December 2010 - Posts

Azure November Update

Last month in PDC, Microsoft announced several new enhancements for Windows Azure that includes:

- Virtual Machine Role
- Elevated Privileges
- Full IIS Support
- Remote Desktop
- Windows Azure Connect
- Extra Small Instances
- New Windows Azure Management Portal based on Silverlight


Some of these features are generally available today, while others are staring to be rolled out as a beta or CTP. You can find more details in:
- Windows Azure Official Site
- Windows Azure Team Blogs
- Windows Azure Platform Training Kit (November Update)
- PDC 2010 Recorded sessions on Cloud Services


I wanted to extend this announcement for all of geeks here to accelerate the awareness and adoption of the Windows Azure platform in Indonesia. It is important to start building your Azure skillset and my team is looking forward to work with you if you are ready. Please feel free to contact us.


Windows Azure Platform Training Kit

The November release of the training kit includes several new hands-on labs for the new Windows Azure features and the new/updated services we just released a few weeks ago in PDC.  The updates in this training kit include:

· [New lab] Advanced Web and Worker Role – shows how to use admin mode and startup tasks

· [New lab] Connecting Apps With Windows Azure Connect – shows how to use Project Sydney

· [New lab] Virtual Machine Role – shows how to get started with VM Role by creating and deploying a VHD

· [New lab] Windows Azure CDN – simple introduction to the CDN

· [New lab] Introduction to the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus Futures – shows how to use the new Service Bus features in the AppFabric labs environment

· [New lab] Building Windows Azure Apps with Caching Service – shows how to use the new Windows Azure AppFabric Caching service

· [New lab] Introduction to the AppFabric Access Control Service V2 – shows how to build a simple web application that supports multiple identity providers

· [Updated] Introduction to Windows Azure - updated to use the new Windows Azure platform Portal

· [Updated] Introduction to SQL Azure - updated to use the new Windows Azure platform Portal

clip_image001

 

Cheers - RAM

Share this post: | | | |

Native Extensions for Microsoft Silverlight (NESL)

What is NESL ?

A set of libraries for Silverlight developers that allow them to access some really cool features of Windows 7 from their Silverlight applications through COM automation (wrapper classes).

  • Take advantage of sensors like accelerometers, light sensors, compasses, GPS etc.
  • Access content from connected portable devices like music players and digital cameras.
  • Capture and create video from webcams and screen output
  • Use speech recognition and text to speech capabilities.
  • Integrate with the Windows 7 taskbar (Jump Lists, Icon Overlays, Taskbar Progress etc.)
  • And more as long as COM object…

This is my favorite feature in Silverlight as it give access to many cool features in Windows 7, Sensor API, Speech API, Devices API, Taskbar Integration, Webcam local encoding, Window capture, Windows message interception. You can download and try sample apps that utilized those features and build your next gen SL apps.


What is available for download?

Standalone MSI installer for the native runtime
- Use to deploy NESL

Developer setup
- Source code for Silverlight wrapper libraries
- Source code for sample applications
- API Documentation
- MSI installer for native runtime

You can download NESL it here : http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/nesl 

Enjoy!

Cheers – RAM.

Share this post: | | | |

WebMatrix– Small Simple Seamless

To install WebMatrix, download WebPlatform Installer from http://www.microsoft.com/web and choose to add WebMatrix Beta 3. Current version of WPI 3.0 also looks nicer than before:

image

Simply, “easy to use IDE tool” for web developers who want to create sites using Open Source Applications like WordPress, Umbraco, Drupal, Orchard, DNN, etc. Or you can use WebMatrix to write your own codes based on templates provided with using HTML, CSS, ASP.NET Web Pages. WebMatrix has a template engine called Razor. With Designed to aid in the workflow of:

    -  Creating sites
    -  Configuring sites
    -  Publishing sites

image

It was very easy to install, very intuitive and seamless to use. Get more info about it from WebMatrix team blogs here.


Enjoy!

 

Cheers – RAM.

Share this post: | | | |