August 2007 - Posts
The Microsoft XML Tools team has released the first CTP of the XML Schema Designer - a graphical tool for working with XML Schemas. The XML Schema Designer is integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and the XML Editor to enable you to work with XML Schema definition language (XSD) schemas.
The new features in the XML Schema Designer are not so much about designing schemas, but rather viewing or navigating large XML Schema sets that may consist of various physical xsd files and namespaces. The tool provides a aggregated, hierarchical view of the whole schema and the ability to find, sort and filter the elements and attributes.
If this is currently your challenge in life, go check it out!
The ADO.NET Team announced the release of Entity Framework Beta 2 and a CTP for a set of Entity Framework development tools, including an Entity Designer, Entity Mapping Tool, Entity Model Browser and integration into Visual Studio.
The team specifically welcomes any feedback on the new set of EF tools.
What do the East London Golf Club, The Spotted Cow Conference Centre in Port Elizabeth and Indaba Lodge in Bloemfontein have in common? These are the venues for our first set of DevChats!
What is a DevChat? It will typically be a 1-day event where a representative from Microsoft talks to a local group of developers on existing and future developer technologies. Local developers will also get the opportunity to voice their own interests and concerns. Eighty percent of the content will be developer technical, while the remaining time will be mixed content like local news and informal discussions. We intend doing these chats on a quarterly basis - so watch this space for more of these!
All developers in the areas Bloemfontein, East London and Port Elizabeth are invited to our first ever DevChat series. (It is currently strictly for South African developers.)
Register today and come experience our first DevChat!
Bloemfontein - 13 September 2007
East London - 18 September 2007
Port Elizabeth - 19 September 2007
Have you ever tried to handcraft the SharePoint Business Data Catalog (BDC) metadata? Labour intensive, to say the least.
A major update to the MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) and WSS (Windows SharePoint Services) SDK's now includes a GUI-based tool for crafting the BDC metadata. I believe, a major relief for BDC enthusiasts!
Both the MOSS SDK and the WSS SDK is publicly available for download.
For those following the development improvements in the next version of SQL Server, the July CTP is now available for download to you.
Read about the next version, download the latest CTP, watch webcasts and videos, and even read the SQL Server 2008 Books Online.
And, don't forget to have some fun in the process!
The TechEd site is live! Book today. It's already 10% booked.
You can see online the proposed sessions. Go and have a look, and book in advance to avoid any disappointment. TechEd South Africa books out in a matter of days.
We have secured Brian Harry as a presenter on Team Foundation Server (95% final). He is one of only about twenty Distinguish Engineers in the world! Also check out his blog.
Don't miss out.