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Wow. That's an incredible feeling, seeing my name on Amazon :) The book is in pre-order!! I'd better get back to editing it then :) Read More...
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I am going to take a short break of blogging for a couple of months. The reason is simple: I have been working on a book about Silverlight 2 since September last year, and we are in a phase now where I need to concentrate on that exclusively, and put other activities aside. I might post the occasional article from time to time, but until mid-Summer, it's going to be write write write. Stay posted for news about the book coming up, and don't delete me from your feeds, it's really only temporary :) Read More...
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What a crazy week that is. I am currently in Seattle for the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional summit, which ended yesterday. I took an additional day in Seattle to meet a few friends and Siemens colleagues, and this morning got an email notifying me that I passed the MCTS exam about WPF that I took back then in December . Because the exam was in beta stage when I took it, Microsoft needed a veeeeeeeery long time to evaluate the replies and check if I met the requirement. Apparently, they also had issues finding volunteers to try the beta exam, so it took even longer than planned. But hey, everything happens when you wait long enough, and as of today I am a Microsoft Certified Professional. Now I want to point again what I wrote in December: I am not quite sure about the value of the MCTS exams. You are not a good developer just because you learn answers by heart. Testing one's knowledge with multiple choice questions is really absurd, especially when it comes to programming. Additionally, Read More...
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It's my second year as Microsoft MVP but I didn't attend the global MVP summit last year, so I am really excited to attend this year. I am currently on my way to Seattle (via Frankfurt), and will spend next week there getting loads and loads of information about the newest trends and technologies from Microsoft. Like any conference, the summit is also (and before all) a way to network, meet new friends that I know from their blogs or Twitter or any other e-medium, and meet again with friends from earlier occasions. I am really looking forward to this week. Today is a bit special for me, as it is my 37th birthday. Looking back to the past years shows me how amazing a life I had so far, and I am really looking forward to the 37 years to come (and the following too :) It's going to be a loooong birthday for me because of the time difference with Seattle, but I am not really going to enjoy most of it (I am not enjoying sitting in a plane as much as I used to when I was flying them :) For the Read More...
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Ray Ozzie keynote: "Many amazing technologies available today, but I would like you to bet on us" Oh really? Scott Guthrie keynote: Just launched .NET 3,5, VS2008, IIS7, Windows Server 2008 Scott talks about the new features in ASP.NET 3.5, mentions LINQ IIS7 makes deployment and administration much better Dean Hachamovitch (IE General Manager) Introduces IE8 Cool T-shirt #Mix08 Read More...
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Interesting concept for localizing Silverlight applications using a "resource" JavaScript file. Presented by Brad Abrams. Amazing set of new controls for Silverlight 2, including a datagrid. Where's the WPF-based one, Microsoft? Multiline textbox in Silverlight 2.0 (but you're not supposed to talk about it :) ASP.NET MVC framework for URL mapping. I think that ScottGu blogged about that before, something I definitely want to look into (when I'll have time, ah ah ah) Tim Sneath on WPF and Silverlight: "WPF is the Ferrari and Silverlight is the Mini Cooper". Yeah maybe, but Ferrari is a cool name and a cool brand, while the WPF name really... we need a new name and a logo!!! Make WPF sexy please! Attendees of the Together@MIX preconference to get black Zunes. Some work was done on Bitmap Effects. Curious to know what work exactly!! Do they run in partial trust now? Read More...
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I am in Princeton NJ for the weekend, after spending a few days with our graphics designers, working on our WPF application. It was very nice again, and I love the new design we have. I miss my family, but determined to make the best of this trip and to take life positively as usual. I plan to drive down to Philadelphia tomorrow for a short visit (I have been in Philly once before, in 2001). I finally managed to build my schedule for MIX. I was very strict this year and selected only maximum two sessions per timeslot. In each timeslot,I marked the session that I will probably be seeing, and I have an additional one just in case I manage to clone myself before Wednesday. There are also a bunch of additional sessions I am interested in, and I marked them for later viewing on video. Here's my (probable) schedule. It sure will be fun. Read More...
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Just got the good news: I am a MVP for one more year :-) My first MVP award last year was for ASP.NET, but due to my new tasks in the field of WPF and Silverlight, I've been awarded one for Client Application Development this year. I think it makes sense, since my activities are really focused on the client (not just the UI, but mainly), and this is also what I have been blogging and speaking about last year. 2008 is going to be great. I already have 2 conferences as a speaker planned, one end of January (a Siemens-internal event) and I'll also speak at Microsoft Switzerland's Tech Days in Basel in March (right after MIX). If everything goes well, I'll also be at MIX as an attendee. On the project side, I am going to be coaching more teams this year, and collaborate with our graphic designers on a productive level (last year, we did mostly wireframes and concepts, but most teams are ramping up development now and there will be a lot of code tro write and UI to design). To celebrate last Read More...
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LINQ hands-on lab at Microsoft Switzerland Yesterday, me and a colleague attended a free LINQ hands-on lab given by Microsoft Switzerland in their offices of Wallisellen near Zurich. It was really good. I have seen LINQ in action a few times this year (actually, I had it demonstrated by no less than Anders Hejlsberg himself on one occasion, and Scott Guthrie on the other) but I had never tried writing queries myself. It was a good, 4 hours occasion to try it by myself. Needless to say, I was really impressed. What I really loved is that even though some parts are rather "magic" (lambda expression, object initializers, etc...) and remind of JavaScript, in the background everything is strongly typed. You get full Intellisense, and you can even debug the lambda expressions. Additionally, when you query against a SQL Server database (with the so-called "LINQ to SQL flavour of LINQ), and by installing a plug-in , you can even visualize the SQL query which is actually sent to the server. As a Read More...
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One neat thing when you're a MVP (for 3 more weeks!) is that you get a lot of invitations to all kind of events. So when I got an invite to take the MCTS exam (beta) for WPF 3.5, I though I should try it, even though it's my Most Busy December Ever. It's not easy preparing for a Beta exam, because there are no courses, no books, no test exams available, so you're pretty much left to yourself. Thankfully, I found a list of subjects online, and after marking those of them which I was really not feeling comfortable with, I sat down a few evenings with Adam Nathan's book, and reviewed. When you learn a huge platform like WPF, there are areas which you know perfectly well, and others you never ever work with, and you really need a refresher. In my case, I needed a good brush up on Custom Controls (and themes), 3D, FlowDocuments and a few other areas. So now I just had the exam, and it was pretty hard. My way of developing is not by learning stuff by heart, but rather learning where to find the Read More...
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