I know it is on his blog but Richard is an MVP, it couldn’t happen to a nicer person. I am also pleased that Kevin Ball was renewed and Andy Westgarth is also now an MVP. it was nice to see all of the above at our event today.
congratulations to all the new and renewed MVP’s
b.
I am just back from a week on the BizTalk Stand at TechED IT in Orlando, it was great to have the opportunity to chat to so many great people and to meet other BizTalkers.
I was privileged to meet some great people to name but a few
Mark Beckner author of the classic Apress BizTalk 2006 EDI book.
Todd VanNurden co editor of the legendary BizTalk Hotrod
Clint Huffman Microsoft PFE
Winston Woo
Ofer Ashkenazi , BizTalk Product Manager
Tim Wieman , BizTalk Ranger Team ( cool team name )
and great thanks to Michael Iem (Ziem Group Inc) who made the week go like clockwork.
Ewan Fairweather and Petr Kratochvil announced the BizTalk Performance Guide , it is an essential read for any BizTalk project.
Despite daily thunderstorms and flying back on Friday the 13th , it was amazing fun , especially the Simpsons Ride @ universal :)
b.
As promised you can get silverlight 2.0 beta 2 here and the june preview of blend and zoom here.
The SDK is available here or with the Visual Studio 2008 tools here.
b.
I like the concept of SideShow and I think one of its flaws is not enough devices NOW , they are slowly coming on stream but not quickly enough for me. So along with all of the other items arriving this week I was pleased to see this a windows mobile version of side show and I have spent the day controlling my PC from my phone :)
b.
I will say it now and I will say it again , Live Writer rocks. A new tech preview with some cool user features and even more developer features are available here.
User Features include:
Video and Image enhancements : Soapbox support , Better Image support (cropping , tilting , effects )
Editing: Word count , smart quotes , auto linking
UI:
tabs for view switching
Bugs:
many UI WSIWYG faults fixed ( scripts and objects :) )
Dev:
Insert code before and after post
Header and footer support
Samples:
there are half a dozen
the emoticon plug-in seems to be a bit wobbly but all in all :)
b.
I am not at TechED Dev in Orlando ( I am going to IT Pro next week , see me at the BizTalk ATE stand ), but there are some important announcements to cover off.
Microsoft Project Codename “Velocity” CTP
“Velocity” allows high availability to data by integrating Large clusters of machines seamlessly into a single cache, making it easier to develop scalable, high-performance applications.
Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 v1.2
A new version of Sharepoint extensions to allow developers to use Visual Studio 2008 for Sharepoint dev.
Silverlight 2 beta 2
Available later in the week with a Go Live license, also Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview and Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008 should be available at the same time.
More on “Oslo”
“Oslo” will be based on a foundational repository built on SQL Server 2008 for managing application metadata
It will include visual modelling and composition tools and a new, declarative modelling language to enable interoperability of models between tools and domain-specific modelling notations.
woo hoo Oslo
b.
Phew what a name, well if you want consistent style across developers this is the tool for you. Previously known as StyleCop inside Microsoft. Microsoft Source Analysis is pretty much a mandatory addition to any team development toolkit.
In the same way the FxCop helps "focus" developers towards consistent better quality code , StyleCop does the same with code style. But also like FxCop , StyleCop will make a lot of developers gnash their teeth, while they get used to it.
b.
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta is out for testing.
Scott has a great blog post on SP1, but the highlights (which are numerous)
- Classic ASP intelisense and debugging is back
- Faster application startup time
- Better client side rollout
- New Windows Form Controls
- WPF Performance Improvements
- WPF Extensible shader effects
- WPF Direct3D interface
- WPF Design surface improvements in VS2008
- ADO.NET Entity Framework included
- WCF - 5-10x scalability improvements
- WCF Enhanced Test Client
and best of all more Red Squiggles for the C# compiler
You can download and use the beta now here
there are TFS improvements but Richard will be blogging about those
b.
After years of discussions with clients that their ever and rapidly changing requirements could only be met if we implemented a telepathic interface to read their users minds, Microsoft have done the decent thing and released Microsoft® ESP™. Now Microsoft are saying that ESP is a toolkit to allow developers to build realistic simulations and models that are rich and easy to use, but we know the truth ;)
if you want to find out more here is a video you must watch.
b.
I hope you all had a great Star Wars day, May the 4th be with you.
b.
The BizTalk Server Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 is a management pack for discovery and monitoring of BizTalk Server components and applications. This new management pack includes monitoring for most of the new R2 Features
- Suspended Message Alerts
- Alert Suppression Policy
- Native EDI
- BAM Technical Assistance Alerts
- BizTalk Message Boxes and Hosts
- Orchestration Failures
- Service Monitoring
- Application Monitoring
- Monitoring of various aspects of RFID
b.
Burley Kawasaki has just announced at the Microsoft Insight 2008 conference that in BizTalk 2006 R3 that Microsoft has Acquired from Covast some of their advanced B2B functionality specifically around new vertical industries ( details to come ) , this will be a no cost addition to BizTalk 2006 R3.
b.
Matt Deacon (Microsoft) runs a significant set of Architecture events certainly in the UK. Over the last two days several of the Black Marble architects and seniors have been at the Microsoft Insight Conference 2008. There has been a great range of topics split roughly into Infrastructure , Solutions , SaaS and Enterprise. I will update this post with links to available content when it is available.
Burley Kawasaki provided the closing Keynote on The Road to Oslo :), if you missed Burleys talk we will be running a SOA event at Black Marble in the next month or so
b.
To coincide with the release of SQL Server 2008 Microsoft plans to release an updated version of BizTalk Server. The update will cover compatibility with Windows Server 2008, .NET Framework 3.5, Visual Studio 2008 , and SQL Server 2008.
This allows BizTalk Server users to improve on: scalability for mission-critical workloads, improved support for next-generation web and service oriented applications and improved virtualization support.
The R3 release also includes enhancements for
- New web service registry capabilities with support for UDDI (Universal Description Discovery and Integration) version 3.0
- Enhanced service enablement of applications (through new and enhanced adapters for LOB applications, databases, and legacy/host systems)
- Enhanced service enablement of “edge” devices through BizTalk RFID Mobile
- Enhanced interoperability and connectivity support for B2B protocols (like SWIFT, EDI, etc)
- SOA patterns and best practices guidance to assist our customer’s implementations
You should expect to see a CTP of BizTalk Server 2006 R3 later this year (with an RTM planned in H1 CY09).
We will be covering BizTalk 2006 R3 in our BizTalk Event in July ( we will announce this soon ).
b.
Microsoft have made a series of training packs available for free for developers wanting to skill up to .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio.
Sign up for the free training packs here
when you have finished Microsoft will give you discounts on exams and further training.
b.
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