Thursday, December 16. 2010
Very cool proof of concept / festive geek-out project. Take advantage of the Lync 2010 SDK, Micro .NET Framework and some parts to make the holiday lights change color based on Communicator 2010 / Lync presence information.
Watch the video here and get the background information about the setup on the forum located here.
Thanks to @DrRez for posting this very cool use of technology on Twitter.
Reminds me of some of the projects over at Hack-a-Day.
Update: I guess I should check my RSS feeds more often - this was posted on Hack-A-Day this morning before I ever posted this entry. Oh well! 
Thursday, July 30. 2009
Some PBX integrations can be particularly tricky, especially when they are legacy PBX is multiple versions behind the current releases or the hardware is failing. It reminds me a little bit of some of the old Exchange 5.5 and Novell migrations I have done in the past, except in a different kind of environment. On a good note, you eventually become pretty knowledgeable about different PBX systems and their quirks, and how to work through them the best you can.
With that said, I stumbled upon a particularly interesting blog post by a MS employee about using the MSPL scripting language to manipulate SIP packets and fake a 180 ring back. Ultimately, the ideal fix is to get the existing PBX to do the right thing, but sometimes that is not always a viable option.
Read about the ring back workaround here.
In the upcoming months, I'm going to dig more into MSPL and see exactly how creative you can get with this language. It could prove to be very handy for problematic/buggy SIP implementations or as a stop-gap measure to work around something that OCS normally cannot handle. I'm thinking of situations where you need to do something special/different between the mediation server and the PBX gateway to make things work correctly.
Of course, keep in mind any custom made scripts you deploy will be the first things that Microsoft PSS will want to disable in a troubleshooting scenario. It definitely would put you into an 'unsupported' scenario.
Tuesday, July 28. 2009
I've been known to be a bit of a 'chronic tinkerer', which if you think of in health terms, sounds rather disturbing.
I'm referring to my habit of finding new ways to use tools or devices in ways they weren't originally designed for.
Our home's wireless network infrastructure and internet connectivity are shining examples of these mad scientist experiments.
This trend continues with the box that is sitting in front of me: The eBox-3300-JSK, as part of the Microsoft Sparks will Fly contest.
My daughters like working on projects with Dad whenever possible, especially if it involves computers or animals. It doesn't surprise me too much based on our household. My youngest daughter (now 5 years old) completely "owned" her computer in 2008, much to my chagrin. My oldest daughter (almost 8 years old) was showing me map exploit tricks to use in a popular XBox 360/PC zombie game this past weekend.
In an effort to put that kind of knowledge/curiosity to good use, we're going to build an embedded solution for our chickens. It will involve webcams, internet connectivity, motion detection and servos. I am mostly going to use items that are around the house, due to budget and time constraints. My free time to work on this in the short term will be limited, but I have some good ideas to run with. I like to dabble in programming when it isn't part of my regular job, so this will be fun.
In a somewhat related topic, I have some articles/postings coming up in the near future once work and life settles down a bit.
Saturday, September 20. 2008
An extension called ".NET Framework Assistant" is installed for Firefox 3.x when you install .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. If you comb through some of the .NET 3.5 SP1 release notes, it is very briefly mentioned as adding ClickOnce support into your browser.
On the downside, the .NET 3.5 SP1 installer doesn't really come out and ask for permission to do so, and also seems to gray out the Uninstall button.
It also adds .NET user agent strings to your Firefox user agent string.
You can enable and disable ClickOnce support and how many versions of .NET the browser reports to web servers.
If you want to completely kill the extension, with Firefox closed, delete the folder %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Windows Presentation Foundation\DotNetAssistantExtension, and delete the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mozilla\Firefox\extensions\{20a82645-c095-46ed-80e3-08825760534b}\.
I try to keep my Firefox profile as lean as possible, and I am not aware of many ClickOnce applications on the web yet, so I'm not really missing out on much by removing this for now.
Registry location found from a post here.
Friday, September 12. 2008
The tabs in Communicator 2007 host an instance of the Windows Internet Explorer Internet browser. When a tab is clicked, Communicator automatically passes the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) address for the current user as well as one or more contact SIP addresses. This enables developers to create Web applications that consume the SIPs and present relevant, SIP-tailored information to the end user, all within the Communicator client.
This sample consists of virtual directory containing files that Communicator uses to configure the tabs, as well as a sample Web application that is displayed in a custom Communicator tab.
Monday, August 11. 2008
Interesting gotcha that should be resolved this week if things go as scheduled. According to the information in the SQL 2008 release notes, Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is due sometime this week and is a requirement for some installations of SQL 2008.
In the interim, do not install the Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta, which can cause version conflicts.
When Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is available, here are the guidelines for install order:
If Visual Studio 2008 is not currently installed on your computer, you can install SQL Server 2008. No further action for installing Visual Studio is required.
If Visual Studio 2008 is currently installed on your computer, you cannot install SQL Server 2008 successfully unless you perform one of the following actions:
Install Visual Studio 2008 SP1 before you install SQL Server 2008.
Uninstall Visual Studio 2008, and then install SQL Server 2008. After you install SQL Server 2008, you can install Visual Studio 2008. Then, you can install Visual Studio 2008 SP1.
Only install components of SQL Server 2008 that do not require Visual Studio 2008. Do not select the following features: Management Tools (Basic or Complete), Integration Services, Business Intelligence Development Studio.
Saturday, July 12. 2008
My wife comes from a Flash background and I've been slowly but surely convincing her to look more into the Expression Studio, first with v1 last year with Silverlight 1.0 and this year with the updated Expression Studio 2.0, which eventually will have Silverlight 2.0 support if I am reading all the documentation correctly. I'd love to have a dual MVP household much like Charlie and Sharon have.
One nice thing about Expression Studio 2 is that it supports the EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) file format, which earlier betas of Expression Studio 1 had support for, but apparently had issues with the exporter so it was removed from the final release of v1. Cassandra needs this format to upload her vector graphics/illustrations to iStock for publication.
Strangely enough, Expression Studio v1 was a great round-about way of getting a licensed copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard, and Expression Studio v2 continues that tradition with a bundled copy of Visual Studio 2008 Standard.
With all that said, I spotted the Beta 2 release of the Silverlight Tools for VS 2008 on the Microsoft download center today.
Silverlight Tools Beta 2 for Visual Studio 2008 includes:
Visual Basic and C# Project templates, Intellisense and code generators for XAML, Debugging of Silverlight applications, Web reference support, WCF Templates, Team Build and command line build support, Integration with Expression Blend, and Enhanced Setup with upgrade support.
You can download the update for Visual Studio 2008 here.
Tuesday, June 3. 2008
The Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) is the application installation and configuration service for Windows. These download packages will update the version of Windows Installer on your system to version 4.5.
Version 4.5 of the Windows Installer has several new features, including:
Multiple Package Transaction: In a multiple package transaction, you can create a single transaction from multiple packages. In a multiple package transaction, a chainer is used to dynamically include packages in the transaction. If any of the packages do not install as expected, you can roll back the installation.
Embedded UI Handler: You can embed a custom user interface (UI) handler in the Windows Installer package. This makes a custom UI easier to integrate. You can also invoke an embedded UI handler from the Add or Remove item in Control Panel. Or, you can invoke an embedded UI handler during a Windows Installer repair process.
Embedded Chainer: You can use the embedded chainer to add packages to a multiple package transaction. You can use an embedded chainer to enable installation events across multiple packages. For example, you can enable the install-on-demand events, the repair events, and the uninstall events across multiple packages.
Update Supersedence Resiliency: This feature enables you to correct for changes in the FeatureComponent table during supersedence.
Shared Component Patching Resiliency During Uninstall: This feature makes sure that the most recent version of a component is available to all the products.
Custom Action Execution On Update Uninstall: This feature enables an update to add or change a custom action so that the custom action is called when an update is uninstalled.
You can download the updated installer here.
Monday, March 17. 2008
Stop by the Microsoft "Ask the Experts" area and ask me some technical questions about Windows Server 2008. I don't know if I will have anything to give out for prizes, except for nuggets of information.
Just keep in mind, I'm not a sales guy. I'm more well versed in telling you about configuration scenarios for Hyper-V than what the licensing cost would be. I can also tell you the technical reasons for upgrading to Server 2008 and not standard marketing phrases of "Easier to manage" or "Reduced TCO". Those are all valid reasons but I'd rather tell you about the technical aspects, like SMB 2.0 and Read-only Domain Controllers.
I'll also be at the CDW/Berbee booth from time to time too, since we are one of the partners at the event.
More information on the event is here.
I'll also be at the Grand Rapids event a few months from now.
Monday, February 18. 2008
If you go to the Server 2008, SQL 2008, and Visual Studio 2008 launch event in your area, it looks like you will be getting some Not-For-Resale goodies.
1. Windows Server 2008 Enterprise RTM (64 and 32 bit) with a product key
2. Visual Studio 2008 Standard RTM
3. SQL Server 2008 CTP 5.0 with a voucher for a RTM copy when available
If you happen to go to the Grand Rapids, Michigan or Detroit, Michigan event, I should be in the " Ask the Experts" section with Microsoft, if everything goes as planned.
I have heard rumors of discounted TechNet Plus subscriptions too, so those are always nice too!
Details originally spotted here.
Friday, November 30. 2007
Good to have around when Visual Studio 2008 applications start coming out in full force.
Download: x86 / x64 / ia64
Wednesday, November 21. 2007
Service Pack 1 for .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0 is out.
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 provides cumulative roll-up updates for customer reported issues found after the release of Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. In addition, this release provides security improvements, and prerequisite feature support for .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 1, and .NET Framework 3.5.
Download 2.0 SP1 x86 here.
Download 2.0 SP1 x64 here.
Download 3.0 SP1 here.
Monday, November 19. 2007
On the heels of the RTM of VS 2008, here is a training kit:
The Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the Visual Studio 2008 features and a variety of framework technologies including: LINQ, C# 3.0, Visual Basic 9, WCF, WF, WPF, ASP.NET AJAX, VSTO, CardSpace, SilverLight, Mobile and Application Lifecycle Management.
If you are just interested in .NET 3.5, which builds on top of what was already in .NET 3.0, go here.
If you are interested in Visual Studio 2008, and anyone that develops for .NET should be, check out the new landing page here.
If you are looking for the offline DVD image for the Visual Studio 2008 Express suite, go here.
For individual product web downloads for Express, go here.
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