Emmanuel's Screencasts

Screencast

Note: during the screencast I talk about the 160 GB hard drive that Microsoft gave PDC attendees. These PDC 2008 materials are only available to my co-workers; I have not made them available online.

Screencast Notes

Here are the notes I used during the screencast -

Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2008
Los Angeles, CA - 10/26/2008 - 10/30/2008

High Level Overview

• Windows Azure
  • Marketing: a Windows Operating System "in the cloud".
  • Really: advanced hosting services for scalable apps written in .NET.
  • Greatly integrated with Microsoft development tools
    • Run a simulated local "Azure" on your laptop - works in a plane.
    • Advanced tools to deploy to Staging/Production

• Windows 7

Demo: build 6801 from PDC running in Virtual PC 2007

• Smaller footprint
  • About 500 MB RAM
  • Hidden Windows do not use video memory.

• Better windows management: Superbar
• Aero Enhancements
  • Transparent windows on hover

• Easy home networking: Homegroup
• Easier to find data: Jump Lists and Libraries

• Unified search: e.g. search for picture will search across computers in Homegroup/Domain

• Better UAC control: less annoying pop-ups
• Applications updated (after 15 years)
  • Paint: now with Ribbon.
  • Wordpad: now with Ribbon
  • Calculator
  • Notepad
  • Etc...

• Virtual Disk partitioning: mount virtual machines (VHD) natively
• Bitlocker on external drives.
• Centralized device manager
  • See battery status for MP3 player or camera directly in device manager

• Built-in Multi-Touch, affordable (e.g. HP Touchsmart)
• Built-in Sensor APIs - light sensor, accelerometer, and touch sensor
  • Control a game by moving the board
  • Changethe view in a text reader depending on the brightness of the environment

• Windows key + P to change display mode
• Improvements in Multimonitor: even via RDP!
• Improved Firewall - more options
• Media streaming: you can stream any media from/to any computer, including digital picture frames.
• Windows Explorer: new navigation page integrated with Libraries and Homegroup

• Software + Services
  • Windows Live and IE8
  • Office 14 now on the web!
  • Microsoft "eats its own dog food" Office on the Web using Windows Azure and Live Services.

• Much more for Developers
  • Visual Studio 2010
    • Now 100% WPF - no more COM.
  • .NET Framework 4.0
  • Advances in VB.NET and C#
    • Parallel/Multi core features - easy to use, but be careful
  • Silverlight:
    • New toolkit - datagrid, datepicker, calendar, and ribbon
    • Will soon work on mobile phones
  • WPF: new controls (ribbon, datagrid
  • ASP.NET MVC Framework
  • Open XML SDK
  • Enhancements in XML Paper Specification (XPS) documents.
  • Live Mesh OS
    • SDK available
    • -OR- direct REST through WCF helper classes.
  • Virtual Earth Web Services

A few links mentioned at the beginning of the screencast -

Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2008
http://microsoftpdc.com/

Visual Studio Developer Conference
http://vslive.com/

Windows Azure Services Platform
http://www.microsoft.com/azure/default.mspx

A couple of items I mentioned during the screencast -

The government of Ethiopia data center before
the teacher application was deployed on Windows Azure

Web and Worker services running on sample application on local
machine (127.0.0.1) - simulating a load balanced Production system

I took the screenshots above from this session - check it out it's very interesting -

"ES16 A Lap Around Windows Azure" from day 1
http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/pdc08/WMV-HQ/ES16.wmv

I mentioned this application in the screencast -

Taskbar Shuffle (Works on XP and Vista)
http://nerdcave.webs.com/taskbarshuffle.htm

Taskbar Shuffle is a simple, small, free utility that lets you drag and drop your Windows taskbar buttons to rearrange them. Here’s a full feature list:

• Reorder your taskbar buttons by dragging and dropping them
• Reorder your tray icons in the same way
• Reorder tasks in a grouped button's popup menu in the same way
• Middle-click to close programs on your taskbar
• Works with UltraMon taskbars
• Tweak taskbar button grouping

If you run more than a few applications at a time, you'll definitely find Taskbar Shuffle useful, so give it a try!

For a great Windows 7 demo, check out Keynote on day 2, look for the demo from Julie Larson Green

KYN02 Day Two Keynote - Ray Ozzie,
Steven Sinofsky, Scott Guthrie and David Treadwell
http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/pdc08/WMV-HQ/KYN02.wmv

Another great session I mentioned is the day 2 keynote with Don Box:

KYN03 Day Two Keynote - Chris Anderson and Don Box
http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/pdc08/WMV-HQ/KYN03.wmv

A good article on why it's exciting that Visual Studio 2010 is written in WPF:

Writing Visual Studio 2010 Shell In WPF Reflects Confidence
http://www.onedotnetway.com/writing-visual-studio-2010-shell-in-wpf-reflects-confidence/

I mentioned the Firefox "Download Them All" add-on and how to download all of the PDC 2008 videos:

How to download PDC Sessions using DownThemAll! Firefox addon
http://weblogs.asp.net/guerchele/archive/2008/10/29/how-to-download-pdc-sessions-using-downthemall-firefox-addon.aspx

Firefox 3.0 - free open-source Browser
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Download Them All - free Firefox Add-On
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201

At the end of my screencast, my employer Calyx Software (www.CalyxSoftware.com) was kind enough to pay for lunch (excellent Chinese food from Mandarin Gourmet - the Mongolian beef is very tasty!) and we watched the day 1 keynote:

KYN01 Day One Keynote - Ray Ozzie,
Amitabh Srivastava, Bob Muglia and David Thompson
http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/pdc08/WMV-HQ/KYN01.wmv

Additional Links

I collected these links during the PDC and in the last few weeks as I watched the Twitter stream of PDC tagged tweets (see this article if you don't know what Twitter is).

    Sessions - includes description and link to stream
    https://sessions.microsoftpdc.com/public/timeline.aspx

    PDC 2008 Session List by Mike Swanson
    http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/pages/PDC2008Sessions.aspx

    Quick Video List, sort by Title
    http://coolthingoftheday.blogspot.com/2008/10/pdc2008-quick-video-link-list.html

    How to download PDC Sessions using DownThemAll! Firefox addon
    http://weblogs.asp.net/guerchele/archive/2008/10/29/how-to-download-pdc-sessions-using-downthemall-firefox-addon.aspx

    Channel 9 RSS feed of all sessions
    http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/pdc2008/RSS/

    Windows Azure - Links and Resources
    http://www.sriramkrishnan.com/blog/

    Azure Coding .NET - Wiki, Forums and shared blogs
    http://azurecoding.net/

    Windows Azure overview
    http://blogs.msdn.com/mikeormond/archive/2008/11/01/some-reflections-on-pdc-2008-windows-azure.aspx

    Windows Azure from a Developer's Perspective
  http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2008/11/03/WindowsAzureFromADevelopersPerspective.aspx

    Flashy Windows 7 bits protected by elaborate scheme, workaround
(turns on Windows 7 Superbar in PDC bits)
    http://www.withinwindows.com/2008/11/02/flashy-windows-7-bits-protected-by-elaborate-scheme-workaround/

    PDC Resources from Scoble
    http://scobleizer.com/2008/11/01/never-underestimate-microsofts-ability-to-turn-a-corner/

    Exposing Connected Home Services to the Internet via Windows Home Server
    http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/ES12/

    Second Light for Surface
    http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/10/30/secondlight.for.ms.surface/

    "Not at PDC" group - all sessions
    http://notatpdc.com/presentations/

It's a great time to be a Microsoft developer - good times!