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 Web applications on the Internet through Microsoft® data centers.

To build these applications and services, developers can use their existing Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 expertise. In addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, and XML. Windows Azure is an open platform that will support both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages and environments.

 What is the Azure Services Platform?

The next release of Visual Studio is Visual Studio 2010 and the .NET Framework 4.0.

In addition, if you go down the page here, you find some juicy goodness:

“Better Together – Visual Studio Team System Development Edition and Database Edition
In recognition of the increased need to integrate more of the lifecycle members together, we will provide a unified Development and Database product in Visual Studio Team System 2010. Beginning October 1, 2008 Development Edition and Database Edition MSDN subscribers will have access to both products.”

Great news!

Today, Microsoft Live Labs is announcing the Volta technology preview, a developer toolset for building multi-tier web applications using existing and familiar tools, techniques and patterns. Volta’s declarative tier-splitting enables developers to postpone architectural decisions about distribution until the last possible responsible moment. Also, thanks to a shared programming model across multiple-tiers, Volta enables new end-to-end profiling and testing for higher levels of application performance, robustness, and reliability. Using the declarative tier-splitting, developers can refine architectural decisions based on this profiling data. This saves time and costs associated with manual refactoring. In effect, Volta extends the .NET platform to further enable the development of software+services applications, using existing and familiar tools and techniques.

You architect and build your application as a .NET client application, assigning the portions of the application that run on the server tier and client tier late in the development process. You can target either web browsers or the CLR as clients and Volta handles the complexities of tier-splitting. The compiler creates cross-browser JavaScript for the client tier, web services for the server tier, and all communication, serialization, synchronization, security, and other boilerplate code to tie the tiers together. In effect, Volta offers a best-effort experience in multiple environments without requiring tailoring of the application.

Problem:

Running some pages in Sharepoint Services 3.0 will gives 403 Forbidden error.

After some googling, the solution would be:

Workaround 1:

A) Temporary fix:

1. Rename the Web.config to  any other filename.
2. Try accessing the 403 Forbidden page again.
3. Rename back to Web.config

B) Permanent fix:

This is caused by a Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 update. Uninstall the Patch KB928365.

Send us some comments if this works!

“The highly social and visual nature of the Web has fundamentally changed what users expect from all applications they interact with, regardless of whether it’s on a customer-facing Web site or Windows rich client application, or a desktop business application built using Microsoft Office,” said Somasegar. “Traditionally, organizations have been hard pressed to deliver the richer, more connected applications and services they need to boost productivity, drive revenue and stay ahead of the competition. With Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5, it is easy for developers to use the skills they already have to build compelling applications that take advantage of the latest platforms.”

FWBS Ltd., Xerox Corp., Dell Inc. and K2 are just a few of the early adopter customers that are already experiencing the benefits of these releases. FWBS used Visual Studio, the .NET Framework and the Microsoft Office system to build an Office Business Application (OBA) for the law field. The application enables users to work within Microsoft Office — the tools they use every day — while also dramatically improving productivity and helping users respond quickly to changing business needs.

Xerox has also had early success developing applications with the new tools. “We’ve already seen significant advantages from using Visual Studio Team System 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5. With the first application we built, we easily saved 50 percent of the time and money it would have taken to create the same application with other tools,” said Eugene Shustef, feature design lead, Global Technology, Xerox. “That’s more than a savings to IT — it delivers a huge time-to-market advantage because it put the tool into the hands of our analysts six months sooner than they would have had it otherwise.”

Creating New Opportunities for Partners

Microsoft also announced plans to make additional investments in the Visual Studio partner ecosystem. In response to partner feedback and in order to provide better support for interoperability with other developer tools and cross-platform scenarios, Microsoft is today announcing plans to change licensing terms, no longer limiting partners to building solutions on top of Visual Studio for Windows and other Microsoft platforms only. This licensing change will be effective for the release of Visual Studio 2008 and the Visual Studio 2008 SDK.

“Integrating dynaTrace’s cross-platform application performance management and diagnostics product with Visual Studio has opened up additional commercial opportunities for our business and delivered a compelling solution for our customers. .NET and Visual Studio is a strategic platform for our business, and Microsoft’s additional investments in the partner ecosystem make it even more compelling,” said Klaus Fellner, senior director of product marketing at dynaTrace. “We’re looking forward to taking advantage of the new technology available with the launch of Visual Studio 2008 and the partner benefits available through the Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program.”

In addition, Microsoft announced plans to create a shared source licensing program for Premier-level partners in the VSIP program. The program will provide these partners with the ability to view Visual Studio IDE source code for debugging purposes, and simplify the process of integrating their products with Visual Studio 2008.

Tools for Today and Tomorrow

Microsoft also announced a number of additional resources for developers of all skill sets, enabling them to make the most out of their Microsoft tools investments to build great applications on the latest platforms:

• The first CTP of the Microsoft Sync Framework demonstrates Microsoft’s ongoing investments in synchronization and builds on the synchronization functionality available in Visual Studio 2008. With Visual Studio 2008, developers can rapidly take advantage of offline synchronization capabilities to sync-enable applications and services easily with rich designer support. The Microsoft Sync Framework extends the support featured in Visual Studio 2008 to also include offline and peer-to-peer collaboration using any protocol for any data type, and any data store. This is part of Microsoft’s long-term commitment to providing synchronization for partners and independent software vendors that can embed the Sync Framework into their applications easily to create rich sync-enabled ecosystems that allow any type of data to follow their customers wherever they go.
• A new release of Popfly Explorer will add new Web tools that provide Web developers and Popfly users an easy way to add Silverlight gadgets built in Popfly to their Web pages, as well as publish HTML Web pages directly to Popfly.

These latest releases are part of the broader Microsoft Application Platform, a portfolio of technology capabilities and core products that help organizations develop, deploy and manage applications and IT infrastructure. They also mark another major milestone leading up to the global launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 on Feb. 27, 2008, in Los Angeles.

Product Information and Availability

Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 will be available by the end of November 2007. The .NET Framework 3.5 will also be available to end users via a free, optional download from Microsoft Update. A CTP of Microsoft Sync Framework is available today at http://msdn.microsoft.com/sync. Popfly Explorer is a hosted development environment available today at http://www.popfly.com. More information about all of these releases is available at http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio.

1) You have to downlaod and install the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0. Here
2) You may download and extract the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. Here

After install it, you will found out that you may create AJAX Enabled Web Application when creating new projects(Web Site or Web Application). You may also found out that there is a new tab called “AJAX Extensions” in Toolbox. If you have extracted the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, you may do the following,

1) Create new tab called “AJAX Control Toolkit”;
2) Right click under the created tab and click on “Choose Items…”;
3) Click “Browse…” and browse to the folder which you extract the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, and then browse to “~\SampleWebSite\Bin” and select AjaxControlToolokit.dll
4) Now you will see a lot of controls which you are ready to use. You may browse and view the “Toolkit Live” to get the sample and idea on the controls.

You are now ready to build your AJAX web site or web application. However, if you have any existing ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site or Web Application, you do the normal action to write AJAX, you will found out that the AJAX is not working in your existing Web Site or Web Application. You have to do the following in order to let your existing ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site or Web Application to be “AJAX Enabled”,

1) Open web.config from your existing web site or web application
2) Add the following XML under <configuration> tab.

<configSections>
    <sectionGroup name=”system.web.extensions” type=”System.Web.Configuration.SystemWebExtensionsSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″>
      <sectionGroup name=”scripting” type=”System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″>
          <section name=”scriptResourceHandler” type=”System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingScriptResourceHandlerSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″ requirePermission=”false” allowDefinition=”MachineToApplication”/>
        <sectionGroup name=”webServices” type=”System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingWebServicesSectionGroup, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″>
          <section name=”jsonSerialization” type=”System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingJsonSerializationSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″ requirePermission=”false” allowDefinition=”Everywhere” />
          <section name=”profileService” type=”System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingProfileServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″ requirePermission=”false” allowDefinition=”MachineToApplication” />
          <section name=”authenticationService” type=”System.Web.Configuration.ScriptingAuthenticationServiceSection, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″ requirePermission=”false” allowDefinition=”MachineToApplication” />
        </sectionGroup>
      </sectionGroup>
    </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>

  <system.web>
    <pages>
      <controls>
        <add tagPrefix=”asp” namespace=”System.Web.UI” assembly=”System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″/>
      </controls>
    </pages>
    <!–
          Set compilation debug=”true” to insert debugging
          symbols into the compiled page. Because this
          affects performance, set this value to true only
          during development.
    –>
    <compilation debug=”false”>
      <assemblies>
        <add assembly=”System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″/>
      </assemblies>
    </compilation>

    <httpHandlers>
      <remove verb=”*” path=”*.asmx”/>
      <add verb=”*” path=”*.asmx” validate=”false” type=”System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″/>
      <add verb=”*” path=”*_AppService.axd” validate=”false” type=”System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″/>
      <add verb=”GET,HEAD” path=”ScriptResource.axd” type=”System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″ validate=”false”/>
    </httpHandlers>

    <httpModules>
      <add name=”ScriptModule” type=”System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″/>
    </httpModules>
  </system.web>

  <system.web.extensions>
    <scripting>
      <webServices>
      <!– Uncomment this line to customize maxJsonLength and add a custom converter –>
      <!–
      <jsonSerialization maxJsonLength=”500″>
        <converters>
          <add name=”ConvertMe” type=”Acme.SubAcme.ConvertMeTypeConverter”/>
        </converters>
      </jsonSerialization>
      –>
      <!– Uncomment this line to enable the authentication service. Include requireSSL=”true” if appropriate. –>
      <!–
        <authenticationService enabled=”true” requireSSL = “true|false”/>
      –>

      <!– Uncomment these lines to enable the profile service. To allow profile properties to be retrieved
           and modified in ASP.NET AJAX applications, you need to add each property name to the readAccessProperties and
           writeAccessProperties attributes. –>
      <!–
      <profileService enabled=”true”
                      readAccessProperties=”propertyname1,propertyname2″
                      writeAccessProperties=”propertyname1,propertyname2″ />
      –>
      </webServices>
      <!–
      <scriptResourceHandler enableCompression=”true” enableCaching=”true” />
      –>
    </scripting>
  </system.web.extensions>

  <system.webServer>
    <validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration=”false”/>
    <modules>
      <add name=”ScriptModule” preCondition=”integratedMode” type=”System.Web.Handlers.ScriptModule, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″/>
    </modules>
    <handlers>
      <remove name=”WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated” />
      <add name=”ScriptHandlerFactory” verb=”*” path=”*.asmx” preCondition=”integratedMode”
           type=”System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″/>
      <add name=”ScriptHandlerFactoryAppServices” verb=”*” path=”*_AppService.axd” preCondition=”integratedMode”
           type=”System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptHandlerFactory, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″/>
      <add name=”ScriptResource” preCondition=”integratedMode” verb=”GET,HEAD” path=”ScriptResource.axd” type=”System.Web.Handlers.ScriptResourceHandler, System.Web.Extensions, Version=1.0.61025.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35″ />
    </handlers>
  </system.webServer>

Now you are ready to make your web site or web application to be “AJAX Enabled”.

As the final act in our saga of expiring VPCs, I’m happy to announce that we’ve reissued VPCs for VS2008 Beta2 with an updated expiration date.  You can find the updated links on the VS2008 download page:

• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Suite VPC
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Beta 2 Team Suite & Team Foundation Server VPC

Thanks to everyone that has helped us get the word out about this situation and please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this might have caused you.  Needless to say, we’re taking steps now to ensure that we don’t make this particular mistake again.

Source from Jeff Beehler’s Blog — VS2008 Beta2 VPCs re-released

First, I am not sure if you know that, in .NET framework 2.0, there is 2 types of Web Projects, ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site and ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application. You may refer to the following link for more information if you would like to read more.

Introduction to Web Application Projects
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa730880(VS.80).aspx

If you are going to upgrading your existing ASP.NET 1.x project, you should choose to be using ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application project. This is the message from one of ScottGu’s blog, Tutorial on VB and C# are also mentioned.

“Because the VS 2005 Web Application Project model has the same conceptual semantics as the VS 2003 Web Project Model, it also makes migrating VS 2003 web projects very, very easy – with zero/minimal code changes required.  To learn how to automatically upgrade a VS 2003 web project using this option, please review these VB and C# tutorials that walkthrough the VS 2003 to VS 2005 upgrade process step-by-step.”

However, if you want to move your existing ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site to ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application, you may read the following message from ScottGu’s blog,

“If you want to migrate an existing VS 2005 Web Site Project to be a VS 2005 Web Application Project, please also review these other VB and C# migration tutorials that walkthrough the Web Site to Web Application conversion process step-by-step.  This article here also describes some of the differences between the VS 2005 Web Site Project Model and VS 2005 Web Application Project Model. “

 

Q: How can I create ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application Project?
A: Your machine must installed VS2005 with SP1 in order to create ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application Project

Q: I don’t want to install VS2005 SP1 at the moment, any other way?
A: you need the deprecated “Microsoft Visual Studio Web Application Projects” installer you can find it here.

Q: Anything I need to download if I am going to start developing in ASP.NET 2.0 Web Application Project?
A: Available as a separate download is a custom build tool for generating a strongly-typed Profile class for the ASP.NET 2.0 Profile system.  This allows you to right-click on a web.config file containing profile declarations and auto-generate the Profile type into your code-behind project assembly.  You can learn more about this and download it here. 

Q: I would like to read more and the full story on ScottGu blog.
A: Sure, you may go to ScottGu’s blog – VS 2005 Web Application Project V1.0 Released

Q: Any other resource from Microsoft Official link?
A: Sure, here you are, MSDN: Upgrade from ASP.NET 1.x

Q: You mentioned ASP.NET 2.0 to AJAX….
A: Yes, I am going to blog about it later on. Please come back some time for more detail.

F# began its life as a Microsoft Research project to demonstrate the efficacy of .NET as a platform for mixing multiple distinct programming paradigms. F# is heavily inspired by the OCaml programming language, and a subset of F# and OCaml are largely compatible. F# offers developers many valuable and compelling features without sacrificing much runtime efficiency. F# supports type inference, pattern matching, high-order functions, and currying. F# also supports interactive execution, which means that F# programs can be run like scripts or inputted in an interactive top-level environment similar to the Python shell or Ruby’s IRB. F# also has full access to the .NET APIs and components written in other .NET languages.

The advantages of functional programming

Unlike imperative or procedural programming languages, in which computation is typically performed by altering program state, functional programming languages operate on the principles of mathematical evaluation and reduction. Such programming languages are deeply rooted in formal mathematical logic and computational theory. Functional programming languages are largely based on the system of lambda calculus devised by Alonzo Church, in which numerical values, sequences, data structures, basic mathematical computations, and even recursion can be expressed entirely with nested functions.

The close association with lambda calculus and category theory makes functional languages a powerful tool for understanding and programmatically modeling concepts like catamorphisms and recursion. For some programmers, learning to see the ineffable theoretical perfection of functional programming languages is a profoundly illuminating experience that opens the mind to a completely new way of perceiving and understanding computer programming. In some cases, certain functional programming languages are also valued because functional purity is highly conducive to referential transparency and minimizes the potential for side effects.

Outside of the academic world, functional programming idioms are valued because they are often far more expressive than imperative or procedural equivalents. Modern dynamic scripting languages like Python and Ruby, for instance, offer first-class functions in order to boost developer productivity. Even C# offers some features—like LINQ—that are heavily based on functional programming concepts. The ability to mix F# and C# in .NET applications makes it far easier for software developers to use the programming paradigms that are best suited for each individual task.

Functional programming on .NET

Microsoft’s decision to productize F# represents a particularly significant step forward for the .NET platform. Microsoft took an equally significant step when it unveiled the Dynamic Language Runtime earlier this year. The .NET platform now fully, officially, and equally supports functional, dynamic, and conventional imperative programming paradigms in an interoperable manner all with a single runtime. This is a tremendous accomplishment and strong evidence of the .NET platform’s success and long-term viability.

“[W]e aim to continue the flow of good ideas from functional programming world into mainstream development,” wrote Microsoft developer division vice president S. Somasegar in a blog entry. “Furthermore, the somewhat mathematical slant of functional programming just seems naturally appealing to professionals whose primary domain is described with mathematical notation—domains such as financial, scientific and technical computing. On top of the syntactic appeal, the strong type system yields the sort of guarantees which are often crucial in these domains, and enables a superb tooling experience through Visual Studio.”

Although this is the first time that Microsoft has treated functional programming on .NET as a product instead of an experiment, many independent developers have long used functional programming languages on top of .NET. The open-source Nemerle programming language, for instance, supports extremely impressive features like macros and is preferred over F# by some programmers in the Ars community. There are also several Standard ML and Lisp implementations for .NET.

As the C# programming language and .NET continue to evolve, developers can undoubtedly look forward to seeing more dynamic and functional programming concepts move out of scripting and academia to augment and complement more conventional programming techniques. Microsoft’s efforts to push dynamic and functional programming into the mainstream are one of many signs that the art of software development is enjoying a profound renaissance.

From http://weblogs.asp.net/pleloup

Everybody has an opinion, and yours may differ based on your personal observations and experiences.

I’ve been working with the .NET Framework since the first BETA in 2000, and I’ve seen a lot of stuff come and go.  The following are what I consider to be my Top 10 List of things about .NET you must learn, going forward with the technology from 2007 on:

1) WCF (Windows Communication Foundation):  While WCF is certainly less “sexy” than say WPF / Silverlight, it is going to represent the backbone of solving business problems with .NET going forward from here. Big organizations are starting to embrace it, and it provides a cohesive framework for solving business problems in a distributed, integrated way. WCF integrates Remoting, WebServices, EnterpriseServices and Transactions, WSE, MSMQ, and much more into a cohesive programming framework. If you intend to make it your business to study just one new .NET technology this year, make it WCF.

2) ADO.NET (and LINQ): ADO.NET is how you talk to a data store, and databases are such a ubiquitous part of what you will do as a developer that you have NO CHOICE but to become extremely competent in this area. The next big thing in how to talk to data is LINQ with language extensions and entity objects that “represent” mappings of data and its relationships. If you don’t become at least familiar with all this stuff, somebody else is going to eat your lunch.

3) WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation): Everything you learned about Windows Forms, pages in a browser, and UI elements is going to go out the window, because Microsoft has already declared that WPF is the new way we’re gonna do this stuff. Its already built in to Windows Vista, and the XPS (XML Paper Specification) is already built into the printer subsystem. Don’t hang on to the old- get with the new just as fast as you can get your little tushy in gear! And besides that, WPF is just so friggin’ cool, it will knock your socks off in hi-def streaming video!

4) SQL Server 2005 (and on): I understand this isn’t really .NET, but then again it really is. SQL Server 2005 hosts CLR integration of managed code. That’s not only revolutionary, it provides a power to the programmer that you cannot get on other platforms. You have to learn everything you can about SQL Server 2005 including Service Broker, because it will help you to be a better programmer and problem – solver.

5) ASP.NET 2.0:  Even non “web programmers” need to understand how this works. The feature set has grown and matured, and you are looking at dynamic languages, LINQ, AJAX, and much more being integrated into the ASP.NET Framework (not to forget Silverlight – the sexiest technology of all of them!).

6) Security. Developers are notoriously weak on security (“Who cares about permission sets – I’m just a Code Monkey”). Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world and there are evil people out there who jump with glee when they can mess up your day. The more you become an expert about security, the higher your pay will be: expert security consultants make upwards of $300 / hr.

7) TDD (Test Driven Development): Unit, regression and integration testing aren’t a luxury – if you want to develop robust systems then you must  have a test protocol. And to do testing right, you need to study how to write tests and what tests to write. There are several excellent books on TDD and at least one that specifically focuses on .NET.

Networking (System.Net and related): Networking — TCP, UDP, HTTP, FTP, and on — are an integral part of what you need to know how to do in order to glue programs together and make them be able to talk with each other and your data. The more you know about this area, the better equipped you’ll be to make the right kind of choices when you are tasked with creating business logic through code.

9) Threading:  When asked to develop a multi-threaded object or to use a ThreadPool, 95 out of 100 programmers who claim to be professional .NET developers fall flat on their faces! You need to study all the threading primitives, know how they are used, be able to use the .NET or a custom ThreadPool, and manage threads in your applications.

10) Learning. That’s right, I classify learning as a technology. People need to become smarter about how to learn, and especially, WHAT to learn. Just as you become a better programmer when you learn to use the Google or other search engines more effectively, you become a better programmer when you can detail for yourself what you need to learn to be better at your craft, and write down a plan for implementing that learning process.

From http://blogs.msdn.com/kaevans

There is an interesting post on the Help.Net blog about the Top 10 .NET Framework Technologies to Learn in 2007. No Sliverlight? No SharePoint? I like the list, but I don’t think it hits the mark for where the money is at. That’s why companies employ developers… to reduce cost or increase revenue. That’s why we write code… that’s how we pay our bills.

If you haven’t already signed up for our Web Experience Expo events in New York City, Los Angeles, or Denver… there’s still a few registration spots left in each, and most of these 10 technologies are covered. No, I didn’t pick these top 10 in a thinly-veiled attempt to market the event… I picked the top 10 as topics for the regional events. Trust me, these are the topics that customers want to hear about, these are the things that company executives recognize as key value propositions of the Microsoft platform.

Here’s a recipe for financial success in 2007, in order.

1. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. We get so many requests to talk about Windows SharePoint Services and its capabilities that our team at Microsoft cannot keep up. MOSS 2007 finally steps up to the plate in the major leagues and fixes so many of the problems that previous versions of SharePoint had. There is a distinct lack of tools for extending various sections of MOSS, which equates to a somewhat unapproachable API. Be one of the few that can make MOSS dance, and you have big consulting dollars. Create some great add-ins and wizards for common tasks, and make money selling them. There’s a lot left on the table here for developers. And if you know ASP.NET 2.0, your life will be all the easier. I don’t think I can stress this enough, MOSS is the single largest area of opportunity for developers and architects.
2. Silverlight. The post-MIX buzz wasn’t just on blogs. Some of the largest companies I work with (yep, many of the same ones you saw as MIX demos) are looking hard at Silverlight. Expect some incredibly cool implementations that many other sites are bound to want to imitate. The whole RIA and AJAX thing is just going to get louder, looks like a good wave to ride for awhile. There’s a lot of excitement beyond the developer level, at the executive level, for Silverlight.
3. ASP.NET. If you can’t recite the Page and Control Lifecycle for ASP.NET, you should start committing it to memory. Reiterating that SharePoint technologies are built upon ASP.NET 2.0. The more I see how companies are making decisions to base their entire infrastructure around SharePoint, the more I think that there will be work for years to come for ASP.NET developers. Re-familiarize yourself with JavaScript, learn what JSON can do for you. Get to know the ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 library, there’s going to be a lot of JSON-related work for awhile to come, especially since this is getting rolled into the next version of ASP.NET. Get to know IIS, especially IIS7.
4. Windows Workflow Foundation. If you don’t get why this is a game-changer and is near the top in a short list of technologies, then you haven’t spent time really looking at it yet. Look at how MOSS 2007 implements WF with out-of-box workflow templates for approvals. Go look at DinnerNow.net and look at how WF was used in that solution. Instead of trying to refactor 10-15 ASP.NET pages to make changes to a process, why not just load up the WF designer and encapsulate the process visually? I heard a great explanation this week by Ted Pattison.  The CLR is a boundary for applications because your types can only live within their created AppDomain, within a process.  WF extends the CLR across processes and provides out of box services for persistence and isolation.  This is the stuff that companies are looking for… how to make the hard stuff easier.  Spend the time understanding it, see how the paradigm shift of how to build applications will make your programming life better.
5. Windows Communication Foundation. We are seeing more and more companies allocating budgets to figure out what SOA means to them and why they care. A big reason is that WCF can be faster than what you are using today. We are seeing a lot of companies that are starting to get the whole loosely coupled, message-based architecture idea. And those same customers are starting to see that if you are going to build an architecture based on WS-* you would be crazy not to use Microsoft’s stack. Yep… another area to focus on for developers and architects. There’s a ton of room for ISV’s and SI’s alike.
6. SQL Server Integration Services. SQL Server 2005 has a huge surface area to cover, it would be ridiculous to try to say “focus on SQL Server 2005″. And if you are using any of the above technologies, you know how to write TSQL. What you might not have focused on is how to use SSIS to process data visually. I see developers all the time trying to figure out how to move huge amounts of data from one store to another and map values, fields, and columns programmatically. This is what SSIS excels at.
7. Domain Specific Languages. I will admit, this seemed like a very half-baked concept that Microsoft was limping into. We introduced the DSL Toolkit amidst a ton of blog buzz… and then seemingly nothing. After watching the Patterns & Practices group churn out some incredibly useful software factories, you can’t help but give Software Factories and DSLs a second look. Try baking your company’s architectural approach and tools into a set of reusable designers through the DSL Toolkit. I know it’s got a steep learning curve, but the results can be amazing. We have been working with a partner on a proof of concept that we will be unveiling this week in New York City… I can’t wait to see people’s faces when they see DSL taken past a Hello, World demo.
8. Identity Metasystem. Spend your time understanding how to use CardSpace to secure your ASP.NET and WCF apps. CardSpace is an identity selector for the Identity Metasystem. The really cool part is how you build a website that accepts Information Cards. The real interesting meat is how you build your own Secure Token Issuing Service. Not straight-forward to implement yet, so getting into this now will put you much farther than everyone else as various solutions continue to introduce themselves into the marketplace. Spend your time figuring out how to leverage CardSpace for your web site, there is starting to be a huge demand for people who understand how to make the end-user’s experience better where security is concerned.
9. Visual Studio Tools for Office. I’ve never been an Office client developer before, and this one took me awhile to understand. VSTO will be a game-changer for application developers. When you see Office 2007 with MOSS 2007 and its out of box functionality for content types, you might say “hmm, ok, that’s cool.” Once you see how easy it is to use the Ribbon API and create your own task panes in Excel and Word, you might think “OK, I see where that could be useful.” Once you see the whole thing together in a solution with SharePoint, then you will have the a-ha moment. It’s not just about VSTO, it’s about how you can integrate client applications with SharePoint. Get to know SharePoint, get to know VSTO. This is how many companies are seeing the future, and seeing that they can put together solutions much faster than you can with any other platform or technology.
10. Virtual Earth. There are so many opportunities for Virtual Earth in everything from mashups to blogs to corporate applications that it is just amazing. How about a SharePoint app that surfaces all of your backend data from SAP, provides data visualizations using Silverlight, and enables mapping through Virtual Earth? Just look at the Accruent demo to get a taste of what other companies are seeing.

The following is copying from Kirk Allen Evans’ Blog in MSDN blog

I have been working with two separate customers over the past few days on the same problem.  Both have an existing web application that they are migrating to ASP.NET 2.0.  They both wrote their own authentication functionality, and are now considering how to leverage the existing store with ASP.NET 2.0 Membership.

Consider a table that looks something like this:

Obviously, this looks a lot different than the schema for Membership that is created when you run aspnet_regsql.  If you want to retrofit your existing table into the Membership system, do you create a custom MembershipUser type and expose the OfficePhone, CellPhone, and Pager values as public properties, or do you leverage the Profile system instead?

You could extend the MembershipUser class and expose a few properties, but that ties your application to that specific provider.  For instance, any time you want to access the Pager value, you would need to do something like:

CustomMembershipUser u = Membership.GetUser("bob",true) As CustomMembershipUser;
if(null != u)
{
    TextBox1.Text = u.Pager;
}

You would not only have to cast to your custom MembershipUser type, but you also need to check to see if the correct type is returned, lest someone switch to a different provider.  This is the real aversion I have to extending MembershipUser, since your application cannot easily take advantage of new providers later without rework. 

A better approach would be to split the information into two providers, Membership and Profile.  The Membership API is only concerned with authentication, where the Profile API allows you to access any other characteristic data regarding a user.  Since the attributes OfficePhone, CellPhone, and Pager are not related to Authentication in our system, it makes sense to classify them as attributes of the entity and store them via the Profile API.

The really interesting part is that you can achieve this without making changes to the backing store, only customizing the internal implementation within your custom Profile provider.  That is, you could create a custom Profile that leverages the same exact store as Membership on the backend, but this is completely transparent to the developer and the end user. 

Splitting this into the 2 APIs with a common backing store is a good approach because it allows you to swap out the backend providers at a later time, or make changes to the APIs independently of each other.  Suppose you want to move to Active Directory at some later point, leveraging Active Directory Application Mode for application-specific catalog extensions without affecting the global catalog.  Leveraging AD for the backing store would allow you to modify user profile data on a global basis so that it is available across the enterprise (the same properties show up in your Outlook contacts, Office Communicator presence information, Address Book, and your applications) without maintaining it separately in multiple locations.  If you extend MembershipUser as discussed previously, this is going to be a much more difficult migration.  Leverage Profile as suggested, and you will be able to simply swap out providers.

See Scott Guthrie’s blog entry for an example of implementing a Membership and Profile system.

1) ContentPage.Load fire;
2) then MasterPage.Load;
3) ContentPage.Button.Click.

When you work with master pages and content pages, both can use the same events (such as Page_Load).Be sure you know which events come before others. You are bringing two classes together to create a singlepage class, and a specific order is required. When an end user requests a content page in the browser, the event ordering is as follows:Master page child controls initialization: All server controls contained within the master page are first initialized.
Content page child controls initialization: All server controls contained in the content page are initialized.
Master page initialization: The master page itself is initialized.
Content page initialization: The content page is initialized.
Content page load: The content page is loaded (this is the Page_Load event followed by the Page_LoadComplete event).
Master page load: The master page is loaded (this is also the Page_Load event).
Master page child controls load: The server controls on the master page are loaded onto the page.
Content page child controls load: The server controls on the content page are loaded onto the page.

Anyway, I have some problem now, cause I have to set the value when button.click and get the value when another/same contentPage load. But….Ordering is…..Button.Click is fire the last. I have to search more in order to solve it.

Another interesting issue I found afterward, I open up .NET Documentation, type the “operator overloading” keyword in Index Tab, I found a C# article(“Help me, I am overloaded”) on Operator Overloading and explain to you how to do so, why to do so(ms-help://MS.VSCC.v80/MS.MSDN.v80/MS.VSADD.v10.en/dncscol/html/csharp06212001.htm). But when I click in VB, it only shows you the “SAMPLE”(ms-help://MS.VSCC.v80/MS.MSDN.v80/MS.VisualStudio.v80.en/dv_vbcode/html/30202e10-8bdc-47dc-8fd1-f0ff9ffa0641.htm). Oh…god…no article in VB? How the VB beginner learn and understand it then? No wonder why he said the above comment.

This is a great conversation with some of the industry’s most influential programming language designers. Tune in. You may be surprised by what you learn…

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Microsoft is pleased to present a trial version of Expression Blend. This fully functioning version will expire 60 days after installation.

Help us improve Expression Blend by reporting any technical issues. For more insight into Expression Blend, please see the Expression team blog.

For more information about the .NET Framework 3.0, see the .NET Framework 3.0 Development section of the Windows Software Development Kit. Please also refer to 3rd-party books that are good resources for learning WPF.

In order to edit code, if you do not have Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 installed, you will also need a free copy of a Visual Studio 2005 Express edition from the Visual Studio Express Web site (choose either the Visual Basic or C# edition).

Windows Vista:

1. Download and install Expression Blend.
2. Download and install Visual Studio 2005 Express (Visual Basic or C#).

Windows XP SP2:

1. Install .NET Framework 3.0 first before attempting to install Expression Blend.
2. Download and install Expression Blend.
3. Download and install Visual Studio 2005 Express (Visual Basic or C#).

http://blogs.msdn.com/vbteam/archive/2007/04/09/live-from-redmond-webcast-series-beth-massi.aspx

However there are a few statements I’d go on the record as making about the two populations that I think are unequivocally true (and are correlated in numerous quantitative research projects we have conducted):

•  
  • Designers tend to wear black clothes, often turtlenecks, as much as 67% of the time in winter months
  • Developers like free t-shirts received at tech conferences (or as morale boosters at work), where as designers tend to use these shirts as extra materials for collages and cleaning up acrylic paint from their art-boards
  • Most designers can’t do math or quantitative thinking above a high-school level, rather, they make decisions purely through emotional intuition and guessing
  • Developers don’t understand modern art, don’t attend techno or electronic live performances, and only read non-fiction books
  • And contrary to popular belief, Santa Claus is a designer, not a developer…

Yes, the point is that any characterization of “designer” or “developers” is bound to fail, and the above examples are merely a yarn.  But I bet I had (many of) you on “designers wear black”…

By now you’ve heard about Microsoft Expression, a new product family from Microsoft “for professional web and interactive designers”.  Yes, “designers”, not “developers” (haven’t I fully undermined the validity of those terms yet?)  Coupled with our Visual Studio product line for “developers”, the two product lines together aim to radically improve the process of collaboration amongst teams of “designer/developers”.  We think role specific tools will help users with different skill sets, sensibilities, and passions to feel more at home in their tool of choice, while simultaneously allowing everyone to just swap projects/files and iterate along the way from concept to delivery of a project. 

Back in December of 2006 Microsoft shipped Expression Web (the rest of the Expression Studio is coming really soon (this quarter)) and they decided NOT to include it within any of the MSDN Subscriptions that many developers and organizations use to stay up to date on all things msft platform/tools. 

As of today Microsoft is adding Expression Web to MSDN Premium subscriptions (and the greater Team Edition offerings), and it will be available for download immediately.  This is the full product license, per other products available in MSDN subscriptions.  Microsoft is also going to include Expression Blend  in these subscriptions once it ships. By doing so, they are doing the right thing for not only “developers”, but hope this will also benefit “designers” who adopt the full Expression Studio and work on teams collaboratively with “devs”.  So much of what Microsoft is delivering in next generation platforms (ASP.NET, “WPF/E”, WPF) can only fully be exploited and realized when both the visual/interactive/emotional design is coupled with the functional, programmatic, deployable and secure manifest—and that is the focus that drove this decision, irrespective of what you call the person who does what on the project.

Source from: Somasegar’s Weblog(Corporate VP, Developer Division)