Partner Otaku

Day 2 at Mix2010 – IE9 Platform Preview is now available at http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/ the preview will be updated every 8 weeks. Some quick highlights.

• HTML 5
• SVG 1.1
• CSS 3
• DOM
• Ecmascript 262
• Graphics and fonts JPEG-XR TIFF ICC Colors

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

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

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

I’ve been running Win7 since before Beta 1 and there is no way I’ll go back to Vista on my notebooks. If you’ve installed Win7 you’ll most likely agree with me.  The buzz has been very positive. 

Here’s an opportunity to get a great discount on Win7 without having to stand outside in a line.

This begins on June 26,2009 and will end on July 11, 2009 or while supplies last, whichever comes first – so get ready for tomorrow!

Windows 7: Be first. Save half.

Pre-order Windows 7 today at Microsoft Store. You’ll get it for at least half off and be one of the first to get it. Hurry, quantities are limited.*

It’s pretty simple

Windows 7 is coming on October 22, 2009. Here’s an easy way to get it fast and save a bundle: Pre-order a Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade for $49 or a Windows 7 Professional Upgrade for $99 at Microsoft Store.   That’s about half off the estimated retail prices.

Want more info? 

Go to the Windows team blog and find out all the details. 

* The offer begins on June 26, 2009 and will continue while supplies last, or until July 11, 2009, whichever comes first.

Just a reminder if you aren’t already aware.  On July 1, 2009, the Beta will start to reboot every 2 hours and expire August 1, 2009.  You need to move to the Release Candidate fast. 

The RC download program closes August 15th. After that, you won’t be able to get the download, but you can still install the RC and get a key if you need one. (To get a key, just go to the Downloads page and follow the instructions.)

If you’re using the Windows 7 Release Candidate, we hope you like what you see. Let us know — go to http://input.microsoft.com and tell us what you think. You’ll be able to give feedback on various aspects of the operating system.

I like the new login screen in the RC1 build of Win7, but when I read this article by Rafael Rivera, I thought it would be nice to customize mine as well.  Below you can see Rafael’s login screen – which looks really nice.  

The problem that I encountered was that the logon text is often very light and difficult to read. I searched online and couldn’t find anything to either change the font or add formatting.  

I read this article in Life hacker today and found that this hack helps in readability. Not perfect, but better than the default text as you can see below.

If you haven’t seen the news, Win7 will ship in the fall.  I’ve been using Win7 after PDC and each major milestone has seen improvements in both user experience and stability. Most of my friends outside of work, use either Vista or XP and often ask me why should upgrade to Win7.  I usually

discuss features that would be useful to how they use their computers. It’s often met with  “Ok…” Clearly it’s hard to visualize a new or improved feature. However, whenever they use Win7 they are deeply impressed with it’s performance and usability.  It’s like night and day. I can’t imagine having to go back to Vista. 

If you’ve been considering a netbook and heard that Win7 Basic would impose a 3 applications limit, well thankfully that decision was changed.

One of the biggest requests we get is for designer and developer training for WPF and Silverlight. So the series that helped designers and developers in cities across the US will soon be available online.

XAMLFest Online is a five day event hosted by msdev.com. It is delivered by both recorded sessions and over Live Meeting. Five sessions covers WPF, Silverlight and the Visual Studio and Expression tools. The sessions focus on real life line of business solutions.

In order to attend, attendees must register for each event. Recorded sessions will be available May 25. Live events are offered for designers in the morning (9 am Pacific, noon Eastern) and for developers (1 pm Pacific, 4 pm Eastern) in the afternoons the week of June 1. Just because you are a developer though, you can learn the designer tools and expand your skill set. Designers can learn what happens on the back end systems in the developer sessions. You’ll have access to proctors and question and answers during the live sessions.

Sign up for all sessions online. You’ll need to sign up for each session to participate. Once you register, you’ll have access to the source code that will give you a jump start on your next user interface project.

If you’re interested in signing up please click here and here’s a brief summary of the sessions.

IE8 has recently been released, and I wanted to let you know that the Internet Explorer 8 sessions from Mix09 are now available on here. 

Here are few sessions to check out:

Dean Hachamovitch’s Keynote

Thursday, March 19^th, 9:00am
Location:  Keynote Room

Sessions Presented By The Internet Explorer Team

A Lap Around Internet Explorer 8 – MIX09-T52F

Giorgio Sardo | Thursday March 19 |10:30 AM-11:45 AM | Delfino 4103

IE is back! In this session, you’ll hear the inside story behind the development of Internet Explorer 8. We’ll show you how to develop innovative user experiences with Web Slices, Accelerators and Visual Search. You’ll discover nearly twenty new security enhancements that make browsing safer than ever, and you’ll find out about performance improvements that will help you build faster AJAX applications. Finally, we’ll show you why we think Internet Explorer 8 is one of the most standards-compliant web browsers on the market.

Securing Web Applications – MIX09-T54F

Eric Lawrence | Thursday March 19 | 1:00 PM-2:15 PM | San Polo 3501

After a quick summary of some of the web attacks in the wild today, you’ll learn how to take advantage of browser security improvements to help protect your web applications and visitors.

Creating A Great Experience On Digg With Windows Internet Explorer 8 – MIX09-C22F

Joel Neubeck | Thursday March 19 |2:30 PM-3:45 PM | San Polo 3501

Come hear how Terralever was able to use the powerful new features of Internet Explorer 8 to change how users interact with the Digg website.  Learn how using Accelerators and Web Slices changed the way users are able to discover, as well as simplify submitting stories.  We’ll look at how taking advantage of these exciting features can improve a users experience, while increasing the number of users visiting your site. 

Internet Explorer 8 In The Real World: How Is IE8 Used – MIX09-C23F

Paul Cutsinger | Thursday March 19 | 4:15 PM-5:30 PM | San Polo 3501

Come see behind the scenes and learn about the customer data that motivated the IE8 user experience design team. We’ll discuss what people are doing in the browser and how that influenced the detailed design of new features. We’ll also talk about the methodology for choosing the subtle refinements to existing features that have a big impact on ease of use and discoverability.

Building High Performance Web Applications and Sites – MIX09-T53F

John Hrvatin | Friday March 20 | 2:00 PM-3:15 PM | San Polo 3504

Learn how to improve your web application’s performance in the browser by avoiding common pitfalls in JavaScript, CSS, and HTTP caching techniques.