Partner Otaku

Yesterday was a big day for Automattic and Microsoft folks. Matt Mullenweg demonstrated WordPress hosted on Azure during Ray Ozzie’s keynote. I was pleasantly surprised to see support for MySQL.  Very cool imho. This will give WordPress users/hosters access to Azure. I think Matt stated that he saw “Pigs” out of his office windows .  Additionally, icanhazcheezburger (lolcats, failblog etc.), the largest WordPress site, announced that their new property “Oddly Specific” is now hosted on Azure.

Right from PDC here’s some news – icanhazcheezburger now hosts a new site called “Oddly Specific” hosted on Azure!

Today, Channel 9 launched two new training courses for SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 created by developers for developers.  Channel 9 has always been about giving direct access to the engineers and future technologies from Microsoft, and now we’re extending this successful formula to bring you training that will allow developers to get started on learning about emerging technologies at their own pace.  Today you’ll find extensive instructor recordings from top MVPs on how to develop against both SharePoint and office 2010. We’ll also be publishing more content at the beginning of December that will include hands-on labs, source code, and much more! All of this free for you to consume or download at your own pace.

SharePoint 2010 Developer Training

See how SharePoint 2010 has evolved into a first-class developer platform. Also, learn how SharePoint 2010 provides the business collaboration platform for developers to rapidly build solutions using familiar tools such as Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 through this self-paced course.

Office 2010 Developer Training

Discover how Office 2010 Beta is a broadly extensible platform for building information worker productivity solutions and see how developing for Office with Visual Studio 2010 makes this easy. See online presentations with demos that will help you get started developing solutions from Add-ins to full featured Office Business Applications (OBAs) using Visual Studio 2010 with Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 as the core platform.

We hope you enjoy this initial set of training videos and will check back with Channel 9 in the near future as we build the learning center out to support SharePoint and Office 2010 development.

In case you missed it, the SQL Server Driver for PHP 1.1 is now available for download with support for SQL Azure as well. The download is available via the MSDN download site.   The source code for the driver is posted on the CodePlex site.

Microsoft SQL Server Driver for PHP Team Blog : SQL Server Driver for PHP 1.1 is now available

Download Here: http://bit.ly/f9tSV

Check out this cool pumpkin carving app.  This was created by Archetype a Microsoft Partner.  http://bit.ly/1glQa2

In partnership with Marco Tabini and Associates (MTA) (php|architect; CodeWorks; php|tek), we are excited to announce the launch of The Great PHP on Windows contest. Do you have what it takes to win? Of course you do .

You are encouraged to leverage existing open-source libraries and applications, including blogs engines, forums, photo galleries and other platform/components as part of your submission.

For complete details visit http://phparch.com/win

The Quick Summary:

• Write a new application designed to run in PHP on Windows using IIS—or make a significant contribution to an existing open-source project along the same lines
• The best application, selected jointly by a panel of experts and by our readers, will win a grand prize
  which includes a 52″ Digital HD home entertainment system, as well as an all-expenses paid trip to php|tek 2010 in Chicago. Runner-up prizes include 2 XBox 360 Ultimate and subscriptions to php|architect.
• Not familiar with Windows? No worries—we have partnered with Applied Innovations to give you absolutely free hosting on a pre-configured virtual machine for the duration of the contest.
• Registration and submissions for the contest will be accepted October 19^th, 2009 through February 28^th, 2010 and with judging and public voting will occur March 1^st – 31^st.
• For the duration of the contest, Applied Innovations will provide free web hosting to all participants (shared) and a free VM to the first 60 participants who register.
• Contest is open to all U.S. residents excluding MTA, Applied Innovations, and Microsoft employees and affiliated individuals. (MTA is the official sponsor with AppliedI and Microsoft as promotion entities.)

The contest is open to residents of the United States only—but you can still win by voting, no matter where you are.

 Good Luck!

This is not exactly PC, but it’s kind of cool to check out… Winchester and Silverlight

Each month through June 2010, we’ll bring you a 90-minute Architect focused Webcast focused on new and emerging technologies.

These webcasts are free, just visit the link and register using the event ID(s) below.

October 27, 2009 at 11:00-13:30pm PST

An Architect’s perspective on Silverlight

Presenter: Tim Heuer

Abstract: Many .NET developers are becoming more and more interested in the Rich Internet Application development space, and in particular Silverlight.  In this session we will step back from a detailed implementation technology and take a higher level look at Silverlight from the architect’s perspective.  We will discuss the types of applications where Silverlight makes sense and some scenarios where Silverlight may not be the appropriate technology.  We will also delve into some of the architectural decisions that the architect must consider when writing applications for this platform and where some of the tradeoffs may lie.

Event ID: 1032427862

Link to Register: An Architect’s perspective on Silverlight3

October 28, 2009 at 11:00-13:30 PST

Deploying Windows 7 from an Infrastructure Architect’s Perspective

Presenter: Doug Klokow

Abstract:

We’ll discuss 5 key areas centered on deploying Windows 7: Developing business justification – Evaluate the capabilities provided by Windows 7 and develop a plan for how to realize business value from these solutions; Where are you today – Explore the differences of preparing for Windows 7 based on your current desktop operating system; Application readiness – Explore the tools and resources available to gain insight into your readiness to deploy Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, and/or Office 2007/2010; Deployment readiness – Explore the tools and resources available to create a design and deployment solution for your enterprise; Training your employees – Discuss available resources for training your IT Staff and End Users.

Event ID: 1032427863

Link to Register: Deploying Windows 7 from an Infrastructure Architect’s Perspective

Speaker Bios

Tim Heuer

I currently work for Microsoft as a program manager for Microsoft Silverlight, a web technology for delivering rich internet experiences to users.  Before this current role, I was a developer evangelist for Microsoft serving the Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana and Utah areas aiming to strengthen and support communities and software developers in these geographies.

Doug Klokow

Part of Microsoft Consulting Services for 9 years focused on client desktop deployment solutions. He is part of the Virtual Deployment Practice focused on driving early customer deployment on Microsoft client technologies and is also supporting Microsoft’s Desktop Virtualization capabilities and service offerings.

One of the things this is convenient about Amazon Web Services is that I can calculate what my costs might be. I recently discovered this Azure ROI calculator which helps with estimating cost/roi. With Azure’s upcoming release, I thought this cost/roi calculator created by Neudesic might be of interest.

It’s in Beta 2, and I’ve also provided a link to David Pallman’s blog in which he describes some of the recent changes to the calculator. If you’re looking for more details about the announced pricing for Azure please go here