Partner Otaku

In case you missed this information. Read the overview to get more detailed information about the Facebook SDK Toolkit.  The goal is to provide a Facebook Client Library that is similar to the Client Libraries provided for PHP and JavaScript. There are samples and tools for helping develop Facebook apps on the .NET platform (ASP.NET, Silverlight, WPF and winform).

Link to the Facebook SDK 3.0:

http://facebooktoolkit.codeplex.com/

Facebook Developer Wiki:

http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Main_Page

How to Guides:

http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/How-to_Guides

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.

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 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!

Man vs. Food on this particular fast food delight…

If you can’t attend in person, this is great opportunity to get some quality content. 

Check out the event here: http://vepexp.microsoft.com/thenewefficiency

Agenda

Windows 7 Track

9:00-9:45am      Taking Your Application to the Next Level with Windows® 7

9:45-9:55am       Break

9:55-10:40am     Beyond Human Interaction with Windows 7 Sensor and Location    

10:40-10:50am   Break

10:50-11:35am   Building the Next Generation User-Interface with
                            Multitouch Ribbon on Windows 7

11:35-1:15pm    Break

1:15-2:00pm      Windows 7 for the Optimized Desktop

2:00-2:10pm      Break

2:10-2:55pm      Windows 7: Make People Productive Anywhere

2:55-3:05pm      Break

3:05-3:50pm      Windows 7: Enhanced Security and Control

3:50-4:00pm      Break

4:00-4:45pm      Windows 7: Deployment Enhancements

Windows Server 2008 R2 Track

9:00-9:45am      What Developers Should Know About Windows Server 2008 R2

9:45-9:55am      Break

9:55-10:40am    Windows Server 2008 R2: Develop with New 
                           Parallel Computing Technologies

10:40-10:50am  Break

10:50-11:35am  Windows Server 2008 R2: Web and Enterprise Solutions

11:35-1:15pm   Break

1:15-2:00pm     What’s in Windows Server 2008 R2 for IT Administrators:
                          A Technical Overview Part 1

2:00-2:10pm    Break

2:10-2:55pm    What’s in Windows Server 2008 R2 for IT Administrators:
                         A Technical Overview Part 2

2:55-3:05pm    Break

3:05-3:50pm    Windows Server 2008 R2: New Server Deployment & Migration

3:50-4:00pm    Break

4:00-4:45pm    Windows Server 2008 R2 Virtualization Technologies–
                         Saving IT Costs

Exchange 2010 Track

1:15-2:00pm    Introducing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

2:00-2:10pm    Break

2:10-2:55pm    Voice Mail with Unified Messaging in Microsoft Exchange 2010

2:55-3:05pm    Break

3:05-3:50pm    Exchange 2010 High Availability and Storage

3:50-4:00pm    Break

4:00-4:45pm    Exchange 2010 Archiving and Retention

Well I haven’t geeked out on D&D in a while, but here’s a cool Surface proof of concept from Carnegie Mellon.

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.

I love Win7 but I’m not so sure I would throw a party . Seriously, the video is hilarious!

Microsoft Pri0 | Microsoft employees throw Windows 7 parties, and friends show up | Seattle Times Newspaper

Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Company, once stated that ‘Success is 99% percent failure’. I think nation states, companies and individuals learn much more from our perceived failures than our successes. Apple learned from the release of "Lisa", Coca-Cola from the "new" Coke and Clearly, Microsoft learned a lesson from the drawn out development and market reception of Windows Vista.

The Windows 7 product team has taken those lessons to heart. I’ve been running Windows 7 soon after the PDC in 2008 and have been extremely pleased with both compatibility and fit and finish. The reviews of the various beta and RC releases have been overwhelmingly positive. Reviews of the RTM version of Windows 7 have started to appear outside of the normal trade publications and websites. This morning I read Walter Mossberg’s very positive article about Windows 7 although the article’s headline was painfully funny.

Here are some highlights

• Overall Thoughts from the Article
  • Windows 7 is a very good, versatile operating system, Best OS from Microsoft.
  • Read advances in user experience (taskbar, jump lists, aero peek etc.)
  • Toss up with OSX and exceeds in some areas
• Key Features of Windows 7
  • New Taskbar better than Dock and Expose
  • Touch – Touch features built into the OS
  • Speed – Faster boot and reliable sleep modes
  • Compatible – Wide variety of third party software worked fine

I agree with him on many points. However, he does give Apple OSX a slight edge due to ease/cost of upgrade and security. He has as point on the ease/cost, but I would argue that the number of viruses etc. is not a reason to favor one OS over another. Microsoft is much more concerned with security and has focused on trustworthy computing for years. Apple not so much. Running Windows 7? Let me know what your experience has been!