Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Silverlight 4 Beta Information

Earlier this week at PDC09 in Los Angeles we unveiled a Beta version Silverlight 4. This latest version delivers hundreds of features and controls that, when combined with the continued innovation in Microsoft’s world-class tools for designers and developers — Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Expression Blend – present the leading edge in rapid, powerful application development. With printing support, rich reporting and charting, and integration with back-end systems and server products including Microsoft SharePoint, Silverlight is ready for business.

What’s New in Silverlight 4 Beta?

Silverlight 4 delivers a full suite of powerful capabilities to business application developers, bringing the best-of-breed .NET platform to browser-based experiences. Silverlight provides an ideal platform for developing and deploying modern business applications for both customer facing and staff-facing applications.

To learn more about beta release here are some good resource:

• http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/
• http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/Overview/Overview/
• http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/Overview/WhatsNew/

Additionally the Day#2 keynote announcement of Silverligh4 beta release from PDC09 is available on demand at:

• http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/KEY02

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[taken from Raj’s blog]

As you head into Thanksgiving weekend and start your holiday shopping, be sure to check out Bing cashback for great deals on gifts for everyone on your list.

With Bing cashback, you’ll earn a percentage of the product price as cash back. We’ve been adding new merchants to the program in anticipation of the holidays (including the likes of Endless, Macy’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods), bringing us to more than 1,000 stores where you can search, shop and save.

And, in the spirit of gift-giving, Bing cashback is offering extra cash back on purchases from select stores. Starting the day after Thanksgiving through 12/2, get up to 35% cashback from places like:

• eBay (10% cashback)
• AT&T (35%)
• Dell (20%)
• Best Buy (10%)
• Sephora (20%)
• Gap (10%)
• Footlocker (25%)
• …and more

Start shopping now by checking out our top gift ideas and don’t forget to come back on 11/27 to learn about our special holiday deals. These deals are available to all, so feel free to spread the cheer with friends and family.

The Azure Services Training Kit includes a comprehensive set of technical content including hands-on labs, presentations, and demos that are designed to help you learn how to use the Windows Azure platform including: Windows Azure, SQL Azure and .NET Services. The November release includes new and updated labs in addition to information about Microsoft Codename “Dallas”.

This training kit contains the following content:

• Presentations Presentations will be updated after PDC 2009 with all of the latest and greatest decks.
• Demos Demos will be updated after PDC 2009 with all of the latest and greatest demos.
• Hands On Labs
  • Introduction to Windows Azure
  • Exploring Windows Azure Storage
  • Deploying and Monitoring Applications in Windows Azure
  • Windows Azure: Worker Role Communication
  • Federated Authentication in a Windows Azure Web Role Application
  • Building ASP.NET Web Form Applications with Windows Azure
  • Introduction to SQL Azure
  • Migrating Databases to SQL Azure
  • SQL Azure: Tips and Tricks
  • Intro to Dallas
  • Introduction to the .NET Service Bus
  • Introduction to the .NET Access Control Service
  • Service Remoting with Service Bus
  • Eventing with the Service Bus

Samples and Tools

• PhluffyFotos

Supported Operating Systems:

• Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista; Windows Vista Service Pack 1
• .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
• Visual Studio 2008 SP1
• Windows Powershell

Instructions:
After downloading the training kit, run the self-extracting executable to extract all of the training kit files to your local machine. After the content is extracted, the starting page for the training kit will be displayed in your default browser. You can then browse through the individual hands-on labs, demos, and presentations.

Please Note: Many of these labs require Windows Azure platform developer accounts. To request an invitation code that can be used to register, please visit: http://www.azure.com

DOWNLOAD:  Windows Azure Platform Training Kit (193MB)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78&displaylang=en

LINK:  Windows Azure Web Site
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/windowsazure/

This year at PDC we announced the release of the Office 2010 Beta to the public as part of our Wave 14 launch.  This release was created based on your feedback, plus a year’s worth of validation and testing and the results are amazing!  Office 2010 offers an exceptional productivity experience across the PC, phone and browser.  The beta offers tons of new features such as Office Backstage View, Ribbon user interface across all applications,  photo and video editing in PowerPoint, fast new data comparison tools in Excel, improved mail/calendar management in Outlook and much more!  For your convenience I’ve put together a list of the Wave 14 line up along with a few highlights for each product, a list of extras and demos.  Please take a moment to experience what is undoubtedly our best release ever!

Wave 14 Demos

• Office 2010 Overview
• Excel 2010
• OneNote 2010
• PowerPoint 2010
• Word 2010
• Office Mobile
• SharePoint Workspace
• Office Web Apps
• Forefront

Wave 14 is a comprehensive solution that provides a rich and robust platform for the enterprise and web.  This release ensures that your organization can collaborate more effectively by optimizing resources in a way that drives business process improvements.  Now is the opportunity to see Office 2010 for yourself!  You’ll need to register for the beta first and then will be able to download Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta.

Get 10% Off Everything at the Microsoft Store!

The Official Microsoft Store is offering a 10% discount on all items including games, Xbox 360 consoles, Window 7, etc.  2 Xbox 360 Console deals are still in stock:

• Xbox 360 Elite holiday bundle w/ 2 games for $269.99 (Save $30)
• Xbox 360 Modern Warfare 2 Limited Edition Console – $359.99 (Save $40)

Offer valid 11/16/2009-11/25/2009.

Steps:

• 10% off everything in the Microsoft Store!
• Use promo code MSSTORE10%OFF (after billing screen, before final confirmation)

“Here at Live Labs we’re all about experiments, and Pivot is our most ambitious to date. Pivot makes it easier to interact with massive amounts of data in ways that are powerful, informative, and fun. We tried to step back and design an interaction model that accommodates the complexity and scale of information rather than the traditional structure of the Web.

Pivot is currently available by invitation only to a small technical audience to help us explore future scenarios. To learn more about Pivot and our vision for this project, check out this video, share it, embed it, and blog/tweet/post your thoughts about it.

Why We Think This Is Exciting

When we use the Web today we treat the most fundamental scenarios as separate activities. Search takes us from many things to one, browsing moves us from one thing to another, and recommendations expose affinities that enable us to explore related topics. Can we do better by combining these scenarios into a more unified experience?

Pivot focuses on this intersection, enabling us to learn key lessons while attempting to broadly apply this philosophy to the Web. We hope that Pivot will inspire and fuel transformative experiences across the Web.

At the heart of Pivot are "Collections." They combine large groups of similar items on the Internet, so we can begin viewing the relationships between individual pieces of information in a new way. By visualizing hidden patterns, Pivot enables users to discover new insights while interacting with thousands of things at once.

For those with access to our limited preview, this site includes a wealth of developer details to create Collections. We hope you will join our technical discussion to share your work and interact directly with the Pivot team. If you don’t have an invitation, please leave your email address and we will notify you if we expand our private preview in the future.

Also known as, you get what you pay for.

The wily statistical researchers at SquareTrade, the folks that insure/warranty products predominantly from eBay but also independently have found through their monster database of numbers that people that buy cheap laptops… usually end up with malfunctions up to 20% more often than folks that purchase higher end laptops.

In fact, Premium laptops have the lowest malfunction rate where as Netbooks get returned due to malfunction the most.  Surprised?

Additionally, SquareTrade broke down who’s laptops are most reliable versus who’s… well… have malfunctions more than the others.  The message is clear:  Smaller outfits tend to have fewer returns.

And there were some interesting discoveries along the way.

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Manufacturers: Vast Differences in Reliability

• When excluding accidental damage and examining hardware malfunctions by manufacturer, Asus and Toshiba come out on top.
• Apple and Dell both fall in the middle with approximately an 18 percent failure rate; while industry leader HP has the highest failure rate.
• Over one in four HP laptops in the study experienced a hardware malfunction during the first three years of ownership.

Other highlights of the study include:

• Asus and Toshiba were the most reliable manufacturers, with fewer than 16 percent having a hardware malfunction over three years.
• Netbooks are projected to have a 20 percent higher failure rate from hardware malfunctions than more expensive laptop computers.
• Manufacturers proved to be a more reliable determinant of reliability than the type of laptop and should be a greater factor in making a purchase decision.

DOWNLOAD:  SquareTrade Research:  “Nearly 1 in 3 Laptops fail over 3 years”
http://www.squaretrade.com/pages/laptop-reliability-1109/?ccode=bs_war_buyerblog

[taken from the SquareTrade blog]

I hate Scott Hanselman.  Alright.  Maybe I don’t hate him.  But I secretly seeth because his blog is so much better than mine. Sob.

Like this recent post.  I write posts that go deep on certain topics based on my own personal experience on that one topic. 

Scott on the other hand writes posts that are exhaustive in nature because of his breadth of experience and knowledge.

How the heck does one ‘list’ all the apps that leverage Windows 7’s inherent Aero Taskbar features?  Man – that’s just insane.

POST:  List of Applications that use new Windows 7 Features
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/LightItUpListOfApplicationsThatUseNewWindows7Features.aspx

For all geek poets,

A Windows Server haiku

Means prizes click here

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There’s no way to really explain this other than to just have you go to it and see for yourself.

The idea is to have folks generate some creative haikus… flex that IT brain, so to speak, around what Windows Server 2008 R2 delivers.

And by the way, there’s even a nice plug for our free Microsoft Press book, “Introducing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2”

LINK:  Windows Server 2008 R2 Haiku Contest
https://www.r2haiku.com/

Windows Management Framework, which includes Windows PowerShell 2.0, WinRM 2.0, and BITS 4.0, was officially released.

By providing a consistent management interface across the various flavors of Windows, we are making our platform that much more attractive to deploy. IT Professionals can now easily manage their Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 machines through PowerShell remoting – that’s a huge win!

The big component for myself is obviously Windows PowerShell 2.0.  Here’s a quick description of PS2.0 as described in the Support entry:

Windows PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting language that is designed for system administration and Automation. Built on the Microsoft .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell enables IT professionals and developers to control and automate the administration of Windows and applications.
New features that are introduced in Windows PowerShell 2.0 include the following:

• Remoting
  Windows PowerShell 2.0 lets you run commands on one or more remote computers from a single computer that is running Windows PowerShell. PowerShell remoting allows for multiple ways of connecting. These ways include interactive (1:1), fan-out (1:many), and fan-in (many:1 by using the IIS hosting model).
• Integrated Scripting Environment
  PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) enables you to run interactive commands and edit and debug scripts in a graphical environment. The main features include color-coded syntax, selective execution, graphical debugging, Unicode support, and context-sensitive help.
• Modules
  Modules allow for script developers and administrators to partition and organize their Windows PowerShell code in self-contained, reusable units. Code from a module executes in its own self-contained context and does not affect the state outside the module.
• Advanced functions
  Advanced functions are functions that have the same capabilities and behavior as cmdlets. However, they are written completely in the Windows PowerShell language, instead of compiled C#.
• Background jobs
  Windows PowerShell 2.0 allows for running a command or expression asynchronously and "in the background" without interacting with the console.
• Eventing
  This feature adds support to the Windows PowerShell engine infrastructure for listening, forwarding, and acting on management and system events.
• Script internationalization
  This new feature enables Windows PowerShell scripts to display messages in the spoken language that is specified by the UI culture setting on the user’s computer.
• Script debugging
  New debugging features were added to Windows PowerShell that let you set breakpoints on lines, columns, variables, and commands, and that let you specify the action that occurs when the breakpoint is hit.
• New cmdlets
  Windows PowerShell 2.0 introduces over 100 built-in cmdlets. These cmdlets, excluding other tasks, enables you to do computer-related, event log, and performance counter management tasks.

You can download the packages here:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=151321