It's all about the eXperience!
There are 36 entries for the tag
Microsoft
Okay so we've had an onslaught of new things hit in the Microsoft stack lately. I am curious how many folks are using WCF, WPF, WF (workflow), Silverlight, LINQ, etc. And for what types of problems you are trying to solve. It would also be nice to know if you are using the P&P Guidance Packages and Ent Libs. Oh and which Visual Studio version are you mainly working with these days? If you are not using this stuff yet why? Did you pitch it to your boss and they said no for some reason? Did they ......
If you've watched any TV lately you will notice an odd pairing of product brands. Intermingled in car ads recently has been the mention of Microsoft Sync. I thought hmm... that might be a pretty cool feature. When looked into Sync a little closer I had the feeling, I've seen this trick before. Like, connect your cell phone to your car via Blue Tooth to make calls etc. But there is more. Like the ability to read and send text messages verbally. Coincidently I saw on Fox News last night how kids are ......
I will be presenting on the interaction of ASP.Net, ASP.Net AJAX, and Silverlight 1.0 this Saturday at Microsoft in NYC. I'll also be showing off a small bit of Expression Blend 2 December Preview. It is amazing how easy it is to pull all of these technologies together. Some of what I will be showing this Satruday is just a bridge until Silverlight 2.0 is released. But it is all relatively simple and once you've done the work once it is very re-usable. Hope I'll be seeing you there. --chaz ......
Hello Live Search Maps.... ehhh... Virtual Earth goodbye Google Maps! I was hanging out with Peter Laudati tonight and he showed me the next rev of what I call Virtual Earth. Can anybody tell me what the correct name is? Peter totally got the jump on me and blogged about the new release already! There is a new Interactive SDK (version 6) to go along with this release! Virtual Earth ROCKS! --chaz Technorati Tags: Live Search Maps , Virtual Earth , Microsoft , Maps ......
Even though REMIX07 Boston is still going on until tomorrow, I had to get back to work commitments. I'm bummed because there were so many great sessions to check out. The Key Note presented by Brad Abrams was cool. He presented a number of things I had seen before, but I think the crowd was very impressed. Most impressive for me was seeing Miguel de Icaza showing off Moonlight (Silverlight on Linux). So I was first up after the Key Note presentation. I had a lot of time to rehash my performance on ......
Okay, being a speaker at Remix07 Boston is probably among the coolest things I have done professionally to date. And I haven't even presented yet. We had a "speaker's" dinner which included the Microsoft full time employees. I randomly wound up sitting with Brad Abrams, PM Silverlight and Seema Ramchandani PM WPF(Avalon). Brad will be our Keynote speaker who I will follow with my presentation on Developing with the Virtual Earth SDK. There was a lot of cool conversation over dinner, but it got absolutely ......
This is an open letter to the attendees of the upcoming ALT.Net gathering in Austin TX. Dear Friends, Sadly I will not be able to join you at ALT.Net due to some poor planning on my part. I regret missing out on the opportunity to surround myself with some of the brightest minds in our industry. If I were to attend ALT.Net though, my goal would have been to represent the "marginal developer". The developer who gets it, but doesn't practice it in the work place due to circumstances beyond his/her ......
I have found two new inspirations for excellent user experience in a most unlikely place; my kid's toy box. Well so to speak anyway. The first inspiration is innovative from both a marketing perspective as well as a User Interface perspective. If you have a child from 5 to 15 you probably know about Webkinz. A very short explanation for those that don't. A toy manufacturer named Ganz sells little stuffed animals with a tag on the toe. The tag has a special code that allows you to care for and interact ......
As I had mentioned in my review of the NJUX meeting the User Experience movement seems to still be in its infancy stages. So I am psyched to see things like Josh Holmes' blog about the User Interface Smackdown 2007. These are exactly the types of meetings and conversations that need to happen to bring more momentum and attention to the User Experience. It was also great to see that the attendees were cross vendor (Microsoft & Adobe). This is a reaffirmation for the NJUX that we need to be cross ......
The NJUX meeting was a great event. Thanks to everyone who turned out! A big lesson learned is that South Orange may not be the most ideal location to get to. We'll need to figure out a new location when the time is right. There was some really meaningful dialog about just what a "User Experience" group should focus on. The consensus seemed to be that User Experience (especially in the Enterprise) is still in its infancy. So that will bring some challenges to the group. Some of the ideas that came ......
Code Camp NYC II – 3/3 Code Camps are "grass roots" mini application platform developer conferences, free of charge to attendees and open to presenters of all stripes and experience. Get ready for another Code Camp NYC, to be held at Microsoft's offices in Midtown Manhattan (1290 Avenue of the Americas between 51st/52nd Streets) on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 from 9am - 6pm. This is an all-day event with refreshments served, including a developer's "power lunch" (pizza and soda). This event is being ......
Update: I am putting the update at the top since this entry is soooo long. Well, aparently there are two things that I needed to do to solve my problems.1. I needed to realize that the SQL Server 2000 was my Distributor even though I wanted my remote databases to handle the distribution info. I guess because I was using SQL Express 2005 this wasn't possible. 2. Security, security, security. One of the most troubling error messages I recieved after resolving the distributor issue was that when trying ......
From the minute I walked in the door, I could tell this was no developer tool launch. Or at least that is what Microsoft wanted us to think. The MS Expressions Launch in NYC was like no other that I had been to. There was Feng Shui, ambient music, artsy furniture, studio lighting at the top of 7 World Trade in a giant 52 floor studio. Actually some debated if it was just a completely unfinished floor or if it was suppose to be an art studio. Well no matter the atmosphere when it came to the business ......
So I'm a Win Form designer.... or at least I thought I was. I finally had an opportunity to "play" with Expressions Blend Beta 1 today. WOW! I have to say this is very very cool. Don't mistake this tool for anything less than an industry power house User Experience creation tool. In fact I am in favor of changing the term UI to UE as it is more than an interface it is truly an Experience! I was actually giddy when I figured out how to make animation and opacity work. I was just fooling around with ......
Man, ask me what I love to do most and I'd have to say programming. It's still a blast to bang it out. Well I've been knee deep in the weeds lately and am getting my fill. Thus all these little posts! So here is a fun one for me. I upgraded a VS 2003 .Net 1.1 web app to VS 2005 .Net 2.0. I was NOT the original developer on this app, but it is mine now. One of the little treasures I have to contend with is the IE WebControls. Did I ever mention that I hate .htc files? This is my first conversion so ......
Wow weeee... did I ever just make a blunder! I wanted to do some performance tuning on a SQL Express DB. So I detached the DB from SQL Express and Attached it to SQL Server. I did my tuning (created a bunch of recomended indexes) and was about to reverse the process. When I went to re-attach the DB to SQL Express boom... “Cannot Open User Default Database (error 4606). DOH! My bad. I didn't know the sa password and both my one sql server authentication account and my windows integrated authentication ......
As many of us do from time to time, Mike Nicholes had a rant on his blog. Most rants are just useless noise that makes the author feel better. But in Mike's case, he really hit the nail on the head! Nothing is truer than Mike's statement; “I don't like the hours I used to waste spewing out Typed Datasets and binding them to Web Forms and then thinking that I was doing Enterprise development because Microsoft documentation had tutorials online that used the word "Enterprise". “ Hey all ......
So I learned this morning that I could add my Yahoo IM “buddies” to my Windows Live Messenger! Cool. I simply signed up, logged off and back on as told and was prompted to download the latest version of Windows Live Messenger. During the upgrade though I got a 1603 message. I couldn't successfully reinstall the Messenger after the rollback though. As always I hit the boards and found a bunch of people had the same problem. One post here pointed to the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. This tool ......
If you have trouble registering on line for NJ Code Camp II because of your “Live ID” there is a way around it. When you click on the Register link if you recieve an error message that there was trouble with your Live ID, simply choose to log on with a different e-mail account. When prompted, go ahead and use the same e-mail account again anyway and you should get through. According to the message on the right side of the page Microsoft is aware of the problem and it is not specific to ......
Okay, I don't want this to be an MS bashing session. But I ran into a problem where I believe a hotfix will resolve a problem I am having in a .Net 1.1 application. The problem is around a bug in certain kinds of serialization/deserialization in the .Net 1.1 framework SP1. The MS Knowledge Base article says there is a hotfix, but I have to go through support to obtain it. If MS knows there is a bug in the .Net framework and has a hotfix, then why do I have to pay $99 for e-mail support to obtain ......
Well, I'm not dead, just very busy. So what better way to come back than with a Rant! Following is an actual e-mail chain between me and TrendMicro customer service. Sorry for the length but you have to follow the whole thing to understand the WTFness of it. The only thing I have changed is certain info for privacy. The cliff notes are that I have an expired anti-virus license. I was trying to renew the license through TrendMicro's web site. TrendMicro uses DigitalRiver to process purchases. The ......
As I often do, last night I got together with some past co-workers first and foremost to see how old friends are, but also to keep another part of my network alive. These guys are/were all consultants. Through our conversation last night, it struck me how much the IT industry seems to have changed for both employees and consultants alike. I guess I hadn't realized it since I have been busy for quite some time. But I am starting to open my eyes to see that many of those that I use to consult with ......
Note: This article relates to VS2003. I have not tried this in VS2005 yet. I came across a little funny behavior today in my application. I use the CommonAppDataPath to access persisted data files. As such, a change in version number is a bit sticky as the version number is included in the CommonAppDataPath. So for instance I have the following path where my data is stored: C:\Documents and Settings\Chaz\Local Settings\Application Data\CompanyName\ProgramNam... The entry in the AssemblyInfo ......
Eric Johnson picked up on a very interesting thing when he blogged about the Visual Basic Coding Conventions posted on MSDN. It would appear there are differences in Visual Basic and C#. Who knew??? I mean beyond the usual semicolon thing of course. And the Visual Basic Coding Conventions document tells us to embrace these differences. Such as using the Visual Basic Name space and instantiating objects with Dim x as New ... Eric points out that the other .Net languages (C#) do it differently. You ......
Don't foget the N3UG meeting tonight at SetFocus in Parisppany. Peter Laudetti is the new Developer Evangelist for Microsoft's .NET Team. He does an excellent presentation on Enterprise Libraries and will be our presenter tomorrow night. Given it is the holiday season, there will be pizza preceeding the meeting (starting around 5:30) and a casual gathering at the Chevy's around the corner following the meeting.... --chaz ......
Scott Kuhl notes an article written by Brian Noyes on using typed datasets in VS 2005 via the Dataset Designer. Now kudos to Brian for really running through all the right arguments for datasets vs. custom business objects. I am a bit of a custom object berserker and wouldn't allow the dataset to creep into my other layers. But again Brian at least provides commentary on this. Brian starts out by discussing that you can use this to create your own data access layer. My question is why wouldn't you ......
I don't know if the term “Entry Level Enterprise“ has been used before. If it has I apologize to the originator and I respectfully yield credit to the individual(s) who used it before me. I will be using Entry Level Enterprise a lot. To me it is a key component of seeing IT in the US survive. It is about helping our brethren of all coding persuasions to identify, understand and utilize tools and methodologies for developing Enterprise Level solutions. Some very simple examples are Test ......
Update: My presenations are now up on the NJ Code Camp Site. I don't really think the Power Point does the presentation justice, but it's there. Thanks to the many talented and wonderful people that attended NJ Code Camp 2005 this Saturday. This was my first time presenting at a Code Camp and the experience exceeded my every expectation. I came away with a lot of new ideas and I'm really excited to continue working with the NJ developer community. A special thanks to Rob Jackson (Microsoft), Scott ......
If you haven't heard, Microsoft is wrapping a good number of its business solutions into a new branding bundle called Dynamics. The bundle made up of new and existing products will be wrapped closely around the Microsoft Office suite. As a part of this solution base Microsoft will introduction the Office Small Business Accounting 2006 (SBA). On Satya Nadella's (Microsoft VP) blog there is a statement that really bothers me though. “We also provided details on the hooks of we provide for writing ......
“It was ambitious beyond the state of the art. We won't do that again. We'll be ambitious within the state of the art.” ...MS CEO Ballmer on Windows, Vista's scale back and delay: Newsweek September 26th, 2005 pg. E6. WHAT? I thought it was up to Microsoft to define the “State of the art” and for the rest of us to follow like a bunch of Lemings. Mr. Ballmer's statement baffles me, but it may very well define the difference between Google and MS. --chaz ......
So if we gathered all the “Morts” in the world and put them in one place would we call it the Mortosphere or Mortopia? Do Morts blog? Do Morts read blogs? Do Morts know they are Morts? Do Morts care that they are Morts? Do Morts know why they are Morts? Do Morts want to be more than Morts?Sorry, that was quite unprofessional. I’ll get to my point now. My buddy Don if not through his blog post then through our off-line conversation makes a very altruistic argument to bridge the development ......
I have been toying with this idea for a while and I think it is a fitting response to Robert Scoble's “A new kind of conversation is needed With Microsoft” What I would like to see in a Microsoft blogging solution is the integration of Microsoft Speech technology. It is a twist on podcasting. It is the best of all worlds and it does a little something for the Accessibility community too. The idea occurred to me while I was driving (waisting) 2 hours to a client. I could have been writing ......
In a brief conversation about employment at Microsoft with a friend I asked a question that I have pondered ever since. For us 30 - 40 somethings, is Microsoft the IBM of our youth? Back then IBM was the technology king. Big Blue was doing things nobody else could imagine. IBM was sexy. Now IBM is an old giant who has changed with the times and rarely changes the times anymore. Is Microsoft on the same path? Is Microsoft reaching or beyond its sexiness? Are Google and Yahoo the new Microsoft? Is ......
Many people don't take MS based Open Source seriously. And DotNetNuke 3 is a painful and glaring example of why. What is the primary difference between DNN 3 and say Mambo Server (Linux)? Give up? Mambo can be run over a free database server (MySQL) supported by a majority of Linux hosting providers at no extra cost in the hosting plan. DNN 3, well since the group supporting the MS Access DB provider “went under” anyone who wants to use DNN 3 in a hosting environment is stuck with SQL ......
I come from an IT background of stodgy Insurance and Financial companies. So although I am more of the bleeding edge type on the technology and management front, from time to time my roots show through.For over two years, the principle IT partner in my private consulting firm and I have been keeping in touch via Yahoo! instant messenger. It has worked very well. We always know when the other is on-line and available for discussions. We have taken advantage of IM during phone conferences where we ......
Okay this is for all of the techies in the world. My resume in a nut shell... well it is all over the IT map. It has been a blessing and a curse. A significant part of my background is in custom application development. More specifically in the areas of Microsoft (VB, ASP, .Net, ADO) and SQL Server & Oracle. Yeah so I have been a code jockey. I have also worked on a Siebel (CRM) implementation and an SAP (ERP) implementation, building an Executive Information System (OLAP), managing a report ......