Microsoft Press is giving away 40% Discount on selective 25 books to celebrate their 25th Anniversary.
Some of the books include:
Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 2nd Edition
Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Step by Step 3rd Edition,
Programming Microsoft ASP.NET 3.5
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Fundamentals
Check this offer from here.
Enjoy!
Microsoft has released WCF Champ which not only contains all information for beginners, intermediate and experts on WCF, WCF Services, etc but also contains information about REST, Azure .Net Services, WCF and WF in .Net 4.0 and more…
Check out WCF Champ from here.
Enjoy!
Posted in .Net Framework 4.0, REST, WCF, Workflow Foundations | Tags: .Net Framework 4.0, Azure, REST, Restful, WCF, WF
Microsoft has released the much talked about version of BizTalk Server 2009 (previously known as BizTalk Server 2006 R3) for MSDN subscribers on friday.
The following are the different versions available on MSDN:
Whats news in BizTalk Server 2009?
This version of BizTalk Server now provides support to
In particular this version has greater scalability and reliability, new Hyper-V virtualization support, and many advances in the latest developer tools
BizTalk Server 2009 also provides support for some top features including a
BizTalk Server 2009 also adds a new Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) WebSphere MQ channel by providing the transport, data formatter and encoder to integrate directly with WebSphere MQ via WCF and a new WCF Service for Host Applications has been added to expose the traditional Transaction Integrator to .NET Framework developers.
Burley Kawasaki who is director of product management in the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft, said future releases following BizTalk Server 2009 will address enterprise connectivity, enterprise visibility and support for the latest platform technologies. Future releases will feature developer productivity enhancements such as complex mapping, enhanced B2B support, complex trading partner management, expanded industry standards and schemas and low-latency messaging enhancements and ESB guidance. Future releases also will feature enhanced device support, business intelligence and BAM enhancements and will continue to take advantage of the latest advances in the .NET Framework, Visual Studio, and Windows Server, Kawasaki said.
Keep watching this space for more…
Posted in BizTalk Server | Tags: B2B, BAM, BizTalk Server 2009, Windows Server 2008
Posted in ASP.Net 2.0
The Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight is designed to help you more easily build enterprise-level Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) client applications. This guidance will help you design and build flexible composite client applications-composite applications use loosely coupled, independently evolvable pieces that work together in the overall application.
The Composite Application Guidance can help you develop your client application in a modular fashion. With this approach, you manage the complexity of a large application by breaking it down into smaller, simpler modules. The modules can evolve independently while working together as a unified application.
This version of the Composite Application Guidance is designed to help you build applications in WPF and Silverlight that have a single code base.
The guidance includes a reference implementation, reusable library code (named the Composite Application Library), documentation, QuickStarts, and hands-on labs. You can download this guidance from here.
Microsoft has also released Visual Basic QuickStarts and How-to Topics for the Composite Application Guidance for WPF and Silverlight – February 2009 – English and you can download this from here.
If you have downloaded the earlier version of Composite Application Library (June 08), then you can download the upgrader from codeplex to update this application to latest version released on Febraury 2009.
Enjoy!
Posted in Silverlight, WPF
Edwin Sarmiento of Edgewood Solutions wrote a bunch of very handy SQL tips on this website at http://www.mssqltips.com/
Some of the interesting ones that caught my eye are:
Installing SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 Cluster Part 1
Installing SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 Cluster Part 2
Installing SQL Server 2008 on a Windows Server 2008 Cluster Part 3
Enjoy!
Posted in SQL Server 2008
Codeplex has another interesting project where the owner tried to combine ASP.Net MVC with Sharepoint technology. Sharepoint MVC is a helper project used to host ASP.Net MVC in Sharepoint 2007.
Eventhough ASP.Net MVC can be hosted from any asp.net website, it was interesting to note that developers tried hosting it inside Sharepoint. Currently, sharepoint does not support ASP.Net MVC natively, but it may be around the corner soon.
Tom has a nice post on how he implemented Sharepoint MVC project and you can read it from here.
Enjoy!
Posted in MVC, Sharepoint
Codeplex has a treasure of some great code samples and extensions on SQL Server Business Intelligence Software (SSIS, SSAS, SSRS)
Some great jewels from the above collection, which I found to be very useful for any SQL Developer are as below:
SQL Server Service Broker Samples: ( http://msftsbprodsamples.codeplex.com/)
SQL Server Scripts Samples: (http://msftscrptprodsamples.codeplex.com/)
SQL Server End-to-End Samples: (http://msfteeprodsamples.codeplex.com/)
SQL Server Analysis Services Samples: (http://sqlsrvanalysissrvcs.codeplex.com/)
Some of the samples on Analysis services are as below:
SQL Server Integration Services Samples: (http://msftisprodsamples.codeplex.com/)
You can also download SSISUnit tool to perform unit testing on the packages you may have created from the above samples.ssisUnit is a unit testing framework for SQL Server Integration Services. It is loosely based on the xUnit family of unit testing frameworks, but is tailored to better support the SSIS environment. One of the bigger differences is that you do not have to write code to create the unit tests. Instead, we have taken a declarative approach to specifying the unit tests. The test information is all stored in XML files.
SQL Server Reporting Services Samples:
(http://msftrsprodsamples.codeplex.com/)
With the above RS code samples, you can also download RSBuild tool, which a deployment tool for SQL Server Reporting Service. It currently supports two types of tasks: executing SQL Server scripts and publishing SQL Server Reporting Service reports and shared data sources. From version 1.1.0 onwards SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services is supported as well as all previously supported versions of SQL Server Reporting Services.
Codeplex has another new tool added to its collection today named SQL Server FineBuild. FineBuild provides 1-click install and best-practice configuration of SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008.
If you have any questions or want further information on any of the above samples or tools, you can pop your questions and queries in SQL Forums from here.
Enjoy!
Posted in SQL Server 2008, SQLServer2005
Continous LINQ is a .NET Framework 3.5 extension that builds on the LINQ query syntax to create continuous, self-updating result sets. In traditional LINQ queries, you write your query and get stale results. With Continuous LINQ, you write a query and the results of that query are continuously updated as changes are made to the source collection or items within the source collection. CLINQ has tremendous value in GUI development and is especially useful in binding to filtered streams of data such as financial or other network message data.
Download the above extensions from here.
You can also combine the above tool with Visual Linq Query Builder which is an add-in to Visual Studio 2008 Designer that helps you visually build LINQ to SQL queries. Functionally it provides the same experience as, for instance the Microsoft Access Query Builder, but in the LINQ domain. The entire UI of this add-in uses Windows Presentation Foundation. The goal of this tool is to help users become more familiar with the LINQ syntax. The tool may also demonstrate to users how to create their own Visual Studio 2008 add-in using Windows Presentation Foundation.
You can download VLINQ from here.
Both the above tools aim to make developer write linq queries easily and effectively.
Check out the following link to view some Linq Query samples.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbasic/bb688084.aspx#
Enjoy!
Posted in .Net Framework 3.5
On March 12th, Microsoft has released the second preview release of WCF REST Starter Kit on Codeplex.
The WCF REST Starter Kit is a set of features, Visual Studio templates, samples and guidance that enable users to create REST style services using WCF. While the October release of the WCF REST Starter Kit focused on building server-side REST services, the Preview 2 release adds features to make client-side REST development easier. Chief among the new functionality included in Preview 2 is a new class that provides a staged pipeline model for requesting resources over the web. Using this new HTTP client class allows the developer to plug into the various stages of communication to handle custom authentication, caching, and fault handling outside of the client’s application logic.
The goal is to provide a toolset that simplifies building RESTful services today, and to take feedback from the developer community on the features provided in the WCF REST Starter Kit that will shape future REST capabilities in WCF in .NET 4.
When the bits are posted onto CodePlex, we will also be updating the WCF Dev Center devoted to WCF REST capabilities: http://www.msdn.com/wcf/rest . This site will have links to the CodePlex project, overview documentation, a WCF REST White Paper, screencasts showing how to use the WCF REST Starter Kit, and links to resources on the Web for learning about REST.
Should you encounter any issues with the Preview 2 build, or have any feedback on the WCF REST Starter Kit, please post in the CTA forums or send an email to csdcxcp@microsoft.com.
Enjoy!
