Thom Robbins .NET Weblog

Taking on SQL 2008

trobbins — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:22:00 GMT

Whether you are learning new features, increasing job performance and productivity or deepening your expertise, Microsoft Learning can help get you prepared and make you an expert. Microsoft Learning Materials are the most reliable and up-to-date source of learning about Microsoft Products. With a robust set of offerings that can suit any learning style, from electronic books, e-learning, books, instructor-lead-training, and certification exams, MSL has the right training solution to suit your needs.

Come to the Learning Portal to see the latest training resources available for SQL 2008.

FREE E-Learning and Ebook now available!

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/sql2008

Cool Site of the Day

trobbins — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 04:54:00 GMT

Very cool site I just checked out at www.dotnetvideos.net. They have over 100+ videos under 10 minutes duration dedicated to .net developers around the world. All of the training videos are visualized version of data tutorials by Scott Mitchell on asp.net web site. From what I understand all registered user of the website receive a free 6 month subscription to asp.netPRO magazine.

Definitely worth checking out!

TechEd US Registration Opens

trobbins — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:03:00 GMT

Today, registration opens for Tech·Ed U.S 2008 at www.microsoft.com/teched. Tech·Ed is Microsoft’s premier technical gathering for IT Professionals and Developers worldwide. Tech·Ed provides both audiences with top-notch technical education, connection to the community and in-depth product evaluation. As Microsoft’s largest event, Tech·Ed provides Developers with the resources to build state-of-the-art software solutions and IT Professionals the resources to plan, architect, deploy, manage and secure a connected IT infrastructure. The focus of TechEd is on today’s technologies however this year we will push the envelope more than ever before in showcasing an increased number of unreleased technologies available in beta.

Ready for Visual Studio 2008?

trobbins — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:59:00 GMT

Some great stuff to check out -

Whether you are learning new features, improving expertise, increasing your productivity or just staying ahead of the curve, Microsoft Learning can help you get up to speed quickly. Microsoft Learning materials are the most reliable and up-to-date source of learning about Microsoft Products. With a robust set of offerings that can suit any leaning style, from free electronic books/references, to e-Learning, books, instructor-lead-training, and certification exams, MSL has the right training solution to suit your need.

Come to the Learning Portal to see the latest training resources available for Visual Studio 2008.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/vstudio/2008/default.mspx

Additional things to check out

Download a Free Visual Studio 2008 e-book

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/vstudio/2008/default.mspx

Get a free e-book and find other special training offers to help you get up to speed quickly on Visual Studio 2008.

Find Classroom Training on Visual Studio 2008

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/syllabi/en-us/6459afinal.mspx

This one-day clinic will introduce you to the new development features available in Visual Studio 2008. Find training in a city near you.

Get Ready for Visual Studio 2008 with Free E-Learning

Learn how to incorporate ASP.NET AJAX with this free online course, "Developing Enhanced Web Experiences with Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX Extensions."

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/vstudio/2008/default.mspx

Don’t forget about the Office Developer’s Conference

trobbins — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:46:00 GMT

LIVE DEMOS. REAL CODE. HOT NEW INFO.

The 2008 Microsoft Office System Developer Conference

February 10-13, San Jose California

ODC 2008 is the premier event for Microsoft Office and SharePoint developers, bringing together architects, developers, industry technical experts, Microsoft insiders, and key partners to redefine what it means to build on the Office system.

Check it out and register here

Virtual Labs

trobbins — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:19:00 GMT

Try Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 in a virtual lab and learn more about accessing relational data using Language Integrated Query (LINQ) to SQL or how Visual Studio 2008 integrates with .NET Framework 3.5. Virtual labs are simple, with no complex setup or installation required.

MSDN Virtual Lab: Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008

MSDN Virtual Lab: Mapping Your Objects to Database Tables with LINQ to SQL

MSDN Virtual Lab: What's new in C# 3.0?

MSDN Virtual Lab: What's new in Visual Basic 9?

MSDN Virtual Lab: Workflow Enabled Services and Other New Features in the .NET Framework 3.5

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft

trobbins — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:40:00 GMT

Very cool –

AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft is an open-source development tool aimed to bring the Visual Studio experience to building World of Warcraft addons. This is the first release of the project and there are lots more ideas around how it can improved.

Get it here

Try Visual Studio 2008

trobbins — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 04:38:00 GMT

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 provides an industry-leading developer experience for Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, and the Web. In addition, it continues in the Microsoft tradition of development language innovation. To enable evaluation of Visual Studio 2008, this page provides links to trial versions of Visual Studio 2008.

Available here

Adding an InfoPath Editor Control to a Windows Form

trobbins — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:11:00 GMT

One of the new features of InfoPath 2007 is the ability to integrate the InfoPath editor into Windows Forms. Within Visual Studio this is done using the Microsoft.InfoPath.FormControl.dll assembly. In this example using Visual Studio 2008, we will create a simple Windows Form application that contains the InfoPath control.

Note: This example assumes that you have created a Windows Form Project

Add the InfoPath Form Control to the Toolbox

1. In the general section of the toolbox right click and select Choose Items

2. In the Choose Toolbox Items dialog select browse

3. Add the reference to the Microsoft.Office.InfoPath.FormControl.dll which by default is in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12

4. Once the reference is added the Choose Toolbox Items contains the reference.

5. The control is now available in the General section

Once the FormControl is added to the toolbox drag it onto the Windows Form.

Write the code

Loading an InfoPath Form Template (.xsn) can be done using the NewFromFormTemplate method of the FormControl object. As an example of this add the following code to the button.

Run the completed application and select the Load Form button to see the InfoPath form.

InfoPath: Accessing template file data

trobbins — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:18:00 GMT

The XMLForm class of the InfoPath managed code objects model provides properties, methods and events to access the XML data in the underlying XML document and form information that includes the form definition file (.xsf). For example, using the following code we can create a message box that displays some of the data that is available through the Template class, such as the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), the cache identifier and version number.

Within an InfoPath form place the following code in a button

When the form is run and the button is selected

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training (Standalone Edition)

trobbins — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:36:00 GMT

Interesting download –

The Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training Standalone Edition is designed to help you learn how to use the features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. The Training topics lead you step-by-step through beginning to advanced features, including Collaboration, Business Processes and Forms, Portals and Personalization, Search, Business Intelligence and Enterprise Content Management.

The Training includes videos, interactive tutorials, and articles. The Standalone Edition is accessed through your browser after you install the application on your personal computer.

Get it here

Creating an icon in the system tray

trobbins — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 02:27:00 GMT

A standard part of many Windows forms applications is the system tray icon. Most commonly it is used to provide an application or event status. Tray icons are added to an application using the NotifyIcon control. It includes properties that simplify displaying a System Tray icon and the notification "balloon". Once you've added the control to your form, assign an icon (.ico) file or image to its Icon property, and ensure that its “Visible” property is set to “True”.

As an example let’s create a simple application that creates a tray icon using Visual Studio 2008.

Create a new Windows Form project

On the main form add a button and a NotifyIcon to the project.

Update the following properties on the NotifyIcon1 control

In the Button1 code place the following code to make the balloon show for six seconds

Once the application is run and the button is pressed it shows the following

New Patterns & Practices Guides

trobbins — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:13:00 GMT

Microsoft patterns & practices recently released the following two guides:

patterns & practices Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
This guide shows you how to make the most of Team Foundation Server. It starts with the end in mind, but shows you how to incrementally adopt TFS for your organization. It's a collaborative effort between patterns & practices, Team System team members, and industry experts.

patterns & practices Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications
This guide shows you an end-to-end approach for implementing performance testing. Whether you are new to performance testing, or looking for ways to improve your current performance testing approach, you will find insights that you can tailor for your specific scenarios.

Architecture Journal Reader

trobbins — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:19:00 GMT

A great download to check out -

We're proud to announce a new offline experience for the Journal, called the "Architecture Journal Reader."

Demonstrating many of the UX principles highlighted in recent issues, this new reader is a locally installed application that enables you to take every issue of the Journal into a searchable, immersive, and easy-to-read experience. The application synchronizes with our content management services so that you'll automatically have access to the latest Journal issues without needing to download PDF files or checking online.

Check it out here

Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training Kit

trobbins — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:41:00 GMT

The Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2008 features and a variety of framework technologies including: LINQ, C# 3.0, Visual Basic 9, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, VSTO, CardSpace, SilverLight, Mobile and Application Lifecycle Management.

Get it here