Robert MacLean

With 2011 finally done and dusted it is time for the bi-annual presentation dump, where I upload most of the slides I have done in the last six months to share with you! I say most, as some presentations are NDA and those, unfortunately, I can’t share out – but where I can upload slides I do!

In this presentation dump we have:

• Windows Azure Platform Overview: This is a talk I gave at the ImagineCup to faculty members about what Microsoft Azure can offer!
• Windows 8: A brief introduction shortly after the //Build conference to help share what information we had on Windows 8
• Lightswitch: The latest iteration of my Lightswitch talk contains a structure overview before the demo and then goes into detail on the themes and extension model in the product.
• Developer Productivity Tools: A session that looks at FIVE FREE tools for Visual Studio that will assist in the productivity of any Microsoft .NET developer in Visual Studio. Tools covered are fxCop, StyleCop, Pro Power Tools, CodeRush Xpress & Nuget.
• An Introduction to TFS: The target audience for this is someone or company who is using another source control (like VSS) and is thinking about moving to TFS but isn’t sure where to start. This BRIEF introduction tries to provide a high level view that TFS is not just source control it is a LOT of more and thus has a lot more power. It also mentions migration from VSS and provides guidance for success.
• Roslyn: This is an early look at Roslyn

It is definitely a quieter period than most, in terms of number of unique slide shows and I think a lot of that comes out of the information black out from Microsoft prior to //Build, but it was still a very period with me presenting Lightswitch NUMEROUS times and also Tech·Ed Africa where I did four presentations!

You can get all the slides and details by clicking “read more” below!

364 days ago & 829 days ago, I blogged about being awarded a MVP from Microsoft and I am proud to announce that I have been awarded a MVP for a THIRD time!

Thank you to all that were part of making this happen, I am very honoured by all of you.

What is an MVP? In short it is a thank you for helping Microsoft communities. The long version can be found here.

I recently read an insightful post about how being a developer is less about coding and more about tooling, and while I do not agree with all of the post, the fact we as developers are tool obsessed rings very true. This obsession with tools becomes a white hot rage when our favourite tool is threated with extinction or causes a world of panic when a competing tool is proposed without enough information on it.

Let’s look at two key examples of that:

• WinForms was very popular and when Microsoft brought us WPF, there was major push back from those who did not want to change and learn a new tool. If you reading this, then you are thinking well time solved that, I disagree. This very week I was asked about WinForms vs. WPF again. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, it just gives some of us time to move on.
• To illustrate the world of panic I can use a more recent issue – Windows 8! Remember all the discussion before //Build about the death of <insert your favourite tool here>? The confusion caused by incomplete discussions around tools we love caused panic.

So what is the solution to this? I think simply a mind set change would be enough. The mind set change needed is to remember that a platform is more important/powerful/useful than a tool. I would like to take credit for this idea, but the first time I heard anyone mention this was a few years back and it was Scott Hanselman talking on MVC almost three years ago to the day. He mentioned that ASP.NET > ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET > ASP.NET MVC. In short he was saying that the core understanding of ASP.NET, the core features and the core uses of the platform are bigger than a single implementation (tool) could be. Sure, you need to learn a new tool, but you aren’t starting at zero if you know the platform.

Why I am bringing this up? It is because of the discussions I have been having about another tool recently: Silverlight. We are approaching the panic stage on this tool due to rumours of it’s demise. However it is VERY important to take a step back and see what the platform is and how knowing the platform means that a tool can move along and we are still able to work/code/make money etc…

The platform Silverlight uses is XAML based UI technologies, a core set of how we can layout UI components using an XML dialect called XAML. This platform also has lots of options for things like binding, the MVVM patterns and so on that are either difficult or impossible to do with other UI technologies (like WinForms for example).

XAML based UI technologies started with a single tool: WPF – an implementation of the platform designed to run on top of the .NET Framework. A second tool, Silverlight, later appeared – this is an implementation of the platform designed to run as a plugin in a browser. A third tool, Silverlight for Windows Phone 7, came next and while very close to Silverlight it had it’s differences as it was an implementation of the platform for the phone. In the last few months we have had the forth implementation of the XAML based UI technologies appear: WinRT. This is the Windows Runtime in Windows 8 and when you develop with C#, VB.NET or C++ your UI technology is just another implementation of the platform.

Every implementation of the platform has been different, some in big ways and some in smaller ways but the core of the XAML based UI technology platform hasn’t changed and there is not a single rumour, plan, or hint that we are even close to seeing the end of XAML based UI technologies. We may see a tool end of life and die (like some rumours say about  Silverlight) or other tools just find completeness and not need new work done (like WPF if) but the platform remains and grows and learning a platform is always more important/powerful/useful.

WOW! I am sitting here under s a fake tree in a fake city that is Micropolis (also known as the Tech·Ed Africa 2011 expo, and it is AMAZING!). I have just finished my third and final presentation at Tech·Ed Africa 2011 and I just wanted to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all the people who attended my talks!

This year not only has an amazing expo, but the audiences have been by far the BEST EVER! A special thanks to those who braved 8am to see my .NET 4 talk – 2min before I started I thought “I need sleep”, 2min after the energy from the audience was flowing and I never looked back at what I felt was a great talk, so thank you!

A special work of thanks to Suliman and DPE (it is their fake tree I am sitting under) for arranging this and the opportunity to present! I also want to say thanks to the technical team at the event, without who you would not see or hear me, and they were fantastic this year!

For those who attended my talks, or those who couldn’t below are the slides, scripts and misc files used in the talks!

(for those in an RSS reader or on the home page, click read more)

I’m very happy to announce the 1.1 version of the Tech·Ed Africa app for Windows Phone 7 is now out with a TON of new features:

First up is dedicated in app pages for speakers. This means no more browsing to the website for speaker info. There is also options to view their Twitter, website etc… and since we not on Mango it supports saving the contact details to the device.

Second  is similar, dedicated pages for the sessions too!

Third improvement is on the sessions list page – a lot of cleanup and bug fixing there plus lots of options for the grouping (level, audience etc..). This should help finding session info very easily.

The MVP page got a BIG facelift too, with buttons for contact details for each MVP, and a cleaner more bold experience. Of the whole application I am most happy with the UI on this page. I also added a community tweets page that has tweets searched by hash tags!

The welcome page got a cleanup with more focus on the news tweets and the removal of the refresh option, since it refreshes in a lot of ways manual isn’t really needed. It also allows you to launch the BIG new feature…

Session planner! You can now browse and book sessions on your phone! And your phone will give you reminders to attend the sessions!

There is also a lot of UI tweaks – first the background was swopped to the latest UI from Tech·Ed and made a lot darker, so the contrast to the white stands out more the readability is WAY better. I also spent a lot of time with Rudi Grobler getting some of the smaller UI things right, so a big thanks to him! It even has a new and MUCH nicer icon So what are you waiting for, go update NOW!

Next weekend (15th Oct) Cape Town is hosting the SharePoint Saturday conference and myself and fellow BBDer Rudi Grobler will be there and will be and we are running a very special event in conjunction with the main event: Lab Rooms!

There will be two special rooms available and in one Rudi will presenting and training on Windows Phone 7 and in the other I will be presenting and training on the Windows Azure Platform!

The cost for this? FREE! It is being sponsored by BBD & the SharePoint Saturday event

Space in both rooms is VERY VERY limited, so you need to register NOW!

Windows Phone Registration: http://wp7camp.eventbrite.com/

Windows Azure Registration: http://windowsazurecpt.eventbrite.com/

(Update 1) Note: This relates to the Windows 8 Developer Preview, your mileage may vary and this may change.

This post is here to help you, and me, by sharing solutions that I am finding while trying to get Windows 8 running for a professional developer. I am using a HP 8510w laptop so some things maybe specific. This will be updated randomly and will be more like a live blog than a polished post.

(Update 1) As I update this I will prefix new content with (Update #) where # is the update number. The latest ones will be in bold.

Problems & Solutions

Graphics

I have a NVidia Quatro graphics card and to get it working correctly with Win8 (rather than the basic graphic driver) I needed to use the BETA driver from: Beta and Older Driver Versions – I used the Verde 285.27 Driver and that worked just fine, everything else was broken in one way or another.

.NET 3.5

A bunch of apps use .NET 3.5 or earlier so I needed that. To install it you must install it via the Turn Windows Features On/Off  option in the control panel (it’s under Programs). I had a BUNCH of issues (error 0x800F0906) getting it to work as it needs to download it which I think are proxy related. Once I downloaded via 3g it finally came down (took an hour ).

(UPDATE 2) Tried this via a transparent proxy and it worked too. Seems it is related to proxy servers that require basic authentication.

(UPDATE 4) Finally found a solution Thanks to Zayd Kara for helping me with this:

Copy the SXS folder from the Windows 8 ISO to the C:\Temp folder.

Then run: dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /All /Source:c:\temp\sxs /LimitAccess

Metro Style Apps Don’t Run

Details: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsdeveloperpreviewgeneral/thread/cd6df64d-737d-40e0-b999-03e654204448

(Update 1) Found the error message in the Event Log (Application and Services Logs –> Microsoft –> Windows –> WwaHost –> Admin)

Windows Web Application Host has encountered an unexpected exception. The error is number 0x8007000E.

(UPDATE 2) One of the best new features in Windows 8 is the ability to reset your machine without affecting your files. I did this and this solved all my issues

(UPDATE 4) The cause of this is the DLink modem software for my 3G modem. It is screwing up com. No idea why, and no way around it. That’ll teach me to use a 3g modem that doesn’t work with the natively Windows 7/8 mobile internet support.

Windows Phone Developer Tools

The 7.0 RTM release will NOT install at all. The 7.1 RC will install so you may need to get that one.

YOU MUST install .NET 3.5 first (see above). Once installed I didn’t have any emulator options and trying to run it would cause: HRESULT: 0x89721800

I resolved this by deleting “%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Phone Tools\CoreCon\10.0” (source for that App Hub Forums)

The emulator option appeared but now when I try to run it, it crashes Windows 8 with a BSOD related to vmm.sys – no solution yet.

(UPDATE 2) I have tried everything and nothing seems to help. Resorted to using a Windows 7 boot from VHD to be able to run these tools

Microsoft Security Essentials

It would not install because of a compatibility issue Downloaded it again from the website, which doesn’t tell you version numbers and the file size looked the same, but this newer one did work fine.

(UPDATE 2) Paul Adare pointed out on the forums that this is included now out of the box, so not needed  

Switch to Live ID

Not working, error 0xD00000072 – suspecting proxy again.

Install of Visual Studio 2010 Offline Documentation

Completely failed, no idea why.

D-Link 3G Modem

It could not find the drivers, so I had to go to device manager, select the unknown devices –> Right click –>  Update Driver –> Browse my computer –> C:\Program Files (x86)\D-Link Connection Manager\drivers\64bit\WIN7

Then it found and installed the drivers for the 3G modem

(Update 1) Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Developer Preview

Cannot build or run Metro Style apps.

Designer is failing with Server execution failed (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80080005 (CO_E_SERVER_EXEC_FAILURE))

And running them fails with Unable to activate Windows Tailored application

I suspect this is related to the Metro app issue above.

(Update 1) Internet Explorer 10

Two interesting issues, one browsing our intranet which runs on HTTPS any content from HTTP fails to load and there is NO option to allow it.

Second issue is in the IE desktop mode there is no tooltips  

However the solution is to run the Metro Style Internet Explorer, and it shows tooltips… and they are LOVELY:

(Update 3) SharePoint

I am referring to connecting to SharePoint server using IE 10, in short – it is horrid for anything other than basic browsing. I have installed Chrome to get around this.

(Update 3) Windows Server AppFabric

I needed Windows Server AppFabric installed so I could do development, however AppFabric does not install on Windows 8

To work around this I waited for the error to appear, then browsed to the extracted files (the moment you click ok on the error it cleans itself up) and used the expand command to extract the msu file which you can find in the packages folder.

That gets me a cab file which I extract again and that produces another 1 996 files. In there I used the file search to find the assemblies I needed to get the code to build, won’t run but at least I can code

(Update 4) HP LaserJet 4250 Printer

I have this printer on the network but it was horrid trying to get Windows to see and work with it. The trick was to download the actual PCL6 drivers from the HP website. This has all the options to set it up and it works fine now

Things that just worked

For balance here are application that have been installed with no issue.

• Visual Studio 2010 + SP1
• Firefox 6
• Chrome (what ever the latest is)
• Windows Live Writer
• TweetDeck
• Office 2010 + SP 1
• (Update 1) VLC
• (Update 3) Pull

There is also some more info in the comments!

As part of my work ahead of Microsoft Tech·Ed Africa 2011 I did a online, anonymous poll to see how well known are the new features in .NET 4, and over the next few days I thought I would share my findings.

The poll asked you to state for feature X: Do you know it? And if you do know it, is it a useful feature?

I listed 61 features that are new in .NET 4 – which pretty much covered the length and breadth of it. There is some consolidation, like ALL of Workflow is one item but WF4 is a rewrite so pretty much is one BIG new feature and some other aspects of consolidation.

I suspected a fairly high rate of known features because .NET 4 was released 16 months ago (12 April 2010) and it has been demo’d and talked about a lot - even I have done a talks on the new features. However the ratio of unknown to known is 1.2 : 1 – so while there is a close parity, there are more are unknown than known, which surprised me a bit.

I have broken up talking about the results into a series, because I want to talk about each feature briefly so a single post would have been MASSIVE.

Below are links to the other parts of the series:

• Top 10 least known features.
• The 12 features the majority thinks are useless.
• Top 10 most useful features.

Finally I want to say a BIG thanks to everyone who answered and those who shared links on social networks and with friends!

The raw data can be found below.