Archive for May, 2006

E-Learning training
Get training at your own pace on 2007 Microsoft Office user interface, or learn what’s new with your favorite program. Each E-Learning Course helps you take advantage of new functionality by focusing on the features that will impact you the most.

Here is a list of free E-Learning training on Office 2007
Course 4697: Introduction to the New Microsoft Office User Interface
Course 4622: What’s New in Microsoft Office Access 2007
Course 4623: What’s New in Microsoft Office Excel 2007
Course 4624: What’s New in Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
Course 4625: What’s New in Microsoft Office OneNote 2007
Course 4626: What’s New in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
Course 4627: What’s New in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
Course 4628: What’s New in Microsoft Office Word 2007
Course 4629: What’s New in Microsoft Office Visio 2007
Course 4698: What’s New in Microsoft Office Groove 2007

Microsoft today announced Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, expanding Visual Studio 2005 Team System to include tools that enable software development organizations to collaborate more effectively when creating reliable, data-driven applications. The new product will be available as a Community Technology Preview (CTP) at TechEd 2006 in Boston and is expected to ship by the end of 2006.

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This is a really cool Flash site. A lot of good info and kind of funny too. After you bring up the site, leave it alone for a while and see what it does.

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Windows Live OneCare, which will protect up to three computers for $49.95 per year, marks the latest step in Microsoft’s effort over the years to make its operating system less vulnerable to crippling Internet attacks.

One may say “Why don’t they include this for free”. The answer would be “Because they would be sued for being anti-competitive”.

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MapPoint B2B : Virtual Earth Version 3 Launches: “Here’s the low down from Alex Daley (VE Product Manager):
Tonight, we launched the new version of Windows Live Local, introducing features like user collections and integration with Windows Live Favorites, real-time traffic in 35 US metros, expansion into UK and Canada, and loads of other new features that our user have been asking for. Check it out: http://local.live.com “

I have worked for so many big companies where strict waterfall development is still in practice. This site pokes fun at waterfall A.K.A. sequential development.
Waterfall 2006 – International Conference on Sequential Development: “After years of being disparaged by some in the software development community, the waterfall process is back with a vengeance. You’ve always known a good waterfall-based process is the right way to develop software projects. Come to the Waterfall 2006 conference and see how a sequential development process can benefit your next project. Learn how slow, deliberate handoffs (with signatures!) between groups can slow the rate of change on any project so that development teams have more time to spend on anticipating user needs through big, upfront design”

2007 Microsoft Office System Beta 2: Get the Beta: “Evaluate the next release of Microsoft Office products for testing and planning purposes with 2007 Microsoft Office system Beta 2. The beta release contains all the functionality of the regular release, but is not the final product. “

It is not uncommon to experience the occasional slow down of a SQL Server database. A poorly designed database or a system that is improperly configured for the workload are but several of many possible causes of this type of performance problem. Administrators need to proactively prevent or minimize problems and, when they occur, diagnose the cause and take corrective actions to fix the problem. This paper provides step-by-step guidelines for diagnosing and troubleshooting common performance problems by using publicly available tools such as SQL Server Profiler, System Monitor, and the new Dynamic Management Views in SQL Server 2005.

I just got my Beta 2 of Office 2007, and it just keeps getting better. Here is an eWEEK Labs evaluation of Microsoft’s Office 2007 Beta 2 unearthed compelling features and tools, and reminded us why enterprises continue to rely on the productivity suite.

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Original tutorial Videos from the Microsoft DPE team.

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Jessica Arnold gives us a look at Outlook 2007: “Jessica Arnold from the Office team takes Scoble on a quick tour of the new features of Outlook 2007 including the new ‘To-Do Bar’ that integrates your calendar and tasks into one quick easy view, in-place attachment viewing, and more.”

Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corp., said Wednesday that the software maker is focusing on business intelligence to help address the need for better information management within companies.

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Defense agency to use Microsoft’s Virtual Earth CNET News.com
Microsoft is collaborating with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a division of the Department of Defense, on its Virtual Earth technology.

Microsoft is recruiting not only Windows Live beta testers, but developers as well. In order to attract the latter contingent, the company is readying a new Windows Live Dev portal. A preview of the site, http://dev.live.com, will be available the week of May 21, with a final version slated to launch in June, according to company officials.

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The rumored Sony UMPC seems to be coming closer and closer to reality. Today, a few screenshots of this device have appeared on the net. Now whether or not these are real is up to you, but no one can argue that they look sweet. What’s interesting is that some new information has been revealed about the Vaio-branded device. To be honest, these specs seem a bit too detailed to just be fiction. My guess is that Sony can’t miss out in this new market, and is making a huge splash with this UMPC.

Windows Marketplace: Free Downloads Hub: “More than 5,000 downloads from over 2,000 companies – all free. We’ve compiled these popular downloads for you in our easy-to-use Free Downloads Center.”

Download details: Microsoft .NET LINQ Preview (May 2006): “LINQ is a codename for a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that encompass language-integrated data query, set, and transform operations. It includes extensions to the C# and Visual Basic languages with native language syntax for queries and provides class libraries to take advantage of these capabilities.”

This is a very interesting PDF on the convergence of BI and SOA.
“Summary: This discussion looks at the similarities and differences between Business Intelligence (BI) and Service Orientation (SO), two architectural paradigms that have developed independently. Here we define an architectural framework that leverages the strengths of BI and SO while defining guiding principles to ensure that the fundamental tenets of each of the component
architectures are not broken.”

Free Visual Task Tips. Hover over open or closed tasks in your task bar and get the image of whats going on in that program. Really cool. Now on win xp and being tested on vista. This is way cool.

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Download details: Microsoft Expression Web Designer CTP1: “Microsoft Expression Web Designer is a new designer-focused product that provides powerful tools you need to produce high-quality, standards-based Web sites the way you want them.”

Joe Friend: Microsoft Office Word : Blogging from Word 2007: “Blogging from Word 2007
Word is a great tool for writing stuff, right? Blogging is all about communicating with words (and pictures, too). So, why not use Word to write your blog posts?”

Rob Caron : Requirements Authoring Starter Kit: “Requirements Authoring Starter Kit
Are you looking for a way to easily (and cheaply) integrate requirements authoring into Visual Studio Team System? If so, you’ll want to take a look at the Requirements Authoring Starter Kit. This is the solution I blogged about back in February (Requirements Authoring Solution).
The kit integrates and uses a number of Microsoft products: “

Microsoft’s new Live Anywhere that they announced at today’s E3 keynote takes their Xbox Live concept and extends it to the PC, Windows Mobile and even Java-enabled phones.

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Windows Live Hack Day 2006: “How do you tryout a bunch of APIs (including Search, Expo, and more) all at once? You have a Windows Live ‘Hack Day’, gather developers together into one place, feed them and set them loose trying to build as many cool apps as they can.”

Researchers are working on a system that allows sensors to track information and create up-to-date, searchable online maps.

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