I’m presenting at Code Camp Oz 2009

The speaker list for Codecamp Oz 2009 has been released and there are some real gems listed http://notgartner.wordpress.com/2009/02/15/code-camp-oz-2009-speakers-sessions-announced/

For those who don’t know, code camp oz is a yearly event run in Wagga Wagga (since it is directly between Melbourne & Sydney so no one can complain), it is run by people in the community. Last year’s conference was my first and it was a blast.

But the thing i am excited about is that I’ve been listed as a speaker this year, my presentation brief was accepted:

Cloud computing: A-life using Windows Azure

David Burela takes the Windows Azure platform and tries to find some other uses for the cloud. Azure gives developers easy scalability and methods to send messages between machines, perhaps this is a great way to play around and create some A-Life

 

Hope some of you can make it along so you can see the presentation, or course I’ll upload all of the materials after code camp.

Windows Azure “How do I” videos now available

A bunch of new videos have been uploaded to MSDN to help demonstrate a lot of the fundamentals of Windows Azure.

10 videos have been released to the front page so far:

• 6 on core Windows Azure
• 2 on .Net services
• 2 on Live services

 

At the time of writing there is also an additional video you can get by going directly to the RSS feed.

All videos can be found on the front page http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/dd439432.aspx
but i recommend subscribing to the RSS feed so that you can access them as soon as they are released http://www.microsoft.com/feeds/msdn/en-us/videos/azure.xml

Hope you all learn something new!

Azure web role template – XHTML 1.1

A short while ago, Damian Edwards released Visual Studio 2008 XHTML 1.1 templates on CodePlex that gave you a “set of item and project templates for ASP.NET developers using Visual Studio 2008 that provide XHTML 1.1 compliant alternatives to the standard web form and master page templates”. This is a great starting point to ensure that your new websites start off on the right foot by providing a set of files (web forms, master page, stylesheets, etc.) that are preconfigured to be XHTML 1.1 strict compliant.

I decided that since this is such a great thing that I’d re-release the template as a Windows Azure Web Role, meaning that you can all create new cloud services that start off as being XHTML 1.1 compliant.

 

Installation

I didn’t mess about creating a fancy installer, so you’ll have to do 2 things.

1. download the file and place it into the visual studio Azure template folder (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Cloud Service\Roles or C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Cloud Service\Roles if you are on x64)
2. Start the visual studio 2008 command prompt in administrator mode and type ‘devenv /installvstemplates’

 

Using the template

1. Create a new blank cloud service
2. In the solution explorer, right click the roles folder and add a new “web role project”
3. The “Add a new project” window will appear and the new Web Role (XHTML 1.1) template should be there ready to use!
   
4. Read the FAQ on codeplex for the template. You’ll have to modify one of the references to use the CSSfriendll.dll

 

Download
http://cid-fc3a2c38819e3e29.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog/XHTML11.CS%7C_IndiWebRole.zip

New February version of the Azure services training kit is now available

David Aiken just announced that they have released the latest revision of their Azure training kit. If you are getting started with Azure then this is definitely what you’ll want to download to help you get started with it.

From the download notes:

The Azure Services Training Kit includes a comprehensive set of technical content including hands-on labs, presentations, and demos that are designed to help you learn how to use the Azure Services Platform. The February release includes the following updates:

19 demo scripts that walkthrough several of the services
10 presentations covering the entire Azure Services Platform
3 additional hands-on labs for Live Services

This technical content covers services including: Windows Azure, .NET Services, SQL Services, and Live Services.

The download is available here

Australian Azure mailing list is now live

Thanks to the folks at Codify, I have been able to create a new mailing list for Australian Azure developers. All the details on how to subscribe can be viewed on the main page http://www.codify.com/lists/ozazure

So come subscribe to the list and get the conversation started!

Silverlight hosted on Windows Azure

There have been a lot of hits to my blog for the search term “Silverlight Azure development”. So for anybody who is stuck at this first step of getting Silverlight hosted on Windows Azure.

I’ve included steps for creating a new Silverlight project, or adding an existing one.

WCF services hosted on Windows Azure

I’ve gotten quite a few questions asking how to get WCF services working correctly under Windows Azure. There are 2 main issues here

1. Windows Azure has a bug hosting Azure services in the current CTP
2. The PDC Labs are incorrect (it only works when running inside of the Microsoft Lab PCs)

I was discussing this with Steve Marx while I was in Seattle who pointed me in the right direction.

The developer fabric in the current CTP isn’t hosting SCF services correctly. If you try and retrieve the WCF metadata, it will be returned incorrectly. So here are the steps to correctly host WCF and generate the client proxies. Note: This is my opinion based on what Steve mentioned to me, this isn’t his way.

At a high level, we need to create the WCF service, set it to basicHttpBinding, host it in the ASP.Net dev server. Get our client app to generate the proxy from the metadata. Host the WCF service in Azure, then update the client app to point to the Azure endpoint.

A review of Windows Azure

I just wrote a guest article for istartedsomething.com. It is a review of Windows Azure and my comments on what it will enable in the future.

You can find the blog post here http://www.istartedsomething.com/20081203/guest-post-windows-azure-review-from-a-developer/

Any feedback would be appreciated

Windows Azure beginner starting links

I’m compiling a list of good blogs/articles that i find to help anyone that is beginning with windows Azure get up to speed.

Blogs

• http://blogs.msdn.com/cloud/atom.xml – Cloud computing tools team
• http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsazure/atom.xml – Windows azure main blog
• http://blogs.msdn.com/jnak/atom.xml – Program manager, windows azure tools
• http://blogs.msdn.com/gusperez/atom.xml
• http://blog.smarx.com/atompub.svc/blog/posts/

Articles

Visual Studio development

Screencast of how to use azure tools
http://blogs.msdn.com/jnak/archive/2008/10/28/video-walkthrough-a-quick-lap-around-windows-azure-tools-for-microsoft-visual-studio.aspx

Quick lap around VS2008 azure tools (very nice)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd203059.aspx

Service project vs. Role project
http://blogs.msdn.com/jnak/archive/2008/10/27/cloud-service-project-vs-role-project.aspx

Development fabric & storage integration
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd203061.aspx

Deployment
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd203057.aspx

Azure training kit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=413E88F8-5966-4A83-B309-53B7B77EDF78&displaylang=en

Degugging storage
http://blogs.msdn.com/jnak/archive/2008/11/01/how-to-diagnose-and-fix-windows-azure-storage-service-issues.aspx

Integrating LiveID/AD into Azure projects
http://dev.live.com/blogs/devlive/archive/2008/11/12/432.aspx

New role templates

Enabling Windows live tools in Visual studio
http://blogs.msdn.com/vikasahuja/archive/2008/10/31/windows-live-tools-november-2008-ctp-enabled-for-windows-azure.aspx

F# worker role
http://blogs.msdn.com/gusperez/archive/2008/10/31/f-worker-role-type-available-now-too.aspx

Azure

Azure management tools
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/AzureManagementTools

Live services poster
http://dev.live.com/liveframework/livefxposter.pdf

Whitepapers

Azure services platform
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/4/3/e43bb484-3b52-4fa8-a9f9-ec60a32954bc/Azure_Services_Platform.docx

Azure blobs
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131258

Azure Tables
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=131257

My notes from PDC Day 2 Keynote 2

COMPLETEY demo driven, but I wouldn’t really recommend watching this one

Azure is built using web standards (uri, HTTP, XML)
Exposes functionality so you can use it
Gives you choices/options for how you can take your code and hook your apps into it

Show an application that they built that lists processes on a box via a RESTful service.
Var request = WebRequest.Create(url
Request.getresponse
Showing how to manually call GET or DELETE against a RESTful service to list/kill the processes.

Net services Service bus
Going to host this service so that others can use it