They’re here! Today Microsoft released Visual Studio 2008 RTM. If you have an MSDN subscription you can download today and start producing all those new .Net 3.5 applications.
Also released today via the connect.microsoft.com site is CTP 5 of SQL Server 2008. It’s my understanding in this CTP most of the features are working, except for clustering.
I can see I won’t be getting any sleep tonight.
Earlier this week I was privilidged to attend the first .Net University for BizTalk. It was a very informative day long session, I feel like I now have a grasp on at least the fundementals of BizTalk and can talk intelligently about it. I have a long way to go, of course, but this was a great launching point.
If you are not familiar with .Net University, you need to check out their website http://www.dotnet-u.com/ . All of the slide decks, labs, and other courseware are availble not only for you to look at, but to use in doing your own presentation. Your user group or business could put on it’s very own .Net University using the supplied materials. Don’t worry if you are not a guru, they are even publishing videos of the sessions for you to watch and see how the “pros” did it. Currently courseware is available for .Net 3.0 and BizTalk, and the video sessions for .Net 3.0 were just released. They videoed the presentations at the BizTalk session I was in, so I would expect them to be released in the near future. Coming soon will be courseware for Sharepoint and Silverlight.
.Net University was the brainchild of Microsoft Developer Evangelist Doug Tunure ( http://blogs.msdn.com/dougturn/ ). Recently he and Mark Dunn of Dunn Training (http://www.dunntraining.com/) went to TechEd in Asia and used .Net U there. Mark Dunn recorded interviews and talked about it in a recent Dot Net Rocks episode (#288: http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=288 ). Take a listen, they do a better job of explaining it than I can. Mark, by the way, was also one of the presenters at the BizTalk session I was in.
If your user group is looking for a good opportunity to reach out to the community, consider putting on your own .Net U. You can do it in one day, or break it into two or four sessions. Looks like there will be a lot of good material to get you started, and you can even get certificates to present to your attendees.
I was on the road last week, traveling to various places in the SouthEast. Sure is good to be back home again! Speaking of back home, there are some events coming up in the Birmingham AL area you should know about.
First up is on Tuesday evening, November 6th, TechMixer Unplugged. If you’ve been to previous TechMixer events you’ll find this a bit different. Previous events have had more of an “expo” feel, with vendor booths and presentations. This event, dubbed “Unplugged” is more of a social mixer. A chance for everyone to get together, relax, enjoy some food and have a good time. For more info go to http://www.techbirmingham.com/default.aspx?id=171 . I’ll be there, hope to see you there.
On Thursday night, November 8th I’ll be speaking at the Birmingham Software Developer’s Association. (http://www.bsda.info/) My subject will be SQL Server 2005 Full Text Searching for Developers.
My coworker and new MVP Jeff W. Barnes will be speaking at the Birmingham Dot Net User Group meeting on Tuesday, November 13th. His subject sounds very interesting, WCF and the Programmable Web. See his blog for more info: http://jeffbarnes.net/portal/blogs/jeff_barnes/archive/2007/10/31/bug-net-meeting-on-nov-13th.aspx
Hope to see you at all these great events!
Whew. I got home from DevLink late last night, wired but tired as they say. I went to some really great sessions. Most of my time was spent in SQL Server 2005 sessions, I spend most of my time these days in the SQL Server Business Intelligence arena, so decided to focus my efforts there.
I have to hand it to those folks in Nashville, they did a great job. Registration was very smooth, things seemed well organized, and ran well. All in all I had a great time and can’t wait to go back next year.
Over the next few days I’ll comment on some of the more interesting sessions I attended and provide a few links. For tonight though I’m still in a state of shock, gotta get my “think meat” organized.
As you have probably guessed by now, I’ve grown to really enjoy speaking at and attending code camps and user group meetings. There are a lot of benefits to being a speaker, but to me one of the biggest is the Speaker Dinner the night before the code camp. In case you don’t know it, there’s usually a dinner the night before most code camps. Admission to the dinner is speaking at code camp the next day.
I got home just a little while ago from the dinner prior to tomorrows (hmm, well today’s since it’s after midnight now) Alabama Code Camp. I got to hang out with some really ultra smart folks tonight, and talk about a wide variety of topics. I know there were at least 4 MVPs there, possibly more since I didn’t know everyone.
Dinner was a mini-education in itself, as I picked up on several new topics. I also got to laugh and hear some great stories. If you have ever thought about speaking at a code camp I would highly encourage you. The rewards are well worth the admission cost!
Tomorrow, Saturday October 6th I will be presenting “Getting Started with Full Text Searching”. Here are the materials I’ll be using during the demo.
First, here is a PDF of the PowerPoint slides:
Next, most of the demos used SQL statements. This PDF file has all of the SQL plus some associated notes.
Finally, I did a WPF project that demonstrated how to call a full text search query from a WPF Windows application. Annoyingly enough WordPress (who hosts my blog) won’t let me upload ZIP files, so I renamed the extension to pdf. After you download the file to your drive, remove the .pdf and put the zip extension back on, then it should expand all the source for you correctly. (Yes, I know, I really need to get a host server for binaries, one of these days I’ll get around to it, but for tonight…)
Holy Frameworks Batman! The news is spreading quick, Microsoft has announced that they will be releasing the source code, complete with comments and debugger support. Now you and I will be able to step into those framework classes in an effort to debug our apps and maybe even learn something. This will be part of the VS2008 Orcas release.
Check out the announcement on the ScottGu blog at
Shawn Burke has details on his blog:
Channel 9 video at:
Scott Hanselman also has the scoop on his podcast:
This ranks in the uber-cool category.
I just got done updating the Arcane Lessons page. I added the last couple of weeks of WPF lessons to the WPF area, added one new item to the SQL Server Full Text Search area, and created a new category: Arcane’s Toolbox. This first list is all of the Visual Studio add-ins I’ve blogged about. Later I plan to add some of my favorite Windows add-ins, but if you don’t want to wait you can click on the Windows Add-ins tag to see the posts.
I spent my weekend learning Silverlight, writing a game in Silverlight 1.0. I did all of my project in Visual Studio 2005 and using Silverlight 1.0 runtime. It’s a pretty simple game, I’ll reveal more later in the week and eventually post all the code and blog about the development experience.
The biggest pain was not in the XAML, that was pretty straight forward, it was all the [explicative deleted] Javascript. It’s been a few years since I did any Javascript so I had a lot of relearning to do.
If you are want to look into Silverlight coding, I highly recommend you go to the Getting Started site on Silverlight’s website. http://silverlight.net/getstarted/Default.aspx
After you download all the bits, go to the very bottom of the page under “3. Learn from Samples and Documentation”. Go read all the QuickStarts!!! Very good code samples here to get you started.
After you go through the code samples, there are some really good focus videos at http://silverlight.net/Learn/learnvideos.aspx . These helped me over quite a few hurdles.
The documentation was also very helpful in looking up how some properties worked, going back and forth between Java and Xaml. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb188743.aspx
There will be more to come on this subject to be sure, but over the next few days I’ll be preparing my presentaion for Alabama Code Camp 5 on SQL Server 2005 Full Text Searching,
WHEW! All of this WPF / XAML sure has been a lot of fun. But I think it’s time to come up for air and see what else is happing out there in Dot Net land.
Alabama Code Camp is coming up in just a little over a week, Saturday October 6th to be exact. Still plenty of time to register and even just a bit of time if you want to get in on the Silverlight programming contest. First prize for that is a Zune! http://www.alabamacodecamp.com/home.html
devLink, the large conference for a cheap price comes up right afterward in Nashville, Friday and Saturday October 12th and 13th. http://www.devlink.net/ . You can tell I’ll be there, my name’s on the front page as a winner of a Barnes and Nobel gift card (look for the dude from AL !)
(By the way, anyone know of a good dog repellent? My nephew is coming to house sit and is bringing Marshmallow and Buttercup, his twin Dobermans along because I have a big back yard they can play in. Last time though they ate the garden hose, chewed the handle off my shovel, and bit through one of my lawnmower tires.)
There’s a new add-on for SQL Server Management Studio I’m eager to try out. It’s still in Beta but looks promising. It was blogged about at http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp/archive/2007/09/20/SSMS-Tools-Pack—an-add-in-for-SQL-Management-Studio.aspx or you can download it directly at http://www.ssmstoolspack.com/ .
If you are a fan of NUnit, you’ll appreciate the new xUnit. Read James’ announcement at http://jamesnewkirk.typepad.com/posts/2007/09/announcing-xuni.html .
In a recent Dot Net Rocks episode, Carl Franklin announced they would be taking over Shrinkster.com. Shrinkster has been down due to spam abuse, as soon as Carl gets everything setup we’ll be able to go back to using short links again!
Speaking of Dot Net Rocks, I especially enjoyed show 274, where the new features of VB.Net and C# for the 2008 release were discussed. Entertaining and lots of good tidbits. I think my favorite feature so far has got to be C#’s extension methods. http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=274
During my long drive to the Tallahassee Code Camp last week, I put together a podcast theme session, and copied a bunch of related podcasts onto my cheapo SanDisk mp3 player. This time I went with a “Millenator” theme and got all the episodes of Dot Net Rocks that Mark Miller appeared on. Good stuff, lots of thoughtful material combined with some humor. Next time you go on a trip, copy a bunch of past episodes of your favorite podcast that are in the same theme and make that long drive go much quicker.
There have been several updates to the world’s greatest Visual Studio Add-In, CodeRush, over the last few weeks ( http://www.devexpress.com/Home/Announces/CodeRush25.xml ). Apparently Mark Miller and the boys have been busy! If you’re not on 2.5.4 go update yours today.
Speaking of Mark Miller, I love his intro slide for his VSLive session coming up in LasVegas. Take a look, pure genius. http://www.doitwith.net/2007/09/11/MyLastVSLiveSessionEver.aspx
A final note, between getting ready for Alabama Code Camp and going to devLink my blogging may get spotty for the next few weeks, bear with me and I’ll have full reports from both code camps and lots of fun new stuff to share.
I got home a little while ago from spending all day Saturday at the Tallahassee Code Camp. And I have to say, it was a blast! Despite a six hour drive, which included driving through the remains of a tropical storm, it was well worth my time.
The day opened with me actually giving a presentation on SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition. I always like giving my presentations in the first slot, as the attendees are awake (mostly) and energized (or at least heavily caffeinated). They typically ask great questions, and this group was no exception. After my presentation, I was able to spend the rest of the day relaxing and learning about all sorts of great technologies. I attended sessions on Silverlight, LINQ, Windows WorkFlow (WF), and Ajax. All great, and very informative.
The Tallahassee User Group really knows how to put on a good show. Registration was extremely fast, they had more than enough doughnuts and coffee at breakfast and great pizza at lunch. The rooms were nice, all in all quite well run.
And the swag, baby! I have to brag and say I scored some great stuff, primarily a stack of new books on various .Net 3.0 technologies. My best score though came from Joe Healy (http://www.devfish.net/) who gave me one of those cool oval Microsoft stickers which I’ve now proudly affixed to the top of my laptop, just under my Coding Horror sticker.
I also have to give and extra special thanks to my long suffering wife the Southern TinkerBelle ( http://southerntinkerbelle.com/ ), who bent over backwards to arrange things so I could attend. Thanks sweetie!
Thanks again to everyone for a great time, and I look forward to going back next year!
I’m pleased to announce I’ll be speaking at Tallahassee Code Camp III. The event takes place in Tallahassee Florida on Saturday, September 22nd. I’ll be speaking on SQL Server Compact Edition.
For more info, please visit their site at:
http://codecamp.tlhdotnet.net/
Hope to see you there!
I registered this week to go to DevLink. http://www.devlink.net/ What? You haven’t heard of DevLink? It’s only the best conference bargain on the face of the earth! Two full days of developer sessions, and nationally known speakers. Rocky Lhotka, Rob Howard, Billy Hollis, Kathleen Dollard, just to name a few.
The conference price includes meals, the content on cd/dvd, a Friday night social, and of course a t-shirt! Oh, the price, that’s the best part, all this for $50. Yes, you read that right, FIFTY DOLLARS. I know, I about fainted too, and could kick myself for not knowing about this gem sooner.
The conference is on Friday and Saturday, October 12th and 13th in beautiful Nashville TN. Plenty of stuff for your family to do while you’re geeking it up.
DevLink, I’ll be there, ya’ll come! Tell ’em Arcane Code sent ya.
Stepping away from WPF for a brief moment to pass along some interesting tidbits. First, there’s a new blog at Microsoft, the hackers blog. Should be interesting reading for those interested in security.
http://blogs.msdn.com/hackers/
Next, if you are one of the few people in the universe who has not yet heard, Scott Hanselman’s incredibly useful list of tools for 2007 is up.
The Alabama Code Camp, which is scheduled for October 6th, has had it’s site updated. Note, it’s done in Silverlight, so you’ll need the latest Silverlight plug in to see it. (Don’t worry, the site will prompt you, quick and painless.)
You should also note there’s going to be a Silverlight Game contest. Design your own Silverlight game and you could win a Zune! See the site for details.
http://www.alabamacodecamp.com/
Finally, there’s an interesting looking conference going on in Nashville on October 12th and 13th called DevLink. They have some really big name speakers, with a really low admission. I’m planning on going, so maybe I’ll see you there!
I think we’d all agree the internet is one of the greatest productivity tools around, allowing us to find vast stores of information. I’m sure you’ve also heard it’s the greatest time waster, with lots of distracting sites or useless pages that get in the way of the results we want.
I find it really valuable to have a good search tool, one that focuses on the content I need, and limits the scope of the search to relevant areas. Of course we’ve all heard of Google, the 500 pound gorilla of search engines. While the do a pretty decent job, when your search phrase returns half a million hits it can be difficult to narrow down.
Recently I’ve found the Microsoft engine, Windows Live ( http://www.live.com/ ), has gotten a lot better, especially when looking for .Net related developer content.
My favorite so far though, is Search.Net ( http://searchdotnet.com/ ), a site put together by coding legend Dan Appleman. Dan ( http://www.desaware.com/ ) created a Google powered site, but maintains the list of sites it searches so you know that you are only combing sites devoted to programming and not Happy Harry’s House of Wild Women.
Another site I just learned about this week is Koders ( http://www.koders.com/ ). It’s a site devoted to searching through source code. It also has some helps that will let you zoom in on what you want. You can pick the language, or specify your search word needs to be in the class name, method name, or interface name. This kind of search is valuable when you are looking for an example, or trying to avoid reinventing the wheel.
A similar site is Krugle ( http://www.krugle.com/ ). It has similar paradigm to Koders, allowing you to search through code.
The final code search tool I’ll mention is Google’s new Code Search engine ( http://www.google.com/codesearch?hl=en ). It allows you to search using regular expression syntax, which is a nice feature (I just wish regular expressions weren’t such a pain in the underwear to use).
I have to give a quick thanks, most of these I learned about through either my listening of Dot Net Rocks ( http://www.dotnetrocks.com/ ) and HanselMinutes ( http://www.hanselminutes.com/ ) or through Scott Hanselman’s new forum site, which I blogged about yesterday.
Those are the list of place I go when I need to find something, how about you?
Arcane Code 