From the Editor -
News and Notes from Developer Evangelist Bruno Terkaly
Volume 13, Number 7: March 30, 2009
MIX09 - A Huge Day of Announcements
I am at MIX09 in last Vegas. I am intentionally starting this letter from the editor
while sitting in the Venetian San Polo Room 4204, learning. The particular session I'm
in is about the Azure / .NET Services / Service Bus, arguably one of the most popular
and powerful aspects of the Azure Services Platform.
Many of us could not make it to MIX09, so I thought I'd give you a quick rundown. By the
time you read this, all the content and presentations will be available for viewing offline.
I really like the offline experience because I can pause, fast-forward, even watch it again.
What you consider the most significant depends on your day-to-day development.
If You Do Rich Internet Application Development -
Silverlight 3 Beta
IMHO, Silverlight is the easiest way for .NET developers to produce rich Internet applications
(RIAs). Silverlight 3 beta (SL3 beta) includes hardware-based acceleration for compositing, which
means your main CPU won't be bogged down rendering content.
Included is 3D support, which is not about the gratuitous spinning of 3D cubes in space - it is
about the ability to move a 2D image in three dimensions. The actual term is perspective transform.
SL3 beta also supports search engine optimization, which means you can expose content to Web search
engines so your site can be found. Another exciting feature is the ability to run out of the browser.
But don't take my word for it;
see the sessions for yourself.
If You Are an ASP.NET Developer
ASP.NET MVC 1.0 is Microsoft's alternative model for designing and deploying distributed Web
applications. Stackoverflow.com is built
upon it, and most of the developers I speak with believe MVC will likely be the prominent distributed
model moving forward.
You heard that right. Microsoft is supporting PHP on Microsoft Windows. Come hear how to run PHP on
various Microsoft platforms including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server, Windows, Azure
Services Platform, and more.
In almost all of my Azure presentations my audience wanted relational data in the cloud. It is here,
and you can watch the presentation.
Learn about Web Slices, Accelerators, and Visual Search. Discover nearly twenty new security enhancements
that make browsing safer than ever, and find out about performance improvements that will help you build
faster AJAX applications. Finally, see why Internet Explorer 8 is one of the most standards-compliant Web
browsers on the market.
Expression Blend 3.0 is huge and the product has been dramatically improved. The discussion at MIX was excellent.
There are so many other technologies for designers and developers that have been announced I cannot fit
them all. Get all the presentations at live.visitmix.com.
Local Events
SmartGrid Event - Juval Lowy - April 21st - Opportunity Is Knocking
Mark this date (April 21) on your calendar. Juval and I are hosting a 4-hour event in San Francisco at the Microsoft
office. I talked about this in the last issue. Juval and I are passionate about the upcoming breakthroughs happening in
Silicon Valley. This is where the developer jobs will be available. Just type smart grid into a search engine. Keep your
eye on the business pages, and you'll see technology giants like Google, Microsoft, and IBM tripping over each other to
announce their latest "smart" technology for tracking energy and emissions from businesses and homes. The economic stimulus
package that won approval in the Senate includes $4.5 billion for smart grid technology and billions more for energy
efficiency. I'm working on an upcoming series with the Bay .NET User Group.
Sign up and start getting announcements. My goal is start educating my brethren about Azure, cloud technologies and how to
apply smart-grid principles. Go to your calendars and mark the date, April 21, San Francisco. That will be your chance to
get ready for the future opportunities. Shoot me an e-mail and let me know your opinion at
bterkaly@microsoft.com.
April 28, Mountain View, CA - Register with invitation code 80D459.
How do you take an idea from conception to completion? How can you truly do more with less? Please join us for this
invitation-only event to discover how both product and processes help your organization succeed in today's environment.
We will explore how Team System assists teams across the board to be successful in today's tough times. This breakthrough
event will not only provide you with best practices around development and testing, but will demonstrate key capabilities of
both Visual Studio Team System 2008 and the upcoming 2010 release. It's a day that promises to have something for everyone!
I Am Looking For Your Feedback
The Bay Area is vast and diverse. I'm looking for ideas from my community. Shoot me an email and let me know what events you
would like. I'm considering putting together an education day. My goal is to give my community what they need, and the best
way to get your needs met is to simply let me know by e-mailing me. There should be
a careful balance between what is useful today and what is needed for tomorrow.
The following online classes in C# will be available at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, CA for the spring term
(April 6 - June 26). The cost is approximately $100 (for CA residents, more for non-residents).
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) (CIS-019M), Silverlight (CAST-080), Windows Powershell Scripting (CNET-060K), Develop
Web Applications using ASP.NET 3.5 (CIS-019W), Introduction to Programming in C# (CIS-019A), Windows applications using C#.
Thanks for reading,
Bruno
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