I stumbled across a recently released collection of guidance and best practices for SharePoint DBAs and those who love them.

From the download page…

“ This book is a guide for database administrators who implement or maintain Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It provides guidelines for improving the performance of Office SharePoint Server 2007 solutions that run on Microsoft SQL Server 2008…”

Get it here in either doc or pdf formats.

I’m sure by now you know that the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Beta has been released. If not, get it here.

There are also some great training resources already available!

The Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2010 features and a variety of framework technologies including:

• C# 4.0
• Visual Basic 10
• F#
• Parallel Extensions
• Windows Communication Foundation
• Windows Workflow
• Windows Presentation Foundation
• ASP.NET 4
• Windows 7
• Entity Framework
• ADO.NET Data Services
• Managed Extensibility Framework
• Visual Studio Team System

This version of the Training Kit works with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and .NET Framework 4 Beta 2.

And videos too!!!! With Love from Channel 9!

The Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Course includes videos and hands-on-labs designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2010 features and a variety of framework technologies including: C# 4.0, Visual Basic 10, F#, Parallel Computing Platform, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX 4.0, ASP.NET MVC Dynamic Data.

Enjoy!!!!

Hello,

Here are the companion resources for the “Dancing with SharePoint” presentation at the Heartland Developers Conference 2009.  We talked about best practices to create a SharePoint virtual development environment, ways to get the most functionality out of the box, and some great development tools. Thanks to all who came!!!!

“Power User Books” – For getting the most out of the box

The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users

Essential SharePoint 2007: A Practical Guide for Users, Administrators and Developers

Virtual PC Resources and Best Practices

 Virtual PC Tips by Scott Hanselman

How to Create a MOSS 2007 VPC Image – This is a great series of articles on setting up a virtual environment, especially part 20 which is about creating differencing disks.

Here is another great article on differencing disks by Andrew Connell.

SharePoint Development Tools

Here is a list of the Tools demonstrated during the presentation:

STSDev

WSPBuilder

U2U CAML Query Builder

For the person who asked - “How to Use CAML (with examples)”

Search Query Web Service Test Tool for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007

SharePoint 2007 SDK – includes BDC Editor

Simego MOSS BDC Design Studio

Lightning Tools BDC Meta Man

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Tools: Visual Studio 2005 Extensions, Version 1.1

A 30 day Virtual PC environment for SharePoint:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 VHD

I’ve needed to pull together some resources for SharePoint training:

Figured I’d post them.

Virtual Labs:

Get first-hand deployment experience through the Virtual Lab series. The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 will teach you about installation, organizing content, managing user permissions, creating Web Parts for custom tasks, and much more.It's simple: no complex setup or installation is required to try out SharePoint Products and Technologies running in the full-featured TechNet Virtual Lab. You get a downloadable manual and a 90-minute block of time for each module. You can sign up for additional 90-minute blocks any time.

Developer Labs

IT Pro Labs

End User Training

“Explore Office SharePoint Server 2007 with training from Microsoft experts, right from your desktop. Download a simple file to get the grand tour of the latest features and changes, including automated workflows to track approval cycles, business dashboards showing how well you are performing on your goals, and syncing documents to Outlook. The training, which includes articles, videos, and interactive tutorials, will lead you step-by-step through the rich features of Office SharePoint Server.

We offer two training editions. If you just want to view the training on your desktop, then download our Standalone Edition. After you install the training, you’ll see an icon on your desktop that will make it easy to find the training when you need it.

For our Portal Edition, you’ll need to enlist the help of your friendly IT team. They can install it on your company’s Office SharePoint Server 2007 site. Then they can even track who has used the training, and what trainings they’ve taken. “  - excerpted from the site…

Download here:

Recently I’ve been engaged to integrate Dynamics GP Manufacturing and SharePoint. It’s been a daunting task to say the least to navigate the database.

Here is a good link to assist with learning more about the data structure in GP.

My good friend and fellow Microsoft Regional Director Adam Cogan asked me the following question today. I was curious what you thought so I decided to ask you as well:

What are you going to be using going forward (and why)?

1. WINDOWS 2008 R2 Release Candidate

2. WINDOWS 7 Release Candidate

3. VISTA ?

4. OTHER

 

Respond in the comments if you would. I'm really curious! Thanks!

The hits keep coming! First they announced Beta 1, now here's a link to the piping hot WCF/WF4 Training Kit from Ron Jacobs!

"The WCF/WF 4 training kit contains a set 6 hands on labs that will help you quickly get up to speed with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) in .NET 4. The labs include Introduction to Workflow, Workflow Services, Flowchart, Workflow Designer, Service Discovery and Monitoring. "

Ps. Here's the video version from endpoint.tv

Soma posted about the BETA 1 RELEASE of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET FX 4!!!! He waxes eloquently here about it!  This is a major release and you should be evaluating it to determine how best to apply it.

Here are some resources to speed you on your way:

Articles here at the MSDN .NET Framework Developer Center

Forums here

Microsoft .NET Framework: Overview and Applications for Babies - Scott Hanselman

Enjoy! I know I will!

The Microsoft Web Platform guys have released a video on youtube that pays homage to one of my favorite detective shows. Check it out here!  This is just a teaser and I can't wait for Episode 1!

Who knew that installing apps could be this exciting! Go Cannon PI!!!! Soma and ScottGu rock!

I saw this yesterday and think it looks like its going to be very worthwhile! I'll see ya there!

Safari Books Online invites you to attend an exclusive webcast with Thomas Erl during which he will discuss some of the most important SOA design patterns in use today.
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Thomas Erl, author of the newly published SOA Design Patterns, a catalog of 85 design patterns for service-oriented architecture and service-orientation. In development for over three years, the catalog has been subjected to comprehensive reviews by hundreds of industry professionals and is in use by many of the world’s leading technology companies.

The webcast will be on Thursday, March 26 at 10:30am Pacific/1:30pm Eastern.

Click here to register!

 

Thursday during the keynote at PubCon in Las Vegas Microsoft announced “Project Silk Road” which is a collection of services, including a new version of the Live Search APIs for developer community – basically Search API 2.0 Beta + Search Ads pilot.

I can tell  you all from firsthand experience that this is very slick! As one of the first implementations of the Live Search API 2.0 Beta , we got it up and running on GeeksWithBlogs.net very quickly and couldn’t be happier with the results.  Search API handled the huge volume of archives and indexed them very quickly. Kudos to Ani Babaian and the Live Search team for a job well done.

Ani and the team want you to try your hand with this great new API so they are sponsoring a contest!

Create COOL implementations of Search API 2.0 Beta + Ads

--- SDK can be found here ---

 

From Ani -----

We are looking for some really cool implementations from the developer community which will be displayed on our website!   We’re looking for as many implementations as possible! Come on team, put your developer skills to use and share your passion about Microsoft technology!

Win a Prize:

All submissions entered by (12am) midnight PST US on Dec 5^th 2008 will be eligible for our prize drawing of a $120 gift certificate to the Microsoft Company store.

Please note: All submissions must be on live websites (so we have to be able to navigate to the website or be able to download the application to see it) and must follow our Terms of Use – present on Search API and Ads web sites respectively. Drawing will take place on Dec 8^th 2008 and the winner will be notified via email by Dec 9^th 2008. 

Send all links/information about implementations to: AniBATMicrosoft.com (Replace AT with @).

Learn more about: Search API 2.0 (Beta) + Ads pilot

The Live Search API 2.0 Beta enables you to embed as a custom component a flexible and powerful search engine on your sites and applications.  With the addition of XML (POX) and JSON formats, as well as the previously supported SOAP API, the Live Search API 2.0 Beta allows you to integrate the power of search using the code and formatting you choose. In addition, some source formats types are also accessible through an OpenSearch-compliant RSS interface.

Step 1: Get an App ID

Go  to http://search.live.com/developers to create your AppID which you will use to gain access to all the great search results from Search API 2.0.

Step 2: Select your URI type

When you want to query the HTTP endpoint you first start with an HTTP GET request to the appropriate URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).  There are two URIs, one for XML results and one for JSON results: http://api.search.live.net/xml.aspx and http://api.search.live.net/json.aspx respectively.

Both URIs expect at least three required query string parameters: AppID, query, and sources.  The AppID query string parameter is a value you get when you sign up as a developer with the Developer Center program (http://search.live.com/developers).  The query value will be the query you want the API to execute for you, and the sources value indicates which Live Search Engine indexes you want the query to be run against. 

Step 3: Select your source type

The following are the source types supported by the current release of the Search API 2.0 Beta.

web	Searches for web content
image	Searches for images on the web
news	Searches news stories
instantanswer	Searches Encarta online
spell	Searches Encarta dictionary for spelling suggestions
phonebook	Searches phonebook entries
relatedsearch	Returns the query strings most similar to yours

Step 4: Select your front end

RIA - Silverlight

Silverlight is a framework from Microsoft that enables developers to build Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), using the same .NET framework and programming languages they are familiar with using in their typical .NET applications.  Because of its strong integration with browsers, as well as with images and other media, it is a robust and very interesting client for building applications using the Live Search API 2.0 Beta.

Like JSON applications that live in the browser, Silverlight applications can’t normally invoke services (raw HTTP or SOAP) on domains other than the domain where the Silverlight application is downloaded from.  But because Live Search API 2.0 beta publishes a crossdomain.xml policy file at the root of its domain, http://api.search.live.net/crossdomain.xml, it allows RIAs to access its endpoints, making it possible to use the Live Search API 2.0 Beta from Silverlight.

Interoperable – PHP

Another reason to maintain a more open API using HTTP (and raw XML and JSON) is to enable interoperable scenarios with Live Search API 2.0 Beta.  It isn’t just for .NET programmers. For example, PHP has a powerful JSON parsing mechanism, which, given PHP is a dynamic language, enables PHP developers to program against a JSON object graph in a very straightforward way.  

RSS

In additional to the XML/JSON APIs which allow a user to make explicit search requests of the different Live Search sources, these sources are also exposed via a web feed mechanism formatted using Really Simple Syndication (RSS).  In addition, the RSS endpoint is open and doesn’t require an App ID.  Any user can make a feed request of the API and subscribe to that feed using his favorite feed reader. The feed reader can then take care of maintaining state, and the user will be notified whenever there is new data.

This is the only part of the new Live Search API 2.0 beta that can be used by end users, since it is the only URI that doesn’t require an App ID as part of the query string.

Step 5: If you want to Monetize

Another feature of Live Search 2.0 is ad-serving capability.  If you sign up for a Live Search API 2.0 Beta App ID and opt into the adCenter terms of use, and apply for an Ads unit ID thru adCenter as listed on our Developer Center (http://search.live.com/developers) once approved, you can integrate ads into your web pages using simple XML or JSON APIs. Ads are just another content source, so all the information about the other search sources applies to the ad source, although there are a few additional required query string parameters and an additional adCenter Unit ID.

Capsule Review of

More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#

by Bill Wagner

I really found Bill's previous book (Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C# (Effective Software Development Series)) very useful. I've recommended in many classes I've taught and also to clients while consulting.

More Effective C# enhances the original with C# 3.0 and LINQ additions. Bottom line: If you want to be a serious developer that continually hones his (or her) craft, then you need this book. Bill has done an excellent job of taking his considerable development expertise and distilling it into very practical pointed advice. I cannot recommend this great book enough!

If you are going to Mix (If not, then why not? -- It's still not to late to register) and are interested at all in honing your User eXperience mad skills then you need to be at this session by "Clued In: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again" author Lou Carbone. 

Come chew with Lou on Wednesday, March 5th at 1:30 PM.

 

October 27–30, 2008
Pre-conference October 26, 2008
Los Angeles, California

The next Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) has been announced!!! It's October 27–30, 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.  Mark your calendars and save the date.

We'll see ya there!!!!!!

 

More information to follow....

http://msdn.microsoft.com/pdc2008

I've just been informed that I am now an MVP for Team System! I'm very honored with this award and pumped because the TFS VSTS team has great stuff coming out continuously (blog posts, power tools, etc) and are VERY hard chargers. They are a pleasure to work with and I'm excited to continue to spread the goodness of all that is Team System!!!