Canadian Developer Connection

Bringing UX to Developers - .NET Users Group Presentation

qixing — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:07:49 GMT

I had the opportunity to present at the Metro Toronto .NET User Group last Wednesday. Even it was the first snow of the winter in GTA, but there were still more than 40 people showed up to listen to my talk on "Building for People: 5 Practical Tips for Creating Great User Experience." I was very excited about the presentation because it was my first time to conduct a pure UX talk to a developer audience. I've been presenting about Microsoft UX platform, stories, and tools to designer audience in the past year, so it was an exciting challenge for me to see how I can talk about UX design to developers that resonates to them.

Thanks for everyone's positive encouragement and feedback! I learnt using practical and interactive approach to present UX topics to developers worked. I'll continue improve the presentation and bringing UX to more developers. Below are my presentation slides and a summary of the talk.

Building for People: 5 Practical Tip for Greating Great UX

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: principles developer)

Presentation Summary:

What is UX? "User Experience Design is all aspects of the user’s interaction with the product: how it is perceived, learned, and used." - wikipedia It's more than skin deep, so UX doesn't equal to User Interface. UX matters to many aspects of the product that software developers and architects care such as performance, security, reliability, and much more. The key UX elements are: Usability, Usefulness, Efficiency, Adaptability, and Desirability.
Why Bother? It’s hard enough to just get the things done and functional, much less make it have good UX. Because
- Experience Defines the Product not functionality. The ROI of UX design is great.
- A focus on UX will help you better address functional requirements: build the right thing, prioritize functions, improve users’ efficiency and accuracy when using your software
- The final user experience is determined by:
  - What the developers can build in the time available
  - What the developers can be bothered building
  - How well User-Centred Design practice is integrated in the development cycle
  - What the developers understands of the User Interface specification
How? So how do I, as a developer/architect, create good experiences for my users?
- Understand and embrace user-centred design process. Integrate the process into your existing software development cycle.
- You don't need a degree in HCI (Human-Computer Interaction), but there are lightweight UX practice you can do now such as
  - keep an eye on popular applications and websites to see what makes them popular
  - Research and study couple of fundamental books in UX
  - Use UX principles and patterns
  - Remember the following 5 tips
    - Know your users. You are not the user, and most of the times your clients are not the users either. Your users are the people who will ultimately use the software your are building. Spend time to find out what they know and need. Don't let your ego get in the way.
    - Reduce concepts to increase confidence. Minimize the number of choices presented at any given time.
    - Communicate effectively through a visual language. Think about whether if a concept communicate better visually than text. Use as few different typefaces and sizes as possible. Follow simple visual design principles: Contrast, Alignment, Repetition, and Proximity.
    - Increase efficiency when possible. Reduce the number of steps to accomplish a task.
    - Be Consistent. Conventions are good, use consistent language, follow the users expectation, and let users existing skills transfer. Remember innovate only when you know you really have a better idea, but take advantages of conventions when you don’t.
Resources
- The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
- Designing Interfaces by Jennifer Tidwell
- Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
- UX Patterns library at Welie
- Microsoft Design Principles
- 10 Principles Of Effective Web Design
- Special thanks to J. Ambrose Little's presentation on "Building Good User Experience with .NET," and Shane Harris presentation on "Usability and User-Centred Design in the Software Development LifeCycle."

Technorati Tags: UX Design,UX for developers,UX Principles,UX tips,UX patterns

Your satisfaction matters...and it’s clear that we need to do better!

joxley — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:10:01 GMT

Hi Everyone,

In the sprit of being transparent and building connections, I thought I would share my teams mandate and goals with you. My team is responsible for one key goal in Canada and that is to build your trust and support you in a manner in which to earn your satisfaction with Microsoft. We don’t focus on revenue and we don’t have any utilization targets...twice a year there are two surveys that go out to measure our impact. They are sent out in an online manner usually in the fall and early spring. One survey focuses on developers and the other on IT pros. Success to us is earning your trust and for you to feel comfortable to express that you are very satisfied with your relationship with Microsoft.

Now, this isn’t an easy goal and there’s a lot that inputs into the results, some of which we can control in Canada and some that we in which we need be your ambassador within Microsoft. We just got the latest results back and it seems we have some work to do. To make sure we are doing the right things we need your help in understanding how we can better serve you and support your success. The IT pro satisfaction numbers are flat and the developer numbers have shown a decline. These are trailing indicators and while we’ve adjusted our current plan based upon your previous feedback, we want to make sure what we are doing is reaching you in a positive manner. It’s very important to me and my team to earn your trust and understand how to help. The recent broad postive feedback on TechDays, AlignIT and other programs give me comfort that we are on the right track…yet when it comes to your satisfaction we don’t want to take anything for granted.

So, to better gauge and understand where and how you as a Technical Professional (IT Professional, Developer, Architect or IT Manager for example) find what you need to support you in your role we’d like to invite you to share with us where you find I.T. ?

Microsoft Canada is conducting a brief 10-15 minute online survey to gain these learnings. We want to ensure that we are driving and delivering information that is of the highest value to you to the right location. With your participation, we’ll also be able to better understand how Technical Professionals like yourself consume various types of technical information so we can make certain resources you need are readily available. Please if you have some time give us some feedback and then sign up up for the MSDN/Technet newsletter as I want to make sure that we also share this information out broadly back to you.

Please feel free to contact me directly as my email door is always open ..... john.oxley@microsoft.com

See you across Canada!

John

Finding Opportunities in a Recession Economy, PART 3

plaberge — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:41:30 GMT

Note: This is the third post in a three post series on succeeding as a professional in IT during a recession.

Without a doubt, most of us are experiencing the most serious economic recession in our lifetimes. There's an awful lot of uncertainty that goes with that; everything from our retirement savings, disposable income and job security.

IT as an industry is certainly not immune to these worries and as professionals in this space, I'm sure the concerns I have are similar to those that you are facing. So, in stressful times like these, what are some of the things you can do to be successful and how can Microsoft help you achieve that success?

Well, to answer that question, let's take a look at it from a few different angles. First, there's the personal angle (i.e.: how do you make yourself more marketable and valuable in recession economy?). Second there's established business angle (i.e.: how can I make the business more efficient with IT?). Third, there's the start-up angle (i.e.: how can I launch a new business and make it successful?). Let's take a look at each of these angles separately through 3 separate yet connected blog posts. In this third and final post in the series, I will focus on Launching a Start-Up Business in a Recession.

Launching a Start-Up Business in a Recession

Yesterday a conference for Start-Ups called Startup Empire was held in Toronto. Microsoft was one of the sponsors of the event and my colleague David Crow, a bit of a rockstar in the Canadian startup community, was one of the organizers.

The tone of this conference was a bit different than your typical startup event, mainly because of the shape our global economy is in. That being said, it's interesting to note that the speakers at this conference see great opportunities for startups to thrive in a situation like this, but you need to be ready to fail, too..

My boss, Mark Relph, also notes some wise learnings for startups that are especially relevant in tough times like this. Things like:

learn how to pitch an idea effectively
find a good niche to grow in
you can't go it alone
an unusable solution is useless
a smaller market can actually be better

I'd also add that finding the right industry vertical is important. For example, while anything is possible, I'd argue as of today that a startup focusing on the retail industry is gambling in dangerous territory. Launching a start-up in a more recession-resistant industry like healthcare or education (regardless of the economy, people will always need medical services and schools will always be open) may make more sense. Something to keep in mind.

From a Microsoft perspective, there's some exciting things that we provide to start-ups to help them build their dream solution. The first is BizSpark.

BizSpark is Microsoft's premier initiatives to help get start-ups off the ground. The details about BizSpark can be found in this document, but in a nutshell, it provides Microsoft software to build the solution, gives start-ups access to partners and other global support resources and visibility on Microsoft sites like StartupZone and the BizSparkDB which potential customers can use to view solutions that might fit their needs (i.e.: it will help you drum up customers).

Another resource, one that is not strictly for start-ups is the Microsoft Partner Programme (MSPP). The partner programme offers a great deal of support to companies building solutions on the Microsoft platform, including deeply discounted software in order to build your solution, free training only for partners, co-marketing opportunities and the ability to profile your solutions in the Partner Solution Profiler which customers can search to find solutions that fit their needs, among other things.

-Paul

Technorati Tags: Recession, Recession and IT, Developer, Microsoft

Finding Opportunities in a Recession Economy, PART 2

plaberge — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:36:50 GMT

Note: This is the second post in a three post series on succeeding as a professional in IT during a recession.

Well, to answer that question, let's take a look at it from a few different angles. First, there's the personal angle (i.e.: how do you make yourself more marketable and valuable in recession economy?). Second there's established business angle (i.e.: how can I make the business more efficient with IT?). Third, there's the start-up angle (i.e.: how can I launch a new business and make it successful?). Let's take a look at each of these angles separately through 3 separate yet connected blog posts. This post, the second in the series, will focus on Retaining Momentum for Established Business in a Recession.

Retaining Momentum for an Established Business in a Recession

Staying ahead of the curve as a business in this economy is really tough. Cost cutting is a common theme and finding ways of doing more with less is becoming more and more a way of life.

Development Tools

Microsoft's tools and platform are built to streamline the process of building great solutions. Visual Studio 2008, for example, allows development teams (including application developers, architects, testers and DBAs) to collaborate on projects as well as deliver the solution more quickly.

Collaboration and Line of Business

Our server software allows you to potentially save costs that are traditionally associated with day-to-day business. A great example of this would be our Unified Communications platform. Business travel is something that will never go away, but our Unified Communications solution with technologies such as LiveMeeting and Office Communicator, can reduce the need for employees to travel. You can also manage your telephony infrastructure with Unified Communications as it is VoIP-enabled.

Another platform that may surprise you with respect to increasing the productivity of employees is the Office 2007 platform. There are two aspects of this - desktop and server.

The server components include Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (with the unfortunate acronym of MOSS) and Microsoft Exchange. Sharepoint provides an enterprise-ready content management and collaboration platform that allows your employees to access the most up-to-date information and share ideas with others. Microsoft Exchange gives employees access to email literally anywhere and anytime. Regardless of location, employees have access to email on their desktop (using a mail client such as Outlook 2007), securely over the internet (through Outlook Web Access or OWA) and through mobile devices such as smartphones. The agility that these two server products offer allows employees to be agile and respond to business opportunities quickly.

The desktop component includes Microsoft Office 2007. Microsoft offers a number of versions of the Office 2007 suite to fit your business needs. That way you are not required to pay for functionality you don't necessarily require. It also is extremely customizable. With the introduction of Office Business Applications (OBA for short), you can now seamlessly integrate backoffice data into Microsoft Office. This is extremely valuable as it allows employees to access and manipulate data using familiar tools (such as Excel), reducing training requirements and potentially reducing complexity in data transfer processes by eliminating some third party applications for things like reporting.

Manageability

Virtualization is a concept that is continuing to pick up steam. Microsoft's virtualization strategy focuses on five areas: server/hardware virtualization, application virtualization, storage virtualization, desktop virtualization and presentation virtualization. Microsoft's solutions in each of these areas is focused on allowing businesses to reduce bottom-line costs through a number of ways, including:

rationalizing the amount of hardware required to run line of business applications
lowering the number of installed software products on desktops
increasing the manageability of servers and desktops from a central location

Microsoft System Center is another administrative tool that can help manage adminstrative costs associated to IT. While associated to our virtualization strategy, it offers a number of benefits to IT departments including:

Configuration Management: Allows IT departments to centrally manage the configuration and provisioning of software to the company in a controlled manner
Compliance: Central management of all servers with respect to ensuring compliance to policies driven by the business (such as security policies) as well as other compliance pressures such as regulatory compliance (e.g.: SOX, HIPAA, FISMA, etc.)
Monitoring: Ability to monitor the health of servers from a centralized location and alert administrators when an issue arises
Data Protection: manage the backup and recovery processes for multiple servers in a systematic fashion, both for physical and virtualized environments

Windows Vista

I'll admit it - Windows Vista has been getting hit hard with FUD around its value as a desktop operating system. The interesting thing is that there is much evidence to the contrary that states that businesses that use Windows Vista actually have a lower TCO than those that use other desktop operating systems (including Windows XP). For example, a whitepaper published by Wipro and GCR Custom Research titled Reducing the TCO with Windows Vista states that the average cost savings vs. Windows XP for mobile notebooks deployed within an organization is $251 per notebook.

It's also the most secure operating system Microsoft has produced. Loss of data through theft, subversion or even accidental data loss is expensive and also poses potential costs associated with it including fines (in the case of privacy breaches) as well as loss of reputation. The Windows Vista One-Year Vulnerability Report shows "that researchers found and disclosed significantly fewer vulnerabilities in Windows Vista than either it predecessor product, Windows XP, or other operating systems such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, and Apple Mac OS X 10.4" (page 19 of the report).

Finally, with increasing costs associated to energy (and even if energy prices may be relaxing somewhat from all-time highs), technologies that reduce their energy footprint are certainly useful in reducing costs associated with IT. To that end, many people don't realize that Windows Vista's enhanced sleep mode features and smart use of power can save a surprising amount of money in the form of energy savings. A white paper from Microsoft outlines some of the potential savings and on page 6 of the report states that a typical Pentium IV running Windows Vista with a 17" LCD monitor can save $55.63 per year compared to the same PC running Windows XP.

-Paul

Technorati Tags: Recession, Recession and IT, Developer, Microsoft

Finding Opportunities in a Recession Economy, PART 1

plaberge — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:28:00 GMT

Well, to answer that question, let's take a look at it from a few different angles. First, there's the personal angle (i.e.: how do you make yourself more marketable and valuable in recession economy?). Second there's established business angle (i.e.: how can I make the business more efficient with IT?). Third, there's the start-up angle (i.e.: how can I launch a new business and make it successful?). Let's take a look at each of these angles separately through 3 separate yet connected blog post. This post, the first in the series, will focus on Personal Success in a Recession.

Personal Success in a Recession

Everyone in IT knows that it's tough to keep up to speed with all the new technologies that are being released. Once you've learned one technology, another always seems to hit the market and gain buzz.

The trick is to really embrace the idea that learning is a lifelong activity. The reason why this is so important (especially in times such as these) is because with these new skills you are more marketable. When there is momentum behind a new technology, you may be better positioned to hit the ground running with the new technology. A great example of this from the Microsoft perspective is Silverlight. We are seeing a lot of excitement in the marketplace for it and businesses are really seeing value in it for building interactive visualizations. This presents great opportunities to you if you are a developer or a designer to expand your skillset and have knowledge of a new, in-demand technology in your toolbox.

Microsoft provides a number of resources to help you get up to speed more quickly on our platform. Some are local to Canada and some are worldwide. Below are some of these resources:

TechDays: TechDays is a Microsoft training conference that is held in cities across Canada. It focuses on providing in-depth sessions on Microsoft technologies that you can use today. While the Toronto and Montreal stops of the conference have already past, you can still register for the other cities (Ottawa, Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver).
Developer Training: Through MSDN (Microsoft's primary portal for all things developer on the Microsoft Platform), Microsoft offers a number of Hands-On Labs, webcasts and tutorials for various technologies.
Technology Portals: There are a number of specific portals for various Web and Software + Services technologies that are part of the Microsoft development platform. Good examples of this include the ASP.NET Portal, the Silverlight Portal and the Windows Client and WPF Portal.
Open Source: Microsoft is often perceived as anti-open source, which is actually completely wrong. We have a fundamental interoperability strategy that is core to our work. This also includes CodePlex, which is our open source repository where developers can grab applications and code that exist under open source license.
Designers: Historically, designers were not part of our ecosystem because Microsoft did not have tools that could legitimately support their work. With the advent of Silverlight and WPF, we introduced Expression Studio 2 years ago to give designers the ability to create truly interactive applications on the web and on Windows. Accompanying this is our Expression portal which provides great information on the Expression suite of tools as well as tutorials, forums and online training.
Free Tools: In addition to training materials and information, we also offer some great free tools that are good to help you learn our platform as well as the ability to create software solutions that are royalty-free from a Microsoft perspective. These tools, known as the Express set of tools include Visual Web Developer 2008 Express (for building ASP.NET websites and Silverlight applications), Visual C# 2008 Express (for building desktop applications with C# as well as C# class libraries), Visual Basic 2008 Express (for building desktop applications in VB as well as VB class libraries), Visual C++ 2008 Express (for building managed and non-managed desktop applications as well as C++ class libraries) and SQL Server 2008 Express (our free version of the SQL Server 2008 database system)

-Paul

Technorati Tags: Recession, Recession and IT, Developer, Microsoft

Silverlight FAQ from TechDays

qixing — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:09:11 GMT

Thanks for everyone who came out to the Toronto and Montreal TechDays. The three Silverlight sessions in both cities are extremely popular with long line-up of people wanting to ask questions about after the presentations. Robert Burke (Silverlight Samurai Skills presenter in Toronto), Laurent Duveau (Silverlight Samurai Skills presenter in Montreal), and I (presented Silverlight Control Framework) gathered some frequently asked questions below and provide our answers to share with you.

1. What tools do I need for building Silverlight 2 applications?

From the design side, you need Microsoft Expression Blend 2 and then install Microsoft Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1. Expression Blend 2 along with Service Pack 1 allows designers to graphically create UI's for Silverlight 2 applications. From the development side, you need Visual Studio 2008 SP1 or Visual Web Developer Express with SP1 and download the Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1. For creating Deep Zoom experience, Install Deep Zoom Composer. Also, download Silverlight Toolkit. This Toolkit is a Microsoft project containing Silverlight controls, components and utilities that can be downloaded and used in your Silverlight applications. It includes full source code, samples and tests.

2. How does Silverlight deal with multiple paged applications?

Think about SL applications more like desktop applications in the sense that a new page can be created dynamically in runtime. The implementation is quite simple: you create your different pages as page1 (.xaml and .xaml.cs), page2, page3, … , and then create a Page Switcher (i.e. it`s the initial start page) so that it can load different pages as necessary. This way not all pages need to be created at the beginning, and when a new page replaces an old page in the Page, the old page goes to garbage collection. Watch a tutorial on Using Multiple Pages.

3. Do I need special servers to host Silverlight applications?

No. SL applications are complied as .xap file which is essentially a zip file and can be hosted on any server.

4. Expression Training for Designers?

Yes. There are quite a few online tutorials for designers. Please see my Expression Resource blog post.

5. How is Silverlight different than Flash?

Using Silverlight, you can created similar experience as Flash on the web. However, there are several areas of experience we demonstrated at this year`s MIX conference that would be very hard to build with Flash. First is the rich interactive Olympic media experience that was delivered using Silverlight by NBC in August. Flash doesn't have the adaptive streaming capabilities to host that type of experience. Second is the Deep Zoom experience that comes with Silverlight 2, which is very hard to achieve using Flash.

Second, Silverlight is part of our UX platform, which spans from Windows to the Web, and include emerging surfaces such as the media/living room (Xbox360, Media Center PC), as well as mobile devices. Each of these platforms has shared capabilities and development tooling, but greatly different performance and integration characteristics. Similar to developing Windows based desktop application, Silverlight apps can be developed using the same tools - Expression Studio and Visual Studio. Thus, Windows designers and developers can easily transfer their skills to develop Silverlight applications

Third, designers and developers can work together building Silverlight apps more effectively using the integration between Expression and Visual Studio. The "secret sauce" to the process is XAML which provides the ability for both designers and developers to work on assets with the two tools with little to know re-work as the assets are passed back and forth between the two roles. The most interesting thing about Designers for SL is that your vector based graphics and layout are immediately "ready" for use by the dev's and will look exactly the way they were designed in the final product.

Lastly, the intent of Silverlight is not to replace Flash, but rather provide a choice for designers and developers. Silverlight control can interact with Flash controls with JavaScript. Expression tools can work with adobe tools together to create compelling UX as well. For example, in Expression Design, designers can import Adobe Illustrator files and images files from Photoshop into a workspace and then export as XAML.

6. What about Silverlight and SEO ?

You can use some Search Engine Optimization techniques to expose Silverlight content to search engines. You can read the following links to find out more.
http://blogs.msdn.com/synergist/archive/2007/10/03/simple-silverlight-seo-with-asp-net-and-xslt.aspx
http://www.nikhilk.net/AjaxSEO.aspx

7. Can I use ADO.NET in Silverlight ?

ADO.NET is not available in Silverlight and it makes sense as Silverlight runs in the browser. The way you manage data with Silverlight is by creating a model over your db on the server and expose it with web services. You can look at this ADO.NET Data Services example.
http://wildermuth.com/2008/11/08/New_Silverlight_2_ADO_NET_Data_Service_Example

8. Would you recommend Silverlight for line of business application ?

Silverlight has everything you need to do data driven apps: data controls like DataGrid, rich Networking (WCF, SOAP Web Service, REST, ...), LINQ, Data Binding.
The question is more on who your users are (Win, MAC, Linux ?) and where they are (Internet, Intranet ?).
You can read more on this blog post for more information:
http://wildermuth.com/2008/06/26/Silverlight_and_Line_of_Business_Applications

9. Is ASP.NET dead ???

No!!! Silverlight is not a replacement for ASP.NET and both technologies have different goals. Silverlight is a cross browser, cross platform plug-in for building rich interactive application inside the browser. ASP.NET runs on the server and needs the .NET Framework as well as Microsoft IIS web server. Aspx pages generate html in the browser, you can add richness with AJAX (JavaScript). ASP.NET offers high level services (Membership, Role, Profile) not yet available in Silverlight. In fact ASP.NET can nicely complement Silverlight!

10. Can you set/read cookies in Silverlight ?

Silverlight runs in a sandbox and do not have access to local files on the client. To store app settings, user preferences or small pieces of data you can use Isolated Storage: http://silverlight.net/learn/learnvideo.aspx?video=65677

11. Compare Silverlight vs WPF XBAP

XBAP (XAML Browser Application) allows you to run Rich Internet Applications that look and function like WPF desktop applications in browsers (IE and Firefox on Windows). A restriction on XBAP is that it needs .NET framework 3.0 or higher to be installed on the client machine to run.

XBAP:

Only Targets IE and Firefox on Windows
All WPF Features/controls are available
Supports 3D
Deployment is harder as we need to take care of deploying all .Net Dependencies on client Machines
Heavy Weight
Better for Intranet Applciations

Silverlight:

Cross browser, cross platform
Subset of WPF features
Easy deployment (xap packages) and light Weight
Better for Internet Applications

12. Can you store .NET objects in Isolated Storage ?

Yes you can write any .NET object or collection in the local cache and read(cast) them later. However, remember avoid saving sensitive data like passwords or connection strings as user can get access to these files.

13. Is there any reporting control with Silverlight 2 ?
There is no Reporting component in Silverlight but you can use the new charts controls in the Silverlight Toolkit.

Robert Burke's Blog: http://robburke.net/

Laurent Duveau's Blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/lduveau/

Thanks, Qixing

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Silverlight 2,Silverlight FAQ,TechDays_CA

DNIC - Dana Epp on the Microsoft SDL Threat Modeling Tool

John Bristowe — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:29:00 GMT

Earlier today at Microsoft Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 - Developer in Barcelona, we announced the launch of the SDL Optimization Model, SDL Pro Network and the Microsoft SDL Threat Modeling Tool 3.1 Beta! You can read more about this announcement here or you can read more at the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) Blog.

To better understand why the Microsoft SDL Threat Modeling Tool 3.1 Beta is important to developers, I spoke to Canadian security wonk Dana Epp (AKA, Canada's Worf) and asked him a few questions about this tool and the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) itself.

You can grab the Microsoft SDL Threat Modeling Tool 3.1 Beta today from Microsoft Downloads. Just make sure you have Visio installed as well. It's a great tool to help you identify and mitigate some of the threats in the STRIDE framework.

About Dana Epp

Dana Epp researches software security and sets the corporate vision in the convergence of information security principles and practices with digital information asset protection at Scorpion Software. As a computer security software architect, Dana has spent the last 15 years focusing on computer programming with a particular emphasis on security engineering to offer a safer computing environment for small business.

Dana has been an instructor in the Computer Information Systems department at the University College of the Fraser Valley and British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), teaching students about computer programming and information security. He has brought to market various computer security products including secure operating systems, firewalls, VPNs, authentication devices and intrusion prevention systems (IPS). His latest research has been on identity and access control for Windows-based environments, focusing on two-factor authentication solutions for small business.

Dana has been twice awarded the Community Spirit Award for Business in recognition of his ongoing initiatives in promoting high technology industries in his community, and won the 2001 Chamber of Commerce "Young Entrepreneur of the Year" award. In 2006 and 2007 Dana has been honored with the award and distinction of Microsoft Windows Security Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for his work and expertise in Windows security and continues to provide leadership in the community in regards to the application of information security principles and practices into software development and use.

Canucks at PDC - Jeff Atwood on Stack Overflow

John Bristowe — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

I love Stack Overflow. If you haven't visited this site, you really owe it to yourself to fire up a browser window and check it out. So, what is Stack Overflow and why should you care? Well, Joey deVilla and I bumped into Jeff Atwood at Microsoft PDC and asked him exactly that question.

Download(s): WMV

My apologies for the short interview. Jeff didn't have a lot of free time on his hands. Joey and I were lucky enough to grab him for the short time he had.

SharePoint for Developers Now Available on MSDN Ramp Up

John Bristowe — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:21:00 GMT

MSDN Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based program that can help you save time in learning Microsoft technologies like SharePoint and Visual Studio. Additionally, it helps Java or VB 6.0 developers get up-to-date quickly on the .NET Framework.

Recently, the folks who own MSDN Ramp Up updated the content and added a new track; SharePoint for Developers (Part 1). Here, you will find a number of great lessons that provide you with background information followed by a series of steps that shows you how to implement each of the lessons in Visual Studio.

Sign up is easy. All you need is a Windows Live ID. From there, you simply register for each track and apply the lessons. By the end, you’ll be up-to-speed on technologies like SharePoint and Visual Studio.

Canucks at PDC - Michael Klucher on XNA

John Bristowe — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

My fellow Developer Advisors and I are huge fans of XNA. It's one of the coolest technologies out there. At Microsoft PDC, I dropped by the XNA booth and chatted with Michael Klucher (AKA, MechaDragon) about this amazing technology:

Download(s): WMV

FWIW, my GamerTag is TropicOfCanada. Looking for an easy kill? I'm your man.

MVP Insider - Q & A with David Woods

John Bristowe — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:44:00 GMT

David Woods is the President of Solidhouse, A software consulting and website hosting company in Edmonton, Alberta. Dave has been programming since he was a kid on his Apple II and currently works on developing enterprise applications.

Dave has been a security enthusiast for many years. In former jobs he was responsible for the performing network security audits and server security before he took programming from a hobby to a profession. Now he has decided to focus his efforts on raising awareness and knowledge of software security in the community.

1. What does being a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) mean to you?

That I need to work harder. I received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award in developer security as I talk and blog about subjects that interest me. Now that I have the award though, people look at me as an expert in all areas of security! This is a good thing though as it motivates me to do more research into other areas of security I would normally not know about which makes me a better developer and a better Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).

2. If you could ask Steve Ballmer one question about Microsoft, what would it be?

It seems like the company tries to get into everything they possibly can now which can stretch out a company and weaken what made it good in the first place. Why does Microsoft go in so many different directions rather than focusing on some core products and innovating to make those core items even better?

3. What do you think the best software ever written was?

I don't think of anything as the best software ever written. Every application written always has something that can be improved upon. If you were to ask my favorite software written it would have to be Visual Studio. Once I started using it I knew I could not easily go back to coding in a text editor and then compiling.

4. If you were the manager of Visual Studio, what would you change?

Performance. I find that most of my wasted time now is due to waiting on the IDE to load, add a reference, opening projects/solutions, closing the application. It seems that with every new version that a bunch of features I don't use are added and performance suffers.

5. What are the best features/improvements of Visual Studio?

The addition of the [ASP.NET] development web server for sure is the best feature for me. It has made development of projects so much easier, especially in the team environment as developers no longer have to mess around with Internet Information Services (IIS). Just get the project from source control and go! I also like the mobile device emulator as it really does a good emulation job to enable faster development without having to sync it to the device and try your application on the device every build.

6. What was the last book you read?

The last book I finished was "Mostly Harmless" by Douglas Adams from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series.

7. What music CD do you recommend?

Well I have to recommend my favorite Canadian punkers: "Propagandhi - Where Quantity Is Job Number 1". I love music that educates or informs and punk music seems to be the only scene that still occurs in.

8. What makes you a great Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)?

Who said I was a great Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)? I guess if someone DID say that, then it is my desire to help developers realize and embrace that there is more to our industry than what you learn in school and that continual learning and improvement is a good thing! In fact, I think that developers who resist change are the bane of our industry and they are what really holds back progress in our industry. We need to encourage continual improvement of all developers so that our industry can keep improving.

9. What is in your computer bag?

My Macbook Air and 50 Taiwanese dollars left over from my recent trip there (seriously, go to Taiwan... it is such a great place).

10. What is the best thing that has happened since you have become a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)?

Not much really. I have some stickers? Not that I don't like being an MVP but it's not like I suddenly live in a magical land filled with rainbows and candy.

11. What is your motto?

Whine, kick and scream until everyone has everything they need.

12. Who is your hero?

I would probably have to say that Henry Rollins is my hero. He is a person who is quite grounded and quite honest about things. I wish there were more people out there like him that take a critical eye to things and approach things in a sensible manner. I admire that he does not accept what he is told as absolute fact and investigates things for himself.

13. What does success mean to you?

Not having to help yourself anymore and being able to help others.

Canucks at PDC - Social Bookmarking at MSDN

John Bristowe — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 03:57:00 GMT

At Microsoft PDC, Joey deVilla and I ran into Chris Slemp, Program Manager for the Server and Tools Online group at Microsoft. His group owns a really cool feature that has been recently introduced to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN); social bookmarking. In this interview, Chris talks a little about the social bookmarking capabilities that can be found at Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN):

Download(s): WMV

Some additional information:

Canucks at PDC - Silverlight 2 on Windows Mobile

John Bristowe — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:56:00 GMT

Jamie Wakeam interviews Giorgio Sardo about Silverlight 2 running on Windows Mobile devices. In this case, Giorgio shows a Silverlight application running on a Samsung Omnia. Check it out:

Download(s): WMV

If you'd like to find out more information about Silverlight running on Windows Mobile devices, you can check out Giorgio's presentation from Microsoft PDC here.

TechDays à Montréal

joxley — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:04:08 GMT

Bonjour Montréal ! C'est Philippe Riel, Directeur des communications stratégiques, marchés francophones.

L’équipe de Microsoft est en ville cette semaine pour la conférence TechDays, tenue au Palais des Congrès.

C’est l’événement de l’année pour la communauté des développeurs québécois et tous les professionnels des TI de la province. Au programme, d’excellents ateliers animés par nos cracks de la technologie comme Christian Beauclair, Pierre Romain, Georges Maheu, Éric Renaud, François Tanguay, Joël Quimper et Laurent Duveau, entre autres, qui partagent leurs connaissances techniques sur 5 sujets principaux : Développement Windows, Développement Web, Virtualisation, Plateforme Microsoft/Veille stratégique et Infrastructure.

Les participants ont reçu une trousse de logiciels d’une valeur de plus de 1 000 $, comprenant entre autre les versions complètes de Expressions Web, Visual Studio 2008 et l’inscription pour 6 mois à TechNet Plus, le tout bien empaqueté dans une boîte de Techie Crunch !

Pour ma part, je suis fier de constater les progrès réalisés par la compagnie au cours des dernières années au point de vue des communications françaises : une large partie des ateliers et des présentations sont effectuées en français et toutes sont produites avec traduction simultanée pour les auditeurs. C’est un grand pas pour nous :-)

De plus, les présentations seront éventuellement postées sur techdays.ca, pour ceux qui n’auront pas eu l’occasion d’assister aux TechDays en personne.

Voici la première vague qui se conclut à l’instant et mon ami Joël s’apprête à aller charmer la foule avec sa propre présentation – je vous quitte donc là-dessus.

À bientôt !

Philippe

Silverlight 2 and Building Rich Web Applications Today

plaberge — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:36:17 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft released Silverlight 2 as a Release to Web (RTW) product. For us at Microsoft, this was exciting news because it represented a major milestone in presenting to you as solution developers a platform for building rich, immersive experiences on the web.

I'm not going to go through each of the features in Silverlight 2 that you have probably heard already from various sources, but I did want to take some time to talk about a few of the things that you may have missed in all the hype and announcements or not realized was possible with Silverlight in general.

Tool Support

Visual Web Developer 2008 Express

It used to be that you needed Visual Studio Standard or above to be able to create Silverlight applications with minimal configuration and the like. Sure, you could employ certain hacks to make Silverlight work in other tools but this was clunky and didn't lead to a great experience. With the release of Silverlight 2 RTW, you now have the ability to create Silverlight 2 applications not only with Visual Studio Standard and above, but now also with Visual Web Developer 2008 Express (which is entirely free, both to download and use without royalties).

Eclipse

If you use Eclipse as your development UI of choice, you now have the ability to build Silverlight 2 applications using the Eclipse Tools for Silverlight plug-in. This is the result of a partnership Microsoft created with Eclipse plug-in maker Soyatec and represents a significant step forward in Microsoft's commitment to interoperability.

Expression Blend 2 SP1

Many of you who build Silverlight 2 applications probably already know this but XAML, while extremely flexible and complete with respect to expressing user interfaces for Silverlight (and WPF for that matter) is not particularly easy to manipulate, the WPF Designer feature in Visual Studio 2008 notwithstanding. This is especially true if you plan on providing animation capabilities in your Silverlight application. For this reason, Microsoft created Expression Blend which is an interactive design tool for building great UI's for WPF and Silverlight. The problem with this tool is that you needed a special version of Expression Blend 2 in the past in order to build Silverlight applications with it. With the release of Silverlight 2, Microsoft has forgone this separate version of Blend 2 and create Expression Blend 2 SP1 which provides out-of-the-box Silverlight support. As the SP1 designation alludes to, this is a free update to anyone that has a license of Expression Blend 2. You can download SP1 for Blend 2 here.

Silverlight Toolkit

The Silverlight Toolkit is a collection of controls you can use within your Silverlight 2 application. While not yet complete (we expect to have around 100 controls within the toolkit when all is said and done), there are a large number of extremely important controls that are available in the toolkit now, including: TreeView, DockPanel, WrapPanel, ViewBox, Expander, NumericUpDown and Autocomplete. Some of the future controls that will be included in the toolkit are DataGrid, Radio Button, CheckBox and DatePickerCharting among others.

Features

XAML

I mentioned XAML a little earlier in this post, but I wanted to mention something else about it. While it is true that XAML is extremely rich and capable in expressing user interfaces in XML format, that isn't the half of it's real power. What makes XAML truly special is that it is an equal citizen with .NET code in defining objects and properties for your Silverlight application. That means that any object, like a Button created in the XAML code can be manipulated through .NET code. Likewise, .NET code can create a Button object to be used in the presentation layer of your Silverlight application.

Alternative Communication Methods

While HTTP is a great, general protocol for most things available on the web, there are occasions where it doesn't make the best medium for transmitting information back and forth. If you have a Silverlight application that does a great deal of talking back and forth with the server, you have the opportunity to take advantage of the power of sockets in Silverlight in order to do that communication.

Another technology you can use in your Silverlight applications is Windows Communications Foundation (WCF). WCF allows you to build Silverlight applications that have robust communication capabilities back to the server. While you don't need WCF for a Silverlight application to communicate with a server, the technology provides a great deal of goodness (like secure message transfer, custom protocol creation and robust web services implementation) that you can use with your applications. There are some good tutorials on WCF on Silverlight starting here (it's a five-part series of screencasts showing you what you need to know) and there's a great blog on WCF/Web Services enabled Silverlight applications here.

.NET Language Support

Because the Silverlight 2 plug-in for the browser contains a factored subset of the .NET framework, you can build your Silverlight apps using the power of .NET (and with .NET skills you may already have if you build .NET-enabled solutions). Because the .NET framework is largely language-independent, this means you can code your Silverlight application in your language of choice. This includes C#, VB.NET, IronRuby, IronPython, JScript, etc. The choice is yours.

These are just some of the features of Silverlight 2 that I think are important but may not be getting as much airtime as other features. I hope you found some of these points interesting and enlightening.

Are you building a Silverlight 2 application? Let me know!

-Paul