Bryant Likes

I'll be speaking on this coming Sunday at the SoCal Code Camp at Cal State Fullerton.

My session is at 9:00 AM on Sunday and is titled Bridging the Desktop/Web Divide with WPF and Silverlight. I'm hoping to demo (still working on my code) a simple application I built in WPF and show how easy it is to port it to XBAP and Silverlight with a few potential extras (exporting to XPS and a very short demo of ADO.Net Data Services which is the data provider).

My fellow Avanaut Elmer Morales will also be presenting on Sunday afternoon on Building Stunning Sites with SharePoint 2007. Elmer has been building SharePoint 2007 sites well before the product was released and from what I've seen of his presentation so far it should be great.

I'll probably miss the Saturday presentations since I still have some work to do on my own :)

So see you at Code Camp!

From LLiu on the SharePoint Team Blog

You are invited to take the following exams in their beta versions. If you pass either or both of the beta exams, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form.

·         Exam 70-542: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – Application Development

o    Counts as credit towards Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Application Development

·         Exam 70-541: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 - Application Development

o    Counts as credit towards Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Application Development

Plus I noticed that both the exams for the MCITP: BI certification are available and a few Windows Vista exams too.

• 071-445 - TS: Microsoft® SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence - Implementation and Maintenance
• 071-446 - PRO: Designing a Business Intelligence Infrastructure by Using Microsoft® SQL Server 2005
• 071-621 - UPG: Upgrading your MCDST Certification to MCITP Enterprise Support
• 071-622 - PRO: Installing, Maintaining, Supporting, and Troubleshooting Applications on the Microsoft® Windows Vista Client - Enterprise
• 071-624 - TS: Deploying and Maintaining Vista Client and Office 12 System Desktops using the BDD

The promo code for all these exams seems to be BTA + last three digits of the exam number (071-445 would be BTA445). If you've been working with these technologies then the beta exams are a great deal since they are free and even if you don't pass at least you know what you need to study.

You can sign up for them on the Vue website:

• 071-630 TS: Configuring Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007
• 071-631 TS: Configuring Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0

The exam dates are from 11/7/06 through 11/20/06. The exam promo codes are BET630 and BET631. Good luck!

From Patrick:

VPC images are saving my life as a trainer. Managing your VPC images however can be a daunting task if you don't know all of its capabilities. Andrew has an extremely well-documented process & strategy for using Virtual PC and how to optimize and manage disks to (1) maximize my disk space and (2) facilitate rapid creation of new Virtual PC’s when needed for testing/kicking the tires. Thank you very much Andrew for sharing this with all of us.

I've been doing my development on using Virtual PC for the last six months and the tips in this post are very useful. My setup is much simpler, but I can see some of the advantages this type of setup can give. However, I'm curious as to the drawbacks.

• Is there a performance hit for using that many disks instead of a single disk? If so, how much are we talking about?
• If you need to make a change to the base OS, can you make the change on the base disk or will this wipe out all your machines?

For my dev work I've just been creating a base VPC image with the OS and common tools and then setting the file to read-only and making a copy of it for each VPC I need to create. I've even been using fixed disk size in an attempt to eek out every last bit of performance that I can get. I have to pay for it with a larger hard drive, but that isn't too much of a price to pay.

From Clemmens talking about technology overload:

Enter VS2005 and the summary of trying to achieve the same knowledge density is: “Frustrating”.

I feel his frustration. I remember going to PDC 2003 and realizing that it was getting very hard to keep up on all the new stuff coming out of Microsoft. Clemmens continues...

For “generalists” like me, these are hard and frustrating times if they’re trying to stay generalists. Deep and consequent specialization is a great opportunity for everyone and the gamble is of course to pick the right technology to dig into and become “the expert” in. If that technology or problem space becomes the hottest thing everyone must have – you win your bet. Otherwise you might be in trouble.

This statement not only applies to technology in general, but also to specific technologies: think SQL Server 2005. As Kimberly Tripp says, you must become a “Jack of all trades, master of some”. The hard part, as Clemmens mentions, is chosing the some.

For me it all comes down to what I'm working with. For instance, I just found out today that I will not be getting renewed as a Microsoft MVP for SQL Server. I expected this because I haven't had the time to contribute much to the SQL Server community lately. I tend to contribute based on what I'm currently working on. I haven't been a project that used SQL Server 2005 yet, so I haven't had time to really dig into it. If you read this blog you can probably figure out what kind of projects I have been on recently: a SharePoint (and RS) project last year and mostly BizTalk projects this year. I learn based on need.

I'm sure at some point in the near future (at least I keep telling myself this) I'll have time to dig into the new SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 stuff (team system and all), but for now I'm pretty much focused on BizTalk 2004, test-driven development,  continuous integration, etc., since that is where I'm at.

I'll miss hanging out with the other SQL Server MVPs who are a great bunch of guys, but it has been fun being an MVP for the last five years.

From Eli Robillard:

After a year and 32065 web views, I've reorganized and moved the SharePoint resource page into an article. In addition to giving it a more sensible URL, the switch reflects the fact that this is a continuously updated resource and not a one-time posting. I've also added hand-tuned searches, making it easy to locate the most current information for each topic. Don't forget to update your bookmarks and links, and as always, enjoy!

I noticed that the RsWebParts are not listed in the Web Parts section, but other than that it looks like a great list of stuff. My own SharePoint Resource Page has gotten pretty stale (though that isn't entirely my own fault, it is a wiki after all :)

From Patrick:

Ted Pattison has polished an old article on solving the problems developers encounter when programming role-based security within a SharePoint Web part. Required reading material for every SharePoint developer.

The best part is, since Ted is no longer “writing under the fin name of Barry Kouda”, you can now link directly to his blog posts!

Unfortunately I had to cancel on Tech*Ed. I was looking forward to it and I didn't want to miss it. However, since Hisham and I are both on the same project and they didn't think it would work for us both to be gone for the same week. So even though I got my cool badge (staff even) in the mail, I won't be there. :(

But I will be going to PDC05 which both Euan and Fitz are already promoting. I actually started this blog right before heading to PDC03 which was a great event even though it totally overwhelmed me with tons of new stuff. Funny how two years later 90% is still in beta so I really didn't need to be overwhelmed.

So if you're going to Tech*Ed have a great time and learn some stuff for me. If not, get ready to sign up for PDC05 (5 days until the registration opens). See you in October (or maybe in September at PASS).

I've been working for Avanade for about two months now, and I really like it. I've gotten a few emails from people who are interviewing with the company and want to know what it is like. It is a great company to work for, especially if you like working with Microsoft technology. In fact, Gartner just released a publication that listed Avanade as one of the “cool” vendors (along with three other companies). The big issue with working for Avanade is that you will travel. How much depends on what region you work for. The region that I work for, the west region, has a lot of work in each area so the traveling I do is all close by (at least so far).

The west region is also looking to hire developers (especially in SoCal). So if you live in the Western US, like to work with MS technologies, and don't mind some travel, this is a great opportunity. The company is mainly looking for .NET developers with skills in other MS products like SQL Server, BizTalk, SharePoint, Reporting Services, etc.

If you're interested, send your resume to me and I'll pass it along to the right person.

Some of the benefits of working for Avanade include things like $1000 every six months to spend on gadgets and a trip to one major conference per year. They want all developers to get MCSD certified and will pay for your training materials and exams (pass or fail). You are also allocated three weeks per year for training and this is allocated in the same way that vacations are allocated. Plus you get to work with a bunch of great people and have a lot of fun.

Here is a basic job description:

Short Description : Join Avanade and you will be part of a premier consulting organization focused on the Microsoft
enterprise suite. You will help build reliable, scalable solutions.

Description : Avanade is the only global technology integrator dedicated to the Microsoft enterprise platform. Avanade helps customers use Microsoft technology to cut costs and improve business results through standardization, consolidation, and integration of IT infrastructure and applications.

As a Developer, your focus will be developing and testing mission critical enterprise solutions. You will build management, technical and planning skills by participating in internal development projects. You will improve your abilities to think creatively and design solutions.

Responsibilities:

• Participate in business requirements gathering and rules definition.
• Participate in design of desktop and web-based application architecture.
• Develop components/modules/scripts implementing business process rules.
• Perform code walk-through of software components.
• Document software components sufficient for on-going support and enhancement.
• Effectively communicate status of tasks and projects

Minimum Requirements:

You will be degree qualified with excellent communication skills and will have hands-on experience working on component based applications in a distributed environment. Qualified candidates should possess:

• 1+ year technology consulting
• 2 to 4+ years as a programmer
• 1+ years experience with C#
• Deep MS platform Skills
• .NET Framework
• Full lifecycle experience developing large scale, scaleable applications
• Willing to travel

Preferred Requirements:

• MCSD Certification

Via Andrew Watt:

Service Pack 2 for Reporting Services 2000 is available for download.

Visit SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services Service Pack 2.

Bug fixes in SP2 are listed at Microsoft Knowledge Base article 889640.

I'll be interested to hear what people think of the new web parts versus the RsWebParts. The fact that they are included out-of-the-box makes a big difference in what people use.