Effective Thoughts

A few years ago, my career touched on Sharepoint 2003 but I haven't worked with it in some time. My group is starting to see some traction with it so I decided to update my understanding. First off, as Microsoft is fond of doing, there are at least five different versions of Sharepoint. This chart , while far from concise, communicates the functionality in the different offerings. I found it helpful for my breath of understanding. Also, I'm investigating books I can read in my free time. Here's what I came up with along with some suggestions from the gurus at my firm (thanks, Leon , Steve ): Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Unleashed Professional SharePoint 2007 Development Pro SharePoint 2007 Development Techniques (Pro) Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Pro Developer) Real World SharePoint 2007 Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Technologies: Planning, Design and Implementation Professional SharePoint 2007 We...

Last night we held our bi-monthly practice meeting at the office. One of the guys on my team presented LINQ . We got to talking about the ADO.Net Entity Framework and someone wondered about vendor support. InfoQ is reporting this morning eight vendors have already jumped on board issuing their support in the near future. Beta3 of the framework released two weeks ago so I'm looking for an RTM maybe early Q2...?

From the link... The free e-book includes content from three recent publications from Microsoft Press: Introducing Microsoft LINQ by Paolo Pialorsi and Marco Russo (ISBN: 9780735623910) This practical guide covers Language Integrated Query (LINQ) syntax fundamentals, LINQ to ADO.NET, and LINQ to XML. The e-book includes the entire contents of this printed book! Introducing Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX by Dino Esposito (ISBN: 9780735624139) Learn about the February 2007 release of ASP.NET AJAX Extensions 1.0, including an overview and the control toolkit. Introducing Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 by Laurence Moroney (ISBN: 9780735625396) Learn how to use Silverlight to simplify the way you implement compelling user experiences for the Web. Discover how to support an object-oriented program model with JavaScript.

Word Press?

Our development shop [gently ;-)] ostracizes the developer who "breaks the build" as a way to encourage quality. We also deliver awards for the group who breaks the build most infrequently. Unfortunately, the carrot and the stick treatment doesn't always work. Completing the build locally is a good first step but obviously, it doesn't replicate the server CI process identically. Brian Harry writes of an open source solution for TFS described as " Gated Check-ins ". The code is shelved until receiving the necessary sign-offs (manual or automated) and can successfully pass the build sequence. Once successful, the source is unshelved and submitted into the "real" build sequence.

I'm sure there are other on/offline blogging applications but I've recently taken up using the Windows Live Writer application. It's a WISIWYG editor that enables you to draft posts, save them locally, and when connected to the Internet, post to your blog. I also like the style-import feature. This allows one to suck in the theme of your blog so even when editing locally, you know what the post will look like when posted. Finally, it supports most platforms. I use it on both TypePad and Blogger (and soon on WordPress). My team from The Freestyle Entrepreneur constantly complains about the TypePad editor. Fine, we're switching to Live Writer! (I'm migrating off TypePad as soon as I get our WordPress site running anyway. ;-)

Today I'm attending the MSDN Visual Studio 2008 launch event at the AMC Theatres at Easton Town Center in Columbus, OH. William Steele , Microsoft Developer Evangelist is fielding the discussion for the entire day: Visual Studio 2008, Astoria and Silverlight in the morning and IIS7/ASP.Net in the afternoon. I've never seen William speak but I receive his updates via MSDN emails. He's handling the crowd well and is smooth with the slides and demo. After delivering a bunch of presentations and seeing others present, I just have the greatest respect for folks who can not only pull off a big event like this but do it with comfort and a bit of humor. Topics included: Visual Studio 2008 - what's new .Net 3.0/3.5: C# 3.0/VB.Net 9.0, LINQ, anonymous types, etc. LINQ WCF/WF/WPF ADO.Net Entity Framework - abstract/extrapolate physical data model into conceptual model (Beta 3 released 12/5/2007...RTM expected Q2 2008) Codename Astoria - expose entiti...

Friday, I braved the early morning tumultuous weather in Columbus to travel to Detroit for a meeting with our Microsoft Heartland District's leaders Jeff Blankenburg (Developer Evangelist) and Josh Holmes (Architect Evangelist). Thanks again for the invitation, guys. The topic of the day focused on how Microsoft can best help the developer community. Most of the 20 or so attendees were affiliated with the local user groups in the district. Hey, at least they [Microsoft] are asking. Microsoft may not always get it right but I've been pleased at the creation of roles such as Developer and Architect Evangelist. This alone really bridges the gap between Microsoft and the community. Now Microsoft just needs to increase the budget for these road warriors. [hint, hint] As a thank you for attending the meeting, Jeff handed out USB Rocket Launchers . Somehow, he scored them from Micro Center for around $10. Nice work, Jeff, they're $35 on Think Geek ! Anyway, my 3-year-old co...

If you're anything like me, your responsibilities pull you in about 50 directions--all at once. This is especially true if you're in a technology career. For me, I maintain a list of goals surrounding my career which average around 10-12: figure out Oslo, get stronger with TFS...particularly Rosario, learn ASP.Net/C# 3.5, present technical topics often, maintain my certifications, keep my team happy and growing, etc. Typically, it has been my experience during my 12+ year career that conferences--especially non-vendor-managed conferences are not a good use of my time. One ends up burning a day or two with travel ('cause they don't do conferences in the mid-west), the topics and sessions are hit-or-miss, and they're expensive. CodeMash alleviates all of these shortcomings. Hosted right here in Ohio, the independent founders of CodeMash knocked one out of the park last year in their inaugural offering: logistics, price, content, speakers, SWAG, and organization. ...

I've been downloading and installing lots of software lately with the release of VSTS 2008 and the CTPs of Rosario. Downloading through a browser is mediocre at best. I started using Free Download Manager for the downloads and Magic ISO Maker to expand the ISOs. Check them out. First, they're both free but more importantly, they work great. FDM has built-in restart support and integrates seamlessly with browser downloads. Magic expanded my ISOs quickly and correctly.