Partner Otaku

We’ve recently updated the gallery to include SugarCRM Community Edition.   Sugar is the leading open source CRM solution provides core sales and marketing features. The platform is extensible and provides a module builder to develop and maintain custom applications.

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.

The SQL Server Driver for PHP is now available in the Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta (WPI).  Making the SQL Server Driver for PHP available via WPI simplifies the process of installing the extension on Web servers.

If you haven’t had a chance to install the WPI please check it out here. The WPI makes the process simpler to configure your server with IIS, SQL Server, PHP and popular community applications such as WordPress, Drupal, etc.

Here’s a screen shot highlighting the SQL Server Driver for PHP (And no, the big red arrow is not actually part of the WPI infrastructure)

The PHP on Windows Training Kit includes a comprehensive set of technical content including demos and hands-on labs to help you understand how to build PHP applications using Windows, IIS 7 and SQL Server 2008. The March RC1 release includes the following: PHP & SQL Server Demos * Integrating SQL Server Geo-Spatial with PHP * SQL Server Reporting Services and PHP PHP & SQL Server Hands On Labs * Introduction to Using SQL Server with PHP * Using Full Text Search over Office Documents in PHP PHP on Windows Hands On Labs * IIS Access Control Features for PHP * Using IIS 7.0 Media Features in a PHP Application * Troubleshooting PHP * Migrating PHP Applications to IIS 7.0

Here’s the download link

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.