I will be speaking @ the May meeting of the Richmond .NET User Group. The topic is Advanced ASP.NET Concepts and Tips/Tricks.

You might be wondering why I chose this topic. Well, let me bring you in context. I have been interviewing .NET candidates for quite some time now. My personal experience from those interviews is that most of the developers lack the knowledge of some of the powerful ASP.NET concepts. So I decided to share some of my knowledge and personal experience with those technologies.

I am sure it is going to be fun. So stop by.

Information about the event is as follows.

Thursday, May 1, 2008, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Social Time starts at 6:00!

Location: Markel Plaza

4600 Cox Road

Glen Allen, VA 23060

As we all know by now that the Office 2007 products use the "Office Open XML Format" as the default format for the files' content. The following resources would be handy if you ever need to create/manipulate the Office 2007 files in Visual Studio.

Open XML Format SDK

The SDK contains the documentation and the classes for creating/maintaining the Open XML files.

2007 Office System Sample: Open XML File Format Code Snippets for Visual Studio 2005

The name says it all!

2007 Office System Document: Open XML Developer Map

The poster that contains the visual schemas for the Word documents, the Excel spread sheets, and the Power Point presentations.

2007 Office System: XML Schema Reference

The reference documentation for the 2007 Office System XML schemas.

Open XML Developer

Read/learn about the Open XML Formats.

XML in Office Developer Portal

The following articles are a great resource for learning about how to manipulate the Open XML files using code.

Building Server-Side Document Generation Solutions Using the Open XML Object Model (Part 1 of 2)

Building Server-Side Document Generation Solutions Using the Open XML Object Model (Part 2 of 2)

Manipulating Word 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 1 of 3)

Manipulating Word 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 2 of 3)

Manipulating Word 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 3 of 3)

Manipulating Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 1 of 2)

Manipulating Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 Files with the Open XML Object Model (Part 2 of 2)

I had done some Outlook/Exchange programming back in the days of COM and OLE automation but never got a chance to do the similar kind of coding in .NET. I came across the following resources while searching on how to program against Outlook in Visual Studio. I am sure there are many other resources available but this is what I have so far.

Articles

What's New for Developers in Outlook 2007 (Part 1 of 2)

What's New for Developers in Outlook 2007 (Part 2 of 2)

Customizing the Ribbon in Outlook 2007

Creating an Outlook Task Add-in Solution with Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

General and Add-in Samples / Hands-on Labs

Outlook 2007 Sample: Visual Studio 2005 Templates

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Sample: Outlook Samples

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Training: Outlook Hands-on Labs

Add-Ins

Outlook 2007 Sample: Ribbon Extensibility Add-In

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Sample: Outlook Tasks Add-in Sample

Outlook 2007 Add-Ins: RulesAddin, TravelAgencyAddin, and PrepareMeAddin

Outlook 2007 Sample: What's New Add-Ins

Outlook 2007 Sample: Ribbon Extensibility Add-In

Outlook 2007 Add-In: Form Region Add-In

Snippets

Outlook Add-in Snippets for Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office

2007 Office System Sample: Visual Studio Code Snippets for the Office Fluent UI

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Sample: Outlook Snippets

Root of all evils

Office Developer Center

Outlook Developer Portal

While exploring options for integrating BizTalk and SharePoint, I stumbled upon the following BizTalk Server 2006 related posters! For sure, a picture is worth a thousand words.

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Database Infrastructure Poster

Microsoft BizTalk Server Operations Guide

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Capabilities Poster

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Runtime Architecture Poster

I also came across the BizTalk Server 2006 Tutorials and the BizTalk Server 2006 Installation and Upgrade Guides

I was able to get my blog listed @ the official Richmond Code Camp web site J see below.

Thanks to Kevin Israel and Susan Lennon for making it happen.

I will be speaking @ the upcoming Richmond Code Camp on April 12, 2008. The topic is "SharePoint for Developers" and I am going to share couple of development options available to a .NET developer for extending SharePoint. I will also share couple of tips and tricks that I have learned while working with WSS/MOSS and would also have two cool demos. :)

You can see the tentative schedule for the sessions here

Microsoft has just released the .NET 3.5 Enhancement Training Kit which includes the presentations, hands-on-labs, and demos for one to learn .NET 3.5 technologies such as ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight, ADO.NET Data Services and ADO.NET Entity Framework.

Also check out my previous post about Windows Server 2008 Developer Story for more .NET 3.5 related material.

Use the following resources for training your organization's business users and/or Information workers on SharePoint and SharePoint Designer. Note that these are not the hard-core developer training resources but these can be a good start for a developer to start learning about the general concepts of SharePoint and how to perform certain tasks in SharePoint.

The very first resource is the training that comes in two flavors; the Standalone Edition, which can be installed directly on the end user's machine and the Portal Edition which can be installed on a common MOSS site which is accessible by all of the end users.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training (Standalone Edition)

Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training (Portal Edition)

Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Training (Standalone Edition)

Office SharePoint Designer 2007 Training (Portal Edition)

Apart from the above training, check out the training for more advanced business users @ SharePoint Designer 2007 Business Administrator Training and the Six-Part Series for getting the most out of the SharePoint Designer.

Road maps

Since WSS/SharePoint is huge and has so many areas for one to learn, hence it would be good to have some kind of guided learning approach (or focused training) where one particular area of SharePoint is targeted, learned and explored in detail and then move on to the next area.

Microsoft has done a good job coming up with the road maps for such training. Following are some of the road maps that I found; there could be more, but I am not sure.

Roadmap to using SharePoint Server 2007

Roadmap for creating and managing sites

Roadmap for creating and configuring libraries

Roadmap for creating and customizing Web Part Pages

Roadmap for giving users access to sites and site content

Roadmap for managing navigation

The following articles provide some of the important concepts and training that a power user should have or better yet have your end users go through the training material located @ Help for SharePoint Server 2007

Understand groups and permissions on a site

Enable anonymous access

Give users access to a site

Manage permission levels

Introduction to sites, workspaces, and pages

Manage sites and site collections

Work with site content and structure

I needed to refresh some of the TCP/IP and DNS related concepts; while searching for some information, I came across the following guide on the TechNet web site.

TCP/IP Fundamentals for Windows

Ever wondered about the new HTML specification which is still being worked on and how does it differ from the current HTML spec? I came across the following while looking into the same.

HTML 5 differences from HTML 4

HTML 5 Specification is still in draft.

Ever wondered how to manage the requirements for a software system? I did! I found the following white paper about the Visual Studio Team System while searching for some tools for managing software requirements. I think it's about time I should start looking into these features of the Team System.

Requirements Management with Visual Studio Team System White Paper

While you are @ it, also download the MSF for Agile Software Development Process Template v4.2.

I just came across this.

A must have for the developers. With the plethora of technologies coming out from Redmond, it has become really difficult to keep track and get your hands on all of those technologies. This guide describes some of the new technologies and how those technologies can be used to come up with a solution. Some of the technologies discussed in this guide include the following:

• IIS Manager and IIS Modules
• WCF
• WWF
• How different technologies can be used to create the connected applications
• Federation-Aware Applications
  • ADFS
  • AD LDS
  • AzMan
• MMC and PowerShell
• And much more

Borrowed from the Microsoft downloads page.

The Windows Server 2008 Developer Story introduces users to new features of the Windows Server 2008 operating system by providing a cohesive story about how the features fit together to make a compelling platform for developers. The Developer Story topics explain how to take advantage of a new feature or solve a problem using the new Windows technologies. The topics include conceptual information for context and technical specifications for practical application of each scenario.

Windows Server 2008 Developer Story Home Page

Windows Server 2008 Developer Story Help File

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Windows Server 2008 Developer Story MSDN Articles

Read away!

Woow, Microsoft is giving away free software to students from selected countries! As of this writing this blog post, students from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium are eligible for this offer but Microsoft will be adding more countries to the list, so stay tuned.

Read more @ What is DreamSpark?