On Friday, we published a new article by Jan TIelens (Belgian MVP for Sharepoint) on the MSDN Belgium & Luxembourg web site. In this article Jan shows the different web part platforms and developments techniques a developer can choose from for building Sharepoint web parts.

Here is the article summary:

Web Parts are a great opportunity for developers to customize SharePoint, both to extend the existing functionality and to bring functionality or data coming from external applications in SharePoint sites. You can say that web parts are the building blocks for a SharePoint site. Since web parts are around for quite some time now, and you can develop web parts by using more than one technique, it can be hard for developers to decide how to build their web parts. This article is discussing the different development techniques and web parts platforms available today and in the near future.

Tags: sharepoint, development, asp.net, microsoft, msdn

The Microsoft patterns & practices team is already active for quite some time. In that time, they've released a lot of valuable information, libraries and "software factories", such as the Enterprise Library, Composite UI Application Block, Upgrading Visual Basic 6.0 applications to VB.NET and VB 2005 guide, and much more...

Another of their projects is the "Guidance Automation Extensions and Guidance Automation Toolkit". This toolkit falls under the software factories initiave workbench category at MSDN. From the web site: "The Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) is an extension to Visual Studio 2005 that allows architects to author rich, integrated user experiences for reusable assets including frameworks, components and patterns. The resulting 'Guidance Packages' are composed of templates, wizards and recipes, which help developers build solutions in a way consistent with the architecture guidance."

Jelle Druyts has been diving deep into the toolkit and wrote a series of blog posts on this topic:

• Part 1:Introduction to the Guidance Automation June 2006 CTP
• Part 2: Creating a Guidance Package
• Part 3: Creating a C# project
• Part 4: Adding project references
• Part 5: Tuning the C# projects
• Part 6: Generating classes

Early in August, Jelle also gave a talk on this topic for Belgian Visual Studio User Group members. He also shares his Powerpoint presentation of this meeting.

Some extra personal thoughts on this: I must say that I'm very impressed with such community engagement. It must have taken Jelle quite a lot of time to learn and write that much about this topic. It also shows the benefit of joining a user group, as such topics are not typically covered during our MSDN events in Belgium (you know: "so much to tell, so little time").

Extra resources on the Guidance Automation Toolkit:

• Tom Hollander's blog (Microsoft employee)
• Wojtek Kozaczynski's blog (Microsoft employee)
• Daniel Cazzulino's blog
• Oscar Calvo's blog
• Community web site GuidanceAutomation.net

Tags: Microsoft development software factories community

Are developers eager to know more about the Windows Communication Foundation, Workflow Foundation, CardSpaces and the Windows Presentation Foundation? It must be so. With the exception of a few mentions (like in the MSDN Belux Flash and on the MSDN Belux website), we didn't make lot of promotion for our next MSDN Event on .NET Framework 3.0 (on September 25, 2006 in Kinepolis Brussels). Therefore I'm a bit surprised that just a few minutes ago already the 430th person registered for this event.

In the 4 years that I work on/for the Belgian developer audience, I've never seen registrations come in that fast with so little effort. I'd better ask a bigger theater for this event, shouldn't I...

Now, I wouldn't mind hearing from you why you think this event is so popular...

• Is it because of the speakers: Peter and Ingo? (They are great, aren't they?)
• Maybe you'd like to ask David in person if he can get you a free ticket for TechEd: Developers? (Good luck, but don't count that you'll succeed: he's responsible for the web development track at TechEd: Developers, not for the registration.)
• Has it been too long ago that you've seen a good looking registration desk hostess? (With that many people we'll need a lot of registration desk hostesses again.)
• Do you hope that we'll distribute a voucher for 10 free Windows Vista Ultimate boxes? (I can already tell you: we won't.)

Feel free to drop me an e-mail or a comment on this post with what you think is the reason. There are at least 5 MSPress books on the MSDN shelves waiting for a new owner. The "best" answers will get a copy.

Update 26 August: 460 people registered...

Tags: Microsoft, WinFX, .NET, development, Windows Vista

Yesterday our local big boss (the general manager of Microsoft Belgium & Luxembourg) briefly mentioned 2 guys named "Tom" that recently left Microsoft to start their own company. Just to avoid some confusion: I'm not one of those two. No need to call me for this.

Early Telenet customers (like me) may have a Telenet Internet Mono subscription. A while ago, Telenet decided to change their subscription types and didn't allow new subscriptions under the Telenet Internet Mono product. Instead, customers would have to choose Telenet Internet ExpressNet for an almost similar experience. Almost... With a few exceptions, such as 10 Mbps downstream (instead of 4 Mbps) and 256 Kbps upstream (instead of 192 Kbps), 2 IP addresses (instead of 1) and 4 mailboxes (instead of 2). The price of both products is equal.

The good news is that Telenet Internet Mono customers can modify their subscription at no charge. Oh, and if you're using an old cable modem (they'll show you the old and new modem types) that cannot deal with these "high speeds", Telenet will replace your modem... also for free.

Here's a screen shot of the Dutch web page where you can change your subscription:

I'm pretty sure Telenet had some good reasons not to change the Internet Mono product automatically into the Internet ExpressNet product for their customers. But that means that you'll have to do the switch yourself.

Credits for this tip go to Michel Vuijlsteke (link in Dutch) who published this info a few weeks ago.

Tags: Telenet

The Belgian Visual Studio User Group has just announced a redelivery of their Visual Studio Team System event of 1 July. The event will take place on Friday 8 September 2006 in Zaventem and the speaker will be Steven Wilssens, one of the few Team System MVP's worldwide (here's the entire list of VIsual Developer - Team System MVP's).

From the VISUG website:

This community event provides VISUG members with deep dive information on Visual Studio Team System 2005. During this event we will demonstrate the capabilities Visual Studio Team System 2005 in a way only user group can: not in theory but by live examples.

For other user group events in Belgium, please check my post of 2 weeks ago.

Tags: VISUG

Kris Hoet just notified me that the Windows Live Writer beta has gone public. I've been dogfooding a few internal versions for a few weeks already and must say that I'm still amazed by some of Windows Live Writer's functionalities. And yes, some of the past blog posts on my blog were posted with Windows Live Writer (not all, since I only had Writer installed on my notebook and not my home PC).

From the website:

Virtual Lab Express is the fastest and easiest way to test drive Microsoft products and the Virtual Lab environment. These are 20-minute hands-on overviews of some of your favorite Microsoft products and developer tools. Try them out online now - no need to download full trial versions or dedicate test machines.

Express: What’s New in ASP.NET 2.0

In this lab you will learn to:

• Create, prepare and utilize master pages
• Add TreeView and Menu navigation controls
• Use the new Login control

Express: What’s New in Visual Studio Team System

In this lab you will learn to:

• Create an application
• Create unit tests
• Determine and enable code coverage testing

Express: What’s New in Visual Studio 2005

In this lab you will learn to:

• Utilize improvements to the IDE
• Utilize the refactoring capabilities in C#
• Utilize new debugging features

Express: What’s New in BizTalk 2006

In this lab you will learn to:

• Quick Setup Review
• Import a BizTalk 2006 Application
• Examine Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)
• Deploy a Package as an msi file

Express: What’s New in SQL Server 2005

In this lab you will learn to:

• Use the SQL Server Management Studio
• Use the Try/Catch blocks in SQL
• PIVOT and UNPIVOT data

I'm currently on holidays, but it's nice to see that the rest of the MSDN Belux team is still active. We've just announced our next MSDN Event. On Monday September 25, we'll give you a full day event of .NET Framework 3.0 development in Kinepolis, Brussels. A more detailed agenda will be published on the site by the end of the month.

PS. Wim, the guy that works on the MSDN Belux website, assembled this graphic using Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer. He's using this tool for some time already and seems to be happy about it...

Update: the agenda is now also published. For the first time on such an event in Belgium, you can choose the sessions that you find the most interesting ones. And if that isn't enough, the event will be hosted by two Microsoft Regional Directors: Peter Himschoot (RD for Dutch speaking part of Belgium) and Ingo Rammer (RD for Austria). Both have a solid reputation when it comes to speaking engagements, technical skills and .NET Framework 3.0 knowledge.

Tags: Microsoft, WinFX, .NET, development, WIndows Vista

About one year and half ago, I blogged how you can configure an i-mate SP3i to enable GPRS and MMS for Proximus, a Belgian mobile phone operator. Recently I got a Qtek 8310 and apparently the configuration is a bit different on this phone. That's why I'm updating the configuration steps in the blog post.

1. Set up data connections
Click "Start"; "Settings"; "6 Connections".
Click "3" for "Dial-Up"
Open the menu and choose "Add"
Apply the following settings:
  Description: Proximus WAP Data
  Connects to: WAP Network
  Phone number: +32477151927
  User name: wap
  Password: wap
  Domain:
Click "Done" to save this dial-up connection. Click "Done" once again to go to the overview of different connections.
Click "4" for "GPRS".
Open the menu and choose "Add"
Apply the following settings:
  Description: Proximus Internet
  Connects to: The Internet
  Access Point: internet.proximus.be
  User name:
  Password:
  Primary DNS: 195.238.2.21
  Secondary DNS: 195.238.2.22
  IP address:
Click "Done" to save this GPRS connection.
Open the menu and choose "Add" again
Apply the following settings:
  Description: Proximus MMS
  Connects to: WAP Network
  Access Point: event.proximus.be
  User name: mms
  Password: mms
  Primary DNS: 0.0.0.0
  Secondary DNS: 0.0.0.0
  IP address:
Click "Done" to save this GPRS connection.
Open the menu and choose "Add" for the third time
Apply the following settings:
  Description: Proximus WAP GPRS
  Connects to: Secure WAP Network
  Access Point: wap.proximus.be
  User name: wap
  Password: wap
  Primary DNS: 0.0.0.0
  Secondary DNS: 0.0.0.0
  IP address: 10.253.7.3
Click "Done" to save this GPRS connection.
Click "Done" to quit the list of GPRS connections.
Go to the home page.

2. Configure MMS
Click "Start"; "Messaging".
Click "4" for "MMS".
Open the menu and click "8" for "Options".
Click "4" for "Account Options" and choose "2" for "MMS".
Open the menu and click "1" for "MMSC Settings".
Edit the existing configuration (probably named "Sample Server") and apply the following settings:
  Name: Proximus
  MMSC URL: http://mmsc.proximus.be/mms
  WAP Gateway: 10.55.14.75
  Port 9201
  Connect Via: "WAP Network"
  Max. Sending Size: 100K
  WAP Version: WAP 1.2
Click "Done" and go back to the home page.

It is necessary that GPRS and MMS are activated for your Proximus account. If you don't know how to activate these, please call the Proximus help desk from your mobile phone on the number 1212 (or +32 (475) 151212).

I don't know if all these settings are absolutely necessary, but I do know that once I set up my Qtek 8310 like this sending and receiving MMS'es worked correctly... If you only want to have GPRS connectivity, you only have to configure "Proximus Internet".

Please remember that I'm not employed by Proximus and don't have access to all their information. The information I share in this post was gathered from different sites on the internet and might or might not be correct.

OSCON 2006, O'Reilly's Open Source Convention, was held in Portland, Oregon (US) at the end of July. The team of Port 25, the website of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, was there too. And they got to interview two famous open source software advocates and conference organizers:

Bill Hilf interviews Tim O'Reilly
Tim O'Reilly is the CEO of O'Reilly Media and amongst several other things, he is known as an Open Source Software advocate. From the website:"In this interview Bill and Tim discuss the redefinition of 'Open Source', Web 2.0, and some other topics that arose in the first two days of the conference."

Bill Hilf interviews Matt Asay
Matt Asay is VP of Business Development at Alfresco, co-founder of OSCON, and thus also an Open Source Software advocate. From the website: "In this interview Matt and Bill discuss Open Source business models, monetization opportunties for open business apps, and thoughts on the first days of OSCON."

Related background information:

• Q&A on Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab
• Bill Hilf's short bio

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).