDN. You probably heard that we launched a new MSDN this weekend and today we add the new logo and background. This new MSDN is the beginning of a more agile, community focused MSDN and you should expect to see and hear of cool stuff coming from the team, often, in the months to come. Of note will be the new MSDN Lightweight view, soon to be the default view for the library.

In the coming weeks I'll dig into more details on the these new things and how they work together:

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4
Windows 7
Microsoft Developer Network

Enjoy! Also, be sure to check out Soma's blog post and go get Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2 as soon as you can!

Source: Scott Hanselman blog

Doloto! Speed up you Web Apps

Ahmed — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:32:00 GMT

What Is Doloto?

Doloto stands for Download Time Optimizer and is also the Russian word for chisel, It analyzes AJAX application workloads and automatically performs code splitting of existing large web applications. Doloto enables applications to initially transfer only the portion of client-side JavaScript code necessary for application initialization.

Check it Out here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/doloto/

Distributed Agile Development at Microsoft (Updated)

Ahmed — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:41:00 GMT

If you are interrested in Distributed Dev Teams (aka Virtual Teams) and Agile Development this white paper is a must read.

Some parts of the white paper:

...While there may be business reasons for distributing a team, distribution will also contribute to team dysfunction by inhibiting communication. Agile teams rely on intensive person to person communication, both within the team and with the customer. This allows them to forego some of the additional process—like writing detailed specifications—usually associated with a more waterfall approach. Casual conversations within the team room, in hallways, and other shared spaces make a significant contribution to the team’s collective understanding. Remote team members miss these and consequently their understanding suffers...

Expression Studio Resources All in One place!

Ahmed — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:57:00 GMT

Microsoft Expression Studio is the set of Apps and tools that let you benefit from Microsoft's latest Technologies like Silverlight v1 v2 v3, WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), Silverlight Live Streaming, IIS Smooth Streaming…etc.

Here are the most important Resources on the web.

45+ Excellent Code Snippet Resources and Repositories

Ahmed — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:41:55 GMT

A must keep code snippets resources and repository :

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/07/21/45-excellent-code-snippet-resources-and-repositories/

“Tweet.. Tweet..”

Ahmed — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:47:02 GMT

Just would like to remind you of staying up-to-date by following our tweets on twitter.

We tweet about all the cool stuff like:

Software development, ASP.NET, .NET Framework, Microsoft Development tools Updates, CTP’s, Release dates, Articles, blog posts,Whitepapers…etc

So Stay tuned ;)

Always-Responsive Multitier Solutions with .NET 3.5 SP1 (WCF,WPF)

Ahmed — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:27:07 GMT

This a great whitepaper on “A Services-Layer and Smart Client for monitoring ship-navigation” that shows real-world usage of WCF and WPF and design patterns.

You can find it here (Save Target As..)

Microsoft Silverlight and WPF Comparison

Ahmed — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 18:46:00 GMT

I have recently been working on WPF and found this great Whitepaper which shows the differences between Silverlight And WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation)

Microsoft | MSDN announces SQL Server 2008 Developer Training Kit

Ahmed — Wed, 13 May 2009 05:25:00 GMT

I’m pleased to announce that the SQL Server 2008 Developer Training Kit is available as a free download from the Microsoft Download center, so download your copy today at the following URL:

http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9665942

Read on for more details….

SQL Server 2008

SQL Server 2008 offers an impressive array of capabilities for developers that build upon key innovations introduced in SQL Server 2005. The SQL Server 2008 Developer Training Kit will help you understand how to build web applications which deeply exploit the rich data types, programming models and new development paradigms in SQL Server 2008. The training kit is brought to you by Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism.

Overview and Benefits

The training kit offers the following benefits:

Learn how to build web applications that exploit the unique features and capabilities of SQL Server 2008.
Provides a comprehensive set of presentations, demos and hands-on labs
Designed for web developers who are already familiar with SQL Server application development.
Easy to download and install and works on free editions of SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008.

Software Requirements

The following software is not included with the training kit and must be downloaded and installed separately.

SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services (or higher-level SKU)
Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008 Express (or higher-level SKU)
AdventureWorks 2008 Sample Databases

Intended Audience

The training kit is designed for the following technical roles:

Web developers who build applications for the Microsoft platform.
Microsoft evangelists, technical specialists and consultants.

Contents

The training kit includes the following content:

Presentations (6)
- Filestream
- Spatial
- T-SQL
- Date and Time Types
- SQLCLR
- Reporting Services
Demos (12)
- AdventureWorks Racing All-Up SQL Server 2008 Demo
- SQL Server 2008 All-Up Spatial Demo
- Spatial Types Demo
- Intro to Filestream Demo
- SQL CLR Nullable Types Demo
- Programming with Filestream Demo
- Reporting Services Web Application Integration Demo
- Date and Time Support in SQL Server 2008 Demo
- T-SQL Table-Valued Parameters Demo
- T-SQL Row Constructors Demo
- T-SQL Grouping Sets Demo
- T-SQL Merge Demo
Hands-on Labs (3)
- Using Spatial Data in TSQL
- Using Spatial Data in Managed Code
- Using SQL CLR in SQL Server 2008

Source : http://blogs.msdn.com/rdoherty/archive/2009/05/12/announcing-the-sql-server-2008-training-kit.aspx

Uploading Images Using FCKeditor with ASP.NET

Haitham El Refaie — Sun, 03 May 2009 00:13:46 GMT

I’ve a project in which I need to insert images in the the FCKeditor working area.. I Thought it’s simple just press the insert image icon, browse for it and we are done, but actually it’s not that simple, it needs some configurations which I’d like to share it with you..

There are two scenarios of inserting an image weather you are going to insert it from a URL (the easy one) and the second if you want to insert an image from your hard drive (needs configurations)

A)To insert an image from a URL:

Just click the insert image icon and paste the URL of the image and click ok and its done.

B) To Upload image from your hard drive:

1- Create a base folder to be the folder used by the users of your website to upload photos in your application base directory, by default its name is “userfiles”, or name it whatever you need as we’ll use this name in the following steps.

2-Under this folder create another folder and you must name it “image”.

3- In the “fckconfig.js” file:

Change the following
- “var _FileBrowserLanguage = 'php' ;” to “var _FileBrowserLanguage = 'aspx' ;”
- “var _QuickUploadLanguage = 'php' ;” to “var _QuickUploadLanguage = 'aspx' ;”

Those two lines defines which File Browser connector and Quick Upload "uploader" to use.

4- In the previous step we defined the connector to be used that’s why the connector in the folder “FCKeditor\editor\filemanager\connectors\aspx” will be used, in this folder there is “Config.ascx'” file, open it using Visual Studio and do the following changes:

Change the following
- “UserFilesPath = "/userfiles/";” to “UserFilesPath = "~/userfiles/";”
- Note that you can replace “userfiles” by the folder name you used in step 1.

5- In the same File “Config.ascx” there is a function called “CheckAuthentication” which returns a true in case of the user is authenticated, for this function to communicate with you application it uses a session parameter name it anything you like and edit this function to check its value and return true to authenticate the user to upload images, to explain more I’d like to borrow the comment of the function from the “Config.ascx” as follows:

       // WARNING : DO NOT simply return "true". By doing so, you are allowing
        // "anyone" to upload and list the files in your server. You must implement
        // some kind of session validation here. Even something very simple as...
        //
        //return ( Session[ "IsAuthorized" ] != null && (bool)Session[ "IsAuthorized" ] == true );
        //
        // ... where Session[ "IsAuthorized" ] is set to "true" as soon as the
        // user logs in your system.

6- Now to insert an image from your hard drive

Click the insert image icon .
Click Browse Server.
A popup window will open, at the bottom click Browse, and browse for the image on your local hard drive and click upload.
The image is now uploaded to the “/userfiles/image” folder on the server.
click on the image name from the pop up window, then ok, and it’ll be inserted in the FCKeditor.

I hope this helps..

ASP.NET 4.0 and jQuery in VS 2010

Ahmed — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:58:00 GMT

This is a "Thank You" Post

I would like to thank Ahmed Shokr for his great session "ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 deep dive with jQuery samples and new components" that was yesterday and really it was a great experiance having it in a Live Meeting.

Thanks again and Keep it Up

Beginning Programming and Software Development with .NET

Ahmed — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:10:54 GMT

If you have the passion to start programming ,don’t miss out Microsoft Beginner Developer learning Center it’s a place where you find the resource and knowledge to guide you step-by-step on starting your software development hobby/Career.

They provide all the tools you might need for FREE : Visual Basic,Visual C#,Visual C++ ,SQL Server 2005/2008, Visual Web Developer…etc.

I say that “ it is a really well presented, simplified resource for beginners that will put them on the software development track really fast.”

Some of what it provides :

Web Track
Windows Track
Kid’s Corner (Yes..Kids,If you want to teach your bright kids programming go for it!)
Videos
Articles
Tips & Tricks
… and More!

Don’t hesitate to start when you have all the resources to have fun and learn new things.!

Good luck and hope to see you as our next event Speaker ;)

March|DevNight 2009

Ahmed — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:15:18 GMT

Tonight I did a Session about “Developing WPF Apps (For Developers)”, Attendees was really interested in WPF, But found it a bit difficult to grasp and I 100% Agree!

The thing is that WPF is “Way Big” it is larger than ASP.NET and Windows Forms Combined.!! , So.. the question is what can you do about it? How Can you learn such a thing? You cannot learn it over night?

The answer to these questions is that WPF has a High learning curve and you have to have patients and, the sooner you stop thinking about doing stuff like you used to do in earlier technologies, the sooner you go production with it.

Some might say “WPF is so hard so..I’ll wait until they find an easier way to use it, then I’ll start doing WPF ”, I say the sooner you begin learning, the greater competitive advantage you’ll get and you will have more value. So You will be producing when they are still learning.

If you are developing an Enterprise App. Check the Composite UI Application Block Guidance Code Name (Prism) .They provided a set of guidance on developing WPF & Silverlight Applications for the enterprise with a must have features in every large app. “Separation Separation Separation” . if you are interested in such apps then you should consider Prism seriously.

after the session some people asked me on how to start doing WPF so I have a link to a previous post Titled "A Must Read WPF Resources,Books,Articles and Blogs". I guess that should do it, If you have any question please feel free ;)

Microsoft Launches IE 8

Haitham El Refaie — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:17:23 GMT

At last Microsoft has launched the IE 8 during the MIX09 Conference, with great hopes that it’ll retrieve the position of IE among currently popular browsers like Firefox which has stolen a part of the market share during the past few years against previous versions of IE..

During the launch and as a part of the marketing there was a video from Microsoft about the history of the web which shows some of the new features in IE 8, during the conference also there were some sessions about IE8 like the lab around IE8 by Giorgio Sardo, some of the new features and improvements in IE8 as per Microsoft website are :

Accelerators

Accelerators let you map directions, translate words, email your friends, and more in just a few mouse clicks. Learn more.

Common accelerator showing driving directions

InPrivate Browsing

Browse the web without saving your history with Internet Explorer 8's InPrivate Browsing. Now you can shop for that special gift with confidence knowing your family won't accidentally find out or use a shared computer without leaving a trace. Learn More.

The InPrivate button on the Address Bar

Web Slices

Keep up with changes to the sites you care about most. Add a Web Slice and you won't have to go back to the same website again and again for updates on news, stock quotes, online auctions, weather, or even sports scores. Learn more.

A common Web Slice

Search suggestions

Search smarter with detailed suggestions from your favorite search providers and browsing history. See visual previews and get suggested content topics while you type in the enhanced Instant Search Box. Learn more.

A search showing visual content

SmartScreen Filter

New security features help to protect you against deceptive and malicious websites which can compromise your data, privacy and identity. Learn more.

A blocked website because reported as unsafe

MIX09 The Web Developers Conference

Haitham El Refaie — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:21:10 GMT

Take your web development and design skills to the next level at MIX09. Now in its fourth year, the MIX conference is a gathering of designers and developers who are building the world’s most innovative web sites.

The conference was from 18-20 March, 2009, in Las Vegas, I hope I can attend it one day may be next year I hope :)…

you can enjoy some of the conference sessions by visiting this link here

Enjoy it and wish me good luck to be there next year :)

Database Publishing Wizard (DPW)

Haitham El Refaie — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 04:08:00 GMT

What will happen if you are hosting your database on a shared hosting environment like webhosting and you need to do some modifications on you database? for example adding new tables or something like this. this task is a true pain if you are going to create and execute a large number of SQL scripts against your hosted database, but by using the Database Publishing Wizard from Microsoft available to download here you have an easy to use tool to publish your database or parts of the database like some tables, stored procedures, users ..etc.

It also helps you to generate your database scripts and save them to your local hard drive for later use..really a great tool that will make your life much much easier, I’ve found a nice article on godaddy.com which can guide you to publishing your database from your local host to a database hosted in shared environment, keep in mind that to accomplish this task you need your host to have a Database Publishing Service, which is the service used by the Database Publishing Wizard to connect to and publish your database.. this article is available here

My First Blog Post

Haitham El Refaie — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:52:00 GMT

Thanks a lot for reading this post, this is my first blog, in which I just wanted to highlight the topics that I'm going to publish in my blog (Haitham's Blog), I'm an ASP.NET Developer and in my blog I want to help you to take your ASP.NET application to the professional level, HOW?!! by focusing on the issues that will improve your application architecture, performance, security, maintainability and reliability...I hope I can help you to develop a real world applications, I'm really happy to share my knowledge with you and in the same time I'm ready to learn from you as well, so let's do it and move toward professional ASP.NET applications..

Microsoft p&p | Application Architecture Guide 2.0

Ahmed — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 06:25:53 GMT

Patterns & Practices Application Architecture Guide 2.0 project site!

This guide provides design-level guidance for the architecture and design of applications built on the .NET Framework. It focuses on the most common types of applications, partitioning application functionality into layers, components, and services, and walks through their key design characteristics.This guide is a collaborative effort between patterns & practices, product teams, and industry experts.

Forewords

“we are confident that Application Architecture Guide 2.0 will help you choose the right architecture, choose the right technologies, make more effective design decisions, and choose relevant patterns.”

S. Somasegar
Microsoft | Senior Vice President of Developer Division

“The guidance as a whole is based on the combined experience and knowledge of Microsoft experts, Microsoft partners, customers, and others in the community. It will help you understand our platform, choose the right architecture, choose the right technologies, and build applications using proven practices and lessons learned. “

Scott Guthrie
Microsoft | Corporate Vice President of .NET Developer Platform

Download the Book Now

OryxDEV Tweets!

Ahmed — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:10:00 GMT

We have started tweeting on twitter, you can follow us on http://twitter.com/oryxdev

What is Twitter:

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

Why should you follow our tweets..?

To stay up-to-date with community updates, events, announcements or even just to know where are we going to be on weekends, so you can join and have a techi-chat or a chit-chat!

If you want to interact with our tweets or add replies you’ll need to signup for a twitter account- it’s FREE- and you can use there website OR use a WPF Cool Twitter Client like “blu” it is a Must See WPF App!. some Screenshots:

it also flips on double clicking a message to reply:

Micromanagement

Ahmed — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 06:15:07 GMT

“Most people who have been in the workforce any length of time have occasionally been exposed to bosses who micromanage. The micromanager is the manager who must personally make every decision, take a lead role in the performance of every significant task and, in extreme cases, dictate every small step the workers take. To many employees the micromanager is, in modern parlance, a control freak. The micromanager hovers over people who are trying to get their work done and rarely, if ever, seriously considers their ideas and opinions. The only "original" thinking the micromanager recognizes is his or her own.
Micromanagement is readily recognized by employees, but most micromanagers don't think of themselves as micromanagers. Rather, they usually believe they're practicing good management. The micromanager is customarily authoritarian in outlook, taking the job quite seriously, accepting personal responsibility for everything that's done and generally following an approach that says, in effect, "The buck stops here." Most of the time the micromanager also firmly believes the adage that "If you want something done well, you've got to do it yourself."
The micromanager takes essential management practices to extremes and interferes with employees' ability to do their jobs properly, while creating undue stress for them. Outstanding examples are evident in the area of performance feedback. All employees need regular feedback on performance, though some need more detailed feedback more frequently than others. From the micromanager, however, feedback tends to be constant and detailed and often excessively focused on procedural minutia rather than on overall performance, quality and results.
In no other area are the shortcomings of the micromanager more evident––or more damaging––than in the practice of delegation. Delegation is a primary management skill, essential to effective management, but the micromanager seems unable to delegate properly. Concerning delegation, the micromanager:

Cannot delegate effectively or delegate at all
Often hands out only the easy, boring or dirty tasks while delegating nothing of interest or importance
May delegate, but put the employee in a position of deciding nothing of significance without prior approval
May hand out work, supposedly delegating, but hover instead, providing detailed direction, dictating methods rather than providing proper preparation, making the employee responsible for results and not allowing he or she to figure anything out and learn by doing
May hand out a task, but pull it back at the first sign of trouble, failing to provide the employee with a condition essential to growth and development: the reasonable freedom to fail.

Micromanagement is damaging to employees and eventually to the manager. In addition to creating stress and discontent among employees, the micromanager's style has two critical effects:

It inhibits employee development. No effort is made to challenge employees with learning situations. The micromanager delegates nothing of consequence, thus depriving employees of opportunity for growth. Because the micromanager often punishes mistakes, employees learn to hide their mistakes and avoid taking risks. The micromanagement style creates "yes men" or "yes women," as employees discover it's easiest and safest to go along with the manager.
It limits the manager's promotional possibilities. The manager who is perceived as poor at delegation is often not considered for promotion to a level where delegation takes on even greater importance. Also, a manager who has done nothing to develop one or more potential successors is usually a poor candidate for promotion.

Consider, in addition to impaired promotional possibilities, other effects on the micromanager. The micromanager tries to do it all, only to eventually discover that this isn't possible. But on the way to that discovery the micromanager regularly works extra hours and can frequently be found at work on weekends or other scheduled days off. The micromanager also eventually discovers that work quality diminishes and that turnover increases as the better employees respond to the absence of challenge by looking for greener pastures. The micromanager is constantly flirting with the hazards of overwork and the problems of a de-motivated work group.
It helps to remember at all times that a manager is there to ensure that the work gets done as effectively and efficiently as possible. If the manager is attempting to dictate all actions and otherwise trying to control the employees' every move, the group will be neither as efficient, nor effective as it could be under rational, enlightened management. Micromanagement is mismanagement, and under it, the manager, the employees and the business all suffer. “
Micromanagement is Mismanagement
11/ 27/ 2006
by Charles R. McConnell

"Reasons For Choosing WPF Over ASP.NET For Our Very Large Project" By Karl Shifflett (Karl of WPF)

Ahmed — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:48:37 GMT

This is an awesome post by Karl Shifflett that you don't want to miss.It explains to you Why should you choose WPF, from a person that is using it to deliver real Line-Of-Business Applications .

A Must read WPF Resource,Books,Articles and Blogs.

Ahmed — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:07:00 GMT

WPF is BIG so be patient and try to question everything you used to do in other technology,that will open the doors to understand WPF Application Design and Production since you need to balance between the User Interface/ UX (User eXperience) and the background pluming because that is what you will be doing the most ,you need to ask your self questions like:

What is the shape of data should I get to the UI to get that user experience?
How should I Design my application parts(Layers) to interact with such decoupled(seperated) technology?
When to get data from the database and when to update back?
Do I need to run this Function on a separate Thread,do I need a New Thread Object or a BackgroundWorker,..Or maybe use the Dispatcher?
What Data Access technology should I use?
What is a INotifyPropertyChanged?
What is an ObservableCollection?
Are User Controls and Custom Controls that important to know about?

There are two parts that a Developer need to know about when developing WPF Application :

The Data Part
UI Part

1. The Data Part:

It is the Logical Design of your application Code Behind

Events
Properties
Change Tracking
Authentication
Entities
Data Objects
DataSets

2. UI Part:

it is the Interface and Interaction Design and Animation

XAML
DataTemplates
ControlTemplate
Styles
DoubleAnimation
Storyboards
Resources
Transformations
Bitmap Effects
Layout Controls

Try to understand that "everything is not what it seems!" don't try thinking the old way you used to do applications ,a good practice is to look for WPF Application -start with small ones- and try to understand how did they do that design or interface what did they use to layout controls. is it a StackPanel,a GridView or maybe a nested design of both.

Here is what I have learned from:

Books:

Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed | By Adam Nathan

Pro Windows Presentation Foundation with .NET 3.5 | By Matthew MacDonald

Essential Windows Presentation Foundation | By Chris Anderson

Applications = Code + Markup | By Charles Petzold

Videos:

Windows Client WPF Videos

Blogs and Articles:

WPF Data Binding - MSDN

WPF: A Beginner's Guide

Josh Smith's Blog

Karl Shifflett - the Maker of XAML Power Toys

* -If you have any useful Resources please feel free to share them in the comments

Microsoft Moving from selling business applications to business services - SOA

Senan Al-Akhras — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:23:00 GMT

What is the Azure Services?

Microsoft Moving from selling business applications to business services by leveraging their services and products with SOA best practices, they are really providing loosely coupled business services/web services easier. .NET Services includes access control to help secure your applications, a service bus for communicating across applications and services, and hosted workflow execution. These reusable hosted services allow you to easily create federated applications that span from on-premises environments to the cloud.

I am really encourage everyone to start reading about the new services architecture from Microsoft and digging deeply to understand the SOA in order to use, develop or enhance the current services from Microsoft to create his own Enterprise Mashup .

The Azure™ Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure is an open and flexible platform that can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

The goal of Azure is to enable developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework. Azure will simplify maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. Infrastructure management will be more automated with a platform that is designed for high availability and dynamic scaling to match usage needs with the option of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Azure provides an open, standards-based and interoperable environment with support for multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and XML.

Call to Action

Currently, the Azure Services Platform is available only as a limited Community Technology Preview (CTP) to attendees at the Professional Developers Conference

o SIGN UP FOR THE WAITLIST: Customers, partners, and Microsoft employees interested in using the technology are encouraged to visit the Azure website (http://www.azure.com) and sign up for the waitlist. Additional capacity will be available in the weeks to come.

o EVANGELIZE Azure as a demonstration of Microsoft’s vision and roadmap to help sell existing products and technologies.

o BE READY for next year to embrace Azure on your systems.

IT Evolution 08 / Doha, Qatar - Wednesday, 19 Nov., 2008

smokadem — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 07:35:00 GMT

Technology is moving into the next era. Are you ready to take the leap with us?

At IT Evolution 08, join us as we unveil the latest technologies that could help change the very DNA of your IT department.

Get a front row seat as we unveil technologies like Hyper-V, App-V and Virtual Machine Manager that will help you ride the hottest trend in IT today - Virtualization. Learn how the new SQL Server 2008 will help you manage any data, any place, any time. See how Visual Studio 2008 provides the most productive developer experience and learn how you can deliver the next generation of rich interactive applications with Silverlight.

City	Date
Abu Dhabi	Tue Nov 4^th
Bahrain	Sun Nov 9^th
Oman	Sat Nov 15^th
Qatar	Wed Nov 19^th
Dubai	Sun Nov 23^rd
Kuwait	Wed Nov 26^th