CodeGuru Staff

Introduction Silverlight, a Microsoft product, is the application framework that provides rich interaction in thin (Web) environment. It is often weighed against Adobe’s Flash. Silverlight has come a long way from the version 1.0 to the Silverlight 4.0. Refer to the section titled “References” at the end of the article that provides you the necessary […]

Microsoft said it is shipping the long-awaited “release candidate” for Windows Server AppFabric this week, with plans to have the code finalized sometime in June. At the same time, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) also said that the first beta of BizTalk Server 2010 is out and available, and that it is scheduled to be released in […]

Microsoft’s new product launch counters what many tech commentators thought the preeminent software company would never do. “A lot of people say we will see pigs fly before we see Microsoft Office running in the cloud,” said Tim O’Brien, Microsoft’s senior director of platform strategy. “We are betting big on the cloud with our most […]

Despite its name, Microsoft’s next smartphone operating system has little in common with its predecessors. It will have a completely different user interface and won’t run applications written for the earlier versions nor will any current models be upgradeable. Its focus has moved to consumers, and its UI emphasizes social networking, pictures, games, etc. It […]

New application themes are now available for download from Microsoft for developers leveraging the latest iteration of Silverlight. A total of three new Silverlight 4 Application Themes went live on the Microsoft Download Center earlier this week, namely the Accent Color, Windows 7 and Cosmopolitan themes. As it was the case with previous releases of […]

Introduction Microsoft Azure has several different storage options. These include blobs, for storing files, queues for passing messages around, and tables for highly scalable, hierarchical data. Microsoft Azure also provides relational data storage, using traditional mechanics with SQL Azure. In this article we are going to cover a simple way to start using Azure tables […]

1. Introduction This is the second part of the Tray Notify series which illustrates how a Windows client app can communicate with a Window Service. The sample application illustrates monitoring file change events from the Windows service and sending out file change notications to the task bar tray applications using the WCF service. This article […]

The Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework is opensource and enables non-technical designers to quickly track how users interact with their Silverlight content. Using the Google Analytics component, designers can simply drag and drop icons to track the number of interactions on a design element. Then within Google Analytics, they can segment and compare the difference in […]

First Microsoft’s Interoperability Team announced a PHP Toolkit, then we saw Microsoft throw their support behind the CodePlex.org Foundation, and we hear rumors of a new open source content management system. So now what? Well the Microsoft Interoperability Team has announced support for the open source IDE Eclipse. At the Eclipse Summit Europe, they offered […]

When Microsoft delivered the final Silverlight 4 bits in mid-April, a few complementary components weren’t done yet. But this week, the company is making available for download some of those missing pieces. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) RIA Services for Silverlight is one of those, but it is downloadable as of May 17. Silverlight is Microsoft’s […]

Over the past couple of months I’ve been working on a couple of projects that have used the free Google Maps API to add interactive maps and geocoding capabilities to ASP.NET websites. In a nutshell, the Google Maps API allow you to display maps on your website, to add markers onto the map, and to […]

1. Introduction This series illustrates how a Windows client app can communicate with a Windows Service application using a WCF service. Frequently it can be a challenge to communicate between a Windows Service and a Windows application. Prior to Vista, Windows allowed a service to be registered with the “Interact with Desktop” property allowing the […]