Free First Chapter: Microsoft Silverlight 4 and SharePoint 2010 Integration

Silverlight for SharePoint 2010 is one of the newly added features to SharePoint 2010. It includes a rich set of APIs that allow you to interact with SharePoint data – lists, document libraries, sites etc., from your Silverlight application.

I am in the middle of reviewing the Microsoft Silverlight 4 and SharePoint 2010 Integration book by Gaston C.Hillar and here is the first chapter of the book (which you can download) :

The first chapter introduces you to Silverlight 4, building very simple Silverlight 4 application and then hosting that Silverlight application into SharePoint 2010. The chapter does not yet cover the SharePoint 2010 Silverlight Client Object Model.

You can however purchase the full e-book or order a copy here (I think ePub format is also available for the iPad lovers )

SPTechCon – The SharePoint Technology Conference

Coming February 2010, there is another SharePoint Conference – SPTechCon in San Francisco February 10-12, 2010. Whether you are a SharePoint user/developer/IT pro, this conference covers everyone and has a total of 101 sessions and workshops for your needs!

I will be presenting the following workshop and session at the conference and will be looking forward to meet you all!

Topic: SharePoint 2010: Developing With Data Technologies

Audience: Developers

Technical Level: Intermediate

When: Wednesday, February 10, 1:30 - 5:00pm

SharePoint provides a wealth of features and services which allow developers to quickly develop solutions to organizational problems. Developers can quickly create solutions with relate data, connect to other systems, manage a process flow, and can be deployed anywhere. SharePoint 2010 opens up a wide range of options, namely:

1. SharePoint List Lookups and Relationships

2. LINQ to SharePoint

3. Client Object Model

4. REST/ADO.NET Services

This three hour deep dive workshop will take you through the various steps of building SharePoint applications using the new Data Technologies.

Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint

Audience: Developers

Technical Level: Intermediate

When: Friday, February 12, 11:30am - 12:45pm

For SharePoint developers, Visual Studio 2010 not only provides a provides the development environment and native tools, but also the opportunity to engage in SharePoint development. Visual Studio 2010 Tools for SharePoint (VSTS) provides a rich developer experience for building SharePoint 2010 applications. Whether you are looking to build a simple web part or advanced SharePoint development, VSTS helps developers to get started right away on solution development. The most interesting part is the ability to extend this framework. This session will take you through the various features of VSTS, building complex and simple SharePoint applications using VSTS and also extending the framework.

MSDN and TechNet Subscribers: Download SharePoint Server 2010 Beta2 and Office 2010 Beta2

So, Microsoft has just released a wave of (beta) products to download for MSDN and TechNet subscribers.

If you are looking to get your hands dirty on the latest and greatest SharePoint 2010, then this is the perfect time.

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 reaches RTM Milestone

Today marks an important milestone in the Windows 7 project. The Windows 7 team is proud to share with you that a short while ago we have started to release Windows 7 to PC OEM and manufacturing partners. This means our next major milestone will be the availability of PCs loaded with Windows 7 and store shelves stocked with Windows 7 on October 22, 2009.

This is a milestone we could not have achieved without the broad participation across the PC Ecosystem we have talked so much about on this blog. Windows 7 is a product not just of Microsoft, but of a whole industry of partners of all kinds. Throughout the development of Windows 7 we’ve seen an incredible engagement from so many people that have contributed to making the Windows 7 engineering project one we, collectively, feel good about. The feedback and collaboration throughout the development of Windows 7 has been outstanding and valuable beyond measure. This work has created the kind of experience so many of you have talked about in this blog—the ability to use a broad range of PC hardware and peripherals with a great setup and out of box experience. On behalf of the Windows team and all of the successful installations and device connections, please let me extend an incredible “thank you” to all of our hardware partners who have done such excellent work.

Read more here

Come and have a ‘sneak peek’ at SharePoint 2010

There is a lot of buzz and twittering going on since the day Microsoft announced what's coming in the next version – SharePoint 2010.

If you live in Wellington and If you are interested to know more in detail regarding the various announcements that has been discussed so far regarding SharePoint 2010, feel free to come along tomorrow (July 23rd, 2009) at the SharePoint User Group session.

Below are the session details:

Session Title: Sneak Peek!

Overview of Office 2010 & SharePoint announcements, demonstration of new client (including SharePoint Workspace) And Office Web-applications and how it relates to SharePoint in the future.

Jonathan Stuckey (Microsoft), Mark Orange (Intergen) and Chandima Kulathilake (Knowledge Cue)

Date: Thursday 23rd July 2009
Session starts: 6.00PM
Venue: Intergen, Level 7, 126 Lambton Quay, Wellington

Please RSVP to: wlgspug@sharepointservices.net.nz

If you have any suggestions for session topics or you wish
to speak at the user group please let us know.

Regards

Chan and Mark

http://www.sharepointusergroup.net.nz

See you there!

SharePoint Conference – My slide deck and samples

The first ever New Zealand SharePoint Conference which was held last week (July 2nd – 3rd) was a blast! We not only had local speakers, but also international speakers which included:

1) Joel Oleson

2) Paul Culmsee

3) Erica Toelle

3) Steve Smith

4) Paul Papanek Stork

I have uploaded my slide deck and samples for my talk– SharePoint Custom Field Controls.

You can download them below:

Hats off to Chandima, Mark Orange and Debbie Ireland for organizing the conference and everything!

Add Bing to Windows 7

Now that Bing is live, you would like to try out the new search engine. If you want to add Bing as one of the search providers in your Internet Explorer browser, you can do so from here

You can add Bing to your Internet Explorer by installing the Bing search add-on available at the Internet Explorer add-ons website.

And if you want to add Bing to Windows 7, you can do so by downloading this small file and enjoy Bing in Windows 7!

Znet India – PITA and Worst Hosting Provider

So I have this other website – www.usingwindows7.net - which I manage and I was really hoping to get my friends and others join me via forums too – www.usingwindows7.net/forum – But now the site is pulled down because of the many inconveniences caused by the hosting provider – Znet India 

It all started with this error message

Here is the conversation that has been happening part by part – I think they would explain more than me writing it - Note the time they have taken to respond for each reply

The attachment is what you see at the start of this blog post

Below is the using.jpg they have attached

Now that is strange because my site is up and running for the past 1 month and suddenly Wordpress giving an error establishing database connection? and also wp-config.php is what I would have configured initially when setting up my Wordpress website. The technical team instantly suggest me to check the settings of wp-config.php, but the real drama begins only now

It happens that the technical team had completely moved my files and brought in a fresh Wordpress installation files and thus you see the error establishing database connection. I did check my directories and they indeed had moved my files as my forum was not accessible – My forums were installed in a directory just under the Wordpress directory and so the URL – http://www.usingwindows7.net/forum

I never told these guys to move my files – what sort of a plan is that to identify the issue? – Moving files from the live website! If you calculate the time taken till now by these support people, its more than 15hrs – the issue started off with this

And ended up moving my files from my website!

I also raised a separate ticket for refund due to this and they merged that refund request along with this support ticket, again without intimating me and I was left searching the ticket system to find the ticket as I didn't knew they had merged!

So, they don't delete files without client’s permission but they move client’s files around? Great! Do these guys need to be educated that moving is essentially deleting as the site wont be accessible in both the cases!

Taking Backup is their necessity, but not moving files!

And that was my reply. And what did they reply? – You will find it very interesting

Again, they continue blaming me that my database settings is wrong – I had configured Wordpress with MySql database, but the technical team are too smart to suggest me a SQL Server address – sql5.znetindia.com – aren't these support guys great? ;)

Now they get smart enough to find that I was connecting to MySql and tell me about my database details! What a joke! As if I don't know any of these things! And they did manage to do something to make www.usingwindows7.net site up but they failed again with forums – www.usingwindows7.net/forum

I cant continue when the support is like this! Just calculate the site downtime and the time taken to respond to issues! What sort of a support is this! And Znet India website says,

I would be more than happy to approach anyone from Microsoft regarding this and how these people can be awarded by Microsoft!

And this is not the first issue I am dealing with them in regard to www.usingwindows7.net which is a Wordpress website installed in Windows Server 2008 + IIS 7 – the site was down many times and it was indeed PHP settings which was not configured properly and permission issues!

I did ask for refund and currently I am literally ‘fighting’ with them by making ISD calls (from NZ) regarding this issue – Do you want to see their reply? Why not :)

How bad is that! Blaming the client for everything as if I wanted to make my site down!

I am just getting irritated of not getting no replies and these people just want me to live with it and move on which in first place is unacceptable after this act! Here is the reply I initially got for my refund

Great! Will every client face all the issues within his 30 day money back guarantee? What a lame excuse to steal money from clients!

So, what's happening now? – Silence – I called them yesterday to speak to Mr.Vinod Saxena and as expected I got a reply saying ‘he is not available right now’

Hosting providers like Znet India think they can do whatever they want with client’s files and play with time and my experience is just an example of this act. I wouldn’t recommend Znet India to anyone and also I am expecting them to apologize to me and refund my rest of the money. But still, nobody cares about this at Znet India!

I am also planning to move to another hosting provider here in New Zealand. They are pretty cool here, unlike Znet India! But what about the money that I paid for my hosting/domains at Znet India? Why aren’t they ready to refund?

Please share this with your friends so that they also get to know about Znet India’s technical expertise!

NZTE Website now live on MOSS

So, we at Intergen completed a a very challenging project and it went live this week!

Checkout the New Zealand Trade & Enterprise website which is built using MOSS - Yes, Internet facing MOSS website

Windows 7 Demo Toolkit

Microsoft has released the Windows 7 Demo Toolkit (W7DT) which makes it easier to demo Windows 7 to your customers or friends. This is very helpful if you are presenting to a small group or to your company regarding Windows 7. The W7DT includes demos for Consumers and Enterprises.

The W7DT is available in the form of an iso image which includes:

• Windows 7 Beta Ultimate (build 7000)
• Windows Live Wave 3
• Internet Explorer 8
• Office 2007 Ultimate (you might need to activate Office if you want to use the full Office features)
• Forefront Client Security
• Windows Automation Toolkit
• Application Compatibility Toolkit
• Sample demo content
• Pre-configured settings
• Scripts for demos

The W7DT will be available to Microsoft Certified or Gold Certified partners towards the end of April, but for now you can download it from Microsoft Connect by joining the Windows Demo Toolkit program.

Upgraded my blog to BlogEngine.NET from Graffiti CMS

After getting tired of Graffiti CMS not releasing any interesting updates, I thought its high time I upgrade to something robust and stable blogging platform. My immediate choice was BlogEngine.NET :)

The upgrade was not that easy as I had to somehow find a way to import my old graffiti posts into the new BlogEngine.NET. It is a shame that Graffiti CMS does not have any export functionality and only import functionality.

Searching through graffiti forums, I found a post by Curt saying he has developed a small tool which could export graffiti posts to a BlogML file! Something I was looking for! If that worked, I could easily import the contents into my BlogEngine.NET.

With no time to spare, I contacted Curt regarding his application. The application worked really well and converted all of my posts to BlogML format. Thanks a lot Curt :)

There is one problem though - A bug in the BlogEngine.NET's BlogML importer stops it from importing the tags, so you might have to manually tag your posts after an import - Thats certainly not good, but the fact that I was able to import my old posts, is a big thumbs up!

Bye Bye Graffiti CMS, you are good, but not as good as other platforms!

Windows 7 Editions: The SKU Lineup

Its been a while since Microsoft announced the new Windows 7 SKU lineup. Below are the Windows 7 editions announced

• Starter
• Home Basic
• Home Premium
• Professional
• Enterprise
• Ultimate

Microsoft expects that a majority of customers will be best served by two primary editions of Windows 7

• Windows 7 Home Premium for consumers
• Windows 7 Professional for businesses

Below is a picture which shows each edition in detail

And what about features? Below is a picture comparing the features in each of the edition

Images Courtesy: Jeff Alexander's Weblog

Developers, Developers, Developers

This is your chance to tell what you think about Microsoft! Invitation for The Microsoft New Zealand Developers Focus Groups 2008!

Microsoft wants to hear from you. Tell what you love and hate about Microsoft! Every year Microsoft uses your feedback to improve their products and services. This year, in addition to the annual online survey, they are planning to hold focus groups around the country and are looking for NZ developers to have their say.

Scott Wylie , the Director of the Developer and Platform Strategy Team for Microsoft NZ, will be facilitating these sessions. Scott’s role is to listen and understand your feedback which will enable his team to provide better support and resources for NZ developers.

If you would like to participate, please email your interest to nzeditor@microsoft.com with your contact details and preferred focus group (by session number as listed below) you would like to attend.

Christchurch

Christchurch Convention Centre / Tuesday 11th November 2008

Kilmore Street, Christchurch

Session 1: 8:30 -10:00

Session 2: 11:00 -12:30

Wellington

Microsoft New Zealand Wellington Office / Thursday 13th November 2008

Level 12, Vodafone on the Park, Lambton Quay, Wellington

Session 3: 8:30 -10:00

Session 4: 11:00 -12:30

Auckland

Microsoft New Zealand Auckland Office / Wednesday 19th November 2008

Level 5, 22 Viaduct Harbour Avenue, Auckland

Session 5: 8:30 -10:00

Session 6: 11:00 -12:30

IE8 - Reopen Recently Closed Tabs

We usually work with multiple tabs opened in our browsers and when many such tabs are opened, there is a chance that we accidentally close some tabs and wonder where they are! :)

Well, IE8 might have a solution for you!

IE8 can remember your recently closed tabs (I guess, 10 tabs). You can also see the list of tabs and re-open them.

Lets do a small test - I am entering some text in pastebin

Suppose if I close this tab along with the typed information, will IE8 re-open it for me along with the text entered ? - YES!

IE8 can remember the information entered in certain form elements, exception being those which handle authentication (eg., login form) or any other secure information.

IE8 - Things to note in InPrivate mode

Recently I blogged about how to start IE8 in InPrivate mode by default

There are two ways to do it:

• Using command line
• Making the InPrivate page as your Home Page

Well, it turns out to be that setting the InPrivate page as your Home Page does not open IE8 in InPrivate mode. It just opens the page about:InPrivate

This is similar to the behavior of about:tabs and about:blank !

Remember, You are not browsing in InPrivate mode if you are opening about:InPrivate!

What do we look to confirm that we are indeed browsing in InPrivate mode?

• The [InPrivate] text in the title bar, and,
• The InPrivate icon (picture) before the address bar

How do we start IE8 always in InPrivate mode?

This is the only way (atm) which will start IE8 in InPrivate mode

iexplore.exe -private

This can be done by just typing the above command in Start Menu (in Vista)

Or, also by creating a short-cut