Random .NET Ramblings

Brian Hoskins from Emerging Business Team announced earlier this week that they will be hosting an Incubation Week for mobile development companies. It looks like this Incubation Week event will be like the one I was involved with last year it’s a week long, deep dive, hands on, fully assisted workshop to help startup companies get started in building applications for Windows Mobile for distribution.

For more information: Home - Brian Hoskins

I don’t think this is a big deal and the only out come that strikes me is how the Azure team like many other Redmond team seams to think the world revolves around them. I would have through anyone who was trying to build internet scale infrastructure would use UTC by default.

Windows Azure : Moving to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)

I was tagged by “Mr. Denny” Denny Cherry in his post My First Computer and as much as I hate the whole tagging thing his post got me thinking so I decided to do this post (dam you Denney!)

The first computer that I could call mine was a TRS-80 Color Computer to be precise it was the TRS-80 Color Computer 1 16k Model E motherboard and I had the available tape cassette storage. After having for a year or two I even saved up and got an external add-on speech synthesizer but my parents would not let me get the 300 baud  modem (I hated them for that for a long time).

I wanted to get a computer for along time because I would use my uncle computer (not sure I think a TRS-80 Model III) but my aunt and I would have issues with power. Every time she would use the hair dryer and I had the commuter on it would pop a circuit breaker and they did not have kids so did not have too much tolerance for some punk kid but they handled me better than I would handled me ;). So I nagged and nagged  my dad and being the PHD he is he thought he would put be off for a few years and require me to know how to do differential equations but that only lasted 3 months. He was good to his word and the weekend after I answered several equations for him he researched the computers on the market and I had my CoCo!

I spent many an hour in our windowless guest room\office programming and hacking on this computer with the help of the “Rainbow” Magazine... wow I am going back now I could not afford to get the debugging kit for the computer that would let me get around the BASIC environment so I rewrote the machine code on the box so I could stuff more in to the 16k and later the 32k piggy backed memory felt totally cavernous.

I wrote a lot if car and plane simulations where you could add all types of dimensional variables and I would build different simulators to modal how the car or plane would behave. I recall my dad suggesting I start modeling the road surface so the friction coefficient would come in to play... wow I still remember how hard that was. Later I would even use the UI to graph some of the output values over time but what wowed all my friends was my worm like game where you had to move a worm through a maze, that is where I should have learned that “it’s not how had it is it’s how sexy it looks” but I enjoyed the hard more.

Later my dad got me a IBM clone called Columbia with a 8086 coprocessor and I never looked back at having any type of social life or skills.

And now I tag… no one! If you want to write about your first computer and enjoy the memories like I just did then go for it but don’t tag anyone!

Local VSTS for Database Professionals workshop around SoCal…

Overview
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition provides advanced tools for database change management and testing and offers functionality to enable database developers and administrators to be more productive and increase application quality in the database tier.

Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition delivers a market shifting database development product that provides a foundation for managed database evolution through the use of an offline, Visual Studio project-centered source code control system together with a suite of tools designed to help understand the impact of proposed changes. Schemas, DML and metadata can be versioned, code can be automatically reviewed using static analysis, unit tests can be created and executed to ensure quality, and comparisons can be made with test and production systems prior to deployment. Integration with Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server helps increase the productivity of the database professionals by enabling them to become an integral part of the application team.

Please join Microsoft and Adventos for this one-day course to learn how the Developer and Database editions of Team System work together in the application lifecycle.

Course Outline

I. Core Features of TFS

II. Team Projects

III. Source Control and Team Foundation Build

IV. Managing Databases in a Team Environment

Who Should Attend?

Database Administrators, Database Developers

The schedule for each event is:

Welcome: 8:30 PM

Seminar: 9:00 AM-4:30 PM

Los Angeles, CA
March 3, 2009
Click here to register with invitation code: 31A402

Irvine, CA

March 4, 2009

Click here to register with invitation code: E4995A

San Diego, CA

March 5, 2009

Click here to register with invitation code: 3B9F3B

To Register by Phone –

Call 1.877.MSEVENT (1.877.673.8368) with invitation code.

I have been working with the various APIs from Live Services and while there is a lot of functionality but it’s a patchwork of APIs. To help the they have a couple good resources at dev.live.com but one of the best resources is not easy to find Live Services Jumpstart Videos where you will find overviews and in depth information on Online Identity, Messenger, Virtual Earth, Silverlight Streaming and much more.

The MIX event team just announced some interesting session that will be given at MIX… I hope I get to go!

MIX09 | Agenda | Sessions

The US based developer marketing group at Microsoft is starting a second Silverlight game competition…

All the details can be found at www.serverquestcontest.com but the basics are you make a short\small game based on Silverlight and if it’s jugged to be the best you get $5k and all the top 16 finalists will be highlighted on the site.

If you are in the west (Denver west) and you submit a game please let me know so we can show of why west is best ;).

Good luck!

OK normally I don’t post stuff like this but hey this could be a free shirt for you so I just have to post this.

“Are you a PC?”

Get a FREE “I’m a PC” black, cotton t-shirt by taking a short survey…honest, it’s less than 10 questions!  Click here to take the survey and get your t-shirt:   I'm a PC T-shirt Giveaway Survey

The legal crap that I have to add... (have fun reading that!)

Microsoft is committed to protecting your privacy. Your personal information such as name, e-mail address, postal address, and phone number may be collected if you choose to register to complete the survey to receive the incentive. It will be used for fulfillment of the incentive. Your responses to this survey will not be linked to the contact information previously collected by Microsoft. Your answers will be reported in aggregate with those of other respondents. This survey does not use any cookies or other technologies to track your responses to the survey. Please note that this privacy statement applies only to the [I'm a PC T-Shirt Giveaway] survey. It does not apply to other online or offline Microsoft sites, surveys, products or services.
Please contact jolarter@microsoft.com if you have any questions concerning collection and use of your personal information.

Offer good only to residents of the 50 United States (including the District of Columbia) who are 18 years of age or older and are professionals or hobbyists engaged in the field of technology development. Limit one gift per person. This offer is non-transferable and cannot be combined with any other offer. This offer is while supplies last, and is not redeemable for cash. Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the recipient. Any gift returned as non-deliverable will not be re-sent. Please allow 6 - 8 weeks for shipment of your gift. We will try to accommodate your shirt size request and will send the next closest size if unavailable.

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Update: I am sorry but all the shirts are gone, they lasted about 3 hours and then we ran out. I am pushing for more shirts so please stay tuned.

It’s been a long while but we finally have a MSDN event scheduled the cool think is that it’s all about stuff people have been asking about.

The topics are:

Demystifying Azure - An Overview of the Azure Services Platform for Developers
Deepen your Debugging - Tips and Tricks for the Visual Studio 2008 Debugger
Developing for Windows Mobile Devices

All the details and more descriptions are at MSDN Events: Azure, Debugging and Mobility where you can register.