Architecture

Follow me on Twitter

Rob Foster — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:18:53 GMT

I will be going to TechEd 2008 in Orlando (developer week). As most of you know, I'm a twitter addict and usually post updates from conferences and general technology related information this way in a more realtime manner than my blog. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/lespaulrob.

It will be a fun ride! :-)

ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX Unleashed: coming soon to a bookstore near you!

Rob Foster — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:52:58 GMT

It's official...My new book "ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX Unleashed" is coming out soon.

Read all about it here.

DreamSpark...it's about time!

Rob Foster — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:52:55 GMT

This morning, Microsoft Corp. announced that it will be giving away Visual Studio 2005 and 2008, SQL Server 2005, Windows Server Standard Edition, XNA Game Studio 2.0, and its Expression suite of products to college students worldwide -- and eventually to high school students.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced the program, called DreamSpark, today on the company's Channel 8 site.

Microsoft Sync Framework CTP

Rob Foster — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 02:16:06 GMT

I've been hearing rumblings of the sync framework for quite some time now and it has finally been released to CTP! I've got to say, if this thing "really" works, then it has the potential to change the way that we consume data. Once I get my home development machine re-imaged (hopefully tonight), I'm going to try to get this thing to work with SharePoint 2007. How cool would that be!

You can read about and download the sync framework here.

Led Zeppelin Concert today in London...

Rob Foster — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:15:16 GMT

The reviews are in and the reviews are great! Check out the following link!

http://www.nme.com/news/led-zeppelin/33079

Silverlight....FINALLY!!!!!

Rob Foster — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 01:56:38 GMT

Ok, so I've been pretty hard on Silverlight here lately. Yes, a lot of my 'softie buddies have given me grief, but the truth is the truth: Microsoft doesn't dogfood Silverlight technologies enough right now for me to be comfortable.

BUT...I came across a site today that really has some potential. It is http://www.tafiti.com/. It is a freaking rocking front end for searching using the Live.com engine.

Well done!

Sorry...I forgot to CC the System Center in my letter

Rob Foster — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:08:59 GMT

Dear System Center Team,

Many apologies for leaving you off, but you should check out my letter to the XBox Team per the screenshot below:

My letter to the XBox team (though can be addressed to other teams at Microsoft)

Rob Foster — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 15:52:21 GMT

Dear XBox Team,

I was browsing your accessories site was thinking about how cool the animations were! You do a great job at marketing the XBox products by providing a very media-rich interactive site. Unfortunately, (as shown below in the screenshot), I notice that you are using Flash to provide your users with this experience.

You might be unaware of a technology that was released into production on 9/5/2007 called Silverlight that you can use on your site to provide the same experience (other than the obvious technology maturity limitations) to your users without promoting a competing toolset.

Can you do all of us consumer/developer/architect folks a favor and walk across campus and have a conversation with the Silverlight team? We can all benefit from the results of that conversation.

Thanks!

Rob Foster

This isn't helping sell Silverlight...

Rob Foster — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 18:18:15 GMT

Need I say more??

Strong Authentication for your email

Rob Foster — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 19:10:59 GMT

It's called PhoneFactor and it's free! Not to mention, it is just flat out cool.

Get it here.