Author: Ben Hall

It looks like Microsoft are planning new exams for the .Net 3.0 MCTS technologies (WPF, WCF, WF).

At the moment they are planning 2-3 different exams (WPF + WCF/WF or WPF + WCF + WF).  They will be available to take as part of the Orcas’ release.

Guessing I will take the WPF exam when its released.  But I am starting to ask – is it really worth it?

Source:

http://blogs.msdn.com/howard_dierking/archive/2006/12/08/what-are-we-planning-for-net-3-0.aspx

So its New Years Eve, so I decided that I would post something reflecting on 2006 and looking forward to 2007.  I think I’ve missed off loads of items but these are the main points which have stuck out for me.

2006

1. Attended DDD3
2. Obtained MCTS (Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist): Web Applications
3. Read GTD (Getting Things Done, David Allen) which, although hasn’t helped much with Uni has helped with other parts of my life.
4. Finished my placement year,  enjoyed the year – throughout all the ups and downs. Created some very good applications, while also making some mistakes but I have grown and improved as a result.
5. Read loads of books, too many to list here.  Main one I was impressed with was Craig Larman’s Applying UML and Patterns
6. Started working on the MbUnit project
7. Started to attend the NxtGenUG
8. Became a Microsoft Student Partner.  Very proud of this 🙂
9. Attended DDD4
10. Appeared on the DDD4 video on Channel 9
11. Got an XBox 360
12. Talked to some great people over the year, listened to some great presentations.
13. Been a Vista Beta Tester and got a free copy
14. Started to blog, which has been move successful than I first imagined.

Some items for the start of 2007:

1. Release some applications.  I want to stop just developing POC and release something useful to the world.  Got loads of ideas, just need to convert it into something useful.
2. Hold a vista launch event on campus as part of my MSP year.
3. Do more MbUnit work
4. Improve my WPF and WPF/E knowledge
5. Improve my Linq knowledge
6. Get a graduate job somewhere…
7. Attend more NxtGenUG meetings
8. Present @ DDD4/DDD5? Maybe just at a NxtGenUG event
9. Get to know more people
10. Spend more time with Sarah (Girlfriend)
11. Blog more
12. Submit a Imagine Cup entry
13. Create screencasts/articles on new topics
14. Oh yeah, graduating might be an important one 🙂

Think that covers what I plan to do for the first few months of 2007.  After that – who knows 🙂

btw.  Sure I’ve missed off really important items – sorry.

I just got tagged by Mark Johnston (Microsoft UK DPE and all round nice guy).  It’s great to be tagged by you 🙂  Noticed it last night but xbox was calling and I couldn’t resist.

1. When I was 15, create a company (was limited and all official) with my brother called TheQuoteCentre.co.uk Ltd, dealing with insurance which was successful. Sold my share to fund college, also was the first proper website I created.  Gave me a great insight into business, the web and the issues facing companies online.
2. I hate spiders. Silly I know but I just can’t stand them.
3. My favorite film is Kill Bill, recently watched Sin City which was amazing!
4. My final year project is based around security in web frameworks, focusing on ASP.net and Ruby on Rails.  The working title at the moment is “To what extent do frameworks assist developers in creating secure Internet applications?”. Still got loads to do.
5. Been with my girlfriend (Sarah) for two years and three months, for some reason she puts up with me being a geek and spending hours every day online.

Five people I am going to tag are:

Andrew Stopford – MbUnit Project Lead, great guy who knows his TDD.
Jeff Bullock – old work friend, cool guy.
Scott Findlater – friend of Jeff’s, again good guy.
Mike Taulty – UK DPE, great developer, blogs lots of cool samples.
Barry Dorrans – Great presenter.

I got an XBox 360 for Christmas!!  Hence the reason why I haven’t been blogging or checking my email since.

This is my gamer tag.  If anyone wants a game, give me a shout.

Ben2004uk

Just wanted to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas!!

Hope you have a great day

Ben

btw. This is my 100th post!!  I’m quite happy about that.

VMWare have announced availability of VMWare 6.0 beta, well I’ve only just noticed.

• Support for Windows Vista – Use Windows Vista as host operating system
• Multiple monitor display – You can configure a VM to span multiple monitors, or multiple VMs to each display on separate monitors
• Integrated Virtual Debugger – Workstation integrates with Visual Studio and Eclipse so you can deploy, run, and debug programs in a VM directly from your preferred IDE
• Automation APIs (VIX API 2.0) – You can write scripts and programs to automate VM testing
• Headless mode – You can run VMs in the background without the Workstation UI

More info at http://www.vmware.com/wsbeta

I’m very interested in the integrated virtual debugger, sounds like it would be great when testing and debugging on non-standard environments.  Headless mode also sounds cool when you just require SQL Server or a domain controller for testing purposes in the background.  Download for Windows is 167mb.

Dot net solutions have just released a Wikipedia explorer created in WPF.  This is a great little application, which uses excellent 3D effects (as saw on Channel 9 a few months ago) and has a great network node feature which builds relationships based on their algorithm.

I was really impressed when I saw the 3D effects on Channel 9 and its great to have a play.  Sure this could be really useful in the right kind of application.

More information here:

http://www.dotnetsolutions.ltd.uk/casestudies/wikipediaexplorer/

Nice work guys!

Andrew Stopford has just posted an excellent explanation regarding the contribution I made to MbUnit regarding Reflection and testing private methods.  I know this is a hot topic, but some people might find it useful.  Hope some of you find it useful.

Read about it here:

http://weblogs.asp.net/astopford/archive/2006/12/20/testing-private-methods-new-to-mbunit-2-4.aspx

Channel 9 have just posted a video featuring Sarah Blow, Richard Costall, Dave McMahon, Brian Long and Guy Smith-Ferrier talking about the UK Community while at TechEd.  Good discussion on the community as a whole, some really good ideas coming out regarding channel 9 improvements. 

I like the idea as a central google/live maps website which links all UGs together to advertise the meetings,  Upcoming.org does a bit with regarding to more open source ug like ruby on rails but more could be done.

I attend NxtGenUG meetings whenever I am around and they are a great evening.  Microsoft have a list of usergroups on their site – http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/community/usergroups.mspx . Have a look and see if you can find one which interests you, it is worth it!

Microsoft have released SP1 for VS2005, including Team Suite (inc standard + professional), team foundation and express editions.

“Through further advancement and feedback, Service Pack 1 also provides over 70 improvements for common development scenarios including:

• New processor support (e.g., Core Duo) for code generation and profiling
• Performance and scale improvements in Team Foundation Server
• Team Foundation Server integration with Excel 2007 and Project 2007
• Tool support for occasionally connected devices and SQL Server Compact Edition
• Additional support for project file based Web applications
• Windows Embedded 6.0 platform and tools support”

Please note, ‘Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Vista Refresh Beta’ has not been released, this is due Q1 of 2007.

Download:  http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/support/vs2005sp1/default.aspx

On a side note, Microsoft have also released their new website design – http://www.microsoft.com/