Sasha Krsmanovic

Moving onto new position at Microsoft – MVP Lead for Canada

Sasha Krsmanovic — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 17:37:00 GMT

I was so overwhelmed with the news of becoming a new MVP Lead for Canada that I had to be reminded over MSN to do so (Thanks Kate). So, yes, it is official. I will be the new MVP Lead for all Canadian MVPs. This will be a great challenge to me. My main focus will be on increasing interaction between Canadian subsidiary and Canadian MVPs, and at the same time maintaining the current model for supporting MVPs with their connections to the corp. Talk about a challenge – eh.

So, there won’t be many updates on developer events at this blog any more (L). I hope to get back to blogging as soon as I get a full grasp of my new position. Until then, have fun at future MSDN initiatives. Look out for me at all MVP/RD events.

Cheers

Sasha

Got beef with Visual Studio 2005 licensing?

Sasha Krsmanovic — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 18:45:00 GMT

We got quite a few questions around licensing at our recent community events. So, we decided to run a quick qeb cast on licensing to address these questions. The web cast will consist of approximately 20 minutes of presentation and about 40 minutes for your questions to our presenters (Jeff Zado, Adam Gallant and Mike Bryan).

Date/Time: June 29, 2006 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Eastern Time

More details are at:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032300650&EventCategory=4&culture=en-CA&CountryCode=CA

Events, events and more events

Sasha Krsmanovic — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:07:00 GMT

Week one of our realDEVELOPMENT_06 is done. On Thursday we had an amazing event in Toronto with over 1000 people showing up. Here are a few pics from the event (courtesy of Barnaby Jeans).

Our MVPs at Ask the Expert Session

It was great to see how people reacted to our 400 differences videos – I think everyone loved Mr. Sun one, Change Requests one, Manager Updates and a few others. If you want to see the videos again, here they are

We are off for Montreal and Vancouver. In the meantime, check out Energize IT – our last big event for this summer.

realDEVELOPMENT_06 slides posted

Sasha Krsmanovic — Mon, 29 May 2006 16:44:00 GMT

Two postings in a day… I am really going all out today J . I couldn’t hold it in though. If you are coming to our realDEVELOPMENT_06 tour and want to check out the slide decks BEFORE you come out for the tour then you can download them TODAY in OneNote format. For those of you not familiar with OneNote, it is neat ‘note taking’ software. I personally LOVE it – think of it as a binder with unlimited number of pages, sections, dividers etc etc.

Slides:

Session 1 - Extending the Web Experience.one
Session 2 - Developing a Better User Experience - Atlas.one
Session 3 - Secure a better Experience.one
Session 4 - Hack and Defend.one

If you need OneNote, then you can pick up a 60 day evaluation from here (and you will also be entered into a contest to win a HP 21" HDTV-Ready LCD Monitor valued at over $900.)

We will post PPT version of the slides immediately after the tour.

Competition Hungry?

Sasha Krsmanovic — Mon, 29 May 2006 15:25:00 GMT

In the case you wanted to show off your programming skills, there are quite a few competitions out there.

At first there is the CodeMaster challenge for building Vista applications - http://www.codemasterchallenge.com/Home.aspx

Then, there is the ATLAS competition (note – tomorrow is the last day to enter) - http://atlas.asp.net/default.aspx?tabid=47&subtabid=475

Then there is a Windows Live competition – building robots for MSN Messenger - http://www.robotinvaders.com/main/default.aspx

Lastly, there is a student competition with different tracks – The Imagine Cup – http://thespoke.net/ICReg/ImagineCup.aspx

If you know of any other cool ones, please post them here....

Sasha

Tour updates, new program for aspiring architecs

Sasha Krsmanovic — Tue, 23 May 2006 10:25:00 GMT

It has been a while since I posted something – shame on me. We have been really busy with the realDEVELOPMENT_06 tour which is now officially full in most of the cities. I think there is a few more spots left at the Toronto event, but I could be wrong as I haven’t received the latest registration stats just yet. If you haven’t registered yet, then better get on the waiting list if you want to get into the ‘coolest event of the year’ J . We will open the doors for waitlisted people 5 minutest before the event starts – so be there early.

Have you heard of the new Skyscrapr program – a program for aspiring architects. Some surveys I saw state that up to 78% of developers aspire to become architects. If you are one of those guys, then check out https://www.skyscrapr.net/

DevTeach Montreal - Day 1

Sasha Krsmanovic — Tue, 09 May 2006 02:45:00 GMT

It has been a great day one at Dev Teach. I was pleased to see 14 user group leaders at this year’s summit. Wendy and I got a chance to provide a quick glance of our draft plans for next year. I was particularly surprised to see how interested and passionate UG leaders are about Code Camps and MSDN Canada Speakers Bureau. I am sure we will find a way to incorporate most of the feedback we got into our plans for next year.

It was a very pleasant day 1 at dev teach, and I look forward to seeing some sessions tomorrow morning. Here is one random shot from the event (Courtesy of Guy Barrette)

DevTeach Montreal - day 0

Sasha Krsmanovic — Sun, 07 May 2006 22:17:00 GMT

DevTeach at last. One of my favorite developer conferences. I arrived to Montreal tonight, one night before the conference...

Somehow I managed to go through security with 3 laptops without being searched AT ALL. Since 9/11, every time I travel with ONE laptop, security guards search my bag insde out. Apparently, a guy with 3 laptops is not a threat at all. Of course, it always helps to have a security guy who is going through MCAD certifications screen your bags. He saw a bunch of Microsoft stickers on my bags/laptops and helped out a bit. Of course, I had a chance to evangelize Vista to him a little bit. He was ‘fed’ some false info on Vista hardware specifications (10G memory?), but 20 sec later he was looking forward to Vista.

Stay tuned for updates from User Group Leader summit, DevTeach conference and Regional Director summit at Montreal

VS Live - done; DevTeach Montreal to go

Sasha Krsmanovic — Mon, 01 May 2006 12:23:00 GMT

I am getting ready for the World Cup in Germany, but before then, there are a few things I need to finish up.

We just wrapped up our activities at VS Live Toronto - more to come on this topic. The next on schedule is DevTeach in Montreal. It is probably one of the best conferences in Canada, with great INETA speakers lined up to speak at it. This year DevTeach is offering you 3 tracks for the Pre-Conference. Introduction to VB.NET, VFP Conversion and Test-Driven Development.

If you are looking into getting great training for any of the above, you should definitely register for DevTeach. There are a few options available for registering and they allow you some flexibility and an opportunity to save a few bucks.

Also, we are hitting the road in June with our realDEVELOPMENT_06 Tour. It is a free, full day MSDN event focusing on Web and Security. We have over 3700 people register for the tour so far, make sure you reserve your spot too.

Only 2 “minor” projects to go, and world cup, here I come.

Victoria Code Camp

Sasha Krsmanovic — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 11:35:00 GMT

Victoria is on the “code camp” map as of last weekend too. After code camps in Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver, Nolan Zak, a User group leader from Victoria organized the first ever Victoria code camp.

Still to come...Calgary and Edmonton Code Camps. For more info, turn into John's & Jerome's developer blog.

Sasha

INETA Web Cast Series - 20% less carbs in these Web casts

Sasha Krsmanovic — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:15:00 GMT

How many web casts can you take in a month. Here are 2 web cast series facilitated by INETA. One of them is done by UG leaders and the other one is done by products guys from Redmond.

INETA Live! is a series brought to you primarily by user group leaders around the country that have exceptional material they believe would be good to share with other user group leaders. Don't miss these if you are interested in growing your own user group. Check out INETA page for this one

Live from Redmond! is a series presented to you directly by Microsoft product teams! No marketing hype -- just the technical details that you want to hear and need to know. Stay ahead of your peers by attending this exclusive series. Here are all the details.

April 12th 5:30 pm PDT	Crossbow – Building WPF and Windows Forms hybrid applications Mike Henderlight Wondering how to take advantage of the power of the next generation presentation technology, Windows Presentation Foundation while preserving your existing investments in Windows Forms? This talk discuss key scenarios for integration between the two technologies, and strategies for building hybrid applications that take advantage of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation. We show integration from both application perspectives and demonstrate how each can augment the other. Join Meeting Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join Meeting ID: Z3XWMN Meeting Key: 4:Hz<\*Sg
April 20th 8:30 am PDT	Essential Tips and Tricks for .NET Compact Framework Application Developers David Kline Developing applications for the .NET Compact Framework is very similar to developing for the .NET Framework. There are, however, some important differences and considerations to keep in mind. From best practices to debugging and diagnostics, this session presents the essential tips and tricks for .NET Compact Framework application development, direct from the .NET Compact Framework product team. Join Meeting Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join Meeting ID: FJ2G8J Meeting Key: 3[6&;FSjX
April 26th 8:30 am PDT	Improving your web application’s user experience with Atlas Shawn Burke Atlas allows ASP.NET developers to add great client-side richness to their web application using server-side methodologies using Extender Controls. Learn how the Agility Team is launching a project to leverage the power of the community to build a library of Extenders for all developers to use. Join Meeting Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join Meeting ID: 54ZNTW Meeting Key: fm:SM.6b7
May 4th 5:30 pm PDT	IIS7.0 as a development platform Brett Hill Discover a new world of opportunity for developers. IIS 7's capabilities are delivered via modules that you can load, unload, or replace at runtime. Using modules, written in native or managed code, you can implement entirely new capabilities for IIS 7 and the web applications it delivers. In this presentation, you will see how modules can change the client experience for all websites simultaneously without any modification to code on the site level. In addition, you'll see what IIS 7's .net integrated pipeline means for security, configuration, and integration of your applications into a truly extensible web platform. Join Meeting Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join Meeting ID: ZTH9K9 Meeting Key: QZRXm9/wX
May 11th 8:30 am PDT	Using Cider to build WPF applications Paul Kuklinski Check out how the Windows Presentation Foundation Designer for Visual Studio (Cider) delivers a familiar experience for .NET developers building WPF applications. We’ll walk through basic form design scenarios, developer-designer workflow with the Expression Interactive Designer, and look at the design-time experience for some of WPF’s more advanced capabilities. Join Meeting Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join Meeting ID: HWN763 Meeting Key: s<%5^WH=n
May 17th 5:30 pm PDT	Using ASP.NET 2.0 and SharePoint together Mike Ammerlaan This session will cover integration of Windows SharePoint Services v.3.0 and ASP.NET 2.0, and discuss how you can use ASP.NET web parts, master pages, and controls in your SharePoint sites to build powerful web applications. Join Meeting Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join Meeting ID: 273WC9 Meeting Key: QXf6~m"5P
May 23rd 8:30 am PDT	An Introduction to WinFX AddIn's Jack Gudenkauf Have you ever wanted to have your application dynamically load and communicate with generic components at runtime? Interested in how to create independently versioning, mutually distrustful components, that work together? This talk will discuss how to address versioning and isolation utilizing the WinFX Add-in model. Join Meeting Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join Meeting ID: XKR6RB Meeting Key: BQ6s)p~wQ

realDEVELOPMPENT_06 - Speaker Update

Sasha Krsmanovic — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:53:00 GMT

If you are coming to our realDEVELOPMENT_06 tour, then you will be happy to know we secured another 3 presenters. In addition to our Microsoft speakers (Jerome, John, Dan) you wil be able to see Kate Gregory (Toronto, Montreal), Scott Howllett (Toronto, Ottawa) and Richard Campbell (Vancouver)

If you haven't registered for the tour, you should definitely do it NOW. Some cities are filling up really fast (Vancouver is at 55% right now).

See you there

Sasha

Download OneNote trial for a chance to win 21" LCD Monitor

Sasha Krsmanovic — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 12:18:00 GMT

Here is a great offer from our OneNote team, exclusively to Canadian developers.

Download the 60-day trial version now and you'll be entered for a chance to win an HP 21" HDTV-Ready LCD Monitor valued at over $900. http://msdn.microsoft.com/canada/office/onenote/default.aspx. Now, thats much better then my mighty 15“ monitor I use for occasional coding :-)

We are actually going to make all of the PPT slides for our realDEVELOPMENT 06 tour available prior to the event in OneNote format, so there is your chance to hgeat ahead of the game, download OneNote now and then just pull down the slides before you come to the realDEVELOPMENT 06 event.

Another programmers contest - are you using Express line of products?

Sasha Krsmanovic — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 15:33:00 GMT

Programmers contests seem to be all over the place these days. Here is another one for all of you using Express Products Check itt out at: http://www.madeinexpresscontest.com/

Here is how the contest 'flows'

Security on the Brain Web cast series - we have over 1000 attendees so far

Sasha Krsmanovic — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 16:57:00 GMT

Today we finished our 4th web cast, and we topped 1000 attendees for the series so far. Another stellar performance by Dan Sellers. Boelow are some questions I captured.

The recording will be available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/canada/securityonthebrain/ tomorrow.

Question: What is SSB?

Answer: SQL Sever Service Broker

Question: Can any user execute as another user?

Answer: No, if they are not a sysadmin they need to be granted impersonation on the user who they are executing as

Question: HOw did you get to the web interface for the Surface Area config

Answer: That was not a web interface, that is Win32 app. All options are available via SMO so you could write a web interface and manage these

Question: Will the Encryption Support Slide and explanation be available for further "study"?

Answer: Yes you will be able to download the powerpoint at the end of the presentation.

Question: How can I encrypt/decrypt implementation of stored procedures/views/triggers maybe?

Answer: Take a look at our developers blog entry on encrypting stored procedures. http://blogs.msdn.com/lcris/archive/2005/06/15/429631.aspx

Question: where are all those certs stored?

Answer: They are stored in the database

Question: Is there a significant decrease in performance when using encrypted data?

Answer: Depends on two things, the algorithm you use to encrypt/decrypt and how large the data you are encrypting/decrypting. A 100 byte text string is a lot quicker than a 1 MB varbinary

Question: How to protect database from being stolen, restore of backup file or detach and attach database files from unauthorized person, including system administrators?

Answer: We are looking into exposing functions to sign the database.

Question: How do you recover data where the key might be lost (like a forgotten password)?

Answer: If you encrypted using the database master key or server master key you should be able to decrypt it. If you did not, I am not sure of the solution.

Question: Does SQL Server 2005 support row level security similar to Oracle label security?

Answer: Check out this whitepaper on row level security in SQL2K5: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/multisec.mspx

Question: If we encrypt one data column, and would like to use the column in the where clause for filtering data, how bad the decryption process is going to impact my query performance?

Answer: Check out http://blogs.msdn.com/lcris/archive/2005/12/22/506931.aspx

Question: is there other row-level security you have w/o using encrypting the data

Answer: We have a whitepaper that describes how to do row level security functionality in SQL2K5: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/multisec.mspx