A very interesting read which gives a nice overview of Orcas and beyond. Go to: http://reddevnews.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=722.

If you haven't upgraded to Office 2007 yet and have started to receive Office 2007 documents in the mail, then you will probably want to download the "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats".

This will allow you top Open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations in the file formats new to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

Go to: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en

As software developers we strive to build our webapplications as robust and performant as possible. Given a server and proper bandwith connection you know all the tricks to make the application handle an optimum load of users. More often than not the server and available bandwith are a delimiting factor. Strangeloop has analysed a number of performance problems when running ASP.NET sites and offers a non-intrusive hardware solution to make your site run fast: the Strangeloop AppScaler.

So if you're interested in improving the performance of your ASP.NET site, without having to dig into the code, then the AppScaler is worth a look.

Yesterday I started converting a bunch of Visual Studio database projects (.dbp) to projects for Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Team Edition for Database Professionals (.dbproj).

The easiest way to accomplish this and get immediate benefit from the new features of VSTS DB Pro is to make sure you have a fully up to date database, then create a new DB Pro project and use the Import Database Wizard to suck in everything from the database. A script will be created for each and every scriptable object in the database.

After having done this the Schema Compare functionality is great! Can believe I ever did anything with databases without having this tool!

Updates for DB Pro seem to come pretty fast, CTP 2 for Service Release 1 is available for download already. Watch the DataDude blog to keep informed on DB Pro.

Somasegar just announced a new tool which will allow non-software developers to develop… something. Being interested I surfed over to www.popfly.com but it would seem the site is not quite up and running.

I managed to set things up so that I can now blog from Word 2007.

The basic setup was pretty easy, thanks to dasBloggingWithWord2007.aspx">this post from Colin Neller.

Setting it up so that any pictures are also uploaded automatically took a little longer since my blog engine, dasBlog, does not support uploading pictures directly.

To prove it works… below a picture of Sophie, my 5.5 month old girlie…

At the MVP 2007 Summit Microsoft opened the Summit with a video containing pictures of lots of MVP's. Nice! Anyway, I just discovered the video is on YouTube. See below.

I recently got asked what the AutoEventWireup flag does that can be placed in the @Page directive of an ASP.NET page.

A quick Google pointed me to the blog of K. Scott Allen, who does an excellent job of describing it.

Go to: http://odetocode.com/Blogs/scott/archive/2006/02/16/2914.aspx.

Only 3 days to go until the first Code-Camp in the Netherlands.

I won't be in the Netherlands this weekend, so I'll have to miss out on the fun, but Maurice de Beijer will take good care of everyone.

More info: http://www.code-camp.nl/

Marcel de Vries has delivered a release version of his project on CodePlex in which he offers a set of Workflow activities you can use to implement service operations using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

Go to: http://blogs.infosupport.com/marcelv/archive/2007/05/08/WCF-activities-version-1.0-now-released-at-codeplex.aspx

Software as a Service and Service Oriented Architecture are the theme of the upcoming Software Developer Event of the SDN user group.

Join the fun on June 1st! Go to www.sdn.nl/sde for more detailed information and to sign up.

Speakers and sessions

Mark your calendar: next meeting of the Maine Developer Network will be on the 12th of June.

Bob and Chris head back out on the New England roads.

The Bob & Chris MSDN Roadshow hits Portland on May 15th.

Go to:  http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen/archive/2007/04/27/bob-chris-msdn-roadshow-back-for-more.aspx

My Amazon <-> WF integration article is now listed as a download on the official .NET 3.0 web site. Cool!

Go to: http://wf.netfx3.com/files/folders/web_services/default.aspx

The weather just won’t give us a break. Due to snow and sleet being forecasted for tomorrow afternoon and evening we will once again have to move our meeting back.

I’m very sorry about any inconvenience this may cause to your personal schedules, but I’d feel worse if someone got into an accident while driving to or from the meeting.

To allow everyone to pencil in the meeting in their calendars the meeting is now moved to April 26^th!!!

Please send an email if you plan to attend!!!

Once again we hope everyone will be able to make it, and maybe even some people that couldn’t make it today will be able to attend next week.

The newsletter on the website has a complete description on how to get the meeting.

Just to remind you the complete session info:

Date : Thursday the 26th of April 2007.
Time : 1:30pm to 3:30pm
Location : Augusta, ME (The Deering Building on Route 9 / Hospital Street)
Topic : Developing with Windows Communication Foundation

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is Microsoft's unified framework for building secure, reliable, transacted, and interoperable distributed applications. Learn how to leverage the new features in Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) to make a smooth transition to service-orientated development.  The capabilities exposed through this new addition to the .NET Framework will enable the core building blocks of connected systems such as data & service contracts, security, reliability, administration, and management.

Chris Bowen is the Microsoft Developer Evangalist for the New England region.

Please use the form on the contact page to let us know you'll be attending!

I guess some days are better than others... the Maine Developer Network user group meeting was cancelled due to severe weather warnings. I did however intend to go and pick my parents up at the airport in Bangor. Bad idea...

The picture below shows my truck in a ditch on the side of the road. One second I was motoring along... next second I had zero control over the truck, it just started sliding... no brakes, no steering, no ABS... nothing... luckily no one was injured and my truck only has a couple of dents...

Here is a short overview of what has been happening with .NET and what is soon to come:

- Windows Vista has shipped and comes with the .NET Framework 3.0 installed.

- .NET 3.0 = .NET 2.0 + WF + WCF + WPF

- WCF = Windows Communication Foundation

- WF = Workflow Foundation

- WPF = Windows Presentation Foundation

- .NET 3.0 does not contain changes to C# (or VB.NET) and is based on C# 2.0.

- The next version of Visual Studio, codename "Orcas" is targeted to be released in Q4 of this year.

- Visual Studio "Orcas" will come together with .NET Framework 3.5.

- The .NET Framework 3.5 will contain (amongst many things) C# 3.0.

- In the same timeframe as Orcas there will also be a release of Team Foundation Server and the whole Team System suite.

I've implemented an RSS feed for the Maine Developer Network.

Go to www.maine-devnet.org and look for the subscribe image on the left side of the page.

See you at our meeting this Thursday (don't forget to sign-up).

Over a 100 people have registered already. Great!

We only have room for 130, so sign up quick!

Go to: www.code-camp.nl. 

The very first Dutch Code Camp will be organised by a confederation of user groups. I love it when people come together to organize something great! Maurice de Beijer has taken the lead to get things started but with three user groups coming together it should be an excellent event!

Go to: http://www.code-camp.nl/