HP OVO Whitepaper
A couple of people have asked me recently where the whitepaper is… its here:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=183500
BizTalk Benchmark Wizard
Check this out:
Attach/Detach VHD
Windows 7 has some nice and very welcome functionality for attaching/detaching VHD files so that you can access files in them directly from the operating system, which is something I’ve been finding very useful when working out of my laptop. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a drag to have to go through disk manager every […]
Implementing Simple Discovery using WCF
Imagine that you have written an application that will need to invoke a service at some point. You can hard code the service address, you could place it in configuration, you can stick it into an external registry (a la UDDI), or you could come up with some custom method for resolution (e.g., storing endpoint information in a table of a SQL database).
However, Juval Lowy reminds us that we don’t have to re-invent the wheel. He wrote an excellent article in last month’s MSDN magazine about simple discovery in WCF. In the article he provides a simple explanation of what it is, and how it works, and even provides sample classes that can jump-start your development.
You can check out the article here: Foundations – Discover a New WCF with Discovery
.NET 4 RC Documentation is Now Available
Just before the long weekend, Microsoft quietly released a documentation update alongside their RC release of Visual Studio 2010. If you were dying to know how to implement Out-of-Order Message Processing in Workflow Services, click-away because you shouldn’t find any more place holder content where you’re expecting technical articles.
This should definitely lessen the learning curve a bit more.
Check out the announcement via The .NET Endpoint blog here: The .NET Endpoint: RC docs are live!
ESB Toolkit Webcast – On Demand Links
The webcast that Ofer and I ran last week “Improving Business Agility with the Enterprise Service Bus” went quite well (at least that’s the feedback we heard from those of you who attended.)
For those of you who couldn’t attend and those of you who just want to view this at a later date, the On-Demand version of the webcast can be found at
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032440359&role=attend&pw=656F8D09
Cheers and keep on BizTalking
Peter
BizTalk 2006 R2 Service Pack 1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974563
AMR Research Doc on PowerPivot
Microsoft SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel:
Unleashing the Business User
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/bi/docs/amr_powerpivot.pdf
Find it here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/bi/Default.aspx
Gartner positions MS in leader quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms
Further validation of the great BI platform we’re driving to market
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/bi/Default.aspx
MVPs receive free Standard subscription to Pluralsight On-Demand!
Last week Pluralsight announced that all Microsoft MVPs now qualify to receive a free 1-year Standard On-Demand! subscription, which provides them full access to our revolutionary .NET training library.
You can read the full announcement here and find out how to get signed-up. Please help us by spreading the word to your MVP colleagues via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and email.
Here are some answers to the most common questions we’ve received about this MVP benefit while processing the first 400 requests that came in last week:
How do I get signed-up?
Simply email mvp-promo@pluralsight.com and provide a link to your active MVP profile on MSDN. Once we’ve validated your request, you’ll receive an activation key with details on how to get signed-up. Please be patient – it can take up to 1 or 2 business days to process these requests.
Is this a one-time or yearly benefit? How much is it worth?
This is a yearly benefit you can receive during each MVP award period. If you’re still an MVP when your current subscription expires, simply email us again with a link to your profile and we’ll renew you.
A full-year Standard subscription normally costs $499/yr per person.
What does this benefit give me?
A Pluralsight On-Demand! Standard subscription gives you online access to our entire library of in-depth training courses, tutorials, and how-to videos, which totals nearly 250 hours of high-quality training videos today – all of it has been authored by folks you trust, many of whom will be attending the MVP Summit this week. We are very interested in your feedback on the quality of the content.
How about Regional Directors (RDs)? Do they also qualify?
Yes, we are also making this offer available to all Microsoft Regional Directors.
Why are we doing this?
We are doing this to give back to the community. Those named “MVP” by Microsoft receive the honor because of their contributions to the Microsoft community at large. They are folks dedicated to giving back and paying it forward. We feel strongly about the value of “community”, especially the Microsoft developer community, and want to do what we can to help it flourish. By giving this benefit to Microsoft MVPs, we are rewarding and assisting those most committed to helping their fellow developers throughout the world. We hope MVPs everywhere will benefit from this valuable learning resource, and that what they learn will help them better serve their community throughout the year.
Do we offer other programs similar to this?
Yes, we offer a similar benefit to INETA User Group leaders, which you can read about here. Again, we believe INETA UG leaders are performing a great service to the community, so we want to help them.
Are you looking for more authors?
Yes, we have an intentionally small team of authors here at Pluralsight and plan to keep it that way. However, we’re always looking for the best and brightest in each area of technology. If you have a passion for teaching and see a gap in our library that you could potentially fill, be sure to drop me a line.
What about my friends and coworkers who aren’t MVPs?
As an MVP, if you’d like to share Pluralsight On-Demand! with your friends or coworkers, we are happy to provide them with free 1-week trials on your behalf. Simply email mvp-promo@pluralsight.com along with a link to your MVP profile and you can request some trial codes to give away.
That about does it. We hope you’ll take advantage of this offer, tell your friends, and let us know what you think about the quality of our On-Demand! training courses. Thank you for all you do.
Happy Learning.