Moved my blog to a new server to support the latest ASP stack.  Also took the time to upgrade the software from an old version of dasBlog to WordPress, very happy with WordPress so far. Had to write a simple redirector to redirect the old permalinks to the new Wordpress links.

Please be patient as I update the formatting of previous posts.

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Although installing Visual Studio 2010 B2 and 2008 on the same machine is supported, Microsoft does NOT recommend installing beta software of your development machine. Installing Visual Studio 2010 beta in a Virtual environment is highly recommended but it does, however, have some drawbacks. Fortunately, with Windows 7 there is a hybrid approach that allows you to install VS 2010 on a virtual operating system but interact with it as though it were running on your host machine.

What you need:

1. Windows 7 Professional or higher for the host machine
2. Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC ( download here)
3. An operating System supported by VS2010 for your Virtual environment
   • While XP Mode comes with an XP Image already setup you can use just about any MS Operating system.  I chose to use Windows 7 instead of XP
4. Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 can be downloaded here.

Installing Visual Studio

Once XP Mode and Virtual PC are installed the next step is to install a virtual OS to host Visual Studio 2010. You can find instructions for this here. It is very important that the user you created for your virtual machine has a password.  Integration Services cannot be enabled without a password and no error message is displayed.

“By enabling ClearText in your Virtual Machine, text in Visual Studio will look much better when viewed in XP mode.”

Next, while the virtual machine is not running go to the settings dialog

Make sure “Automatically Publish” is checked. This will allow applications that are installed to automatically show up in your host’s start menu.   

Start the Virtual Machine and Enable Integration Services.  You’ll be prompted for a user name and password, use the same credentials you used to log into the virtual machine.

Finally, install Visual Studio 2010 B2 on the virtual machine. (this may take awhile)  After you’ve finished shut down the Virtual machine.

Setup Host Machine

Back on your Windows 7 host you will now have Visual Studio 2010 on your start menu.  In my case I called the Virtual Machine VS2010B2 so visual studio 2010 can be found at start-> Windows Virtual PC –> VS2010B2 Applications –> Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Clicking on VS2010 will first start the Virtual Machine.  If you are prompted for credentials use the same administrator login and password you used to setup the VM.

After a few moments, Visual Studio 2010 will appear on your desktop.  Any application on your desktop that is running in a VM will have (Remote) appended to the title in the task bar. 

The integration is so complete even the ASP.NET Development Server and Internet Explorer bleed through to your desktop.

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After conferring with several Microsoft Windows Azure Speakers and Azure Project Managers at TechEd last week, I was able to ferret out a tentative release schedule for Windows Azure.

• Azure Platform and Services – Commercial Release on track for PDC this year (Nov 2009)
• Visual Studio 2010 – On track to be released at PDC this year.  (Nov 2009)
• Window Azure pricing and Service Level Agreements on track for a July 2009 announcement.
• SQL Server Data Services Relational Data  – Beta this summer, release expected by the end of 2009.
• Visual Studio 2010 Public Beta – Available in the next couple of weeks.

This is good news.  In just a couple of months we’ll have a good idea of what “Cloud Services” will cost and this will determine it’s viability for Small, Medium and Enterprise customers.  Without this information, it becomes impossible to plan ahead or convince potential customers to invest in Cloud Services development.   Also,  with a release date in sight and, hopefully, a stabilization of features, we can focus the the potential uses for this new technology instead of looking into the ever changing feature list.

Keep in mind that these dates are speculative and may change depending on bug feedback to Microsoft.  However,  each Speaker or Project Manager that would give me a timeline stated that Azure and VS 2010 was on track for release around PDC this year.

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With over 500 attendees and 11 tracks to choose from, the Orlando Code Camp was once again a huge success!   Congratulations to all of the volunteers that helped organize this event.

I gave a presentation on an introduction to the Unity Application Block – Understanding Inversion of Control and Dependency Inversion Principles by introducing the Unity Application Block into an existing application.  You can download my presentation slides and code samples here

I enjoyed meeting everyone in Orlando,  hope to see you next year.

Randy Patterson

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The South Florida Code Camp 2009 has opened Speaker Registration for the February 7th Free Code Camp in Miramar Florida.  Code Camps are a great opportunity for local developers to give presentations to their peers. If you’ve ever wanted to give speaking a try, Code Camps provide an excellent environment to do so.

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Welcome back to my Blog.  I’ve had a blog for awhile but, due to a heavy work load,  I haven’t posted anything in over a year.  In the past year I’ve implemented many of the principles of GTD to better manage my professional, personal and online time.  This will, hopefully, allow me to Work, Live and Play without the stress involved in miss-managing time.

I’ve also removed my previous Blog and blog postings and started fresh with a new version of DasBlog and new postings. It was a pleasant surprise to see the maturity of the blog engines as well as the software to help you post your content.  I am currently using Windows Live Writer for content publishing, which has a very active community for Plug-in’s.

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