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Steve Anonsen and John Rivard: Inside LightSwitch

August 25, 10 //
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“Visual Studio LightSwitch is a new tool aimed at easily building data-driven applications, such as an inventory system or a basic customer relationship management system.”

Typically, when making difficult things easy, the price is solving a set of very difficult technical problems. In this case, the LightSwitch engineering team needed to remove the necessity for non-programmer domain experts to think about application tiers (e.g., client, web server, and database) when constructing data-bound applications for use in their daily business lives. LightSwitch is designed for non-programmers, but it also offers the ability to customize and extend it, which will most likely be done by experienced developers (see Beth Massi’s Beyond the Basics interview to learn about some of the more advanced capabilities).

This conversation isn’t really about how to use LightSwitch (or how to extend it to meet your specific needs)—that’s already been covered. Rather, in this video we meet the architects behind LightSwitch, Steve Anonsen and John Rivard, focusing on how LightSwitch is designed and what problems it actually solves as a consequence of the design. Most of the time is spent at the whiteboard, discussing architecture and solutions to some hard technical problems. This is Going Deep, so we will open LightSwitch’s hood and dive into the rabbit hole.

Enjoy!

For more information on LightSwitch, please see:

  • Visual Studio LightSwitch Developer Center
  • Visual Studio LightSwitch Team Blog
  • Visual Studio LightSwitch Forums

    • Microsoft FlugTag takes Flight (Project Phoenix)

    August 25, 10 //
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    This past weekend, a team of Microsoft Employees – many from Windows - participated in the Red Bull Flugtag, a competition where teams from all over the world build human-powered flying machines, push them off a 30’ high dock, and see who can fly the farthest. The event was tons of fun and our Microsoft team worked their collective butts off building an amazing craft, putting in more than 1500 total hours in design, fabrication, construction, event planning, marketing and promotion. Check out this video to see if their craft actually took to flight!

    Facebook Chat Now Available in Windows Live Messenger

    August 17, 10 //
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    The Windows Live team has released a new version of the Messenger 2011 beta with integrated Facebook chat.

    Link your Windows Live ID with your Facebook account and you’ll be able to chat with friends logged into Facebook.

    For a quick demo, check out the video, and to download the updated beta bits go here: http://explore.live.com/windows-live-messenger-beta.

    Countdown to TechEd Europe: Don’t Let August Pass You By!

    August 10, 10 //
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    This month is important for TechEd Europe, if you register for the conference by August 31 you’ll receive both the €200 Euro price markdown (the last discount that will be offered), plus if you book your hotel you’ll get the free week-long Berlin metro card which will get you all over the city, including conveniently to and from the Messe conference center.  Also included in your registration for TechEd is a free TechNet Subscription!  Add up all the savings and you simply can’t afford to miss TechEd Europe this year.  And don’t forget, you only have a few more days to speak your desires to the content team by voting on your session preferences by August 12.  Tell the content team the kind of topics you want offered on the TechEd Europe agenda, so your week in Berlin is the most useful it can be for you.  http://europe.msteched.com/

    endpoint.tv – Workflow and Custom Activities – Best Practices (Part 3)

    July 19, 10 //
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    In this episode, Windows Workflow Foundation team Program Manager Leon Welicki drops in to show us the team’s guidelines for developing custom activities.

    In Part 3, we cover Activity Design guidelines including

    • Naming
    • Properties vs. Arguments

    For more information

    endpoint.tv – Workflow and Custom Activities – Best Practices (Part 3)

    July 19, 10 //
    Comments Off

    In this episode, Windows Workflow Foundation team Program Manager Leon Welicki drops in to show us the team’s guidelines for developing custom activities.

    In Part 3, we cover Activity Design guidelines including

    • Naming
    • Properties vs. Arguments

    For more information

    Everything in this Video was made with Power Point

    July 13, 10 //
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    Doug Thomas and Eric Schmidt created this video which showcases some of the new templates available for PowerPoint. These 165 free slides are from PowerPoint MVP Julie Terberg. This is a sequel of sorts; The Office Team created PPT157 on the first set of Terberg’s templates and, well, you don’t mess with success. These templates are for PowerPoint 2010 (you can download a free 60-day trial) but they also work with PowerPoint 2007. (The PPT157 templates are for PowerPoint 2007)

    Keep the master page at Office.com bookmarked. The Office Team has added 59 of the 165 slides so far and plan to roll out the complete set by the end of the year. You can also read the reference article explaining the template features, and view two in-depth demos on how you can create your own slides like Julie’s: picture with cutout artistic effects and picture with background removed. Never used a downloaded template? Watch an introductory video.

    Everything in this Video was made with Power Point

    July 12, 10 //
    Comments Off

    Doug Thomas and Eric Schmidt created this video which showcases some of the new templates available for PowerPoint. These 165 free slides are from PowerPoint MVP Julie Terberg. This is a sequel of sorts; The Office Team created PPT157 on the first set of Terberg’s templates and, well, you don’t mess with success. These templates are for PowerPoint 2010 (you can download a free 60-day trial) but they also work with PowerPoint 2007. (The PPT157 templates are for PowerPoint 2007)

    Keep the master page at Office.com bookmarked. The Office Team has added 59 of the 165 slides so far and plan to roll out the complete set by the end of the year. You can also read the reference article explaining the template features, and view two in-depth demos on how you can create your own slides like Julie’s: picture with cutout artistic effects and picture with background removed. Never used a downloaded template? Watch an introductory video.

    Windows Live Messenger Connect SDK

    June 28, 10 //
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    Angus Logan from the Windows Live Messenger team stopped by to tell us about the Live Messenger Connect API, what devs can do with it and where to get it. There is a controls playground where you try some of the controls. For more info or to get the SDK go to http://isdk.dev.live.com.

    endpoint.tv – Workflow and Custom Activities – Best Practices (Part 2)

    June 25, 10 //
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    In this episode, Windows Workflow Foundation team Program Manager Leon Welicki drops in to show us the team’s guidelines for developing custom activities.

    For more information, see the Workflow Foundation developer center on MSDN.

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