Mesh of Technology Blog

Bing Maps SDK – AJAX/Silverlight v1 RTM!

Dmitry Lyalin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:22:47 GMT

Yesterday http://maps.bing.com released a site update, I must admit the simpler interface and new features are a welcome change.

But as a developer what excites me more is the release of the SDK’s. Integrating mapping technology into various web products is a huge deal and the level of integration possible with the Silvelright control is key to my excitement level (i’m such a Silverlight geek!)

To get you (and me) started I've compiled this simple set of key links that should clear up any confusion caused by the official site:

Explore: Main Bing Maps Developer Site
Get Access: Get a Key to use the SDK
Download: Download the Silverlight SDK (or see the online AJAX SDK)
Documentation: MSDN Documentation for AJAXor Silverlight (for full list including web services see here)

I look forward to see what people do with this technology, enjoy folks!

Silverlight / Azure Presentation – Slides and Demo App

Dmitry Lyalin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:27:46 GMT

I really want to thank everyone who attended our session on Silverlight and Windows Azure. Below are the links to both the demo application and the slide deck we used.

Slide deck, which covers:

Windows Azure Overview
Silverlight Overview
Intro for the Demo Application

Demo Application which demos:

Silverlight Application talking over WCF to Windows Azure
Windows Azure hosting Silverlight application
Windows Azure worker role processing uploaded files to both create a Thumbnail and a text-to-speech conversion of TXT files into WAV files (using .NET Speech API)

If you have any feedback, we would love to hear from you as well.

Upcoming Presentation: Azure Platform: End-to-end Demo

Dmitry Lyalin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:00:12 GMT

This upcoming Saturday November 7th, 2009 at 9:50am I will be presenting with my Microsoft colleague Shrenik Jhaveri on Windows Azure and Silverlight 3. The Fairfield / Westchester .NET User Groups CodeCamp event is always excellent and I presented last year as well. Here is what you can expect:

We will once again hold 24 sessions (75 minutes each) across 4 tracks, given by some of the best regional and local developers, and will include topics such as LINQ, Azure, C# 4.0, PowerShell, F#, SQL Analysis Services, MVC, Silverlight, and so much more!

Hope to see some of you there!

Location: University of Connecticut, here is a map to the location (address is not easy to find in Mapping services).

For complete info click here.

Installing Team Foundation Server 2010 Basic Edition (Beta 2)

Dmitry Lyalin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:45:59 GMT

Today I decided to install TFS 2010 Basic Edition on my laptop to keep better control of my side projects such as Connectedshow.com or presentations.

Doing some quick searches I found a video (see it here) by Julio Casal talking about this particular version of TFS. The video was a great resource but I needed something more basic, a quick install guide to get me started. During the start of the video Julio talks about just such a blog post, but all the links search engines bring back were dead. Doing a little digging, i found the real working post here.

Julio does a great job at providing a super detailed step-by-step guide, but if you feel up to it here is my cliff notes version:

Summary Steps for install TFS 2010 Basic Edition

Download the TFS 2010 Beta 2 ISO

Don’t confuse this with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Ultimate edition itself
The install is an ISO so you’ll need a way to mount it, highly recommend Virtual CloneDrive
Optional: Installation guide

Run the setup on the ISO using either x86 or x64 bit edition
Go through a typically geeky install process, choose options you want to install (I did not install the Build Server)

Once the install is completed you will begin the configuration steps in a new wizard:

When you reach a section called “Team Foundation Server Configuration”, here you must choose the “Basic” option
The rest of the setup is straight forward and will also install SQL Server 2008 Express as the TFS database (if you have nothing else already installed)

Finally I was able to connected using Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, create my project through the local URL “http://mymachinename:8080/tfs” and add/manage my project using VS 2008!

Much thanks to Julio for putting together some great content to get me started!

Connected Show #19 – User Experience: It Ain’t Lipstick Baby!

Dmitry Lyalin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:32:53 GMT

In this episode guest co-host and Interviewee Dave Crawford of Microsoft UK joins Dmitry to discuss News such as Windows 7, Windows Stores, ZuneHD development, Java Bridge, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and many more stories. Finally Dave tells us all about the User Experience project role, how development projects can benefit from it and how Developers and Designers need to play nice together.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!

Windows Azure – Deployment Timed

Dmitry Lyalin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:51:45 GMT

During my time with Windows Azure development I have been curious to actually time what it takes to deploy my Azure ASP.NET website to Production/Staging environments. Finally during my move to “USA – SouthWest” (required due to the upcoming shutdown of the previous CTP environment) I timed the various steps and here is the info.

Production Deployment:

Hit “Deploy” button on my package

00:00 – I pressed the “deploy” button once i selected my package files
00:58 – Processed Finished with “Allocated” message, I now had to Run the allocated instances to spin them up

Hit the “Run” button on my allocated instance

00:00 – “Working” message appeared
00:48 – “Package Is Updating” message appeared
… Then Instance said “Initializing”
07:50 – One instance turned to “busy”, while the other was still “Initializing”
08:50 – Everything was good to go, website came up

So to get my application into production it took about 10 minutes.

For reference, here are some notes about what i actually was deploying:

My Azure Environment is the “PDC08 CTP” as indicated by the deployment portal login page
This was a deployment of my ASP.NET Azure website for http://www.connectedshow.com, which is a simple site
File Sizes: 525 KB in size for “Service Package” File and 3kb for “Cloud Service Configuration” file.
The above timing should have at worst a 10/15 seconds as a margin for error
This test was done only once and is therefore not super scientific
Test was conducted at around 11pm EST on 10/25/2009

My personal hope is that this deployment process continues to get faster, though with recent API for deployment becoming available once you script this process it really will feel less like boiling water in a teapot :).

More to come: In the near future ill try to conduct more tests around timing and rolling from Staging to Production, stay tuned!

Cranky Geeks, Silverlight is NOT dead

Dmitry Lyalin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:11:21 GMT

Today a friend (thanks Mike) reported that Cranky Geeks podcast #189 started to make claims (about 11:01 in) that Silverlight was “dead”. This is crazy, Silverlight is a successful and powerful technology, I would more believe that peace has finally come to the middle east then this news.

So just to be fair, I don't work for the Silverlight team and have no inside knowledge, but based on common sense, Internet Searches and previous knowledge my best bet is that John got confused (what else is new?) and mixed up Silverlight Streaming with Silverlight itself.

Yes Microsoft has cancelled Silverlight Streaming (read here), a small side hosting service for Silverlight media. “Silverlight Streaming” has nothing to do with the core product and was only originally intended as a small side host, its death has no impact on the core Silverlight technology.

This is a BIG mix-up on Cranky Geeks part and i hope this post helps put things into perspective.

Razer Lachesis Fails the Geek Test

Dmitry Lyalin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:16:38 GMT

Lachesis from Razer

I recently purchased a Lachesis Mouse to run on my Windows 7 x64 bit operating system. I’ve needed a better mouse for a while (I have a stock Dell mouse now and its horrible for gaming) so finally decided to give Razer a try.

I purchased a Lachesis mouse, installed the driver (v1.10) and started toying around with it. Quickly I noticed something strange, it kept scrolling up-left when i would stop moving, odd. I did some digging and it seems that im not the only one with this problem. The mouse actually has Firmware v1.64 pre-installed and people on the forums said that going to the latest v1.91 would solve the scrolling up issue.

I downloaded the update and tried to install it, but each time the update fails, mouse stops working and only resumes to work after i reconnect it. What the heck? time to call support.

Cause of failed Update

Today I finally had a chance to call Razer Technical Support being that I was home and got some shocking news, their software update does not work on a x64 bit machine, you MUST install the firmware update on an x86 machine first and then you can use it on x64.

This is a terrible answer, and i told as much to the tech support guy. To have such a major brand not work for updates on x64, what year is it? come on!

Next Steps? Return the mouse or Update on x85

So now I am honestly not sure, keep the mouse and update on an x86 machine (and i dont even have a single one) or return the mouse… I have a feeling ill be returning it.

Connected Show #18 – Claudio Caldato on PHP & ADO.NET Data Services

Dmitry Lyalin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:35:44 GMT

In this episode, guest Claudio Caldato joins Peter to discuss interoperability at Microsoft and how his team is working to make Windows Azure cloud services more accessible to PHP developers. Claudio provides us details on the PHP Toolkit for ADO.NET Data Services. Guest host G. Andrew Duthie joins Peter to discuss Office Starter 2010, the wonders of VHDs, Red Hat & Microsoft interoperability, the ASP.NET MVC Firestarter, and “Are we really smarter than you?”.

To listen, go here: http://www.connectedShow.com/default.aspx?Episode=18

Related Resources:

Claudio Caldato & Interoperability at Microsoft:

Office Starter 2010

The Wonder of VHDs

Disk2VHD Turns Your PC Into A Virtual Machine

Microsoft & Red Hat Interoperability

MS Patterns & Practices Identity Guide

ASP.NET MVC Stuff

Are We Smarter Than You? – More on Duct Tape Programming!

G. Andrew Duthie

(UPDATE: Links fixed, thanks fans!)

SQL Azure Planned Maintenance

Dmitry Lyalin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:23:22 GMT

I just got an email from the SQL Azure team (see below) of an upcoming maintenance. This is actually very exciting as it means SQL Azure is going to be one step closer to final deployment.

I use SQL Azure right now for the Connected Show website and have really enjoyed the benefits of not having to manage my own SQL Server to store podcast data. I look forward to staying with this solution once SQL Azure goes live!

If you have not taken the time to check out SQL Azure and see all the benefits it offers, make sure to do so, its worth the time investment.

SQL Azure Resources:

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As part of our continued preparation for the launch of SQL Azure Database later this fall, we will begin final deployment and testing of our new production environment. This will include changes to the current developer portal. Specifically, the existing developer portal address (https://sql.azure.com) will be repurposed to support the new production environment.

The existing developer portal will be unavailable for a brief period of time (up to 1 hour) during this switchover. After the switchover, you will need to access the CTP developer portal through the a new address (https://ctpportal.database.windows.net). This new address will be accessible only after the maintenance is complete on Tuesday. The database service itself will remain available throughout this maintenance window. Notification will be sent when the maintenance is complete.

We will send an email to you when this work is completed and will also include some optional next steps.

When:
START: Tuesday Oct 13, 2009, 2:00pm PST
END: Tuesday Oct 13, 2009, 6:00pm PST

Impact Alert:
During portions of the maintenance period, https://sql.azure.com will be unavailable. No other services will be interrupted.

Help and Feedback:
Please do not reply to this email as it's an unmonitored alias. However, any questions or feedback can be directed to our Developer Center forums.

Thank you for using the SQL Azure CTP!

The SQL Azure Team