Microsoft Announce The Azure Services Platform

The Azure Services Platform is in CTP right now, here are some details about the Azure Services Platform:


What is the Azure Services Platform?
The Azure Services Platform (Azure) is an internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services that can be used individually or together. Azure’s flexible and interoperable platform can be used to build new applications to run from the cloud or enhance existing applications with cloud-based capabilities. Its open architecture gives developers the choice to build web applications, applications running on connected devices, PCs, servers, or hybrid solutions offering the best of online and on-premises.

Azure reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and it enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud by using their existing skills with the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment and the Microsoft .NET Framework. In addition to managed code languages supported by .NET, Azure will support more programming languages and development environments in the near future. Azure simplifies maintaining and operating applications by providing on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web and connected applications. Infrastructure management is automated with a platform that is designed for high availability and dynamic scaling to match usage needs with the option of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Azure provides an open, standards-based and interoperable environment with support for multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and XML.

Microsoft also offers cloud applications ready for consumption by customers such as Windows Live™, Microsoft Dynamics™, and other Microsoft Online Services for business such as Microsoft Exchange Online and SharePoint® Online. The Azure Services Platform lets developers provide their own unique customer offerings by offering the foundational components of compute, storage, and building block services to author and compose applications in the cloud.

Windows Azure

Windows® Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Services Platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage internet or cloud applications. Windows Azure supports a consistent development experience through its integration with Visual Studio. In the early stages of CTP, .NET managed applications built using Visual Studio will be supported. Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments. Windows Azure welcomes third party tools and languages such as Eclipse, Ruby, PHP, and Python.

Learn more about Windows Azure.


Live Services

Live Services is a set of building blocks within the Azure Services Platform for handling user data and application resources. Live Services provides developers with an easy on-ramp to build rich social applications and experiences, across a range of digital devices that can connect with one of the largest audiences on the Web.

Learn more about Live Services

Microsoft SQL Services

Microsoft SQL Services extends the capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server into the cloud as a Web-based, distributed relational database. It provides Web services that enable relational queries, search, and data synchronization with mobile users, remote offices and business partners. It can store and retrieve structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data.

Learn more about SQL Services

Microsoft .NET Services

Microsoft .NET Services make developing loosely coupled cloud-based applications easier. .NET Services includes access control to help secure your applications, a service bus for communicating across applications and services, and hosted workflow execution. These hosted services allow you to easily create federated applications that span from on-premises environments to the cloud.

Learn more about .NET Services

Microsoft® SharePoint® Services & Dynamics® CRM Services

In the future, developers will have access to SharePoint & CRM functionality for collaboration and building stronger customer relationships. With the flexibility to use familiar developer tools like Visual Studio, developers will be able to rapidly build applications that utilize SharePoint and CRM capabilities as developer services for their own applications. Developers can expect a breadth of SharePoint & CRM capabilities across the spectrum of on-premises, online & the Azure Services Platform.

Register for the Azure Services Platform here: http://www.microsoft.com/azure/register.mspx

New .NET Logo

New .NET Logo

New Transactional Memory Blog On MSDN

There is a Transactional Memory Blog On MSDN.

Here is an excerpt

If you have been using the Parallel Extension CTP or simply writing multi-threaded code yourself, you probably have run into situations where you needed to share data between multiple threads. So long as the data is read-only, this isn’t a problem, but what about mutating data?

The easy answer is to use a lock. There are a lot of blog entries and white papers talking about how to use locks correctly, how to avoid deadlocks, or what are the best locks for the particular scenario, or even how to correctly write lock-free code. You could read all of these and still run into trouble using locks. You see, the problem isn’t sharing one piece of data; it’s when you are sharing multiple pieces of data – for instance data that has a complex schema involving multiple complex objects such as trees or lists.

So, locks are a basic tool in your arsenal. From the simple lock, you can build synchronization mechanisms that hopefully protect your data, correctly, and don’t impact your scalability.

Ah, I hear you sigh. Yes, hope is eternal, software has bugs and multithreaded software has race conditions, deadlocks, and scalability problems. Why? Well, because many find it is hard and fraught with peril to correctly use anything more than a single lock or at most some really small set of course-grained locks. As code matures, locking hierarchies to provide fine-grained-locking often morph from elegant to clumsy. You may also find that as your project grows, lock depth blossoms, unnecessarily, or alternatively race conditions are introduced simply because programmers were unaware that it necessary to lock a specific resource. The end result is code that simply doesn’t scale or your application’s reliability plummets without some of your best and brightest spending time tuning, fixing, “right-sizing” and eliminating locks. Even after all that work, are you confident that your code is bug-free? Do race conditions exist in it?

Subscribe to this blog here: http://blogs.msdn.com/stmteam/default.aspx

Microsoft Announces Conference Call With Scott Guthrie

Microsoft Corp. will hold a teleconference with Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of the .NET Developer Division at Microsoft. Guthrie will make a significant announcement related to Microsoft Silverlight. A recording of the call and additional information will be available for 30 days on the Microsoft Silverlight PressPass Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/silverlight/default.mspx

When:
Monday, Oct. 13, 2008, at 9 a.m. PDT
Special Instructions:
Participants will need to speak the passcode “Silverlight” when prompted after dialing into the call.

Domestic participants: 888-617-1526

International participants:
Argentina: 0800-777-0466
Australia: 1-800-098-380
Austria: 0800-677-286
Belgium: 0800-4-9718
Brazil: 0800-8911991
Chile: 1230-020-0323
China: 10800-712-1296 or 10800-120-1296
Colombia: 01800-9-156436
Czech Republic: 800-700-224
Denmark: 8088-5430
Finland: 0-800-1-12828
France: 080-510-0983
Germany: 0800-12-6809
Greece: 00800-12-6809
Hong Kong: 800-908-208
Hungary: 06-800-17568
India: 000-800-852-1228
Indonesia: 001-803-011-3651
Ireland: 1800-932-053
Israel: 1-80-9214710
Italy: 800-906-460
Japan: 0034-800-400651
Malaysia: 1-800-81-2060
Mexico: 001-866-839-3438
Netherlands: 0800-343-4364
New Zealand: 0800-441-333
Norway: 800-11118
Panama: 011-001-800-5072132
Poland: 00-800-1211774
Portugal: 8008-60134
Russia: 8-10-8002-0074011
Singapore: 800-120-4247
South Africa: 080-09-92283
South Korea: 00798-14800-6607
Spain: 800-099-387
Sweden: 0200-893-409
Switzerland: 0800-001-214
Taiwan: 00801-137-661
Thailand: 001-800-1206-65426
United Kingdom: 0800-279-9630
Uruguay: 000-413-598-3416
Venezuela: 0800-1-00-3211

Nice collection of VB.NET Programming Hacks

A nice collection of VB.NET Programming Hacks

Here is what is available

General
* Aliassing a namespace
* Memory usage for all processes
* Get the commandline parameters
* Get the computername
* Getting text from the clipboard
* Saving text on the clipboard
* Getting the freespace on a drive
* Getting memoryusage of one process
* Get the total space used by a drive
* Path to UNC
* Impersonating an administrator
* Programaticaly changing the Ignore addresses in the proxy settings


Strings
* Use StringBuilder to concatenate strings


Dates
* Add day, month, year to date
* Add time to a date (hours, minutes, seconds)
* Substract Time from a date (hours, minutes, seconds)
* Substract from a date (days, months, years)
* What day of the week is a certain date
* Is this year a leapyear?
* Difference in days between 2 dates


ADO.NET
* Use commandparameters instead of string concatenation


Forms
* Opening a form on a specified monitor
* Show a form in a form
* Open a form as modal
* Open a form
* MDI
* Hide a form on closing

Controls
* Use TextBox.AppendText instead of concatenating strings


LINQ
* Using Linq to Order directories by creation datetime

XLINQ
* Xlinq : get an elements value with VB.Net
* Xlinq: write to an element using VB.Net

Reflection
* Getting a property using reflection part 1
* Getting a property using reflection part 2
* Getting a property using reflection part 3
* Getting a property using reflection part 4
* Create an instance of class from a string using reflection
* Set a readonly property via reflection
* Setting a private field using reflection
* Getting a private field using reflection


Patterns
* Use Singletonprovider instead of the Singleton pattern
* Invoke Singletonprovider giving a string as classname


Network
* See if the network is available
* Pinging another computer
* Getting the current computer's IP-Address
* Determining if an IPAddress is IPv4 or IPv6
* Creating an IPv6 address the correct way
* How to create an IPv4 address the correct way

Printing
* Selecting a printer


Numbers to Words
* Numbers to French words
* Numbers to Dutch words

Mail
* Sending a mail with attachements


File handling
* Checking if a file exists
* Deleting a file
* Checking if a directory exists
* Deleting a directory
* Get all the files from a certain directory
* Get all the files with a certain extension from a directory
* Getting a file's extension from a string
* Getting a file's filename from a string
* Getting a file's filename from a string without the extension
* Combining two strings to make a path

Or visit this link VB.NET Programming Hacks since it might get updated

Help me win this bet

You might know that some friends and myself have launched a site named LessThanDot, this is a site where users can collaborate via the wiki, ask questions in the fora and can read out blogs. It is a technical site but we do have a forum where you can post pretty much anything you want(not vulgar or offensive). Here are some examples
The Rage of the Previously Rich
We're In Ur Bank, Bailing It Out
Girls Habanero Eating Contest

Of course we do have our technical forums, some examples
Microsoft SQL Server
ASP.NET
Tech Rants

So I made a bet with the other owners of this site that I will have the most people sign up until November 1st. So please sign up and let your coworkers/friends know and let them sign up too, after all you don't want me to lose or do you?


Don't be scared to participate in the forums :-)

My username is SQLDenis

jQuery to ship with ASP.NET MVC and Visual Studio!

jQuery to ship with ASP.NET MVC and Visual Studio! (intellisense FTW)

Microsoft is looking to make jQuery part of their official development platform. Their JavaScript offering today includes the ASP.NET Ajax Framework and they’re looking to expand it with the use of jQuery. This means that jQuery will be distributed with Visual Studio (which will include jQuery intellisense, snippets, examples, and documentation).

Additionally Microsoft will be developing additional controls, or widgets, to run on top of jQuery that will be easily deployable within your .NET applications. jQuery helpers will also be included in the server-side portion of .NET development (in addition to the existing helpers) providing complementary functions to existing ASP.NET AJAX capabilities.

http://jquery.com/blog/2008/09/28/jquery-microsoft-nokia/
and here
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/jQueryToShipWithASPNETMVCAndVisualStudio.aspx

Interview With Louis Davidson Author of Pro SQL Server 2008 Relational Database Design and Implementation

I interviewed Louis Davidson in 2005 about the 2005 edition of his book. I did another one today about Pro SQL Server 2008 Relational Database Design and Implementation. You can check out the interview at the link below, you will enjoy it


Interview With Louis Davidson Author of Pro SQL Server 2008 Relational Database Design and Implementation

And remember if you have any SQL Server related questions, you can ask them in the SQL Server Programming Forum

Microsoft F#, September 2008 Community Technology Preview Available For Download

Microsoft F#, September 2008 Community Technology Preview Available For Download

The F# September 2008 CTP provides all the tools and resources needed to develop applications with the F# programming language.

F# is a functional programming language for the .NET Framework. It combines the succinct, expressive and compositional style of functional programming with the runtime, libraries, interoperability, and object model of .NET.

F# is well suited to a spectrum of development tasks - from interactive, explorative scripting to component and large-scale software development. The CTP release of F# provides further support for explorative development using F#, as well as improved Visual Studio integration to enable large-scale, tool-based software development.

Download the F# CTP here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=61ad6924-93ad-48dc-8c67-60f7e7803d3c&displaylang=en

ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 Released

ASP.NET MVC Preview 5 Released


This ASP.NET MVC CodePlex Preview 5 is an interim release that contains some new features and some feature improvements for which the ASP.NET MVC team would like to receive feedback from the community

Get it here: http://www.codeplex.com/aspnet/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=16775

Microsoft launches Windows 7 blog

Microsoft launches Windows 7 blog :

Welcome to our first post on a new blog from Microsoft—the Engineering Windows 7 blog, or E7 for short. E7 is hosted by the two senior engineering managers for the Windows 7 product, Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky. Jon and Steven, along with members of the engineering team will post, comment, and participate in this blog.

Beginning with this post together we are going to start looking forward towards the “Windows 7” project. We know there are tons of questions about the specifics of the project and strong desire to know what’s in store for the next major release of Windows. Believe us, we are just as excited to start talking about the release. Over the past 18 months since Windows Vista’s broad availability, the team has been hard at work creating the next Windows product.

The audience of enthusiasts, bloggers, and those that are the most passionate about Windows represent the folks we are dedicating this blog to. With this blog we’re opening up a two-way discussion about how we are making Windows 7. Windows has all the challenges of every large scale software project—picking features, designing them, developing them, and delivering them with high quality. Windows has an added challenge of doing so for an extraordinarily diverse set of customers. As a team and as individuals on the team we continue to be humbled by this responsibility.

Read the rest of the post and subscribe here: http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 Available For Download

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=fbee1648-7106-44a7-9649-6d9f6d58056e&displayLang=en

Here is the link to the 831MB ISO
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=27673C47-B3B5-4C67-BD99-84E525B5CE61&displaylang=en


Finally, Now I can also install SQL Server 2008 :-)

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Coming August 11th, SQL Server 2008 is RTM

SQL Server 2008 was released today, here is the press release: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/aug08/08-06SQLServer2008PR.mspx

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 will be released August 11th

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR July CTP Released

Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition GDR July CTP is available for download

In addition to providing support for SQL Server 2008 database projects, this release incorporates many previously released Power Tools as well as several new features. The new features include distinct Build and Deploy phases, Static Code Analysis and improved integration with SQL CLR projects.

Database Edition no longer requires a Design Database. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to install an instance of SQL Express or SQL Server prior to using Database Edition.

Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

44 Amazing Silverlight 2.0 Screencasts

Mike Taulty recently uploaded and amazing collection of Silverlight 2.0 screencasts on how Silverlight works, controls, File IO, networking, UI design, data-binding, interacting with HTML pages, and more. If you want to learn about Silverlight, this set of screencasts should definitely help!

1. Silverlight - Hello World
2. Silverlight - Anatomy of an Application
3. Silverlight - The VS Environment
4. Silverlight - Content Controls
5. Silverlight - Built-In Controls
6. Silverlight - Width, Height, Margins, Padding, Alignment
7. Silverlight - Using a GridSplitter
8. Silverlight - Grid Layout
9. Silverlight - StackPanel Layout
10. Silverlight - Canvas Layout
11. Silverlight - Databinding UI to .NET Classes
12. Silverlight - Simple Styles
13. Silverlight - Custom Types in XAML
14. Silverlight - Binding with Conversion
15. Silverlight - List Based Data Binding
16. Silverlight - Simple User Control
17. Silverlight - Templating a Button
18. Silverlight - Resources from XAP/DLL/Site Of Origin
19. Silverlight - Animations & Storyboards
20. Silverlight - Uploads with WebClient
21. Silverlight - Downloads with WebClient
22. Silverlight - Calling HTTPS Web Services
23. Silverlight - Calling Web Services
24. Silverlight - Making Cross Domain Requests
25. Silverlight - Using HttpWebRequest
26. Silverlight - File Dialogs and User Files
27. Silverlight - Using Sockets
28. Silverlight - Using Isolated Storage
29. Silverlight - .NET Code Modifying HTML
30. Silverlight - Using Isolated Storage Quotas
31. Silverlight - Calling JavaScript from .NET
32. Silverlight - Evaluating JavaScript from .NET Code
33. Silverlight - Handling HTML Events in .NET Code
34. Silverlight - Handling .NET Events in JavaScript
35. Silverlight - Calling .NET from JavaScript
36. Silverlight - Displaying a Custom Splash Screen
37. Silverlight - Passing Parameters from your Web Page
38. Silverlight - Loading Media at Runtime
39. Silverlight - Dynamically Loading Assemblies/Code
40. Silverlight - Reading/Writing XML
41. Silverlight - Multiple Threads with BackgroundWorker
42. Silverlight - Insert/Update/Delete with the DataGrid
43. Silverlight - Getting Started with the DataGrid
44. Silverlight - Embedding Custom Fonts

Get it all here: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Dan/Mike-Taulty-44-Silverlight-20-Screencasts/

Awesome Collection Of ASP.NET Hacks, Tips and Tricks

We added a bunch of ASP.NET Hacks, Tips and Tricks , below is the full list

Applications

* ASP.NET: Environment Details
* ASP.NET: Encrypt your applications settings
* ASP.NET: Launch an external application
* ASP.NET: Display Version Information

Caching

* ASP.NET: Clear all Cached objects
* ASP.NET: Data Caching

Controls

* ASP.NET: Access Master Page controls from the Content Page
* ASP.NET: Maintain an entered password in a TextBox
* ASP.NET: Apply a Please Wait message to a Button
* ASP.NET: Clear all TextBox values
* ASP.NET: Creating an accessible label
* ASP.NET: Add dynamic controls with events
* ASP.NET: Get a list of all selected items in a CheckBoxList
* ASP.NET: Find which control caused a postback
* ASP.NET: Limit selections for the Calendar
* ASP.NET: Add a confirmation popup to a Button
* ASP.NET: Insert a ListItem into a DropDownList
* ASP.NET: Add paging to a repeater
* ASP.NET: Append client side functions with Attributes.Add
* ASP.NET: Add a total row to a GridView
* ASP.NET: How to export a GridView to Excel
* ASP.NET: Render a control to a string

Database

* ASP.NET: Convert a DataSet to a DataView
* ASP.NET: Extract data from a SQLDataSource to a DataTable
* ASP.NET: Insert data into SQL Server
* ASP.NET: Loop through data in a DataTable
* ASP.NET: Loop through data using a DataReader
* ASP.NET: Storing connection strings in the web.config file

Dates

* ASP.NET: Calculate a person's age from their date of birth
* ASP.NET: Calculate the difference between two dates
* ASP.NET: Simple date and time methods

Debugging

* ASP.NET: Enabling page tracing
* ASP.NET: Simple debugging tips

Email

* ASP.NET: Send an email

Encryption

* ASP.NET: Encrypt a string using MD5

Files

* ASP.NET: Files and Path information
* ASP.NET: Rename a directory
* ASP.NET: Reference files with relative paths
* ASP.NET: Read and display a text file

Images

* ASP.NET: How to crop an Image
* ASP.NET: How to save a remote image
* ASP.NET: Drawing images and bar charts with System.Drawing

Javascript

* ASP.NET: Register a javascript function

Objects and Classes

* ASP.NET: Accessing the Response object in a Class
* ASP.NET: An introduction to classes and properties
* ASP.NET: Looping using an Enumerator
* ASP.NET: Use Response.Filter to intercept your HTML
* ASP.NET: Use C Sharp and VB.NET in the same project
* ASP.NET: Using Generics to create a property list

Pages

* ASP.NET: Change the current Master Page
* ASP.NET: Nested Master Pages

Sessions

* ASP.NET: Redirect the page when the session ends

Strings

* ASP.NET: Filter words
* ASP.NET: Remove the last character from a string
* ASP.NET: Reverse a string
* ASP.NET: String Concatenation
* ASP.NET: Strip HTML tags from a string
* ASP.NET: Truncate a string to a set number of whole words

Validation

* ASP.NET: Using Page.IsValid

Visual Studio

* ASP.NET: Changing the default browser
* ASP.NET: Keyboard Shortcuts
* ASP.NET: Using a task list

Web

* ASP.NET: Access the web via a proxy server
* ASP.NET: Convert HTML tables to a DataSet
* ASP.NET: Retrieve data from a web page
* ASP.NET: Create an RSS Feed
* ASP.NET: Custom Error Pages
* ASP.NET: Find out where a visitor came from
* ASP.NET: Using an AppOffline.htm file for updates
* ASP.NET: XHTML Strict Validation

The URL to these hacks is here: http://wiki.lessthandot.com/index.php/ASP.NET_Hacks

Bookmark that URL because we will be adding more hacks, tips and tricks

Interview With SSIS Guru Jamie Thomson

As promised yesterday, here is the link to the interview I did with jamie Thomson: Interview With SSIS Guru Jamie Thomson

I tried to keep it a secret but it is all over the internet: I am a SQL Server MVP

So all over the internet is exaggerated, I became a SQL Server MVP today and was not going to do a blog post about it. However some other people had other ideas

Congratulations, Denis!
SQL Server MVP - Denis Gobo

and even an announcement on lessthandot

My profile is here: https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile=BCCF7416-DA4E-4D73-83E2-65FD61BAB16D

Stay tuned, I will have an interview with Jamie Thomson tomorrow

Working On SQL Admin Hacks, Tips and Tricks

I haven't posted for a while because I have been working on SQL Admin Hacks, Tips and Tricks lately. it is still a work in progress but below is what is on the wiki currently. It is not yet categorized but we will do that once we get more of these hacks done. To see what it will look like when it is done take a look at the SQL Server Programming Hacks

Can you think of any admin stuff you would like to see? This is what we have right now

Find Primary Keys and Columns Used in SQL Server
Get The Domain Name Of Your SQL Server Machine With T-SQL
Grant Execute/SELECT Permissions For All User Defined Functions To A User
Grant Execute Permissions For All Stored Procedures To A User
Kill All Active Connections To A Database
SQL Server 2008: When Was The Server Last Started?
Check If Auto Update Statistics Is Enabled By Using DATABASEPROPERTY
Three Way To List All Databases On Your Server
Generate A List Of Object Types By Using OBJECTPROPERTY
How to find all the tables and views in a database
Find Out Server Roles For a SQL Server Login
Which Service Pack Is Installed On My SQL Server
Test SQL Server Login Permissions With SETUSER
Login failed for user 'sa'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection. SQL 2000
Login failed for user 'sa'. Reason: Not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection. SQL 2005
Compare Tables With Tablediff
Find All Tables Without Triggers In SQL Server
Find All Tables With Triggers In SQL Server
Create Stored Procedures That Run At SQL Server Startup
Cycle The SQL Server Error Log
How to read sql server error messages
Use OBJECT_DEFINITION To Track SQL Server Stored Procedure Changes
SQL Compare Without The Price Tag
How To Get The Database Name For The Current User Process
How To Find Out Which Columns Have Defaults And What Those Default Values Are
Fixing Cannot add, update, or delete a job that originated from an MSX Server Error after renaming a server

SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 Available To The General Public For Download

SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 has been made available to the general public.

There are 2 versions (and 3 flavors of each) ISO or DVD

Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=35F53843-03F7-4ED5-8142-24A4C024CA05&displaylang=en

Don't forget to also visit the SQL Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 connect site here: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=5395