Microsoft .NET - 10 Great Resources for One Great Technology

.NET is the hottest thing these days in developer circles specially now with the release of Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas) from Microsoft. It can take advantage of all the new features introduced in Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System. The .NET technology specially became very popular when the 2.0 version of it was released. The response was huge and lakhs of sites are using this technology to deliver rich content. Silverlight technology and the Microsoft Expression series of products added to it and briged the gap between the designer and developers. Silverlight specially makes it very much easy to created RIAs(Rich Internet Applications). So .NET is not a small thing, its includes a truckload of components to learn and implement be it the disconnected data model of ADO.NET or the highly scaleble server side programming model of ASP.NET. Almost any type of application can be developed in the .NET Framework including Desktop Application, Class Libraries, Windows Services, Web Applications, AJAX enabled Web Applications, Web Services, Data enabled Web and Windows Applications etc. The only thing that the .NET framework is not suitable for are low level device drivers and stuff like that.
.NET framework is platform independent, provides language interoperability, cross language integration, integration with older technologies like COM and Windows DNA, a large number of languages to program in, and lots more. Now to leverage all of this stuff, you need to have proper resources with you. Books alone are not good enough.
Fortunately there are a lot of websites that have good information and training material on .NET that one can use. I am posting here the ones that i use the most:-

1. http://msdn.microsoft.com/
The very first place you should look at for anything related to .NET
2. http://www.asp.net/
A good place for learning material related to ASP.NET and related technologies like AJAX.
3. http://www.codeplex.com/
A community driven forum for open source projects on .NET
4. http://www.neowin.com/forums
A good place for any query regarding computing. The members are very helping and you'll get response almost always.
5. http://www.codezone.com/
Codezone connects you with top-rated user groups, meetings, community sites, blogs, forums, events and breaking news. It’s a place for developers to share and promote top-notch content and community resources.
6. http://forums.msdn.com/MSDN
The MSDN Forums allow you to search a growing archive of technical questions and answers.
7. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/events/default.aspx
The MSDN events and Webcasts homepage is a nice place to get live webcasts and videos from Microsoft employees themselves.
8. http://channel9.msdn.com/
Channel 9 provides direct, unfiltered, and open access to Microsoft’s cockpit. Meet the people who think up and build Microsoft’s technologies, interact with your peers, share your ideas and applications.
9.http://msdn.microsoft.com/newsgroups/topic.aspx?url=/MSDN-FILES/028/201/317/topic.xml
Microsoft .NET Development Newsgroup. Get involved in discussions on various aspects related to .NET Development here with MVPs and Microsoft Employees, as well as other people like you.
10. http://www.learnvisualstudio.net/
A great place to find video tutorials related to .NET technologies. Although the site is paid, you can get many free videos there as well as signup for the monthly newsletter for getting free videos every month.

So thats all for now. Whenever i get more resources, i'll update this list (as well as its title :-) ). Hope these resources help finding your way in world of Microsoft .NET. :-)

{Heros Happen Here} The Mega Launch Event!

Good news for developers and IT pros working on Microsoft Technologies, Microsoft is organizing a mega launch event for 3 of its greatest developer and IT pro tools, namely Microsoft Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008. The event is taking place at 3 places in India. The schedule is :

Bangalore: March 4, Rex Theatre.

Mumbai: March 5, Regal Theatre.

Delhi: March 7, PVR Priya Theatre.

The launch will be featured on the 75 mm screen of cinema and will include a free showing of the movie Gladiator. Whats more, every participant of the even will be given free copies of all these software as a promotion.

Everyone who is intrested in attending the event can register on http://msevents.microsoft.com/?Culture=en-in or from http://www.heroeshappenhere.co.in/. You need to have a hotmail or windows live id for that.

Also note that laptops are not allowed in these events and parking is very limited, specially for two wheelers. So plz be aware. See you there! :-)

Mircosoft DreamSpark!

Starting last week, college students in 10 countries are able to get Microsoft's Visual Studio and several other programs for free as part of an effort called DreamSpark. Over the next year, Microsoft plans to offer the program worldwide for college and high school students. In addition to giving away its Visual Studio tools, Microsoft is also providing no-charge access to its Expression Web design tools and its XNA studio for developing Xbox 360 software.

Microsoft already provides discounted academic versions of its software, as well as a free "express" version of Visual Studio. Students can also get free copies of Windows Server and the developer version of the SQL Server database. There are a lot of possibilities that comes with this small list of products. Included in those initial 10 countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France, and Germany.Clearly, Microsoft has a couple of goals here. One is to get more students who have enough design or science aptitude to enter the software field. The other is to get them using Microsoft's tools early. "That next generation and future generations of technologists, they are vital to any industry leader like us," Joe Wilson, Microsoft's senior director of academic initiatives, said. Wilson said his goal is to be able five years from now to spot businesses that got their start because a student used Microsoft's tools for free. "I expect that to happen," Wilson said. "Maybe it's hundreds or thousands of companies." Bill gates have given an interview and a speecha t Stanford university, videos of which can be found on http://channel8.msdn.com/.

In my view, this can be an excellent oppertunity for students as well as a great deal for Micorsoft. Untill now, even after all the efforts that the company is doing, piracy rate of Microsoft Softwares in many countries was crossing leaps and bounds. Most of the users of these pirated software content were students as they needed these tools to successfully complete their course of study. Although there are express editions available of these software, why would someone use a crippled version when they can get the professional one for virtually no charge. Also when they got to work in industry, they'll have to work on these real tools not the crippled ones. So why not take the experience of the 'real thing'? Now, Not all of them were able to buy these, so they were pirating. And many of these 'pirates' almost never used these tools for commercial use. So now that these are being given away for free, students will more freely use these to implement their innovative ideas into working softwares. On the other hand, Microsoft besides getting praises from the industry, will also get higher profits because of the huge rise in number of Microsoft Technologies Professionals in the market. Also, by registering these copies, Microsoft can have a better estimate of its market presence.

To take benefit of this program, one needs to be a student of a regular course of study from a school, college or university. if you are an isci card holder, then also you are eligible for this program. For more details about isci card programs visit http://www.isic.org

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 leaked on Torrents!

We all know that the much awaited Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has finally gone RTM (Released To Manufacturing) and every single Vista user is drooling for it. But Microsoft is still not giving it for public download, since they have recieved some issues regarding some drivers of certain hardware devices which cause the SP1 installation to fail repeatedly, during the beta and RC (Release Candidate) phazes of SP1 development. The Redmond company will only release it to public download when all the listed problemetic devices get updated device drivers. Microsoft is working hard to get these drivers from its partners as soon as possible. Because of these reasons, general users won't be able to get SP1 from Micorosoft untill 18th march and users who would like to recieve it through Automatic Windows update will start getting it around 4th April. These are the official release dates as of now.
But in-between all this, due to high demand, Microsoft released SP1 to its 'Technical' users a.k.a Connect and MSDN subscribers early in february, just 4-5 days after its RTM date. As reports say it (and so is my personal experience :-) ), A copy of this MSDN special release of SP1 is leaked over the net and available as a torrent download on a very well known pirated torrent site (cant give the name or link, sorry :-) ). There are thousands of users who have downloaded it and found no problem in it. Althought the file's MD5 checksum cannot be verified, sources say that the file is same and is not tampered with. The version no of file is confusing, and shows it as a RC2 version, but the files inside it all have the x.xx.18000 version which is same as RTM release. One of my friend who is a MSDN subscriber, has also confirmed that this is also the case with the file they have got from Microsoft.

A word of caution: Although, there are some torrents which have the original file, there are many possibilities of Viruses, worms, trojans or other malicious contents bundled with it. Also some torrents, while claiming that they have the RTM version still carry the RC release of SP1. Beware of these, and if you can, i would recommend you to download it only from Microsoft.com after it is released. Also, if you have been updating your system till now regularly, there is not much speed gain you'll notice. Speed gain is there in file copying process though, and it is huge. :-) you decide!

Skydrive out of Beta, storage space beefed up to 5 GB!!!

As announced by the SkyDrive team blog on february 21, Microsoft’s answer to Box.net and FileDen, the Microsoft SkyDrive Beta has gone beyond amazing its users, as along with coming out of BETA phase, the storage space is increased to 5GB (Box.net and FileDen gives 1GB for their free users. This is a welcome feature and it certainly incerases the usability of this online file storage service. This is one of the best and the most reliable file hosting services in the world.
However, one of the sour point about it still remains. The service still doesn't supports resume functionality, if one's internet connection breaks down between a download. This makes it inappropriate for downloading large files, specially for people who are on a slow (read < 256 kbps) snailband connections. Let's hope that this'll be resolved soon, after all its Microsoft :-).

Moved for Good!!!

Hello Everyone,
Welcome to this new place of mine :-). Yes, i have moved my blog from Live Spaces to Blogspot. The reason for that is simple, lack of options. Spaces is quiet limited when it comes to customizing the pages, and thats what making me mad. The only thing i could do was this, so i did it. From now on, i'll post everything new, here only.

Oh Yes, and since i have posted all the back posts of mine here, they'll all shows today's date only. Only that can't be custimized, even on Blogspot :-)

See ya soon with some good stuff!

Microsoft's Free In-Person Events & Seminars In India

Hey Guys,

Since last few months, I have came to notice that Microsoft India is organizing many seminars and other in-person events in Delhi as well as other parts of India. These sessions are jam packed with latest and greatest information related to Microsoft products and services as well as their partners. Different events cater to different kind of people including IT professionals, Business Decision Makers, Technology Decision Makers and like. In the past there have been many such events, the recent in Delhi being the Microsoft Security Summit 2007. I personally attended it, and tell you what, it was awesome.

In the month of February, Microsoft is going to do Hands-On Lab Sessions on Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft SQL Server Technologies from 6th-8th and 13th to 15th February 2008 respectively in Delhi. I am sure there will be sessions scheduled for other cities also, but since i am in Delhi, i checked only for these ones in Microsoft Event Search.
These will be 2 day sessions starting from 9:AM to 18:00 PM at Microsoft's Office's Training Room at Nehru Place, New Delhi. Further details can be checked on the Microsoft Events website.

All the interested people should try to attend these sessions as there, these guys share a great wealth of information. Entry is by invitation only and you'll have to register in advance. To register, you must have a Hotmail or Windows Live ID. Go to http://msevents.microsoft.com/?culture=en-in for registration. Do an advance search there for your particular city.
See you there! :-)