MSDN Flash - Volume 10, Number 13: June 26, 2006

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Top Stories

What do an all-terrain, self-maneuverable robot, an instant IM translator, and a curmudgeonly chat bot have in common? They're all being built by finalists in the Made in Express contest. Twelve finalists from seven countries are competing for the US$10,000 grand prize. Check out the projects, and subscribe to the RSS feed to start tracking the fun.

Office Developer Screencast Virtual Tour

If you are new to 2007 Microsoft Office System development, take a look at this screencast series for an inside look at Excel Services, the Open XML File Formats, and working with Windows SharePoint Services V3.

This month, we look at some lesser-known features of Windows Vista, plus Windows Desktop Search, Atlas, and 10 common ASP.NET blunders.

Based on a submission from Microsoft Corporation, this Standard defines Office Open XML's vocabularies and document representation and packaging for the "Office 12" versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Jay Schmelzer talks about source code refactoring, and provides a demo of Refactor! for Visual Basic 2005, a free tool from Developer Express, Inc., that adds refactoring support to the Visual Basic 2005 development environment.

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Web Resources

Visit the Office Developer Center often for the latest news on the 2007 Microsoft Office system release. Find articles, code samples, SDKs, references, screencasts, videos, and more.

Get documentation, code samples, how-to articles, and programming references.

Find overview information and step-by-step, how-to procedures for programming with SharePoint Server 2007, as well as code examples, best practices, and tips.

Learn how the Microsoft Forefront security product portfolio helps you protect your information and control access by helping provide protection for the client operating system, server applications, and network edge.

Find overview information and step-by-step, how-to procedures for programming with Windows SharePoint Services V3.

Clemens Vasters, Community Program Manager on the Windows Communication Foundation Team, explains what "bindings" are, how they control the construction of the Windows Communication Foundation channel stack at runtime, and what that channel stack is to begin with.

Security for Developers

Mike Downen, CLR security PM, wrote the CLR Inside Out column this month in MSDN Magazine on strong name signatures. He covers what strong name signatures are, what they're good for, what they're not good for, delay signing, and test signing. Check it out if you haven't gotten your strong naming fix for the day yet.

Vaughn and his team are responsible for handling all incoming customer and security requests.

Download an easy way to update the developer content for all 2007 Office System programs, such as Access, Excel, Project, Publisher, SharePoint Designer, Visio, Word, and Office core.

Download the full C# source code of a Windows application containing multiple toolbars and the Form Control object.

"The prospect of business applications that employ Outlook, Excel, and/or Word as their user interfaces is very exciting to developers who want to focus on business processes, transaction processing, content management, and other back-office value rather than building user interfaces." (Forrester Research, May 22, 2006)

Pre-register for the Exchange Server 2007 Beta today and be among the first to discover the advantages of built-in messaging protection, anywhere access, and improved operational efficiency.

Download this tool to assess and analyze the work required to migrate your MCMS 2002 site to SharePoint Server 2007.

Design an InfoPath form template and write business logic in C# or Visual Basic without leaving the Visual Studio environment.

Use these add-ins to understand some of the important new features in the Outlook 2007 object model.

Case Studies, KB Articles, & How-tos

Database Benchmark Hits Enterprise "Sweet Spot"

Network Appliance, IBM, and Microsoft have collaborated on a TPC-C transaction processing benchmark for a 16-way, 64-bit Intel Xeon MP-based computer using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition (64-bit). The system achieved 492,307 tpmC, showing how SQL Server 2005 is able to exploit technology advances to deliver advances in performance and cost efficiency.

Portal Links Jobs with Job Seekers Across Italian, French Borders

DueMetri used Visual Studio 2005 to create a job portal that links job seekers and employers on both sides of the French-Italian border. In a region with a very limited job market and few resources, Visual Studio helped people clear regulatory and spatial hurdles.

Retailer Chooses Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for 1-Terabyte Data Warehouse

Talbots' scheduled batch reporting failed to provide timely business intelligence. SQL Server 2005 Integration Services and Reporting Services enabled better-informed decisions about sales, inventory, and staffing; faster response to changing market conditions; long-term scalability; and lower total cost of ownership.

.NET Framework KB Articles

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SQL Server KB Articles

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Training

For a limited time only, take one of the free E-Learning clinics on Exchange Server 2007 and learn about the latest architecture advances.

Learn online in new, hands-on, Visual Studio 2005 workshops from Microsoft E-Learning. Topics cover four main areas: Windows Development, Web Development, Data/XML, and Distributed Application. Get 30 percent off for a limited time.

Hot Off the Press! New Books from Microsoft Press

Attend any MSDN Virtual Lab and submit an evaluation before June 30, and you could win a Pocket PC. Offer open to residents of the U.S. and Canada only.

Find Good Deals on Developer Training

Need to update your developer skills? Take advantage of special training and certification offers available by learning solutions partners. But hurry, they won't last long.

Visit before June 30, and get 40 percent off select Microsoft Press Training Kits.

Partner News

The Digipede Network is grid-computing software for Windows. Developer Edition provides a .NET API for increasing application performance.

Create Recurring Revenue With Your Office-Based Business Solutions

Free to developers, the Secure Payments SDK for Microsoft Office allows payment-enabled, Office-based solutions. The SDK includes developer tools, sample code, and documentation.

Proposion N2N is the leading solution for integrating or migrating Lotus Notes with Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework.

International Events

Need to update your developer skills? Take advantage of special training and certification offers available by learning solutions partners. But hurry, they won't last long.

Create a Windows CE-based device with the Shared Source Webcam Driver or the Shared Source DVR Engine to win an Xbox 360. Contest ends at midnight, Pacific Daylight Time (GMT-7) on 28 July, 2006.

Through 30 June
Microsoft offers you a free second chance at any Microsoft IT Pro, Developer, Academic or Microsoft Dynamics exam if you fail your first.

TornadoCamp .NET Fundamentals (German)

3 - 7 July, Bad Ems, Germany
Learn the fundamentals of writing applications with Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0 - and become productive from the very beginning. This 5-day course gives you a solid foundation and teaches you the fundamentals of the .NET Framework, Visual Studio 2005, C#, ASP.NET, Web services, security features, and much more. Enjoy 50 hours of basic training, code walks, hands-on labs, and everything else you want to know to get started.

7 - 10 November, Barcelona, Spain
Don't miss the four days that will take you months ahead of the game. Get deep-dive technical training, information, and community resources to give you the edge you need to keep up with the latest development trends.

Customize MSDN Flash

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MSDN Events

Upcoming Summer Quarter Events

Starting in August, we've got some great new MSDN sessions for you:

• Exploring the System.Net Namespace in the .NET Framework 2.0

Developers are increasingly being asked to create applications that interact with common network services. So, it's a good thing the .NET Framework 2.0 enables you to write connected applications with less hassle and fewer lines of code ...

• Windows Communication Foundation Exposed

Windows Communication Foundation (formerly code-named "Indigo") is a set of .NET technologies for building and running distributed systems. WCF is a new breed of communications API that unifies previously disparate communications media and offers a single API for coding ...

• Building the Next Generation of Web Applications with ASP.NET "Atlas"

Tired of postbacks taking precious seconds away from your Web app's performance? Do users complain about slow-loading pages? Are you wondering what the AJAX buzz is all about?