Jerry's Blog

Windows 7... Will be available via Retail on October 22

Jerry D. Sevier — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:56:18 GMT

Well, I heard officially today that Microsoft is targeting October 22, 2009 for General Availability of Windows 7 for retail sales. A couple notes:

RTM release will be as early as the second half of July (less than 1 month away!)
Date is not set in stone, but is an indication that Microsoft believes they are on track
Microsoft will soon release details of retail upgrade program (so you can buy the computer now instead of wating)

Personally, I have been running the previous versions of Windows 7, and aside from some architectural questions (meaning, the OS seems stable, it's the configuration that bothers me), it's a GREAT OS. I've had literally no compatability issues and it "seems" to run smoother and faster (though I've done no official benchmarking to speak of).

Visual Studio 2010 (Beta 1) Released

Jerry D. Sevier — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:06:24 GMT

For anyone interested, Microsoft has released VS 2010 Beta 1 for Public download.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd582936.aspx

Microsoft Launches Cloud Computing Contest.

Jerry D. Sevier — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:31:13 GMT

Microsoft, looking to demonstrate the abilities of their Azure Platform Services, has launched a developer contest. It will have two categories of focus, being .NET application and PHP applications. Winners will be selected by a judgment panel and can win a 5,000 VISA gift card. There is also promised "fame", which many people may find more enticing. These include www.Azure.com features, an Interview on Channel 9, and more.

new CloudApp() - The Azure™ Services Platform Developer Challenge

For more information: http://www.newcloudapp.com/

VSLive 2009 in Las Vegas (June 8-11) Discount Code: S9V18

Jerry D. Sevier — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:16:58 GMT

Hello Everyone!

VSLive! Las Vegas is coming up soon, and I thought I would drop a quick note about it. For anyone interested in attending, this is often one of the most interesting conference series in regards to Microsoft Technologies. Put simply, the reason I love them is that they tend to be a lot more informative and a lot less marketing. Get in there, and learn the good, the bad, and the ugly (to steal from the famous movie starring toughman, Clint Eastwood).

Also, I got my hands on a discount code: S9V18

Supposedly, this code will give you $400 off the passport level conference fee. If you are interested in attending, please feel free to use it!

For more information or to register: http://vslive.com/2009/lasvegas/

Hope to see everyone there!

Azure Services, Absolute Beginner's Guide -- Video

Jerry D. Sevier — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:38:20 GMT

Windows Azure, The BASIC High Level Overview:

Don't Forget: Twin Cities Code Camp this weekend! (April 4th) @ University of Minnesota

Jerry D. Sevier — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:18:59 GMT

For anyone who is interested, the 6th Twin Cities Code Camp is happening this weekend @ the University of Minnesota. These are extremely well organized events and if development is your thing, I highly recommend attendance.

There is no fee to attend and last I heard, registration is still open. For more information or to register, please visit http://www.twincitiescodecamp.com.

My Company Featured in Redmond Channel Partner Magazine

Jerry D. Sevier — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:14:24 GMT

A little while back my company and I did an interview with Channel Partner Magazine. The article is about my company's purchase of another consulting firm here. Basically, it's discussing the advantages to the down economy and how to increase marketshare during down times. My role in the interview wasn't very prominent, but still it's interesting to see your name in print! :)

If you're interested, you can find the article at: http://rcpmag.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=2650

VSLive (Las Vegas) June 8-11th

Jerry D. Sevier — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:22:02 GMT

Just a note to everyone that VSLive is coming in June. I will be giving a presentation on Windows Azure while I am there. I invite anyone who can to make it. These are always a lot of fun, and it’s a great way to keep up to date with the latest and greatest in the development community.

Below is some information I was provided by VSLive:

VSLive! was created by developers with deep coverage of existing and new technologies that you can use on the job today. And now you can save up to $200 when you register before April 29, 2009 with promo code NX9V2C!

http://www.1105info.com/t.do?id=2330358:15594811

In addition to the savings, we're offering a $50 Venetian Gaming Credit* for the first 200 registered attendees and rooms from only $99/night at the Venetian Hotel and Casino... You won't want to miss this opportunity to dive in to the real-world technical content - register today!

Check out the full agenda online at http://vslive.com/2009/lasvegas and we'll see you in Las Vegas!

Happy Programming Everyone!

-- Jerry

It’s Official: Internet Explorer 8 is here….

Jerry D. Sevier — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:15:56 GMT

Internet Explorer 8 was released to the web officially today.

To download:

https://partner.microsoft.com/us/40074178

Have fun!

Windows Azure SDKs and VS Tools (Updates Now Available)

Jerry D. Sevier — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:36:48 GMT

Hey all,

I thought I would put a quick little message out here for anyone developing for Windnows Azure. There’s a “must have” update available now for both the Azure SDK and Visual Studio tools. There are some cool new features as well as some fixes.

You can download them here:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128752

What’s new in Windows Azure SDK

Support for developing Managed Full Trust applications. It also provides support for Native Code via PInvokes and spawning native processes.
Support for developing FastCGI applications, including support for rewrite rules via URL Rewrite Module.
Improved support for the integration of development storage with Visual Studio, including enhanced performance and support for SQL Server (only local instance).

What’s new in Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio

Combined installer includes the Windows Azure SDK
Addressed top customer bugs
Native Code Debugging
Update Notification of future releases
FastCGI template

What does the future hold for Windows Azure?

Jerry D. Sevier — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:04:46 GMT

This is a great subject.

It brings with it a variety of ideas and concepts that may, or may not, be the direction we travel. However, it is still a lot of fun to sit around and speculate, as we all do. I personally consider myself the IT equivalent of an arm-chair quarterback. I just got through watching a presentation by Doug Hauger, the General Manager of Business Strategy (Microsoft). He was speaking at the Thomas Weisel 2009 Technology and Telecom Conference. (Whew! What a mouthful!)

During this conversation, he hit on some key concepts that I thought were interesting. One of those, which I’d like to discuss here, is the concept of creating “private clouds”. Or, the concept of creating segmented areas for specific company and/or industry use. The example he delved into was that of Healthcare. He said he could envision a dedicated cloud that was HIPAA compliant. This private cloud could be configured to setup to establish security and address privacy concerns. Instead of the health care vendors managing the cloud, the could would become a third-party entity to the vendors.

So, that said, what does the future hold in this area? Is that a realistic approach? Perhaps. I think there are a lot of factors we need to overcome. Not the least of which is the desire to control. The reason we are in a mess in the health-care business is because each company wants the standard to be them. Not to mention the fact that many of them have figured out that profit can be made from confusion and chaos. The standardization may come, and honestly, I foresee it coming, but not by multiple companies collaborating, but instead, a single company that seizes the opportunity and floats the risk.

I would imagine that this approach is extremely costly. It’s the same situation we run into with regular third-party hosting of applications. We have a very cost effective method called “Shared Hosting”. However, one quickly outgrows that as we have a need to guarantee performance and the unknown factor of other people utilizing the servers is too much of a wild card to bet the farm on. So, then we look at dedicated server hosting. More expensive, but still cheaper than in-house server farms. Then, we grow our business and realize that we have such super sensitive data on those servers, that we can no longer justify the “trust” of physical security. So, we bring the model in house.

So, to build a “third party, private cloud”, we are going to have to address these issues. And, honestly, I don’t think this is going to be cheap. In fact, short of being Microsoft themselves, most companies can’t afford to move to such a strategy.

However, we have yet to see the true adoption rate of Cloud Computing. I have a feeling it’s going to change the landscape dramatically to the point we do not view applications the same in 2-3 years. However, which direction those changes will take still remains to be seen!

Windows Azure Suffers Time Change

Jerry D. Sevier — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:01:30 GMT

The Windows Azure team announced that they will be changing the platform time from Pacific Standard Time (PST) to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). It appears that they established Windows Azure on Pacific time. Since the complications introduced with time changes seriously affect things like true-time logging and Application Time Stamping.

For more information, you can refer to the Windows Azure Blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure