Microsoft released today a Beta version of the .NET Framework 3.5 along a Beta version of the Service Pack 1 for Visual Studio 2008.

ScottGu describes the new features here:
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/05/12/visual-studio-2008-and-net-framework-3-5-service-pack-1-beta.aspx

If you're using the Silverlight Tools, SP1 is not compatible.  Make sure you read this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/webdevtools/archive/2008/05/12/error-installing-visual-studio-2008-sp1-beta-and-silverlight-tools-beta-1.aspx

Borland finally found a buyer for its CodeGear dev division.  Embarcadero bought it for a mere $23 million!

http://www.borland.com/us/company/news/codegear_sale_announce.html
http://www.codegear.com/about/news/embt
http://adtmag.com/article.aspx?id=22584

Finally, Zune will hit the Canadian marketplace on June 13th.

http://zunenews.ca/
http://www.zune.net/en-CA/

I'm at the Patterns & Practices Summit in Quebec City and I'll give a talk about data access layer.  Sounds boring?  What if I mix some LINQ to SQL with some multi layered architecture and a touch of WCF?  Sounds more interesting, right?

To be honest, I'm scared to death because I'm the 3rd to speak, right after the Alpha Geek himself: Scott Hanselman and a living legend: Billy Hollis.

If you're attending, make sure to say hello!

Yeah, this is a blog about technology but I love music and I love NIN so skip this one if you think it's silly.

Today, NIN released their latest album, The Split, for free on the Internet.  Yep, for free!  You can even download the tracks to create your own remixes.

www.nin.com

Why?  I do buy CDs but kids don't.  They download and they don't see any value in spending cash when it's there to download.  So there is less and less money to be made from selling CDs.  And when dinausors like me will disapear, they'll stop making them.

This marks the beginning of the death of the CD and the music industry as we know it.

Will software follow that path?

Ludovic Dubois: T#: une nouvelle façon de tester

Nous discutons avec Ludovic Dubois le concepteur du nouveau langage de programmation T# dédié pour les tests. T# est un langage .NET compatible avec C# v2 qui intègre l’équivalent de NUnit, de POCMock et bien d’autres choses… en beaucoup plus simple et beaucoup plus puissant.

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Patrick Smacchia: NDepend

Nous discutons avec Patrick Smacchia du logiciel NDepend, un outil qui permet aux architectes ainsi qu’aux dévelopeurs d’analyser la structure du code, de vérifier les règles de conception et de planifier les activités de refactorisation. Entres autres, nous discutons comment il est possible de codifier les contraintes liées au couplage et à la cohésion et de les intégrer dans un « build » journalier de sorte que ces contraintes se perpétuent à travers les versions comme spécifications "exécutables" d'architecture.

Télécharger l'émission

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Si vous désirez utiliser le feed RSS pour télécharger l'émission, nous vous invitons à vous abonnez en utilisant le bouton ci-dessous.

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More info at www.guvsm.net

Microsoft shipped Expression Studio 2 yesterday:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/may08/05-01Expression2PR.mspx

Some of the new features:

Expression Web:

·         Standards-based design with PHP

·         Silverlight support

·         Ability to import Adobe Photoshop files

·         Support for ASP.NET 3.5 including ASP.NET AJAX support

Expression Blend:

·         Silverlight support including JavaScript editor

·         XAML Vertex Animation – individual vertex control

·         Convert existing XAML artwork into WPF user controls

·         Improve workflow with enhanced UI including split design/XAML view

Expression Media:

·         Shared catalogs

·         Photo uploader

·         Silverlight web galleries

·         Multi-monitor light table

Expression Encoder:

·         New VC-1 codecs – better image quality smaller files

·         Apply simply edits directly

·         High quality live encoding with VC-1

·         Inverse telecine – lets film content look its best

Expression Design:

·         Improved export to XAML for Silverlight and WPF

·         Image slicing for website graphic creation

Tomorrow, we are launching a new user group dedicated to the application life cycle with Team System and Team Foundation Server in Montreal.

Etienne Tremblay and Claude Remillard, both Team System MVPs, will run the group.  They will also present on the inaugural meeting.

More info at www.guvsm.net

Survol de Visual Studio Team System et Roadmap

If you're a student and want a legal copy of Office 2007 Ultimate, you can get one for $60US or $65 CAD but you must hurry, this Microsoft offer ends in 2 days!

US:  http://www.theultimatesteal.com
Canada: http://www.theultimatesteal.ca/

Others countries: Spain, France, Italy, UK, Australia, Mexico, Taiwan and Correa.

There have been conflicting reports about SQL Server injection attacks and a possible new IIS vulnerability.

• This is not related to a new IIS or SQL or ASP.NET vulnerability
• A bot is scanning the Web trying SQL Server injections
• Of course, it is finding a lot of poorly designed non secured pages

Get the facts and learn about injection attacks:
http://blogs.iis.net/bills/archive/2008/04/25/sql-injection-attacks-on-iis-web-servers.aspx

If you're living in Toronto and don't attend DevTeach, I'm gonna beat you up and force you to code in Clipper for the rest of your life.  Seriously, DevTeach has one of the greatest speakers lineup of all the .NET conferences.

Honestly, where can you hear, see, talk to, describe your problems (IT/Dev related or not) and have a beer with these guys/gals?

And that's only half of them!!!

Need more reasons?

Keynote by Scott Hanselman, Microsoft
Scott Hanselman is one of the most prolific, renowned and respected blogger (http://www.hanselman.com) and podcaster (http://www.hanselminutes.com) about technologies. Scott is a hands-on thinker, a renowned speaker and writer. He has written a few books, most recently with Bill Evjen and Devin Rader on Professional ASP.NET. In July 2007, he joined Microsoft as a Senior Program Manager in the Developer Division. In his new role he'll continue to explore and explain a broad portfolio of technologies, both inside and outside Microsoft. He aims to spread the good word about developing software, most often on the Microsoft stack. Before this he was the Chief Architect at Corillian Corporation, now a part of Checkfree, for 6+ years and before that he was a Principal Consultant at STEP Technology for nearly 7 years.
http://www.devteach.com/keynote.aspx

Silverlight 2.0 workshop
For the first time an independent conference is having a workshop on Building Business Applications with Silverlight 2.0.  Join Rod Paddock and Jim Duffy as they give you a head start down the road to developing business-oriented Rich Internet Applications (RIA) with Microsoft Silverlight 2.0. In case you just crawled out from under a rock, Microsoft Silverlight 2.0 is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in positioned to revolutionize the way next generation Rich Internet Applications are developed. Microsoft’s commitment to providing an extensive platform for developers and designers to collaborate on creating the next generation of RIAs is very clear and its name is Silverlight 2.0. In this intensive, full-day workshop, Rod and Jim will share their insight and experience building business applications with Silverlight 2.0 including a review of some of the Internet’s more visible Silverlight web applications. This workshop is happening on Friday May 16 at the Hilton Toronto.
http://www.devteach.com/PostConference.aspx#PreSP

Bonus session: .NET Rock host a panel May 14th at 18:00
This year the bonus session (Wednesday May 14 at 18:00) will be a panel of speakers debating the Future of .NET. Where is .NET going? How will new development influence .NET and be influenced by .NET? Join Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell from .NET Rocks as they moderate a discussion on the future directions of .NET. The panellists include individuals who have strong visions of the future of software development and the role that .NET can play in that future. Attend this session and bring your questions to get some insight into the potential future of .NET! This bonus session is free for everyone. Panelists are: Ted Neward,Oren Eini ,Scott Bellware
http://www.devteach.com/BonusSession.aspx

Party with Palermo, DevTeach Toronto Edition
Jeffrey Palermo (MVP) is hosting Monday May 12th in Toronto is acclaimed "Party with Palermo". This is the official social event  kicking off DevTeach Toronto. The event is not just for the attendees of Toronto it’s  a free event for everyone. It’s a unique chance for the attendees, speakers and locals  to meet and talk with a free beer.   The event will be held at the Menage club  location and you need to RSVP to attend. Get all the details at this link:
http://www.partywithpalermo.com/

Make sure that DevTeach comes back to Toronto.  Register right now for this year's conference.

Pictures from the MVP Summit 2008 (some from Laurent Duveau).

Link to the full album:

MVP Summit 2008

Most notables (click for larger pictures)...

Sea of red

The Montreal MVPs

And their jerseys

Going to the Summit in style

ScottGu

SteveB wearing the Canadian jersey during his keynote thanks to Barry Gervin

The French MVPs had to wear what?  Looks like they weren't happy about it 

However, we had so much fun with them

more info at www.guvsm.net

Prochaine assemblée

Mardi 29 avril 2008

Meeting inaugural du groupe d’intérêt Team System

Survol de Visual Studio Team System et Roadmap
Conférenciers: Claude Remillard, MVP Team System et Étienne Tremblay, MVP Team System

Étienne Tremblay est un architecte sénior chez EDS Canada avec plus de 15 ans d'expérience en développement d'applications d'entreprises. Il a travaillé dans les industries minières et manufacturières et récemment, la gestion de configuration et outillage de développement. Il a développé un système pour surveiller la qualité dans la fabrication de voitures, un système de gestion de réclamations, un système d’opération et de surveillance de mines et un système de gestion de d'itinéraires en utilisant des modèles d'application n tiers. Tout au long de ces années il est devenu un expert en matière d'outillage de cycle de vie de développement de logiciels et a été l'un des architectes de la solution corporative Visual Studio Team System chez EDS. Cette initiative l’a amené à voyager autour du monde pour donner de la formation adaptée aux développeurs .NET d'EDS. Il a été un conférencier lors de plusieurs conférences internationales en 2005, 2006 et 2007 sur Visual Studio. Il a aussi donné une conférence virtuelle pour MSDN sur « comment adopté Visual Studio Team System ». Il représente EDS sur le Conseil Consultatif de Microsoft pour Team System. Il a été attribué le statut de MVP Team System en 2006 et 2007 et a été choisi comme juge pour la compétition internationale de Design de Logiciel de l’Imagine Cup 2007 en Corée du Sud.

M. Rémillard est co-fondateur et président de la firme InCycle et a obtenu le statut de MVP Team System en 2007. Au cours de ces dernières années, M. Rémillard présente régulièrement a diverses tribunes au sujet des meilleures pratiques en gestion du cycle de vie des applications, tout autant pour le compte d’InCycle que celui de Microsoft. Précédemment, il a occupé divers postes de direction dans le secteur du développement logiciel. Il a notamment été président d’Acceleron, une société de développement de logiciels qui a mis au point et commercialisé une solution de gestion des dépenses pour laquelle près d’un demi-million de licences ont été vendues dans le monde.

Learning WCF

Author: Michele Leroux Bustamante
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN-10: 0596101627
ISBN-13: 978-0596101626
Retail Price: $44.99 US, $58.99 CDN
Publication Date: May 2007
Softcover: 582 pages
Online information: Table of contents, source code
URL: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596101626/
Book URL: http://www.thatindigogirl.com/

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a set of .NET technologies for building and running connected systems. It unifies various technologies previously available like Web Services and .NET Remoting into a single programming model and let you build Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications.

“Learning WCF” is a book targeted at experienced .NET developers wanting to learn WCF from scratch. In the first chapters, the author explains what services are and the whole idea behind SOA. She then guides you thru the WCF path learning about contracts, bindings, hosting, concurrency, reliability and security. You’ll find plenty of code examples and each one is explained in details. To help you apply the WCF concepts, each chapter has a lab that you can just read or experiment with by downloading the source code. The approach in these labs is a “step by step” one and often, the author guides you thru one path then backtracks and explains you a different way to accomplish the same thing. This is very useful to get a good understanding of the technology.

Even thought the title has the word “learning” in it, the book will get plenty of mileage serving as a reference book in the future and don’t think that it’s a “light” book; most of the concepts explained are advanced ones. I often had to reread complete sections not because they were poorly written but because of the vast amount of information provided.

WCF is vast and learning it is not a simple task but thanks to Michele Leroux Bustamante’s “Learning WCF”, this process is a lot simpler. High praises for “Learning WCF”.

If you're planning to attend the Patterns & Practices Quebec City Summit but haven't registered yet, do it right away!  I just heard from Joel Quimper that the Summit is almost sold out, less then a dozen seats are still available.

http://www.pnpsummit.com/queb2008.aspx

I was trying to explain quickly what Code Access Security is to someone when I found this blog entry from Emmet Gray:
http://home.hot.rr.com/graye/Articles/CodeAccessSecurity.htm

In a nutshell, he explains why your code won't run if run from a network share and what are CAS, mscorcfg.msc and caspol.exe.  It's a great 5 minutes CAS primer.