For those looking at Windows Phone 7 development, Microsoft Canada will hold two events in Montreal next week (Sept 9 and 10, 2010)  where you’ll be able to see a real Windows Phone 7 device.  Well, it’s a pre production developer device so it’s the closest thing you’ll get to the real thing right now 

The 1st event is called “Microsoft Canada Windows Phone 7 Night in Montreal (featuring a developer device!)” and will take place on Sept 9 evening.
Register here

The second event is targeted at developers who used the phone emulator and wants to test their app on a real device.  This will take place on Sept 10.  You need to contact Christian Beauclair to reserve a spot.
christian.beauclair@microsoft.com

Today only (Monday August 30th 2010), you can get Julie Lerman’s Entity Framework Second Edition book that was just published for a mere $9.99 US (eBook version).

Go here: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596807269
Use this promo code: DDPEF (Monday August 30th 2010 ONLY)

Hey!  Telerik is coming to Canada.  Evan Hutnick, Telerik evangelist, will speak at 6 Canadian user groups.

Check Evan’s blog for more info

Just saw this Azure offer.  You can try Azure for free, no credit card required, for a full month.

Get all the details here and read the fine print (like US only)

If your looking for security guidance for Windows or SQL Azure, this page lists a series of interesting resources:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff934690.aspx

This one also:
http://www.globalfoundationservices.com/security/index.html

J.D. Meier has put his security notes in one handy PDF document:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jmeier/archive/2010/08/03/now-available-azure-security-notes-pdf.aspx

Here’s a nice VB and C# reference page that does a syntactical comparison of both languages.  Useful for someone fluent in one language but needs to understand or code in the other one.

http://www.harding.edu/fmccown/vbnet_csharp_comparison.html

IE9 Preview hit 95/100 on the Acid3 test!

Read all about it here

Dan posted a comment on my blog asking me about the Expression Encoder Pro price.   Looks like the US price for Expression Encoder Pro on the MS US online store went from $50 to $199.  Was $50 an intro/special price?

The funny thing is that it was $88 CDN a couple of weeks ago in the Canadian store.  I asked MS Canada why and the price magically went down to $66 CDN.  Not a bad deal now when compared to $199 in the US store 

I recently started having an error message when saving Word documents as PDF files.  The error states that “This file is in use by another application or user”.  Yeah, sure!

Bizarre, it worked well before.  Before what?  Before I installed Kaspersky AntiVirus.  For whatever reason, Kaspersky doesn’t like when Word save a document as a PDF.  The trick is to add Word as trusted application in Kaspersky and you’ll be able to save your documents as PDF.

http://www.visualstudiotalkshow.com

Andre Vachon: Les nouveautés du langage C++ dans Visual Studio 2010

Nous discutons avec André Vachon des nouveautés du langage C++ dans Visual Studio 2010. Le C++ est un langage de programmation permettant la programmation sous de multiples paradigmes comme la programmation procédurale, la programmation orientée objet et la programmation générique. C++ est actuellement le 3e langage le plus utilisé au monde (le 1er si on le regroupe avec le C).

André Vachon est un vétéran de longue date de Microsoft. Il s'est joint à l'équipe de développement de Windows NT d'origine et a été responsable de la conception et du développement de l'architecture des pilotes graphique sous Windows NT. André s'est ensuite concentré sur l'outillage pour le développement de Windows, d'abord en développant les outils de débogage et puis l'infrastructure de tests. André a récemment rejoint la division Visual Studio en tant que gestionnaire de programme principal pour le compilateur C++. André est titulaire d'un baccalauréat en informatique de l'Université McGill.

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If you’re experiencing problems with your iOS 4 device and your Exchange server, be advised that there’s a bug in iOS4.  Here’s the email I received from my hosted Exchange provider:

There is currently an issue with Apple’s IOS4 that causes issue with the Activesync function in Exchange. Apple devices that were either upgraded to the 4.0 version or that were delivered with that version already installed are concerned by this issue.

A patch was released by Apple (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3398) that in some cases, will resolve the issue. This patch extends the time that the phone waits for a reply from the exchange server and this should help significantly. Since this issue affects the Activesync system, all types of mobiles can be affected by the issue but the patch is only for iPod touch, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS.

Sherweb has made modifications to the Activesync system to help palliate for the load caused by the software flaw. If you are still experiencing the issue, please run a small test. On the mobile device, open a browser and type in: https://webmail.ihostexchange.net/cas.txt. Please contact our support team at support@sherweb.com or by phone at 1-888-567-6610 and give us the results of this test.

Thank you for your patience

The Sherweb Team

Nice way to take down the planet’s Exchange server Apple 

Eric Juteau has published a great Expression Encoder 4 FAQ.  A must read is you’re interested by this tool.

Read it here

I started to play around with Expression Encoder 4 Screen Capture doing some recordings when the software showed me this dialog:

Strange, this is the version I installed from my Ultimate Super Extra Complete Top of the line Expression Studio 4 that I downloaded from my Ultimate Super Extra Complete Top of the line MSDN subscription.

I went to the Expression Encoder 4 page and surely, the Pro edition is bundled in Expression Studio 4 Ultimate.  Hummm, is this what I have?  Well, the about box reveals something interesting.  What I have is Expression Encoder 4 Pro (without codecs).

Doh!  What’s that?  This version is not even listed in the Expression Encoder 4 page!  Is this why I can’t record for more than 10 minutes?  Wait!  This is a limitation of the standard version.  You known, the Not Pro version.  What’s wrong with my (without codecs) version and who the hell are you mister (without codecs)?

First of all, the version included in the MSDN subscriptions is the Pro version without codecs.  Because of distribution and royalties reasons, Microsoft can’t bundle these codecs with the software we get in our MSDN subscriptions.  If you need them, you can buy the full retail without the (without codecs) for a mere $50US ($85CDN - yeah, go figure!) from the Microsoft online store.

OK, great.  The identity crisis of my Encoder 4 Pro is now resolved but what about that 10 minutes limit?  Isn’t that a limitation of Encoder 4 (not the Pro or the Pro without codecs)?  Another identity crisis?  Well, it’s a known bug and from what I learned, a fix is on its way.

Identity crisis solved (well almost).

Just heard about this one from my good friend Mario Cardinal.

The Microsoft ALM Summit will take place on November 16-18, 2010 in Redmond.

The conference Website is up but there’s not much info so far.

Microsoft has announced the date and location for it’s next PDC:  October 28 and 29, 2010 in Redmond.  Yep!  Redmond, not L.A.!

Looks like we’ll be able to watch all the keynotes and sessions live from the comfort of our cubicles.

More info here

Microsoft announced at the Worldwide Partners Conference a new member in the Azure family: the Windows Azure Platform Appliance.

You can watch Bob Muglia’s keynote announcing the Azure Appliance:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/wpc/

Microsoft has updated its Azure Website with Appliance information:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/appliance/

You can watch Steve Marx on Channel 9 talking about the Azure Appliance:
http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/dunnry/Introducing-the-Windows-Azure-Platform-Appliance/

So what is the Azure Platform Appliance?  From what I read today, this is Microsoft’s private cloud offering for governments, large organizations and service providers.

Cool!  This mean that I will be able to download it and install it on a couple of servers!  Not exactly.  The Appliance is a complete solution that comes with both hardware and software and it’s likely that you’ll have to buy at least 1000 servers (think containers) so it’s clearly not targeted at the usual enterprises data centers.

Congrats to Vincent Grondin who was awarded MVP C# on July 1st.  Vincent has been involved in the Montreal .NET Community for about a year now.  He is also an excellent speaker.

Vincent will surely be happy to receive his MVP gift, a true gem this year 

I’m an Acronis True Image user and yesterday, I received an email for a new Acronis product.  It’s called Acronis Drive Monitor and its purpose is to monitor hard drive health.  The good news is that it’s free so I gave it a shot and installed it on my desktop and my server (yep, it support desktop and server Windows OS).

My server has been acting strangely recently and I suspect the main hard drive to be the culprit.  I did run the usual CHKDSK and that helped but my Spiderman senses were still telling me that something was still wrong.  Well, Drive Monitor told me exactly what was wrong by reporting the hard drive S.M.A.R.T. attributes.  Basically, my drive is getting old.  Time to pay a visit to the folks at my local MicroBytes store.

So how long do hard drives live?  I guess that the answer is the classic “It depends” but it think that 3 years is fair enough for a drive spinning 24/7.  For now on, I’ll start a hard drive labelling system sticking an expiration date on them.  Gee, if it’s good enough for milk, it must also be good for hard drives!  

http://www.visualstudiotalkshow.com

Dominic Sevigny: Silverlight dans la grande entreprise

Nous discutons avec Dominic Sevigny de l'adoption de Silverlight dans la grande entreprise. Silverlight est un plugin pour navigateur web multiplate-forme (Windows et Apple, Linux via le projet MoonLight), qui permet de développer des applications web riches dans un moteur de rendu vectoriel. Silverlight a comme concurrents principaux Adobe Flash et Flex, et dans une moindre mesure des solutions telles que JavaFX ou Quicktime d’Apple. Tout dépend si l’on se place du côté outil de conception de véritables applications ou de simple diffuseur de média (vidéos, musiques…).

Dominic Sévigny est président de RunAtServer Consulting, une entreprise spécialisée dans la consultation ASP.NET et offrant une expertise de développement Web exemplaire par la qualité de ses développeurs séniors. Dominic est reconnu comme étant un conférencier très dynamique. En effet, il donne à l’occasion des conférences sur les technologies Web telles que ASP.NET et Ajax. Il a donné plusieurs conférences à la Communauté .Net de Montréal ainsi qu’au DevTeach où il a été nommé « Best Speaker » en 2007. Il est le formateur exclusif de toutes les formations ASP.NET et AJAX pour le plus grand centre de formation de Montréal, Technologia. Pour la quatrième année consécutive, il a obtenu de Microsoft le titre de MVP ASP.NET.

If you’re interested in learning Windows Phone 7 development, check DevTeach’s Windows Phone 7 Bootcamp with superstar trainer Colin Melia.

More info here

Oh and save a whopping $100 by using this super special secret code while registering: G0005GUVSM