Awesome service but it is coming to an end apparently.
Microsoft Silverlight Streaming by Windows Live Beta is being discontinued and will eventually be taken down
I’ve been using that service since it started and really enjoyed it.
Was easy to create WMV webcasts, upload them, then create Silverlight wrappers for ASP.NET sites.
What to do now? Well some Developers have mentioned using Channel 9. Great idea.
When I mentioned this to DiscountASP.NET concerning our free technical webcasts they were shocked. I’m guessing many of you are also.
The great news is DiscountASP.NET stepped up to the plate and created their own IIS7 Silverlight Smooth Streaming server!
Including the IIS7 Media pack!
What a team…Microsoft and Gold Partner DiscountASP.NET
Discount offer: Sign-up with DiscountASP.NET use this code and get 6 months free: WISEMX
Once you’re in I’ll offer free technical support in the forums and on Twitter
All the best,
Mark Wisecarver
November 12
You have been asking for it, and it is finally available; a .NET 4.0 beta hosting sandbox!
Signup is easy, just go to the DiscountASP.NET labs page and follow the link.
The number of accounts on the .NET 4.0 beta server are strictly limited, so if you are interested you should sign up today. This is a public beta, so you do not have to be a current DiscountASP.NET customer to take advantage of the offer. We are including MS SQL2008 space in the sandbox space so you have the opportunity to thoroughly test drive the latest .NET features.
In their press release for the new Visual Studio and .NET Framework, "Microsoft described the next release through the following five focus areas: riding the next-generation platform wave, inspiring developer delight, powering breakthrough departmental applications, enabling emerging trends such as cloud computing, and democratizing application life-cycle management (ALM)."
What? Boy, I don't know, but "inspiring developer delight" sounds good to me. If you are interested in democratizing emerging breakthroughs and trends and riding waves you should probably get on board as well.
Sandbox? Waves? See you at the beach! Or better yet, at http://labs.discountasp.net.
Michael Phillips
DiscountASP.NET
Great news today, from ScottGu and the IIS team:
Wow – do we have a bunch of announcements for you! If you care about Web sites, read on. From really cool media scenarios, to making it easy getting started on the Microsoft Web Platform, to advanced tweaks to your Web site – we have something for all walks of life to check out. Let’s cut to the chase.
Today, Microsoft announced updates to six important IIS Extensions:
· IIS Application Request Routing 2.0 RC adds support to enhance disk based cache and cache proxy for content delivery networks while increasing Web application reliability and scalability through rule-based routing and load balancing of HTTP server requests.
· IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit Beta2 helps Web developers, hosting providers, and Web server administrators to improve their Web site’s relevance in search results by recommending how to make the site content more search engine-friendly.
· IIS URL Rewriter 2.0 RC adds support for outbound response rewriting while enabling Web administrators to create powerful rules to implement URLs that are easier for users to remember and easier for search engines to find.
· IIS Web Deployment Tool RTW simplifies the migration, management, and deployment of IIS Web servers, Web applications, and Web sites.
· IIS Database Manager RTW allows you to easily manage your local and remote databases from within IIS Manager.
· Coming soon, IIS Media Services 3.0 RTW, an integrated HTTP-based media delivery platform, combines all IIS media extensions - including IIS Live Smooth Streaming - and delivers true HD (720p+) streaming for users and real-time logging to measure media investments.
Microsoft also announced three significant enhancements to the overall Microsoft Web Platform:
· The new Microsoft® WebsiteSpark™ program makes it easy for Web professionals to get the software and support needed and a marketplace to grow their business on the Microsoft Web Platform.
· The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 RTW provides developers with a simplified, ‘one click’ installation of technologies in the Web stack – including IIS Extensions, amplifying ease of use and reducing complexity.
· The Windows Web Application Gallery provides access to over 20 popular, free, and ready to install Web apps to build Web sites and Web applications that run on Windows.
If you can’t decide where to start, first get the new Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 RTW – this is your one-stop shop to get everything for the Microsoft Web Platform. From IIS Extensions to the Windows App Gallery, there is sure to be something useful for your Web site endeavors.
Eric Rezabek
Senior Product Manager
IIS/Web
http://blogs.iis.net/windowsserver/archive/2009/09/24/six-ways-to-help-customers-extend-their-web-sites.aspx
Office Live Workspaces helped students continue their schoolwork while they stayed home during an outbreak of the swine flu.
Address the classroom challenge of H1N1
If the H1N1 flu virus keeps your students away from the classroom, continue the learning online by using Office Live Workspace to:
- share assignments
- distribute handouts
- post presentations
- enable group collaboration
Use this free online service to publish and share Microsoft Office Word documents, Office Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations
Simply awesome...
If you've poked around your fonts list in Windows 7, you might have come across a display font called Gabriola. What you may not have known is that this font is an important first step in some additions to Windows. Gabriola is an OpenType font that includes significant flourishes that push the boundries of vertical space, display logic, and Cleartype. The lessons learned from Gabriola, coupled with YDirection Antialiasing in Windows 7 Cleartype, will help Microsoft create a better reading experience with other fonts like Arabic.
Geraldine Wade from the Cleartype Advanced Reading Technologies team walked us through a look at what makes Gabriola different from other fonts in Windows, how it lights up in Blend, and to talk about what this means for font designers going forward. Jeff Bell from the Office team showed us how the upcoming Publisher 2010 puts the stylistic sets of Gabriola into users’ hands.
http://on10.net/blogs/larry/The-Importance-of-Gabriola/
Can anyone help with this?
I'm trying to get a text/javascript gadget in the sidebar here.
If you can offer any tips I'll be very thankful. ;-)
Leave a comment or contact me via: wisemx@msftwise.com or on http://twitter.com/msftwise
Thanks
UPDATE: Success! Thanks to http://twitter.com/FransBouma (and Benjamin, just noticed that in the Comments below...Thanks.)
It was very easy to add the Microsoft news from AllTop with the tip I got last night from Frans.
http://twitter.com/FransBouma/status/3795215824
Groetes Frans ;-)
If you know Dr. Bob please say "hey" to my good friend: http://www.drbob42.com/
Active August…Summary
For those who were not aware Active August was mostly SQL Server DBA’s and many others who are Twitter friends and comrades.
Twitter trend/search: #ActiveAugust
You’ll see many of the Active August participants making Blog posts today, which is what I’m doing now.
This is my own summary; you can read the others via links on Twitter.
Congratulations to each and all, if you made any effort toward being a better self you are headed in the correct direction.
For those of you who missed August, how about Active September and Active October?
Let us know. As for me…I’m in. ;-)
Summary:
1) I’m 5 feet 11 inches. Born in Detroit, 1961.
2) At the beginning of August I weighed 184 pounds and my goal/target weight was 178 pounds.
At the end of August I'm 176 pounds. (I focused on muscle definition.)
Not Earth shattering but as you know that last 5 pounds can be the toughest.
3) During all of August I spent a lot more time on my Unicycle, until it hurt. An awesome and fun way to keep fit.
4) My other regular exercises were biking and running.
5) Wanting to get more definition in my arms I hand carried 16 ton of Flag Stone.
(Over the years I’ve been known as a Rock Monster…It’s the secret to my arms and shoulders.)
I did move all 16 ton but I also did some damage to my left arm. Found out a few days ago that I ripped tendons.
6) My diet during all of August was absolutely perfect. This has always been easy for me; I have no problem thinking of food as fuel.
(I do not eat any candy, fast food, colas, alcoholic beverages, pork, red meat, catfish or tuna.)
7) Looking back I would have been more careful with my left arm, the elbow was rebuilt with metal back in 1980, I just do not baby it.
And the one thing I would add to make this more extreme next time will be to spend a lot more time with my 3 children.
http://msftwise.com/assets/WhackyWisecarverKids.jpgAll three of them are active in Soccer and I can’t think of a better routine than to practice with them.
Think about it for a second and you will have to agree this is an excellent idea.
What better way to improve yourself than with your community? I love the idea.
The entire month can be summed up with these two words: Ooh Rah!
All the best,
Mark Wisecarver
http://twitter.com/msftwise
Somasegar posting some very cool news regarding changes for both VB and C#.
http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2009/08/19/vb-and-c-enhancements-in-vs-2010.aspx
i.e. (Many of us have begged for this)
Visual Basic
The Visual Basic team focused on adding productivity features to the language so developers can get more done in fewer lines of code. The most common customer request for Visual Basic is to remove the underscore (“_”) character when breaking a code statement across multiple lines in most cases. Visual Basic 10 introduces implicit line continuation, which removes the need for the underscore character in most cases.
Function Filter(
ByVal customers As List(Of Customer),
ByVal orderCount As Integer
)
Dim query =
From c In customers
Where c.Orders.Count >
orderCount
Select c
Visit the futures sites for more.
VB Futures site and C# Futures site
By the way, play with it now: download and install Visual Studio Beta 1
Woohoo! Yup partners, this is exciting stuff!
OK…most of you know I’m a Technical Evangelist/Webcaster for Shared Hosting.
(Specifically the award winning Microsoft Gold Partner DiscountASP.NET)
That being said I will admit that I do not use Microsoft’s awesome Azure cloud SQL Server services for anything other than, well, fun.
Yes fun/personal things like my Bing Harley: http://msftwise.com/bing/
DeepZoomPix: http://deepzoompix.com/Album.aspx?alias=wisemx&album=1
SeaDragon: http://seadragon.com/view/5h
How can I be such a long time fan of Microsoft unless I have some fun, right? ;-)
Here’s the exciting part…
Using SQL Management Studio 2008 with SQL Data Services (SQL in the Cloud)
I’ve been playing around with the new SQL Data Services this week and came across a common issue with how do you work with the databases you’ve created. For those of you who, like me, are not fond of SQLCMD (a command line query tool) you can use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) query window capabilities, even if the object explorer doesn’t work. The trick is to accept that you don’t have to be connected to the object explorer to open a query window.
You can use SSMS 2008 if you don’t use the object explorer…simply cancel on the connect to server when you start SSMS, then open a new query window. It will prompt you to enter your credentials, which should include the server name, your user account (with the @servername as part of the user name) and password. On the connection options tab select the target database and click connect. You’ll get a message that ANSI_NULLS aren’t recognized, but then it opens the query window and you should be good to go.
1. Cancel connect to server for the Object Explorer window (which opens by default when you open SSMS)
2. Click the “New Query” button to open a new query window
3. Enter your server name & credentials…make sure you use the server name you got when you registered your token…also make sure to use the username@server format for your user name
4. To connect and work with a database you’ve created in SDS enter the database name in the “Connection Properties” window…you can get to advanced properties by clicking the “Options >>” button.
5. Clicking connect will then open the query window, but you may get prompted with an error message that ANSI_NULLS are not recognized…you’ll find that you can ignore this message and begin to work with SDS within a query window in SSMS 2008.
And you should be good to go with all the goodness of a great SQL Development environment where you can leverage tools & utilities like the Template explorer to help with writing great Transact SQL.
Enjoy!
Published Wednesday, August 19, 2009 10:58 PM by benko
http://blogs.msdn.com/benko/archive/2009/08/19/using-sql-management-studio-2008-with-sql-data-services-sql-in-the-cloud.aspx
Note: People keep asking so I’ll post it again…6 months free when you SIGN UP with DiscountASP.NET if you use this promo code: WISEMX
Worth noting...The Bing team wants us to know they are hard at work but we need to keep an eye on our sites:
Back in December of 2008, we alerted you to the possibility that you might start seeing our new web crawler in your referrer logs. Given the recent excitement around the arrival of Bing, we wanted to take a moment to update you on the latest bot news.
As we said earlier, you will see the new Bing crawler user agent string listed as:
msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm).
Note that we didn’t change the bot’s name for Bing. You’ll also see the previous version of the bot as well —
msnbot/1.1 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)
— which is still in use, as of today, as Bing’s primary user agent.
We are busy working on our improved crawler and plan to ramp up its workload as we move toward the goal of putting it into full production. As a result, webmasters may begin seeing an increased amount of traffic from the new bot on their sites.
We do not anticipate any problems related to our increasing emphasis on MSNBot 2, but the unexpected can’t always be avoided, no matter how hard you try! As such, we wanted to preemptively alert folks to the most effective way to report bot and crawling issues to Bing’s support team in case they arise. If you have any feedback for us on either the existing or the new MSNBot, or on any other matters pertaining to crawling your website, please post your comments and questions in our crawling/indexing forum. Our Webmaster Center forums moderator will follow-up with you ASAP. Please include in your forum post the identity of the user agent that is the source of your concern so we can help you that much faster. Thank you!
-- Rick DeJarnette, Bing Webmaster Center
http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/webmaster/archive/2009/07/17/new-bot-work-continues-at-bing.aspx
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