Some user groups are announcing their next events:

• VISUG meeting on the "Guidance Automation Toolkit" (Wednesday 9 August) 
• SQL Server User Group on "Advanced monitoring and tuning techniques in SQL Server 2005" (Thursday 14 September)
• .NET User Group Brugge on "Visual Basic and C#" (Wednesday 20 September)

VISUG will also soon announce a redelivery of their Visual Studio Team System workshop.

At MGX 2006, we got the see, hear and experience several exciting things. One of those was a presentation of Blaise Agüera y Arcas on Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth. As always when you get to see a result from Microsoft Research (or Microsoft Live Labs in this case) project, you can expect something extraordinary, something really fancy... Same again this time with Photosynth. I'm convinced that this software has the ability to change our view on digital photos and images and the way we will work with them.

According to its website, Photosynth will enable you to:

• walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle;
• seamlessly zoom in or out of a photograph even if it's gigapixels in size;
• see where pictures were taken in relation to one another;
• find similar photos to the one you’re currently viewing;
• explore a custom tour or see where you’ve been; or
• send a collection to a friend.

You can learn more about Photosynth:

• at the Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth website;
• with the "Dive into the World of Photosynth" video;
• with the "Take the Photosynth Tour" video;
• by watching the Channel 9 video interview "Photosynth: What. How. Why." with Blaise Agüera y Arcas;
• by watching the On10 video report "A Global 3D World On Your PC";

Screenshot from Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth

At this moment it is not yet possible to try the software yourself, as there is no download available. Get updates on the Photosynth team blog (or by subscribing to their RSS feed).

[Found reference to Photosynth on Kris Hoet's Cross The Breeze blog]

Tags: Microsoft Photosynth imaging

It's .NET Framework 3.0 (previously known as WinFX) time at MSDN's Showtime. The sessions are taped during "WinFX On Tour" in some European countries earlier this year. Unfortunately the tour did not come to Belgium, but here is your chance to see the presentations too.

Introducing Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), CardSpaces (previously InfoCard) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)
Run time: approx. 50 minutes
Language: English
Recorded at "WinFX On Tour" on April 20th 2006 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Introducing Windows Workflow Foundation (WF)
Run time: approx. 59 minutes
Language: English
Recorded at "WinFX On Tour" on April 20th 2006 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Tags: Microsoft WinFX .NET development webcast

I know, I know; it's not new... And it's inspired on something created by a big fast food chain in the US. But nevertheless: here is the subservient programmer. Just give him any command, and he'll (try to) comply.

If you have even more free time, you might even want to consider how to create your own subservient character, with tutorials covering both development and filming.

PS. The original one that I'm referring too is subservient chicken.

Our colleagues at MSDN in Germany posted a "simple" 3D game, written using Visual C# and managed DirectX: Rocket Commander. It comes with a Coding4Fun tutorial article, 10 step-by-step video tutorials (each 30 minutes), many links and resources and of course, the full source code. Feel free to modify the code and create "mods" of the original version. You can find some of such mods on the RocketCommander.com website.

You can also download an installer for the game only. .NET Framework 2.0 and the Managed DirectX version of December 2005 are required to play the game.

Here's a screenshot from the original Rocket Commander and one of the "Mod" Pizza Commander:

Tags: Microsoft .NET development directx game

I'm still at MGX, Microsoft's yearly field gathering, in Orlando, Florida. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to have a discussion with Dan Fernandez, the guy with the best job at Microsoft - at least according to himself. He's the lead product manager for Visual Studio Express and a great guy. You might remember him as speaker at the MSDN "On Tour" Event on Visual C# and Windows Forms last year in Brussels.

Dan showed some really cool stuff, which I absolutely want to share. Here is the first one:

 
Picture by Clint Ruskas

Clint actually used Visual C# to create an application to control his custom-build LED Disco Floor. Have a look at some of the videos that Clint posted on his blog that demonstrate the capabilities of his Disco Floor and the application. If you want to know how this was built in about 10 months, be sure to check out the Disco Floor article for MSDN's Coding4Fun website. And of course Clint Ruskas' blog at BetterThanEveryone.com.

I must say, I'm amazed... This is absolutely cool. Thanks for sharing, Dan!

Tags: Visual C#, Microsoft, technology, software

Our Luxembourger colleagues are very proud (and so are we, in Belgium): for the first time we've released Luxembourgish Language Interface Packs for both Windows XP and Office 2003. This means that now it is possible to have your Windows XP and Office 2003 interfaces in the Luxembourgish language.

Here are the downloads:

Windows XP in Luxembourgish

• Download the Windows® XP Lëtzebuergeschen Interface Pak

Office 2003 in Luxembourgish

• Download the Office 2003 Lëtzebuergeschen Interface Pak
• In order to get this Language Interface Pack working, you'll also have to download following updates for Windows XP:
  • If you are using an English version of Windows XP, please download this language locales update.
  • If you are using a French version of Windows XP, please download this language locales update.
  • If you are using a German version of Windows XP, please download this language locales update.

The Luxembourg "Ministry of National Education and Professional Formation" posted information (in Lëtzebuergesch) on their website about the Lëtzebuergeschen Interface Language Packs.

It's already announced for 2 weeks on MSDN Belgium & Luxembourg: there is a new book of the month. During July and August, MSDN Connection members can get a 40% discount on the book "MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit: Microsoft® .NET Framework 2.0—Application Development Foundation". This book helps developers prepare for taking Microsoft Certification exam 70-536.

A few days before this promotion went live, I received some annoying news from Microsoft Press. Apparently the book was far more popular than forecasted. As a result, we could only get about 10% of the ordered number of books in the participating shops at the start of the promo. But I just received an e-mail that the rest of the order has now been delivered to the shops.

Now do I find this book and the certification interesting? Well, I didn't read the book. But yes, I do find it interesting because I see value in certifying your developer skills. Yes, I was a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer for Visual Studio 6.0 and I'm still a Microsoft Certified Professional. You can check out my MCP transcript at https://mcp.microsoft.com/authenticate/validatemcp.aspx: use transcript ID 674356 and access code X7S3vApN68. (Note: If you're an MCP, you can also publicize your MCP transcript by logging on to the MCP Secure Site and choosing "View My"/"Transcript Sharing Code" from the menu.) Although these credentials matter less in my current (community manager) job at Microsoft Belgium, they helped me in several ways during the time that I was a self-employed developer. I'd be glad to explain all this in person, so don't hesitate to ask me about certification.

I personally studies for my MCP exams using Self-Paced Training Kits (on top of several other resources, such as website articles and experience of course). And I've never failed for any of them. OK, for some exams, I also used exam simulators to be better prepared. Today there is also the Skills Assessment website that helps you evaluate your current skills.

As an alternative for preparing with Self-Paced Training Kits, you could also attend in-depth training classes at any of the Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions (here is a list of Belgian and Luxemburger CPLS's).

Weren't you in time to get your copy of Windows Vista beta 2? For Flemish speaking Belgians there is an alternative to get a copy of this software: PC Magazine België has included the Windows Vista beta 2 DVD with a product key. On top this, you'll also get a CD with "Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition (English)".

PC Magazine België, edition July/August 2006, includes a copy of Windows Vista Beta 2.

Tags: Microsoft Windows Windows Vista

Do you need to buy new hardware for running Windows Vista? As I'm not a subject matter expert on this, I'm going to stick with the details of my own experience with my 2 year old home desktop computer that is running Windows Vista beta 2 and Office 2007 beta 2.

It's an HP Workstation xw5000 machine with some good extentions, such as a Hercules graphics adaptor (ATI Radeon 9800XT) and a SATA hard disk. Although this machine is more than 2 years old, it runs Windows Vista beta 2 and Office 2007 beta 2 extremely smooth. Installation was a breeze and Windows Vista Aero was enabled by default. Here is a screenshot of Windows Vista's Performance Rating of this machine:

Windows Vista's performance rating of my HP Workstation xw500.

Just in case you want to know, we've put up a page that gives an overview of when a PC is Windows Vista Capable or Premium Ready. You can also have a look at the minimum system requirements for Windows Vista.

Tags: Microsoft Windows Windows Vista

A long time ago, I promised my great colleagues David and Arlindo to blog about my experiences as an end-user of Windows Vista and 2007 Office system (thus not as a developer). Due to high workload and some personal holidays I didn't blog anything about my Windows Vista User Experiences yet.

This will be my first post in a series about big and tiny enhancements that I found pretty cool while using those products. Let's start with a tiny but nice improvement...

Situation: As power user, you are listing your files with the file extensions displayed. When you're going to rename a file, Windows automatically selects the entire file name, including the extention. Because of this, it happens more than once that you change a file's extention unwillingly. Windows XP warns you that you're about the change the extention of the file.

Improvement in Windows Vista: When you want to rename a file, Windows Vista will only select the name part of the file name but not the file extention. When you start typing, you'll only change the name but never the extention.

When renaming a file name in Windows Vista, the OS automatically selects only the name of the file.

Tags: Microsoft Windows Windows Vista

Yes, there are some possibilities...

• For our enterprise customers, we're having a job opening as "Solution Sales Application & Development Platform". In this role, you'll be a sales professional, responsible for the developer tools (Visual Studio), SQL Server and the integration servers.
• If you want to become my new manager, you can apply for the "DPE Lead" job. "DPE" is the department at Microsoft I work for. It's an acronym for "Developer & Platform Evangelism".
• I'll soon be hiring a "telesales account manager" for developer tools (i.e. Visual Studio, VSTO and VSTS).

This is just a limited list of the open positions at Microsoft Belgium. You can get an up-to-date and complete list at http://www.microsoft.be/jobs (more than 20 at this moment!).

Oh, one last thing... Recently we welcomed Philippe Blondeaux as the new ISV Developer Evangelist in our team. Philippe used to work for EPG (the department that focuses on the big enterprises). I'm sure his knowledge is a real addition to the DPE team in Belgium. Now Philippe, when will you start your own blog?

Tags: Microsoft jobs

In my previous post, I already mentioned that we recorded several outstanding presentations for developers and make them available for viewing online. Besides that series of ASP.NET videos of my previous post, there is also a series of presentations about Visual Basic 2005.

What's new in Visual Basic
For line of business application developers, Visual Basic 2005 was designed to be the most productive tool for building applications which target Windows, Office, Web and Mobile applications. See how language and environment features such as the My namespace, IntelliSense code snippets and AutoCorrect can help to simplify some programming challenges. Brought by Jay Roxe and Tyler Whitney from Microsoft's Visual Basic product team.

Windows Forms 2.0 development and deployment
Building professional looking applications with Windows Forms has been greatly simplified due to new Controls delivered in Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Take an in-depth look at the new Windows Forms data features and see how to use these features to bind custom business objects to Windows Forms controls. Finally, see how ClickOnce deployment gives you the ability to easily deploy and version your application and all of its prerequisites.

Introduction to ASP.NET 2.0 using Visual Basic 2005
For the Visual Basic 2005 programmer, the new release of ASP.NET 2.0 makes web application development more accessible than ever. The new features in ASP.NET 2.0 can be grouped into three broad categories: controls, improvements to the Page Framework, and new services and APIs. Visual Studio 2005 combines rich site layout features, simplified Web data access, dynamic Web projects, and other features that enable rapid construction of dynamic Web applications. Learn about enhancements to the visual designers and coding tools, as well as features that facilitate code reuse, visual consistency, and aesthetic appeal across your Web sites.

Smart Client Development using Visual Studio Tools for Office and Windows Mobile
Have you ever wanted to take advantage of Excel or Word in one of your Visual Basic applications? Do you have a Smartphone and want to see ways that you can write applications for it? See how your Visual Basic 2005 skills give you the ability to target these new environments.

Tags: Microsoft Visual Basic .NET development webcast

With MSDN's Showtime, you can watch world-class presenters bring their best presentations from several big events around the world. On MSDN's Showtime, you can currently watch the following "blockbuster" movies:

ASP.NET Differences
In this session Dave Webster looks at the key differences between ASP 2.0 and previous versions of ASP.

ASP.NET Tips and Tricks
Interested in the latest tips and tricks for ASP.NET 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005? Stefan Schakow gives an update to Scott Guthrie's famous tips & tricks session from the 1.x days redone, updated, and improved for ASP.NET 2.0!

ASP.NET 2.0 Data Controls
This talk discusses the fundamentals of data access and how to render data ina web site using the new data source and data-bound controls in ASP.NET 2.0. Topics covered include binding to a SQL database, performing sorting, paging, update, insert, and delete operations, building data access and business object layers, rendering customization using templates, and improved performance through caching. This talk also covers aspects of Visual Studio 2005 Express and SQL Server 2005 Express for building data-driven web sites.

ASP.NET 2.0 - Master pages, themes, and site navigation
Properly integrating the powerful features of ASP.NET 2.0 into a high quality, professional site design is often difficult. In this talk, we will look at specific best practices, tips and tricks, and other lessons learned to help you more easily customize Master Pages, Site Navigation, themes, and more to build the most attractive and functional Web Sites possible.

ASP.NET "Atlas" (a.k.a. building AJAX applications with ASP.NET)
Take a first look at "Atlas", a new set of technologies that will build on innovations in ASP.NET 2.0 and make it easier to build Web applications that deliver rich, interactive, and personalized experiences in the browser using technologies such as DHTML and XMLHttp. Atlas includes a 100% JScript cross-browser client script framework that allows you to easily build browser applications with rich UI and connectivity to Web services, full integration with ASP.NET application services such as user profiles, a set of ASP.NET server controls for "Atlas", and a set of client application services. Learn how you can use the "Atlas" preview release and ASP.NET 2.0 to start developing richer Web applications.

Tags: Microsoft ASP.NET .NET development webcast

If you ever have a question regarding purchase of an MSDN Subscription or need support for your MSDN Subscriptions, you can contact the MSDN Information Center (for EMEA). Just for your reference (and mine :)), here is an overview of the ways to get in touch with MSDNIC:

• By phone (works only from Belgian landlines): 0800/80.138
• By phone: +353 (1) 8831014
• By fax: +353 (1) 883 1013
• By e-mail: msdnic@eu.subservices.com

As of today, I'm no longer a twenty something... Still enjoying a week of holidays, and hope to resume blogging next week. Till later.

Steven Wilssens, the president of the Belgian Visual Studio User Group, was recently hired by John Montgomery to work at the Microsoft product team in Redmond. Steven will take up the role as product manager in John's team that works on a project code-named "Tuscany".

Congratulations for that, Steven! Here in Belgium, we'll miss your knowledge, passion, dedication and enthusiasm for software development in its broadest sense.

This makes the list of Belgians going to work at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond longer again. In the past few years I saw the following great guys leave for Redmond:

• Jonathan "Peli" de Halleux, SDE/T in the Common Language Runtime team
• Thomas Delrue, SDE in the Visual Studio product team
• and now... Steven Wilssens

But there are a lot more Belgians working at Microsoft in Redmond: Ronald Laeremans, Yves Dolce, Guy Gilbert, just to name a few...

With the opening ceremony for the World Cup Football 2006 in Germany that is currently running, this is a perfect time to draw your attention to the Football/Soccer Scoreboard gadget application.

Abstract:

Follow your favorite teams and players during the FIFA World Cup tournament with Microsoft Soccer Scoreboard. This fun program allows you to access all the latest tournament news and information with the click of a button! Live game data allow you to monitor your favorite teams progress in real-time. Want more? Check out your team’s fixture (schedule), standing, and news as they advance through the tournament. If you are a soccer fan, don’t miss a minute of the action. Download Microsoft Soccer Scoreboard today!

We already released CTPs (community technical previews) of 2 parts of the Microsoft Expression product line:

• Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer and
• Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer

Today, we announce the availability of the first CTP of the third part, the Microsoft Expression Web Designer. This is an ideal opportunity for web designers to get their hands on this technology and start working with it. Expression Web Designer is a new tool that enables an easier and closer collaboration between web designers an web developers. It supports all the features that you would expect from a modern website design tool, such as CSS 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1 support, XHTML support (strict and transactional), easily build views based on XML data, and of course ASP.NET support.

The first CTP can be downloaded (224 MB) from the web. If you want to get a quick overview first, be sure to check out the features list and the feature tour demo videos.

Update: It seems some people (including me) can't install it and get an error message "The installation of this package failed." Hopefully this gets resolved quite soon.

Update 16 May 2006: The installation problem should be solved if you download the software again.

Tags: Expression Web Designer

Maarten Schenk showed a nice touch of blogger humor at Blognomics, a blogger conference in Amsterdam. He created the following entry for the "Shoot the web-logs.nl girls" competition at the event:

[Via Coolzor]