DOCUMENT OUTLINE

Notes on DotNet

November 2006

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer celebrated the launch of enterprise licensing for Vista and Office 2007 at the opening of trading at NASDAQ in New York. Public licensing is slated for January 30, 2007, and Ballmer says Microsoft will release thirty enterprise products in 2007.

Posted by John Dorsey at 10:09 PM  Permalink |

With the launch of Windows Vista for enterprise licensing set for Thursday, Microsoft has set up a site called Power Together where you catch dozens of webcast tutorials on developing for Windows Vista and Office 2007 together, as well as introductory videos covering the basic features of the new OS and apps.
The site is also featuring an offer for free, fully licensed versions of Windows Vista Biz and Office 2007 for visitors who watch a few videos, provide some feedback, and then are patient enough to wait about six to eight for the software to arrive. Note that the free software offer is only for those who aren't already MSDN members and live in the United States, but the tutorials are open to everyone.

The site also features discounts on MSDN memberships, forums, blogs, and whatever the heck else you want in there. There are many archived webcasts you can watch at your leisure, plus you can sign up for live casts and participate in discussions with the moderators.

[Update: The PT site now states that the free software offer is "SOLD OUT". I'm not sure how a free offer sells out, but you get the idea. The site still has a lot of useful info, so check it out just the same]

Posted by John Dorsey at 05:28 AM  Permalink |

The Windows SDK for Windows Vista and .NET Framework 3.0 Runtime was released earlier this month. It includes docs, samples, and tools to help you develop Windows apps using both Win32 and .NET 3.0 targeting Windows Vista. Also check out the Windows SDK Blog to stay on top of the latest updates.
And for something entirely more elemental, the December 2006 issue of Popular Science magazine is featuring the Most Beautiful Periodic Table Poster in the World.

Posted by John Dorsey at 05:25 AM  Permalink |

Scott Swigart evaluated version 1.0 release of Iron Python to see if it's ready for prime-time by building an app that lists information on the drives available at run time.
Scott experimented with Python's behavior by generating some compile time and run time errors. As Scott discovered, you can import and use any of the various .NET namespaces, however for now they lack Intellisense support.

If you want to check out Iron Python for yourself, Microsoft has also announced a CTP release of Iron Python integrated with ASP.NET. You can experiment with Iron Python in Visual Web Developer 2005 Express, as well. Microsoft's David Ebbo posted a white paper explaining how Iron Python is serving as a prototype for the new ASP.NET model for dynamic languages. David also listed the ASP.NET features that are, and are not, supported in Iron Python.

Posted by John Dorsey at 04:05 PM  Permalink |

Kevin Daly opted for a Vista upgrade rather than a clean install. He encountered a bug, but fortunately it was a literal one rather than anything related to Vista. Kevin's hardware was pretty new, so the most significant requirement for the upgrade was patience. In his case, it appears to have paid off beautifully.
Speaking of hardware, if it's been a while since your last trip to Fry's, and your main rig is not at least a Core Duo or Athlon X2, then take a look at the hardware upgrade advice provided by Bill O'Brien before stepping up to Vista.

Posted by John Dorsey at 02:15 PM  Permalink |

The MSDN Wiki was launched last June with the goal of extending the documentation for VS2005 and the .NET Framework. Although the project doesn't truly wiki-fy the MSDN docs -- opening them up to global edit -- it does provide a forum for readers' comments and code snippets to augment the official docs. Additionaly the project lets users improve the text of the machine-translated, non-English versions of the documentation. In its first few months, many Microsoft insiders have posted hundreds of additional insights. The MSDN Wiki has RSS feeds, so you can stay on top of hot topics. Scott Swigart talked to MSDN Wiki team members Rob Caron and Molly Bostic about their project's success to date and their future plans

Posted by John Dorsey at 08:43 PM  Permalink |

Jonathan Erickson voices his two cents about the four chords in Vista's new startup cha-cha.

Posted by John Dorsey at 08:06 PM  Permalink |

David Martin has documented some lessons learned in the trenches of building enterprise-scale web sites. In "8 Golden Rules to Develop and Design Quickly" he describes a hypothetical team of developers and designers whose dual skill sets might not be naturally in sync. The advice could come in handy for teams using the beta of Microsoft's new Dreamweaver-style web development tool now available for download: Microsoft Expression Web Beta 1
Another tool likely to bridge the divide being developers and designs, Microsoft just released the Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the 2007 Microsoft Office System Beta.

Posted by John Dorsey at 08:18 PM  Permalink |