Tom Hall's Blog : Microsoft

Connect to SQL Azure using SQL Server Management Studio 2008

Tom Hall — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:04:11 GMT

SQL Azure is now in CTP and for those who have received an invitation to test it out, you might be wondering how you can manage your databases via SQL Server Management Studio…. Here’s a few steps to do it:

Set up your SQL Azure server and Administrator Username via https://sql.azure.com/
On the SQL Azure website under Firewall Settings ensure you check “Allow Microsoft Services access to this server” and add your IP address to the IP Address Range
Open SQL Server Management Studio
Close the “Connect to Server” dialogue and click “New Query”
In the “Connect to Server” dialogue box type the server name provided via the SQL Azure website, e.g: <servername>.database.windows.net
Select Authentication to SQL Server Authentication
Your username is the Administrator Username you set up in this format: <username>@<servername>
Password is obvious?

From here you can run as much T-SQL as you like :)

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 Released

Tom Hall — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:52:53 GMT

Today (19th October) Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 was released – with brand new branding – we say goodbye to our multi coloured figure of eight and hello to a swish purple figure of 8! :)

What’s new with the SKU’s, well, Team Foundation Server is now available for x86 and x64 systems, and it seems that Team Suite Edition is now Ultimate Edition…

Download is available to MSDN Subscribers today:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/vstudio/dd582936.aspx

General availability is 21st October.

Microsoft BizSpark

Tom Hall — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:19:21 GMT

Microsoft has started a whole new initiative in recent aimed at technology startups. They have introduced a website called Microsoft Startup Zone which ‘helps technology startups around the world incubate ideas and drive innovation forward’ and the Startup Zone provides essential resources to get the most from Microsoft. The site contains a lot of information for startups from advice on getting funding, getting talent to getting customers.

Probably the most attractive offering, for startups, is the Microsoft BizSpark program which is a three year program designed to give startups a jump-start with no upfront enrolment costs (yes, FREE!)…. You’ll get:

Software: MSDN Premium Subscription with Expression Studio
Production Licenses: to host a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution on the Internet
Professional Support: from Microsoft and community support from BizSpark Network Partners
Global Visibility: profiling your company online in the BizSpark DB

So if you are umming and arring about your own startup plans, what are you waiting for?! This is the perfect opportunity!

To get started, ideally you need a network partner who will provide business mentoring, peer connections and other entrepreneurial resources, such as, Pixel Programming who are highly experienced in Microsoft .NET from version 1.0 through to 3.5, ASP.NET, Windows Forms and more…

Windows 7: Font Files - Thumbnail Preview

Tom Hall — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:16:22 GMT

I’ve just installed the first Release Candidate (RC) of Windows 7 on my media centre and now my laptop. I wasn’t going to be bothering with upgrading because I believe Windows installations naturally require a fresh install every now and again – especially if you are like me, adding and removing tonnes of applications!

I’ve just about reinstalled most of my essential applications to carry out my job and have just come to install some of my favourite fonts – what a nice surprise – Windows 7 will show you a preview of the font as the font file icon if you are viewing in “Medium icons”, “Large icons” or “Extra large icons”:

If you like any of these fonts, you can find some/most of them here:
45 Beautiful Free Fonts for Modern Design Trends / Sixrevisions.com

Catching up on MIX09 Videos

Tom Hall — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:10:13 GMT

MIX09 has been and gone, but videos of the sessions that took place have been published online (see MIX09 Videos) which is fantastic because for those of us who couldn’t make it, or for those who couldn’t attend some sessions, it means we can catch up online, for free, in our own time, whenever we like!

On the website, at the time of writing, there are 124 videos online(!), and I’m guessing most of them are approximately 1hr long, that’s ~124 hours of video, just over 5 days! Wow! Clearly, if like me you are in a full time job, you’ve got a social life and you’ve got other responsibilities, you’re unlikely to be able to catch up on all of this….
Baring that in mind, I’ve picked out the videos that I’m planning to catch up on, and even now, there’s still so much to go through – so much to learn so little time! Here’s my pick list, in absolutely no particular order:

It’s worth mentioning that out of the 124 videos, there are 31 that are Silverlight related!!! If you paid close attention to my own picklist of videos to watch, you’ll probably of noticed that I haven’t chosen any Silverlight videos… This isn’t because I don’t like Silverlight, because I do, and I think it really will revolutionise the way we access media online, the thing is, for me, its a whole new ball game and I simply haven’t got the time to delve into it….!

Windows 7: Beta Build 7032 Desktop Screenshots

Tom Hall — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:00:09 GMT

If you are a bit of a tech head, then you’ll probably know about the next version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system, that’s “Windows 7” which is set to be released late 2009 to early 2010.

Microsoft released a public beta, build 7000, for the general public on 7th January 2009, they issued 2.5million product keys so that any user that was interested could install it and explore. The availability of that beta ended yesterday (10th February 2009), and I would imagine Microsoft has received a tremendous amount of feedback in which we hope they will take on board to produce their best ever operating system?

As you can imagine, just because they issued a public beta didn’t mean the development stopped! The public beta build 7000 was built on 12th December 2008 at 14:00 as you can see from the version string - 7000.winmain_win7beta.081212-1400. The latest build to surface is build 7032 which was built on 29th January 2009 at 18:12 -7032.0.winmain.090129-1812. This gives good indication that development on the operating system is moving along quite rapidly, good news!

Here are some screenshots of the latest build:

The feature here (right) is the new “Play To” feature in Windows Media Player, and this is exactly what it says on the tin, you can select media on your PC and play to… a network-connected media device, this could be an Plasma/LCD Television, an Audio System, an Xbox games console, PS3 games console etc…

This technology relies on an industry standard DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) 1.5 digital media renderer which operates over a standard wired and/or wireless network.

Clearly the possibilities of this technology is very exciting and will without doubt change the way we use our media within the home.

More Info:

Windows 7 Screenshots and information: Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows
More about DLNA: DLNA Homepage, DLNA on Wikipedia

Event in London, UK:
Vista Squad 18th February 2009: Deploying Windows 7: Changes from Vista

Windows 7: Windows Features

Tom Hall — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:51:24 GMT

Having acquired the first public beta (Beta 1, Build 7000) of the latest Microsoft operating system, Windows 7, I’ve been having a snoop around to see what’s new, what’s different, and one interesting thing (for developers) is that the .NET Framework is listed as version 3.5.1, this may seem confusing, but it is .NET Framework 3.5 SP1!

In the list of Windows Features, included is Internet Information Services Hostable Web Core, this is a new feature for IIS introduced in version 7.0 (Vista & Windows 2008 Server), this web core acts as a standalone Web Server for remote administration.

I’m not going to go into everything about Windows 7 since plenty of other people have done that, so if your looking for more information, look no further:

Windows 7 Unveiled at PDC 2008

Tom Hall — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:37:00 GMT

As expected, Microsoft unveiled the next version of it’s Windows operating system, Windows 7 (formally codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna), at the Professional Developers Conference (PCD) 2008 which is being held in Los Angeles from 27th-30th October 2008.

There was a demonstration of the operating system, a pre-beta, build 6933, bearing a brand new thicker taskbar, improved system tray area and a slightly different start menu, and removal of the Windows Sidebar seen in Windows Vista. At first glance, it does look a bit Apple mac-ish, as seen below:

Windows 7 Screenshot Galleries on Neowin.net: Here and Here.

Attendees of PDC 2008 were lucky (or unlucky, you decide!) enough to receive a copy of this pre-beta of Windows 7:

Photo from qyblog.net on Flickr

It is said that Windows 7 will be released early 2010, and will come in several flavours, desktop client edition (32bit and 64bit) and server edition (64bit only).

For more information on Windows 7, here are some useful links: