.NET News Desk

Converting a PowerBuilder 10.5 Client/Server Application to PB 11 Web Forms

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:36:00 EDT

As a long-time PB developer, I have successfully created or maintained many PB applications for clients and for myself. Since day one, I was impressed with the ease with which applications can be created using PowerBuilder. Although I had been exposed to Visual Studio and other client/server tools, I have always felt PB was the better product.

TFS Timesheet Application for Microsoft's Visual Studio Foundation Server

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:25:00 EDT

TeamExpand, a developer of products complimentary to Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS), announced the commercial version of its TX Chrono, a timesheet tracking application targeted at software development organizations standardizing on the Visual Studio .NET environment. Besides a number of bug fixes, the commercial version of TX Chrono features new workflow functionality and complete TSF compatibility to make software development activities more visible and predictable. A trial version of the product will also be available for free download.

Chinese Rival Looking for Evidence To Nail Microsoft

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:01:00 EDT

China’s new anti-monopoly law went into effect August 1 and China-based Evermore Software, an Office wannabe, would love to haul Microsoft into court. It says it’s collecting evidence and has suggested to MarketWatch that the integration between Office and Windows might be just the ticket it’s looking for to pin Microsoft’s ears back.

WinForms and ASP.NET Reporting Controls

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:21:00 EDT

Developer Express announced the immediate availability of its reporting platform for WinForms and ASP.NET – the XtraReports Suite v2008 vol 2. Built and optimized for Visual Studio, the DevExpress suite of reporting components allows software developers to deliver cutting-edge capabilities to their end-users with ease.

Cloud Computing Expo - Poland Complains to the EC about Microsoft

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:12:00 EDT

Poland’s Office for Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has complained to the European Commission about Microsoft Windows being on laptops to the exclusion of Linux. It suspects collusion between Microsoft and the laptop makers that Microsoft allegedly greases with rebates, a charge reminiscent of AMD’s complaints against Intel that the EC is also pursuing.

Install Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack and You Die

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:00:00 EDT

I'll keep this blog post short and sweet because the more I think about it the more I get close to the verge of exploding. Here's my situation: I had Visual Studio 2008 Professional installed. From scratch, clean install. Everything works great, all is good in the Microsoft world of .NET. Yay me! Now, I have a particular need to compile and run code that will only work on .NET 3.5 SP1 so I install Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1... and it completely and totally prevents me from building any WPF application. I can create a brand new WPF application with File->New and immediately hit Build and I will see the same failures. It complains about 'SplashScreen' and then complains about failures in 'MarkupCompilePass1' task.

Virtualization Journal - Is Windows 7 More Like Windows 6BD?

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:00:00 EDT

According to what Microsoft is saying now, the so-called Windows 7 Server is not a major release and is really nothing more than Windows Server 2008 R2, a continuation of the Long Horn code base, with no changes to the core operating system components. And although the Microsoft Server team maintains that the Windows 7 client is a major release, according to what Mary Jo Foley, that doyenne of Windows watchers, is now reporting, the Windows 7 client and Windows Server 2008 R2 are based on the same code base and should RTM together.

Top Keynotes at SYS-CON's World-Beating RIA Conference & Expo: AJAX World

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:00:00 EDT

Two of the biggest launches in Rich Internet Application history took place in 2007/2008 when Adobe launched AIR 1.0 in February '08 and Microsoft launched Silverlight (September '07). At the 6th International AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo in October SYS-CON Events is delighted to be presenting major industry keynotes from the two industry executives with overall responsibility for both of those massive richer-web initiatives: Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch and Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform.

SYS-CON.TV: View "Virtualization Power Panel" Live from Times Square, NYC

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:20:00 EDT

Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, Citrix CTO Simon Crosby, Egenera CTO Pete Manca, Allen Stewart, Group Manager, Windows Virtualization at Microsoft, and Brian Duckering, Sr. Director of Products and Alliances at Symantec were the top industry executives who joined Jeremy Geelan in the 4th Floor Reuters Studio overlooking Times Square for a special SYS-CON.TV 'Virtualization Power Panel' recorded on June 22, 2008, the day before the opening of SYS-CON's 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo - which was held 23-24 June 2008 in New York City.

Web Services Manifesto - RESTful Architecture and the Programmable Web

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:30:00 EDT

I don't need to go into too much detail here about what exactly REST is - I know that most of the readers of this blog are well versed in Web Services technologies and architectural patterns. The thing that I want to cover is that REST is an architectural decision, it is not a protocol or a wire format or even an industry standard. It is a set of recommendations for how you organize the information exposed by your Web Services. Before I go into detail here, I personally think that REST is the way to go. Unless you have a particular need to be strapped into the SOAP/WS-* roller coaster, your Web Service should be exposing resources via RESTful URLs. I can't imagine why people would chose not to do so.

"RIA" vs "Rich Client Platform": The Term Is Now Up for Debate

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:50:00 EDT

'RIA' is slowly fading in terms of its definition. When I first started the RIA Evangelism role in Microsoft, I had this nagging feeling that the term RIA was just all over the place. Depending on which technology you are backing and which stream of alliance you uphold, the truth is the term was destined to be abused before it really took off.

A Sneak Peak at ASP.NET AJAX 4.0’s Client-Side Templating

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:00:00 EDT

Hot on the heels of the recent ASP.NET AJAX roadmap, Bertrand and team have released a limited preview of the new AJAX functionality coming in ASP.NET 4.0. To see how the new functionality stacks up, I decided to recreate my recent jTemplates example, using only ASP.NET AJAX and its new templating features. Eventually, I settled on using the DataView class, which offers more advanced, repeater-like functionality.

Red Gate Acquires .NET Reflector

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:32:00 EDT

An agreement between Red Gate and Lutz Roeder will place future development of .NET Reflector, the popular class browser for .NET developers, in the hands of Red Gate. Red Gate is maintaining a free version of the software for downloading.

Appeals Denied, OOXML Inches Toward Apotheosis

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

ISO said Friday that the appeals made by Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela protesting the standardization of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) file format hadn’t gone anywhere – it was unclear whether any of them had any standing anyway – but since they “failed to garner sufficient support” from the ISO/IEC technical committees, as ISO put it – the standards body is going to go ahead and publish OOXML as an ISO/IEC International Standard, ISO/IEC DIS 29500 – or it will provided another, effective appeal isn’t registered.

Solutions for Optimizing ASP.NET Applications

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:30:00 EDT

One of the reasons that ASP.NET has become popular as a framework for Web developers is the availability of third-party controls and tools. This third-party product support means that, when you’re developing features and functionality in an ASP.NET application, you have "buy versus build" options in many areas. Usually, if the options are buying a third-party control or rolling up your sleeves and manually coding the solution yourself, the choice is an easy one.

BizTalk Server 2006 Tutorial - A Walk Through the Process

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Services are all the rage these days, but there’s a lot more to building a service than just slapping an interface on top of some business and data access logic. Robust services need to take into account usage patterns, security, reliability, scalability, monitoring, and more. Covering all of those areas is not a simple task, which is why you should consider building your services using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2.

Cloud Computing Expo - Lenovo To Field Netbook

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:00:00 EDT

Lenovo has gone into the netbook business with a one-inch-deep 2lb XP-based Atom IdeaPad S10 with a 10.2-inch screen. The company says it intends to add other models that target students. The widget can be had in black, white or glossy ruby red.

Microsoft Opens Up "Two-Way Discussion" with Developers About Windows 7

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EDT

"The Professional Developers Conference on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference the following week represent the first venues where we will provide in-depth technical information about Windows 7," announced Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky, two very senior Windows 7 development engineers, on a new Microsoft blog which has just gone live.

Cloud Computing - E7 Is Born

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 04:00:00 EDT

At least 16 or 17 months ahead of the appearance of Windows 7, the next generation of the operating system, Microsoft has set up a blog hosted by senior engineering managers Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky to discuss the project and ostensibly get feedback.

Continuous Integration with Team Foundation Server 2008

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:00:00 EDT

In the recent past, it was common for Windows applications to be manually compiled and built directly on a developer's desktop computer. This caused many problems. For example, the developer may have had a different version of a component used in the application, or you couldn't build when he was on vacation let alone left the company, and it introduced a high degree of error if the developer made changes for future features (or testing code) without realizing it was included in the build.

Microsoft's Virtualization Chief Mike Neil To Keynote SYS-CON's Virtualization Conference & Expo

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Mike Neil is general manager for virtualization strategy in the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. Mike is focused on the delivery of the Windows virtualization technology, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server and Virtual PC 2007. Mike also directs the technical enablement of Microsoft's broader vision for virtualization, to include virtualization management tools and virtualized desktop infrastructure. Prior to this role, Mike was responsible for Microsoft?s server and PC virtualization efforts since 2003.

Virtualization, iPhone and Microsoft

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:19:00 EDT

Speculation is making the rounds again that AMD’s long-promised asset lite strategy will see the company split in two: a chip development operation under AMD’s new CEO Dirk Meyer and a manufacturing entity.

.NET Developer ThinkGeo Releases Map Suite 3.0

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:00:00 EDT

ThinkGeo is excited to announce the release of Map Suite Web Edition 3.0 Beta 1, the next generation of its professional ASP.NET GIS server control. Web Edition 3.0 has been re-engineered from the ground-up to help .NET developers create more efficient, more powerful and more attractive Internet and Intranet GIS applications.

Microsoft Contemplates a Post-Windows World

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:00:00 EDT

Starting with a clean piece of paper, Microsoft is having a go at building a non-Windows operating system. Code named Midori, it may never be released but if Midori isn’t heir to Windows Microsoft better have something else like it up its sleeve.

Xenocode Releases Postbuild 2008 for Secure .NET Deployments

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Xenocode announced the availability of Postbuild 2008 for .NET, a major update to its code obfuscation and deployment solution for Windows developers.Xenocode Postbuild allows software developers to deploy .NET applications in a single, secure executable that runs anywhere, with or without the .NET Framework. Postbuild uses a range of powerful obfuscation techniques to protect intellectual property against decompilation and integrates directly with the advanced Xenocode application virtualization engine. The 2008 edition of Postbuild includes support for the latest .NET platforms and technologies, including Visual Studio 2008, .NET 3.0/3.5, WPF, and LINQ.

Build N-Tier Applications with WPF, AJAX, Silverlight, LINQ, WCF

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:45:00 EDT

The advent of .NET 3.5 marks a turning point in how .NET developers approach programming. "It is our belief that .NET 3.5 in general, and Silverlight in particular, will change programming more significantly than anything that has come from Microsoft for a least a decade," state bestselling author Jesse Liberty and industry expert Alex Horovitz in the preface to their new book, Programming .NET 3.5 ( O'Reilly, US $44.99 ).

All Roads Lead to SharePoint

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:45:00 EDT

Corporate IT organizations have deployed numerous platforms over the years to enable users to collaborate on and share unstructured documents, files, and other data. File shares, document management systems, e-mail servers, Web servers – chances are that most of these are still in use in your company. New user requirements and technical capabilities have driven this evolution, and the result is a scattered variety of platforms that have become unwieldy and expensive to manage.

AJAX World RIA Conference: Building RIAs Using Microsoft Silverlight 2

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:45:00 EDT

Many of today (and tomorrow’s) development projects lend themselves nicely to RIA application patterns. Silverlight offers a compelling RIA development experience that works on Linux, the Mac and windows as well as all major browsers. With HD video, vector based graphics and a rich set of controls including DataGrid Silverlight offers a compelling development experience in nearly any programming language you’d like from C# and VB to JavaScript and Python. Learn how to use Visual Studio to create applications, how to create UI using XAML markup and code, how to retrieve data from the web, and how to manipulate data with XML and LINQ. This talk uses the 100% free Silverlight runtime and Visual Studio tools.

AJAX World: Building Great AJAX Applications from Scratch Using ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:00:00 EDT

Come see a no-slides, code-only presentation that starts with a blank directory and builds a data-driven, AJAX enabled, ASP.NET web application from scratch that implements common AJAX patterns with the rich set of AJAX Control Toolkit, accesses data with LINQ, and implements standards-based styling and layout using CSS and clean HTML. Learn the new features of ASP.NET 3.5 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and how they integrate together to provide the world's most productive web development experience. This talk uses the 100% free .NET Framework and Visual Studio tools and the resulting application will work with all browsers, Safari, Firefox and of course IE.

DevExpress Channel is Now Broadcasting Product Training Videos and Live Interviews

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:32:00 EDT

DevExpress is proud to announce the newest addition to its web properties - the DevExpress Channel – broadcasting at tv.devexpress.com. The DevExpress Channel offers our software development community access to over 100 product training videos and dozens of one on one interviews.

Big Yahoo Stockholder Demands a Recount

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:30:00 EDT

The surprise three-to-one margin that overwhelmingly returned Yahoo’s board to office last Friday at the shareholders meeting proved too big for Capital Research & Management to swallow. It’s demanding a recount, according to the Wall Street Journal blog All Things Digital, which has been all over the Yahoo story for months.

No Fire in the Belly of Yahoo Stockholders

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Deprived of a proxy fight Yahoo stockholders basically reacted with a shrug Friday to the board that cost them billions by running off Microsoft and overwhelmingly returned the existing directors.

Microsoft’s Appeasement Party Strikes Again

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:48:00 EDT

Like Google and Yahoo, Microsoft is now suddenly a platinum sponsor of that open source touchstone, the Apache Software Foundation, and has pledged its $100,000 check. The move was announced Friday at the Open Source Convention in a speech by Microsoft senior director of platform strategy Sam Ramji, who described it as an endorsement of the “Apache Way.”

"Cloud Computing Is the Plan" - Ballmer Memo

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:00:00 EDT

With Microsoft mandarin Kevin Johnson bolting to Jupiter, leaving Microsoft to lick its wounds over Yahoo and reorganize, CEO Steve Ballmer sent out an all-hands e-mail to Microsoft folk encapsulating the message he delivered to financial analysts gathering in Redmond Thursday. Ballmer highlighted software-plus-service, associating it with a 'platform in the cloud and delivering applications across PCs, phones, TVs, and other devices, at work and in the home' (Microsoft's Mesh widgetry) and promised 'more about our cloud platform initiatives and the next versions of our Live and Online technologies' at the company?s Professional Developers Conference (PDC) at the end of October.

WinForms Data Grid Control by DevExpress

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:30:00 EDT

DevExpress has announced the immediate availability of the XtraGrid Suite v2008, vol 2 - a feature-complete WinForms Grid control for Visual Studio .NET. Easy-to-use with advanced presentation and theme options, the XtraGrid Suite by DevExpress allows software developers to introduce cutting edge user interfaces to their next Windows Forms application.

Unify Expands Composer to Create an End-to-end Solution for Lotus Notes Application Migrations

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Unify announced the expansion of its Composer for Lotus Notes solution through a partnership with CASAHL Technology. Partnering with CASAHL extends the Composer solution to include an assessment of the Lotus Notes infrastructure in order to inventory, categorize and analyze the types of Notes applications proliferated throughout the enterprise. Adding this capability to Composer enables Unify to offer customers a one-stop shop solution ranging from platform assessment to complex application migration.

AJAX RIA News - Zimbra Revs Desktop

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Zimbra, Yahoo's open source Microsoft-opposing e-mail and calendaring folks, bought last September for $350 million, have released rev 3 beta of their offline e-mail client, Zimbra Desktop, which competes with Outlook, Thunderbird and everybody else with a dog in this race. It's unclear what exactly Zimbra brings to the party other than its Yahoo connection.

Cloud Computing - IBM's Got Its Head in the Clouds

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:45:00 EDT

Reminding people of how its backing was the making of Linux, IBM, to no one's surprise, has thrown its support behind cloud computing, that delicious nexus of every chi-chi buzzword technology currently in vogue: Web 2.0, rich Internet applications, software-as-a-service, SOA, grid computing, Web Services, virtualization and utility computing. IBM calls its initiative Blue Cloud - like it could have another name - and claims it's a 'game-changing model for Internet-scale computing,' providing customer with just the right size computer power while at one and the same time being 'green' as well as 'self-healing and self-managing' based on open standards and Linux. Lordy, if this thing was a cute guy with money, it would be every mother's dream.

Cloud Computing Expo - Microsoft, Google & Virtualization

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Google is currently the pet of the American consumer. Although many in the industry don't find it particularly likeable, the company's reputation is tops among US consumers, based largely on how it treats employees and a perception of social responsibility, according to a Harris poll, in which Google dislodged Microsoft from the perch. Johnson & Johnson, the Band-Aid king, came in second and Intel third. Microsoft is now number 10. Google was previously number four. Companies with the worst reps include Halliburton, Comcast, Northwest Airlines and Exxon.

Virtualization, Microsoft, Yahoo & Google

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:30:00 EDT

Citrix has tapped its VP of channels and emerging product sales Al Monserrat to replace its departing sales chief John Burris, who, as previously reported, is going to Sourcefire as CEO. A couple of years ago Monserrat was responsible for Citrix' North American sales. Meanwhile, Citrix has named former PeopleSoft chief marketing officer and HP veteran Nanci Caldwell to its board.