ObjectSharp

A quick heads up to let you know that VS 2008 Service Pack 1 is now available (links below). It typically takes a couple of months from this point before we'll see a final release. This Service Pack includes new cool feature: ADO.NET Entity Framework ADO.NET Data Services ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions (aka Cicero) which includes MVC Framework, ...

In Part 0: Introduction of this series after asking the question "Does the Entity Framework replace the need for a Data Access Layer?", I waxed lengthy about the qualities of a good data access layer. Since that time I've received a quite a few emails with people interested in this topic. So without further adieu, let's get down to the ...

During the past month, Danny Simmons let us all officially know that SP1 of VS 2008/.NET Framework 3.5 will be the delivery mechanism for the Entity Framework and the Designer, and that we should see a beta of the entire SP1 very soon as well. No release dates yet. Speaking of the next beta, there have been some improvements in the designer ...

Are you an architect or an aspiring architect interested in learning what's new this year for the MS platform? On February 11th, 2008 come to the MS Canada Office in Mississauga and visit yours truly and some other dazzling speakers to learn more about Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Server 2008. You can choose either the morning or afternoon ...

Our designer is having a field-day with this ''at the Movies'' theme for our upcoming review of Visual Studio 2008 being held Feb 7th from 8:30am-12:00pm @ the Paramount in Toronto. Grab a copy of this movie poster before it gets ''whacked'' by the lawyers. Hope to see you there. Check out all the details after this link.Technorati Tag

On February 27 in Toronto, MS Canada is hosting the official launch of the above mentioned products. The event will be all day long and in addition to a keynote from COO Kevin Turner, there will be some great breakout tracks running in parallel for IT Professionals, Developers, IT Managers, and Architects. The event will be held at the Direct ...

Last night I gave a presentation to the Toronto SharePoint Users Group on using Visual Studio 2008 to build SharePoint Workflows. I also covered a little bit on LINQ to SharePoint and WCF/WF integration at the end. Attached are my slides. Enjoy.

Jeff Beehler blogs here and here that the Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 VPCs are prematurely expiring on November 1st. If you're using your VPC for demos - you'll be limited to 2 hours before you have to shut down. If you're using it for real work - that will be annoying - especially if you are using it for your TFS server Follow Jeff's links to ...

This coming Thursday, Microsoft is hosting the annual Toronto Architect Forum at their offices in Mississauga. The target audience is architects that are *not* in the financial service industry. Here's the agenda: 8:00 - 8:30 am Breakfast and Registration 8:30 - 9:00 am Welcome by Mark Relph 9:00 - 9:30 am Architectural Agility as ...

Microsoft has just released (here) a moderately detailed description of where Team Systems is going over the next 12 months or so. The roadmap also includes the beginnings of the functionality that will be found in the next version of VSTS (code named Rosario). Nothing like a little transparency to get people salivating. :)