Yesterday I provided a sneak peek into the August issue of Visual Studio Magazine. What I didn't mention in that preview was that the August issue will be my last as editor-in-chief at VSM.
Starting August 1, I am moving over to MSDN Magazine to become editor-in-chief of Microsoft's flagship developer publication. It's an exciting opportunity and a challenge that I am very much looking forward to. That said, I've really enjoyed my tenure at VSM and have learned so much from the talented authors and contributors who make the magazine what it is.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 07/27/20110 comments
I have a confession to make: I hate summer. Seriously, if I had to pick one season as the most overrated time of year, the span between Memorial Day and Labor Day wins the prize, hands down. Between the brutal heat and humidity, soaring gas prices, emboldened mosquitoes and, of course, miles upon endless miles of highway construction, I'm hard pressed to name a more inconvenient and uncomfortable season.
Mind you, I'm writing this from the perspective of a New England resident more acclimated to frigid Vermont winters than the steamy, Carolina-like conditions of our recent heat wave. So I struggle to understand why people seem to undervalue the hushed nobility of a snowy January evening, or the crisp repose of an October afternoon. It beats melting.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 07/26/20110 comments
Schools are out and the summer vacation season has officially begun. I know this, because the house is a mess and I've driven more than 2,000 miles in the past week, with I think 1,800 of those in active construction zones. Hey, here's an idea: Let's double all fines--for everything--from June through August.
Despite the chaotic summer schedule and ill-advised road trips, work continues to get done at Visual Studio Magazine. Our July issue goes live on Friday, and you can look forward to plenty of insightful how-to articles and analysis. July's cover feature by Benjamin Day looks at the powerful new build system in Team Foundation Server 2010 and how you can configure build servers and builds, customize default build scripts to handle environment-specific configuration files, and configure IIS applications.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/28/20110 comments
Visual Studio Magazine Tools Editor and Practical .NET columnist Peter Vogel is a busy man -- and it's all his own fault. Last month, for instance, Peter approached me about writing an occasional series of opinion columns based on questions and topics he runs across in his consulting work. Unlike the how-to flavored fare of his Practical .NET print and Web columns, these columns are intended to explore assumptions and pose questions.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/27/20110 comments
Microsoft this week unveiled an updated version of its SkyDrive cloud storage and file sharing service, which had previously been based on Silverlight. SkyDrive now employs an HTML5 interface.
Predictably, the announcement ignited fresh speculation that Silverlight is as good as dead. Stop me if you've heard this before.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/22/201110 comments
Microsoft today released its Web Standards Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SP1. The update works on both commercial versions of Visual Studio, as well as the free Visual Web Developer Express 2010 SP1. The download, hosted on the Visual Studio Gallery Web site, can be found here.
The first in a planned series of releases, the Web Standards Update features improved HTML5 support and adds support for CSS 3. Also added is JavaScript IntelliSense support for additional APIs. According to the site, Microsoft expects to release new updates about "every three months to keep Visual Studio updated with the changes made by W3C."
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/16/20116 comments
Roger Jennings wrote the June issue cover story for Visual Studio Magazine, titled "
New Migration Paths to the Microsoft Cloud
." We caught up with Roger earlier this week to get an update on Windows Azure developments and how Microsoft's efforts on products like LightSwitch and Windows 8 dovetail with the company's cloud strategy.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/10/20113 comments
So, Microsoft last week drew back the curtain on Windows 8, and the reaction in the developer community has been a heady mix of interest and consternation. The funny thing is, the widespread worry is more about what Microsoft didn't say at the two events where Windows 8 was revealed (Computex in Taipei and All Things Digital near Los Angeles) than what it did.
Both Mike Angiulo, corporate vice president, and Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live business at Microsoft, talked about the new HTML 5 and JavaScript programming environment in Windows 8. The new strategy will enable developers to build native Windows apps based on the next version of the HTML specification. It's a ploy that promises to attract a vast community of developers to the new OS, and opens up a host of possibilities for development across other Microsoft platforms, including Windows-based tablets.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/08/20115 comments
In case you haven't visited the homepage of VisualStudioMagazine.com, I'm here to tell you that Windows 8 is going to be big. Really big. And biggest most of all for developers.
From the moment Microsoft Corporate VP Mike Angiulo started flicking the Live Tile UI on a touch-sensitive tablet for an audience of partners in Tapei (watch the half-hour video here), it was obvious that Windows 8 isn't just another OS refresh. What I saw was a ground-up re-envisioning of how people interact with their PCs and devices. Yes, the traditional Windows 7 experience is still there, and a lot of Angiulo's initial pitch focused on tablet form factors. But there is no doubt that Microsoft is looking downfield with this OS. The new stuff we are seeing in Windows 8 is going to define the new normal. And the applications developers write for Windows 8 will need to reflect that.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/03/201110 comments
In the April issue of Visual Studio Magazine, Stephen Chapman, an investigative blogger who writes for ZDNet and authors the Microsoft enthusiast blog
Microsoft Kitchen
, wrote a VS Insider column about what developers could expects from Windows 8. We asked him his thoughts about yesterday's first public demo of the new operating system.
Michael Desmond: What are your thoughts on what Microsoft showed at the D9 Conference yesterday? Has Windows 8 met, exceeded or lagged expectations?
Stephen Chapman: I feel Windows 8 has exceeded my expectations insofar as what they demonstrated, but ultimately left a lot to be desired. They showed off the new UI, which looks to hold a lot of potential, but we heard very little about plans to enhance/modify the usability of the traditional desktop view.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/02/20114 comments
Back in April, Microsoft announced that it would hold in September a developer-focused conference in Anaheim, California. Widely assumed to be another in the series of Professional Developers Conferences (PDC), Microsoft has now released details about the event, which it has branded as a new conference called
BUILD/Windows
.
The announcement came at the AllThingsD conference, where Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft president of Windows and Windows Live, demoed the Windows 8 operating system. According to a report from eWeek, BUILD/Windows will cast a broad net, focusing on both hardware and software, as well as on cloud, Web and mobile development.
The conference will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center and is scheduled for September 13-16, with pre-conference sessions on Monday, September 12. Registration for the BUILD/Windows conference opened on June 1.
Posted by Michael Desmond on 06/02/20110 comments
It's been a busy few months in the .NET development space, what with MIX 11, Tech-Ed North America and other events producing plenty of important keynotes and new announcements. But as we learn more about Windows Phone "Mango," and Visual Studio vNext, and, maybe someday, that elusive beast perhaps called Windows 8, the editors and authors at Visual Studio Magazine have been hard at work. Here's what's on tap for June.
On the cover is Roger Jennings' in-depth look at Microsoft's efforts to enable application migration to Windows Azure on- and off-premise cloud infrastructure. Jennings looks at the progress the Windows Azure team has made since PDC 10, and the impact Scott Guthrie, incoming corporate vice president of the Azure Application Platform, might have on Microsoft's cloud making efforts.
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Posted by Michael Desmond on 05/26/20110 comments