Paul Ballard's WebLog
.NET All Day.... .NET All Night. The semi-coherent ramblings of a sleep deprived mind.
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Multithreading Demo Code from VSLive Dallas
I have placed the source code from my VSLive Dallas talk on Multhreading in Windows Forms on my corporate website. There are three solutions, each showing a different aspect of multithreading specific to Windows Forms. The first is called AsyncDemo and shows how to wrap a slow process in the .NET asynchronouse programming model. The second solution is BGWDemo and shows how you can use the BackgroundWorker component. The last demo is called TimerDemo and shows the difference between the three types of timers available. in the .NET Framework. This code is currently in C#, I'll try to get a VB version done as soon as I can.
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Vista Compatibility: Getting Prepped for Friday and Looking For Help
As you may have already heard, Windows Vista will be available for download on MSDN this Friday, November 17th. WooHoo!! While I'm looking forward to using the new OS full time (I've been beta testing off and on for several months) I understand that there are some issues with with running my usual list of software on the brand spanking new platform. In particular, here's a list of software that I know I'm going to have problems with.
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Attending VSLive Dallas? Win Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite Edition with Premium Subscription
If you are planning to attend VSLive in Dallas, stop by the Rochester Consulting booth for a chance to win a fully licensed copy of Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite Edition with a 1 year Premium subscription. That's a $10,000+ prize for some lucky developer. And don't forget to check out my presentations on Office 2007 for Developers and Mutlithreading in Smart Client apps! See you there!
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Visual Studio 2005 IDE Enhancements Released
Microsoft has just dropped a set of Visual Studio 2005 PowerToys. Here's what you get:
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VSLive! Dallas November 14-17
It's been a pretty busy year for me in regards to speaking engagements. I just wrapped up a whirlwind tour speaking at back to back user group conferences, DevLink '06 in Nashville and the Tulsa TechFest in... well... Tulsa. Unfortunately for me I didn't think to check a globe before agreeing to the two conferences and so I had to break the land speed record getting from Nashville on Friday in time to speak in Tulsa on Saturday. But all went well, and everybody had a great time.
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Tech-Ed 06 Demo Code - Writing Outlook Add-ins using Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005
As promised, here is the source code for the demos I did during my breakout session OFC331 - Creating and Using Outlook Add-ins in Visual Studio Tools for OFfice 2005. There are two demos and each one shows different aspects of Outlook customization. The demos are written in VB.NET.
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Tech-Ed 2006 - A Very Busy Week Ahead
For the past four years I've enjoyed going to Tech-Ed, Microsoft's premiere technical education conference. This might have something to do with the first one I attended combining the fun and craziness of New Orleans with meeting people who would truly become some of my very best friends. This year however I'm not simply going to be wandering its halls looking for the next Don Box talk. This year, I've gotten involved up to my neck, and so next week is going to be a VERY busy week for me. Here are a few places you'll be able to find me.
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Threading in Windows Forms -- Sample Code
There's nothing quite like the experience of being in another country, even if most Americans do think of it as the 51st state. At VSLive in Toronto I learned quite a bit including that friendly countries like Canada don't merge, they "squeeze"... just before running you off the road and watching you die in a firey ball of twisted metal. Seriously, the drivers up there seem to want to die and they want to take as many people with them as they can. Personally, I blame Tim Horton. But I digress...
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Rochester Consulting Announces "Lunch and Learn" Private Seminar Series
"Lunch and Learn" - New Private Seminar Series
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Mix '06 Keynote - "Off The Browser" = Smart Client?
Those of you (both of you) who read my earlier posts about Smart Clients are probably wondering why I would be attending Microsoft's new Web 2.0 conference, Mix '06. At first I thought of it a bit as going "behind enemy lines" but now I realize that this is EXACTLY where a smart client fan should be.
I just finished watching the keynote which started with a rumpled looking monologue from Bill G. on the changing world of software. Afterwards we were treated to a demo of MySpace.com. The really amazing aspects of the MySpace story seemed to go completely over the heads of most of the attendees but involved the reduction of CPU load from 85% to 27% across their server farm which they were also able to reduce from more than 240 servers to 150. All of this from simply moving to ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005. Pretty awesome measures from the number 2 visited site in the world. At the end of their presentation they demoed a concept that they called their "Off the Browser" experience in which they used a SideBar gadget in Windows Vista to provide access to a user's MySpace site including a running slideshow of images. Of course that "Off the Browser" experience was via a smart client application.
During the second demo, a rep from the BBC showed off their truly amazing video on demand features available via the browser. Sure enough they also included an "Off the browser" experience using Vista to download videos and then stream them to a Media Center or XBox 360.
The last part of the keynote was mostly Tim O'Reilly trying to work the term "Web 2.0" into every other sentence followed by Bill Gates assuring the audience that they can use other tools besides Microsoft's to do web development, but why would they want to. As the conference continues, I'll be on the lookout for more Smart Client based information that I can share with my readers (again, both of you). In the meantime, lets all be like Tim and try to work "Off The Browser" into our daily vocabulary!