Just published: Enterprise Application Integration Using Microsoft BizTalk Server. Snack away!
While I’m on the topic of new and updated web content: each week I get a list of Microsoft Learning web pages that were updated the previous week. Usually, I don’t post it, because I don’t get a list of the actual changes—just the pages that were changed.
But since I know many of you are constantly on the lookout for new info about your favorite products and technologies, I thought I might try posting this week’s list—leave a comment if you find it useful, otherwise I’ll take silence to mean this shouldn’t be a regular feature.
Microsoft Learning Updated Web Pages – Week of March 7th
· Microsoft SQL Server – Training Portal
· Microsoft Visual Studio – Training Portal
· Find Training by Product or Technology
· Microsoft SharePoint – Training Portal
Do you recognize this man?
That’s Charles Petzold! Looking stylish with the cover of his free ebook on his tee shirt. It’s a draft preview of his upcoming book (to be published in the fall): Programming Windows Phone 7 Series. This preview ebook contains six chapters in three parts (153 pages total):
Part I Getting Started Chapter 1 Phone Hardware + Your Software Chapter 2 Hello, Windows Phone Part II Silverlight Chapter 3 Code and XAML Chapter 4 Presentation and Layout Part III XNA Chapter 5 Principles of Movement Chapter 6 Textures and Sprites
Part I Getting Started
Chapter 1 Phone Hardware + Your Software
Chapter 2 Hello, Windows Phone
Part II Silverlight
Chapter 3 Code and XAML
Chapter 4 Presentation and Layout
Part III XNA
Chapter 5 Principles of Movement
Chapter 6 Textures and Sprites
Here’s a quick excerpt from the ebook:
Chapter 1 Phone Hardware + Your Software Sometimes it becomes apparent that previous approaches to a problem haven’t quite worked the way you anticipated. Perhaps you just need to clear away the smoky residue of the past, take a deep breath, and try again with a new attitude and fresh ideas. In golf, it’s known as a “mulligan”; in schoolyard sports, it’s called a “do-over”; and in the computer industry, we say it’s a “reboot.” A reboot is what Microsoft has initiated with its new approach to the mobile phone market. On February 15, 2010, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series and promised a product introduction in time for year-end holiday shopping. With its clean look, striking fonts, and new organizational paradigms, Windows Phone 7 Series not only represents a break with the Windows Mobile past but also differentiates itself from other smartphones currently in the market. For programmers, the news from Barcelona was certainly intriguing but hardly illuminating. Exactly how do we write programs for this new Windows Phone 7 Series? Developers detected a few hints but no real facts. The really important stuff wouldn’t be disclosed until mid-March at MIX 2010 in Las Vegas. Silverlight or XNA? Intelligent speculation about the application platform for the Windows Phone 7 Series has gravitated around two possibilities: Silverlight and XNA. Since about 2008, programmers have been impatiently awaiting the arrival of a mobile version of Silverlight. Silverlight, a spinoff of the client-based Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), has already given Web programmers unprecedented power to develop sophisticated user interfaces with a mix of traditional controls, high-quality text, vector graphics, media, animation, and data binding that run on multiple platforms and browsers. Many programmers thought Silverlight would be an excellent platform for writing applications and utilities for smartphones. XNA—the three letters stand for something like “XNA is Not an Acronym”—is Microsoft’s game platform supporting both 2D sprite-based and 3D graphics with a traditional game-loop architecture. Although XNA is mostly associated with writing games for the Xbox 360 console, developers can also target the PC itself, as well as Microsoft’s classy audio player, the Zune. The 2009 release of the Zune HD particularly seemed to suggest a mobile future built around the device’s revamped graphics and multitouch navigation. For many Zune HD users, the most disappointing feature of the device was its inability to make phone calls! Either Silverlight or XNA would make good sense as the application platform for the Windows Phone 7 Series, but the decision from Microsoft is: Both! The Windows Phone 7 Series supports programs written for either Silverlight or XNA. And this we call “an embarrassment of riches.”
Sometimes it becomes apparent that previous approaches to a problem haven’t quite worked the way you anticipated. Perhaps you just need to clear away the smoky residue of the past, take a deep breath, and try again with a new attitude and fresh ideas. In golf, it’s known as a “mulligan”; in schoolyard sports, it’s called a “do-over”; and in the computer industry, we say it’s a “reboot.”
A reboot is what Microsoft has initiated with its new approach to the mobile phone market. On February 15, 2010, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled the Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series and promised a product introduction in time for year-end holiday shopping. With its clean look, striking fonts, and new organizational paradigms, Windows Phone 7 Series not only represents a break with the Windows Mobile past but also differentiates itself from other smartphones currently in the market.
For programmers, the news from Barcelona was certainly intriguing but hardly illuminating. Exactly how do we write programs for this new Windows Phone 7 Series? Developers detected a few hints but no real facts. The really important stuff wouldn’t be disclosed until mid-March at MIX 2010 in Las Vegas.
Silverlight or XNA?
Intelligent speculation about the application platform for the Windows Phone 7 Series has gravitated around two possibilities: Silverlight and XNA.
Since about 2008, programmers have been impatiently awaiting the arrival of a mobile version of Silverlight. Silverlight, a spinoff of the client-based Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), has already given Web programmers unprecedented power to develop sophisticated user interfaces with a mix of traditional controls, high-quality text, vector graphics, media, animation, and data binding that run on multiple platforms and browsers. Many programmers thought Silverlight would be an excellent platform for writing applications and utilities for smartphones.
XNA—the three letters stand for something like “XNA is Not an Acronym”—is Microsoft’s game platform supporting both 2D sprite-based and 3D graphics with a traditional game-loop architecture. Although XNA is mostly associated with writing games for the Xbox 360 console, developers can also target the PC itself, as well as Microsoft’s classy audio player, the Zune. The 2009 release of the Zune HD particularly seemed to suggest a mobile future built around the device’s revamped graphics and multitouch navigation. For many Zune HD users, the most disappointing feature of the device was its inability to make phone calls! Either Silverlight or XNA would make good sense as the application platform for the Windows Phone 7 Series, but the decision from Microsoft is:
Both!
The Windows Phone 7 Series supports programs written for either Silverlight or XNA. And this we call “an embarrassment of riches.”
You can download the ebook in XPS format here. Here it is in PDF format. And the zipped code samples for this draft preview will be available here in the very near future; please check this post again later.
Charles is at MIX, possibly wearing his tee right now. Say hello and ask him about programming for the Windows Phone. And enjoy, everybody!
Okay, normally I let my team talk about their own events, but as an MCT myself, I’m way too excited about this one to keep quiet. And since Tjeerd is pretty darn busy riding herd over 72 hours(!) of consecutive sessions (with three concurrent tracks), I’m gonna steal the microphone while he’s not looking.
Put simply: if you spend any time at all teaching others to use Microsoft technology—even if you’re not an MCT—you really ought to attend our upcoming MCT & Educator Readiness Virtual Summit, happening around the clock from April 7 through April 9th.
It’s technical, it’s instructional, it’s fun, and it’s free—you can’t ask for much more than that!
Among the many sessions to look forward to are:
…not to mention a ton of interactive expert chat sessions!
Okay, so maybe 72 consecutive hours is a bit too much for any one person to devote to their professional development (maybe). Luckily, all sessions will be recorded for your future viewing pleasure—in fact, once you register for the April event, you can immediately view sessions from last year’s summit and our monthly “Third Thursday” readiness mini-conferences.
Register today—and please help us spread the word: the more people we reach with this event, the more we can justify investing for next year! :-)
While it isn’t the same as attending MIX10, we’ve made it possible for you to watch the keynotes and sessions (posted within 24 hours after they happen) and interact with the MIX Online community. Visit the MIX10 site now to see what you’re missing. Learn about the next generation of Windows Phone 7 Series, Internet Explorer 9 and the future of Web Design and User Experience.
We posted a heads-up on MCP Edward Laverick’s community site back when it first launched, but it’s worth checking back in for a repeat visit as a new version launches. Random Output is dedicated to helping people prepare for Microsoft certifications—and there are some great resources available for those who take the time to visit.
Edward is an MCSA, MCSE, and MCITP: Enterprise Administrator (and currently working towards MCPD). We chatted a bit over e-mail recently, and he explained the origin of the site:
“When I began studying for my MCSA, I found that although there were a good variety of paid resources out there for the various courses there was very little in the way of free information, which, when working on a budget, was so crucial to me at the time. As I came closer to completing my MCSA my girlfriend expressed an interest in possibly moving into the computing field. She had until that point been a stay at home Mum looking after her autistic son, however he was reaching an age where he could be a lot more independent and she would be able to consider moving into some degree of employment. Because of this I began collating a lot of my notes into a more easily digestible format for her. I began to realise that I had a lot of very good material available and that if it was of use to my girlfriend, it would almost certain be beneficial to others as well. I quickly grabbed a domain name and began working on the site. Things have grown organically and the site has expanded to meet my own needs, features such as the exam simulator grew out of my frustration of trying to do practise exams out of context and a desire to see something more akin to the familiar Prometric exam system.
I asked Edward what he considers to be the best features of the site, and he offered the following:
Edward runs Random Output as a free community service and funds the site out-of-pocket. He’s actively looking for content contributors, so if you’re interested drop him a line!
Thanks for making this great site available to the MCP community, Edward!
California is the latest state to join our Elevate America program, and Governor Schwarzenegger stopped by Microsoft’s Mountain View office yesterday to kick things off.
If you’re a job seeker and a California resident, you can request one of the 166,500 free training and certification vouchers. We hope you’ll use them to advance your career or start a new one!
For more information see the program page here.
Do you remember Ken’s post several months ago about a day in his life? Well, I loved that post and have been thinking about how I could do something similar without giving away proprietary information about our exams, design, development, and maintenance processes…my day is built around this type of information and I’m afraid that telling you about typical day would amount to not telling you anything at all. So, I’m taking a different approach and having a little fun while I’m at it. What does it take to be a psychometrician?
1. Learn the ins and outs of the exam development process from designing the content area to item writing to administration to ongoing maintenance. Most important is understanding how decisions at each phase impact the validity of the exam. After all, you need a valid and reliable certification exam in market at the end of the day—each decision made in the development of any exam will have implications on its validity, which leads to the second step…
2. Practice saying “it depends.” It turns out in the world of psychometrics, the answer to all questions is “it depends” because the answer changes depending on the situation and validity story that you want to tell. I spend much of my day answering questions with “it depends; tell me more.” (It turns out that this is one of the 10 easy steps to becoming a lawyer as well.)
3. Learn to love math, specifically statistics. To be able to tell a good item from a bad item, a good exam from a bad exam, or even identify candidates who are engaging in anomalous behaviors during the exam simply from the footprint that candidates leave when they take an exam is truly amazing, and we can do this because of the power of statistics. If you fall asleep at night with visions sugar plums in the form of , r, α, π, β, µ, Ρ, and a-, b-, c-parameters, you’re well on your way to becoming a psychometrician.
4. Learn calculus or become good at pretending you know it. Some of the more complex statistics that we use to analyze candidate and exam performance are based on calculus, so it’s good to have at least a passing familiarity with the concepts. (It should be noted that I fall into the latter category. Find the derivative of integral—wait, what now? Is the answer ‘it depends?’)
5. On a related note, practice not rolling your eyes when someone calls relationships between multiple things “correlations” simply because those things “co-occur” and assume one predicts the other—I hate to break it to you, but there is a difference statistically speaking. Very few people actually use the word “correlation” correctly, but most think they do.
6. Practice smiling and nodding at SMEs when they are describing some technical feature or functionality about a product and you have no idea what they are talking about (individually the words make sense, but not so much when strung together in that particular way). This happens to me a lot because you don’t need to know the technical content area to be a good psychometrician, but it helps when you are facilitating a session if your eyes don’t glaze over.
7. Practice your 30 second elevator pitch on what psychometricians do. Trust me…no one knows what this is, but they think it’s cool when you tell them what you do.
8. Similarly, get used to awkward silences and glazed eyes when you tell your significant other, friends, and family what you did during the day. When I tell my parents what I’ve been doing, inevitably, there’s dead silence at the other end of the phone followed by a “that’s nice.”
9. Most important, find passion in this work. The role of the psychometrician is to ensure that exam development standards are applied consistently throughout the process in a legally defensible way. In the case of Microsoft, we’re not only applying industry best practices around exam development, but we are also trying to comply with external quality standards, such as ISO 17024. As a result, I’m often in a position of enforcing these standards, which usually equates to more time, money, and tears. To be successful, you have to find a way to engage everyone in the importance of these decisions through your passion for quality or your winning personality (and few psychometricians have winning personalities).
10. Oh, and you have to find jokes like this funny. [By the way, ‘g’ is Spearman’s general intelligence factor (see first hyperlink).]
*Individual results will vary. A PhD may be required.
…according to Computerworld, at least.
Bart Perkins published an opinion piece earlier this week making the case that the pendulum has swung back to where it was a decade or so back, when certification was pretty much a requirement for any technical job.
Only now, there’s a new wrinkle in the era of outsourcing: Perkins argues that if your job gets outsourced, your certifications might determine whether you get a chance to go with it.
Perkins also predicts that as today’s certified IT Pros become IT Managers, certification will become a more common requirement, even (and especially) for senior positions.
Check it out here.
Windows 7 is just about the hottest ticket around and now you can get in on the action!
Join Microsoft Certified Trainer, Craig Brown, this Thursday for the first ever exam cram to address the Windows 7 Technology Specialist and IT Professional exams all in one exciting session! Craig will take you from 70-680 all the way through 70-685 and 70-686. You can expect exam-specific pointers and tips and tricks that will help prepare you to take the next step in your career.
In addition, one lucky winner from each session will receive a free exam voucher!
Register now!
Please join us for a special Live Meeting series created specifically for managers of IT professionals and developers. Click below for more information and to register for:
The Business Value of Windows 7 – Training for ROI
Join Richard Brown, an MCT at Netcom Information Technology, and Robert Kratzke, the Microsoft Relationship Manager at Netcom, in looking at how training and MCTS and MCITP certifications on Windows 7 can help insure a successful implementation and provide a faster return on your investment.
March 25 2010 at 8:00am PDT (What time is this in my region?)
Register now
You can find the full schedule of Live Meetings for Managers as well as recordings of previous meetings at our new IT Manager portal.