Windows 7 announced....! Windows 7 is now with Touch Gestures. So, why don't we call it as Windows Touch....?

The much awaited Microsoft Windows 7 has been announced today in PDC 2008. This release is called M3 pre release to beta 1, might be available to few for MSDN subscribers ONLY, I believe. A public beta 1 would be available around Dec. 2008 / beginning of 2009. A detailed review of Windows 7 from PDC 2008 is Windows 7 M3 - PDC 2008 bit review.

More importantly, Windows 7 comes with Multi Touch Gestures. I feel, it can be called as Windows Touch 7.

Silverlight 2 Toolkit Nov 2008 overview released in codeplex...!

Today, the much awaited Silverlight 2 developers, called Silverlight Toolkit has been released in codeplex.

• Components in the Preview Quality Band
  • AutoCompleteBox
  • NumericUpDown
  • Viewbox
  • Expander
  • ImplicitStyleManager
  • Charting

• Components in the Stable Quality Band
  • TreeView
  • DockPanel
  • WrapPanel
  • Label
  • HeaderedContentControl
  • HeaderedItemsControl

And, there are few Themes comes with this toolkit. You can have a look at them Silverlight Toolkit Themes.

Quality Bands - Silverlight Toolkit would be following the below quality bands for the releases.

Quality Bands

Experimental
Experimental components are intended for evaluation purposes. The main goal of these components is to provide an opportunity for feedback during the earliest stages of development. This feedback will help decide the future of these components. Development of an experimental component may end at any point so it may not be included in future releases.

Preview
Preview components are intended to meet most basic usage scenarios. While in the Preview Quality Band, , these components may have a moderate number of breaking API or behavior changes in response to customer feedback and as we learn more about how they will be used. Customers are likely to encounter bugs and functionality issues for non-mainline scenarios. Preview is similar to "Alpha" quality in many traditional projects.

Stable
Stable components are suitable for the vast majority of usage scenarios and will have incorporated most major design and functionality feedback. They are designed to address over 90% of customer scenarios and will continue evolving via limited bug fixes and fit-and-finish work. Stable is similar to "Beta" in other projects. Stable components will have a very small number of breaking API or behavior changes when feedback demands it.

Mature
Mature components are ready for full release, meeting the highest levels of quality and stability. Future releases of mature components will maintain a high quality bar with no breaking changes except when such changes are necessary to make them more secure or guarantee future compatibility. Customers should be confident using mature components, knowing that when they upgrade from one version of the Silverlight Toolkit to a newer version it will be a quick and easy process. Due to the heavy focus on backward compatibility between versions, the bar for fixing bugs found in mature components is also considerably higher than any other Quality Band.

JiniShans

.NET 4.0 & Visual Studio 2010 pre-release CTP available for Download in M$ Connect.

M$ just announced the release of .NET Framework 4.0 and it's VS version Visual Studio 2010 in M$ Connect site. It can be downloaded from Visual Studio 2010 pre-release CTP download.

Windows Azure, .NET Services - M$ entering into a big bet.......?

Today, Oct 27th, @ Professional Dev. Conference aka PDC 2008, M$ announced the CTP (Community Technology Preview) of Microsoft's next generation Windows platform for M$ community. It's called "Windows Azure". Along with this, M$ also introduced something called .NET Services.

You can register in Connect for trying out with these M$ new Services offering. But, remember, you can install Windows Azure SDK only in Windows Vista (with SP1) / Windows Server 2008. Oops....! To use M$ Services, you need latest OS only.

What M$ is trying to do with this. Trying out Services and what the Industry & Dev are betting on it.

I remember, during .COM bubble, Intel was having a division called Intel Internet Services (or something of that sort), which tried to have Data Centers to host other's web-sites. But, during .com bubble burst, the division got closed by Intel, if I remember correctly. Today', it's M$ trying to do the same for Software, but, not just web-sites. My friend told me, even Amazon tried the same some time back.

Google, Apple are also trying the same thing for Mobile platform, if you think of it in a high level. They too provide SDK's and a place to host them, for users to use it in their Mobile Devices. M$ is trying it with .NET. It's up to the Industry & M$ community how well it'll be taken seriously.

Fine, let's see What's Windows Azure Services and .NET Services.

Azure is a M$ managed services platform with dedicated Data Centers across US and in few more places (coming up soon). For what...?

To host your .NET Services applications. What's .NET Services application....?

It's nothing but, .NET applications developed using .NET Services SDK (might be similar to .NET SDK only), most probably utilizing few .NET Services (more services coming soon) over Internet, and deployed in Windows Azure platform (in M$ data center). Oops..!

Today I tried to register for these and M$ had put a restriction that it can't be done during PDC is happening. Ok fine. But, I got the invitation code (Yahooooo....!) and I registered now with Windows Azure. I'll be anyway trying it out. But, what I was wondering, when I tried to download the SDK/site, few times I was diverted to a M$ search page, sometimes error, sometimes page-can't be displayed message. If for registering the site itself is having this much issue / M$ is not able to handle the load, how come the Azure services / .NET Services are going to be reliable / available....?

Only time would tell.

I'm expecting tomorrow's announcement on Windows 7, .NET Framework 4.0, Dublin, etc. Let's see whether that would be at-least fruitful.

JiniShans

Architect,

Wipro LTD @ NYC

.NET Framework 4.0 & Dublin CTP in PDC 2008 !

M$ is going to release the CTP (community technology preview) of .NET Framework 4.0 & Dublin in PDC 2008, starting on coming Monday, Oct 27.

 

M$ announcement on Dublin & .NET 4.0 is .NET 4.0 & Dublin announcement, and features coming up in Dublin can be downloaded Overview of .NET 4.0 & Dublin.

 

When you see the features in Dublin are much similar to BizTalk. So, when I tried to find out what's the difference between Dublin & BizTak, I found a blog post from Charles Young. It's a wonderful post and we may need such difference from M$ as a statement to tell client what's the difference between Dublin & BizTalk. You can read more about the difference What's the difference between Dublin & BizTalk.

 

JiniShans

Silverlight 2 RTM (Release) version released !!!

Hi All

M$ has just released the release version a.k.a. RTM version of Silverlight 2 today, which was in beta 2 for few months, and within 3 weeks' time of releasing RC0 for Developers.

• It can be downloaded from Silverlight 2 website.
• Microsoft Press release on the same is Silverlight 2 release press release.
• Scott Gu blog post is also Scott Go post on Silverlight 2 release.
• Download and get started on Silverlight 2 from Getting Started on Silverlight 2.
• One of the nice Silverlight 2 controls from a 3rd party vendor telerik RadControls for Silverlight 2 is telerik RadControls for Silverlight 2.

Now, it's going to be an interesting battle between Adobe Vs. Microsoft Vs. JavaFx (due tobe released in 2009). But, right now, the RIA battle would be between M$ vs. Adobe. I'm a .NET guy, but, still i was in Java in my initial day's for quite some time.

I knew Flex from the beginning stage when it was introduced by Macromedia. MXML is the tag based language similar to HTML, but XAML in SL 2 is a lighter version of WPF one.

As we all knew, WPF itself is a ground up development by M$ with DirectX 10 (.NET ver of DirectX) released with Windows Vista. So, i dont' think no one would compare XAML with MXML. But, still, feature wise, SL 2 Vs. Flex is going to give Enterprise Architects, CEO's, RIA decision makers a tough time to decide. Since every Enterprise would have .NET / Java team internally/thru their partner vendors. But, no one would be having Adobe / Flex team within their Enterprise.

BTW, i've seen some recent blog comment by a RIA advocate saying, getting Flex resource is becoming tough, tough Flex is nice. Even we're also experiencing the same as a Vendor for few of the Flex projects.

My gut feel is, slowly, M$ would replace ASP.NET with SL 2 in the Enterprise with every .NET projects by the mid / end of 2009. Since Java guys knew JavaFX is on the way, they're reluctant in learning/doing Flex based UI. This would continue till JavaFX is released. I've a strong feel that JavaFX would comeout by the end of 2009 only, knowing Sun's no-commitment strategy on Java. So, by the time Flex and SL 2 making inroads in Enterprise, almost all .NET projects would start using SL 2 and JavaFX in no time will become the de-facto RIA for J2EE based projects. Ultimately, Flex would end-up in competing with Java world, but, not with .NET world. I see a % of market-share as below by end of 2009;

Silverlight 2 - 40% in RIA market, but, with 50% in .NET rest with ASP.NET

Flex - 30% in RIA market

JavaFX - 10-20% in RIA market

Other RIA frameworks' - Rest of the 10-20%.

It's almost 2 yrs back I took a session on WPF/E (WPF everywhere - code name of Silverlight 2) in Chennai Tidel park for Chennai .NET User Group (CNUG). M$ kept it's promise by releasing an Silverlight 2 Ecplise plug-in for Java community. More info is Silverlight 2 Eclipse plug-in for Java.

Tx & Regards

Sankar Balu

Architect

Wipro LTD @ Bank of New York Mellon,

New York

Spore..!

I played Spore today (after long time i played a game) since i moved to NY. It's really nice. Need to play more.

My 1st post thru Windows Live Writer

Below i've posted on SL 2 thru the new Windows Live write in my blog. It's really nice. This's the first time im using a blog writer to post in my blog. I'm bit lazy in posting thru online / using other tools. This Live Writer, i like it. It really works great against Blogger. I hope i'll post more frequently henceforth.

Silverlight RC0 is out... What NEXT...!

M$ released Silverlight RC0 last week on 26th Sep. 08. What NEXT...!

Ref: You can read more about RC0 from Scott Gu blog.

Also, you can download the offline documentation here.

 

Now, What NEXT...!

 

What else, release of Silverlight during Oct 08 PDC.

 

But, I'm not sure whether it's yet ready for enterprise development. Here are the missing list of features;

1. Basic stuff, but not sure whether it'll be available in the SL 2 release version. It's nothing but, a direct way of accessing/sharing the ASP.NET App/Session object in SL code-behind.

2. Authentication mechanism

3. Personalization like ASP.NET

4. Default Theme framework

5. Support for all type of WCF bindings

6. Linux SL 2 runtime

7. Performance comparison between SL 2 vs Flex vs JavaFX

 

Finally, when .NET RT is going to be available officially in Linux supported by M$...! Hopefully, .NET 4.0..? Let's hope