WindowsDevPro Blog

Programmers on the Catwalk

SheilaM — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:57:00 GMT

You all know you're smart--and you're respected for your beautiful minds. But are you fashion-forward? In "The Programmer Dress Code," Codethinked.com has assembled a show of some of the stylin' greats in computing. Check out how you stack up against these hairy visionaries. http://www.codethinked.com/post/2007/12/The-Programmer-Dress-Code.aspx

Say Goodbye to Netscape Navigator

SheilaM — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:38:00 GMT

We'd like to hear your thoughts on Netscape Navigator and AOL's decision to stop supporting it.

Share your memories of the browser wars.

Some background http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/01/02/3191040.htm

Are you planning to run Exchange on Windows 2008?

SheilaM — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:25:00 GMT

The Exchange development team has some tips for you at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/12/ExLonghorn/default.aspx

Windows Networking Awards for Administration Tools Chosen by Readers

SheilaM — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:13:00 GMT

To see the vendors the readers of windowsnetworking.com have chosen in the Administration Tools voting check http://www.windowsnetworking.com/news/WindowsNetworking-Readers-Choice-Award-Administration-Tools-Active-Directory-Janitor-Nov07.html

Check out Microsoft's recently released Solutions Accelerators

SheilaM — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:57:00 GMT

Microsoft has recently released solutions accelerators for deployment and virtualization.

"Microsoft Deployment is the next version of Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007. It is the recommended process and toolset to automate desktop and server deployment. Microsoft Deployment provides detailed guidance and job aids for every organizational role involved with large-scale deployment projects."

Download details http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3bd8561f-77ac-4400-a0c1-fe871c461a89&displaylang=en&tm

Virtualization: "The Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) guides are the next version of Windows Server System Reference Architecture. The guides in this series help clarify and streamline design processes for Microsoft infrastructure technologies, with each guide addressing a unique infrastructure technology or scenario."

Download details http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AD3921FB-8224-4681-9064-075FDF042B0C&displaylang=en

For information on more solutions accelerators, including those in beta see Nick Mayhew's blog at MSDN http://blogs.msdn.com/nickmayhew/archive/2008/01/02/new-solution-accelerators-released-deployment-virtualisation-office-security-and-sharepoint.aspx

Stimulsoft releases Stimulsoft Reports.Net 2007.3

SheilaM — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:05:00 GMT

Business intellegence software provider, Stimulsoft has released Stimulsoft Reports.Net 2007.3, a major new release of the all-in-one solution for generating reports for .NET. This toolkit provides .NET professionals report designer capabilities, plus technical support. The toolset supports Word 2007. PDF documents can be signed digitally. Query Builder is in this release; localization is integrated into the product. Reports can be generated from various data sources and can be used in Windows Forms and in ASP.NET. They can be exported to the most popular formats, including .pdf, .xml, .html, Excel, .rtf, .txt, .csv, .emf, .bmp, etc.

For more on this product see www.stimulsoft.com/

Dynamsoft Finds SaaS Success with SourceAnywhere Hosted

jeffjames — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:11:00 GMT

SourceSafe Anywhere developer Dynamsoft has announced that systems development company Adea., Inc., has implemented SourceAnywhere Hosted as their version control platform. According to a Dynamsoft news release, SourceSafe Anywhere Hosted is "...delivered over the Internet as a Software as a Service (SaaS) application [that] offers SourceSafe style version control capabilities for development teams."

SourceAnywhere Hosted requires various Microsoft technologies (namely Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005) to operate, and has an interface that resembles Microsoft Visual Source Safe (VSS) -- a move obviously intended to ease the migration of VSS users to SourceAnywhere.

In other Dynamsoft news, the company has joined Microsoft's Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) Program to bring Visual Studio support to their SourceAnywhere product line.

There's a Microsoft Hyper-V Beta for Server 2008 RC 1

SheilaM — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 18:57:00 GMT

Today the virtualization team announced via its blog that there is a beta for Windows Server 2008 RC1Hyper-V. The team says it's a major step forward from the preview release version. See the team blog here http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2007/12/13/happy-holidays-windows-server-2008-hyper-v-beta-now-available.aspx

For the download go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8F22F69E-D1AF-49F0-8236-2B742B354919&displaylang=en

Office 2007 Service Pack 1 ships early

SheilaM — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:38:00 GMT

See Paul Thurrott's coverage of Microsoft's early release of Office 2007 Service Pack 1 today. http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/ArticleID/97801/97801.html?Ad=1

To get the service pack go to Microsoft's download site http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/default.aspx

FAQ for Vista SP1

SheilaM — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:46:00 GMT

Those of you who are previewing Windows Vista SP1 by going through the recent RC release, may find this FAQ of interest. The actual SP1 is scheduled for release in Q1 of calendar 2008.

Here's a link to the FAQ http://www.marclironblog.com/windows-vista/windows-vista-service-pack-1-faq/

Here's a link to the public Vista SP1 RC http://tips.instantvista.com/windows-vista-sp1-rc.htm

25 issues: Deploying ASP.NET apps on IIS 7 on Vista/Windows 2008

SheilaM — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:56:00 GMT

See the blog of a Microsoft IIS Program Manager on advanced IIS server deployment and development. Mike Volodarsky discusses breaking changes for ASP.NET 2.0 applications running in integrated mode on IIS 7.0.

http://mvolo.com/blogs/serverside/archive/2007/12/08/IIS-7.0-Breaking-Changes-ASP.NET-2.0-applications-Integrated-mode.aspx

"Oslo" Represents a "Tectonic Shift" in Business/IT Interactions

SheilaM — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:07:00 GMT

Microsoft "Oslo," announced last month, is a grouping of products which will include BizTalk Server 6, BizTalk Services 1 (Internet Service Bus), .NET Framework 4, Visual Studio 10, and System Center 5. The focus of this service-oriented architecture (SOA) grouping will be on metadata, modeling, repositories, composite application development, and hosted services.

Commentary from Forrester on Oslo stresses that this is a major shift in interactions between IT services (development and administrative) and business. Microsoft technology will be able to capture an executable model of a business. This architecture, based on business design and business metadata, will make enterprises more agile.

Here's what Forrester analyst Randy Heffner said, "If you view Oslo’s impact as simply improvements in application development productivity, tooling, and maintenance, you will miss the big picture. To be a strategic architecture leader, you must be prepared to help your enterprise think differently about the relationship between business and technology. . . An increasing range of business metadata is at the center of a tectonic shift in the focus of solution building and programming. Rather than applications being IT’s translations of selected business requirements, business technology solutions become direct reflections of the business design itself.”

For more on this see http://blogs.zdnet.com/service-oriented/?p=1016

The Forrester executive summary http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,44336,00.html

Electric Rain Releases ZAM

SheilaM — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:50:00 GMT

Today Electric Rain announced the release of ZAM 3D, a 3D modeling and animation product for developers and designers working with Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to build Vista applications, as well as applications for Windows XP with .NET 3.0 Framework installed.

For more see the Electric Rain site http://www.erain.com/products/zam3d/DefaultPDC.asp

NBA Sees the Silverlight

SheilaM — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 17:40:00 GMT

Microsoft has a new Silverlight customer, the National Basketball Association (NBA).

The NBA will use Silverlight on NBA.com to provide fans with a full-screen NBA photo gallery, video highlights, and additional interactive applications. Silverlight will also be utilized on www.WNBA.com and www.NBADevelopmentLeague.com.

Here's the press release http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/dec07/12-10NBASilverlightPR.mspx

Today: Windows Server 2008 RC1

SheilaM — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:00:00 GMT

The second release candidate for Windows Server 2008 is available for download today. (The first RC was RC 0, back in September.) Big news is the inclusion of the Group Policy Preferences tool. Click here to download release candidate evaluation software: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/audsel.mspx